“Heeeere’s Johnny!”: The Long-Awaited Return of 3 Wise DMs
After several months off, and the start of a brand new year, DM Tony and DM Dave are pleased to announce the return of the 3 Wise DMs podcast!
DM Workshop
Not Just For Beginnings: How Session Zero Can Serve As An Ongoing Tool In Your D&D Games (And Other RPGs)
Does what you’re currently running still feel fresh and fun? Are your players as invested in it as they were in the beginning? Does something feel missing? Are you burning out?
Beginning to look at what Session Zero does for us at the start of a campaign can assist us in gauging what is happening in an ongoing campaign.
Finish Your Homebrew D&D Campaign With a Bang: DMs’ Breakdown of the Epic Ending of the Woodstock Wanderers
We realize that reviewing a homebrew campaign is different from Curse of Strahd or Storm King’s Thunder – after all, you can’t go pick up the contents of Thorin’s head at the bookstore. But everyone should try their hand at homebrew at one point or another, and this episode is choc full of tips and feedback for creative DMs everywhere. That includes frank discussion of what worked, what didn’t, our biggest challenges (looking at you, Roll20), where the world seemed too shallow, and what was most interesting in this long-running homebrew D&D campaign. We hope it helps you craft even better games for your table.
3WD Talk Dungeons & Dragons on Dragon Talk!
Our recent article on running scenes outside of your game sessions caught some attention by none other than the official D&D podcast Dragon Talk! So, Thorin and Tony got the chance to sit down with Dragon Talk’s co-host, Shelly Mazzanoble, on their “How to DM” segment to discuss the devil the in the details!
3WD’s 2 Tips for Playing God With Epic Boons in Your D&D 5e Campaign (With Free Examples!)
Gods or powerful spirits bestowing extraordinary powers to heroes has been an effective formula in countless stories. This also provides opportunities in TTRPGs as well by providing unique and interesting ways to reward the players. This should not only add a shot of flavor to your overall game but increase the investment your players have in their characters.
3 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your D&D Session Prep: Factions Edition
In our recent episode on faction building in your TTRPG, we discussed how we design, develop and implement factions in our own games. But, in case you need to develop factions before this week’s game, I decided to break down three specific ways to approach faction building in your own game.
DMing Advantage and Disadvantage: How and When to Play With D&D 5E’s Most Elegant Tool
One of the best new mechanics in Dungeons and Dragons 5E is the advantage/disadvantage system. It’s simple, elegant and we’ve played several other games that have blatantly stolen it. We think it’s here to stay. But the decision of when to apply discretionary advantage and disadvantage falls on the DM, and the many mechanical ways players have to get advantage themselves sometimes conflict with the DM’s intent when awarding advantage. In this episode, hear how Thorin, Tony and Dave handle advantage and disadvantage along with plus and minus modifiers in their games along with plenty of examples from our gaming history (including the time a PC talked the DM into letting him one-shot the BBEG at 3rd level when they caught the guy simply walking across the road).
5 Ways to Strengthen Your D&D Adventuring Party
Some characters excel while marching to the beat of their own drum but not so much when in a group. The problem is, generally speaking, that D&D is a collaborative game. So, that lone wolf will need to learn to hunt in a pack. This is why we’ve put together a list of tips to help your group of adventurers work more effectively together during whatever path their choices and story takes them on.
8 Tips for Your DM’s Tool Chest From 100 Episodes of 3WD
Here at 3WD, it has been our mission to provide DM’s everywhere with content to help them improve both their gaming experience and the experience for all involved. One hundred episodes later, the time flew by, and a lot of ground was covered. Through all the jokes and stories shared, we hope some solid advice was given that you could take back to your groups and use. Building on our 100th Episode Podcast, here’s a deeper dive into some of my most valuable takeaways from the past 100 episodes and the games we played during them.
100 Episodes of Dungeon Master Advice: The 22 Most Important DM Lessons From 2 Years of Gaming and Recording 3 Wise DMs
What are the most important things every dungeon master (or game master) needs to know? In the 100th episode of 3 Wise DMs, Thorin, Tony and Dave run down the biggest things they’ve learned about running RPGs from Dungeons and Dragons to Marvel to Call of Cthulhu over two years of intensive gaming and discussion on this podcast.