Gamefound Summer Feast

Go On Board – The Witcher Legacy

Holy Hell in a HANDBASKET! I’m 100% in already. I don’t care about anything else. It’s a legacy Witcher game. Who wants to play it with me? You level up your character and play through story. Do we know a ton, we don’t, but I’m all in.

Follow the campaign here.

PIKA Games – A Wild Venture

This is a two player game that is an engine building game. It looks pretty cute and there are tons of two player games right now And I do like engine building and it’s also a game where you break down your engine. I am very tempted with this and if you preorder you get two free gifts as well. At about $30 USD it’s a very reasonable price.

Follow the pre-order here.

Fantasia Game – Rurik Second Edition

It’s a second edition of Rurik And it is going to update some things. And it is going to have a new expansion. So if you liked Rurik this might be one to jump in to get more. I think that Rurik is one of those try before you buy games for me.

Follow the campaign here.

Spielcraft Games – Cretaceous Rails

This is a reprint. But there is going to be an expansion as well. The theme of the game is fun, you take time traveling tourists on rails in the past to see all the dinosaurs. I hope that it’s a good game because that is the type of railroad game that I could get behind.

Follow on Gamefound here.

Addax Games – Rove Anchorpoint

This is going to be rove at a more accessible and affordable point to jump into. This is going to be like Jaws of the Lions was for Gloomhaven. A 25 encounter game which is going to make it much more accessible. I hope that this doesn’t launch until Rove is in the hands of backers. I might be interested but I want to play Rove first.

Follow Rove Anchorpoint here.

Nemesis Games – Uprising Legendary Box

This is going to be more Uprising. It is a cooperative/solo game that now offers true solo. I own this game already, so I don’t need more. But I do need to play it. This is a cooperative 4x game where all the players need to beat the enemy factions you are up against. And that is easier said than done.

Follow Uprising Legendary Box on Gamefound here.

Unstable Games – Mystic Moon

It’s a light strategy game where you are creating potions. I like a good potion creation game and it looks super cute. Really what I’m basing my thoughts on the game off of is the adorable artwork. And it is a theme that draws me in as well. I don’t know a ton about how it plays though and the page only offers so much at this point.

Follow Mystic Moon on Gamefound here.

Unstable Games – Here to Slay Dungeons

This is a cooperative dungeon crawling game. It is set in the world of Here to Slay. That is a game that I need to play. The artwork is great, and I love a good dungeon crawler. It’s interesting it is going to be three base games. But you can mix the base games together to mix up the monsters, heroes and more. I hope that the price point is very reasonable then because otherwise that gets expensive fast.

Follow Here to Slay Dungeons here.

Thundergryph Games – Galileo’s Truth

Anotehr game about Galileo. This is going to be in the scientific journey game like Darwin’s Journey. It is a deck building and a single worker. I have heard good things about Darwin’s Journey but I haven’t played that one.

Follow Galileo’s Truth here.

Meeple Pug – Byzantion

A thematic and political game. This is going to be engine building with miniatures and you need to handle events that come out. There is diplomacy, intrigue and backstabbing, which that doesn’t sound super interesting to me. Now I might be wrong, but it just founds like a lot. And a 30 minutes per player I really expect it would be a long game.

Follow Byzantion on Gamefound here.

ThisWay – Arctica

It’s an animal game where you are trying to do area control and a lot more. Plus gears, if you like wheels that is going to be interesting as you plan out turn things. I could see this being a game that works well for me and the aesthetic is sharp. Not just the artwork on the cards, but the board, pieces, and gear all look very good.

Follow Arctica here.

Eerie Idol Games – The Old King’s Crown Second Printing + Expansion

I don’t know much about the game. It sounds interesting and thematic. And it looks great in terms of artwork and components. But because of how fast things are going I didn’t get a good idea of the game. I might checkout some videos or reviews for thoughts on what people had from the first printing of the game.

Follow The Old King’s Crown on Gamefound.

Board Game Ink – Lone Wolf: Vengeance of the Kai

This is based off of a fantasy series. This is a two player strategy game as you play an epic conflict. They say that you might like it if you like Star wars; Rebellion. Aesthetically I think it looks decent. But if you want a big two player game, this could be it. And I am now interested in the series.

Follow the campaign here.

Red Raven Games – Song of Silveranth

Another big open world narrative game. I love their big open game in Sleeping Gods. It is a dark fairytale and fantasy setting. I love the idea of that setting. And it is supposed to have most of what Sleeping Gods did but it is going to be even bigger. Do I expect to back this one, 100%.

Follow the campaign for Song of Silveranth here.

Board Game Ink – X-Odus Rise of the Corruption Second Ecdition

I have heard of X-odus. It is going to be a massive upgrade from the sounds of it. They said it was going to be about 95% change. While that doesn’t mean massive changes to everything it is going to be a step up. It is a game that I want to check out so I’ll check out the first edition videos. But if the second edition really does change up a bunch, I’m still hesitant to dive into it.

Follow the campaign on Gamefound here.

Eons of Battle – The Catacombs of the Blessed Dead

More terrain. This is going to be creating a catacomb for your RPG game. It looks very nice. If you want to get it as STL’s you can. And you can get miniatures as well.

Follow on Gamefound here.

Archon Studios – Duskhollow

This is going to be vampire setting terrain. If you want gothic terrain this is going to be great for you. I love the sound of it. But I don’t need a ton of terrain taking up space as much as I want to have some. But if you want to do Ravenloft or some other gothic vampire campaign, this looks great.

Follow the campaign for Duskhollow on Gamefound here.

Game Theory Tables – The Table of Adventure

This is a board game table. It is officially licensed for D&D and has a GM side that you can create your on GM/DM spot. It looks great. But I already own a game table. If I didn’t I would definitely consider this one. I like that it is done in conjunction with D&D so they are going to be thinking about some things that you might want for a D&D game versus more general in nature.

Follow the campaign here.

Accidental Cyclops Games – Surviving Strangehollow

This a modular setting for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. It is a massive book and there is going to be a ton to checkout there. But I want to know is it for the new version of 5E. What tempts me about backing this one is all the monsters. But I don’t generally run campaigns based off of modules. So if I can just get the monsters, that would be great.

Follow the campaign on Gamefound here.

Cotswald Games – Machiavellian The City of Masks

A world of masked nobles set in another world. They say it’s like Ark Nova and Scythe mixed together. This sounds like a game where they are throwing in a lot of theme. I like the sound of mix of mechanisms for the game. And a steampunk style world is also interesting to me. But is it going to be a game that can combine everything into that elegant design they promised.

Follow Machiavellian here.

Godot Games – Yokai Forest Duel

They are making a duel game. It’s a tournament game of some sort. I’m not 100% how it is going to play because it is two to eight players. So it’s not a two player game, which is odd. But you are fighting best of three battles, looks like a fun head to head game mainly.

Follow Yokai Forest Duel on Gamefound here.

Invedars – Chants for the Old Ones

This is a new expansion and a new game. It looks interesting though I haven’t heard much about the original game. I do love a good Lovecraftian theme for a game. Plus the minis look very nice for the game as well.

Follow Chants for the Old One here.

Titan Forge – Bloodfields: Third Edition

This is a two player miniatures game. I think it looks very cool, but it’s definitely not one that I’m going to get. This is going to be new cards, lore and more in the game. If you want a minis game that is coming out with a lot of new stuff and seems to have a lot of classic fantasy, like elves and dwarves, this one might be for you.

Follow Bloodfields on Gamefound.

Final Thoughts

There are two games out of the twenty-three that are must backs for me. Witcher Legacy is obviously one of them. But then when Red Raven comes out with another open world style game, that is an easy back. As much as I love the setting for Sleeping Gods, I think a dark fairy tale setting is probably even more enjoyable for me.

But there is a bit of everything in this Gamefound Feast. It is really a feast, Whether you want terrain, an RPG module, a table, a small game or some huge games, you can find them all here. What is the game that you are most excited for?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

The Gamefound Feast

Gothic: A Shadow’s Quest by THQ Nordic

This one is based off of a video game. And THQ Nordic is actually the company who is the creator of the video game, so they are doing their own game. It’s interesting to see them doing it themselves. The only other thing I know like this is when Riot Games made Mechs vs Minions. So I find it cool. I don’t know a ton about Gothic or really anything. But this looks like my type of games, a lot of minis, standees, monsters, and it looks fun. I like a dark gothic setting for a game.

The video game is an adventure RPG, so the board game is going to be like that as well. And that sounds like a lot of fun to me. I like that you play on three different levels in this game, explore the world, get missions and level up in camp, and then if it’s a combat quest, you are going to be doing more tactical combat. It’s extremely interesting to me because this is really my type of game.

Follow the Gothic: A Shadow’s Quest here.

Sword & Sorcery on Teburu

This isn’t a new game, it’s Sword & Sorcery a campaign game that I like. However, Teburu is a digital board for your game. That means that with the app and Teburu you are going to be play it without all the book keeping that was part of Sword & Sorcery. However, I will say, this one isn’t that much for me. I thought that Sword & Sorcery was fine, but I didn’t love it. Maybe it would make it easier, but you’d still have so much stuff to pull out and set-up. But if you’re up for it, it’s going to be good for a lot of people.

And while I’m not going to get it because there is the cost of the Teburu system. But the enemy AI definitely was a bit annoying. So maybe it would make it smoother and make it simpler to get to the table. But like I said, it’s rebuying a game that I sold and it’s buying technology which I’m interested in, for the Vampire the Masquerade game, but less so for this.

Follow the Sword & Sorcery Teburu Campaign here.

The Megan 2.0 Gaming Table from Geeknson

Not a board game, but Geeknson is one of the big board game table company out there. I don’t need a board game table, I have a Jasper from AllPlay/BoardGameTables, and it’s great. So I will just say this, I like board game tables. And I think as long as you get one from a good company, Geeknson, AllPlay, Wyrmwood and others, you are going to get something that’s great and that’ll help.

Follow the Geeknson The Megan 2.0 campaign here.

Empress Deck and Companion Book for 5th Edition D&D by Weird Works

This is going to be an addition for D&D. It’s just going to be a way to mess with things like initiative, and more as well. This sounds like an interesting addition but not something that I feel like I need. It’s basically a custom tarot deck that is going to be able to help with “problems” but it’s something that could be a bit of fun to do. Like I said, though, not going to be for me. The companion book sounds slightly more interesting, but not that much more interesting. It’s going to be some more content with probably how to use the deck.

Follow The Empress Deck & Companion Book here.

Ascendency: Underworld from OneMoreTurnGames

This is an expansion to Ascendancy. This game looks like it has a lot going on with it. Ascendancy is an area control 4x style of game. And it is a game that can play solo. For me, it’s one that I looked at when the first campaign came out. I’m not super sold that it’s going to be a game for me, but there are elements that are really interesting about it. But do I need a huge game like this, maybe? It’s so tough because I want to play games like this, but there is so much.

Follow Ascendancy Underworld here.

Nanty Narking: Rise of Cthulhu from Phalanx

This is bringing back the game Nanty Narking. I know really nothing about this game. It was originally Discworld, then it became Nanty Narking. I don’t know much of anything about the game which is interesting. Mainly because I feel like I know about so many different games. From what it looks like, this is still a competitive game, now the players can lose together with Cthulhu driving madness. I’m not feeling this game too much though.

Follow Nanty Narking: Rise of Cthulhu here.

Dark Rituals Malleus Maleficarum from Maki Games

I am not familiar with Dark Ritual. This is a reprint of the game. It’s a one versus all game and it’s not super interesting to me. Yes, the game is cool and dark looking, but if you like one versus all games then it might be for you. But it’s an easy pass for me.

Follow Dark Rituals Malleus Malefacarum here.

Grimdark Future: Broken Truth by One Page Rules

This is going to be a miniatures game. I know nothing about this setting or system of the Grimdark Future universe. This is the first time that they are doing minis. It’s a miniatures war game which is not my cup of tea. So sure, it’s probably interesting and the minis look very solid. But it’s not for me. If you want a one page rules to get into the game, it’s going to be an easy one to get into as the rules are free online.

Follow Grimdark Future: Broken Truth here.

Starside: Promethean Crusade from Archon Studio

This is another miniatures sure. If I wanted to jump into a miniatures game, there are a lot of options. This is going to be a fleet command game, so that’s different. I do like the idea of a space game I think more as a miniatures game. That said, I’m not diving into playing miniatures game. But with Starside and Grimdark Future there are two solid options for people who want to jump in.

Follow Starside: Promethean Crusade here.

Dare the Unknown: A NASA Board Game from Space Delirium

This one is interesting, this is one that is based on reality. The crazy part is that is truly NASA licensed. You want to bring back your rockets to earth, be the first one to get them back. It is their first board game, though they have done other crowdfunding campaigns. I like that it’s licensed by NASA but it’s not going to be game that I’m super excited for. I do think it’s going to be a nice family weight game potentially or at least that is going to be the target, which is great for a theme like NASA.

Follow Dare the Unknown: A NASA Board Game here.

Fear Itself – Shattered Veil Edition from Pelgrane Press

This is another table top RPG game. I think this is going to be a chance for people to play in their favorite horror films. They say that it’s great for a one shot game. I know it’s not going to be one that I want to back. I like my D&D and I want to keep it at that. And really, I don’t have much time to dive into more when it comes to RPG, D&D keeps me plenty busy. But if you want to play a horror film as an RPG, Fear Itself is going to be great, from the sounds of it, for that.

Follow Fear Itself – Shattered Veil Edition here.

Lying Pirate – Cities of Greed Expansion from Nordic Pirate Games

Okay, first off, isn’t that company name mainly Vikings? I am not familiar with the original game, though it had about 5,000 backers. This is going to add more to the game. The aesthetic looks great to me. The game is going to be party weight game with some deduction to it, which I’m guessing is going to be like a Liar’s Dice elements to the game. The one thing that concerns a little bit about the game, which does have a good BGG ranking, is that the game, as a lighter/party/Liar’s Dice style game is that it’s an hour in length.

Follow Lying Pirates – Cities of Greed here.

Star Realms Conquest from Wise Wizard Game

This is going to be one that you know if you want or not. This is a deck building game. It’s going to be a core set. This is going to be a game that you can jump into at this point if you want. Or you can mix it in if you are already familiar with the game. That’s fun that they keep on giving new launch in points. I need to play more Star Realms before I’d consider backing this one. The nice thing is that this is a pretty small box and that means that it’s easy to get and keep adding to the game that I already have.

Follow Star Realms Conquest here.

Which Excites Me Most?

I think it’s the first one. Gothic looks like my type of game a lot. There are some other fun ones, but with more of a mix of RPG, the table, and then miniatures games, this is one where there were fewer that I was interested in. Ascendancy is probably the next highest for me, or even Sword & Sorcery Teburu, though, like I said, I thought that Sword & Sorcery was just fine. It’s more, I want to get a Teburu game sometime. The Vampire the Masquerade one is probably the spot that I’d jump in at though.

Let me know which one interests you the most.

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

The Amount of Changes in Dungeons and Dragons

Let’s start out by talking about the amount of changes. I’m not going to go into all of them, mainly because I want to talk about notable changes in the next section. But Dungeons and Dragons is getting a face lift, I’d say. And there are a fair number of notable changes out there. Enough that it can mix and match with the old stuff, but the recommendation is, and I think obviously, that people move to the new system. If you buy one book in the new system, migrate the whole way.

I say obviously because from a business perspective, they of course want you to buy the new stuff. It makes them money. But in terms of the content, while it is similar, a character in the 2014 5th Edition core rules, is going to be behind. So I think it is beware of that amount of change. Know that if you dabble you want to go all in.

Notable Changes

But let’s talk about some of the changes. And like I said, there are plenty. But we’ll talk about the biggest change to Dungeons and Dragons first. And I think it’s worth noting that they are moving away from the very loose theater of the mind feel of 5th Edition 2014. You certain might play 5th edition more now with a battle terrain set-up.

Weapon Mastery

This comes down to some things, in particular with melee characters. Almost all weapons have a mastery to them that if you know it, you can manipulate the battlefield. So this is different from your proficiency but it allows you to do even more with weapons that you really know. So some might trip up and an enemy, slow them down or otherwise disrupt them. This, per what they said, is to give the more versatility that was previously mainly found in spellcasting classes.

Subclasses

It is also worth noting that all classes now have four subclasses. And all classes unlock their subclasses at the exact same time. No longer do some get them at first level and others at third. No longer does the bard have two subclasses and the wizard six. All start on an equal playing field that way. And most of the subclasses are getting a lift. Whether that’s a boost from the masteries for weapons or an expanded spell list, that is fairly minimal in terms of what they get.

Ability Modifiers

And there are more things as well. One that I really like is that now when you pick your species you don’t get your stat boosts. You might gather boosts and boons for other things because of your species. But it doesn’t make various species lean various directions. Instead that is with your background. You want to be a dwarven thief, you get stats based off of what you did in your background. That, to me, makes sense because that is what my character has practiced.

Do You Need to Get It?

Obvious this doesn’t make your current books obsolete. But it does render them less useful if you get the new books. Someone who builds a character with the old systems is going to be less effective. But at the same time, Dungeons and Dragons is not changing so fundamentally that your old content is going to be worthless. It might come down to you need to tweak minor things and raise difficulties at times.

But let’s talk about it more from the perspective of you like you to get he new books. Is this 2024 version of 5th Edition worth buying? I think that it is. Mainly as I listen and watch the videos and discussions, I feel like they balance out the character classes. Is the Ranger going to be perfect now, probably not, but it’s going to be on par with the other classes. And overall, I feel like it offers more freedoms, which Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition was already good at. This just adds in more.

Final Thoughts the Updated Dungeons and Dragons

I want to see how this works. I buy basically every book, so I’m excited to get my hands on it. Though, I do wonder about some elements of it though. While I see this mainly as a positive, a couple of things hold me back from being completely excited.

The biggest item is the additional tactical nature of the game. I run theater of the mind, generally. So I expect to continue that. Will the added masteries make it harder to play theater of the mind? I feel for some groups they might generally get skimmed over. Especially for a group very familiar with the current version of 5th Edition. So is that a major add for those combat classes?

At the same time, I like the idea of tactical battles. It is possible to make it more dynamic. A weapon naturally pushes a bad guy, well, that is important. It allows players to push and manipulate the battlefield. Also, it is able to become a cat and mouse game as bad guys try to avoid getting smacked too much and players try and knock them into a hole or off the edge of a tower. So I see it working in either way.

Generally, though, I like what the system is adding. And I want to get my hands on it (coming in September for the Players Handbook). Do you like the sounds of the 2024 version of 5th Edition?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

When thinking about this idea, I wanted to create something that was a little bit different and with dreamwalking, it felt like there was some interesting ways to handle it.

Firstly, you get to run two different types of games, I’d probably tie the two worlds together somehow, like there’s something in the real world that is causing this crazy dream and nightmare fueled reality to happen when you sleep and if you die while you sleep you die in both of the game worlds. I would build it in such a way that to figure out what or who is causing it in the real world, they need to defeat things and find clues in the nightmares and dreams so that is going to lead their quests in the waking world.

Next, and it depends on your group, if you wanted, you could have the players play two different characters. Dragoth the Dwarven Fighter in the real world might be Dragoth the Dwarven Bard in the dream world with different stats and character sheet. I think it would be fun and could work well for those players who get a little bit bored playing the same character for a longer period of time, they get to play the mix of two characters. While they have some overlap in personality, they would definitely play and be different. I’d have the two versions level at the same pace, it would just make tracking things easier.

So jumping into this you’d look to introduce the players to the BBEG (big bad evil guy/gal) in the dream world. This is the BBEG’s domain so they should be basically untouchable at the start, but they also shouldn’t care about the players because this is their world. Give them someone who they know they’re building up to face at the end of the campaign/at the end of the arc. As they get better and stronger both in the dream and real world, they should show up on the BBEG’s radar and they should see that the dream world turns slowly more into a nightmare world and things become more dangerous and dark. And in the real world when the players get closer to the BBEG’s lair, that should be another time when the dream world starts to double down on the nightmares and monsters, basically a corrupting force in the real world as they near the lair which manifests as more dangerous nightmares.

So, getting to the point where you fight the BBEG, I could see doing some fetch quests, or more so destruction quests, such as having to find amulets or something that weaken the pull of the dream world on the whole of the lands Something that has been set-up or sold by a peddler not knowing what wares they were peddling. So it can be a bit of a chase to find them and destroy them, but also a bit of a red herring because the peddler is going to look very guilty to the players, and while they are guilty of selling these amulets or whatever it might be, they aren’t the BBEG. They maybe would know who the BBEG is, but not where the BBEG is or how to get in contact with them. But the peddler would know where they got the wares so they’d be able to bring the players closer to the BBEG’s lair or at least tell them about it.

In the dream world leave larger clues, totems, visions, something that has to be puzzled through. So in the real world they can only find so many clues or so many people to get close to the lair, but in the dream world, it should be a series of clues that they can put together and come up with something that not only gives them a precise location of where to go but also probably some sort of hints for getting into the lair. Because whatever your BBEG is, they are extremely powerful and would have some sort protection on their lair so that the PC’s can’t just waltz right into it.

For the final battle, I think this should be a two part thing, either start it in the real world and have the finale in the dream world or vice-a-versa. Give both sets of PC’s a chance to shine, but also being the dream world is going to create a more cinematic story. Throw large, impossibly large objects at the players and do a contest of wills to see who can manipulate the dream objects, will they stay in existence and do damage to the players, create barriers, whatever the BBEG decides, or will the PC’s be able to push them away. It’s almost a force battle that you can do for the finale in the dream world. Then in the real world, that’s going to be a bit more standard in terms of the fight, not great illusionary fighting like in the dream world, but this is where I’d have minions and traps and things to wear down the players first. If I were to do this, I’d do get through lair fighting minions and dealing with puzzles and traps, that leads up to the start of the fight in the real world, the players get the BBEG down in health so the BBEG throws them all into the dream world where they have to fight a more powerful version of the BBEG, when/if the BBEG is about ready to die in the dream world, then they drop back into the real world. Give the BBEG a chance to have used a few hit dice but to still be done some hit points and have used up magic. So the final battle then takes place in the real world. Another option would be to divide up the party, especially if you have 4 PC’s, because you could have two fighting in the dream world and two in the real world and have them each fighting the respective version of the BBEG.

So what do you think about this idea, is it a campaign that you’d want to play in or run?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

Exploration might be considered the forgotten pillar of Dungeons and Dragons. While the first, Combat, really uses the character sheet and Social Encounters are all about the role play. Exploration is the one that is supposed to give you a sweeping sense of adventure which can be a harder thing to do. What makes exploration hard is that it relies a lot more on the dungeon master than either of the other two do. There’s give and take in combat as the players narrate their attacks, social encounters are back and forth as player characters interact with the non-player characters. Exploration can just be much more stagnant describing.

So how do you spice up your exploration so it doesn’t just feel like a description of the mountains in New Zealand but actually feels like you’re watching Lord of the Rings?

I’ll get into a list coming up here, but I would say that the first thing is, don’t let it just be a few rolls of the dice for navigation or not getting lost in the wilderness. It’s easy to do a survival or nature check and have them navigate and narrate off of that, but that’s going to end up being a little bit of the dungeon master talking. Unless it matters during those times just let them get where they need to go. So how can you spice it up?

1. Unique Locations
2. Unique Challenges
3. Story Driven Locations
4. Explore Non-Nature Locations

1 – Unique Locations

When we think of Lord of the Rings, to go back to that example, places like Helms Deep are interesting to describe, same with the Mirkwood. Describing a generic fantasy setting or a forest or a mountain or some caves, those are fairly dull. Be creative with your locations, if it’s worth describing, it should have some interesting elements. Instead of being in a a forest, make it so that the undersides of the leaves give off a faint glow, so even though it might be night time, the forest floor is never dark. The mountains instead of being jagged peaks off in the distance capped with snow, the lower sections of the mountains are all cliffs, no winding paths leading up them so steep that not even mountain goats would be able to climb them. Or the cave, instead of being black with stalactites and stalagmites in it, the walls are smooth and appear to be polished, you can look into it and see your reflection and things that seem to be moving behind the surface. If you’re going to spend time describing it, make it something memorable.

2 – Unique Challenges

This one is one that I’m not great at yet. When I’m talking about unique challenges, I’m not talking about random encounters, now some of those could be part of the exploration piece, but in the examples above for the unique locations, how can you turn the fact the forest floor is never dark into a challenge? Well, how can the player characters fall asleep? Or to get to the tops of the mountains, you clearly have a some rolls for climbing the cliffs, and do the players even have what they need to do that? Or in the cave, what sort of rolls can the players do, arcana, nature, religion, animal handling, history, to figure out what is going on with the shapes moving behind the surface of the wall? Give them rolls and challenges that are related to the uniqueness of the location that they won’t have to worry about or overcome anywhere else, but they matter here. A great example of that is previous editions, not so much fifth, of the Mournland in Eberron. That was an area of land decimated by some cataclysm. There are living spells roaming that area and healing doesn’t work as effectively as it should. Those are two highly unique things to that area that can create all sorts of challenges, especially the healing one.

3 – Make It About The Story
Really, this could have been rule #1 every time, to make anything more interesting in the game, make it about the story. If the location that they are in isn’t important to the story, don’t spend that much time on it, unless it’s meant to be a challenge for them to get to the proper location for the story, and then the survival itself is part of their story and the story of the place they are going. But if they are wandering through the desert because they happened to take a wrong turn at Albuquerque, that won’t be that exciting exploration as they try and get unlost. Again, there are types of games that this works with, if it is very strong survival, counting everything, and that’s the point of the game and the type of game you want to play, then it is part of the story, but everything is about the exploration and survival. In a lot of games, though, that’s not the case, so when you’re going to spend time on exploration, make it about the story.

4 – Explore Non-Natural Locations

The ruins of an ancient city that was thought long lost, that’s exploring. A mad wizards tower that no one has gone into and ever returned from because it’s so dangerous, that’s exploring. The dungeon under the a castle where there is allegedly great treasure, that is also exploring. All of these were made by someone, in Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Rings, they go through the Mines of Moria. There’s exploration in that as Gandalf tries to remember the way, and there are unique things about it, mainly a Balrog, but also just the drums in the deep, something that’s constantly there and very unique to the location. Yes, there was a cave location to it, but it was mainly dug out and turned into the city that it had been previously by dwarves, and that’s an easy one to steal and drop into your game. The advantage of Non-Natural locations is that nature tends to be big and sweeping, these locations are smaller, they can have a lot more challenges that can’t just be avoided by walking a mile to the west, and you can do a lot to make them very unique. The fact that it is more constricted also makes it easier to tell part of the story in it, because the players won’t have to search for the plot point or accidentally miss it.

So, what are some interesting ways that you can use exploration? Or I think better, what are some interesting locations that you can drop into your game to make for some interesting exploration no matter where you use them.

Swamps of Death

The swamps of death are aptly named because it’s easy to become turned around and lost in them. In fact, there seems to be no real path through them and with a strong stench and a constant haze, it can be quite disorienting. The biggest concern, though, is that if you step off of one of many crossing paths and into the muck itself, it has a glue like tendency that seems to grab you and hold you there. Unless you’re lucky, you’ll get sucked down and under and join the dead below.

An interesting thing for the DM to know but not for the players, is that the players will always have a swarm of crows around them during the day, up in the sky. And it should be fairly obvious as the crows will rest upon dead trees near the players. But the crows, at night, will always fly off towards the nearest edge of the swamp as to not sleep in the swamp. So if the players can manage to survive for several days, they’ll be able to use the crows to navigate out whatever side they want to leave from.

Cole Mines

Artmis Cole was the original owner of the mines. It was said that he was a shrewd business man. He would push everyone hard to get the most out of his mines and for his money. Two hundred years ago, however, there was a collapse in the mines and Cole and twenty of his miners were lost down there with the minerals. It was rumored that Cole had a map on him for another mine, possibly, that would be worth a fortune.

The wall of the mine glow faintly and the PC’s can feel a tingling on their skin when they enter the mine. The mine actually was for a raw material that can more easily be enchanted and turned into magical items, such as weapons, armor, lamps, whatever it might be. However, in the raw for it’s unstable and long exposure to it can be dangerous.

For this, I’d have the player have to figure out where the collapse was, probably fight some twisted versions of Kolbolds, something easy to get down to it, and then they’ll need to excavate to get to Cole. Cole should be dead, but I’d have down with him some twisted version of elves, it’s only been 200 years, but they’ve been exposed to their radiation for a long time and living off of lichen and bugs that can thrive, so something has changed about them.

House on the Hill

I’m stealing this straight from the board game Betrayal at House on the Hill. There is some malevolent spirit that has created a house of horrors that the players can go through and explore. As they explore, they don’t know what room will be next because others who have explored it, the layout is different, just like in the game the layout can change every time. That means that there might be rooms that no one has ever seen that the players will see, but there also might be rooms that someone has explored before and written about that the players would know about.

I think what would be interesting about this location is the blend of rooms that the players know what they need to do to get through it, the question is can they and rooms that the players don’t know what they are and can they figure them out. At some point in time, maybe with something like a bedroom, I’d create one that looks similar to one that they know about so they can assume it’s that, but there’ll be something slightly different that they might not notice and they could try and do the wrong thing in it.

This one, I’d say, would be a little bit more challenging to pull off, I’d personally lean towards writing up some brief notes on the rooms the players know about, a little description, what the challenge is and how to overcome it. Let the players be able to look through that and figure out what rooms they think they are in when you describe the room to them, don’t point them in a direction, that would give the players more of a sense of exploration and discovery.

Now, these are just some ways that I think that exploration could be more interestingly done in Dungeons and Dragons or ways to make it feel special like combat or social interactions often can. What are some memorable moments of exploration that you’ve had in your games?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

In Dark Sun, magic has failed and corrupted everything. Because of this, casters are despised. But it makes sense in a world where the land has been turned into a desert primarily, magic draws from the life force of the world, and things like metal are extremely rare. Characters are going to be fighting with bone, wood, and obsidian, which are all prone to breaking. The same is true for armor, so no one is really ever safe. With all of that, there is still magic in the world in the way of psionics. More of a mental battle, think of the Doctor Strange weird dimensions that they can get into, almost all races and people have some psionic abilities. Ruling over all the lands are the Sorcerer-Kings. They are the only ones who really have a right to cast spells. And they rule with iron fists. Slavery is common in the lands of the Dark Sun setting. If you’re are able bodied and can be grabbed, you can turned into a slave.

Playing in this setting is going to be about the struggle for survival and making small improvements. You’re more apt to be surviving disasters than you are likely to fix the world. Since magic draws life energy, the world is basically lost at this point. Add in that magic, while a thing, is really frowned upon because it got the world to this point. So if you have a spellcaster in your party, they are going to be an outcast of society. Even clerics are going to be looked at oddly because there are no deities in this setting. Clerics gain their powers from making pacts with powerful elementals, not because of their devotion to a certain deity. It gives them more of a warlock flavor while still having the cleric abilities and this hasn’t even been the case in all editions of D&D. In 4th edition (Dark Sun hasn’t been done for fifth yet), cleric was just not a playable race at all in the Dark Sun settings.

The races also change up as well. Most notably, our friendly halflings now live in tribes ruled by shaman and are cannibals. You can still be a halfling, just know what what means for your character. There are a few other races that were introduced into the world. Thri-Kreen are six legged humanoid mantis folk. Their legs/arms and harder skin allow them to more easily adapt to the dangerous lands of Dark Sun. Aarakocra were another race that were introduced. These are your bird humanoids who are able to fly. Beyond that, you can play most of the normal races without any problem just with slight differences. For example, dwarves in basically all settings are known for their beards and beards can be kind of a status symbol, in Dark Sun, they don’t have hair.

What sort of game would you play in this setting? I would think that it’s going to be heavily focused on survival. Maybe you are a band of former slaves who have escaped their owner, possibly even one of the Sorcerer-Kings, and you need to stay alive. This could mean that you need to stay on the run survive long enough to become strong enough to take on whomever is chasing you down. It could be that you are part of a group who believes that the Sorcerer-Kings are the force that is still corrupting the lands and that if you can take out one or two of them, the lands might return and not be such a wasteland. Or maybe you want to do the D&D version of Mad Max: Fury Road. But, in all the cases, it’s going to be about survival, about making or finding weapons so that you’re never out there defenseless, finding food. It’s going to be a game where you track everything, the arrows you’ve lost, the meals you’ve had, because eventually things are going to run out, will you have found more by the time they do, that’s the question.

So, to wrap this up, would I want to play a game in this setting? Sure, I’d be up for it. The survival nature of the game doesn’t sound highly interesting to me, but because of how the world is created so uniquely, it does seem like it would be a more interesting world to play in. I actually think playing a spellcaster would be interesting in the setting, playing a caster who has the power but doesn’t know if they should be casting spells because of it’s negative effect on the life energy in the world. I don’t know that it would be my first choice, but I’d definitely play in it

How about you, would you or have you played in a Dark Sun game?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

However, you don’t have to play a min/maxed character when playing D&D, and I actually think that can lead to some better game play than if you do have min/maxed. The issue with min/maxed character can often lie with them being too good at everything and not having anything unique about them. A skilled player can role play a min/maxed character just fine so that they have depth and are a unique character, but they aren’t going to have as much to over come.

An example of a poorly min/maxed character is Robert Langdon from The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. In the book, he is figuring out all of these puzzles with no problem, he’s able to do fairly athletic things no problem. And for a long time, you don’t really think that he has any flaws. Then he has to get into a small car and you find out that he has claustrophobia, which is then “cured” the next page. Now, this is clearly an example of how not to min/max a character in a story so that you don’t end up removing anything interesting or unique or challenging for them. But the same holds true, in a world of magic and fantasy, when you have a character doesn’t naturally have some flaw, it’s easy to play them without flaw, and often times, without character because of that.

So instead of min/maxing the heck out of your character, you might want to go about creating a character who isn’t the ideal combination of things, but is still effective in the game. This gives them a true weakness and true strength in given situations. Let’s look at our Mountain Dwarf Fighter, the tank/fighter build that we did. Without using anything special, we were able to create a character that was going to be getting a lot of hit points each level and had a lot of armor class from the very early levels. Yes, they were weak-ish to magic, but they were meant more to deal with melee combats, and with their hit points, unless they are being mentally dominated, they are going to be tough to get out of a fight.

There are certainly other ways to bring in flaws and issues to the character for role playing purposes, we didn’t touch on the background items like Personality Traits, Flaws, Bonds, and Ideals, which I’ve done articles on previously. But those are limited to role playing for a character like our tank, and more likely than not, the person playing the tank would be there for the combat more than the social encounters anyways. So those things might be lost on the character sheet.

If, however, you wanted to create a more flawed tank, but still be a tank, you can certainly do that. When we created our tank, we gave them both solid dexterity and strength. The advantage of having both of those solidly stat’ed is that you can get into combat quickly and still hit well. Let’s say instead, for the tank, that they were actually a nerd growing up and loved brewing, keeping the Mountain Dwarf and Fighter in the mix and same equipment, we can just adjust the stats to make it a very different character.

If, instead, we keep the 14 in Constitution because it becomes a 16 with our racial bonuses, so that we still get our +3 to health each level until we hit our first ability score increase, where we can make it a four. Then, instead of doing strength and dexterity, we focus on intelligence and wisdom, we get a very different character. We still have 19 for our armor class and 13 HP at the first level, but we’re now not that great at hitting anything with a lower than average strength, since I put an 8 in there. That becomes a -1 for a modifier, though, we are proficient with the weapon, which gives us a +2 bonus for a +1 bonus overall, the damage output is just going to be bad. Now, you still have a character that can tank and is actually better at dealing with mental domination than our previous one was, but is worse at fighting.

We’ve also created a character with a more unique backstory for role playing purposes. Why are they so good at deflecting punches and hits? Maybe they were bullied as a kid, and they never learned to fight, but instead they developed the skills to take a punch and not be affected by it, and that’s how they dealt with their bullies. That skill then translated well for them when they decided to go out adventuring to learn more about the world and find out information that they don’t know, because they can go around and if something tries to get them, they can still take a punch. That’s more of a unique character that easily comes out of the choices we made in not making a character with their ideal stats.

When you create characters, do you strive for a character that is the ideal at one thing, such as combat or social interactions, or do you seek to create a character with a more interesting story naturally built in?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

An example of this would be a fighter in Dungeons and Dragons who knows that they want to tank. The two primary stats for them are going to be strength and constitution. With more strength, they’ll be able to do more damage on their attacks and be more likely to hit. But constitution for the tank is the biggest thing. Constitution helps bump up hit points and makes it harder for that character to be taken down.

Now, that’s a simple look at what Min/Maxing is in D&D, but it goes beyond that, and there are some reasons to not find it that great in your game. Most of the time it is going to be fine and good if a player does that in the group, the concern is that you have someone min/max into an area that another character is supposed to be better at. Maybe the fighter in our example also puts points into Wisdom and now they are better at perceiving than a class that naturally would want wisdom is, and the fighter is now stepping on the toes of another character. Fighter isn’t a great example for this, but classes that get expertise like Rogue and Bard can have this issue if a player min/maxes over another character specialty.

But let’s look at some of the positive things that can come from it as well. If you are smart about your min/maxing as a party, you can have character who cover all the bases that you want. You can cover attacking, social interactions, sneaking, healing, etc. and be good at all of them because you and the group have min/maxed the skills of the group. This means, you aren’t ever going to feel inadequate when trying to do something, if you are there as a whole group. And, if you are in a combat focused game, everyone can focus on doing more damage and hitting more consistently by min/maxing as well.

I will also add, that if you are min/maxing, it’s good to have the whole group doing it. Sure, one player character can be min/maxed, and that would probably be fine. But if you have four of you at the table and three of you are min/maxing and the other player isn’t because they don’t know how, I’d recommend helping them min/max, or if they don’t want to, don’t fully min/max your own character so they don’t seem like they’ve fallen behind or can’t keep up with the rest of the group. I’ll go back to the saying that I learned from The RPG Academy, “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right”, and that means fun for the whole table.

But let’s talk about how you go about min/maxing a character, because, it can be fun to play that extra powerful character in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. When I go through this, I’m going to be using my fighter example where combat and tanking in combat is their most important thing.

The first thing to look at is what class you want to play. In this case, we know we want to be a tank and we want to hold up well enough in combat. We have a few options, we could do barbarian for their D12 hit die, but the limitations on armor puts the barbarian more into an attacking role, whereas fighter has more armor options can use a shield which will bump that armor class up even more.

With that figured out you want to think about what race you are going to want to take. In our case, we have a couple of different options. The Half-Orc has +2 to strength and +1 to constitution to start with, and that would allow us to create a good combat character. The Mountain Dwarf, however, has +2 to both strength and constitution, which is just better. However, the Half-Orc, in it’s favor, has a trait called “Relentless Endurance” where, when it gets knocked out or down to 0 hit points, once per day, it can go back up to 1 hit point and keep on fighting. That is useful, but I’d prefer the extra hit points that we’ll be getting from the Mountain Dwarf.

Now, going back to the class, we have some features to look at, at the first level. The main one being the fighting style we can get at first level. We have a lot of different option. Protection would be interesting, because we’ll have a shield, but defensive is even better for us, because it gives us a permanent boost to our armor class.

Finally, because background doesn’t give us that much in way of bonus to this fighting min/max build that we’re doing, let’s put our stats together. We’ll use the standard array as not to make it confusing, but that gives us a 15 and a 14 to place. I would place the 15 in constitution, giving us a 17 to start with in that stat, and then a 14 in dexterity, actually, versus strength. The reason for this is that we have a 13, which will give us 15 in strength, but only would have given us a 13 in dexterity. With the 14 in dexterity, it means that our initiative is going to be a +2 instead of +1 for our die rolls, and we still have a +2 to hit, which isn’t bad. It also gives me two odd numbers, so at level four when I get to go up a level, I can take my strength to a 16 and my constitution to a 18, and improve both of those stats to a +3 and a +4 respectively.

But wait, I forgot one last thing, we get our equipment as well. Now, I could have gone shopping for this, but standard equipment works out well for us here. We get chain mail for armor, and we can get a shield that are going to make us hard to hit as well.

So let’s look at some of our key stats. At level 1, we’d have 10+3 HP, so 13 hit points isn’t bad at all, but more importantly, we have an armor class of 19. That is extremely hard to hit. So while, maybe, a lucky hit would be able to take us down, but unless the monster is rolling with a decent modifier to their attack, it’s going to be hard for them to hit us. Our fighter is set to run into the fray, take on attacks and slowly deal damage to the enemies.

And you can do this with any class or any character type that you want, whether it is for combat or not. But should you, that’s the question, I’ll be talking about why you might not want to or why I generally don’t use the most min/maxed characters out there.

How do you play in a video game RPG or D&D? Do you like min/maxing, or have you ever run into an issue with it?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

Everything it gives you really works the best that way. Even your skills such as being able to use a disguise kit really push you towards being a rogue. I think that’s one of the weaknesses of some of these backgrounds, they align too closely with a particular class, and in the case of urchin, I think it’s probably the most glaringly obvious example of a background like that. I personally think the best feature to this background is that you get general knowledge on city planning and layouts. That sounds weird that it is one of the cooler things, but being able to walk into a town, and within a few minutes be able to generally guess the layout, that’s fun.

So what are some non-rogue classes that you can turn into an interesting backstory with this background?

When I was young, I ran away from home to the big city to become part of the circus. It turns out that the circus doesn’t just allow every runaway into their troupe without you having some skill first. I had spent the little money that I’d taken from my parents to get to the city, so I had to start panhandling to try and get money. I must not have been all that good at it because a monastery took pity on me and let me stay at their place. They offered to train me and give me a roof over my head, as long as I continued to earn my way. It was doing some odd jobs around the monastery, and if I wanted more money, I had to continue to panhandle. Soon I’d found my own spot to sleep out in the town and while I stayed working with the monastery for training, I spent my days with the other kids who were earning money on the streets. One day a man came and offered a lot of the kids money to do some work for him. I didn’t really need the extra money and I could always go back to the monastery, so I turned him down. But a lot of kids went with him. He came back a week later and offered the deal again. Then after doing that and getting fewer and fewer takers I saw one of his guards taking kids by force. I realized that the kids he had been taking weren’t coming back either.Now I want to know what has happened to my friends and stop this man.

Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Monk

I was an unwanted child. My parents already had three kids, and apparently I was an accident. I understand why they didn’t want another child, now, thinking back on it. They weren’t able to feed us all, and they had to send out my oldest sibling to work before she was done with her education. I felt like I wasn’t wanted, which I wasn’t, and even though my parents and siblings said that they loved me, I didn’t feel it. I ran away from home, just into the city we were in. I was hopeful that I’d be able to find someone who wanted me. I wasn’t able to do that, so I just hung out and begged for money or scraps of food. It was a horrible lifestyle, but I refused to go back to my family if they really didn’t want me. I heard from other urchins that they had tried to find me for a little bit, but given up assuming I’d been kidnapped. Eventually I felt bad, but instead of going back, I started going to where my oldest sister was a kitchen help. It was a school that taught magic. So I’d sit along the side of the building, listening to my sister work in the kitchen. But then I heard something more interesting. It was a classroom that had it’s windows open near the kitchen. Soon I was sitting under that window learning about the theories of wizardry. I was so curious that I bought a little notebook and started writing down what they were teaching. It took me forever practicing in back alleys, but eventually I was able to cast a spell. One day I realized that my sister hadn’t come to the kitchen for a few days, so I went off to look for my family, just to make sure they were all right. There had been a fire in the poor district of town and their house had burned down, but according to some people they hadn’t been killed. I decided it was time to return home, and I realized how much I missed seeing my sister every day so now I’m looking through the town to find where they might have gone.

Alignment: Neutral Neutral/Chaotic Neutral/Lawful Neutral
Class: Wizard

The under city is a place that no respectable person goes. Thankfully for everyone, I’m not a respectable person. My horns show that I’ve been demon marked and therefore I am bad. I wasn’t really given a choice in that, people always told me that I was a monster. Things down in the under city are even terrible for me. I don’t get enough food, and I have to scavenge what I can. There was a plague that’s broken out down here before, and I barely escaped with my life. In fact, when I got sick, everyone left me for dead, because the plague always killed. A kind doctor came to me and said that if I were willing to help him in the future, he’d be able to help me. I agreed because I didn’t want to die. I didn’t realize what I had done though. A few months later he came asking me to burn down a temple. Now, I’m not very religious, but burning down a temple seemed like a bad idea.  I told him no, but he insisted and my plague came back to me, and I felt my body withering away again. I promised again to help him and burned down the temple that night. Now I need to find a more permanent solution to my illness because I don’t want to do more like that.

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Class: Warlock
Race: Tiefling

The worst thing that can ever happen to a dwarf is that they are made casteless. It doesn’t happen often because you have to do something very wrong. That’s what I did, something very wrong. I was part of a raiding party out in the  mines fighting off a band of Drow who were coming up from the underdark. Things were going poorly for us, but as a dwarf you never leave a comrade behind. I was scared though, so I took off running and left left the four remaining members of my troop fighting. They were able to kill off enough drow to drive them back, but when they came back and found me hiding, my warrior caste was removed and I was sent down into the slums as a casteless. I want to return to where I was before, but you have to do something heroic and I don’t think I can do that on my own.

Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Fighter
Race: Dwarf

There are some ideas for playing an urchin who wasn’t a rogue. What have you done for an urchin backstory before? Have you played a character where them being an urchin was an important part of it?

This also wraps up the D&D backgrounds, I hope that you’ve enjoyed them.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

The World of Dungeons and Flagons!

Our players are:

Ashley – Nimrose the Wood Elf Monk

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Finja the Human Paladin

Clint – Tate the Halfling Bard & Torin the Half-Orc Druid

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

You can find us on iTunes

Or on Stitcher

Reviews help with the algorithms that allow more people to find our show. Every review you give helps, and we thank you for them! We have three reviews currently on iTunes; once we get five, we’ll be able to see them, and properly thank those who have given us reviews.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

We are trying a new thing with Amazon Links. If you’re interested in what we talked about in our articles or used for the podcast, please consider making a purchase through our links. Purchases help support our website and offset our costs. Thanks!

[amazon_link asins=’0786965606′ template=’ProductGrid’ store=’nerdologists-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’af579ac7-db9a-11e7-961e-c1f10fdecb87′]

[amazon_link asins=’0786965614′ template=’ProductGrid’ store=’nerdologists-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’be4d6923-db9a-11e7-86f1-679651c3e2ab’]