Hello and welcome to the 3 Wise DMs podcast, where three Dungeon Masters who have been doing this for way too long, talk about how we handle all the tricky ins and outs of running a game of D&D or whatever else you might play. I’m Thorin and, like my namesake from The Hobbit, I … Read more
As you have undoubtedly noticed, Thorin, Tony, and I have not been posting our weekly podcasts. Some of you have reached out to ask if there were any problems, and we are truly thankful for that; we’re still completely humbled that so many of you have joined us in our continuing conversations. Without giving details … Read more
Does what you’re currently running still feel fresh and fun? Are your players as invested in it as they were in the beginning? Does something feel missing? Are you burning out?
Beginning to look at what Session Zero does for us at the start of a campaign can assist us in gauging what is happening in an ongoing campaign.
While there are definitely reasons why a campaign should end when the group reaches level 20, there are also plenty of reasons why it shouldn’t if the players wish to continue. This article will not focus on the philosophy of when a game should end, it will instead look at options making play past level 20 possible. Let’s see if we can accomplish this without reinventing the wheel or rewriting every class – and keep experience points as a viable reward.
We realize that reviewing a homebrew campaign is different from Curse of Strahd or Storm King’s Thunder – after all, you can’t go pick up the contents of Thorin’s head at the bookstore. But everyone should try their hand at homebrew at one point or another, and this episode is choc full of tips and feedback for creative DMs everywhere. That includes frank discussion of what worked, what didn’t, our biggest challenges (looking at you, Roll20), where the world seemed too shallow, and what was most interesting in this long-running homebrew D&D campaign. We hope it helps you craft even better games for your table.
You may be asking, “How in the Nine Hells could leadership skills improve a collaborative interactive tabletop game between friends?” It admittedly sounds strange, but hear me out, because the answer is it can improve your game in many ways. This is why we’ve composed a list of 7 common sense leadership techniques that will help you improve both the flow and fun of your games.
Secrets: Are they powerful character-building tools or TPK time bombs waiting to destroy your RPG campaign? We’ve seen it go both ways, from character background secrets that added depth and immersion for the player to secrets pacts that saw PCs murdered in-game by other PCs. Is that second one a failure? That depends on your group, but it certainly wasn’t what the DM had in mind.
Super-powered archmages, alien vampire gods, Tiamat and the devil himself – once your campaign crosses about level 15, it’s all on the table. But the same is true for super-powerful spells, legendary artifacts, and a hundred other things that make the players as tough as your wildest villain creations. This is why epic-tier play just isn’t the same as everything your campaign has been through before.
How could players having too much agency possibly be a bad thing? Especially as player input not only builds investment in the game but can add a greater degree of depth to the world itself? Well, some character concepts may be vastly different from the flavor you intended for the game or its power curve. We’ve composed a list of guidelines that will give your players all the agency they want without giving in to every request until it takes a herd of Tarrasques to challenge them.
Do you walk around talking in funny voices? Are you constantly thinking about how game mechanics apply to real-world situations? Have you ever turned a person or thing you know into a Dungeons and Dragons monster? (Did you have your players kill that monster?) … Then you, too, may be a quirky Dungeon Master.
