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 …
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.
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.
The 3 Wise DMs have only just started to get back together for some in-person gaming, but none of the online RPGs we’ve talked about has yet made it back to the dinner table. Can they be saved? Do the Wise DMs even want to bring them back in-person? Are the players on board? Even if everyone wants to go back to playing live, what challenges do they face?
Even if you are in a campaign with a fantastic plot, sometimes it’s refreshing to do something a little different. The answer to this is to run a one-shot game that has a beginning and an end yet is entirely separate from the main story arc. So, strap yourselves in and let’s take a look at a simplified guide to running one-shot games without screwing up the campaign already in process.
It takes more than just a Wise DM to make a great roleplaying game campaign. No matter how thoroughly you plan or brilliantly you improv, the DM is only one person in a group of 2 to 10 or more people making this thing happen. When push comes to shove, the players are the ones who really make the game what it becomes — whether that’s an epic cooperative tale imaginative high adventure or a series of glorified minis skirmishes.
In a recent episode, we discussed how to go about introducing new players to the hobby. During our discussion, we got around to the topic of roleplaying, specifically about ways to encourage people who are brand new to tabletop gaming to act and speak as their characters would act and speak. This would have been my response to the question, had my brain not decided that it was time to, I don’t know, catalog my grocery list for the coming week while going live!
How we handle RPG character-altering changes, get the players on board with them and make it all balance mechanically with the rest of the game.
Did you ever conceptualize a character who you expected to run like a badass D&D version of Batman, but instead of getting Ben Affleck, you ended up with Adam West? Unfortunately, a lot of things can go south between your imagination and the gaming table. Therefore, I have composed a list of 6 tips to help prevent your next dark and gritty character from unexpectedly ending up as the version of Batman with floppy ears and bat shark repellent (but with much less charm).
Of all the roles the DM takes on, none is more important than bringing new players into the hobby. DM a game, and your player has fun for a night. Teach them to play, and they may have fun for the rest of their lives (or think you’re a gigantic weirdo — it’s a win either way). In this episode, on the eve of DM Dave launching a mostly rookie campaign, the 3 Wise DMs talk about how they handle new players, what they do to try to teach them the game, and how they make it fun without overwhelming the poor newbs.
