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D&D Combat

To Roll or Not to Roll? The 7 Best Times To Roll The Dice In Your D&D Game And When Not To.

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In the immortal words of The Bard… “To roll or not to roll, that is the question…” Rolling dice is the cornerstone of TTRPGs, because without them, as DM Chris says, we’re just telling a story as we play with our GI Joe’s in the backyard. So, when you’re running a session, when do you decide to have the players, and yourself, pick up the dice?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave springboard off a listener question that deals with trying to speed the game up in a homebrewed superhero campaign. From here, the 3 Wise DMs delve deeper into the big question of when to roll and when not to roll.

DM Chris’ Favorite D&D 5e Subclasses From Artificer To Druid: Part 1 of 3

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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. 

Don’t Know What You’ve Got: The Top 6 Most Underrated Spells in D&D

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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.

The Old School Renaissance: 3WD’s Top 4 Pros and Cons to Returning to Basic Dungeons & Dragons With the Basic Fantasy RPG

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A change of pace can be nice, and when it comes to gaming it’s no exception. Case in point, we recently played two basic style D&D games using the Basic Fantasy RPG, and they were interesting to say the least. The rules are based on the Moldvay system from the 1980s which is about as old school as you can get without playing the White Box.  

If you haven’t tried this system, you might have heard things like: it can be a lot of fun, but you better bring several character sheets to the game. Because if you make it to the end of the adventure it probably won’t be with the same character you started the session with. 

So does this classic stand the test of time and is it worth playing today?  To answer this question we put together a list of reasons both for and against so you can be the judge.

Glory Days: 3 Wise DMs Shares the Pros and Cons With Their Return to Basic D&D Through the Old School Renaissance

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We’ve talked about it many times on the podcast. We’ve been waiting for a chance to run it. We finally did! DM Dave ran us through an old-school dungeon crawl for our friend Scott’s birthday with the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying RPG. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave review the pros and cons of returning to Basic Moldvay-era D&D with the OSR. Final verdict: More pros than cons… try it out!

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst: The Five Tips That Will Help You Run a Smooth and Fun D&D Session

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It’s been said that how you say something is just as, if not more important, as what you say. For a DM, this also applies to how your material is being delivered to your players – as it can be frustrating when you felt prepared for the game but your wording or even the overall rhythm seemed off. 

Maybe the scenes were choppy between their transitions. Perhaps when you were relaying some important information, you fumbled the lines. Or when delivering the big reveal to the players, it really didn’t connect with your group as intended. 

These things have happened to the best of us.  Fortunately, from these mistakes lessons were learned which we would like to share with you now. We’ve distilled this into five tips that will hopefully allow you to avoid some of the gaming trainwrecks which we have both caused and been a part of.

It’s So Easy: 3 Wise DMs 18 Favorite Dungeon Master Hacks To Help Make Running Your TTRPG Game That Much Easier

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Running a game is a lesson in balance. There are so many dials and mechanics that you need to play with while also focusing on what Gary Gygax referred to as being “the Shaper of the Cosmos.” Anyone who has started running games or has been running for decades has found hacks to make running the game that much easier and streamlined. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss their favorite DM hacks that we’ve employed in our games.

When Good Gaming Groups Go Bad: 3 Wise DMs Tips On How To Continue Your TTRPG Campaign With Only One Player

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Game groups fall apart. It’s as inevitable as the rain. What do you do when your current group goes south, but you still have a player who wants to continue? Do you continue with the current campaign? Do you now run the entire rest of the party, the monsters, and all the NPCs? The 3 Wise DMs answer long-time listener Jared’s question about his Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign and delve deeper into utilizing Sidekicks, DMPCs, and other tips with one-on-one gaming. And, as an added surprise, we introduce our newest co-host…

The Fine Line: 3 Wise DMs List of the 5 Most Overpowered Feats and Abilities in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

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With 5e being an arguably complicated system, not every rule or power is going to be perfectly balanced. However, some defy reason making them so wildly powerful that it’s hard to believe they not only made it into the Player’s Handbook but were never amended. This is why we have put a list together of five things everyone enjoys having in their campaign – except, possibly, the DM. 

Strahd’s Maker: How 3 Wise DMs Kitbashed an Epic Finale to Their Curse of Strahd D&D Campaign

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It’s easily one of the most iconic settings in all of D&D history and we’ve gone into detail about how we homebrewed sections of Curse of Strahd for our table. But, what do you do when the long-running adventure you’ve been running ends at around 10th level? How do you handle it when your players want to continue with this set of characters and take it all the way to epic tiers?