#Nerdarchy

[zerohitpoints]

Theros? But What About Your Favorite D&D Campaign Setting?!

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted speculate on what we might see in the upcoming fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons book Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Since I already shared my own speculation in the post we published when we discovered the new book before any official announcement that’s not going to […]Theros? But What About Your Favorite D&D Campaign Setting?!

[waywardmasquerade]

Article by Nerdarchy about the Pride Dragon Bagons Kickstarter

[dndeed]

This is shaping up to be one of the better Icons of the Realms releases. Clean paint work and reliable flying bases, none of that module tomfoolery. 

I’ll be after that pit fiend and monk for sure!

[storyteller4hire]

Firearms Create Fantastic 5E D&D Storytelling Opportunities

Firearms Create Fantastic 5E D&D Storytelling Opportunities

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get locked and loaded for a discussion of the place for firearms in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. They go over where and how firearms appear in 5E D&D and touch on perspectives related to…Firearms Create Fantastic 5E D&D Storytelling Opportunities

[apocritast]

More fanart for the Nerdarchy F.A.S.E.R.I.P. game! This time for my fellows, the rats that joined that unnamed team, Jack and Davis! Putting life and limb on the line to serve the Benevolent Fire God, Nathan! (Played by Meg.) Unlike me, these guys never broke character. The best animal allies, and fellow pet companions, that a bloodhound could ask for. @nerdarchy-blog

[geekandsundry]

http://geekandsundry.com/game-master-tips-with-satine-phoenix-home-brew-games-with-nerdarchy/

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Game Master Tips! Our Game Master extraordinaire, Satine Phoenix, shares with you some of her tips for creating amazing adventures, dealing with difficult parties, or what it takes to sit behind the GM screen. Even if you are a first-time storyteller...

[zedlingsims]

Choose your old nerd aesthetic

[carolinedoesmagic]

More quests and something important happens

I’m sorry for skipping a day, I found myself quite busy. Back to your regularly scheduled mediocre fiction.

A part of me told me that I was hurt, frightened, and most importantly, just a little girl who should give up, but another section of my mind was stronger. I required at least an explanation, and heard a story of age-old wars between the guild and the druids.

‘We only want to make the city better and stronger but whenever we introduce something new, those filthy bastards try to sabotage us. You have no idea how many fires they set on our homes and shops. We would set fire to their forest, but we actually respect nature,’ he spat.

I tried to persuade him, although half-heartedly, already sensing a failure and feeling somewhat swayed by his bias at that point. Seeing the look on my face, he offered a compromise.

‘Tell you what, girlie. I can get you the stone but only if you solve one of our issues.’

I knew that another quest should make me happy - after all, wasn’t that what adventuring was? - but I felt tired more than anything else. I took the detailed description of the important log book that held all of their secrets but went missing and said my goodbyes.

David’s shop was my next stop, and I got an idea on my way there. The kind mage was shocked at the sight of me, but not as mindlessly as the villagers. I briefed him on my daily encounters and told him about the conundrum with the double quest, to which he had a much simpler solution.

‘I can get you the obsidian myself, but for half the profits.’ 

The hero in me was not satisfied by the idea of not solving both issues, so I inquired about a particular spell to help me find the missing book. He switched his demeanor to one of business, telling me that he could perform a ritual that would meet my demands and asking for payment of 10 gold if he were to do that.

I agreed, albeit reluctantly, and watched him perform the spell I remembered from a book I once read. It was supposed to help the caster locate the object by showing them visions of the location, and it included several valuable objects, complete silence, and from the vibrations I sensed in the air, a powerful mage. The very act was much more impressive than the results, which only told me where the missing object WASN'T, which was the entire city, apparently.

‘I’m sorry, Caroline, but it only reaches a certain radius around me. Perhaps I am not powerful enough to help you locate this object. Perhaps it is hidden under spells which mine cannot counter. In either case, this is all I can tell you.’

Trying to hide my disappointment, I went out soon after, murmuring something about it getting dark and promising to return the following day. 

Driven by final shreds of hope, I dropped by the blacksmith's again, sharing what little info I had without getting anything in return. I don’t even think I managed to help them, at least not for real. I dragged my feet back to the inn, feeling like crying not for the first time since I started my adventures.

Returning to my temporary home, I had to state my name and business before being let inside. The inn was close to deserted. The only people inside were the keepers - Ericson, Arin, and the elderly halfling, as well as Trevor, a small party of adventurers, and myself. Everybody seemed busy when I first entered the room, busy with little nothings to distract themselves from the thoughts of what the night could bring. I decided to go to my room and wait it out, but Trevor stopped me in his usual friendly manner. 

We chatted idly for a while, and he made me promise to tell him all about my day later in a feat of such amicability that I almost felt a bit better about life. Perked up by the talk, I went to sit with the party, asking their permission to listen, asking for company, feeling like a child. They astonished me a bit by gladly accepting me to their table, but paid very little heed to me from then onward. I listened to their stories, making a little sound here and there, until they mentioned shadow creatures. All eyes were on me when I gasped, loud in the room full of quiet, unspoken dread. 

The other members scoffed at my interest, but the lady in the group smiled and gave me an abridged version of their encounter with some shadow cultists. The very knowledge of such people made me hopeful that I would be able to learn about my magic after all, and I was itching to continue asking questions, even at the risk of annoying the group. Our talk was, however, interrupted by a scream and beastly sounds coming from the outside.

[dr-archeville]

Starfinder Premiere Reveal

with

Ted Adams (Nerdarchy)

Will Jones (EncounterRoleplay)

Cody Lewis (Taking 20)

Jonathan Pruitt (WebDM)

Owen K.C. Stephens (Paizo)

LIVE June 13th, 2017 (Tuesday), 8:00pm (EDT) on Twitch.TV/EncounterRoleplay

Available later on YouTube.com/WebDM

EEEEE!

[zerohitpoints]

Firearms Create Fantastic 5E D&D Storytelling Opportunities

Firearms Create Fantastic 5E D&D Storytelling Opportunities

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get locked and loaded for a discussion of the place for firearms in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. They go over where and how firearms appear in 5E D&D and touch on perspectives related to…Firearms Create Fantastic 5E D&D Storytelling Opportunities

[waywardmasquerade]

Remember that cool kickstarter by the folks at Nerdarchy? It's now over 1000% funded. They've unlocked all kinds of cool stretch goals. If you haven't already, go check it out.

[xt1erminator-blog]

My History With D&D: How I Got Started

This should have been my introductory post on this blog, but, lazy.

It was a dark and stormy night.

No really, it was a dark and stormy night. I'm not just pretending to be Snoopy writing a novel. Anyhow, I recall being over at an elementary school friend's house for a sleep over I believe. Must have been 10 or 11 years old. There were three or four of us, and my friend, we'll call him Willy, was Dungeon Master. I had no actual playing experience before this night (the only time I had run into this strange game was several years earlier when I was over at the neighbour's house and their much older teenage kids were sitting around the kitchen table with their friends, the table cluttered with big books and weird shaped pieces of plastic and small metal figurines, and bottles and cans of pop and chips and all sorts of delicious looking junk food... it was similar to that scene in E.T. where the kids are playing D&D [not the photo above! - that’s from Freaks & Geeks] except it was daytime). And here I was now, sitting in a camper trailer in the middle of a big thunder/rain storm being shown how to make something called a "character". I have no recollection what race or class this character was, or his name.  I do remember though that he used a mace as his weapon and wore chainmail, and had iron rations. Maybe he was a cleric. I think it was red box Basic D&D we were playing.

I think I might have played a total of two or three games at Willy's place. Mostly with the same other friends playing it each time. The last game we played was using the 1st Edition AD&D rule books, and it was way over my head at the time. I remember stealing money from my paper route collections (which were probably due at the end of the week) and buying my own red box Basic D&D set and some dice, and I played the solo adventure for awhile (damn rust monster!) and then just hid out in the basement with a stack of graph paper, and drew out dungeon after dungeon after dungeon. They all sucked, I’m sure. I think the next major book purchase was the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook. And then the Monstrous Manual binder. Man, I hated that binder. What an awful format. I mean, great for organizing, being able to take out monster sheets and add in new ones, etc. but functionality-wise, it was a disaster. The binder didn't sit well with the other books on a shelf and whatever lamination they used for the exterior of the cover got very scuffed up if you put it in a backpack and it looked like ass in no time flat. The good old days. I would borrow other books and modules from anyone who was willing to let me take them away from them for any length of time, and sit there and read parts of them, mostly paying attention to the cool maps and the artwork. I remember photocopying many a module at the public library too.

So for several years after, I would mostly just read the books, and Dragon and Dungeon magazines, and attempt to create my own maps and even once or twice spent some money on miniatures and tried to paint them. Massive fail. If I would have know that the Ral Partha Forgotten Realms Heroes miniatures set I bought for $15 back in the late 80's/early 90's (whenever it was) would be worth hundreds of dollars almost 30 years later, I would have taken greater care with how much primer I carelessly sprayed on to those poor little figures, getting the shit all over my dad’s workshop tool bench (sorry Wulfgar, Drizzt, Dragonbait, Alias, etc.!) and how much paint I recklessly slapped on to them thinking I was doing things right. Ouch.

I tend to ramble so I'll try to summarize everything else up until now with a bit less detail. After elementary school came high school and there wasn't a lot of action when it came to playing Dungeons & Dragons, well with cool people I mean. There was a small group at the first high school I attended, that would play a game in the art room in the lower level of the school. I sat in once, maybe twice, to check it out. Wasn't my bag. These were the stereotypical super geeky, taped-up-eyeglasses nerds that were more interested in dissecting the rules and not playing with any real imagination it seemed. They were kind of like robots. Plus, not very fun when you have 45 minutes for a lunch break to try and make any progress in an adventure. I heard about others in this school who played, but I was never invited to go play in anyone's campaign. I stopped in a few times to see what was going on with another friend's home game, but didn't end up playing because they were a little too into roleplaying. Most of the playing I did happened later in my teenage years when I ended up playing in late night sessions with some older seniors at another school I went to, and then some games here and there with a bunch of fellows who have since turned out to be what you might call "life long friends". The good guys. Then, in my early 20's, I was the first of anyone I knew to do something incredibly stupid: meet a girl on the internet (1997), marry her and move to another country.

From that point on, I guess I lost interest in the hobby. I had always wanted to run my own game, but no opportunities ever arose, or I didn't have anywhere to play or I was just too on edge to be able to compose myself if a game were to actually take formation. I spent a lot of my time learning how to play musical instruments and often partied. Often. I don't regret it, those were some of the best times I've had. Years passed and I really didn't think about D&D or playing any sort of table top game at all. I grew more fond of digital entertainment, PC games, console games, etc.  I ended up attempting to become somewhat of a "photographer", and after many years I think I'm happy with where I am at with that particular hobby. It was one of those things you never thought to pursue and then one day, you end up spending several hundred dollars on a friend's used DSLR body and a strange, big zoom lens you have no clue how to use properly.

After almost six years and a "should have seen that one coming" style divorce, I returned back home and was again surrounded by my long time friends. It took a little bit of adjustment to get back into the circle with everyone - just picking up and leaving the country when you're 22 years old and supposed to be starting to explore your options for a career and everything, can kind of make a mess of your social connections.  I ended up getting back on my feet pretty quickly though, and found work a month and a half after coming home. I'm still there actually, almost 15 years later.

So, how did I reconnect with my beloved hobby?  It was almost two years ago or so (summer of 2015, I don't know if Tumblr dates these blog posts, I don't think so). My wife's step brothers had asked if she knew anyone who had ever played Dungeons & Dragons. She mentioned to them that I did. She asked on their behalf if I would run a game for them, they were curious and hadn't played before. I declined, no way no how. Been out of touch with it for years. Didn't play anymore. Made up some excuses. Left it at that. I had never run my own games before and had no confidence that I could be very effective when trying to introduce newcomers in to the game.

Then, at the end of that summer, another opportunity arose. Some mutual friends/family expressed interest in trying out the new 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. They had been watching Critical Role online and somehow it came up in discussion.  I had spent the last few months recalling my love for the game from my past, and ended up being much more receptive to the idea. I was much older, had been through a lot of situations in my life where things like social interaction was easier for me to become comfortable with, and I was developing a passion for it again, it seemed. After downloading the free basic 5e rules, and researching some things on YouTube, I was all for it. Our first session was on my 39th birthday at the beginning of October, 2015. It has snowballed into an addiction since then. I have invested a lot of my time (and money) into a small collection of books and miniatures, and some writing to fuel a small Forgotten Realms campaign. We don't play often, maybe every month and a half to two months, as it depends heavily on my wife's work schedule and when she can book a weekend off. I don't like playing on weekday evenings, as I'm usually pretty burned out from work or there just isn't much time to get into a good game before having to cut it short because people have to work the next day.

My Forgotten Realms campaign, currently one of two games I run, started out with three characters: a dwarven sorcerer, a half-orc druid and a gnome rogue. For the first session or two, I attempted to incorporate a PC that I was playing, a cleric of Bane. His appearance was very brief, as I decided it was not going to work well, playing a character while trying to hold down the fort being Dungeon Master and running the show. I'm not at that stage yet. So, I sent the cleric off in the night to go tend to an important mission while the rest of the party carried on. I used the majority of the 5e Starter Set module, Lost Mine of Phandelver. It did the job. I twisted it up a bit and definitely didn't follow it as per the booklet, and I still do that to this day. My style when using pre-written adventures, it seems, is to grab bits and pieces that are essential, and do the rest on the fly and change as necessary based on what the players may do to throw things off. And that's a good thing. It's helping me build skills to become a better Dungeon Master that can adapt to different scenarios, because it almost always doesn't go the way you plan it will go. I learned that early on. After a few months of playing and completing the Wave Echo Cave area, a situation arose that brought the party through a portal leading to the entrance to the Undermountain dungeon, located underneath The Yawning Portal in the great city of Waterdeep. This was an opportune moment to introduce a new player to the group, which happened thanks to a spur of the moment idea I had, to invite an old friend who I knew was a fan of what we were doing. I wasn't sure if he was up for joining the group, but you don't know until you ask, right? The next session, without saying too much of anything, the door bell rang and moments later the group now had a paladin amongst their ranks. It's been a way better game since.

The second campaign I'm going to start running over the next few weeks will be based upon the Eberron setting, which up until last week I had personally shrugged off any time it came up in my travels, and had no interest in even reading what it was about. I'm not sure why that is, I think the brief encounters I had with it previously were based on flipping through some 3rd Edition books, and I just wasn't picking up on what it was all about. I have never been much into anything 3e, the look and design of the books are unappealing to me. This past week though, one of my players and I got ahold of the 4th Edition Eberron Campaign and Player's guides, and I started reading them. I am really liking the setting and am looking forward to trying to use it in a new game. Lightning Rails, Airships, Warforged, Shifters, Dragonmarks - very cool stuff!  Also of help here was a video on Nerdarchy’s YouTube channel where the guys discuss 10 Reasons Why 5th Edition Needs Eberron

This leads to my next post: What Might Eberron For 5e Be Like?

Coming soon!

-runDMsteve

[storyteller4hire]

3 Ways to Handle NPC Conversation Without Breaking the Flow of Your RPG

Salutations, nerds! Every once in a while the NPCs in a tabletop roleplaying game talk to each other and this has a tendency to become super awkward for a Game Master. Few GMs enjoy the feeling of narrating back and forth with themselves while a…3 Ways to Handle NPC Conversation Without Breaking the Flow of Your RPG

[apocritast]

A Moshpit, for tonight's F.A.S.E.R.I.P. Marvel Superheroes Ultimate RPG on Nerdarchy. It's a seriously great game, super fun, and Chat even gets to play a part. You should all check it out. Live tonight! @nerdarchy-blog Dave's character was really fun to draw. I would have polished it more, but it's finals week, and I have no access to the tablet until next year.

[nerdarchy-blog]

“Floshar's Fate,” a Free Dungeons & Dragons 5E Adventure Coming Your Way from Nerdarchy

“Floshar’s Fate,” a Free Dungeons & Dragons 5E Adventure Coming Your Way from Nerdarchy

“Floshar’s Fate,” a free Dungeons & Dragons 5E adventure built specifically to play on the Geek And Sundry Heralded International Tabletop Day 2017 (April 29) is coming your way from Nerdarchy. If you are a Dungeon Master, think about planning now to play the adventure with your players. If you are a Nerdarchy fan and an artist, the Nerdarchy writers who are building “Floshar’s Fate” could use…