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Dave

Changes – 3 Wise DMs Absolutely Best Tips For The Player That Wants To Change Their D&D Character Class

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What do you do when your player is unhappy with the direction of their class and wants to change over into a new class mid-campaign, but with the same character?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave answer a listener question about their player that wants to change their character’s class from Paladin to Sorcerer at 5th level. We delve into not just the narrative components of a change like this, but also the mechanical effects that such a change would inevitably bring. Along the way, we offer tips, tricks, and questions you should ask yourself if you’re planning on something like this in your own games.

RPG Mythbusters: The Tavern is the Best Place to Start Your D&D Adventure

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The tavern. It’s the start of 23 different campaigns that DM Tony has been in over the last three decades. It’s a fantasy adventure trope and gets a lot of hate out there for being basic and unimaginative, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave return to our RPG Mythbusters series and test the myth, “Is a tavern the best place to start an adventure?” Will it be confirmed, plausible, or busted?

I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In: 3 Wise DMs Discuss How Using Conditions Will Enhance Your D&D Game

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With our recent Forged in Fire article series, DM Chris realized how many Conditions that monsters have resistance and immunity to, especially in 5e. With that, we began to discuss how much (or little) we play with Conditions in our home games, and how that might be limiting what we can do to craft engaging, thrilling, and challenging encounters.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave delve into the Conditions mechanic (both in and out of 5e), the issues we have with some of them, what ones we find to be somewhat limp, and the ones we would love to use more. We also delve into what we have found is a Condition we often times inflict on ourselves as DMs: Expectations.

Forged in Fire Part Deux: Our Top 3 Homebrews For 5e: Narya, The Ring of Fire, Excalibur, and the Nazgul!

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In a recent episode, we discussed a listener question about homebrewing magic items that are based off our favorite books, movies, myths, and television series. This is something that every DM and GM is going to do… heck, it might even be the reason you got behind the screen in the first place!

Invasion! 3 Wise DMs Dungeons & Dragons And Dungeon Master Advice Podcast Invades YouTube To Offer All Our Tips And Tricks!

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That’s right, 3WD listeners… we’ve packed our Explorer’s Packs, donned our Breastplates and Shields (so as not to gain Disadvantage on Stealth checks!), sharpened our weapons and entered the “Dungeon of YouTube!”

In an effort to increase our ever-growing community here and invite new listeners (and viewers!) to experience our unique, conversational brand of DM advice, we have begun uploading our episodes from our return this past March with Back in Black: The Players Wrap-Up to the Absolutely Epic Curse of Strahd Finale with Vampyr, the Star of Blood

So, all we ask of the 3WD-verse is to shoot on over to our YouTube channel, Subscribe and, if the mood strikes you, or someone you know is in need of some friendly advice, or you just want to scream your love of us from a mountaintop (hey, guys can dream, right?) SHARE, SHARE, SHARE… help us defeat the dragon that is the YouTube algorithm.

She’s A Mystery To Me: How Long To Keep Secrets And Clues From Your Players In Your D&D Game

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One of the beauties of TTRPGs is the ability to not just watch or read an amazing story, but to experience it… to create it. The mystery, the action, the climactic battle between good and evil; D&D gives us the ability to create our favorite stories.

One of the most important aspects of that, as the DM, is creating a level of mystery to the story that the players get the chance to uncover as they delve deeper into the adventure. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss a listener question about their mystery that they’re planning on having last for 10 levels and ask, “am I being cruel by leaving them in mystery so long?”

Forged in Fire: 3WDs Top 3 Homebrews For 5e: The Sword of Power, Zeus’ Thunderbolt and Demonic Bob Ross

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In our recent episode, we discussed a listener question about homebrewing magic items that are based off our favorite books, movies, myths, and television series. Specifically, they were hoping to translate the legendary Shardblades from Brandon Sanderson’s epic series, The Stormlight Archives. We discussed several of our own homebrew items that we’ve instituted in our … Read more

Whatcha Got Cookin’? – 3WDs Top 9 Tips To Homebrewing Magic and Magical Items From Pop Culture In Your D&D Campaign

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Homebrewing has been part of the game since its inception. Hell, the game itself is a homebrew of wargames! We’ve discussed homebrewing in previous episodes and articles, but a listener asks the question about how to homebrew magic items and monsters from well-known pop culture sources (like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere Universe.)

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss their top nine tips to pulling in objects and ideas from existing beloved pop culture properties and making them have the same level of gravitas as the book, series, or movie that they come from.

You Say It’s Your Birthday – 3WD Reveals 7 Tips That Will Help You Build Your Own Very Special One-Shot D&D Game

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Birthday games. Several of our recent articles and episodes discuss our passion for running birthday games for our game group, whether it be D&D, the OSR, Avatar Legends, or the classic Marvel Super Heroes system; it’s become our thing.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss the recent Birthday Game they ran where The Doctor teamed up with the Sensational She-Hulk and members of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to stop the impending Cyberman invasion orchestrated by the wielder of the Cosmic Control Rod, Annihilus, and do battle against the Brood in a giant Space Whale (believe us…. It made way more sense at the table!)

We then discuss our 7 best tips to help you build your own Very Special One-Shot for Birthdays or any other day!

Inspiration: How You Use It and 4 Ways You Can Improve It In Your D&D Game

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Inspiration. Along with Advantage and Disadvantage, its one of the most streamlined mechanics in 5e. However, we all love to try new or adjusted mechanics to continually improve our DMing. Fellow Wise DM Mike Shea over at Sly Flourish shared an article discussing the Luck System from Kobold Press’ Project Black Flag playtest.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss Inspiration; how we use it in our games and the changes we have made and are thinking of making to improve our games.