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What to do With a Bored D&D Player? A DM’s Dilemma

What if you have your D&D campaign going, the players are having a good time … except one of them, who’s bored? Maybe they’re bored with their character or combat or the way things are going, and now figuring out a way to pick things up a notch for this player falls to you. Do … Read more

The Curse of Strahd Postmortem: Our Players Talk About What They Thought of D&D 5E’s Barovia, the Things They Loved, and a Few Things They Didn’t

You hear The 3 Wise DMs talk about our games all the time, but what do our players really think? In this episode, we have 6 of the 7 players from Curse of Strahd on to get honest with DM Dave about what they thought of his campaign! Along the way, we get into whether … Read more

Strahd, Dead and Loving It? The 3 Wise DM’s Review of D&D 5E’s Curse of Strahd and DM Dave’s Campaign Through Ravenloft

Ding dong, Strahd is dead! He was thrown down from a pillar and we smashed his head! And with that epic victory, the 3 Wise DMs are finally able to talk about their review of D&D 5E’s Curse of Strahd, including their thoughts on what worked, why and the adjustments DM Dave made. It was … Read more

All Eyes on the Game: 12 Tips to Keep Your RPG Players Involved and Focused on Playing

It’s a problem as old as roleplaying: You have a few players who are engaged, paying attention and driving the story, and other players who may be shy, or not interested in what’s going on today. The result is that half your table may not be involved in what’s going on. A few weeks ago, … Read more

Motivating Your Players: How to Get Your TTRPG Player Characters to Take the Hook and Get On With the Adventure

We’re all at the gaming table for an adventure, right? But what about when your players don’t take the bait? Maybe they’re not interested in the mysterious disappearances in town? Or you’ve built a full dungeon in “The Mysterious Cave,” but they’re not going anywhere near it? What do you do when the player characters … Read more

It Takes a Village: 19 Tips for Building Towns and Cities for Your RPG Campaigns

What do you need to make a town or city for your RPG campaign? A place for your PCs to hang their hats and rest their weary feet? Stores and taverns for them to unload their loot and pick up new quests? How about an economy and some way the town makes money? Who runs … Read more

D&D 5E for Old Fogeys: What Old-School DMs Like Us Should Know About How this Edition Compares to Earlier Versions of Dungeons & Dragons

We all started DMing RPGs a long time ago. In the case of Thorin and Tony, we held on to older editions long after new ones were released (stretching 1E material into 2E and flat refusing to move to 3E later on). But Dungeons & Dragon 5E has been around for 10 years now and … Read more

Horror Gaming for Halloween: How We Squeeze Scares Out of Players Around the RPG Table

It’s the scary season around our gaming tables, and that brings up one of the age-old questions about DMing: Can you reasonably expect to scare adult roleplaying gamers? Maybe, maybe not. But what you can definitely do is remove the illusion that they’re in control. Undermine that false comfort that their characters will be OK. … Read more

Teaching Your Wife to Play RPGs: How to Bring a Non-Gamer — and Perhaps Shy or Unmotivated Player — Into the Game You Love Without Making Them Hate It

Can you teach your wife, girlfriend, best friend, family member or anyone you love to play your favorite RPG? It’s a risky proposition, as listener Dave points out in this week’s listener question: He wants to teach his wife to play D&D, and she’s agreed to give it a try, but he’s afraid that “if … Read more

WotC Changing D&D 5E Monsters and More – Are These the Updates the Game Needs?

At D&D Celebration, Wizards of the Coast held a Future of D&D panel discussion with Ray Winninger, Liz Schuh, Jeremy Crawford, and Chris Perkins about new products and changes coming to D&D 5E over the next year and beyond. Among the topics discussed were changes to the way monsters will be presented, balanced, rebalanced around … Read more