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Let’s Give ‘Em Something To Talk About: Our Best Tips To Get Your Players Roleplaying And Talking Amongst Themselves In Your D&D Game

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Roleplay. It’s commonly understood to be one of the three pillars that make up the game of D&D. But, roleplaying between the DM and player is one thing… how do you get your players roleplaying amongst themselves?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss their best tips in getting players to roleplay amongst themselves, drawing from their games in Tomb of Annihilation, Shadow of the Dragon Queen, Journey to Ragnarok, and their homebrew world of The Further.

A game full of great roleplay can get you super jazzed… so how do you get to bed when it’s a school night? Dovetailing into a listener question from Dr. DM, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss strategies to deal with late night games during the week and how to decompress and “turn your brain off”, so that it doesn’t lead to DM burnout.

DM Chris’ Favorite D&D 5e Subclasses From Fighter To Rogue: Part 2 of 3

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Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. Several weeks ago, we began a journey through my favorite D&D 5e subclasses – from the newer Armorer Artificer to the classic Moon Druid. I wasn’t planning for it to take three articles, but when I started to talk about each there was just too much to say for just one article. Blame my muse, or our collectively shrinking attention span.

Part 1 was the beginning of the class alphabet, but Part 2 steers us into what I consider the heart of the martial classes. My apologies to Barbarian, who is definitely not a guy you want to piss off despite his alphabetic limitations, but here we have the damage dealer’s sweet spot from Fighter through Rogue. Let the fun begin.

Tribute to the Greatest Game In The World: The 3 Wise DMs Share The Lessons Learned From Running A 12 Player D&D Game

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12 players. 2 DMs. 6 dragons. Tiamat. 2 birthday cakes… and a whole hell of a lot of fun! As a companion piece to DM Tony’s recent article, the 3 Wise DMs are joined by some special guests to discuss and detail the lessons learned from running our largest endeavor yet – a massive, multiple-campaign ending game that required 2 DMs to pull off. If you’ve ever thought of running a massive Endgame-style game, or toyed with the idea of co-DMing, this is the episode for you!

The Summer Blockbuster: 8 Quick Tips To Running D&D and TTRPG Sessions With A Ton of Players

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One of the hardest decisions a DM can make is deciding on who they plan to invite on their adventure. Because if you have a huge crew who all enjoy gaming, it sucks not being able to include everyone. Scheduling issues aside, ‘why not just invite everyone,’ you might ask? Well my short answer is that most RPGs fall apart when you have too many players faster than Thanksgiving dinner the moment your uncle starts talking about politics. 

Case in point, In August we were staring at the possibility of having twelve character’s in one game. Which, to be fair, lands between a bad idea and a total disaster. Yet, somehow, we were able to gather more characters at the table than was in the Fellowship of the Ring for an evening and have a great time doing it. This is why we have compiled a list of eight tips which will allow you to run a one-shot adventure where you can invite whoever you want as long as you have a big enough place to host.

To Roll or Not to Roll? The 7 Best Times To Roll The Dice In Your D&D Game And When Not To.

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In the immortal words of The Bard… “To roll or not to roll, that is the question…” Rolling dice is the cornerstone of TTRPGs, because without them, as DM Chris says, we’re just telling a story as we play with our GI Joe’s in the backyard. So, when you’re running a session, when do you decide to have the players, and yourself, pick up the dice?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave springboard off a listener question that deals with trying to speed the game up in a homebrewed superhero campaign. From here, the 3 Wise DMs delve deeper into the big question of when to roll and when not to roll.

DM Chris’ Favorite D&D 5e Subclasses From Artificer To Druid: Part 1 of 3

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Greetings, 3WD-verse! DM Chris here. Over our many combined years at the table, we’ve created characters in every D&D 5e class available, as well as most subclasses, both published and UA. Looking back across the myriad campaigns, I decided to share my favorite subclass for each class. 

Cutscenes – How to Deliver Lore and Secrets in Your D&D Games and TTRPGs While Still Keeping Your Players Involved

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Cutscene. In a video game, it’s a scene shown to the player when they reach a particular point in the game, such as at the end of a level or when the player’s character dies. The immense popularity of videogaming and the similarities between them and TTRPGs begs the question: Can you, or should you, utilize cutscenes in your game?

Don’t Know What You’ve Got: The Top 6 Most Underrated Spells in D&D

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When playing a spellcaster in D&D 5e, there are plenty of powerful and iconic spells to choose from. Fireball and Wish are two of the most classic examples, capable of ending an encounter in one magical flourish. Granted, those spells aren’t available at early levels or available to every caster, so we decided to shine a light on six highly-useful, yet remarkably affordable “underrated” spell options we’ve used.

Live and Let Die: Dealing with Anti-Murderhobos in Curse of Strahd and Players Who Don’t Want to Confront the Enemy in Your TTRPG Game

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Murderhobos. It’s one of the most discussed issues in any TTRPG discussion. Players who don’t feel like there’s no encounter that can’t be solved by casting “Sword.” But what happens when your party turns out to be what we refer to as “Anti-Murderhobos”? What if the party isn’t motivated to engage and/or end the evil machinations of the Bad Guys?

The Prestige: 3 Steps to Make Your Character’s Backstory Shine in your D&D Game

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Characters are the most important thing we deal with as DMs. How many campaigns suffer because the DM is tied to their story, instead of the party’s? I don’t have a number — it was meant as a rhetorical question — but it’s probably a lot. How do we get the best of both worlds, with a rich experience for both player and DM? The backstory, that’s how.

Any character worth his mettle has some sort of backstory — former soldier, disillusioned priest, etc. — but a history ignorant of the world they’re playing in leaves us with the same problem. So the task isn’t just creating a backstory, but rather creating a backstory in the world you’re given. Something to tether the character to the lore, history, and developing plot lines of the campaign world. Sounds daunting, but it’s no harder than your traditional backstory. It’s hitting the right story beats, as our friend DM Tony might say, that makes it all come together.