Nerdarchy on Play Better D&D with Randomness, Maps, and Play Aids
In this 16-minute video on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted look at adding randomness to your D&D and other roleplaying games with play aids both at your gaming table and online.
The conversation begins with a question on the value of randomly generated material both during preparation for a session and during the course of game play. The discussion explores why people do not like including random elements to their games and broadens into a look at all the things a Game Master can randomize.
Dave and Ted share some of their favorite resources for random generation, which starts with the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide. The video invokes Nate the Nerdarch’s early 5E D&D campaign wherein he randomly generated the villain using tables and charts from the DMG.
The video takes a closer look at a variety of random generation aids in the DMG in addition to NPC creation. There’s encounter tables, a dungeon creator, treasure and magic item rewards tables and more. The DMG even includes an entire Appendix A all about randomly generating a dungeon. There’s a popular post here on the website all about using Appendix A to generate a dynamic adventure.
The conversation broadens up to include RPGs outside D&D too. Lots of Old School Renaissance (OSR) games rely heavily on random generation for a wide array of game components, making these things a baseline part of those games. There’s also a huge variety of ways to randomly generate stuff too. Tables and charts are classic but these days people have created products like card decks, special dice and digital tools for even greater versatility. One of those resources they discuss in the video is Fantasy Name Generator, which is a fantastic site for generating names for people, places and things. It’s a huge and expansive resource you can find here.
In Spirit of the Forge characters discover the Mage Forge — the most powerful magic item creation forge in the multiverse! If adventurers puzzle out how to gain entry they’ll have to deal with the artifact’s stewards and prove themselves worthy of the Mage Forge’s incredible potential.
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