Hello and welcome to our new website for the upcoming podcast 3 Wise DMs. It’s a show for dungeon masters (for Dungeons & Dragons) and game masters (any other RPG) with problems. And when we say problems, we don’t mean the kind of things you find answers for in the gamebooks.
Think of it as a gaming philosophy show with a strong emphasis on applied knowledge.
A DM’s Game Goes Beyond the Books
For the most part, we’re going to abbreviate what we do as DMing, but a lot of the ideas we’re going to talk about apply to any game you’re running.
Every roleplaying game is a social experiment revolving around the person who runs it, the DM. But that doesn’t mean you control the game, or that you can have a successful game by ruling the players with an iron fist.
Success, for us, is really defined by putting together a game that keeps players coming back for more, but also one that we, the DMs, have fun running. It’s cooperative, the whole group is making this thing happen together.
But because the DM generally starts the game and drives it mechanically, a lot of tricky situations fall to you.
- How do you keep players interested?
- How do you keep games scheduled and players attending?
- How do you manage play styles and keep everyone happy?
- Is it even your job to worry about all of these things?
- Can you keep all of this balanced and still have fun running the game?
In this podcast and on this website, we’re going to talk about our own experiences with running games, solving problems and having fun with our friends. We’ll talk in-depth about the challenges and how we solved or adjusted to them, what worked, what didn’t, and how our philosophies have changed as we’ve played.
Who Are the Wise DMs?
The three so-called “wise DMs” are Thorin, Tony and Dave. Some of us have been DMing for decades, one of us is newer, we’ve all played a bunch of games in different systems, and we all play in each other’s games and with other groups of gamers.
We are not superstar DMs, and Matt Mercer is not going to make a guest appearance. We’re regular gamers who’ve had our unique gaming experiences, just like you.
We all want to be great DMs, so what do we do to try to get there?
If that sounds like something you’d like to hear, watch this space. 3 Wise DMs will be here before you know it.
In the meantime, what kind of problems do you have in your games? What do you want to see us talking about? Ask it here, and you just might wind up in the opening episode.