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Campaign Design

Back in the Saddle Again: Our Best Tips and Tricks for Coming Out of DM Retirement and Running Your First D&D Game in Decades

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We’ve done several episodes and articles about how to best onboard new DMs and GMs to the hobby, including episode 113: Just Do It, with DM Lenny, about running his first game ever. But what about all the Grognards and OG DMs that were playing it out of the White Boxes assembled by Gary Gygax in his own home?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down with our good friend, Scott Washburn of Paper Terrain, to discuss his recent return to the DM chair with his homebrewed campaign “World of the Five Gods.” True to form, Scott kitbashed together the original White Box D&D with some flair from 5e.
For all the DMs who have thought that “Retirement Sucks,” whether its been 40 days or 40 years, this is the episode for you.

The Old Man: The Easiest Trick To Placing Fizban the Fabulous In Your Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen Campaign

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While Fizban looks like a traditional Gandalf-type wizard, he is anything but. A confused, doddering and incredibly powerful Wizard, he seems to forget what he’s doing, who he’s talking to, and most of his incantations in every scene – casting Fireball at the most opportune, or inopportune times, depending on where you’re standing.

Rewrites: 3 Wise DMs 5 Top Tips To Help Your Players Connect With the Plot Without Rebooting Your D&D Campaign

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Greetings gamers from all systems, places and timelines!

During a campaign, there are dozens of ways the game flow can begin feeling disjointed or muddled. Like if your particular game has a great deal of lore or subplots that have put the players on different pages. This isn’t always a problem, but when a good chunk of the party can’t remember key details of the plot then it definitely has become one. 

If you find yourself in this spot at least you will be in good company, as this has happened to the best of DMs. Especially if you’re running a significant number of campaigns and you’re constantly trying to outdo yourself. Or perhaps you just rolled too many plot drops that your group just isn’t retaining them. This is why we put together a list of five ways that you can help your party reconnect with both your game and story without starting over at square one.

Godspell: Two Simple Changes To Make Clerics In Your Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen Dungeons & Dragons Game Feel Special

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There has been much discussion about how some of the major features that separate the Dragonlance setting from other settings were left out of the adventure. While this allows DMs and players unfamiliar with the setting to not feel completely lost, it does leave a good deal of work to a DM (like myself) who loves the Krynn setting and wants to have it feel different and special.

With this in mind, here is the way that our friend of the show, and resident Terrain Wrangler, Scott “The Wizard” Washburn, cobbled together a small and simple change to make the return of True Clerics to the world after three centuries feel special – without rewriting all the mechanics of 5e!

RPG Mythbusters: The Tavern is the Best Place to Start Your D&D Adventure

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The tavern. It’s the start of 23 different campaigns that DM Tony has been in over the last three decades. It’s a fantasy adventure trope and gets a lot of hate out there for being basic and unimaginative, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave return to our RPG Mythbusters series and test the myth, “Is a tavern the best place to start an adventure?” Will it be confirmed, plausible, or busted?

When DMs Go To War… Again? 3 Wise DMs 4 Best Ways To Run Epic Mass Combat In D&D.

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Either in realistic settings, or fantastic ones like Middle Earth or Star Wars, there is nothing quite as visually awesome as an epic battle between grand armies, as these are often the main events within stories which can include a cast of hundreds or even thousands. Soldiers will cross swords, exchange gunfire, or dog fight in space fighters in a spectacularly cinematic fashion as the fate of the universe or world hangs in the balance. So, it makes perfect sense that you would want to bring this to your tabletop RPG, but this can be easier said than done. 

Regardless of the system you have been running your players through, there are plenty of rules you can find to handle a mass combat scenario. 

However, this style of event is significantly different from what your group is used to and, likewise, may not be something which you want to attempt a cold open for in a pivotal moment of your game. This is why we have drawn up a list of different ways this can be approached so that, when the Gates of Mordor need to be stormed, you will use the way which works best for both you and your players.

Forged in Fire Part Deux: Our Top 3 Homebrews For 5e: Narya, The Ring of Fire, Excalibur, and the Nazgul!

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In a recent episode, we discussed a listener question about homebrewing magic items that are based off our favorite books, movies, myths, and television series. This is something that every DM and GM is going to do… heck, it might even be the reason you got behind the screen in the first place!

She’s A Mystery To Me: How Long To Keep Secrets And Clues From Your Players In Your D&D Game

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One of the beauties of TTRPGs is the ability to not just watch or read an amazing story, but to experience it… to create it. The mystery, the action, the climactic battle between good and evil; D&D gives us the ability to create our favorite stories.

One of the most important aspects of that, as the DM, is creating a level of mystery to the story that the players get the chance to uncover as they delve deeper into the adventure. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss a listener question about their mystery that they’re planning on having last for 10 levels and ask, “am I being cruel by leaving them in mystery so long?”

Forged in Fire: 3WDs Top 3 Homebrews For 5e: The Sword of Power, Zeus’ Thunderbolt and Demonic Bob Ross

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In our recent episode, we discussed a listener question about homebrewing magic items that are based off our favorite books, movies, myths, and television series. Specifically, they were hoping to translate the legendary Shardblades from Brandon Sanderson’s epic series, The Stormlight Archives. We discussed several of our own homebrew items that we’ve instituted in our … Read more

Whatcha Got Cookin’? – 3WDs Top 9 Tips To Homebrewing Magic and Magical Items From Pop Culture In Your D&D Campaign

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Homebrewing has been part of the game since its inception. Hell, the game itself is a homebrew of wargames! We’ve discussed homebrewing in previous episodes and articles, but a listener asks the question about how to homebrew magic items and monsters from well-known pop culture sources (like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere Universe.)

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss their top nine tips to pulling in objects and ideas from existing beloved pop culture properties and making them have the same level of gravitas as the book, series, or movie that they come from.