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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
Magic. It’s the thing that separates Fantasy RPGs from all others. Every other TTRPG can have combat, exploration, social situations… but magic is the secret sauce that makes fantasy special. Many DMs and GMs toss around the idea of “low magic” worlds, but what does that mean exactly?
What really makes a character in any given RPG awesome? Sure, high stats help but they guarantee neither success nor that they will be interesting in any way. Maybe six years from now, you and your friends will be sitting around the table talking about how a character was incredibly strong. But that’s only if they did something with it in the game which really was worth remembering.
After running decades of games, the characters who stand out were run by players who ran them extraordinarily well. But what makes a character an “A-lister” who will be weaved into the lore of both the stories of both you and your friends in years to come? To answer this we have created a list of the seven things which will make your characters the most memorable
Gold. It’s the perfect representation of the reward mechanic from the earliest days of the White Box. Hell, it even used to represent experience! As a companion piece to our 19th episode on RPG Economics, Tony, Chris, and Dave delve into not just how to make things worth using the gold for, but also the idea of how do you, or DO you, account for the treasure that the party finds?
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Sourcebook by Free League contains new races, classes, rules and generators for D&D 5e to help you bring the world of Middle-Earth to life at your table. It’s available in both hardback and digital copies, but be forewarned that you’ll need access to the rules of 5e as well. The sourcebook only contains the new information and lore, so the basic rules and combat are still handled in the traditional fashion
At some point, most DMs pursue the idea of a world and/or a campaign where multiple DMs are running the game. This is an audacious and exciting project, so in this week’s episode, 3 Wise DMs teamed up with our friends, Lewanika, Josh, and Glen at Tabletop Journeys, to discuss shared worlds, shared campaigns, and shared universes… as well as all the other discussions that happen when you try to corral six DMs into a conversation.
