Chris 
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. While working on the magical treasure index for our new Lord of the Rings Roleplaying campaign, I was reminded of an idea I’d used for my earlier Tomb of Annihilation campaign. Balancing between rewarding your players while still keeping magic items meaningful and special can be a bit of a … Read more
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. Over the past several years, the spectre of AI has loomed over much of our daily lives. The implications for writers, artists, and application developers, as well as for consumers of these industries, are a serious concern. Both the copyright infringement issues and the inevitable reduction in force that these … Read more
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. When I was approached to run DM Tony’s most recent birthday game, I was excited and yet without a clear vision of exactly what we were going to play. Our birthday game one-shots have become a friendly competition, so I went searching for the perfect idea. We’d just played a … Read more
Birthday games, and one-shots in general, are a great place to stretch out and try something new. The best part of any challenge, like having 3 different DMs running a session, is that there are no mistakes. Only lessons and experience you can bring with you to make your other games better.
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. With all of the excitement brewing around our impending Lord of the Rings Roleplaying campaign, there is one thorn in the rosebush to deal with. To quote the sourcebook, “Magic in Middle-Earth is rare.” So rare in fact that initially I was somewhat confused by the exclusion of spellcasting classes, … Read more
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. Along with Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation occupies a revered status as one of the “must-play” adventures in D&D. It has grown from the original Tomb of Horrors module into a complete setting, with the aforementioned Tomb lurking deep in the dangerous and vast Chultan jungle. Death and glory … Read more
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chis here. In our latest Return to the Further session last Wednesday night, the players valiantly battled a Dragonborn Mummy Lord and his Green Dragon protector to remove the evil taint that had claimed the ancient elven city of Ennama. All that in two hours on a Wednesday night. Mini-session campaigns can … Read more
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. As I begin my preparation for our upcoming Lord of the Rings Roleplaying campaign, I thought it would be a cool exercise to talk about what I’m doing to get it ready. When you are operating from a sourcebook versus a published adventure, there can be the additional stress of … Read more
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. Over the past several months, the folks over at WOTC have been releasing some of the changes being made to our beloved D&D 5th edition, culminating in the release of the 2024 Core Rulebooks. And as one would expect there have been a bunch of reviews published about the updates, both good and bad. People are resistant to change, and anytime you’re going to alter something that has evolved and grown into such a wide-ranging community, you’re going to ruffle some feathers. But for those of us who have seen years and fads pass by, change can be what you make it.
Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. In the long hours, weeks, months, and even years of your campaign, there will be portions of your carefully crafted story that will get lost in the flood of plotlines and twists. It’s inevitable. Don’t fret – it happens to writer’s as well. Remember, you spend a lot more time with the details than your players do. Top that off with the power that ideas can have. Once your players have had a “wrong” idea about the story, it can plant itself deep in their understanding and cause issues for you down the road.
We recently experienced this in our current Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign. DM Dave does a fabulous job delivering lore and secrets, but over the multitude of sessions a “wrong” idea began to grow amongst the party members. I don’t want to spoil the fun for anyone looking to play that adventure, so I’ll be talking about it generally, rather than in specifics. Our party is nearing the epic finale of the story, and one of the key portions had become slightly twisted. We became so focused on this altered version of what we were there to do that finally Dave had to break immersion and course correct us in order for the story to continue. But then that got us talking – is there a better way to get your players back on point?
