If you’re lucky enough to have a tabletop gamer to buy for this holiday season, we’ve found the perfect presents for them—including the most popular new games, incredible gifts for Dungeon Masters and Dungeon & Dragons players, and even a game designed to get you outside to literally touch grass.

And if you’re the tabletop gamer? Give someone one of these picks from our Holiday Gift Guide and you’ll immediately have someone to play with! Win-win.

The Deck of Many Things

The Deck of Many Things is a D&D magic item so legendary that most Dungeon Masters shudder when they hear its name. (Or they cackle, which is much worse.) Just in time for the holiday season, The Deck of Many Things is now available as a gorgeous gift set with updated rules, a 66-card deck (which includes the 22 classic cards), its own supplement guide for incorporating the reimagined deck into your game, and more.

Dungeon Masters will love its ability to create adventures on the fly complete with traps and puzzles; D&D players will find new character backgrounds, spells, and star-signs inside. ($99.99, available digitally on November 14 with the physical copy release date TBD)

Disney Lorcana

Lorcana is a Disney-themed trading card game that’s taking the tabletop by storm! While the first starter sets quickly sold out, more are on the way to stores everywhere. Rise of the Floodborn, the second chapter of the game, is due out in December.

In Lorcana, players take the role of Illumineers and use character and item cards to collect 20 lore and win the game. This trading card game is easier to learn than most, but still encourages thought-out strategy and card collecting. And have you seen some of the art? Pick this up for the Disney or TCG fan in your life, and be sure to grab a starter pack for yourself while you’re at it. (2 players, Ages 8+, $5.99-$49.99)

Linkee

Part trivia, part lateral thinking, and part party game, Linkee is the perfect gift for the social butterfly in your life. (It also has two-player rules if your gift recipient prefers to cocoon at home.) Each Linkee card features four short trivia questions. Players remember the trivia answers as they’re revealed, and once they see the connection between them, they shout, “Linkee!” The first team to successfully find the common link for the answers wins the card.

Work together as a team to find the connection and earn bragging rights for eternity. Well, maybe until the next game night. (2+ players, Ages 12+, $8.45)

Magic: The Gathering – Doctor Who

All we really have to say is “Doctor Who Magic cards” and you’ll know immediately who to give this to for the holidays. But, if you need a little more info, we have you covered. The new official “Universes Beyond” set features gorgeous art of 13 Doctors and their companions. These cards with Doctor Who-themed mechanics are now available to join the Magic lineup.

Choose your gift recipient’s favorite Doctor to find the perfect 100 card Magic: The Gathering – Doctor Who Commander Deck, and allons-y! (2 players, Ages 13+, $59.99)

Nine Arches

Nine Arches might be designed like a tabletop card game, but it’s intended to take you and your friends and family away from the table. The game includes a 54-card deck similar to tarot cards that are used to choose your next adventure. Cards feature activities like “dance party,” “caravan,” and “ghost.” With the drawn cards and input from each player, the group adventure’s is talked out. Will you do the activities all at once? One at a time? It’s up to you and the group. Then you’re all off on a real-life journey based on the prompts on the cards!

If your recipient is the type who appreciates experiences instead of plain gifts, you’ll wow them with this one. (1-5 players, Ages 13+, $34.99)

Potion Pack – Cantrip Candles

Whether your lucky gift recipient is a fan of tabletop role-playing games or video game RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3, this three-candle set from Cantrip Candles will be met with delight when it’s unwrapped. The Potion Pack comes as a lovely gift set of 10 ounce soy wax candles in decorated glass containers.

The Health Potion, Stamina Potion, and Magicka Potion candles are sure to heal and reenergize any weary adventurers (or office workers) who lights them. And how can you pass up the opportunity to give someone a container labeled “Dragon’s Blood”? ($80.00)

The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons

Do you remember being a kid and re-reading your favorite book so many times you had every page memorized? This is your chance to give the youngest Dungeons & Dragons or fantasy fan in your life that same experience!

The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons is exactly what it says on the cover: an imaginative, in-depth look at the dragons that populate the D&D setting of Dragonlance. Written in-character by the kender Sindri Suncatcher, this guide to dragons is packed with personality—along with, you guessed it, lots of dragons. Dragon facts, dragon stories, dragon lair maps, it’s all here. Your lucky gift recipient will spend hours staring at the gorgeous art alone. ($39.95)

Sea Salt & Paper

The stocking stuffer-sized card game Sea Salt & Paper is a delightful set collecting game with a dash of luck to keep things exciting. Collect and play pairs of cards to score points and use their effects to earn even more points. If the player thinks they have enough points in hand, they can call for the end of the round or give everyone one last chance to try to beat them for bonus points. Reach the necessary number of victory points to win the game!

Not only does each card feature charming and original origami art, Sea Salt & Paper includes bold icons so that colorblind players aren’t excluded from the fun. (2-4 players, Ages 8+, $14.95)

Kelly Knox is a pop culture writer and the author of Star Wars Conversation Cards, Be More Obi-Wan, and the upcoming Star Wars Dad Jokes. You can still find her on Twitter at @kelly_knox.

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The Halloween 2023 episode of Critical Role brought joy to the hearts of many fans, as it featured a brand new title sequence. Fans were surprised to see the Bells Hells adventuring party, now rendered in stunning animation. We learned (via Comic Book Resources) that the new title sequence paid homage in different ways to each of the character’s backstories, and had shout-outs to current campaigns. You can watch the full title sequence for the Halloween episode of Critical Role below. After the title sequence ends, you can see the Critical Role cast actually react to seeing it for the first time.

In this year’s Halloween episode, the Critical Role cast wore costumes based on the Lord of the Rings characters. In the actual episode, we witnessed the Bells Hells return to Whitestone. There, they crossed paths with several iconic Vox Machina characters. The special animated credits came courtesy of Kamille Areopagita, Kevin Areopagita, Mark Adams, and Peggy Shi. Critical Role’s Mighty Nein campaign also showcased a fan-favorite animated intro. And ever since, Critical Role fans have wanted to see the Bells Hells get some animated love too. And now, their wish has come true.

This latest version of Campaign 3’s opening title sequence is the third one overall. And so far, every version has had the theme song “It’s Thursday Night,” sung by the cast, in some form. One version of Campaign 3’s opening introduction had the cast dressing up as explorers. Versions without all the fantasy trappings. Meanwhile, another had Bells Hells rotoscoped in watercolor style. We highly doubt the Halloween episode of Critical Role is the last time we’ll see an animated opening sequence. The Bells Hells will return in both their animated and live-action character forms on Thursdays in November at 7 PT, on Twitch and YouTube.

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The world of Dungeons & Dragons is impossibly rich. And that’s before everyone comes to the table and builds on it with their imaginations. The tabletop roleplaying game has continued to evolve with every edition. Dungeons & Dragons‘ fifth edition debuted in 2014, and in recent years, the game’s success has ballooned. A new book, Lore & Legends: A Visual Celebration of the Fifth Edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, and Sam Witwer, delves into the art and history of D&D‘s Fifth Edition. We have an exclusive look at early character sketches featured in this Dungeons & Dragons book.

This spread of sketches shows off some of Dungeons & Dragons‘ most iconic dangers. We have a look at the deadly gelatinous cube from Conceptopolis (which also made an appearance in the recent Dungeons & Dragons movie). Below the cube are hook horror concepts from Cory Trego-Erdner. Then there’s a glimpse of a fresh owlbear look from artist Brynn Metheney. But my absolute favorite sketch on this page is the wereshark. That expression! Those teeth! Dungeons & Dragons rules.

The Lore & Legends synopsis is as follows:

When the reimagined fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons debuted in the summer of 2014, the game was on the brink of obsolescence. But within a few short years, D&D found greater success than it had ever enjoyed before, even surpassing its 1980s golden age. How did an analog game nearly a half century old become a star in a digital world? For the first time, Lore & Legends reveals the incredible ongoing story of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition from the perspective of the designers, artists, and players who bring it to life. This comprehensive visual guide illuminates contemporary D&D—its development, evolution, cultural relevance, and popularity—through exclusive interviews and more than 900 pieces of artwork, photography, and advertising curated and analyzed by the authors of the bestselling and Hugo Award–nominated Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana.

Lore & Legends: A Visual Celebration of the Fifth Edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game arrives on shelves on October 3. And if you can wait until November 28, you can get a special edition of the book. This edition comes with an adventure map, a custom d20, and even a pull-out drawer that doubles as a dice tray. Get all the details on the Lore & Legends special edition here.

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Honestly, this D&D game just had to happen. It was too good of an opportunity to miss. Baldur’s Gate 3 has taken the gaming world by storm, and, of course, it owes a lot of its gameplay mechanics to Dungeons & Dragons. The characters can even officially join any Dungeons & Dragons campaign. So it only made sense for there to be a major Dungeons & Dragons game celebrating Baldur’s Gate 3. And what better way to do it than to gather the voice actors of Baldur’s Gate 3‘s major characters around the table? High Rollers DnD made these dreams come true. And you can come along for the ride. Below is the full Dungeons & Dragons game played by the voice actors who give life to Baldur’s Gate 3‘s Origin characters.

The Baldur’s Gate 3 voice cast sat down for a real game of Dungeons & Dragons. That means nearly five hours of gameplay for us to watch. But for Baldur’s Game 3 fans, it’s a huge treat… Especially if you’re really in love with whoever it is you are romancing. There are hours of content in Baldur’s Gate 3, and probably some scenes you haven’t even discovered yet. But can there really ever be enough of your fav to go around?

The description for this special D&D one-shot gives the short version of what you can expect from these hours of dice rolling. It notes, “All 6 Origin Characters from Baldur’s Gate 3 join High Rollers to play a game of D&D for the first time EVER! When Tav gets hit by a powerful spell it’s up to Astarion, Gale, Karlach, Shadowheart, Wyll, and Lae’zell to gear up and save the day!”

We’re sure they’ll save the day. Although, many things will go awry as they always do both in Dungeons & Dragons and in Baldur’s Gate 3. In all honesty, we’d really like to see more of our fictional favs extending their canons in Dungeons & Dragons games… But for now, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the perfect place to start.

Featured Image: High Rollers DnD

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Everyone knows you can’t put a price tag on a dragon. They’re magical fire creatures of grace and power few foes can oppose. Having even one of them to call your own is invaluable. At least that’s true in fantasy worlds where they own the sky. In our own realm dragons don’t really exist. (We’re like 99% sure they don’t.) Ironically that means you can put a dollar sign on them, because the only way to get one is from a store. And a beautiful new one from WizKids which brings to life a little baby Dungeons & Dragons Red Wyrmling comes with a big price tag.

The new D&D Replicas Of The Realms: Red Dragon Wyrmling Foam Figure celebrates the RPG’s 50th anniversary by recreating one of the game’s most visually striking figures. But this new collectible doesn’t show the flying leviathan at the height of its powers. This isn’t the beast you normally have to roll to beat. This figure is based on the creature’s earliest days. This young version of Dungeons & Dragons‘ Red Dragon Wyrmling appears as an adorable baby. Instead of bathing enemies in flames, he looks eager to eat some chicken nuggets or play peekaboo with his mama.

The Wyrmling figure might be of a small child dragon, but it’s not small. This D&D creature figure measures just a shade under two-and-a-half feet. It’s also, strangely enough, pretty safe to have around actual babies. It’s “made of sturdy, lightweight foam and hand-painted to show off every tooth, scale, and claw in incredible detail.”

What’s not tiny about this delightful item is how much it costs. You can pre-order your Red Dragon Wyrmling Foam Figure now for $649.99. With a price tag like that, hopefully, your coin purse has a few gold coins at the bottom you forgot about. For those who do, this baby dragon should arrive at your home sometime in the spring of 2024. Until then, start stocking up on foam nuggets.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is probably your new favorite game. It’s breaking records on Steam, and just about everyone is talking about it, from hardcore gamers to folks just hearing about it through all of its buzz. The magic of Baldur’s Gate 3 truly lies in how it combines the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons gameplay with the brilliant graphics and immersive worlds of video games. But if D&D is what brought you to Baldur’s Gate 3 in the first place, we have good news for you. You can now complete the feedback loop and bring Baldur’s Gate 3 back to your favorite tabletop with official Dungeons and Dragons digital dice and character sheets from D&D Beyond.

D&D Beyond shares more about the Baldur’s Gate 3 characters you can claim. It notes:

Bring the magic of Baldur’s Gate 3 to your D&D campaign with promotional dice and a collection of downloadable character sheets for companions like Shadowheart and Astarion. Will you find lasting love on your adventures, or just adversity? Only the dice can say!

In addition to Shadowheart and Astarion, you can also download the rest of the six Origin companions. That is Gale, Lae’zel, Wyll, and Karlach all have character sheets ready to go. The Baldur’s Gate 3 character sheets faithfully recreate the game’s characters to fit perfectly into your next campaign. For example, Wyll’s charisma is through the roof. Meanwhile, Shadowheart’s wisdom can’t be beat. And Lae’zel, well, we wouldn’t want to cross her in battle. And, although stats are important in a D&D game, our favorite parts of these Baldur’s Gate 3 character sheets are the backstory sections. Not to mention, we love the gorgeous illustrations accompanying this wealth of information. Of course, we also love a pair of free digital dice. Who doesn’t?

These Baldur’s Gate 3 characters can become your next in-game character, or they can enter the Dungeons & Dragons world as NPCs. Perhaps they can meet up with some of the characters from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in there D&D forms. It would make for a fun campaign crossover.

To get these Baldur’s Gate 3 Dungeons & Dragons assets, simply claim them from D&D Beyond. The character sheets and dice are free for all.

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You never know who, or what, you’ll meet in Exandria. Maybe a fearsome creature. Perhaps a shady noble. Or if you’re lucky, the Shadow Baker. The Critical Role elf pastry baker, whose name is actually Ephred, is wildly charismatic and smells of baked goods. He keeps a number of pastry options tucked away in the inner pockets of his cloak. Give this strong connection to food, it was probably a given that Exquisite Exandria: The Official Cookbook of Critical Role would include a Shadow Baker recipe. We have an exclusive peek at the Shadow Baker’s pocket muffins and blackberry compound butter. We’re drooling.

Introduced in Critical Role‘s third campaign, the Shadow Baker is an NPC voiced by Matthew Mercer. This recipe is just one of 60 from the book. The Official Cookbook of Critical Role is written by Liz Marsham with recipes by Jesse Szewczyk, Susan Vu, and Amanda Yee, and a foreword by Quyen Tran and Sam Riegel. In its pages you’ll find food and drinks from across Exandria.

Muffins of the Shadow Baker

The Lantern Spire is the first stop for many visitors to Jrusar, being the only way into the city on foot. Once there, you’ll find crowded streets winding up and around the spire toward the ever-burning light of the Prakash Pyre that gives the spire its name. If you ignore those streets, though, and find a way inside the spire, you could find yourself at the Elder’s Post grey market.* If you are lucky, you might come across Ephred, the master pastry chef known as the Shadow Baker. And if you are very lucky, the pockets of his cloak might still contain some delightful treats to buy.

Few among us are so lucky,** so we have attempted to re-create two of the Shadow Baker’s muffins for the home cook. Beginning with the same batter, they then diverge into savory and sweet options. The savory muffin has sausage and potato, while the sweet is topped with cinnamon sugar crumble and served with the Shadow Baker’s signature blackberry citrus butter.

*You could also find yourself extremely disoriented or extremely robbed. Proceed with caution.

**But if you are, please say hi for us! We are big Shadow Baker fans here at Exquisite Exandria.

Shadow Baker’s Pocket Muffins

MAKES 24 MUFFINS
PREP TIME: 40 minutes
COOK TIME: 25 minutes

Cinnamon and Brown Sugar Streusel Topping
½ cup / 70g flour
½ cup (1 stick) / 113g cold unsalted butter, grated
¼ cup / 50g packed light brown sugar
¼ cup / 50g granulated sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Corn Muffin Batter
1 cup / 140g all-purpose flour
1 cup / 140g fine-grain cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup / 240ml buttermilk
2 eggs
½ cup (1 stick) / 113g unsalted butter, melted
⅓ cup / 65g granulated sugar

Savory Breakfast Muffins
4 ounces / 115g breakfast sausage, cooked and crumbled
8 small purple potatoes, small diced and parboiled (see Note)
1 cup / 128g shredded Cheddar cheese
Blackberry Compound Butter (recipe follows), for serving

Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C and line two twelve-cup muffin pans with muffin liners.

To make the cinnamon and brown sugar streusel topping: In a medium bowl, add the flour, grated butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon. Using your hands, scrunch the ingredients together until crumbles form. Do not scrunch too long, or the butter will melt. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Prepare the corn muffin batter: In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and granulated sugar until well incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and stir until a thick batter forms.

Scoop half of the batter evenly into 12 of the muffin liners and top with the streusel.

To make the Savory Breakfast Muffins: Mix the sausage, potatoes, and ½ cup of the shredded cheese into the remaining corn batter and scoop into the remaining 12 muffin liners. Top these savory muffins with the remaining ½ cup of shredded cheese.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the batter is completely cooked and the cheese is brown and bubbly around the edges of the savory muffins. Serve the muffins with the Blackberry Compound Butter alongside.

NOTE: To parboil potatoes, boil them in salted water until they are no longer crunchy, but still a bit firm in the center, 5 to 6 minutes.

Blackberry Compound Butter
MAKES ½ CUP
½ cup (1 stick) / 113g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons blackberry jam
Zest of 1 small orange

To make the blackberry compound butter: While the muffins are cooking, add the butter, blackberry jam, and orange zest to a small bowl. Using an electric or handheld mixer, mix on low until well incorporated and the butter takes on a purplish hue, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a small serving dish and serve with the streusel muffins.

Reprinted from Exquisite Exandria: The Official Cookbook of Critical Role. © 2023 by Gilmore’s Glorious Goods LLC. Published by Random House Worlds, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Illustration by Adrián Ibarra Lugo.

Exquisite Exandria: The Official Cookbook of Critical Role arrives on shelves on August 29. You can place a preorder now.

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There’s a whole lot of advice on how to be a great Dungeon Master out there, but not a lot on how to be a great Dungeons & Dragons player. Having an awesome DM helps, but players have so much power to make the game come to life and be amazing. No DM can do it without players (otherwise it’d be called writing a novel). So how can you be the best Dungeons & Dragons player possible? Consider these tips.

Before the Game

Be a good person.

Wil Wheaton’s Law: “Don’t be a dick.” You’re all friends here, and you should treat them that way. Don’t forget that the DM is your friend, too. They aren’t out to get you, even if it might seem like it sometimes. Is the roleplaying getting too heated and it looks like people are getting angry in Real Life? Take a step back and assess: are we still having fun?

Make friends with your gaming buddies.

Gamers in school don’t have to worry about this one as much; odds are your gaming group is already made up of close friends. But if you’re not, try and put in the effort to get to know your party members.

Make your DM’s life easier.

A good DM is more precious than gold. If you don’t know why, ask your DM how much they do to prep for the campaign, schedule game nights, get snacks… the list goes on. How can you give back? Look for little things you can do for the DM, things like showing up right on time, bringing snacks of your own (or offering to pay them back for food), and even taking over little tasks during the game, like tracking initiative. If you’re an artistic person, you might even want to make drawings, short stories, or songs about your campaign. Everyone (everyone!) loves fan art.

One cool, low-intensity artistic thing you can do is to create custom initiative tents for your party members! The players always get to see them, and they serve a functional purpose.

Learn the rules.

You don’t have to know the rules backwards and forwards—but if you only have time to learn the rules that pertain to your own character, that makes a world of difference. As long as you don’t become a rules lawyer or start being a jerk about it, your encyclopedic knowledge will be helpful.

Build characters that play well with others.

So, your character has a great personality. Awesome, that’s step one! But take a second look at your new alter-ego. Is your character a brooding lone wolf who sits smoking in the shadows of the tavern? They might have a tough time fitting into the team. Is your character a cowardly peasant who wants to hide from every fight? It might be funny for a bit, but the joke’s gonna get old fast. 

During the Game

Find the fun.

We keep coming back to this “fun” thing. It’s because D&D and other RPGs are roleplaying games. While you don’t have to be riding the joy train to Funtown the entire time (a little bit of frustration can actually increase enjoyment in the long run), don’t torture yourself over this game with elves and wizards. If you’re not having fun, ask yourself why. Can you start having fun without ruining someone else’s fun? Yes? Do it. No? Be patient, but also be willing to talk it out IRL if the not-fun goes on for too long.

Don’t build dice towers.

Please.

Help speed up the game.

A game that drags is boring. It’s not called Dungeons & Drag-ons, people! (…I’ll show myself out.) We talked earlier about how sometimes frustration can be a good thing sometimes, but this isn’t one of those times. The next tips elaborate on this idea, giving examples of how you might speed up play at the table.

Stay invested.

Or, “pay attention when it’s not your turn.” Telling people to pay attention sounds condescending, but we all get distracted sometimes. And getting distracted is okay, but try to make sure your focus always comes back to what your friends are doing. They’re trying to be awesome, badass fantasy heroes, they want people to notice how cool they are! Also, having to ask “what just happened?” all the time slows the game to a crawl.

Know how you want to act.

Or, “don’t make people wait around for you to figure out what to do in a fight scene!” If you’re playing a Wizard or another class with complex powers, figuring out how your spells work on the fly is a huge task that requires a lot of time spent digging through the Player’s Handbook. An easy way to avoid putting a moratorium on gameplay is to figure out what you want to do while other people are taking their turn! You’ll feel more confident when you take your turn because you’re prepared and the game keeps moving. It’s a win-win! 

What’s the takeaway of all this? Long story short, take it easy, be proactively kind and helpful, and make sure that your fun isn’t infringing on anyone else’s. Or in other words, live and let live. Unless there are monsters involved. Those guys gotta die.

Originally published on April 7, 2016.

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Intimidating and powerful, the sphinx Osysa had quite the run-in with Vox Machina in season two of The Legend of Vox Machina. Based on Critical Role‘s first campaign, the show follows the unlikely group of adventurers as they quest around Exandria. Osysa puts the heroes to the test, but she eventually sets them on an interesting path. And when Vox Machina encounters Osysa’s mate, Kamaljiori, Scanlan plays him a song about Osysa. Listen to the exclusive track premiere of “Song for Osysa” from The Legend of Vox Machina: Season 2 Soundtrack below.

Sam Riegel (Scanlan) performs with Alanna Ubach (Osysa) and Mr. Fantastic. It’s a beautiful song—a rare one from Scanlan that doesn’t turn into something more ribald.

The album features the score by Neal Acree along with several Scanlan originals. Riegel said in a statement:

Season Two of The Legend of Vox Machina took everything to the next level – so we knew the music had to match. From wild road songs to epic love ballads and face-melting thrash metal, the Scanlan tracks were so much fun to write. And I’m so happy we got to include vocals from other members of the cast. Turns out Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, and even Travis Willingham can sing!

The Legend of Vox Machina: Season 2 Soundtrack track list is as follows:

1. Lemme Catch You Up – Sam Riegel, Mr. Fantastic
2. Dragonfall – Neal Acree
3. The Fall of Emon – Neal Acree
4. To Vasselheim – Neal Acree
5. The Wrath of the Chroma Conclave – Neal Acree
6. The Outhouse (End Credits) – Sam Riegel, Mr. Fantastic
7. Vasselheim – Neal Acree
8. Temple of the Stormlord – Neal Acree
9. The Slayer’s Take – Neal Acree
10. Where Do You Find Your Strength? – Neal Acree
11. Makin’ My Way – Sam Riegel, Ashley Johnson, Mr. Fantastic
12. Do Not Go Far From Me – Neal Acree
13. The Matron of Ravens – Neal Acree
14. Hail The New Champion – Neal Acree
15. Road, Road – Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham
16. Wind – Neal Acree
17. Pass Through Fire – Neal Acree
18. The Blessing of Pyrah – Neal Acree
19. Song For Osysa – Sam Riegel, Alanna Ubach, Mr. Fantastic
20. Song For Osysa (End Credits) – Mr. Fantastic
21. Spore Trip – Neal Acree
22. The Herd of Storms – Neal Acree
23. I Would Like To Rage – Neal Acree
24. We All Rage – Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham, Mr. Fantastic
25. Finishing Move – Neal Acree
26. Strongjaw – Neal Acree
27. When The Bald Man Cries (End Credits) – Sam Riegel, Aisling Franciosi, Mr. Fantastic
28. Leia – Neal Acree
29. Threads of Fate – Neal Acree
30. Lightning In Your Face! – Sam Riegel, Mr. Fantastic
31. Leap of Faith – Neal Acree
32. The Hope Devourer – Neal Acree
33. Scanlan’s Destiny – Neal Acree
34. Epilogue – Neal Acree
35. Makin’ My Way (End Credits) – Laura Bailey, Mr. Fantastic

The Legend of Vox Machina: Season 2 Soundtrack is available digitally on June 2 from Lakeshore Records.

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As Wizards of the Coast works toward updating the Fifth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2024, public playtesting plays its own critical role. For years Wizards has used feedback from “Unearthed Arcana,” the moniker given to the playtesting materials offered to D&D players, as a metric for future development of the TTRPG. The D&D design team shared insights at a recent press event about how influential survey results from Unearthed Arcana can be, and how that feedback has already affected the 2024 updates for the core books.

Wizards regularly offers playtest materials for specific areas of the game they wish to focus on. Player’s Handbook is the current focus for Unearthed Arcana, a.k.a. “UA,” as of the writing of this article. (Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual will have their turns in the near future.) Wizards of the Coast is offering a free download of rules for testing weapons and spells, along with a new glossary and more. After a pre-announced amount of time, Wizards invites players to submit a survey about their experiences using the rules in playtesting. It’s much more important than you might expect.

“The ​​Unearthed Arcana survey is the primary way we can dig into what people have written in a very systematic way,” said D&D Game Design Architect Jeremy Crawford. 

The D&D design team looks for a 70% satisfaction rating by UA players for officially adding playtested changes to the game. That means no matter how much Crawford and fellow Game Design Architect Christopher Perkins might personally like a rule or mechanic update, they said, if it doesn’t reach that 70% it won’t make it into the 2024 update of core books.

The Ardling as a new playable species, for example, didn’t pass muster during the Unearthed Arcana phase. It only garnered the satisfaction of “little more than half” of players surveyed, Crawford said. A change that made rolling a 1 or a natural 20 guarantee automatic failure or success respectively also didn’t make it past UA playtesting. Neither change received enough approval in the survey to make the official leap into the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

Once a design feature or mechanic does reach that crucial 70%, it doesn’t mean the work on it is complete. The Dungeons & Dragons team keeps iterating on and improving the design until it’s ready to officially become part of the game.

With measurable data and feedback, Crawford said, he and his team can see not only the results as a snapshot of recent playtesting, but also track longtime trends as players change the way they play the game. “The survey is like a collage collected over years to see cycles of popularity,” he said.

Digital toolset D&D Beyond, which joined Wizards of the Coast in 2022, gives the design team even more data about characters and beyond. Rangers have a reputation for being unpopular, Crawford recalled as one example. However, class ranking data on D&D Beyond says otherwise. Druid and monk are actually the least created classes, he revealed.

“Fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard are almost always in the top four classes,” Crawford said. (Warlock once enjoyed a nice stint in the top four.)

While quantitative data in the Unearthed Arcana surveys are one of the primary sources Wizards looks at while developing the biggest update to D&D in 10 years, the designers also consider comments in the UA feedback, along with social media reactions and more. “Sales are another factor,” added executive producer Kyle Brinks. 

If you’re ready to get in on the playtesting action to make your voice heard, it’s happening now on D&D Beyond. Wizard plans staggered release updates to the core rulebooks in 2024.

Kelly Knox (she/her) is a Seattle-area author and entertainment writer who also contributes to StarWars.com, DCComics.com, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk about just about everything pop culture.

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The familiar black and red Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition books are going to look very different in 2024! Wizards of the Coast is currently working on updating the core books of the roleplaying game: the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. These wide-ranging changes are not part of a new “sixth” edition of the game. This means the rule updates will be 100% compatible with all the 5e content you already own.

Popularly called “One D&D,” although that’s not the official name, the 2024 rules update has an easy-to-remember guiding principle: your table, your way. One of the initiative’s overall goals is updating the quality of play for both players and Dungeons Masters so that Dungeons & Dragons is more accessible than ever. 

At a recent press event, the D&D team talked about what’s in the works for the 2024 update, their goals for the most significant changes since 2014, and what you can expect when you have the new books in your hands. 

Player’s Handbook

D&D Game Design Architects Jeremy Crawford and Christopher Perkins were on hand to give Nerdist a sneak peek at the current state of the rules. They revealed that the 2024 Player’s Handbook (PHB) features 12 classes, 48 subclasses, and over 144 origin options, as well as new feat, spell, and weapon options. 

Class will be the first decision a player makes during character creation in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Next is origin, the heart of character creation. “Race,” like human, half-orc, or elf, is now known as “species” and players will pick this after the character class. Then players choose a background with ability score bonuses and a first level feat, their alignment, and their languages. All together these characteristics craft a character’s origin. 

“We’re giving people more tools than they ever had before to flesh out who their character was before becoming an adventurer, and who they will be going forward,” said Crawford.

The handbook redistributes subclasses so that each main class has four subclasses. The wizard and cleric will have fewer subclasses to make room for those of other classes, noted Crawford, but anything removed from the 2014 PHB is still officially playable in Fifth Edition. 

Not only is the team going over the text on every page of the original core books with a fine-toothed comb, but the art inside the books has also been a big focus.

“We want it to be a dazzling visual experience,” Crawford said. The updated artwork will include some aspects of the game that haven’t been illustrated in the PHB before, like certain locations, named characters, all classes and subclasses, and the equipment characters can buy.

The D&D team is working to ensure the PHB and the other core books feel like they’re inviting everyone to the table. “[We want to] represent as broad a range of humanity as possible,” said Crawford, “[and] go even further than we did the 2014 rule book in showing the glorious richness of humanity.”

Dungeon Master’s Guide

As for the 2024 Dungeons Master’s Guide, Perkins said, “[The goal is to be] a useful, practical guide for all Dungeon Masters and an indispensable part of their game.” They reorganized the entire book with a different layout from the 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG), with an emphasis on making it as easy as possible to find what you’re looking for.

The 2024 DMG will address common questions that Dungeon Masters previously had to scour the internet to find answers for. Some of them include, “How do I start finding players? How do I compete with Dungeon Masters I’ve seen online? How do I avoid discomfort at the table? How do I deal with a TPK or character death? How do I build a campaign or adventure? How much of the rules do I actually need to know?”

More magic items than the 2014 DMG, a glossary, an expanded appendix of maps, player handouts, and more will make the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide an invaluable source of guidelines and inspiration for any D&D game.

Monster Manual

The 2024 Monster Manual will be a treasure trove of baddies, about 500 in total, estimated Crawford and Perkins. All 2014 monsters are back along with new foes, including monsters with high Challenge Ratings like a CR 20 ooze and an Arch-Hag. (Not even dragons want to mess with an Arch-Hag!) 

The 2024 Manual won’t have any CR changes to existing monsters. Any adventures using them are unaffected, added the D&D team. However, some may receive mechanical adjustments to make sure their CR is correct. All stat blocks will be updated to make them easier to use and to add some “spice.”

The core Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition rulebooks will have a staggered release in 2024. Want to make sure your voice is heard about the upcoming D&D rules update? Find out more about Unearthed Arcana and the power of playtesting.

Kelly Knox (she/her) is a Seattle-area author and entertainment writer who also contributes to StarWars.com, DCComics.com, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk about just about everything pop culture.

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Players have a lot of decisions to make when they put together a Dungeons & Dragons character. Spell choices, weapon choices and where to put ability scores influence how a character comes together mechanically. But what about the fictional side of the character? In Dungeons & Dragons, the Background choice offers some mechanical support for what a character was like before they became an adventurer, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. A character with a good background can give a Dungeon Master several wonderful ways to hook a character into dashing into danger.

A useful background doesn’t have to be a full-fledged biography about a character’s life before first level. Most serial stories take their time to spool out juicy bits of background info as the story unfolds. Sometimes it makes more sense to leave specific elements open so that what happens in the game can inform details. This series of articles offers five background questions for Dungeons & Dragons classes that a player can answer with a few short sentences whenever they want (yes, we’ll be doing one for each class). Players can answer these questions ahead of the first Dungeons & Dragons session, or DMs can facilitate this character building exercise with a session zero.

Ask these questions build your cleric’s backstory.

How Did You Know You Were Called To Serve Your God?

Gods have many followers but they only gift a few with the powers of a cleric. Did you manifest your powers randomly? Are you carrying on a family tradition? Did a holy ritual awaken your clerical powers?

Who Gave You Your Holy Symbol?

The symbol of your god is how you identify yourself as a servant of the divine and also helps you channel your magic. Did a mentor give it to you as they sent you out into the world? Was it passed onto you after the death of another cleric who served in your god’s name? Did you travel to a holy site and create it as part of your initiation?

What Non-Magical Ritual Means the Most to You?

Clerics often perform other rites and blessings that aren’t necessarily manifestations of divine power. Do you love to see the bright, smiling faces of people in love as you perform a wedding ceremony? Do you offer a shoulder to cry on when completing funerary rites? Have any of the children that you’ve given a naming ceremony gone on to greatness?

How Do You Feel About Rival Gods and Followers?

Tensions between religious groups often cause conflicts that may be up to you to help settle. Is there a rival god of the same concept whose followers you often encounter? Are any gods positioned as your god’s opposite in the pantheon? Do you respect the beliefs of others even if they disagree with your own?

What Rank Do You Seek within Your Own Temple?

Most clerics are part of an organization of religious worshippers. Are you expected to convert those who don’t follow your faith? Do you hope to establish a parish or build a temple? Are there rival factions with whom you butt heads?

Originally published on March 7, 2019.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer (Star Wars RPG, Firefly RPG, Camelot Trigger) and professional nerd. who occasionally tweets and livestreams RPGs with the Theatre of the Mind Players while his meat body is resides in scenic Milwaukee, WI. 

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, sit down with Nerdist’s Dan Casey to talk about the their favorite easter eggs, bringing creature characters like Jarnathan to life, and the possibility of a sequel on today’s episode of Nerdist Now!

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Now we know the nerds have truly inherited the Earth. Announced via Variety, Hasbro’s Entertainment One, or eOne, is launching a free 24-hour streaming channel dedicated solely to Dungeons & Dragons. That’s right, in addition to the current feature film Honor Among Thieves and an upcoming live-action series, the iconic RPG will now stake a claim to its very own network. The Dungeons & Dragons Adventures FAST channel (Free Ad Supported TV) has no distribution partner just yet, but a summer launch is in the cards.

So what can Dungeons & Dragons super fans expect from this new channel? For starters, it will include several original celebrity-focused unscripted series. These include programs like Encounter Party, based on the podcast, and the comedy improv Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!, of which series co-creator Matthew Lillard will retain involvement. There’s also the talk show/cooking competition Heroes’ Feast.

And yes, the classic 1980s Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon show will be among the offerings. You didn’t they’d forget that one, did you? The channel will also have plenty of third-party content from more internet creators and D&D influencers, including lots of live gameplay. Hey, if there are 50 or more golf channels, it’s high time someone rolled the d20 on a D&D channel.

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Players have a lot of decisions to make when they put together a Dungeons & Dragons character. Spell choices, weapon choices and where to put ability scores influence how a character comes together mechanically. But what about the fictional side of the character? In D&D, the Background choice offers some mechanical support for what a character was like before they became an adventurer, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. A character with a good background can give a Dungeon Master several wonderful ways to hook a character into dashing into danger.

A useful background doesn’t have to be a full-fledged biography about a character’s life before first level. Most serial stories take their time to spool out juicy bits of background info as the story unfolds. Sometimes it makes more sense to leave specific elements open so that what happens in the game can inform details. This series of articles offers five background questions for Dungeons & Dragons classes that a player can answer with a few short sentences whenever they want (yes, we’ll be doing one for each class). Players can answer these questions ahead of the first Dungeons & Dragons session, or DMs can facilitate this character building exercise with a session zero.

Ask these questions build your barbarian’s backstory.

What Is Your Relationship with Civilization?

Barbarians exist on the edge of the civilized world. How do you feel about those who bring law and order to the natural world? Are they the target of your wrath because of how they change things? Do you find something fascinating about their customs or technology?

Whom Did You Honor with Your Name?

Ancestry and familial ties are very important to barbarians. Barbarians choose names deliberately to honor those who came before. Are you named for a mythological figure? Did you receive your name to clear an ancestor? Is the person you are named for still alive?

How Did You First Discover Your Rage?

The barbarian’s rage is what sets them apart from other party members and other members of their own tribe. Did you go through a rite of passage to unlock these abilities? Do you think of the slaughter of your clan to trigger your fury? Were you taught that when you draw your blade it must not rest until it tastes the blood of your enemies?

What Is Your Place within Your Family?

The families and blood ties that barbarians have strengthen their tribes but also offer rich elements of drama. Are you destined to lead someday? Maybe you’re a black sheep adventuring against the wishes of your elders? Are you the last member of your family seeking to join your brothers and sisters in the afterworld?

How Do You Mark Yourself with Distinction?

Barbarians often cover themselves in tattoos and other strange markings to let their friends and enemies recognize them on sight and grow their legends. Do you scar your body for every adversary killed? Or do you dye your hair in honor of the animal totem you follow? Do you add a little bit to a full-body tattoo to chronicle each of your adventures?

Originally published on March 19, 2019.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer (Star Wars RPG, Firefly RPG, Camelot Trigger) and professional nerd. who occasionally tweets and livestreams RPGs with the Theatre of the Mind Players while his meat body resides in scenic Milwaukee, WI. 

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We just gushed about how important players and their characters are to telling stories in RPGs, but let’s look at the most ubiquitous tool in a Dungeon Master’s toolbox: the adventure. If you’re ready to put together a campaign or one-shot, you want to try to make it memorable. This is a guide to organizing your thoughts and creating ideas that you can use to write the best Dungeons & Dragons adventure of your own making.

Steal Ruthlessly From Things You Love

Generally, a good Dungeons & Dragons session boils down to to two things: “As a DM, did I have fun?” and “Did my players have fun?” When making an adventure, start with things that you know you like. Did you love Dune? What about it? The giant worm monsters? The vast desert? The weird, vector-graphics shields? Throw it in there!

From there, think of what your players love. This can be a genre of gameplay; some players love combat, some love storytelling, and so on. It can be a genre of fantasy, like sword and sorcery, epic fantasy, or science fantasy. The classes your players chose play a part, too; if one player rolled a monk, they may want cinematic action, while a rogue player may prefer skullduggery and Assassin’s Creed-inspired gameplay.

That said, don’t blatantly plagiarize your adventure. Pick elements to add to your own mix.

Choose a Pillar

With this in mind, choose a genre of gameplay to center your adventure around. The Player’s Handbook says that D&D has three major pillars of gameplay: Exploration, Interaction, and Combat. Every adventure has a little bit of each, but it helps to choose one pillar to focus on. When in doubt, what do the players want to do? Search the room, talk with someone, or pick a fight?

Each pillar lends itself to a certain mode of play. A classic dungeon crawl lends itself to exploring ancient ruins and fighting its inhabitants, with minimal diplomacy. The typical wilderness adventure strongly focuses on exploring a large swath of land, often in search of a specific person, place, or thing. It’s about equal on the interaction and combat pillars, since sandbox settings give characters a lot of leeway on whether or not they want to fight or parley. An intrigue adventure puts diplomacy front-and-center, with players resolving most of the major conflicts through roleplay and not “roll-play.” Combat often takes place when negotiations get too hot or assassins arrive in the night, but exploration is rare.

Make a Skeleton

You have two big ideas floating in your head: where the fun is and the angle of approach. Now it’s time to draft this baby. Let’s assume that your adventure can be finished in a single game session. If you want to tell a story with your adventure (as opposed to simulating reality, which doesn’t abide by any rules of storytelling), consider using the classic three-act structure as a framework.

Act I is setup. Jot down any plot hooks that will draw your players into this week’s adventure and the NPCs they’ll meet early on. For tips on making quick, low-effort NPCs, check out Chapter 4 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide—it has fantastic advice! Act I establishes the important characters, places, and objects of an adventure and why the PCs should care.

Act II is the beginning of the adventure proper. In a dungeon crawl, it may be the first half of the dungeon itself, or maybe the journey to the dungeon. In a mystery adventure, it’s investigating the crime, grilling suspects, and gathering clues. If you do anything in the middle of an adventure, make sure you build tension, so that it all can be released in Act III.

Act III is the climax and resolution of the adventure. In order to talk about it better, let’s talk about the Five Room Dungeon. The concept is easy; most dungeons in published adventures are designed to be explored over the course of multiple sessions, but a five-room dungeon can be completed in the course of a single game. The five rooms follow this simple pattern:

1. Entrance and Guardian. The PCs have to figure out how to get inside.
2. Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge. After fighting or sneaking their way in, the PCs now have to change gears and use their smarts or charm to progress.
3. Trick or Setback. Whether it’s a spiked pit trap or a Legend of Zelda-like monster with a specific weakness, something happens that catches the PCs off-guard or otherwise makes them re-evaluate their strategy.
4. Climax, Big Battle, or Conflict. The grand finale! If the PCs have been hunting a dragon, this is its lair. If they’re negotiating a prisoner’s release, this is the courtroom scene.
5. Reward, Revelation, Plot Twist. This is the denouement and the sequel hook. Sure, the PCs found the golden idol they were searching for, but the ruby eye that grants wishes is missing! And left behind is the taunting note of the treasure hunter who got there first…

Notice how these five rooms cover both Acts II and III. Rooms 1 through 3 are Act II, building tension and danger, which then reaches a climax in room 4 and is resolved in room 5. This simple framework is so broadly applicable that it can even be used for adventures that have nothing to do with a dungeon, instead becoming a sort of flowchart of locations, events, or even relationships. The Gnome Stew article linked above goes into greater detail, describing different ways to order the “rooms” of your adventure. Hint: don’t make them all a linear progression—if you create branching paths between points of interest, your players will have choices that let them meaningfully interact with the game world.

Notice also that this skeleton doesn’t have an “Act 0,” or backstory. A little bit of history is fine, even useful, but if your players can’t interact with the backstory then your time would be better spent elsewhere. Adventures with lots of “gameable” content are cleaner and more exciting than those with lots of backstory.

Fill Your Dungeon

This is the home stretch. You’ve already molded your high concept into a working skeleton, now you just need to put some meat on those bones by filling your adventure with traps, terrain, and monsters. When creating encounters, think about more than XP budgets and encounter balance (though those are important). Think about how the terrain can create a more interesting scenario than three ghouls in a large, open room. Exciting terrain could be as simple as increasing the elevation every few feet, or it could be as fantastical as an upside-down waterfall with bizarre gravity that sucks all nearby creatures into it.

There’s a lot of great advice for stocking your dungeon in Appendix A of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Some of it’s a little overkill for a Five Room Dungeon, but a little overkill never hurt anyone.

Be Prepared to Throw It All Away

Our final word: no plan ever survives contact with the PCs. Run your adventure with confidence and excitement, but don’t get too attached. Remember that you can change anything on the fly if the PCs haven’t seen it; none of it exists to your players until you say it does!

Originally published on April 10, 2016.

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Creating an entire campaign story arc for your Dungeons & Dragons players can be a monumental task. It requires a lot of thought and work to make it happen. But, it’s absolutely possible to do, no matter how daunting it seems. It all starts with an idea. Thankfully, you can find inspiration for those ideas everywhere, including the D&D 5th edition primary sourcebooks: Dungeon Master’s Guide, Player’s Handbook, and the Monster Manual. Following are six Dungeons & Dragons campaign ideas drawn directly from the Monster Manual. We included quotes and page numbers for reference, along with thoughts on various ways you can turn each idea into a campaign.

Search for the Seven Shards

The Wind Dukes of Aaqa come from a race of elemental beings called the vaati, which once ruled many worlds. A creature known as the Queen of Chaos arose and initiated an interplanar war against vaati rule. To combat the threat, seven vaati heroes combined their powers to create the mighty Rod of Law. In a battle against the queen’s greatest general, Miska the Wolf Spider, a vaati killed Miska by thrusting the rod into him like a spear. The rod shattered into seven shards that scattered across the multiverse. Aarakocra seek signs of the pieces’ locations in order to rebuild what is now known as the Rod of Seven Parts.

(Aarakocra pg. 12)

Drop hints and clues about a possible location of one piece of the Rod of Seven Parts. Or, let your players find a piece in some random creatures’ loot stash and see if they discover what it really is. Then develop scenarios based on their search. Research and throw in encounters with the vaati, aarakocra, and Miska and prepare the party for traveling across the multiverse. Tada, you have a campaign.

Roots of the Gulthias Tree

Legends tell of a vampire named Gulthias who worked terrible magic and raised up an abominable tower called Nightfang Spire. Gulthias was undone when a hero plunged a wooden stake through his heart, but as the vampire was destroyed, his blood infused the stake with a dreadful power. In time, tendrils of new growth sprouted from the wood, growing into a sapling infused with the vampire’s evil essence. It is said that a mad druid discovered the sapling, transplanting it to an underground grotto where it could grow. From this Gulthias tree came the seeds from which the first blights were sown.

(Blights pg. 31)

Blights in Dungeons & Dragons are “awakened plants gifted with the powers of intelligence and mobility.” During some random quest early in their career, your players discover some mention of Gulthias, or Nightfang Spire, or the journal of some mad druid whose babbling tells of finding a wooden stake he’s searched for his whole life. As your players slowly discover more clues about these blights, they begin encountering them in greater numbers, along with other nature beings trying to drive them from their quest, or perhaps aid them.

Unfinished Business

A ghost yearns to complete some unresolved task from its life. It might seek to avenge its own death, fulfill an oath, or relay a message to a loved one. A ghost might not realize that it has died and continue the everyday routine of its life.

(Ghost pg. 147)

“The surest way to rid an area of a ghost is to resolve its unfinished business.”

A single ghost wouldn’t be much of an adventure for a quality party. So, how about a village of ghosts? What about a town, or even an entire city? Ghosts hang around actively trying to complete some unfinished business, so have multiple ghosts available to provide quests that need finishing to your players. All those quests could lead to whatever great calamity caused them all to become ghosts.

Abyssal Origins

Ghouls trace their origins to the Abyss. Doresain, the first of their kind, was an elf worshiper of Orcus. Turning against his own people, he feasted on humanoid flesh to honor the Demon Prince of Undeath. As a reward for his service, Orcus transformed Doresain into the first ghoul. Doresain served Orcus faithfully in the Abyss, creating ghouls from the demon lord’s other servants until an incursion by Yeenoghu, the demonic Gnoll Lord, robbed Doresain of his abyssal domain. When Orcus would not intervene on his behalf, Doresain turned to the elf gods for salvation, and they took pity on him and helped him escape certain destruction. Since then, elves have been immune to the ghouls’ paralytic touch.

(Ghouls pg. 148)

Doresain was the first ghoul, and his tale would make for a grand campaign. Start with undead encounters, and some obvious (and red herring) indications of Orcus. But then, slowly over time, drop in elves and gnolls to deepen the mystery of what they could possibly have to do with the undead. Guide your party on what they think may be side quests that are actually the main quests, eventually leading to Doresain’s destruction, or redemption.

Original Name

Whether these tall, gaunt creatures were peaceful or savage, cultured or primitive before the mind flayers enslaved and changed them, none can say. Not even the original name of their race remains from that distant time.

(Gith pg. 158)

Or does it? For this campaign, your players come into possession of a single page torn from a book (perhaps a page from a Book of Keeping?) with a single word written on it: the long lost secret name of the gith. As they begin investigating it, word could get around, and suddenly creatures from every plane want to know what they have. Of course, at some time they discover what they possess, which leads them right into the middle of the war between the githyanki and githzerai. And it’s a sure bet the illithid would love to have that name, in order to bring the gith under their control once again.

King Obould Many-Arrows

King Obould of the Many-Arrows tribe is a legend among the orc war chiefs of the Forgotten Realms, and he is the most famous orc chief in the history of the D&D game.

(Orcs pg. 245)

King Obould Many-Arrows spent years plying his violent temper to incorporate thousands of orcs into his own tribe, using them to destroy and conquer what he wanted. Then, suddenly, King Obould made peace with all his enemies with a treaty that baffled the creatures under his leadership. Now, many years later, the peace treaty is in danger of coming undone. This threatens the lives of thousands of civilized and peaceful beings. But what brought about the peace treaty in the first place? Do your players work to take on King Obould’s army directly, or do they investigate the reason for the peace treaty?

We hope these ideas help you create your next epic campaign. For further help, be sure to read “Chapter 3: Creating Adventures” in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Originally published on January 7, 2017.

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One of the memorable elements of Dungeons & Dragons is outfitting a character. Choosing the right weapons, armor and spells says a lot about how a character handles combat. You have a lot of equipment to choose from, though. Different Dungeon Masters have different takes on how players should handle this element. Some Dungeon Masters enjoy watching players figure out the resource management of arrows, food, rope, and equipment that a major expedition brings. Other Dungeon Masters don’t really care about all the bits and pieces a player carries into the dungeon. D&D 5th Edition splits the difference between the two. It offers pre-bundled kits of equipment to get players out of the shop and into danger more quickly. We’ve taken a look at the lists in the Player’s Handbook to single out Dungeons & Dragons items that can get adventurers out of trouble.

Ball bearings

No, they’re not just for fidget spinners. A bag of 1,000 ball bearings doesn’t sound exciting, but these little spheres can be useful in a lot of ways. Setting a handful on the ground and watching where they roll might help detect secret doors based on the slope of a passage. While thieves tools often get the glory when it comes to disabling traps, you can also wedge enough ball bearings in a pressure plate gap to keep it from springing on members of the party. Additionally, in a moment of desperation, the whole bag could be thrown on the floor. That will cause some difficult terrain to pop up wherever a player needs it.

Hammer and pitons

Fifty feet of rope is the industry standard for the Dungeons & Dragons adventurer. But rope won’t do a lot of good without the support of these classic tools. The hammer drives the piton in a crack in the wall and the rope slides through it. This gives the rope extra security. Plus it means you can guide the rope into places where it might not normally be able to go. Having an extra hammer on hand is always useful in combat, as are a collection of pointy things strong enough to drive into a rock face. It might not stop a vampire dead in its tracks like a stake through the heart, but it will certainly hurt.

Flask of oil

Fire is an important element to adventurers. Torches are often a necessity for those without darkvision. When adventurers come across an unfamiliar monster or cursed relic, fire is often the first, last, and only resort to deal with it. These flasks are great for keeping that important torch burning, as well as enhancing characters who already have fire-based powers. Oil can also be used to ease the friction on doors and polish magic items that might have an inscription on them with suggestions on how to be activated.

Map and scroll cases

It’s important to keep treasure maps and spell scrolls dry and useful, but players can also use these cases for smuggling items where they might not belong. Does anyone suspect an enchanted dagger to be wrapped in a musty old scroll inside a scroll case? What about a rogue pulling a switch to keep the item the adventurers toiled to find in one case and handing shredded parchment to the rivals who have them under the blade? These cases can also keep items in isolation, unlike a backpack in which everything rustles together.

Waterskin

This item is an obvious choice because everyone needs to stay hydrated when battling a hydra. However, it has many other versatile functions. Any time an adventurer needs a small bag to hold something, the waterskin is a good choice. For example, it can hold some pocketed gems or a poisonous frog to unleash on sleeping rivals. An empty waterskin could also offer a splash of holy water against undead enemies.

Originally published on November 3, 2017.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer and professional nerd. He writes about kaiju, Jedi, gangsters, elves and is a writer for the Star Trek Adventures RPG line. His blog is here, where he is currently reviewing classic Star Wars RPG adventures. His Twitter is here. His meat body can be found in scenic Milwaukee, WI.

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The thing about being part of a party of heroes is that, at some point, fighting will happen. You’ll also probably have to do some running. In Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Regé-Jean Page’s paladin Xenk is fortunately experienced when it comes to the adventuring lifestyle. Xenk has to wield a blade and take down foes with ease. The character has a whole calmness about him, too; he’s not one for flailing about. The below exclusive clip from the Dungeons & Dragons movie digital release’s bonus features focuses on Regé-Jean Page’s physicality and training for Xenk.

Page notes that finding the character’s physicality helps him get into the role. It’s not only about training, but finding the right discipline for the character. Stunt choreographer Troy Milenov follows that up by complimenting Page’s skills. He cites Page’s experience with dancing that helped the actor pick up the choreography. Page certainly demonstrated his comfort on the dance floor repeatedly in Bridgerton.

This feature on Page’s physicality is only a small part of the bonus features for the movie. From Paramount Home Entertainment, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will be available to purchase on Digital May 2. All bonus features will be available with a digital purchase.

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Dungeon Masters are a hybrid class. They’re a little bit writer, a little bit producer, and a little bit actor at the table. The best ones know how to think on their feet because tabletop RPG stories grow out of the action/reaction of the players as well as their contributions to the fiction. Few players will have Robin Williams or Tina Fey as their Dungeon Master, but these legends got to where they were thanks to several rules of improvisation from places like The Second City and The Groundlings. We’ve chosen some key improv rules that Dungeon Masters can apply to their Dungeons & Dragons games. We also have some tips on how these rules specifically apply to tabletop games.

Say Yes

This is the big rule of improv. When someone makes a choice in a scene, go with it. So often, Dungeon Masters fight what their players want to do because they have a specific vision for their story. That can mean both small choices like requiring the PCs to do a specific thing to move a scene forward or large choices like setting up plots that players don’t engage in. When a Dungeon Master says no, that endangers player buy-in and disrupts the flow of the game.

Saying yes doesn’t mean giving the players everything they want. This rule has risen in various gaming spaces as Say Yes or Roll the Dice. This particular version lets GMs say yes until the players get to a point where failure has some interesting meaning beyond “no”. Then the dice come out and the story continues on whatever path the dice say they it should.

Yes Is Good, “Yes And…” Is Better

The players and the Dungeon Master both contribute to the story at the table. As much as players build on and react to the Dungeon Master, so too should the Dungeon Master build and react to what they players do. It can be easy to get specific when a player asks if they can do something and use the rules as a justification why they can’t. Or the Dungeon Master can let the players run with their crazy plan and build on the consequences.

This rule also highlights a favorite dirty Dungeon Master tactic: Sometimes, The Players Have A Better Plot Than You. Dungeon Masters should listen during the scenes when the players get back to their tavern or tower and discuss what’s going on. The players might make a good argument for why the duke is the vampire instead of the duchess. Or they might remember a detail from three sessions ago that the Dungeon Master overlooked. Building on the player’s plot here—saying “Yes, And…” to their theory—not only makes them feel smart for figuring out the story, it makes for a smoother transition between scenes.

Make Statements

Building the story requires story elements to be in place. The Dungeon Master usually gets the first crack at these because they have the plot in mind. Asking the players can often be helpful for ideas but at the end of the day the Dungeon Master says what’s in the room or what the lord of the castle looks like. These statements can be big or small.

There’s an element of confidence here that many first-time players and DMs struggle with. People new to the RPG scene often talk about how they’ a’re afraid to say or do things because they don’t want to be wrong or embarrass themselves in front of others. But Nobody Knows You’ve Messed Up Unless You Let Them. Dungeon Masters aren’t infallible, but as long as they make confident statements and stick to them, the game will flow.

There Are No Mistakes

In an improv scene, there isn’t time to go back and fix things. Everything is about forward momentum. Dungeons & Dragons sessions also thrive on that momentum. Stopping to look up a rule or class feature can kill the flow of the game. Sometimes it’s best for the Dungeon Master to make a ruling in play and then clarify it after the game.

Rulings, Not Rules allow the DM to be flexible at the table, but the DM should also take the time afterward to explain to players if the ruling in play was incorrect. It’s okay to play a rule one way and then change the rule later, so long as those changes are clearly communicated with the rest of the table.

Originally published on July 19, 2017.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer and professional nerd. He writes about kaiju, Jedi, gangsters, elves, Vulcans and sometimes all of them at the same time. His blog is here, his Twitter is here and his meat body can be found in scenic Milwaukee, WI.

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Dungeons & Dragons is many people’s first experience in the world of tabletop RPGs. Part of D&D 5th Edition’s success has been because it’s a version that new players can easily understand while also keeping a mix of elements from previous editions for returning players. The new edition also has a lot of new Dungeon Masters creating adventures for the first time. Dungeon Mastering is a skilled art that can be a little scary. For those tables full of first-time players and first-time Dungeon Masters, here are a few things you can do to help out the person taking a risk on the other side of the screen.

Say Yes

RPGs have benefited in recent years from designers who have their feet in both the geek and improv worlds. One idea that really keeps the game moving is saying “yes” whenever the Dungeon Master tosses out a problem. If the players spend time refusing the quest of the shadowy man in the corner of the tavern, that’s less time for awesome heroics and witty banter. There will be time for more personal quests as the players develop their characters and the Dungeon Master develops the world.

Roll Damage and Attacks Together

Pacing is one of the areas where new Dungeon Masters often have trouble. Commanding a table’s attention for hours at a time is difficult, but even small things on the player’s side can help. Keeping combat fast is certainly something everybody wants. A good way for players to do that is to roll the attack and the damage at the same time rather than rolling one, seeing if it hits, and then rolling the damage if it does. The other dice don’t matter on a miss, but they might also give whoever is describing that moment of combat a little more inspiration if a big miss could have meant big damage.

Write Down Your Powers and Abilities Clearly

Everyone at the table should help keep the rules straight. They don’t have to be strictly followed, but the more things a player has written down on their character sheet is less time spent looking up spells or special abilities. Character sheets don’t always have a lot of room. However, even doing something as simple as writing down a page number next to a spell or an ability will speed things along until character abilities are second nature. (Tip: index cards are great to make personal reference cards for this sort of stuff).

Pick Up Your Own Supplies

Most of the time, the Dungeon Master buys all the initial supplies for a game. That can include the books, the dice and so on. This works when a group is just starting out, but as a campaign rolls on, it can be helpful for each player to pick up their own supplies. It can be simple as a set of dice to cut down on passing around a communal set. Or maybe someone can grab an extra Player’s Handbook to speed up rules consultations or reading the book to a greater degree in between games. Online resources can be a huge help here.

Be a Good Guest

A good Dungeon Master knows hungry players means grumpy players. Often they’ll share food (or even cook) for the group. There’s a lot of prep work, a wonderful experience if done right, and requires some cleanup afterwards. If the Dungeon Master is hosting, be sure to bring some snacks, drinks or other items that make the burden of hosting easier. If the game is at a bar or game store, show your appreciation by picking up a drink tab or buying snacks to keep the Dungeon Master working at peak efficiency.

Originally published on October 27, 2017.

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Spellcaster classes provide Dungeons & Dragons players with the most options. Utility spells help players that come up with creative solutions to dungeon problems. Fighting classes often had these options built into their weaponry. Entire books detailed to the differences in speed, weight and deadliness between weapon choices. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, however, streamlined the weapons selection process to make combats run faster. And while, mechanically, there isn’t much difference between a longsword and a katana, there are a series of keywords that offers a little extra bit of tactics to players who don’t want to just grind out combats. These Dungeons & Dragons weapons basics will help you in combat.

Finesse

The most commonly known keyword is this one: finesse. Most weapons go with the Strength modifier for melee attacks and damage. Finesse weapons can use either the Strength or the Dexterity modifier of the attacker for this purpose. Most rogues know this rule by heart to allow for a little extra hurt to come from a Sneak Attack. Rogues prize Dexterity above all other attribute scores.

These weapons also come in useful for ranged builds (since you’ll use Dexterity for ranged attacks) and builds that have used their best scores elsewhere. Worrying about one score instead of two for melee removes a little pressure.

Reach

One of the main advantages of having a bigger weapon than an opponent, other than doing more damage, is keeping them away. This avoids counter strikes. Weapons that do this well provide reach, which allows attacks farther away than normal weapons, usually by five feet. It allows fighters equipped with polearms or halberds to engage an opponent without having to worry about opportunity attacks should the fighters decide to move away from their target after an attack.

Weapons with this trait should end up in the hands of characters that need mobility for healing. That includes clerics and paladins. It would also benefit characters that have a bonus that stacks with reach, such as Bugbears.

Versatile

Fighters often struggle with an existential question: to shield or not to shield? A shield provides an armor class bonus, but using one shuts off the weapons that really bring the hit points down since most of them require two hands to use. This trait offers something of a compromise. Players can use versatile weapons with one or two hands. Each style has a different damage die. Fighters with versatile weapons can judge in the moment whether or not they need extra protection or if they want to hit a target harder.

Originally published on January 19, 2018.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer and professional nerd. He’s worked on dozens of different tabletop games ranging from Star Wars and Firefly to his own creations like CAMELOT Trigger. He can be hired as a professional Dungeon Master for in-person or remote games. His Twitter is here. His meat body can be found in scenic Milwaukee, WI.

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Dungeons & Dragons is having quite a cultural moment again. There’s a live-action D&D film in theaters, Honor Among Thieves, as well as a TV series in the works. And of course, all of those Stranger Things references continue to make this game larger than life. So it makes sense that the legendary RPG would have a cross-promotion with a known brand right now. Thanks to fan demand, fast-food chain Arby’s is once again offering a special promotion featuring limited edition Arby’s Dungeons & Dragons dice. You can check out images of the new 2023 D&D Arby’s dice below:

The limited-edition complete D&D dice sets dropped on April 17 at ArbysShop.com for $12. They made the dice of a transparent material with a small Arby’s hat embedded inside. Each dice features gold lettering and has a tiny Arby’s logo in place of its highest number. Now, the initial round of Arby’s Dungeons & Dragons dice sold out rather fast. The fans ate them up as fast as they’d eat up an Arby’s corned beef sandwich. But for those of you who missed the first drop, worry not. There will be a final drop on April 21. For more details on exactly what time, be sure to follow @Arbys on Instagram. 

These dice don’t represent the first time Arby’s has worked with the D&D brand. Back in 2021, Arby’s released its first set of dice. They were so popular, they sold out almost right away. Fans paid exorbitant amounts of money for them later on eBay. So because of popular demand, they’ve decided to go for round two. And wisely, they planned a second drop for these this time, knowing how in demand they were during the last go-round. Hopefully, one day they start naming some actual food offerings after D&D iconography. We hope to walk into our local Arby’s and ask for a Bard Beef n’ Cheddar, or a Mindflayer Milkshake. Beholder cake for dessert, anyone?

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We’ve had a ton of big-budget high fantasy on TV recently. Game of Thrones kicked the doors open, and followed up with House of the Dragon and its many beasts, but The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time series, and more have all followed up with excellent TV outings. But get your swords ready and learn your spells properly. Because now the iconic roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons is heading for TV as well. Paramount Pictures has ordered an eight-episode, live-action Dungeons & Dragons TV series for Paramount+. Here’s what we know so far.

We first heard this news in 2021, at that time, Derek Kolstad, the creator behind the John Wick series, was developing a Dungeons & Dragons series for Paramount and Hasbro. But now, Variety reports that Rawson Marshall Thurber will bring the show to life. Thurber has written the pilot for the Dungeons & Dragons TV series and will also direct the show.  According to Variety, “the series is a co-production between eOne and Paramount Pictures.” While we don’t know much about the plot yet, or which aspects of Dungeons & Dragons‘ world the series will pull from, it is important to note that this is a separate project from the Chris Pine-starring D&D movie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

In addition to Thurber, Deadline reports that Drew Crevello will serve as showrunner of the series.

This would actually be the second time a D&D show made it on the air. A kid’s cartoon show ran for two seasons in the ’80s. The roleplaying game was a sensation, selling millions by the early ’80s. It also coincided with the “Satanic Panic” gripping the nation at the time. Parents wanted it banned. In an effort to make the brand “kid safe,” a Saturday morning cartoon was produced.

The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons continues to skyrocket. So one can see why Paramount wants to attempting to strike while the iron is hot. We know we can’t wait to see Beholders, Displacer Beasts, and Tiamat fighting off warriors and wizards on our TV screens.

And if you want more D&D, please relive the amazing time Vin Diesel sat down with us for a campaign.

Originally published on January 15, 2021.

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Actors prepare for roles all sorts of ways. If they’re playing a character based on someone in real life, they research that person. If they’re playing a character from a book, they read the book. In the case of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the cast prepared by actually playing a game of D&D. After all, what could be better research than that? It’s not like you can go out and find a Tiamat to fight, or a wizard to give you sage advice.

In the video below, you can see how actors Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, and Justice Smith played D&D together before production began.

Wizards of the Coast confirmed (via Dicebreaker) that the main cast ran a one-shot D&D 5E scenario on the day before principal photography began. In fact, this was also on the very first day that the cast ever met in person, so the two-hour tabletop session was used as a bonding exercise for them. We actually think this is something other movies should do when the cast first meet each other, whether the movie is a Dungeons & Dragons one or not. Although we suppose Monopoly might work just as well.

Honestly, we would like to see an expanded edition of this video. How did this campaign go? How long did it go on? What perils did they face together? We have so many questions. From the look of things, it looked like everyone was having a really good time. Chris Pine had so much fun, in fact, that he later went on to play D&D with his family. Although he wasn’t in the movie, it seems like movie star/D&D super fan Joe Manganiello probably should have been invited. It almost feels wrong not having him at a celebrity D&D game, doesn’t it?

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is currently in theaters.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves overflows with many things: adventure, magic, and several Easter eggs. One of our favorite Easter eggs—in addition to the adventuring group dressed like the classic D&D cartoon characters—is a subtle Critical Role reference. When Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) locate the sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith), Simon is performing his magic tricks for an audience. His tricks don’t exactly impress, but he performs as a distraction so he can steal from the audience. That’s where the Critical Role Easter egg comes in.

Simon throws out some sensory effects in an effort to keep the crowd’s attention. One of them is making the air smell like fresh cut grass. And yes, that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves moment is a nod (and quite the clever Easter egg) to the character Fresh Cut Grass in Critical Role. Sam Riegel voices Fresh Cut Grass, a.k.a. FCG, in Critical Role‘s currently airing third campaign. Fresh Cut Grass is an aeormaton (robot) cleric. His one-time associate bestowed the name Fresh Cut Grass upon him because she named all her creations after her favorite smells.

Riegel himself confirmed the connection to his character on TikTok. I love that the Dungeons & Dragons movie included a Critical Role Easter egg. I love it even more for not being super obvious. And for it to be a nod to FCG, maybe my favorite member of Bells Hells? Perfection.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is playing in theaters now.

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The iconic TSR role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is now a live-action film, one delighting both audiences and critics. But forty years ago, D&D had its very first outside media adaptation, in the form of a popular CBS Saturday morning cartoon. The Dungeons & Dragons animated show featured a group of precocious teens from our world who get sucked into the magical realms of D&D through a theme park ride. Look, it was the ’80s. It was a weird time on Saturday Morning cartoons. But what would the animated D&D characters make of their modern, live-action successors? Watch the video down below to find out.

All the main characters from the cartoon in are in this video, observing Chris Pine and company on their adventures. There’s the wizard/guide known as the Dungeon Master, using his magic to conjure up our cinematic heroes. Right there with him are our teen heroes. There’s Hank the Ranger, Eric the Cavalier, Diana the Acrobat, Presto the Magician, Sheila the Thief, and Bobby the Barbarian. Of course, there was also Uni, their unicorn mascot. Every ’80s cartoon needed a cute animal sidekick, and the Dungeons & Dragons show was no different. At least Uni was cooler than Scrappy Doo.

As fans of Stranger Things are well aware, back in the ’80s there was a whole hysteria surrounding Dungeons & Dragons. Parents freaked out about kids playing D&D and “learning black magic.” The cartoon was a way of making D&D more palatable to parents who didn’t know an Owlbear from a Wookie. And because of it, we’re able to have a live-action D&D film today. Should Honor Among Thieves get a sequel, maybe they can give those cartoon kids a role. Although we’d actually be ok with it if it was just Uni the Unicorn who shows up.

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The game part of “role-playing game” primarily comes when dice hit the table. The story the players and the Dungeon Master are telling in their Dungeons & Dragons game comes to this point where both sides want to see what happens. Whether the roll succeeds or fails, the story should continue to be interesting. This binary result works most of the time. However, some tables want to have more dynamic results when players throw dice. Here are some of our favorite ways to spice up dice rolls beyond “I did the thing!” and “I didn’t do the thing!” while playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Player Driven Critical Rolls

Officially, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition only has critical successes on attack rolls which allow for double damage on attacks. Natural 20s and natural 1s are automatic successes and failures, respectively but that’s it. In some editions of the game, these rolls lead to critical successes and failures where the character succeeds or fails at a higher level.

For example, the 20 on a Persuasion check doesn’t just convince the guard you’re meant to be there. Instead, the guard escorts you to the evil Duke directly! The 1 on the Stealth check doesn’t just mean you’re caught. It means your boot got stuck in a crack in the wall and you are at a disadvantage until you can pull free.

A great way to ease this idea into a game is to let the players take control when one of these rolls happens. Dungeon Masters can still guide the player to make sure that they don’t push the narrative off the rails. But most players should have a sense of what a great success or terrible failure should feel like.

Success at a Cost

Rolling a 1 is heartbreaking, but sometimes rolling a 14 when you need a 15 hurts just a little bit more. Players want to succeed and do cool things with their characters. In moments like these, players can negotiate a success at a cost. The Dungeon Master and player have a brief negotiation over what the player might take as a consequence in exchange for succeeding. This happens all the time in narratives; the hero doesn’t realize they are hurt worse than they initially thought. Or later, at some point, the noble will realize the statue is a forgery.

Success at a cost in Dungeons & Dragons is particularly useful in using or breaking equipment to put pressure on parties looking to rush through a dungeon. Should they head back in town for thieves tools? Should the paladin explore other rooms to find a shield she can use?

Critical Hit Cards

The base rules for 5th Edition keep things pretty clean and simple. Players roll double their damage dice on a natural 20 roll. But many players have a long-standing tradition of getting into the nitty gritty details of a critical hit. Past editions have had charts on which to roll. They detail what body parts they smash, sever, or slice off.

A product like Nord Games Critical Hit Deck for Players adds this element to 5e by not only offering alternate conditions for the player’s vicious blow, but also altering the damage based on the type the weapon inflicts. GMs can also pick up their own deck to really expand the options. The cards make a critical roll feel like a slow-motion cutscene from a console RPG.

They also have a deck for critical failures for players who want to make a natural 1 a special occasion.

Minor Effects

Natural 20s are great, but what about those poor 19s? There’s a lot of room to explore between the success of hitting a difficulty class and the big success of a natural 20. A high enough roll could still offer a minor effect, like a five-foot push back or gaining hit points equal to the attacker’s Con modifier as a rush of adrenaline hits from the solid hit. The options could expand as the character grows, too. Minor effects might occur whenever the character succeeds in an attack roll on a number equal to or higher than 20-their proficiency bonus.

Originally published on March 7, 2019.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer (Star Wars RPG, Firefly RPG, Camelot Trigger) and professional nerd. who occasionally tweets and livestreams RPGs with the Theatre of the Mind Players while his meat body resides in scenic Milwaukee, WI. 

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves stars Justice Smith (Simon) and Sophia Lillis (Doric), along with writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, sit down with Nerdist’s Hector Navarro to talk about the challenge of adapting such a well known IP, bringing their humor to Dungeons & Dragons, and the very serious character prep Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis took to get into their roles on today’s episode of Nerdist Now!

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is an enthusiastic romp through the Forgotten Realms that anyone can enjoy. But let’s be honest. If you’re a D&D player, you’re going to enjoy it a little bit more than everyone else! With amazing details from playable species to iconic locations like the Underdark, this movie is absolutely a love letter to anyone who’s given the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game a try. That includes the monsters our hapless heroes fight. The original Monster Manual introduced now classic creatures like owlbears and mimics. Honor Among Thieves playfully pays homage to those monsters and many others from the first edition of D&D. We’ve got a list of some of the monsters in the blockbuster film that you wouldn’t want to face in a dark dungeon (or anywhere else). 

Axe Beak

The ostrich-like Axe Beak, which Doric tries to use to her advantage as she’s chased through the streets of Neverwinter, first appeared in the original Monster Manual. The seven-foot-tall flightless birds are easily recognizable by their hatchet-shaped beaks. They’re also rather grumpy.

Black Dragon

It wouldn’t be a D&D movie without dragons! Honor Among Thieves has a few, including a black dragon dispersing its devastating acid breath as it swoops across the battlefield. Just the mere presence of a black dragon can overwhelm even the most stalwart of warriors.

Displacer Beast

Also one of the first monsters to appear in the role-playing game, the puma-like displacer beast chases our heroes during the Highsun Games. These monsters are capable of displacing light to create a duplicate image of themselves a short distance away. The two toothy tentacles protruding from its back attack the distracted prey with ferocity.

Ettin

This two-headed giant monster makes a quick cameo in Honor Among Thieves‘ closing credits, but veteran Dungeons & Dragons players will spot it immediately.

Gelatinous Cube

Almost as iconic as dragons, the gelatinous cube is a Dungeons & Dragons mainstay. Anyone who’s run into one of these dungeon dwellers during a game knows exactly how dangerous the ooze cubes are. The cube can engulf an unlucky adventurer – as it does the thieves during the Highsun Games – and while inside they suffer acid damage and are unable to breathe.

Intellect Devourers

Resembling a brain walking with little legs and feet, the intellect devourer’s funny appearance belies their threat. Edgin might have been slightly insulted that the intellect devourers didn’t engage the group, but he should count himself lucky. These aberrations can magically consume a humanoid brain and take over its body. Yikes.

Mimic

Treasure chest or monster? You might want to approach slowly before trying to open it! These predators are hard to detect even for the most seasoned adventurer. The mimic, which Holga discovers by accident during the Highsun Games, can use polymorph to transform into any inanimate object. Doors are another of their favorite shapes.

Rust Monster

Small creatures the color of rust fight over scraps in the alleyways of Neverwinter. They’re known as rust monsters. They’re typically docile so you might not consider them a thread until you learn what they can do. Rust monsters, a bane of adventurers who wield blades and shields, use their feathery antenna to seek out metal to corrode and ingest the rust.

Snowy Owlbear

This distant cousin of the owlbear roams the tundra in the frozen north of Faerün. The large creature has characteristics of both the snowy owl and polar bear and is typically considered a monstrosity. The druid Doric, however, candidly views the snowy owlbear as just another natural creature. This grants her the rare ability to Wild Shape into the terrifying—but cute—predator.

Yuan-ti

Blink and you might misssss the snake-like creature known as a yuan-ti. These creatures, who are also a playable species in Dungeons & Dragons, have both serpentine and humanoid features. (Basically, snake people.) Yuan-ti were originally humans who used dark magic to transform themselves into these striking creatures.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hides even more winks and nods for veteran players to discover outside of its monster lineup. My personal favorite? The ground in the arena in which the heroes face these creatures has the appearance of being covered in squares, just like the grid of a battle map!

Kelly Knox (she/her) is a Seattle-area author and writer who also contributes to StarWars.com, DCComics.com, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk about just about everything pop culture.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves stars Chris Pine (Edgin), Michelle Rodriguez (Holga), and Regé-Jean Page (Xenk) sit down with Nerdist’s Hector Navarro to talk about Michelle Rodriguez’s D&D experience with Vin Diesel, Regé-Jean Page’s bizarre character Xenk, and whether or not Chris Pine’s character is a horny bard on today’s episode of Nerdist Now!

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Dungeons & Dragons is an amazing game. It helps people make friends, helps people work on social skills, has a role in some therapy. However, for all of the awesome stuff that Dungeons & Dragons does, it also holds a dark power. Yes, friends, our beloved RPG can not only create relationships, but it can also destroy them. Once, it nearly destroyed a Major League Baseball team from within (via Royals Review). I’m not even joking.

The Royals are a baseball team out of Kansas City, Missouri, and prior to the 2016 season starting, the team started a D&D campaign. What started as a pleasant escape and a unique way to build camaraderie among teammates slowly deteriorated and caused such a huge rift among Royals players that it started to affect how the team played. Royals Review interviewed one of the players. They anonymously explained the situation in more detail.

Ned Yost, the Royals’ manager, took on the role of Dungeon Master. While it’s kind of awesome that the team’s manager stepped up to the DM plate, apparently Yost was no Matthew Mercer. Yost’s campaigns were confusing, according to the Royal Review‘s anonymous informant, and Yost also had a really bad habit of pitting the players against monsters that were far too advanced. However, the dice would always seem to roll just right, and the adventurers would find themselves victorious despite overwhelming odds. While the rolls were good, the team was happy—it was actually kind of funny to them. Of course, Lady Luck did not always bless the team’s rolls, and so tensions ran high whenever the natural 20s became more and more rare.

But a shaky DM wasn’t the only problem. There was also the issue of the team’s healer in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign, played by Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar. The role of the healer is crucial to a campaign, and they have to be careful about how they interact with threats. Escobar, however, adhered to the Leeroy Jenkins school of thought. He had a bad habit of plowing ahead, right into the clutches of danger. Much like Yost’s overly challenging monster fights, Escobar’s Leeroy Jenkins antics made the team laugh at first—until they didn’t stop. It didn’t take long for the joke to get old.

With issues like that paired with players who were really dedicated and invested in the game, it seemed this fun game of D&D pulled the Royals apart at the seams. Tensions weren’t only high on game night. The conflict also made the Royals play pretty poorly. The team had to work to repair their D&D-sized rift. We can only hope they switched to watching Critical Role together rather than actually playing D&D during the baseball season.

Originally published on August 2, 2016.

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Roleplaying tips abound in Critical Role. If you’ve seen every episode, or only one, then you’ve witnessed myriad roleplay techniques, whether you noticed them or not. So if you enjoy immersing yourself into the heart and soul of your Dungeons & Dragons characters, or if you want to learn how to do so, here are some Critical Role-inspired D&D roleplaying tips just for you.

Detail Your Character

Giving your character plenty of details is an important way of bolstering your roleplaying. Adding details, from the obvious physical ones to the private cerebral ones, will build a solid base from which your character can grow. The 5th edition D&D Player’s Handbook puts it this way: “Your character is a combination of game statistics, roleplaying hooks, and your imagination… [you] invent the personality, appearance, and backstory of your character.”

A sterling example is Vox Machina’s backstory and development. Each is an example of how characters are so much more than race, class, a list of stats, or a walking pile of weapons and equipment. Think about your personal characteristics and how they present in your daily life. Now, think about how you want your in-game avatar to experience and affect the world. Give them characteristics that will allow them to do that.

Play Your Character

As mentioned earlier, your character as a whole is greater than the sum of its individual characteristics or pieces of equipment. However, those things are all still a vital part of your character. Make sure you play them in game to fully support and reflect your character’s personality, both in and out of combat.

For example, think about Vax’ildan’s signature attack involving his Boots of Haste combined with his daggers. Average pieces of equipment, for the most part. Yet, how integrated with Vax has this simple attack method become? So much so that it has its own catchphrase: “Dagger, dagger, dagger.” I’ve been playing D&D many years, in hundreds of games with hundreds of other people, and I’ve never heard “dagger, dagger, dagger” used. Liam O’Brien does it with such flair, that I will forever associate that phrase with Vax, and no one else. That, folks, is how you play your character.

Interact

As much as D&D is a roleplaying game, it is also a game of interactive storytelling, which raises the experience to another level. The 5th edition Player’s Handbook describes these interactions neatly under the phrase “social interactions” (pg. 185), and categorizes them into two styles: descriptive approach and active approach.

Descriptive approach is when “you describe your character’s words and actions to the DM and the other players.” Active approach is when “you speak with your character’s voice, like an actor taking on a role,” even going so far as to physically display “your character’s movements and body language.”

My favorite Critical Role example of interacting can be found in “Episode 14: Shopping and Shipping.” This episode is highly notable for its top quality interactive roleplaying, but also shows that D&D can be hella fun even without getting into combat. Oh, and Vox Machina make a trip to Gilmore’s Glorious Goods. Gilmore!

Role the Dice

Yes, “role” the dice. Three participants make up a standard D&D game: the DM, the players, and the dice. The dice have as great a part to play in the interactive storytelling as the DM and players do.

So what does “role” the dice mean? It’s the difference between saying “you take 10 HP damage” and saying “you take 10 HP damage as the kobold deftly finds an opening in your defense, surprising you with a sword cut to the ribs.”

Critical Role DM Matthew Mercer does this exceptionally well. The best example comes with that phrase we all know and love, “How do you wanna do this?” Instead of merely spouting a bunch of combat numbers and ending at that, he instead gives the last die roll over to the player and has them roleplay how their chracter ends a fight. That is powerful stuff, my friends.

Avid Critical Role watchers may have also witnessed how much importance Mercer gives to role-ing the dice. More than a few times he has rolled a die on some critical event, and then Instagrammed a photo of that die roll. That act shows tremendous honesty, and also shows the value he places on letting die rolls have their role in game.

And if you need more convincing, click over and watch the ritual skill challenge (starting at 4:19:45) Mercer puts Vox Machina through in “Episode 44: The Sunken Tomb,” as they attempt to save a fallen Vex. That is, if you can bring yourself to experience the feels again.

Let It Flow

Finally, don’t try to force your roleplaying into play. Allow it to develop and flow with the game, and as you interact with your fellow players. Vox Machina were a D&D group for years, even before Critical Role. And they, have been real life friends for many years more than that. They know each other very well, both as people and as players. The quality of interactive roleplaying they have together has been nourished and grown over those years. Don’t compare yourself to them!

Originally published on June 14, 2016.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will attempt to finally give the iconic role-playing adventure the big screen adaptation it deserves. It’s been a long journey from tabletop to big budget blockbuster. And that road strangely enough went straight through the set of Freaks and Geeks. That’s where the film’s co-director John Francis Daley first fell in love with the game. So it’s only fitting Daley got together with his old Freaks and Geeks cast members for a crossover promo that will have fans of both D&D and the TV series feeling like they posses the Orb of Constant Pleasant Vibration.

Turns out (a still-waiting-to-hit-puberty) Sam Weir has been DM’ing a session of D&D for 23 years. He’s been joined at the table by his fellow Freaks and Geeks Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) and Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine). They’ve clearly been having a good time. You have to be having fun not to notice if your family is still alive or not. But it’s for the best that their long-standing game has finally come to an end. That means they’ll be able to go see Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Of course, like other fans of the RPG, they’re a little skeptical it can work as a movie.

At least they know the film is in good hands. Daley has previously talked about how his long love affair with D&D began on the set of their show. He started playing because his character was really into Dungeons & Dragons. In a case of life imitating art, that turned into a genuine and lasting affection for the adventure game. From there you can draw a long, straight, unexpected line to him actually co-directing a film based on it. That’s a monumental win for geeks everywhere.

Just imagine how different Hollywood might be if Sam had really loved Monopoly instead. Actually, don’t. We’re much more excited for Honor Among Thieves than we would be a Monopoly movie.

We also need to know if this promo is canon for Freaks and Geeks. Maybe to find out we should honor both Sam and John Francis’s admiration for D&D by rolling for the answer.

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Full of entertaining archetypes, action, and all manner of creatures and magic, Dungeons & Dragons feels made for the big screen. That said, previous live-action D&D movies haven’t been as amazing as one would hope. But Paramount Pictures is trying again with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The action-adventure movie focuses on a heist with a star-studded cast playing our band of heroes.

Here’s everything we know about Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Title

The D&D movie is testing the record for the longest movie title ever. It’s called Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves‘ Plot

As a tabletop roleplaying game, D&D is all about the quests, and Honor Among Thieves has a quest at the heart of the story. The trailer teases our heroes’ missions and their foes. It comes with a healthy dose of humor and silliness, a tone that seems just right for this adaptation.

Honor Among Thieves‘ official synopsis is as follows:

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brings the rich world and playful spirit of the legendary roleplaying game to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure.

A new featurette for the movie reveals new glimpses at the characters and world of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

You can also get a closer look at our party with their individual posters below. We have to say this looks like an incredibly fun adventure.

Click To View Gallery

A recent clip from the Dungeons & Dragons movie teases that our hero team won’t be the only party around, though. As Chris Pine’s Edgin and co. prepare to enter a dangerous maze filled with some of D&D‘s most terrifying creatures; they realize they’re up against two other teams. And one of these teams is none other than the cast of characters from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, which aired in the 1980s. In the series, a group of friends from the real world get pulled into a fantasy world, and they must fight their way home.

We can’t say for certain whether we’ll actually meet these characters or they’ll just be fun Easter eggs. But it’s definitely a fun homage.

Behind the Scenes

The movie features a screenplay by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio. The story is from Gilio and McKay. Goldstein and Daley direct (the duo also directed Game Night).

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves‘ Cast

This movie has an impressive cast of veteran actors and relative newcomers. Here’s who we know about so far:

• Chris Pine – Edgin, a bard
• Michelle Rodriguez – Holga, a barbarian
• Regé-Jean Page – Xenk, a paladin
• Justice Smith – Simon, a sorceror
• Sophia Lillis – Doric, a druid
• Hugh Grant – Forge Fitzwilliam, a rogue (and possibly the movie’s villain)

Chloe Coleman and Daisy Head also appear in the film, but we don’t have details about their roles yet.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves‘ Release Date

Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves arrives in theaters on March 31, 2023.

Originally published December 2, 2022.

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As part of Tuesday’s D&D Direct, Wizards of the Coast and Mojang Studios announced a collaboration on a Minecraft DLC coming soon to all platforms! The story-driven Minecraft Dungeons & Dragons brings legendary player classes, Forgotten Realms locations, and of course, monsters to block-shaped life. Nerdist saw an extended preview of the upcoming downloadable content. It’s a game inside the game that promises to be a completely unique Minecraft experience.

Riccardo Lenzi, Senior Producer at Mojang Studios, and Tom Sargent of Wizards of the Coast described Minecraft Dungeons & Dragons as an action RPG inside Minecraft. Estimating the total play time at around 10 hours, Lenzi said that the content kicks off as almost all great D&D adventures do: by rolling dice in a basement. Then the magic happens, and the game transports your character from the Minecraft world to the Forgotten Realms.

Players can take on the role of a barbarian, paladin, rogue, or wizard as they embark on their journey.  The DLC story is optimized for a single player, said Lenzi, but friends can enjoy the world alongside each other. In the Forgotten Realms they’ll face beholders, mimics, mindflayers, and so much more. Each will be depicted for the first time in the iconic Minecraft block style. The action makes use of a 20-sided die, including conversation options based on ability checks D&D players will be very familiar with.

In the preview we saw, for example, the player had an interesting choice to make during conversation: they could roll an insight, intimidation, or persuasion check with a click of a button. New user interface elements like those buttons along with a full, custom in-game menu demonstrate how the development team wanted to make Minecraft D&D feel like a true D&D experience.

And, yes, there will be dungeons and dragons.

While the Dungeons & Dragons items and mobs won’t be available outside the DLC, a set of skins celebrating all 12 D&D player classes will be part of the pack. Players can show those off anywhere in the Minecraft world.

Minecraft D&D is a far-ranging adventure across five Forgotten Realms locations. The original, fully-voiced story brings the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game to life inside one of the world’s greatest online games. But what about the other way around?

Monstrous Compendium Vol. 3: Minecraft Creatures, available today on D&D Beyond for no additional cost, gives Dungeon Masters new but very familiar creatures at their disposal. You can now seamlessly add five classic Minecraft mobs, each with their own stat blocks, descriptions, and brand-new art, to any D&D campaign. Among them are the Ender Dragon, Enderman, and Creeper (aww, man).

Minecraft Dungeons & Dragons DLC will be available on the Minecraft Marketplace later this spring.

Kelly Knox (she/her) is a Seattle-area author and writer who also contributes to StarWars.com, DCComics.com, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk about just about everything pop culture.

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If you’re new to Dungeons & Dragons character creation, picking a class and figuring out how to build a fun-to-play first level character can be overwhelming and intimidating. Trying to figure out which stats should be a priority, which skills and spells you should invest in and how to get the numbers on the sheet so you can start playing can be a juggling act.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled guides to starting characters of every D&D character class to get you rolling. These aren’t pre-built characters, however, so you have lots of room to play with your race and stats, as well as your background. Each guide gives you advice on which stats should be a priority, and which ones you can relegate as a dump stat, where you dump your lowest stat roll (hint: it’s almost never charisma if you’re starting out), and other helpful tidbits about the class. Click the character class to check out the guide for that class. We’ve grouped them generally, but with unique subclasses (like the Rogue’s Arcane Trickster, which bestows magical abilities to a Rogue) these categories are, like all things in D&D, generalizations rather than hard boundaries.

Magical Character Classes

Wizard

As a Wizard, the first place to start is by taking your highest attribute and putting it into your Intelligence. Intelligence is what you use to cast your spells so this must be the highest. For your lowest, unless you have a compelling backstory reason for it, pick Strength. We can wreak havoc with our minds, we don’t need to be able to do pull-ups (punch wizards, or wizards who cast punch, are a different class).

Druid

Druids are nature wizards. They have the same amount and breakdown of spell slots as a Wizard does, with the only exception being that wizards learn one additional cantrip and have a much larger pool of spells to choose. What do druids get? All of their magic is focused on nature and life.

Warlock

Warlocks are the magic users who cheated their way through Final exams. They’re a really cool class who have made a Pact with a powerful entity, for some greater purpose; be it their soul, influencing events in the mortal plane for their chosen patron, or even cookies.

Sorcerers

Sorcerers are like the slacker kid in high school who skipped most of the classes and still managed to get better grades than the Valedictorian. They gain their magic abilities due to their origins and have been magical their entire lives. This allows them to tweak spells in ways other classes can only dream of and creates some really cool roleplaying possibilities.

Combat Character Classes

Fighter

Fighters in D&D are the Swiss Army knife of combat characters. They are capable of anything and lend themselves to being soldiers or mercenaries. There isn’t a weapon that can be held in the hands of a fighter that cannot be mastered.

Barbarian

Barbarians are a really fun class in D&D. They forego armor and training and favor a much, much more direct approach. Hallmarks of a Barbarian are mountains of hit points and really big, heavy weapons.

Rogue

There’s nothing like playing the sneaky character who disappears into the shadows at the first sign of danger. This isn’t to say that Rogues aren’t brave and they’re trying to retreat; odds are, they are just trying to get behind the enemy and try to get a killing blow that finishes the fight before it even starts.

Monk

Monks in D&D focus on both unarmored and unarmed combat and they are very, very good at it. A monk’s spirituality is able to manifest itself through a calm, centered being and subsequently they have abilities which function similarly to magic but are directly the result of a disciplined mind.

Hybrid Character Classes

Bard

Bards are incredibly fun to play and are able to offer support to your entire party. That’s the first thing to keep in mind when playing a Bard; you are not dealing a huge amount of combat damage but you are making sure the rest of your party is.

Ranger

Rangers are the elusive forest ninjas of D&D. Don’t mistake Rangers for only being bow users (although they are some of the best in the game with a bow), because they have the option of taking fighting styles that can really push their melee damage up as well. Rangers are a great class who marry a useful group of combat abilities with incredible deep roleplay opportunities.

Cleric

Clerics are the embodiment of their deity’s blessings. They wield magic and travel the land in the name of their god, looking pretty cool while they do it. Because Clerics are in the service of a deity, their individual play styles will represent the type of deity they worship.

Paladin

Sometimes faith in your Deity isn’t enough to keep you and your loved ones safe while adventuring. For those times, a strong sword arm and encasing yourself in armor is the key to success. Paladins in D&D marry the best elements of being a Cleric with the best elements of being a Fighter.

There is, of course, more to a character than their skills and stats, so if you need help creating a backstory, personality, and motivations for your character, we’ve also got a guide for that too.

Originally published on September 29, 2017.

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It’s been nearly 23 years since the last time a feature-length adaptation of Wizards of the Coast’s much-loved fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons made its way to the big screen. After spending half a decade in production hell, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s long-awaited D&D reboot Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves finally hits theaters this weekend. Though the wait may have been long, I dare say it’s well worth it. Honor Among Thieves boasts a winning combination of classic adventure, witty dialogue, and well-choreographed action sequences. And Chris Pine’s charismatic turn ties all of this together.

Starring Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant, and Rege-Jean Page, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves follows bard Edgin (Pine) and barbarian Holga (Rodriguez). The pair are best friends and thieves who raise Edgin’s daughter Kira together in the wake of his wife’s death. When Edgin’s thieving ways get the better of him, rogue Forge (Grant) stabs Holga and Edgin in the back, taking a bounty of riches and custody of Kira for himself. Together, Edgin and Holga set out along with a gathered party of unlikely heroes including wizard Simon (Smith) and shapeshifting druid Doric (Lillis) to stage a heist on Forge’s vault and take back what’s rightfully theirs. 

Admittedly, Honor Among Thieves is a monster (pun intended) of a film. With a runtime ten minutes shy of two and a half hours, this lengthy fantasy-adventure asks quite a bit of its audience, in terms of both story and worldbuilding. Though the specifics of this fantasy world aren’t by any means new, the film takes great pains to honor the game and its avid fanbase of tabletop players. This means taking the time to nod to game mechanics, locations, and creatures wherever possible. Honor Among Thieves‘ attention to detail gives it a welcome earnestness and sort of credibility often lacking in gaming adaptions; however, it does make for an at times arduous watch if you’re not actively keeping an eye out for Easter eggs.

The story itself does tend to wind and amble. It has a strange pace for what on paper could’ve been a relatively straightforward heist flick. But the departures and side quests do end up serving as some of the film’s most memorable sequences. This is especially true of Rege-Jean Page as Xenk Yendar, a noble (achingly handsome) Paladin whom we meet nearly halfway through the film. Then, he exits almost as swiftly as he enters it. For those 20 minutes he’s onscreen, though, Page chews scenery and dominates his scenes. He boasts a startling charisma and undeniable charm that work in tandem with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. 

Page is so good, one can’t help but wonder about the film’s determination to seemingly write him out after he serves his narrative function. Why not just keep him around for the rest of the adventure? It’s a shame he doesn’t have more screen time; however, the door is wide open for Xenk to return in the future. And, of course, absence only makes the heart grow fonder. The other major scene-stealer is Hugh Grant as backstabbing rogue Forge. It’s a role he was seemingly born to play, channeling grating charm and camp to the nth degree. 

Forge and Page’s performances feel very much in line with the tone Chris Pine sets as leading man Edgin: charming, committed, and more than willing to make a fool of himself where appropriate. It’s gratifying to see a cast so aware of the tone of the movie they’re in, fully realizing the potential of Daley, Goldstein, and Gilio’s script. Admittedly, though, not all characters are created equal. Though nobody is “bad,” Sophia Lillis as Doric does tend to get the short end of the narrative stick. Every other member of the party (including one-and-done Xenk) gets a chunk of time towards their backstory. But Doric is repeatedly underutilized, and mostly relegated to an arbitrary, uninspired romantic subplot with Simon.

The subplot of Simon pursuing Doric and wearing her down despite her previous rejections feels remarkably reductive for a film whose other major male/female relationship sees Edgin and Holga platonically living together and co-parenting Kira as best friends, partners, and nothing more. Though of all the performances, Rodriguez’s is likely the weakest. Holga’s personality lends itself to stilted dialogue and gruff delivery, and the shortcomings of her performance are for the most part salved by the fact that she shares most scenes with Pine.

Still, even with a relatively choppy structure and some frustrating subplots, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is an undeniable crowd-pleaser. It’s the type of unabashedly joyful action-adventure flick that feels like a remnant of a bygone age. Though it may struggle with pacing and an arbitrary villain, a trio of endlessly charming and deliciously ridiculous performances from Grant, Pine, and Page make Honor Among Thieves a worthy holder of the Dungeons & Dragons name.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hits theaters on March 31.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ⭐ (3.5 of 5)

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Player resurrection in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition typically comes in the form of a few spells. Revivify, Resurrection, and Raise Dead are just some of the options for bringing a fallen player character back to life. These spells, however, cost money and components to cast. As players advance, many adventurers find death doesn’t hold the same fear or meaning when there are quick spells to bring them back to life. Critical Role does something different with resurrection.

Critical Role Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer modified 5th Edition’s basic spells with optional and adjustable rules to give death more meaning in the narrative. With these modified rules, a player’s allies play a much more important role in bringing them back from the afterlife. There’s even a chance their efforts may be unsuccessful. And for each successful return to life, the DC (difficulty class) for subsequent resurrections increases by 1.

You can increase the DC in the rules below by 2 instead of just 1 for every successful attempt if you want to add even more challenge to your campaign. But, Mercer warned on Reddit, an increase of 2 may punish low level players. “With many games involving death often at lower levels, it could easily become too daunting,” says Mercer.

Here are the additional Critical Role resurrection rules, written in full by Matthew Mercer, for use in your own Dungeons & Dragons or other roleplaying campaign.

The Fading Spirit – Alternative Resurrection Rules

Character death can often prove to become a minor inconvenience in some campaigns once the adventuring party reaches a certain level, with spells being available to return fallen comrades from the afterlife with temporary setbacks, robbing a small element of danger, and threat to future conflicts and challenges within the story. If you wish to elevate the gravity of character death, you can introduce this optional rule.

If a character is dead, and a resurrection is attempted by a spell or spell effect with longer than a 1 action casting time, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to three members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to the ritual via a Contribution Skill Check. The DM asks them each to make a skill check based on their form of contribution, with the DC of the check adjusting to how helpful/impactful the DM feels the contribution would be.

For example, praying to the god of the devout, fallen character may require an Intelligence (Religion) check at an easy to medium difficulty, where loudly demanding the soul of the fallen to return from the aether may require a Charisma (Intimidation) check at a very hard or nearly impossible difficulty. Advantage and disadvantage can apply here based on how perfect, or off base, the contribution offered is.

After all contributions are completed, the DM then rolls a single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier. The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone (signifying the slow erosion of the soul’s connection to this world). For each successful contribution skill check, this DC is decreased by 3, whereas each failed contribution skill check increases the DC by 1.

Upon a successful resurrection check, the player’s soul (should it be willing) will be returned to the body, and the ritual succeeded. On a failed check, the soul does not return and the character is lost.

Only the strongest of magical incantations can bypass this resurrection challenge, in the form of the True Resurrection or Wish spells. These spells can also restore a character to life who was lost due to a failed resurrection ritual.

If a spell with a casting time of 1 action is used to attempt to restore life (via the Revivify spell or similar effects), no contribution skill checks are allowed. The character casting the spell makes a Rapid Resurrection check, rolling a d20 and adding their spellcasting ability modifier. The DC is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone. On a failure, the character’s soul is not lost, but the resurrection fails and increases any future Resurrection checks’ DC by 1. No further attempts can be made to restore this character to life until a resurrection spell with a casting time higher than 1 action is attempted.

Originally published on February 1, 2017.

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Some parts of making a Dungeons & Dragons character go beyond filling in a character sheet and doing the math. For some players, coming up with a backstory is the hardest part of the puzzle to put together. A character’s history is where a Dungeon Master finds the hooks to pull a character into their campaign beyond the promise of treasure. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition helped players by giving backgrounds some mechanical weight. This part of the character can explain why a fighter might know a thing or two about a temple or how a wizard has shady underworld connections. A good background outlines a good direction for a character’s story in between the clever traps, last-second escapes, and hard-hitting combat at the table. We’ve collected some of the best tips on giving your Dungeons & Dragons character a compelling backstory that isn’t overwhelming.

Keep It Sketchy

Good screenwriters will say that it’s best to keep a character’s history flexible when first starting out a TV series. It’s good to have strong hooks and immediately compelling points. However, it’s also important to leave open space for the player and the Dungeon Master to connect the story back to a character’s personal history. D&D is a game of exploration, and some of that includes character exploration. Players might decide a character’s trajectory is far more interesting than what they originally had in mind. Dungeon Masters would be wise to talk about that direction with players outside of game.

Become Part of the World

Characters didn’t grow up in a vacuum. They had families, lived in towns, worked in cities and formed connections to the heroes and villains of the world before the story began. This is often reflected in the Bond that can be tapped for inspiration in 5th Edition, but players and Dungeon Masters should work together to connect to these elements. Some Dungeon Masters might already have, for example, a thieves’ guild in mind when building a world that will connect to a rogue. Other Dungeon Masters might let the player create the guild and look for ways to feature it during the campaign. The player doesn’t need to upload a resume; even one such connection can be plenty to start.

Connect to Another PC

One of the most difficult parts a Dungeon Master has in an early campaign is justifying why a group of strangers decides to team up and plunder a dungeon together. The players can ease this burden by deciding how their relationships connect. Groups that want high intrigue and drama might draw a web connecting each character. Or a simple option is defining a relationship with another PC with one or two words like sibling, rival or lover. It’s one thing to meet a shadowy figure in a tavern to go on an adventure. It’s entirely something else because a character’s fool brother claims he’s a wizard and that character wants to make sure the so-called wizard comes back home alive.

Consider a Signature Item

The idea of a signature item often centers around a sweet magic weapon or another powerful item. But other, more mundane things can mean more to a character. Every character uses some sort of tool, be it a fighter’s weapon or a cleric’s holy symbol. What’s the history of that tool? What was the first thing that sword ever killed? Who gave that holy symbol to the cleric? Or the first song the bard ever played on their instrument? The answers to these questions can tell a player a lot about their character in surprising ways.

Originally published on January 11, 2018.

Rob Wieland is an author, game designer and professional nerd. He’s worked on dozens of different tabletop games ranging from Star Wars and Firefly all the way down to his own creations like CAMELOT Trigger. His Twitter is here. His meat body can be found in scenic Milwaukee, WI.

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Welcome Chris Pine to your universe, everyone. Because in a very smart move, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves characters can now join your D&D campaign as non-playable characters. D&D Beyond has added official stat blocks for some of the most popular characters from the upcoming movie. And that means they’re ready for action.

To no one’s surprise, Chris Pine’s Edgin Darvis is a chaotic good character with charm to spare.

In fact, a good deal of the Honor Among Thieves character stats reveal chaotic good D&D alignments. And we feel like that tells us basically everything we need to know about the movie. Of course, Regé-Jean Page’s Xenk Yendar is lawful good. We love him already.

You can unlock the full Thieves’ Gallery simply by logging onto D&D Beyond and claiming the product. Seven characters from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves await you there. So go forth and welcome the Honor Among Thieves NPCs into your next campaign.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will arrive in theaters on March 31. However, you don’t have to wait until then to learn more about the movie’s adventurers. Prequel novels for Honor Among Thieves will get you ready for the movie before you sit down to watch it. The Road to Neverwinter by Jaleigh Johnson focuses on Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine plays him in the movie). Nerdist has an exclusive excerpt from the D&D prequel novel, and guess what? Edgin has a daughter—a daughter who works alongside him on heists. It’s a solid family business.

Before you meet Kira in the below excerpt, here’s the synopsis for The Road to Neverwinter:

Edgin Darvis’ life is a mess. All that he has left are his lute, his dashing good looks, and…not much else. After a chance encounter with badass bruiser Holga, Edgin is forced to take a hard look at his bad choices. But the road to redemption is long, and paved with unforeseen expenses. Fortunately, the world is full of rich fools begging to be parted from their money.
 
And so Edgin and Holga do what any sensible entrepreneurs would do—they form a crew.
 
Joined by a charming rogue, Forge Fitzwilliam, and Simon, a sorcerer with an intense inferiority complex, the team sets out to line their pockets with both well-earned and ill-gotten gold. Together, Edgin’s crew battles monsters across the realms: gnoll raiders, fey witches, and more fall beneath their sharp weapons and sharper wit. But when they encounter a new, more sophisticated villain, keen blades and piercing blue eyes may not be enough.
 
Their target? Torlinn Shrake, a wealthy eccentric known for abusing his servants and hosting lavish parties.
 
The plan? Play dress-up, sneak into the Shrake estate, and fill their pockets with as much loot as they can carry.
 
The catch? Shrake is hiding a terrible secret: one that could endanger the lives of everyone Edgin has come to care for—even if the loot is too good to pass up.

“We’ll all be murdered by the faceless dead!”

It was definitely a challenge to pick a lock while the lord and lady of the house were screaming their heads off downstairs, but Edgin was a professional.

“Set the scene for me, Holga,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “What’s Kira doing?”

Standing watch at the door to Lord Bantakent’s study, Holga was shaking her head in pure admiration. “Told you that invisibility pendant would pay off, Ed. She’s a master.”

The lock clicked open. Edgin threw back the lid of the chest and buried his hands in a pile of gold and gems. Sweet victory. He scooped the loot into a bag and tossed it over his shoulder before joining Holga at the door.

Downstairs, the Lord and Lady Bantakent, one of the most un­scrupulous merchant power couples in the city of Neverwinter, were huddled together in their nightclothes in the center of their grand foyer, while a pair of what looked like priceless vases floated around their heads. The rest of the room was a shambles. All the paintings had been turned upside down or pulled off the walls, tables and chairs were knocked over, and through it all, a high-pitched, disem­bodied voice intoned, “Yooooouuuu shall join me in the emptiness of the beyoooooond!”

“She improvised that line,” Edgin said, nudging Holga.

The servants had all fled as soon as Kira started throwing plates and dinnerware against the dining room walls and howling in a voice of ghostly despair. Lord and Lady Bantakent had retreated to the foyer, where an invisible Kira had cornered them to continue the haunting while Edgin and Holga cleaned out the upstairs.

“Miffles!” Lady Bantakent wailed. “No, not my baby!”

“Oh, that’s a nice touch,” Edgin said, “using the dog.”

He watched Lord and Lady Bantakent quail before the sight of Miffles the terrier sailing through the air, dipping up and down, his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, to all appearances hav­ing the time of his doggy life.

“Time to go,” Holga said, pulling Edgin toward the half-open window and the rope they’d left hanging there.

The three of them met up at the rendezvous point in an alley a few streets away, Kira appearing in front of Edgin with a huge grin on her face. “Did you see me, Dad? Did you see?”

“Fantastic job, kid,” Edgin said. “That was a one-in-a-million haunting.”

“Profitable too,” Holga said.

It was well after midnight by the time they got back to the cot­tage.

“It’s time to admit the truth,” Edgin said with a sigh as he, Holga, and Kira sorted the loot at the kitchen table. “I’m a damn good thief.”

Holga snorted. “Ought to be, after nine years of practice.”

“Well, I’ve always known it, of course, but I’m a humble man,” Edgin said.

Kira laughed as she sorted the coins from the small pile of gems. Edgin did a double take every time he looked at her these days. She’d grown from a squalling newborn to a nightmare of a toddler and was now all skinned knees, skinny arms, and dark curly hair at nine years old. The change from baby to person had seemed to hap­pen in an eyeblink.

Of course, as soon as she was old enough to understand what they did for a living, Kira had insisted on joining him and Holga on their heists. Edgin had been unsure at first, but she’d quickly become invaluable. The rest of the time . . .

Edgin had hoped that when she was able to walk, dress herself, and take care of the basics of being a person, to speak and tell him exactly what she needed, things would get easier when it came to raising Kira.

Oh, what a sweet, innocent, naïve man he’d been.

Being able to walk meant that she could run. With sharp objects. Toward horses or deep bodies of water.

Being able to speak meant that she had opinions. Suggestions about when her bedtime should be, or critiques of his cooking.

After nine years, he still had no idea what he was doing.

Reprinted from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Road to Neverwinter by Jaleigh Johnson. © 2023 Wizards of the Coast LLC. © 2023 Paramount Pictures Corporation. Published by Random House Worlds, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Road to Neverwinter hits shelves on February 28, about a month before the film. You can place a pre-order now.

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The Legend of Vox Machina, based on Critical Role‘s first campaign, recently premiered its second season on Prime Video. The animated series already has season three in the works, too. And soon, more Critical Role content will join it. Amazon Studios announced today that it has entered a multiyear exclusive overall television and first-look film deal with Critical Role. The first project under this agreement is Mighty Nein. The animated series will adapt Critical Role‘s wildly popular second campaign.

Mighty Nein features the Critical Role cast as a new group of adventurers. According to Amazon, it follows: “a group of criminals and misfits who are the only ones that can prevent the kingdom from plunging into chaos when an arcane artifact capable of reshaping reality falls into the wrong hands.”

In the campaign, the cast was as follows:

• Laura Bailey – Jester Lavorre
• Taliesin Jaffe – Mollymauk “Molly” Tealeaf
• Ashley Johnson – Yasha Nydoorin
• Liam O’Brien – Caleb Widogast
• Marisha Ray – Beauregard “Beau” Lionett
• Travis Willingham – Fjord
• Sam Riegel – Nott the Brave and Veth Brenatto

They’ll begin production soon and Mighty Nein will premiere on Prime Video. Executive producers include Tasha Huo, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham alongside Metapigeon and Amazon Studios. Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio, and Ben Kalina at Titmouse will also executive produce.

As for the overall deal, it will see Critical Role develop original TV series, films, and content. Their production company, Metapigeon, will also work with creatives on new projects in and outside of the Critical Role universe, too.

Travis Willingham, co-founder and CEO of Critical Role said in a statement.

Critical Role‘s livestream campaigns are the spark that lit the flame for our worldwide audience. Seeing the stories and characters from our first campaign come to life in The Legend of Vox Machina was a dream realized, and we are absolutely buzzing with excitement to do it again with Mighty Nein. But with today’s announcement, we’re confident that the stories we tell will keep expanding into realms of entertainment beyond what we can even imagine.

Until we get Mighty Nein, catch new episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina on Fridays on Prime Video.

Amy Ratcliffe is the Editor-in-Chief for Nerdist and the author of Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy, The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, The Jedi Mind, and more. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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Sometimes the 20-sided die just doesn’t roll your way. And on occasion the best laid plans of mages and men blow up in your face. But the one thing you can always control during a session of Dungeons & Dragons is who you play with. So long as your campaign features a collection of people you like spending time with, any play through will be a magical night. That’s also true of movies. Good characters always make for a good time. And that’s what the newest trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is promising. It focuses on the personalities of its party, and the dynamics of the group should make for one entertaining campaign.

And it also doesn’t hurt that the movie features an army of the undead, a myriad of monsters, and plenty of D&D Easter eggs for longtime fans to hunt down.

This Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer is exactly what all of our own sessions are like. An impossibly handsome human leads our party of engaging and well-developed characters through an incredible story of intrigue and chaos. Okay, well maybe not all of our sessions are like this. But we try!

As for the film, it’ll see its party trying to find something it never should have taken in the first place. Here’s the official synopsis from Paramount Pictures:

A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.  Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brings the rich world and playful spirit of the legendary roleplaying game to the big screen in a hilarious and action-packed adventure.

Directed by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley (who also wrote the screenplay with Michael Gilio), the film stars: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, and Hugh Grant. It comes to theaters on March 31, 2023.

Well, that’s assuming they don’t have to reschedule. If they really want an authentic D&D experience someone will need to cancel the day before. But hey, that’s okay so long as it eventually happens. Well, so long as it happens with people you like. Or, in this case, who’s in the movie.

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Dungeons & Dragons and LEGO seem like such a natural mashup. So it is amazing that these brands haven’t teamed up before now. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D coming up in 2024, the teams at LEGO Ideas and Wizards of the Coast kicked off a contest to find the best fan-built crossover. Hundreds of entries were narrowed down to only five, and, of course, one prevailed in the end. Here is the winner of the Dungeons & Dragons LEGO set competition. You can look forward to buying this build in stores next year. 

The winning set is titled Dragon’s Keep: Journey’s End. Its official description reads: “The all-round 360 experience of this model, the level of detail and dynamic composition really brings all the iconic aspects of Dungeons & Dragons to life.”

This fan-build will be made as part of LEGO’s 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons celebrations, but there is no specific release date available yet. The final set may look a bit different to the fan-entry.

Click To View Gallery

Although LEGO will only create one Dungeons & Dragons set from this contest, we love looking at all its entries. Rounding out the final five contenders were plenty of monsters, including the dreaded Gelatinous Cube. You could even use the separate builds within the Monster Manual set in your D&D games. Or build a treasure chest with a series of ingenious hinges that transform it into a toothy Mimic. Most of the sets were more than just display pieces. For example, you could use the five-headed dragon Tiamat’s tower to roll your dice. The bookshelf in the Xanathar set is also a dice tower.

For even more, you can go ahead and check out all 381 entries on the LEGO Ideas site and lament what could have been. Or roll dexterity and try to build your favorite ones using just the pictures. A three-dimensional version of the iconic Dungeons & Dragons red box and a d20 that folds out into a playable battle map (both pictured above) are among the amazing options that didn’t make the final five.

Other fun D&D mashups to check out include a version of Monopoly and some gorgeous character jewelry. Roll a critical success, and check out our holiday gift guide for the tabletop gamer in your life for even more ideas. It may not be Christmas anymore, but gifts are good at any time.

Originally published on November 30, 2022.

Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves kicked off a weekend of Hall H panels at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. Cast members Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant joined directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley and producer Jeremy Latcham to share the first details about the upcoming movie. We also got our first look at Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves with a trailer. The film looks like a rip-roaring adventure worthy of the beloved roleplaying game.

The trailer came after a panel that saw the cast talk about their history with Dungeons & Dragons. Pine joked that though it took him a while to come to the game, he’s now ready to spread the gospel of D&D because of how it brings everyone together. While Page joked he grew up as Eddie Munson of Stranger Things. He was made fun of, and he played loud and angry music. Meanwhile, Lillis has been a devoted fan of the roleplaying game and watches Critical Role. Grant teased he’s been an enthusiastic Dungeon Master.

Here’s who everyone is playing, including their D&D classes. They’re a ragtag group of misfits.

• Chris Pine: Edgin, a bard
• Michelle Rodriguez: Holga, a barbarian
• Regé-Jean Page: Xenk, a paladin
• Sophia Lillis: (Character name unknown), a druid
• Hugh Grant: Forge, a rogue
• Justice Smith: Symon (though we need to confirm this spelling), a sorcerer

A behind-the-scenes sizzle reel showed off a bit of the characters, costumes, and monsters. They shot the film in Northern Ireland and the landscapes are made for Dungeons & Dragons. An unfinished clip from the film showed the group questing for the Helmet of Destruction. The search in this scene included a classic D&D mission: digging up corpses to ask them questions. As the group questions several corpses, we saw some of the film’s humor—especially from Pine’s Edgin. Grant noted the movie has real Monty Python vibes.

Goldstein and Francis Daley are both huge Dungeons & Dragons fans. They each started playing at young ages. But like Francis Daley noted, it’s not just the story of D&D that’s key. It’s about the feeling you get when you play. And they wanted to incorporate all of that into the movie: family, camaraderie, and coming together as a group to face obstacles you don’t expect. We love a found family story.

The directors and producers wouldn’t share too many details about the plot. Latcham said the team has a lot of questing; they’re searching for something that will probably solve the issue they’re facing. The trailer showed they helped the wrong person steal the wrong thing and unleashed the greatest evil in the world. Oops.

Francis Daley said Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has dozens of monsters and creatures in this movie and dozens of spells. Another clip showed off a displacer beast and the gelatinous cube. The directors also noted the worked closely with Wizards of the Coast to get the lore right. And, the film will have at least one cameo from a well known D&D player.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will now arrive in theaters on March 31, 2023.

Originally published on July 21, 2022.

Amy Ratcliffe is the Editor-in-Chief for Nerdist and the author of Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy, The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, The Jedi Mind, and more Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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Dungeons & Dragons arrived in the world in 1974. That means, I’m sorry to report, that the popular roleplaying game approaches its 50th anniversary. With that milestone on the horizon, it’s the ideal time to look back at the creation of the epic tabletop franchise. Happily, an official Dungeons & Dragons documentary is in the works. Joe Manganiello and Kyle Newman will co-direct (we first spotted the news at Deadline). Its release aligns with the 2024 anniversary of the game. The directors are both avid Dungeons & Dragons players, with Manganiello being an official ambassador for the game.

The Dungeons & Dragons documentary comes from Hasbro’s entertainment studio, Entertainment One. According to Deadline, the documentary uses “400 hours of archived, never-before-seen footage.” The Manganiellos (Joe’s brother Nick is a co-producer), Newman, and Adam F. Goldberg have exclusive rights to this content. And since Hasbro’s studio is involved, that means the group has access to D&D gamemaker Wizards of the Coast.

Manganiello seems like the perfect candidate to take on a Dungeons & Dragons documentary. He runs a D&D game of his own and recently kickstarted the tabletop RPG augmented reality app ARcana. And Newman has worked on Heroes Feast: The Official Dungeons & Dragons Cookbook and Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana.

In a statement, Manganiello said:

I couldn’t be more proud and excited to get back behind the camera for another documentary, this time with the D&D dream team of Jon, Kyle, and my brother and producing partner Nick. I lived through the rise and fall and rise again of this legacy brand that has not only meant so much to me but has served as the fountainhead of creativity for an entire generation of writers, artists, and creative minds, influencing so much of our culture.

Amy Ratcliffe is the Editor-in-Chief for Nerdist and the author of Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy, The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, The Jedi Mind, and more. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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Dungeons & Dragons is the latest franchise to get the RockLove jewelry treatment. The jewelry company has made beautiful silver necklaces for a handful of character classes. And if you don’t see your favorite class yet, don’t worry. They have more on the way. With RockLove’s Dungeons & Dragon jewelry, you can now represent your favorite character class through more than just role playing. The cleric, bard, wizard, warlock, rogue, and fighter jewelry are all for sale. Prices range from $135-199.  

Click To View Gallery

Two of the necklaces even have detachable parts. The cleric vial has a removable stopper that dangles from a silver chain so you don’t lose the small piece. The fighter shield comes with a broadsword that unsheathes. For the wizard, there’s an intricate spell book with jewels on its cover. It hinges opens to reveal diagrams and other scribbles one would likely find in such a tome.

Rounding out the Dungeons & Dragons jewelry collection (for now) is a rogue’s dagger and mask, the bard’s lute, and a warlock medallion. Along with symbols of the occult, the latter includes crystals representing the four elements of air, earth, water, and fire. 

The company announced the D&D necklaces in a blog post that also mentions more are in the works. Druids, monks, rangers, and the others will have to wait their turn to buy a necklace. All necklaces come in a box made to look like a D&D book, iconic red lettering and all.  

Other licensed collections from RockLove include Studio Ghibli favorites like Spirited Away and a range of colorful Star Wars kyber crystals. There’s also a Pokémon collection. And Black Widow jewelry, among other MCU characters, Disney movies, and Pixar favorites. Whatever your fandom, you’re likely to find a piece that calls to you.

Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth. 

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In the ’70s/’80s heyday of Dungeons & Dragons, there wasn’t ever an official soundtrack. No one thought to make soundtracks to tabletop games back then. Nerdy kids just had to have bands like Rush or Asia on in the background during their campaigns. But these days, the D&D folks are a little bit savvier. Via Polygon, we’ve learned that in conjunction with Wizards of the Coast’s recently released Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, they’ve also released a full-length soundtrack album called Spelljams to go with it. And it is free to stream and download.

The new campaign was partially inspired by the 1980 sci-fi film Flash Gordon. Yes, the one with the awesome theme song by Queen. Spelljammer is an over-the-top space opera where the players have to fight to save their home planet from an evil Elven Empire that wishes to destroy it. Just like the Queen score was crucial to Flash Gordon, the Spelljammer: Adventures in Space soundtrack is just as crucial to the game.

Chris Perkins, the story architect, worked with The Decemberists’ guitarist Chris Funk, who curated the album. The different artists were tasked with coming up with music and themes for things such as space clowns, space vampires, and space whales. Who could say no to that? If a 1970s van with airbrushed art of a warrior maiden on a pegasus had a sound, it would be one just like this.

“Arena of Blood” in particular sounds like a track that Stranger Things’ Eddie Munson would rock out to during a Hellfire Club get-together. The album will also be available in a vinyl collectors’ edition. The coolest part? It will have a triple gatefold LP cover that will also function as a Dungeon Masters’ screen. You can pre-order the vinyl edition right here. And you can check out the full tracklist below.

1. “Seeds Of Destruction” — Magic Sword
2. “Arena Of Blood” — Osees
3. “Space Is A Place” — Reggie Watts
4. “Visible Lights” — TEKE::TEKE
5. “Far” — Black Marble
6. “Left Hand Path” — Mikaela Davis
7. “Love is the disaster” — Lucius
8. “Xedalli” — Penny & Sparrow
9. “Moon Dancer” — Y La Bamba
10. “Light of Xaryxis” — Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
11. “Spacefighters” — MonoNeon
12. “Crystalline Climbers” — Cardioid & pink paint
13. “Me and The Moon” — Devon Gilfillian
14. “Endless Sea” — Red Fang
15. “Ghost Of The Nautiloid” — Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band
16. “Forgotten Land” — Deru, Arooj Aftab
17. “Topolah’s Song” — Wizard of Waz
18. “chaotic.evil.astral.elves” — Califone
19. “The Door To Endlessness” — Shabazz Palaces

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Your adventuring party has faced dungeons, dragons, and maybe even this gross-looking dude named Vecna. What’s left for your Dungeons & Dragons group to conquer? Space! Wizards of the Coast releases Spelljammer: Adventures in Space on August 16. The book promises to take D&D players where no adventuring party has gone before. Well, unless, you played the original AD&D Spelljammer in the late ’80s. Whether you’ve ventured into Wildspace years ago, or this is your first time traversing the astral plane, Spelljammer: Adventures in Space will seamlessly integrate into any story for the campaign of a lifetime.

Unlike most D&D campaign books, this guide contains three different volumes. The Astral Adventurer’s Guide, the setting, is a separate book that players can safely flip through without spoiling a monster stat block or the next plot point in the included adventure. Monsters hide inside Boo’s Astral Menagerie, and an adventure for levels 5-8 awaits in Light of Xaryxis. The three books are packed along with a map and Dungeon Master’s Screen in one astronomically cool package.

Chris Perkins, Lead Designer for Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, revealed a few tantalizing details at a recent press preview. “The vast ocean that is Wildspace is an exciting place for adventure,” he said. “If nothing else, it’s a way to get from one world to another.” 

Players who make their way through Wildspace can travel between settings; for example, the party can leave the Forgotten Realms and arrive in Greyhawk. Spelljammer is all about the journey. Along the way the adventurers experience “fast and fluid” encounters with everything from space eels, to space whales, to space clowns.

Yeah. Space clowns.

Spelljammer embraces the core concepts of Dungeons & Dragons, Perkins said, which include fantasy, horror, and whimsy—emphasis on the whimsy. You might not expect a setting in space to mesh well with your established sword-wielding characters and fantasy setting, but making Spelljammer inclusive for any and all campaigns was a goal of the creative team. The Rock of Bral, for example, is a city on an asteroid that can serve as the backdrop of a fantasy, sci-fi, or any other kind of story.

Still thinking about those space clowns? So are we. They’re an homage to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. In fact, you’ll find homages to other classic sci-fi stories and franchises in this setting. There are also new playable races, spells and items, monsters, and so much more waiting to be discovered.

If you’re ready to jump into Wildspace, you and your party can get ready for your journey to the Astral Sea right now! Take a look at Spelljammer Academy now on D&D Beyond for four free adventures; Roll20 has some of the nitty-gritty details for Dungeon Masters preparing for space combat.

Spelljammer: Adventures in Space will be available digitally and at your favorite local game store on August 16, 2022 (and September 13, 2022 in Europe).

Featured Image: Shawn Wood/Wizards of the Coast

Kelly Knox is a pop culture and entertainment writer in the Seattle area. She’s the author of Star Wars: Be More Obi-Wan and a co-author on the upcoming book Star Wars Everyday. Follow her on Twitter at @kelly_knox to talk Star Wars, pop culture, and bad dad jokes.

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