Excavating Archaeological Sites in Dungeons and Dragons
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- This is gonna be a weird one. I gave this presentation at the 80th meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Williamsburg VA this fall. It covers a system I designed for a group of players to excavate archaeological sites within the Dungeons and Dragons world, so that instead of the Dungeon Master just telling players lore based on dice rolls, the players have to uncover evidence and interpret it to figure out lore on their own.
I'm working on putting my DM's notes and the .xcf files together so anyone interested can play this first module themselves. I'll put the link here and advertise it on instagram when it's available.
IG: @nfosaaen_archaeology
What an engaging way to present and practice the concepts of the excavation process! I hope you get a chance to do this again and expand on it in terms of ethics and realistic obstacles. I’d love to see this approach used as a class introductory and end of course exercise 🤩. Much better than the “Read this, listen to me talk, now write some essays about it,” approach. 👏
I wish you could have seen the first session with groups B and C. As soon as they hit the first human burial the response was "oh shit! OK let's cover this person back up. How do we contact the descendent community? We need to start consultation proceedings immediately!" They've all internalized NAGPRA standards so much that they had trouble just playing the game. I was very pleased.
@@NathanaelFosaaenGold stars groups B & C! 😊 I can see it now.. “You’ve discovered a human burial, roll a 7 to summon your Indigenous Archaeological Monitor to lay tobacco down.”
Not even three minutes in and I can tell this is a winner! I love it. Nothing like losing control of a party and coming up with an amazing solution.
Not a DND player but I LOVE this concept! What an awesome idea!
That was an "outside of the box" approach.
Ignoring the bandit in favour of 30 minutes focusing on some briefly mentioned rocks is such a relatable d&d experience.
Archaeology, D&D, electric guitar, liquor bottles and a bar set up; what’s not to love?
Cool topic!
This is so cool! I can't wait for the notes to come out, I'm a DM and I'd love to play this with my group.
Hah! I knew you were a fellow DnD player! Great video!
Do you run any online games open to new players?
I do not, but if I ever start a Patreon that's probably gonna be a perk.
Nathanael, this was/is absolutely brilliant. What an amazing example of cross-pollination of ideas! Congratulations!
This is fantastic! It's easily one of the best overviews of archaeology I've seen, and better than most D&D descriptions, too.
This is the first time I've been tempted to try Dungeons & Dragons
Unfortunate. It's a good time.
I've heard that, time being the factor at issue for me
Mammoth tusks are Metal AF
Nate, this is absolutely wicked! I missed SEAC this year, so im jazzed you put your presentation up here! The "running out of time before excavating everything" is so real 😂. Hell yeah, archaeological research is made so much better by collaboration. Love this!
Thanks Cara!
Well, all my games need this now.
Correct.
This is awesome. 🤘
Ok, just a guess, this is what happens when you work invades your hobbies and you just run with it.
My work deals with the totality of human and environmental experience, so unfortunately my hobbies are inseparable from my work.
Pretty frickin' cool! I also found that axe in the corner of your room interesting. Did you excavate that from a shaman like occupancy layer?
Very cool! I’m curious as to how the players developed a magic methodology for investigation. Was it by trial and error or did you tell them which spells mapped onto various testing techniques?
I left it up to the players to argue their case and I'd let them know if it would work.
I would be super interested in having a go - I understand a variety of different aspects of history and archaeology as well as reenactment and TTRPG's - I'm now obsessed with this brilliant game and teaching tool concept you have come up with! thanks!
Great video
This is dope
This is so cool. I'd love to run a module like this for some friends, maybe one of the simpler ones you mentioned potentially working on. Really awesome idea. Archeology is super rad and most people (like me) know next to nothing about it OR have outlandish, wild ideas about it and this could help with that I think. Boo @ the AI "art" assets though man!
This would work well for Lost Mine of Phandelver!
I have nearly no idea of this, but good luck!
Excellent !:-)
❤
That would be super fun. Bonus points for the educational value❤
You're definitely my favorite biker dude! Archaeologist😅😅😅
I'd love ti download your notes to adapt them to a burial mound my players might find any moment now.
Message me on IG.
@NathanaelFosaaen I don't have Insta :(
This was one of the talks I missed at the conference. Regardless, I knew you looked familiar when you walked by but I couldn't remember where I saw you from. I guess you were the UA-cam person people were talking about. I also must ask what was with the drinking horn you were walking around with??!?!?!!
One of my techs wanted to bring her drinking horn and insisted that I bring mine too. Perfectly happy to indulge in a dumb bit at conferences.
Also, I'm still getting used to people at conferences knowing me from UA-cam and not from work or mutual friends.
I recently saw this Doc.on the Quivira culture from the western Plains area. Are you familiar with this and is it legitimate????
I'd have to see the doc in question.
@@NathanaelFosaaen I will see if I can find it
Total nerdgasm.
You should have seen the dorks at the conference eating this shit up! Good people.
nothing pertinent to say.
i'm just make an offering to the algodeities of the tube'y'all.