Campaign Inspiration

Go Go Godzilla! 3WD Brainstorms The Best Ways To Bring Unbeatable Monsters Like Godzilla Into Your D&D Campaign

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As we learned from the AD&D release, Deities & Demigods, “If you stat it, players will kill it.” So, what do you do if you want to place an unbeatable Kaiju-type monster, like Godzilla, into your game world? Something way more fearsome than a Tarrasque. A complete force of nature that shapes the entire world and every adventure in it. Something that you can’t just “punch really hard.”

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave respond to a listener’s question, “have you ever put a monster in your campaign that cannot be defeated?” and enter into a real time brainstorming session as we discuss how we’ve used it as DMs as well as played with it as players in our own games.

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.

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?

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

You Say It’s Your Birthday – 3WD Reveals 7 Tips That Will Help You Build Your Own Very Special One-Shot D&D Game

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Birthday games. Several of our recent articles and episodes discuss our passion for running birthday games for our game group, whether it be D&D, the OSR, Avatar Legends, or the classic Marvel Super Heroes system; it’s become our thing.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss the recent Birthday Game they ran where The Doctor teamed up with the Sensational She-Hulk and members of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to stop the impending Cyberman invasion orchestrated by the wielder of the Cosmic Control Rod, Annihilus, and do battle against the Brood in a giant Space Whale (believe us…. It made way more sense at the table!)

We then discuss our 7 best tips to help you build your own Very Special One-Shot for Birthdays or any other day!

What’s In A Name? 5 Tips to Worldbuilding by Naming Magic Items in Your D&D and TTRPG Games

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From King Arthur’s Excalibur to the mighty hammer of Thor, Mjölnir, the history of fantasy is filled with iconic magic items. Their names take them from something simple, like a sword or hammer, and make them as much a part of the story as the characters who wield them. 

I’d like to share a funny scene that has played out in my head numerous times over my years playing D&D…

Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves have made their way to the Last Homely House at Rivendell after their escape from the goblins. Lord Elrond investigates the ancient runes that adorn the magical swords the party found in the troll’s cave, finally turning to Gandalf after some time, “This weapon is called…+1 sword of goblin-slaying!”

Now, any of us that have read The Hobbit and/or The Lord of the Rings trilogy will recognize that particular sword as the fabled Glamdring, also known as “Foe-hammer” and “Beater” (Yeah, it has three different names. Tolkien was a master at deep lore). That’s a fair bit better than if Elrond had used it’s D&D equivalent’s name, as in my adapted scene above.

While not every magic item needs a collection of names like the aforementioned Glamdring, letting things like a +1 sword or Armor of Invulnerability into your world without anything more than a rules-based description as a name can diminish the power they can have outside of what they do.