Some players come into any RPG they play with a 4-page character origin and personal history that drives them to adventure — others can barely pick a name. What do you do with player character backgrounds like these? In this week’s episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave dig into what they want and don’t want from character backstories, and how they use them in their games.
In our most recent episode, we discussed crazy stunts that our players have pulled on us – things above and beyond what I call “just D&D.” And I talked in-depth about the short, multi-night adventure that I took a group through years ago. An adventure that took our heroes to the terrifying wilds of “Weird New Jersey.”
Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about 19 of the craziest stunts players have pulled in their games and how they bent the systems to make it happen — or sometimes didn’t. Along the way, hear our best secrets for adlibbing and adjudicating some of the hardest situations DMs face.
Playing a TTRPG is an incredibly subjective experience, almost like a Rorschach test. With this in mind, I wanted to shift our perspective from the system and edition wars that populate so many social media feeds to something much more basic: What makes a TTRPG in the first place and what could we learn from that to improve our enjoyment of all our games (instead of firing shots at someone else’s fun)?
How we lean in to the best of D&D 5E while adjusting and homebrewing its role-playing game mechanics to fit the campaign styles they run.
You campaign may be all about your player’s characters’ “adventures,” but designing and running specific, self-contained adventures is about more than just stringing a few encounters together. Here’s why it matters and 6 tips that will help you build adventures that are worthy of the name.
Role-playing games, at their heart, are all about adventure! But are the stories you’re telling and sessions you’re building really creating “an adventure” your players will enjoy? How do you build focused, engaging, self-contained quests that span 3-6 sessions (roughly) with a tight theme, clear goals, fun ways to achieve them, and satisfying rewards at the end?
We talked about some of our favorite monster combos in giving out “wisest” answers to the 7 Questions Dungeon Masters Ask. But we came away feeling like those barely scratched the surface. So I reached back to my InQuest Magazine days and went digging for monster combos like they were Magic cards. While I didn’t find any Channel-Fireballs, here are 9 monster combos for D&D 5E that will give your players a lot to think about.
How do you handle a TPK? How do you get players to do their homework? What are some good D&D 5E monster combos? From Facebook to Twitter to the 3WiseDMs.com website, these are the top Dungeon Master questions listeners have asked the wise guys at 3WD.
One of the most common assumptions in role-playing games is that the DM brings the story and the players play in it. But is that the way it should be? If the players are controlling the main characters in it, isn’t that, by definition, their story?
