Secrets of Picking your Dungeon Master for a D&D Game
Like Nerdarchists Dave and Ted mention in the video below, back in the day when I was a young gamer, there was no such thing as picking your Dungeon Master for a Dungeons & Dragons game. If you were interested in playing D&D, and you were lucky, you could muster a group and offer to be the DM yourself, and maybe at some point get one of the other players to take a turn behind the screen running a game. My only other experience finding a new group to play with was through a flyer pinned at the comic book store from a couple of friends looking for more players. And it was a successful run that kept us all rolling funny-shaped dice through most of high school. Back then, there was also an organized play program called RPGA. They ran ads in Dragon Magazine and had their own publication, Polyhedron. But in 2018 the circumstances for hopeful D&D players is vastly improved. How? Let’s get into it and find out.
Take Your Dungeons & Dragons Game on the Road with a Tome of Holding
Our latest sponsor The Tome of Holding has a KickStarter for your Dungeons & Dragons game on the go. What is the Tome of Holding? It’s a carry box plus dice tray. Compact, super portable, a good looking way to transport your D&D dice, miniature, and it doubles as a dice tray. There are different versions of the Tome of Holding — various etched designs, and with or without various inserts (pictured below) — all designed to make your travels to Dungeons & Dragons game night easy. These look great! When you aren’t gaming and rolling those D&D dice they’ll look amazing on your bookshelf or even as a conversation piece on a coffee table.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game in the Deck of Many Things Magic Item Campaign
For disclosure — in my decades as a Dungeon Master and player of Dungeons & Dragons, I have neither used nor encountered the infamous Deck of Many Things. But after sitting in on video planning and discussing it at length with Nerdarchists Dave and Ted, Nate the Nerdarch and Intern Jake, I want to! The powerful Deck of Many Things has been a part of D&D history since the very first supplement — Greyhawk — in 1975. In every edition of the game since, the deck has caused weal and woe for players and DMs alike. Whether it shows up in a randomly generated treasure hoard or enters a campaign due to DM planning, the Deck of Many Things has major impact. So much so that many DMs outright disavow the legendary magic item. Me? I’m excited at the possibility of basing an entire campaign around it. Am I crazy? Perhaps. Let’s get into it and find out.
D&D Villains: The Enemy With the Inhuman Face
Salutations, nerds! I want to talk a little bit more about designing and running the bad guys in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. Specifically, I want to talk about the kinds of bad guys that cannot be reasoned with. Dark creatures that could never be mistaken for “human.” I’m talking dark gods. I’m talking the tarrasque. I’m talking the massive thing on the horizon that just swallowed the cathedral and made the party feel so small in Session One in a single bite, yes. I’m also talking about smaller demons. I’m talking about the insectoid creature that keeps hollowing out people’s bodies and using their meat puppets to its own ends. These are the inhuman monsters so alien there is no connecting with them and the only chance you have is running them through before they do more damage. If you even can. If you’re even sure where to hit it.
Kickstarter Korner for September 2018, Week 3
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!
5E D&D How to Pick your Character Class
Dungeons and Dragons Character Creation can be an agonizing decision for any nerdy ass gamer like myself. Whether it’s your first D&D Character or your 1,000,000th D&D Character these can be tough decisions. So how is gamer to decide?
Let’s start off by asking ourselves some questions before jumping into Dungeons and Dragons character creation process?
- Do we want to base our D&D character on Story Elements or Mechanical Elements?
- What role do want to fill Warrior, Spell Caster, or Skilled character?
We can further break things down mechanically by narrowing down your choices. There is also modeling the mechanics to the story elements you are interested in.
Dungeon in a Box Unboxing — August 2018
There are several subscription crate services out there that cater to us the gamer. The lovely folks over at Dungeon in a Box decided to send me a copy of what they do so I can share my unboxing with all of you who like these type of things. This being my first adventure into Dungeon in a Box I am not as familiar with them as I am with other monthly subscription boxes. If my information is correct Dungeon In a Box is supposed to offer everything you need to run the adventure within. So you open the box and you are prepared to play some games.
Methods of Choosing Your 5E D&D Character Race
Based on the placement in the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, choosing your character’s race is a top priority in character creation, second only to generating ability scores. The chapter begins by illustrating the diversity within the D&D multiverse, describing exotic places from the Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms to Sigil in the Planescape campaign setting and the myriad races living in those places. Only after painting the picture in your mind of fantasy races like dragonborn, tieflings, gnomes and dark elves — “people of varying size, shape, and color, dressed in a dazzling spectrum of styles and hues” — does the PHB mention humans. That’s pretty significant. So if choosing your character’s race in D&D is so important, how do you make such an impactful decision?
Dungeon Crate Unboxing — August 2018
Hello happy gamers. It is that time for another unboxing of a Dungeon Crate subscription box. Dungeon Crate is an awesome gamer crate designed to get you awesome adventures, swag and gaming accessories to use at your gaming table delivered to your door every month. I personally have received every crate — and even helped curate one — since the first box has gone out. Each Dungeon Crate typically features 5 to 7 items to use at your gaming table.
Dungeons & Dragons — Your Fun is Wrong?
As fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons YouTubers we get the question of whether content is official pretty often. Honestly the only time it really matters is when you are playing organized play like Adventurers League. Anything else really is homebrew Dungeons & Dragons even if you are playing prewritten D&D 5E adventures set in an official D&D campaign setting.
Legendary Dragons Kickstarter from Jetpack 7 Takes Flight
Coming on the heels of their most recent Kickstarter Masters and Minions, the Jetpack 7 team is right back at it with a brand new project. Legendary Dragons: A 5th Edition Supplement puts all the focus squarely on the most iconic creature in all of fantasy — dragons! All the majesty, terror and epic peril of a dragon confrontation will claim its rightful place as the most extraordinary encounter a D&D adventurer can face. Legendary Dragons: A 5th Edition Supplement for the world’s greatest roleplaying game is live right now, so go check it out and help dragons become the feared, world-shaking menaces they are meant to be.
Education Adventures: Is D&D Right for My Kid?
Education Adventures is a column written by educator Megan Hardy. Through the Outschool program, Megan teaches a series of Life Skills courses using fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. During the six week campaign, heroes head out to save the land from an evil ruler, facing challenges and battles and making friends along the way while learning logic and critical thinking. The campaign is designed specifically for children ages 9-14 and highlights problem solving, logic puzzles and team work while participating in a grand adventure. In the Education Adventures column, Megan shares insights and lessons she learns through teaching D&D for students and their experiences.
Warforged Druid 5E D&D Character Build
Nerdarchy has been doing 5E D&D character builds on YouTube for over four years now for the Nerdarchy and Dungeons & Dragons community. We have made 5e D&D character builds of super heroes, sci-fi heroes, and characters from novels. Sometimes we make optimized builds. Other times we make what we call our unorthodox character builds. Recently we started a new 5E D&D character build series — our Adventurers League Legal series. It started with a request to make a paladin/College of Whispers bard multiclass. We followed that up with our zen archer build. Then we took another request for a Gloom Stalker ranger/Assassin rogue build. The most recent one we created was a warforged druid 5E character build.
RPG Crate Unboxing — August 2018 This Begins Season 3
Hello fellow adventurer. It is time for another unboxing and we are diving into RPG Crate subscription box. August 2018 marks the third year of RPG Crate and all the exciting things that means. This is box No. 25 and I have most of them. My gaming shelf and T-shirt collection are all the more powerful for it.
Making a Memorable NPC for Dungeons & Dragons
We’ve all watched Critical Role, it’s a great show. Matt Mercer does an exceptional job of creating memorable characters far too numerous to recount. I talked a bit in another article about how to place spells on an nonplayer chracter wizard depending on their roles but let’s talk about NPCs in general. NPCs are a staple of every roleplaying game. From Dungeons & Dragons to GURPS, to Star Wars. Not every NPC should be a boss. If you build every NPC as a boss, the players will try and kill it every time. There is the old D&D adage if you don’t stat it they can’t kill it. This is a true statement, but they’ll still try, then they just sulk building new characters. Personally, I prefer to stat out NPCs, so I can get a better idea of what they’re capable of. If you want to make a dwarven forge master, great. How did he learn his trade, where did he come from? Is he gifted? There are all kinds of things to consider. We’re going to look at some options today about how to make NPCs a little more memorable and how to fit them into you story.
