“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!
Running the Game
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.
7 Ways Better Leadership Will Improve Your D&D Games and Any Other RPG
You may be asking, “How in the Nine Hells could leadership skills improve a collaborative interactive tabletop game between friends?” It admittedly sounds strange, but hear me out, because the answer is it can improve your game in many ways. This is why we’ve composed a list of 7 common sense leadership techniques that will help you improve both the flow and fun of your games.
Will Player Character Secrets Ruin Your RPG Campaign?
Secrets: Are they powerful character-building tools or TPK time bombs waiting to destroy your RPG campaign? We’ve seen it go both ways, from character background secrets that added depth and immersion for the player to secrets pacts that saw PCs murdered in-game by other PCs. Is that second one a failure? That depends on your group, but it certainly wasn’t what the DM had in mind.
The Epic-Tier Divide: Bringing Your DnD Campaign Into the Wild World of High-Level Play
Super-powered archmages, alien vampire gods, Tiamat and the devil himself – once your campaign crosses about level 15, it’s all on the table. But the same is true for super-powerful spells, legendary artifacts, and a hundred other things that make the players as tough as your wildest villain creations. This is why epic-tier play just isn’t the same as everything your campaign has been through before.
5 Guidelines to Allow Character Agency Without Letting Your Players Break the Game
How could players having too much agency possibly be a bad thing? Especially as player input not only builds investment in the game but can add a greater degree of depth to the world itself? Well, some character concepts may be vastly different from the flavor you intended for the game or its power curve. We’ve composed a list of guidelines that will give your players all the agency they want without giving in to every request until it takes a herd of Tarrasques to challenge them.
11 Quirky Dungeon Master Habits You Probably Have, Too
Do you walk around talking in funny voices? Are you constantly thinking about how game mechanics apply to real-world situations? Have you ever turned a person or thing you know into a Dungeons and Dragons monster? (Did you have your players kill that monster?) … Then you, too, may be a quirky Dungeon Master.
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.