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D&D Ideas — Abundance

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is the abundance, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of abundance we’ve got a plentitude of best selling titles over at the Dungeon Master’s Guild from our Character Build Guide series. Each one includes narrative and mechanical guidance for players from 1st to 20th level plus an NPC creature version inspired by them for Dungeon Masters. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Abundance was the Nerdarchy Live chat discussion Nerdarchist Ted and Nerditor Doug talked about. This topic brings several things to mind for a 5E D&D game such as an abundance of loot or treasure, monsters and adventure. All of these could be hooks for a D&D adventure. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist was based around getting 500,000 gold dragons (what they call gold pieces in Waterdeep). Throw a bunch of D&D monsters into an area where there are adventurers and you’ll get some kind of D&D story.

Abundance seemed like an appropriate topic for the week of Thanksgiving and on the heels of the holiday. Now we head into a slew of other holidays. This means celebrations and spending time with loved ones, friends and family. For many this brings an abundance of joy, food and more.

To the point it can be exhausting and a bit hard even to get in game night during the holidays. For us it tanked our Saturday night games for the month of December. Nerdarchist Ted and I play in three different Saturday night groups on the second, third and last Saturdays of each month. With Christmas Day landing on a Saturday, PAX Unplugged on another and other holiday get togethers happening on yet a third Saturday night it wasn’t looking good for those games.

Instead of stressing about it or missing our gaming buddies for the month of December Nerdarchist Ted came up with an eloquent solution. The first Saturday we don’t have anything scheduled so everyone from all three groups were invited to come hangout for food, fellowship and fun. Maybe a one shot will happen. Perhaps we’ll sit around just talking and eating and enjoying each other’s company. I suspect board games will break out at the very least.

It’s important to spend time bonding with the folks with whom you play RPGs. Too often we get asked about a problem with someone’s game that has nothing to do with the actual game itself. My feeling is if people were more deeply connected with each other outside the games we play together we’d get less of those oddball questions.

Let’s bring things back to gaming more directly. This topic was predicated by the holidays so my question to you is how do you celebrate abundance in your games and the worlds you create? Do holiday celebrations come up? Are there holidays like the ones you celebrate in the real world? We’ve done quite a few holiday themed adventures over the years. Holidays around planting and harvesting are a must for those wishing for an abundance of food or to give thanks for what has been given.

What would orcish Thanksgiving look like compared to elvish thanksgiving? Who do you think throws the best holiday parties?

From Ted’s Head

The subject of abundance can be applied in so many ways to what a 5E D&D adventuring party typically possesses or must to deal with. Characters can have an abundance of resources, an abundance of contacts or an abundance of wealth. All of these or any combination of these makes for a different story depending on what the characters have access to at any given time. In one of the games we just wrapped up we were told we basically had limitless wealth. As 8th level characters far from a common situation.

With such an interesting concept I am going to combine this with an idea from a few weeks ago and combine the concepts of culture and abundance. In modern society most cultures have a particular body type considered the general preference and many who go outside of may face ridicule. What if we were to create a culture that not only accepted an abundance of a person but actively sought it out?

In a world where people are food oriented those who have power, wealth or both have access to more food and thus become more abundant. The politics of such a game could revolve around settling land disputes for hunting, planting or prepping. Bandits who are robbing any of these kinds of lands could be punished harshly. Protecting lands from hungry predators and burrowing creatures possibly destroying crops could even have their own position of rank and status.

Nerdarchy has done quite a bit of food related RPG content and we can really build on some of those ideas and incorporate the concept of abundance into them. Do we have an eating contest idea? Normally there are hard and fast rules when it comes to making ability checks or saving throws but I think this would have to be something custom considering what people do in real life to prepare for an eating contest.

As with all kinds of contests you can set your initial DC as something befitting your game. A DC 10 is always a good starting point for building from there. For an eating competition what if we had some bonuses based on time spent in preparation?

• 1-2 Days Training — +1 on the check
• 3-5 Days Training — +2 on the check
• 6+ Days Training — +3 on the check

Working with someone skilled in this trade as your trainer for the full time means all the checks can be made with advantage.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

The worlds of 5E D&D and the games we all play within them are all about abundance in one way or another. At the very least there’s an extraordinary abundance of monsters, races and other creatures. It’s actually always been a little strange to me because at the same time there’s some inherent scarcity to these things due to the sheer abundance of variety.

For my 2 cp the most useful way to celebrate abundance in 5E D&D is through a great amount of ideas. This is true no matter what side of the DM screen you sit upon. I’ve expressed many times during chats and in posts at Nerdarchy the Website how interaction and communication between all the players in a group is so vital. It’s primarily because sharing lots of ideas with each other makes adventures and campaigns better.

On the DM side of things an abundance of ideas is paramount. During a game the players generally don’t know what surprises and twists may emerge and even more immediately don’t necessarily always know what they might be expected to do. Shuffling things around only goes so far and what happens when characters simply don’t show any interest in something the DM felt sure would be an attention grabber? There’s also the age old scenario to consider where a party comes into conflict with an important NPC or monster and dispatches them handily. What now?

When it comes to the other players there’s a phenomenon wherein a lot of their intriguing ideas stay hidden from the DM and other characters in the party. These might be a powerful combat trick they plan to try out, a secret about their character, potential knowledge of something important to the party’s goal or another similar situation. My advice to players is don’t cling to these and instead share them with others in your group.

Everyone at the table contributing ideas creates an abundance of opportunities. Even the most dedicated worldbuilder can’t account for an entire planet’s worth of detail and when we’re talking about 5E D&D there’s a whole multiverse to consider. Keeping an open mind for players’ input and ideas can bring your world to life in new and unexpected ways.

In my own games I spent a lot of time developing a very small area under the premise new adventurers arrive in a largely unexplored land. This leaves huge regions where they came from and an abundance of new areas open for cool ideas. I love inviting players to imagine new stuff to add to the world.

Along the same lines when I’m a player it’s important to me for a DM to have a similar perspective. If you watch any of our gameplays at Nerdarchy Live you might notice I very often ask the person running the game lots of questions about both big and small stuff framed in such a way as to plant a notion in their mind. Even in a highly detailed setting like where our Ashes of Ardor campaign takes place leaves the door open for players and their characters to contribute in meaningful ways.

Fostering an abundance of ideas helps create wonderful group dynamics both from the players’ points of view and those of their characters in the game. This amazing group activity we all love is built together through shared imaginative space and the best stories emerge when everyone feels welcome to express themselves.

*Featured image — Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage makes for a fantastic example of abundance in 5E D&D. The megadungeon includes a whopping 23 levels of adventure! Adventurers are drawn to Undermountain like moths to a flame. Within the perilous megadungeon a host of villains vies for control of the depths. [Art by Cynthia Sheppard]

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