Hoof It Over to Unearthed Arcana for Playing Monsters in D&D — Centaurs and Minotaurs
It’s tough to think about fantasy without the image of fantastical beasts and foes of legend coming to mind. The mighty minotaur and the mysterious centaur are just two of these creatures brought straight from myth to our tables. The Unearthed Arcana exploring and even updating these monstrous races for those interested in playing monsters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons has come out and while Nerdarchists Dave and Ted are reviewing the document, I figured I’d take the chance to talk about these interesting creatures and a couple of experiences I had with centaurs and minotaurs in gaming.
Kickstarter Korner for May 2018, Week 4
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.
Demons and Devils Waging D&D Blood War in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
Demons, devils and wars, oh my! Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes has given us all kinds of new demons and devils content to tinker with and while Nerdarchists Dave and Ted go over the creatures and lore of the D&D Blood War in the new tome, I’m going to try and give you some inspiration. I’m a Dungeon Master who uses demons and devils quite sparingly, really reserving them as true horrors and beings of pure evil. Let’s talk about the time I warped the mind of the party’s rogue with a demon that was trying to stop the summoning of a devil into the world.
Descriptions Over Dice: Roleplay Character Actions Before You Roll Play
Hello! Nerditor Doug here to welcome guest posters from Dork Forge to the Nerdarchy family. Dork Forge are “a righteous, funny, and super humble group of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons adventurers with killer memes.” The folks at Dork Forge stream games live on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. central on Twitch, with VOD on YouTube. They also have their own website with articles and video archives. This post comes to us from Dork Forge co-founder and Dungeon Master Tom Ball. Tom tackles a great topic that can trip up a lot of players from veterans to those new to the RPG hobby — how to roleplay character actions when the player themselves isn’t an expert. Using description in front of rolling those dice can enrich a character’s actions when it comes time to make that crucial check.
Delving into the West Marches RPG Campaign Style: Better, Faster, Stronger
We continue this archiving of my experience running a West Marches adventuring campaign style and if you haven’t read the first article and second article, you really should for context. My tabletop roleplaying game background is one that heavily focused on narrative and story. With that being said, this new RPG campaign style is a bit of a departure. This article will focus on the portions of the West Marches formula that I fell in love with, the major changes I made and the additions I constructed to bring the game closer to what I consider makes an enjoyable campaign style.
Beyond the Fantasy Setting: Converting for 5E D&D Steampunk
Cogs. Steam. Cogs and steam. Have the itch to get some steampunk in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons life? You’re not alone. Steampunk, and other niche genres derived from it, is a great addition to any fantasy setting. You can start your D&D steampunk experience by simply reskinning equipment and environments with all manner of odd baubles and whirring mechanisms or as deep as to tinker and toil brand new home brew to bring your steamy thoughts into life.
Only Human: Reskin D&D Playable Races for All Human Campaign
Many campaign settings strive for a more human-focused style but this often turns away many players as they see the lack of fantastic races as limiting character options. This is mechanically true if you get rid of all these races and do nothing to compensate for their absence. Often this is done through having cultural archetypes become replacements for distinct D&D playable races. Another way to accomplish this is to simply reskin character races as human cultures from your all human campaign setting. In this way, the standard assortment of D&D playable races are still available but appear and play like variations of humans.
Get Your Paizo On At PaizoCon — Live or Live Streamed
Savage Worlds: Exploring RPG Options Past the D&D Gateway
As you play Dungeons & Dragons, several things will enter your thoughts. One of the more common among them is “I wonder if …” A lot of the time those if’s run along the lines of “can I play Star Wars with this?” or “can I do a sci-fi setting?” With any roleplaying game system you can put in some time, make some tweaks and you can do those things. That said, there are many generic RPG systems out there with a variety of source material. Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment Group is one such system
Player Agency and Cooperative Stories Make a D&D Game Belong to Everyone
Its a very common phrase in the roleplaying circles that its “the Dungeon Master’s Game.” As with most aspects of this hobby, its not always so cut and dry. In your D&D game, you might find infusing some player agency through cooperative storytelling might get a you a new level of engagement from your players. This player agency can take many forms, to include working together with your players to collaboratively create the setting and world.
A Complete 5E Sci-Fi RPG in Esper Genesis Core Manual
When I flipped through the recently released full core rulebook for Esper Genesis, the same immediate feeling of hell yeah I want to play this emerges as it did when I first heard about 5th Edition science fiction roleplaying game by Dungeon Master’s Guild Adept Rich Lescouflair and the folks at Alligator Alley Entertainment. I’ve loved playing every edition of Dungeons & Dragons since the classic red box, and enjoyed stretching the boundaries of 5E D&D in particular. I was already running a pretty outrageous Spelljammer campaign at home when I heard about Esper Genesis and the free basic rules of this 5E sci-fi RPG went right into the mix, adding awesome new vehicles, classes and esper powers like fushion beam and gravity sphere.
Pathfinder 2E Part 1: Mechanics
Hello fellow nerds. It’s time to look deeper into Pathfinder 2E. Given the amount of blog information Paizo has released to tease us, we will be looking at in various parts to avoid nerd overload, starting here with a look at mechanics.
Win Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for 5E D&D — First Look and Flipthrough
Friday, May 18, 2017 was the Wizards of the Coast release of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes to specific FLGS and digitally through D&D Beyond. This is the newest D&D book from The Wizards of the Coast team. Wide release for this 5E D&D book will be on May 29.
The folks over at the PR company for the WOTC team, 360 Public Relations, is always good about getting us early copies so we can show them off to the fans. We always give them away. It’s still nice to get the free 5E D&D swag even if we don’t keep it most of the time. Speaking of which you can get in on a give-away running to May 31 for one of five copies of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.
Kickstarter Korner for May 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.
D&D Etiquette from Metagame to Manners
We decided to do a video response to an article over on the Jimmi Waz Ere website. We copied the article below for convenience, as well as our thoughts on the 10 Things You Need to Respect About D&D Etiquette video. By all means if you like Jimmi’s article click the link below to take look at the articles he’s got on his site and show him some love by sharing and commenting on the original article.
