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21 Tips to Master D&D Combat: How to Run RPG Fights That Balance Fun, Challenge and Time Investment

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Combat is such a central part of D&D 5E, but it’s also a part of the game that can take forever! And not all players are down for a 4-hour fight every game session. What can the DM do to keep the fights fun for everyone, even if some players in the party want fast combat and others want to take their time and enjoy the tactics? How do you make sure you’re not the one slowing combat down and killing the vibe?

Castle GreyHawk: The Thor Ragnarok of Old-School D&D Adventures From Back in the Day

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Castle Greyhawk isn’t really just a module. Castle Greyhawk did for D&D what Ragnarok did for the Thor franchise. The overall premise is this: Extremely unusual monsters are emerging from the castle dungeons, and your party has been hired to put a stop to it. What made Castle Greyhawk unique was its use of breaking-the-4th-wall comedy that would have impressed even Deadpool.

Powering Up! Bringing D&D Monsters, Villains and Campaigns Up to Your Party’s Level

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Whether you’re playing a book Dungeons & Dragons campaign or just have big plans for a couple uglies in the Monster Manual, there’s a level window where your PCs will have a good, balanced encounter with those threats. But what do you do when the party isn’t in that window?

Murderhobos vs. Cthulhu? 3 DM Tricks to Make Players Respect The RPG Campaign Setting You’re running

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How often has the new campaign just become murderhobos in space, murderhobos vs. Cthulhu, or murderhobos visit Scooby-Doo? It’s one thing to start a new campaign in a new setting or system. It’s another to get the PCs to act they belong there. Here are 3 tips that can help bring your new setting to life and keep murderhobos from infesting every world in your multiverse.

13 Tips for DMing Across the Multiverse: How to Bring Different RPG Genres to Life, From Fantasy to Steampunk, Intrigue, Horror and More

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Thorin, Tony and Dave are always looking for ways to make their settings stand out to the players in them. Here are 13 tips we use to bring different RPG campaign worlds to life with players who’ve seen them all (and could easily start forgetting which game is which if we’re not on top of our genrebending).

The Cat’s Paw: Building RPG Villain Schemes That Confound Your Party

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A confounding villain scheme can be the thing that brings your campaign to life. It’s even better when you can make multiple villains crisscross and double-cross with the players in the middle trying to catch up. Here’s how to build a truly tangled web of intrigue starring the Kingpin and some of Marvel’s competing heavy hitters.

Superhero Roleplaying: How to Run Comic Book RPG Campaigns That Feel Super-Powered

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From The Avengers to The Snyder Cut and Arrow to Wanda Vision, superheroes have conquered entertainment. Are you ready for them to clean up the streets of your game group, too? That’s exactly what’s been happening at the 3 Wise DMs’ game table, as our little experimentation with TSR’s Marvel Superhero RPG (MSH RPG) from 1984 has ballooned into a 3-DM shared universe. Instead of the MCU, we now have a 3WDMSHRPGU! (We really need to work on that acronym).

Melding Science, Magic and Mutants in an RPG? A Look at the Palladium and Rifts System From Back in the Day

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Recently, a good friend of mine asked about my experience playing the Palladium/Rifts system. Afterward, he said that it sounds so fantastic that I should run a game using it, and part of me would love to go down that road. The setting is well-crafted, the art in the sourcebooks is fantastic, and its concept is nothing short of amazing. But here’s the problem …

11 Ways to Be a Better Dungeon Master: Lessons Learned in Our First Year Recording 3 Wise DMs

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This is the 1-year anniversary of our publishing the first episode of 3 Wise DMs. We’ve had as many as 5 campaigns running across 3 different systems, and every week we got together to talk about them on this podcast. This week, we look back on the very first episode, how our DMing ideas have changed since then, and 11 things we think have made us better dungeon masters.

The Starter Game: When You Need More Than Just a Session 0 for New Players

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Even if your players have experience with gaming or roleplaying, new systems always have more parts than a deluxe Lego set. What if there was a way to bring first-time players into a campaign and get them comfortable right away? you could run a specially designed starter game that is more focused on getting everyone familiar with how the system works before jumping headfirst into things. At the end, your new players should walk away with a foundation for how both their characters and the system operate.