When is a book module not a book module? When the DM throws in birthday games, a modifiable Spelljammer airship, legendary weapons tied to every character’s backstory, and more deviations from the standard campaign than we could count. Hear all this and more, as we break down the 9 main deviations Tony brought to Storm King’s Thunder and the DM’s perspective on running it.
So, you’re looking to set the right tone, the one that will begin your epic, world-shaking, heartbreaking, history-making, legendary campaign? To introduce the people seated around your dining room table to the fantastical world that they are about to enter? To begin, as our own Universe did, with a Big Bang? In our most recent episode, we delved into the tips and tricks we use to bring our campaigns to life: setting, descriptions, mechanics, etc. However, I thought it would be very helpful to revisit some of the nuts and bolts to my evolving method of Session Prep.
Do your players feel into the campaign setting you’re running, or is it just generic D&D world #124 to them? What can you do to bring that world more to life and make it feel unique to you and your players? What makes a D&D session feel like more than just a glorified board game? Here are 37 of the tricks the 3 Wise DMs use to try to make the players feel immersed in our worlds and give the settings some soul.
There are a lot of themes in The Snyder Cut of Justice League that are akin to gaming. In many respects, the superhero genre is the cousin of the Dungeons & Dragons world. Here are 8 things that Zack Snyder’s Justice League did well from a gaming perspective that we should all strive to hit while running and conceptualizing our games.
TTRPG Party balance: It’s the most important thing every new campaign needs, right? Maybe not. Is there any role the PCs really NEED to have a good time? In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave take a deep dive into what party balance and imbalance do to the game, what it means to the DM, and what it means to the players.
Just like everyone believes they’re good drivers, most gamers believe they’re good – if not outright great – players. I would like to suggest that it should be based more on how they interact at the table, even a virtual one. For this reason, I’ve compiled a list of 6 behaviors all great players share to encourage some self-reflection in the rest of us.
In this episode, the 3 Wise DMs talk about what they want in the RPG parties and players they DM for, what they care about, and what they let slide.
In our latest episode, we answered a listener’s question regarding how to handle players missing sessions. This led to a brainstorm about how to build a campaign that turns this apparent weakness into a strength. Starting from the basic idea of a West Marches-style campaign, I offer you “The Cannonball Run.”
The ultimate BBEG for any tabletop RPG is the calendar. And judging by the vast gallery of memes about this topic, that villain is nigh unbeatable. Whether our schedules are hard to align or players have important things that come up or someone in your group is just flakey, every DM has to deal with some level of absenteeism. It’s always a little bit disruptive, and sometimes it can outright kill your campaign … How do you handle it?
Roleplaying games are communal by nature. The “rules” we play by are often passed along more due to personal agreements and groupthink than actual “truths” underlying them. Here are four things we think are common RPG myths, and why they might not be true. How many of them do you believe? Do you still believe them after reading our take?
