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I’m on a Boat! Running Sea-Faring, Space-Faring and Other Ship-Based RPG Campaigns

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When you take your RPG campaign to the high seas (or under the seas, outer space or anywhere else they need a ship to survive), all bets are off. Sure, you could run it like any land-based campaign using the ship for fast travel, but is that really what a ship-based campaign is all about? Or are they about ship-to-ship combat, unlimited freedom, and unimaginable treasure? Here’s what Thorin, Tony and Dave think nautical gaming is all about and how they bring it to life for their players.

A Bad Day for the Black Dragon: 5 Mistakes I Made DMing My First D&D 5E Dragon Fight

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Dragons! They are the logo monster of Dungeons & Dragons. They are fire. They are death. They are the winged nightmares of any fantasy citizen. … Except the one my party chewed through in about 3 rounds. *sigh* So, the party had fun, and good for them! But on my end, mistakes were made, and here’s what I think they were.

D&D Dragons: Why We Love Them and How We Run Them

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When you decide to put a dragon in your campaign, you know it has to be special. But how do you make sure it hits the right notes for your players?

D&D 5E Wrestling Rules – Homebrewed Fresh in 3WD’s Curse of Strahd Campaign

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What do you do when a player brings a character that begs for something far outside the normal scope of your game? As an example, let’s say you have a player that brings a barbarian into your Curse of Strahd campaign that is, in no uncertain terms, Hulk Hogan. As I see it, you have two options: Shut it down or lean into it. What follows are the wrestling mechanics we’ve been developing in our Curse of Strahd campaign as well as 3WD’s paean to the wrestling memories of our youth … “Whatcha gonna do when Hawkamania runs wild on you, brother?!”

How to Bring WrestleMania to Barovia: DM Dave’s Curse of Strahd Goes WAY Off Book With a Homebrew Wrestling PPV

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Sometimes you want to change the game up completely, even if it’s just for the night. Maybe you want to have a night of gambling games, a carnival with an archery contest, a little football, or, like DM Dave’s Barovia, a werewolf wrestling match to put the WWE to shame! When you have that urge, how do you make that happen? The 3 Wise DMs call them minigames, and in this episode, they’ll use Dave’s wrestling escapades to break down how to make these sessions fun for everyone.

A Short Break

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3 Wise DMs is taking off the week of 8/22, but don’t worry, we’ll be back next week with a new podcast episode and articles.

How a Real Archmage Fights: Threshold of Evil and D&D’s Most Underrated Wizard

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The life of an adventurer isn’t always about saving the kingdom and having ales. Sometimes, the heroes are faced with failure, and nothing is a greater example of this than a TPK. So. allow me to pay my respects to an old rival of mine as I begrudgingly explain why he deserves to be counted among the ranks of the greatest D&D wizards, such as Elminster and Mordenkainen. 

Strange Homebrew: Knowing When, Where and How to Make Your RPG Campaign Weird Without Losing Your Players

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DMs have some crazy ideas. And deep down, there’s nothing most of us want to do more than unleash those ideas on our unsuspecting players. These strange homebrew ideas can be the coolest and most memorable part of the campaign, but they’re also risky. Will your player throw a fit after their corporeal form is replaced with a pile of insects? The quit risk is high. What makes sense in the story? If you can get the players to go along with that, you can have fun with all sorts of crazy homebrew ideas.

The Richest D&D Adventure of All Time: Greyhawk Ruins, Is It Monty Haul if It’s Canon?

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What if the treasure horde was just so over the top that instead of its collection being an awesome moment it was more of a WTF one? Let’s take a look at the module that made my players feel like they both jumped the shark and nuked the fridge, and what was done to keep the campaign going afterward. 

When DMs Go to War: How to Run Mass Combat in D&D (and similar RPGs) and Not Bore Your Players

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Most DMs come to a point in their campaigns where they want to run The Big Battle! A real war: Storming the beaches of a fantasy Normandy, the Siege of Winterfell, the Battle of Pelennor Fields from Lord of the Rings. But when you go to set the battle up, you realize just how clunky mass combat is in D&D and most RPGs. In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave answer that and more as they break down what happens when DMs go to war.