Dave

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.

Share and Share Alike: 3WDs Top Tips For Dealing With D&D Players Who Won’t Share The Spotlight

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Sharing. It’s one of the first skills that we have to learn as kids and, as anyone who has gamed for long enough, some kids never quite learned how to do it. Our longtime listener, Jim Laubacker, posed a question regarding how to best deal with players that won’t share the spotlight. As a bonus, Jim is also trying to balance a group that is a hybrid of in-person and virtual players!

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss the ways in which they’ve adjusted to turn the dominant and passive players weaknesses at the table into strengths. Additionally, they delve more into the difficulties they’ve experienced in running hybrid games and some tips and tricks with dealing with a very new issue in TTRPGs.

The Breakup Game – How Constant Splitting of the Party Can Lead to DM Burnout and What to Do About It

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And for our first episode of 2024, we delve into a listener question regarding the players constantly Splitting the Party in their Curse of Strahd campaign and how that’s leading to DM Burnout. But, Splitting the Party is a gift to a DM, isn’t it? I mean, now you can really dial up the tension, right? In a dungeon, or a mansion, or a Keep, sure. But what about when the party is split up into three sections of the campaign world?!

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss strategies for dealing with players who constantly want to run, in essence, three separate games within a single session. Further, we delve again into the very real topic of DM Burnout and finish our Final Thoughts with some prescient wisdom from DM Thorin.

Damage, Inc. – 3WD Discuss What Hit Points Represent And How To Improve Your D&D Game By Changing Your Perspective

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What do Hit Points represent? Who knew that this was a controversial question on par with asking about Alignment? Following our episode reviewing the Avatar Legends RPG and their use of Fatigue and Conditions, we posed the question regarding what hit points represent on our socials and the response was impressive.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave take a deeper dive into what Hit Points represent in their games, how they describe the loss of them, and how other systems approach one of the oldest traditions of D&D.

Fatigue and Conditions: An Excellent Mechanic From The Avatar Legends RPG To Add Depth And Roleplay To Your D&D Combat.

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In our most recent episode, we reviewed our experience with playing the Starter Set for the new Avatar Legends RPG developed by Magpie Games, as well as the tips, tricks, and pitfalls we’ve found with running brand new systems that are very different from traditional d20 systems.

During the episode, we got into a discussion regarding one of the mechanics that we were a bit divided on. But I thought it was an interesting way to make the effects of combat more cinematic and narrative, as opposed the the tried-and-true mechanic of hit points.

So, I thought I’d break out the mechanic a bit more in this article to introduce you to something that might inspire you to look at your combat encounters in a slightly different way: Fatigue and Conditions.

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting – 3WD Reviews the Avatar Legends RPG and Reveals Tips on Running Brand-New Systems in your D&D Group!

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The 3 Wise DMs just played through the new Avatar Legends RPG Starter Set from Magpie Games. Based off the Powered by the Apocalypse system, Avatar Legends is about as different from D&D and Pathfinder as can be.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave review the Avatar Legends system, the one-shot that we played as well as discuss tips, tricks, and pitfalls to playing completely new systems – how to prepare, how to run, and how to play – for new and experienced DMs and GMs alike.

Happy Thanksgiving From 3WD!

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We’ve got a lot to be thankful for this year, but riding high above all of it is our thanks to you. While it might sound trite or corny, we really mean it. For long-time listeners, you knew what we went through when our dear old, erstwhile leader, Thorin McGee passed on last … Read more

Stone Cold Crazy – How a First-Time DM Ran a Crazy One-Shot With Four Kurt Russell’s!

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We recently shared a post about our Halloween one-shot adventure that we started referring to as the “Kurt Russell Campaign.” Four players, all playing one of the legendary roles made famous by your favorite, and ours, Mr. Kurt Russell. The response was fantastic, so we thought we’d do a deeper dive.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave are joined by return guests Bonnie and the Monster Wrangler himself, and now official DM, Matt, who decided that for his first official session behind the screen, he was going to do something that might even challenge even seasoned DMs.

Tumbling Dice – Using Board Games in Your D&D Game To Create Unique And Fun Sessions

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Most of us who enjoy TTRPGs like D&D also love board games… classic board games, strategy games, resource management games, and the list goes on. It won’t take long until you as a DM start thinking of implementing some of your favorite board games or board game mechanics into your D&D sessions.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss the ways that they have utilized their favorite board games and board game mechanics to create some incredibly unique, innovative, and fun game sessions, or in the case of our Dragonlance game, the entire campaign.