Campaign Inspiration

Quick and Dirty D&D Mass Battle Rules Even Non-Gamers Can Understand

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One of the hardest things for me about higher-level play in D&D is that, inevitably, we’re going to war. At that point, either I need to present the war as a bunch of solo, special-forces vignettes – which is an OK approach, but misses something for me – or a bunch of players who never had much interest in wargames are going to have to grasp a unit-level wargaming system. So over the years, I’ve come up with a quick and dirty way to put player characters in charge of units in a way that isn’t too far removed from regular D&D play. We just had one of these sessions, and the players all grokked it easily and said they enjoyed it. Here’s what we did.

The Fetch Quest: Are They Fun? Are They Worth It? Are They Just Filler for the Big Story?

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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?

Learning From the Legend: 3 Lessons The Legend of Vox Machina Reveals About DMing Your Best D&D Game

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I’ve made no secret of the inspiration and enjoyment I get from being a fan of Critical Role, the D&D live-play stream that has taken the TTRPG world by storm. Now in its third season, the show’s creators unveiled the much-anticipated animated series on Amazon Prime, The Legend of Vox Machina, dramatizing (or comedyizing?) some of the adventures in their first season. There are things to learn about ways to improve our games from these types of creators.

Characters Over Combat: What We Learned From Gaming in 2021

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Happy New Year! It’s a new year for new games or just continuing the ones you already love. But before we look forward to 2022, it’s important to look back at what we learned from gaming in 2021. In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about everything they learned throughout 2021, how it’s changed the way they play, and what they’re planning for 2022.

The True CR20 Strahd: Powering Up Your BBEG for the Epic Big Battle

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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.

The Curse of Strahd Postmortem: Our Players Talk About What They Thought of D&D 5E’s Barovia, the Things They Loved, and a Few Things They Didn’t

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You hear The 3 Wise DMs talk about our games all the time, but what do our players really think? In this episode, we have 6 of the 7 players from Curse of Strahd on to get honest with DM Dave about what they thought of his campaign! Along the way, we get into whether you should leave your Tarokka reading random, The Death House, what it was like playing in a low-magic setting, slow leveling, the Amber Temple and much more!

Christmas in Barovia: A Complete Holiday One-Shot For Your Curse of Strahd Campaign

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How do you run a vampire-laden, gothic horror Christmas one-shot, you ask? Quite easily, actually. One has to look no further than the Joe Hill novel, and later television show, NOS4A2. Charlie Manx. Abducted children. Christmasland. A chance to run my Curse of Strahd party against a vampire almost as powerful as the published CR 15 Strahd. So, in its entirety, here is 3WD’s Christmas gift to all of you – a joyful, dread, merry and gothic one-shot that checks all the boxes for vampires and Christmas!

Is He-Man Revelations Worthy of the Title ‘Masters of the Universe’?

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Like many children of the 80s, one of my first exposures to the sword and sorcery genre was from the original He-Man cartoon. This wildly popular show was filled with Sci-Fi and magic and yet still managed to teach lessons of morality. And while it’s not surprising that the franchise was later rebooted, it seemed likely that it would play out in two ways … So, let’s get to the bottom of this and determine if the show does indeed have the power or should be banished to the dungeons of Snake Mountain. 

It Takes a Village: 19 Tips for Building Towns and Cities for Your RPG Campaigns

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What do you need to make a town or city for your RPG campaign? A place for your PCs to hang their hats and rest their weary feet? Stores and taverns for them to unload their loot and pick up new quests? We have warned you not to get caught up in building towns and cities before, but this time a listener asked what needs to be in them when you have to do it. The 3 Wise DMs came up with 19 tips to help you do it in pretty much any RPG.

Will You Answer the Call of Cthulhu? 8 Reasons It May or May Not Be Right for Your Group

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Is the Call of Cthulhu RPG as maddening as its reputation suggests? The system offers a  journey into the Lovecraftian world of mystery and macabre. Because who’s not up for an evening filled with suspense and shoggoths? We put together some points to help you determine if the stars are right for you to introduce the Call of Cthulhu to your players.