In our recent episode on faction building in your TTRPG, we discussed how we design, develop and implement factions in our own games. But, in case you need to develop factions before this week’s game, I decided to break down three specific ways to approach faction building in your own game.
Here at 3WD, it has been our mission to provide DM’s everywhere with content to help them improve both their gaming experience and the experience for all involved. One hundred episodes later, the time flew by, and a lot of ground was covered. Through all the jokes and stories shared, we hope some solid advice was given that you could take back to your groups and use. Building on our 100th Episode Podcast, here’s a deeper dive into some of my most valuable takeaways from the past 100 episodes and the games we played during them.
The world you set your campaign in has just as much impact on the tone, story and overall fun of your game as the players you choose to play in it. But which campaign worlds are the best, most fun, and most inspiring? On that, the 3 Wise DMs each have their own ideas. So this article breaks down our 6 favorite campaign worlds, 2 per DM, and why we love them. It’s a lot of Dungeons and Dragons material, but not all of it.
There are a lot of pros and cons for using boxed settings and creating your own settings, and the 3 Wise DMs dabble in both in their own ways. Here’s what Thorin, Tony and Dave think of using pre-made settings, what makes a good setting, how they make them their own and how they pull elements of existing settings into their homebrew settings, too.
Ending a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign (or any TTRPG) can be one of the most intimidating moments for a DM. You’ve managed to carry the momentum, tension, and player interest for dozens of sessions over perhaps years. How do you wrap all that up into a few final sessions that leave you and your players feeling like it all paid off?
Rest! In some D&D 5E campaigns, it’s taken for granted. In others, like Tomb of Annihilation, PCs may have to make their HP and long-rest abilities stretch for days. And like in real life, sleep deprivation changes the game! How can the DM use all of these nuances to their advantage to tortu… er, have fun with the players? Thorin, Tony and Dave discuss all that and more in this episode of 3 Wise DMs.
Sometimes your players want something, or you want to give them something, that would be kind of lame to just leave lying around. After all, The Awesome Staff of Mega Power probably deserves its own quest to find. But how long should that quest be? And how do you keep the other players personally involved so they don’t get bored?
If you’ve never run or played in a solo game of D&D or some different system, then you’ve missed out on an interesting experience – even if, admittedly, one of the cornerstones of the game is built on collaborative roleplay. And, while solo adventure can be extremely fun, it’s definitely not for all players or DMs for a single session, let alone an actual campaign. This is why we composed a list of pros and cons to help you decide if a solo game is something you would like to introduce or request from your DM.
Vanilla Dungeons & Dragons 5E is a fine game, but depending on the atmosphere you want to set and the possibilities of your setting, there are a lot of alternate rules that can bring your game to the next level. The D&D 5E Dungeon Masters Guide has some great optional rules you can use to bring different genres of games to life by playing up things like honor and horror. Beyond D&D itself, a lot of other games use mechanics that are worth porting in to create certain effects in your campaign world. Your own unique homebrew mechanics can be even more powerful tools for bringing your setting more to life. In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about their favorite optional rules, how to use them and when.
5e’s Curse of Strahd contains a double entendre. While it seems as if the big bad Lord of Barovia is the curse that follows the players around, the deeper truth is that the curse is his own. He cannot leave. Barovia is his prison. Having just completed our run of this infamous adventure, I found an even deeper curse lying within the module: Strahd just isn’t powerful enough to handle the heat of the epic, final battle when the players are level appropriate and have recovered the artifacts.
