D&D Stories Bring Roleplaying Gamers Together and Create Communities
Whether gamers find themselves at a gaming store, convention, or someone’s home gaming group it’s our stories from the roleplaying games we play that unite us as a community. These bonds strengthen our existing friendship and help to create new ones.
Even if you’ve just met a fellow gamer for the first time you already have bounds to connect you together – your gaming stories. Plus what Dungeons & Dragons player doesn’t love sharing their characters or D&D builds with their peers?
Art & Arcana Celebrates Visual History of Dungeons & Dragons
Featuring one of the most iconic images in Dungeons & Dragons history on the cover, Art & Arcana is set to hit bookshelves on Oct. 23, 2018 to take fans on a visual history tour of the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Written by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson and Sam Witwer, with a foreword by Joe Manganiello, Art & Arcana is a massive 448-page tome available in hardcover and digital format from publishers Ten Speed Press.
Gee Whiz, Critical Role Animation Sure is Fun
Tabletop RPGs aren’t the first thing that probably comes to mind when you think about animation. There’s a lot of stuff going on at any given time and humorous or action-filled moments are often dispersed among hours of the player characters shopping or doing other tasks that don’t translate well to being encapsulated in a short spurt of animation. But over at Gee Whiz Productions, those drawbacks to a tabletop RPG session haven’t really been drawbacks at all. They’re doing amazing work in taking scenes from longer sessions like Critical Role and transferring them into animated gold.
Blast from the Past: Talislanta RPG is Totally Free!
Every weekday at noon eastern, the Nerdarchy YouTube channel welcomes guests for a live chat. Industry personalities from the top companies in the tabletop roleplaying game sphere like Wizards of the Coast and Monte Cook Games, creators sharing their work with Kickstarters, streaming or produced video content, blogs, artists, podcasters – the whole gamut of folks making and sharing cool content in the tabletop RPG space join the Nerdarchy community to talk nerdy. Super Geek Senda Linaugh, who joined Nerdarchist Dave to talk about the wide array of projects she’s involved with, really got me thinking about how many fantastic RPGs are out there. One of my favorites from back in the day is Talislanta, an RPG now available completely free!
The Psychology of a Likable RPG Character Part 3: Respect
Standard disclaimer: I got these points from a YouTube video centered around actual self help and the real life application of these points. I didn’t come up with this myself, I’m just repurposing it for fiction writing and roleplaying. I would love to be able to link that video here, so if you have it, drop a link in the comments please! (Edit: If you’ve been following, you know Nerditor Doug found it and it’s over here. Also Charisma on Command, very good material, makes a lot of Game of Thrones references, if you’re not already watching him you should be.)
D&D Power Gaming Munchkin Can Be a Fun Way to Play
You may find this hard to believe, but Nerdarchy has been accused of being power gaming munchkin players in the past. It’s true we sometimes enjoy optimizing or coming up with ridiculous character builds for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. When we analyze D&D character classes we often do it from a min/max standpoint with the mechanics. But in all fairness the mechanics are the part of the game that aren’t subjective so that seems like a fair place to start. Even though we don’t actually play our games as power gaming munchkins at the table we do have a lot of fun building crazy D&D builds and combos. We are actually likely to play suboptimal characters or even things we’ve complained about in videos.
From Hit Dice to Heroics: New Options for Your 5E Characters to be Awesome
Our fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters get put through the wringer on the regular during adventures, and pull off incredible acts in pursuit of quest success. And when they get a moment to catch their breath, a pool of resources – Hit Dice – waits to give them enough energy to press on. But what if there were other uses for these sometimes forgotten and often unspent dice? What if your characters could tap into these reserves outside of a short rest to perform amazing stunts? From Hit Dice to Heroics, our latest product in the Nerdarchy store, answers that question!
From Billy Goats Gruff to D&D Campaign Setting
Nerdarchist Dave here with a recap of one of our latest videos where we were inspired by Studio Woe’s Gruff – A Tactical Card Game of Mutated Monster Goats. They have a KickStarter for Gruff: Stuff of Nightmares you can check out, a stand-alone game fully compatible with the Gruff rules system and other Gruff games. Talking with the creator of Gruff really got my juices flowing for a semi-silly D&D campaign setting somewhere between Ravenloft and Dark Sun, but with evil shepherds and lots of goats.
Live streaming RPG (un)life with unMadeGaming
The RPG space is undoubtedly growing in ways it never has before. There are simply more options for games, whether new systems, new content for classics like fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and new ways to play all of these games like live streaming RPG gameplay. From Critical Role and Acquisitions Inc. straight on down the line, thousands of players and Game Masters share their tables with the world. Mike Hunt, whose unMadeGaming brand showcases a wide variety of RPG systems, is one such content creator.
Kickstarter Korner for April 2018, Week 2
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...
Exploring RPG Options Past the D&D Gateway
As far as role playing games go, Dungeons & Dragons has always been a gold standard. People jump into it and play for months or years, or sometimes try it out for just one game. Many of us here at Nerdarchy have grown up on D&D, having played everything from the original Dungeons and Dragons, to the new fifth edition powerhouse that’s bringing everyone back to the table. Many people ask how people can just play D&D and not get burnt out. The fact of the matter is you can’t. I’ve played and tinkered with D&D since 1989. I’ve delved into each edition and each of it’s variants, but there have been times even I have said, “Lets see what else there is.”
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #40 – “Snowblind”
Out of the Box introduction
Speak With Dead #28: Brain Food III – Kitchen Witching
Each week, our resident necromancer Maxillae the Mad takes time from her busy life as a alchemist and practitioner of death magic to offer her unique insights and advice to denizens of any world or setting. At the bottom find out how you can Speak with Dead and ask your questions of our necromancer with the answer. Until then, welcome to the crypt!
D&D Adventure: Pillars of the DM Craft, Part 2
So far, we’ve covered the role of action throughout Dungeons & Dragons’ storied history. We’ve seen how it shifted from a heavy emphasis on combat and puzzle solving to one that balances many different kinds of conflict reflecting the enigmatic and intricate ways we as humans come across conflict in our own lives. In this article, we’ll take a look at adventure, the second pillar in my analysis of the Dungeon Master craft.
Paizo Friday Night Twitch with Jason Bulmahn and Dan Tharp
As of March 30, 2018, Paizo officially launched a new show on their Twitch channel. While the title of the show is still being tossed around it is hosted by Paizo’s Director of Game Design Jason Bulmahn and Marketing Manager Dan Tharp. They’ve worked time into a schedule that I wouldn’t even dream of trying to handle, to sit down once a week to bring us some updates and have a bit of a Q&A with the fans. Paizo’s Pathfinder and Starfinder news and entertainment live streams on Fridays at 7 p.m. eastern on Twitch.
