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Nerdarchy > Kickstarter  > Kickstarter Korner for August 2018, Week 4

Kickstarter Korner for August 2018, Week 4

Nerd Travel -- D&D in a Castle
Secrets of the Secrets of the Vault: Mage Forge

Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.

In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!

RPG Related Kickstarters

When I hiked through the Schwarzwald in Germany, my pack was approximately 30 pounds. My friends and I covered at most 16 hours a day, hiking for 8-10 hours. Granted, I don’t have superhuman Constitution or anything, but I also wasn’t wearing chainmail armor or stopping every so often to fight for my life against bears or wolves or zombies or perytons.

Driving by all those big foothills rising at 45 degree angles, I imagined what it would be like for a group of adventurers making a trip through the wilderness. The barbarians, rangers and other doughty heroes would probably not have much trouble marching through the hilly forests. The warrior in plate armor toting an arsenal of weapons and gear might get tuckered out sooner, and a bookish wizard would have to dig deep to keep it going for the whole day.

And as I mentioned, there’s every possibility of encountering deadly dangers beyond the mundane stuff like exhaustion, falling, getting hopelessly lost or running into wild beasts. In a D&D world there’s fantastical creatures much more hazardous than anything in our world. Ancient ruins or tombs could be concealed in the foliage, or even a portal giving demons access to our plane of existence.

Earlier today I was sharing these thoughts with Intern Jake and we got to talking more about the exploration pillar of D&D. We’re both big fans of this aspect of the game. There’s a lot of excitement to explore by focusing part of an adventure on getting around the world, and just like combat and social interaction, making exploration more vibrant lies in immersion. In a combat, visualizing the situation and your character’s peril gets the adrenaline pumping. In social interaction, the banter and possibility of learning or developing character through engaging with NPCs holds a promise of dynamic circumstances. Exploration can be just as exciting as anything else if you see the world through your character’s eyes.

Hiking a forest trail through hilly woodlands, relying on vague directions, a crude map or just your ranger buddy’s Survival skills to navigate, careful of what lies ahead through the obscuring trees, wondering if every sound is simply natural noises or the approach of potentially deadly encounters — this is what exploration is all about.

If you’re a Dungeon Master looking to spice up the exploration pillar of your games, you might even take a look at Nerdarchy’s Out of the Box encounters. This series has a ton of scenarios adventurers might stumble across while exploring the wilderness. A broken down carriage, a cornfield, a bog — any of these and many more could help turn what might usually be your travel montage or quick narration into a colorful encounter or even start a whole quest.

So get out there and get exploring! And, of course, stay nerdy.

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On top of reaching our goal of paying our writers, pledging gets you exclusive monthly content for your D&D game, opportunities to game with Nerdarchy, access to patron-only channels on our Discord and more.

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Thank you for your consideration and as always, until next time stay nerdy!

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