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Back in the Saddle Again: Our Best Tips and Tricks for Coming Out of DM Retirement and Running Your First D&D Game in Decades

We’ve done several episodes and articles about how to best onboard new DMs and GMs to the hobby, including episode 113: Just Do It, with DM Lenny, about running his first game ever. But what about all the Grognards and OG DMs that were playing it out of the White Boxes assembled by Gary Gygax in his own home?

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down with our good friend, Scott Washburn of Paper Terrain, to discuss his recent return to the DM chair with his homebrewed campaign “World of the Five Gods.” True to form, Scott kitbashed together the original White Box D&D with some flair from 5e.
For all the DMs who have thought that “Retirement Sucks,” whether its been 40 days or 40 years, this is the episode for you.

You Say It’s Your Birthday – 3WD Reveals 7 Tips That Will Help You Build Your Own Very Special One-Shot D&D Game

Birthday games. Several of our recent articles and episodes discuss our passion for running birthday games for our game group, whether it be D&D, the OSR, Avatar Legends, or the classic Marvel Super Heroes system; it’s become our thing.

In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss the recent Birthday Game they ran where The Doctor teamed up with the Sensational She-Hulk and members of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to stop the impending Cyberman invasion orchestrated by the wielder of the Cosmic Control Rod, Annihilus, and do battle against the Brood in a giant Space Whale (believe us…. It made way more sense at the table!)

We then discuss our 7 best tips to help you build your own Very Special One-Shot for Birthdays or any other day!

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

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

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!