All-Star Games: A Time-Honored TTRPG Tradition

While it’s great you have this epic story about a dark lord and his all-powerful ring, maybe your players want a break from that weeks-long march to Mount Doom? This gives you, the DM, an opportunity to introduce something known as an “All-Star Game”!

DMing Large Groups: 19 Tips for Running Games With 6 or More Players

Most TTRPGs, including D&D 5E, run best with 3-5 players. How can you run them smoothly with 6, 8 or even 10 PCs? Here’s how the 3 Wise DMs handle it.

5 DM Combat Tricks to Challenge the Toughest PC Parties

Not every D&D fight should be a 2-hour slugfest for the party’s lives. But at the same time, how often does it feel like the party is steamrolling everyone they meet without having to break a sweat? Here are 5 tactics I use to make combat more dangerous when I want to challenge the party. They’ll put the PCs on the back foot and make them feel less than comfortable on the battlefield.

DM Inspiration and Influences: The Gaming and Culture Stuff That Makes Us Who We Are

We all stand on the shoulders of giants in games, whether those are metaphorical giants, literary giants or literal giants. In this episode, the 3 Wise DMs talk about the things that shape their games and how they directly impact what they do.

3 Reasons Players Leave Your Game – Revelations From a Year of Gaming

Even Master Yoda and Obi-Wan lost students, and even the best DMs lose players. While there could be literally hundreds of reasons someone leaves a game, I would like to focus on the biggest and how you can hopefully avoid them.

DM Burnout: 6 Things That Cause It, and How We Recover From It

What does DM burnout look like? What does it feel like? Can you play through it? Here’s what the 3 Wise DMs have learned, and tips to start healing.

3 Tips to Stop Wasting Game Time – Revelations From a Year of Gaming

Even seasoned DMs can get lost spending their time in the wrong places, both prep time and at the game table. Here are 3 tips for managing yourself and your table to make sure game-related time is spent wisely.

The Bootstrap Guide to DMing Your First Role Playing Game

Every DM needs to run their first game, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to do it. Here’s the 3 Wise DMs’ advice for mastering the game while you run it.

PC Death Is a Necessary Evil – Revelations From a Year of Gaming

There is no punch to the gut quite like losing a character you have been working on for the last 14 or more sessions. Having a craptastic year? Well, now your favorite character is dead too! But sometimes, it has to happen to keep the game real.

2020: A Year in the 3 Wise DMs TTRPG Lab

In March of 2020, we were getting ready to record our first episode of this podcast. We all got together in our planned recording space and cut the trailer. … Then COVID happened, and that entire plan went into the garbage along with concerts, vacations and sending kids to school. For some people, 2020 was a quarantine lockdown. For us, it was a year in the lab doing intensive DMing and podcasting. Here’s how it went, what we learned and our resolutions for gaming in 2021.