Podcasts by 3 Wise DMs

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting – 3WD Reviews the Avatar Legends RPG and Reveals Tips on Running Brand-New Systems in Your D&D Group! from 2023-12-03T09:00

The 3 Wise DMs just played through the new Avatar Legends RPG...

Stone Cold Crazy – How a First-Time DM Ran a Crazy One-Shot With Four Kurt Russell’s! from 2023-11-12T09:00

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Tumbling Dice – Using Board Games in Your D&D Game To Create Unique And Fun Sessions from 2023-10-29T09:00

Most of us who enjoy TTRPGs like D&D also love board games… classic board games, strategy games, resource management games, and the list goes on. It won’t take long until you as a DM start t...

Strange Magic – The Best Ways To Adjudicate Spell Effects In Your D&D and TTRPG Campaigns from 2023-10-15T09:00

Spell effects in Fantasy TTRPGs are easily the times when we as DMs and GMs have to respond on the fly to changing parameters. In systems like 5e, we’ve discussed how they’ve crafted a system th...

Let’s Give ‘Em Something To Talk About: Our Best Tips To Get Your Players Roleplaying And Talking Amongst Themselves In Your D&D Game from 2023-10-01T09:00

Roleplay. It’s commonly understood to be one of the three pillars that make up the game of D&D. But, roleplaying between the DM and player is one thing… how do you get your players roleplayi...

Tribute to the Greatest Game In The World: The 3 Wise DMs Share The Lessons Learned From Running A 12 Player D&D Game from 2023-09-17T09:00

12 players. 2 DMs. 6 dragons. Tiamat. 2 birthday cakes… and a whole hell of a lot of fun! As a companion piece to DM Tony’sListen

To Roll or Not to Roll? The 7 Best Times To Roll The Dice In Your D&D Game And When Not To. from 2023-09-03T09:00

In the immortal words of The Bard… “To roll or not to roll, that is the question…” Rolling dice is the cornerstone of TTRPGs, because without them, as DM Chris says, we’re just telling a story a...

Cutscenes – How to Deliver Lore and Secrets in Your D&D Games and TTRPGs While Still Keeping Your Players Involved from 2023-08-20T09:00

Cutscene. In a video game, it’s a scene shown to the player when they reach a particular point in the game, such as at the end of a level or when the player's character dies. The immense popular...

Live and Let Die: Dealing with Anti-Murderhobos in Curse of Strahd and Players Who Don’t Want to Confront the Enemy in Your TTRPG Game from 2023-08-06T09:00

Murderhobos. It’s one of the most discussed issues in any TTRPG discussion. Players who don’t feel like there’s no encounter that can’t be solved by casting “Sword.” But what happens when your p...

How Low Can You Go? The Things Every DM Needs To Know When Creating Low Magic Settings in Their D&D And TTRPG Campaigns from 2023-07-23T09:00

Magic. It’s the thing that separates Fantasy RPGs from all others. Every other TTRPG can have combat, exploration, social situations… but magic is the secret sauce that makes fantasy special. Ma...

D&D Accounting: 11 Tips and Pitfalls to Tracking Treasure in your TTRPG from 2023-07-09T09:00

Gold. It’s the perfect representation of the reward mechanic from the earliest days of the White Box. Hell, it even used to represent experience! As a companion piece to our 19th episode on RPG ...

Come Together: 3 Wise DMs and Tabletop Journeys Come Together to Discuss the Best Tips to Running a Shared TTRPG Campaign World from 2023-06-25T09:00

At some point, most DMs pursue the idea of a world and/or a campaign where multiple DMs are running the game. This is an audacious and exciting project, so in this week’s episode, 3 Wise DMs tea...

Behind the Screens: 3 Wise DMs Reveal What They Want and Need Behind Their DM Screens and Offer Tips to Improve Your DM Set-Up from 2023-06-11T09:00

The DM Screen. It’s one of the quintessential D&D visuals. But what goes behind it? What lurks behind that foot-high barrier between the characters and the gods? In this episode, Tony, Chris...

Glory Days: 3 Wise DMs Shares the Pros and Cons With Their Return to Basic D&D Through the Old School Renaissance from 2023-05-28T09:00

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 wit...

My Name’s the Teacher: Making Leveling with Character Abilities, Oaths, and Patrons Matter in your Dungeons&Dragons Campaign from 2023-05-14T09:00

Sleep takes you as you wrap yourself into your bedroll in your campsite in the forest. Your slumber is surprisingly restful this night. As you wake in the morning, you find yourself having taken...

It’s So Easy: 3 Wise DMs 18 Favorite Dungeon Master Hacks To Help Make Running Your TTRPG Game That Much Easier from 2023-04-30T09:00

Running a game is a lesson in balance. There are so many dials and mechanics that you need to manage while also focusing on being what Gary Gygax referred to as “the Shaper of the Cosmos.” Anyon...

When Good Gaming Groups Go Bad: 3 Wise DMs Tips On How To Continue Your TTRPG Campaign With Only One Player from 2023-04-16T09:00

Game groups fall apart. It’s as inevitable as the rain. What do you do when your current group goes south, but you still have a player who wants to continue? Do you continue with the current cam...

Just Do It! 3 Wise DMs Interviews a Brand-New D&D Enthusiast About the 13 Tips and Tricks to Mastering the Dungeon from 2023-04-02T09:00

New DMs. It’s easily the most discussed topic in the TTRPG hobby. We’ve talked before about tips and tricks for new DMs looking to run their first games. However, this week, we got the chance to...

Terrain, Maps&Minis, Oh My! The Long Tradition of Using Terrain and Minis in D&D to Enhance Your Game from 2023-03-19T09:00

In this episode, Tony and Dave sit down with our good friend and fellow gamer, Scott Washburn of Paper Terrain (w...

Back in Black: The Players Wrap-Up to the Absolutely Epic Curse of Strahd Finale with Vampyr, the Star of Blood from 2023-03-05T09:00

Hello and welcome BACK to 3 Wise DMs! It’s been quite some time and we’re glad that we’re back… Back in Black, that is - like Vampyr, our epic, final BBEG to end all BBEGs in Ba...

Finish Your Homebrew Campaign With a Bang: DMs’ Breakdown of the Epic Ending of the Woodstock Wanderers from 2022-09-04T09:00

How do you bring a 4-year Dungeons & Dragons campaign to a satisfying, epic ending? With an epic, solo boss. Some would say you shouldn’t do that in D&D 5E because the action economy fav...

Will Player Character Secrets Ruin Your Campaign? from 2022-08-28T09:00

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 imm...

The Epic-Tier Divide: Bringing Your DnD Campaign Into the Wild World of High-Level Play from 2022-08-21T09:00

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, lege...

11 Quirky Dungeon Master Habits of the 3 Wise DMs from 2022-08-14T09:00

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 a...

DMing All-Ranged Parties in Dungeons and Dragons 5E from 2022-08-07T09:00

Has SEAL Team 6 rolled up on your D&D 5E dungeon yet? You know the party we mean: Archers, wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, ranged assassins … and not a single melee tank among them. Just hundr...

When Is It OK to Kill a Player Character and What Do You Do Next? from 2022-07-24T09:00

Player character deaths happen in all Dungeons and Dragons games and other TTRPGs … don’t they? Should you be worried about killing PCs, or is it fine to let the dice fall where they may? When i...

Creating Fantastic RPG Factions: How to Use Groups, Guilds, Criminals, Guards, and More Organizations in Your TTRPG Campaigns from 2022-07-17T09:00

Every good campaign — whether it’s Dungeons and Dragons 5E, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel FASERIP, or any other system — has multiple factions for PCs to interact with. You may only need to flesh out ...

Playing With the Future: How to DM Foreshadowing in Dungeons and Dragons and other TTRPG Campaigns from 2022-07-10T09:00

Foreshadowing is a powerful tool for any storyteller, but it can be hard to use effectively at the campaign table. Whether you’re playing D&D or another role-playing game, you’re really DMin...

DMing Advantage and Disadvantage: How and When to Play With D&D 5E’s Most Elegant Tool from 2022-06-26T09:00

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 i...

The Pregnant PC: Handling Odd Character Creation Requests in Dungeons and Dragons and Other RPGs from 2022-06-19T09:00

Would you allow a player to bring a pregnant PC into your game? That’s the question listener Joel brings to us for this episode. And while at first, it caught us off-guard, we realized this does...

100 Episodes of Dungeon Master Advice: The 22 Most Important DM Lessons From 2 Years of Gaming and Recording 3 Wise DMs from 2022-06-12T09:00

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 abou...

A Dark Sun Rising: The Allure and Compromises of Using Pre-Made Settings from 2022-06-05T09:00

Wizards of the Coast – and just about every other RPG company – puts out a lot of pre-made, boxed settings, and even more are made by third-party publishers. But in a game where you can play any...

Ending the Campaign: Bringing Your Dungeons&Dragons Story to a Satisfying Conclusion from 2022-05-22T09:00

Ending a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign (or any TTRPG) can be one of the most intimidating moments for a DM. You’ve managed to carry the momentum, tension, and player interest for ...

DMPCs vs. Sidekicks: What’s the Better Way to Give Your Dungeons and Dragons PCs a DM Avatar? from 2022-05-15T09:00

We’ve talked about DMPCs before, but now Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has added a new way for DMs to have an avatar in the game to help PCs out, cover any weak spots, or just have a view acros...

Is ‘Don’t Over-Prepare’ the Worst Advice for New DMs? from 2022-05-08T09:00

DM prep: It can be the most important thing to putting on a good game or the biggest obstacle keeping you from getting back behind the screen. Some DMs say the most important thing to remember i...

Are Red Herrings Derailing Your D&D Game? Here’s What to Do About It from 2022-05-01T09:00

Rich, vivid descriptions bring your fantasy world to life. Unfortunately, they can also lead your players to think that the intricately carved and decorated elven bridge they’re crossing has to ...

DM Hacks and Tricks to Make Running D&D Less Tedious and More Fun from 2022-04-24T09:00

What’s some of the tedious stuff you have to do as a DM that you really wish had an easy button? Why does WotC make some essential DMing info hard to find (or at least hard to find while you’re ...

How Many Players Are Too Many for One D&D Game? What About Other RPG Systems? from 2022-04-17T09:00

The oldest Dungeons & Dragons books said the game was for 4 to 50 players, and we know people who DMed white box D&D campaigns with groups in the 20s. But that was then, and D&D 5th ...

Putting PCs In Charge: How Do You Handle RPG Players Characters Moving Up to Become Kings, Queens and Leaders of Powerful Organizations In Your World? from 2022-04-10T09:00

Many RPG campaigns end with the players taking over kingdoms, wizard colleges, crime syndicates or other powerful organizations in the world as a sort of epilogue. But what about when they want ...

When Should You Bend RPG Rules? Handling Players Who Want to Adjust Game Mechanics They Don’t Like from 2022-04-03T09:00

Not every player is OK playing RPGs by the rules as they’re written. Some can’t even get through character creation without asking the DM to make some kind of mechanical adjustment. This may see...

How Do You Make New DMs? from 2022-03-27T09:00

It’s the question forever DMs everywhere ponder at night: How do I get one of my players to jump in and DM their own stuff so I can get some playing time?! (And also, so they can express themsel...

No Rest for the Weary: How the Rest Cadence of D&D 5E Can Completely Change Your Game from 2022-03-20T09:00

Rest! In some D&D 5E campaigns, it’s taken for granted. In others, like Tomb of Annihilation, PCs may have to make their HP and long-rest abilities stretch for days. And like in real life, s...

The Sinister 7: How to Run 7 Iconic D&D Monsters for Maximum Mystique from 2022-03-13T09:00

Dungeons & Dragons is a lot more than just dungeons and dragons. The game is full of iconic monsters with unique legends and mystique, some pulled from mythology and others found only in thi...

Do D&D Magic Item Limits Crimp Your DM Style? from 2022-03-06T09:00

Do the magic item attunement rules and limits make D&D 5E a better game or just add a layer of frustration? When we started playing 5E, we actually ignored attunement. Now, we’ve started usi...

The Fetch Quest: Are They Fun? Are They Worth It? Are They Just Filler for the Big Story? from 2022-02-27T09:00

Sometimes your players want something, or you want to give them something, that would be kind of lame to just leave lying around. After all, The Awesome Staff of Mega Power probably deserves its...

Getting the “Face” Player to Shut Up and Let Other Players Share the Spotlight from 2022-02-20T09:00

Some players are more assertive than others, as every DM quickly learns. Some players sit quietly waiting for their turn to speak, while the “Face,” like his A-Team counterpart, never misses a c...

9 Alternate D&D Rules to Try: Our Favorite Optional Mechanics From the DMG, Homebrew and Other Games from 2022-02-13T09:00

Vanilla Dungeons & Dragons 5E is a fine game, but depending on the atmosphere you want to set and the possibilities of your setting, there are a lot of alternate rules that can bring your ga...

How to Handle a Backseat DM: 11 Things to Know from 2022-02-06T09:00

Why won’t the experienced DM playing in your game back off and let you run it? A backseat DM can be a frustrating experience and force some difficult conversations — but having an experienced DM...

Sharing RPG Worlds: Balancing PC Power Levels and NPC Portrayals Across Shared Campaigns With Multiple DMs from 2022-01-30T09:00

Across the games we’re running and playing, we have several campaign worlds, NPCs, and PCs that cross over between DMs. Usually, this is no big deal, but sometimes what one DM does can unbalance...

Does D&D 5E Need Character Levels? Radical (Heretical?) Ideas About D&D Advancement from 2022-01-23T09:00

Leveling up! It’s synonymous with D&D and one of the game’s biggest contributions to gaming culture. The very idea of gaining a level has become a staple of RPG video games, board games, and...

How to DM PC Builds and Abilities That Piss You Off from 2022-01-16T09:00

In any TTRPG, but perhaps especially D&D 5E, the DM runs the world and the players run their characters, who are built within the rules of the game. You should let players build the characte...

How Hard Is Too Hard for Your RPG Campaign and Players? from 2022-01-09T09:00

Balance can be the trickiest thing to strike in any RPG campaign. On the one hand, the DM is running monsters and villains who are literally plotting the PC’s destruction. If their plans aren’t ...

Characters Over Combat: What We Learned From Gaming in 2021 from 2022-01-02T09:00

Happy New Year! It’s a new year for new games or just continuing the ones you already love. But before we look forward to 2022, it’s important to look back at what we learned from gaming in 2021...

What to do With a Bored D&D Player? A DM’s Dilemma from 2021-12-19T09:00

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...

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 from 2021-12-12T09:00

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 ab...

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 from 2021-12-05T09:00

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 ...

All Eyes on the Game: 12 Tips to Keep Your RPG Players Involved and Focused on Playing from 2021-11-28T09:00

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...

Motivating Your Players: How to Get Your TTRPG Player Characters to Take the Hook and Get On With the Adventure from 2021-11-21T09:00

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 buil...

It Takes a Village: 19 Tips for Building Towns and Cities for Your RPG Campaigns from 2021-11-14T09:00

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...

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 from 2021-11-07T09:00

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 mov...

Horror Gaming for Halloween: How We Squeeze Scares Out of Players Around the RPG Table from 2021-10-31T09:00

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....

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 from 2021-10-24T09:00

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 questi...

WotC Changing D&D 5E Monsters and More – Are These the Updates the Game Needs? from 2021-10-17T09:00

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 ...

29 DM Ideas for Spicing Up D&D 5E: New Twists for Campaigns, Combat, Equipment, Magic and More! from 2021-10-10T09:00

DMing is all about bringing your ideas to the table, but some ideas reach beyond the story and dialogue to change the way the game is played. Today, 3 Wise DMs open a Pandora’s Box of DMing idea...

Patrons, Powers and Punishments in D&D 5E: So Many Classes Get Their Powers From a Higher Power … But at What Price? from 2021-10-03T09:00

Patrons and punishments have been a part of D&D since 1st Edition’s paladins had to toe the line or get busted down to fighter status by an angry deity. But with so many classes drawing thei...

RPG Weather, Puzzles and Ritual Challenges: 3 Ways to Make Your Campaign World More Immersive from 2021-09-26T09:00

How do you bring your campaign world to life? It’s a question lots of DMs and GMs ask from a lot of different angles. We’re all looking for ways to make sure our players have fun, but also have ...

Keeping Your Story Straight: How We Manage All the DM Details of Our RPG Campaigns from 2021-09-19T09:00

No DM’s plan survives contact with the players. Between remembering the story you’re trying to tell, the details you had to improvise, and the players’ actions (which may or may not have made se...

I’m on a Boat! Running Sea-Faring, Space-Faring and Other Ship-Based RPG Campaigns from 2021-09-12T09:00

When you take your RPG campaign to the high seas (or under the seas, outer space or anywhere else they need a ship to survive), all bets are off. Sure, you could run it like any land-based campa...

Dragons: Why We Love Them and How We Run Them from 2021-09-05T09:00

Dragons are to D&D what Jerry West is to the NBA: The Logo. They’re the monsters so iconic that they’re literally part of the name. No other fantasy property has done as much or gained as mu...

How to Bring WrestleMania to Barovia: DM Dave’s Curse of Strahd Goes WAY Off Book With a Homebrew Wrestling PPV from 2021-08-29T09:00

Sometimes you want to change the game up completely, even if it’s just for the night. Maybe you want to have a night of gambling games, a carnival with an archery contest, a little football, or,...

Strange D&D Homebrew: Knowing When, Where and How to Make Your RPG Campaign Weird Without Losing Your Players from 2021-08-15T09:00

DMs have some crazy ideas. And deep down, there’s nothing most of us want to do more than unleash those ideas on our unsuspecting players. The party is rolling along a totally normal campaign in...

When DMs Go to War: How to Run Mass Combat in D&D (and similar RPGs) and Not Bore Your Players from 2021-08-08T09:00

Most DMs come to a point in their campaigns where they want to run The Big Battle. We’re not talking the players vs. a few Balors, but a real war: Storming the beaches of a fantasy Normandy, the...

When Your Game Goes Hollywood: How to Adapt Jurassic Park, Jumanji, and Any Other Movie Into an RPG Adventure or Campaign from 2021-08-01T09:00

Lots of DMs draw inspiration from their favorite movies. But adapting a movie to your game isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Can you really use D&D, where the PCs are super-powered, to crea...

Surrender Like a Boss: When RPG Monsters and NPCs Should Give Up and How to Get PCs to Accept Their Submission from 2021-07-25T09:00

Sometimes the best stories play out after defeat, but to get to them, bad guys need to occasionally survive the fight. It’s not always so easy to recognize when it’s time to pull back and have t...

21 Tips to Master D&D Combat: How to Run RPG Fights That Balance Fun, Challenge and Time Investment from 2021-07-18T09:00

Combat is such a central part of D&D 5E, but it’s also a part of the game that can take forever! And not all players are down for a 4-hour fight every game session. What can the DM do to kee...

Powering Up! Bringing D&D Monsters, Villains and Campaigns Up to Your Party’s Level from 2021-07-11T09:00

Whether you’re playing a book Dungeons & Dragons campaign or just have big plans for a couple uglies in the Monster Manual, there’s a level window where your PCs will have a good, balanced e...

13 Tips for DMing Across the Multiverse: How to Bring Different RPG Genres to Life, From Fantasy to Steampunk, Intrigue, Horror and More from 2021-07-04T09:00

Dungeons & Dragons gives most DMs a good idea of how to start running high fantasy games, but where do you go from there? Or if you started with another genre of role-playing game, like horr...

Superhero Roleplaying: How to Run Comic Book RPG Campaigns That Feel Super from 2021-06-27T09:00

From The Avengers to The Snyder Cut and Arrow to Wanda Vision, superheroes have conquered entertainment. Are you ready for them to clean up the streets of your game group, too? That’s exactly wh...

11 Ways to Be a Better Dungeon Master: Lessons Learned in Our First Year Recording 3 Wise DMs from 2021-06-20T09:00

How much time should you spend prepping for individual game sessions? When should you improv and when should you plan more ahead of time? How can you keep rules lawyers and house rules under con...

Bringing RPGs Back From COVID: How Do We Get Back to In-Person Gaming After More Than a Year of Roll20 and Quarantine? from 2021-06-13T09:00

The 3 Wise DMs have only just started to get back together for some in-person gaming, but none of the online RPGs we’ve talked about has yet made it back to the dinner table. Can they be saved? ...

21 Things Wise DMs Want From Their Best RPG Players from 2021-06-06T09:00

It takes more than just a Wise DM to make a great roleplaying game campaign. No matter how thoroughly you plan or brilliantly you improv, the DM (or GM, judge, storyteller, or whatever the syste...

DMing Big Character Changes: How to Handle PCs Shifting Alignments, Races, Classes, and More Without Ruining the Game or That Player’s Fun from 2021-05-30T09:00

Dungeons & Dragons used to have cursed treasure that would suddenly cause big changes in player characters — like the Helm of Opposite Alignment and the Girdle of Opposite Gender. These were...

14 Tips for DMing First-Time RPG Players from 2021-05-23T09:00

Of all the roles the DM takes on, none is more important than bringing new players into the hobby. DM a game, and your player has fun for a night. Teach someone to play, and they may have fun fo...

15 Tips for Running RPG Villains: Playing BBEGs Your PCs Will Love to Hate from 2021-05-16T09:00

It’s the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG)! The font from which all the pain in your campaign should spring. … So, how do you make sure that NPC is epic and inspires your PCs to true desperation like Dart...

D&D Alignment: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for Your TTRPG Campaigns — RPG MythBusters from 2021-05-09T09:00

“Alignment doesn’t matter!” We’ve heard it all over the place, but alignment has been a part of D&D — and most RPGs in some form — for decades. And it’s been played differently through every...

The Players’ Review of Storm King’s Thunder: The Whole Party Spills the Tea on Tony’s Version of #SKT from 2021-05-02T09:00

For the first time ever, we brought the whole team together to recap DM Tony’s very highly customized version of Storm King’s Thunder. Hear what all 5 players and Tony thought of the game and wh...

Storm King’s Thunder DM Review: The 9 Deviations DM Tony Used to Make D&D’s Giant Globetrot His Own from 2021-04-25T09:00

When is a book module not a book module? When the DM throws in birthday games, a modifiable Spelljammer airship, legendary weapons tied to every character’s backstory, and more deviations from t...

Bringing Your RPG Campaign World to Life: 37 Tricks to Give Your Setting a Soul from 2021-04-18T09:00

Do your players feel into the campaign setting you’re running, or is it just generic D&D world #124 to them? What can you do to bring that world more to life and make it feel unique to you a...

RPG MythBusters: PC Party Balance Is Essential! … Maybe Not as Much as You Think? from 2021-04-11T09:00

Party balance: It’s the most important thing every new campaign needs, right? Maybe not. Is there anything a party really NEEDS to have? Can your players survive without a healer? Or a thief? Or...

TTRPG Party Dynamics: How We Want Players to Work Together and What We Do When They Don’t from 2021-04-04T09:00

The biggest variable in any TTRPG campaign isn’t the dice, the monsters, or even the unbalanced psyche of an exasperated DM. It’s the players themselves and the party dynamic they create both in...

Missing in Action: How to Handle Players Skipping Games and Scheduling Conflicts from 2021-03-28T09:00

The ultimate BBEG for any tabletop RPG is the calendar. And judging by the vast gallery of memes about this topic, that villain is nigh unbeatable. Whether our schedules are hard to align or pla...

RPG MythBusters: Never Split the Party! … Or Should You? from 2021-03-21T09:00

One of the old, unwritten rules of most TTRPGs is “Never Split the Party!” We tease our players with the risks and watch things go haywire when they don’t listen. But is splitting the party actu...

How to DM Epic-Tier Games: 19 Tips for Running – and Ending – High-Level TTRPG Campaigns from 2021-03-14T09:00

Every campaign gets to level 1, but how many make it to level 20? How do you challenge players who wield actual cosmic power? Is it fun to be kings, queens, warlords and arch-mages — and take on...

Party Downtime: When, How and Should You Let the Players Pursue Their Own Character Goals? from 2021-03-07T09:00

Downtime: It’s when we play, when we sleep and when we record podcasts. Everyone needs some downtime, right? … Maybe. Do you actually give your player characters downtime? Or do you keep them sl...

When the DM Isn’t Having Fun: How to Fix a Game That Feels Like a Chore from 2021-02-28T09:00

You studied the RPG books. You recruited the players. You started a New Game. Every week (or weeks or month) you get everyone together and run them through a world you control! … What if you don...

When Metagaming Goes Wrong: How Do You Stop Out-of-Character Knowledge From Ruining Your Game? from 2021-02-21T09:00

No matter how much we say it’s the DM’s world, the players know the game too. They have access to all the books, all the lore, even all the monster stats! Sometimes that’s a big help. Other time...

Bringing NPCs to Life: How to Build Legendary Characters Your Players Will Talk About for Decades from 2021-02-14T09:00

Characters bring a story to life, and that goes double for your TTRPG campaign. The best of your NPCs will become legends, most of the rest won’t be any more memorable than the thousands of...

How to Move a Stalled RPG Campaign Forward from 2021-02-07T09:00

At some point, every DM sees their party get lost in the woods … or the weeds … or the brothels … Whatever the specific distraction, it’s easy to get caught up in the session-to-session filler c...

DMing Large Groups: 19 Tips for Running Games With 6 or More Players from 2021-01-31T09:00

RPG tables tend to grow. Once you get the game going and people are having fun, they start talking about that fun, and new players come in quickly. The only problem is, most TTRPGs are optimized...

Our Favorite DMing Inspirations and Influences from 2021-01-24T09:00

What drew you into role-playing games? Was it the movies, TV, myths and legends you experienced as a kid? Was it video games? Was it the first time you picked up a gaming book and fell into the wor...

Our Favorite DMing Inspirations and Influences from 2021-01-24T09:00

What drew you into role-playing games? Was it the movies, TV, myths and legends you experienced as a kid? Was it video games? Was it the first time you picked up a gaming book and fell into the ...

DM Burnout: 6 Things That Cause It, and How We Recover From It from 2021-01-17T09:00

There comes a time when the dice cease to sparkle, when the monster loses its luster, when the DM screen becomes a prison, and all that is left is a DMs love for their players … Those little cam...

The Bootstrap Guide to DMing Your First Role Playing Game from 2021-01-10T09:00

Every DM needs to run their first game, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to do it! If you’re new to the system, and especially if everyone is new to the system, how much do you really need to know to ...

2020: A Year in the TTRPG Lab from 2021-01-03T09:00

In March of 2020, we were getting ready to record our first episode of this podcast. We all got together in our planned recording space and cut the trailer. … Then COVID happened, and that entir...

How to Set Traps in D&D: Causing Chaos, Mayhem and Problems for Your Players from 2020-12-20T09:00

Older players who look at the D&D 5E rogue would be forgiven for thinking traps aren’t in the game anymore. In fact, throughout the 5E Players Handbook, traps are given less attention than i...

D&D and Mental Health: Therapy, Autism and Exploring the Things We Can't Just Say from 2020-12-13T09:00

A few weeks ago, a listener reached out and asked how we manage players with special circumstances. She was DMing for her brother, who’s on the autism spectrum, and hit a trigger that made him f...

RPG Communication Breakdowns from 2020-12-06T09:00

It’s one of the hardest things for any DM to handle: What do you do when the way you see the game and the way the players see the game is no longer in sync?

You describe something as supe...

D&D Errata: Love It or Hate It, Here’s How We DM It from 2020-11-29T09:00

WotC as a company has long used errata as a way to keep its competitive games, like Magic: The Gathering, working as intended. But just several years into D&D 5E, they’re still releasing new...

Theater of the Mind: Is It a Better Way to Play D&D? from 2020-11-22T09:00

There’s a myth that “old-school” Dungeons & Dragons was mostly a minis game. That may have been the case in the very earliest days, but throughout 1st and 2nd Edition, we played without mini...

Rolling the Dice: How to Balance Randomness, Story and PC Agency in TTRPGs from 2020-11-15T09:00

The dice never lie, but they don’t tell great stories, either. (We mean, they’re dice, they don’t even talk!) So how much of your game do you want to leave up to the dice? When should you roll t...

Famous Fictional PCs: Should You Let Players Run Pop-Culture Clones in Your RPG Campaigns? from 2020-11-08T09:00

How do you feel about a player who wants to play a famous fictional character in your game, like Drizzt, Riddick or Gandalf? Do you let them or ask them to come up with something more original? ...

3 Ways to Design RPG Campaigns: Railroad vs. Open World vs. Dave from 2020-11-01T09:00

How do you create your own RPG campaign from scratch? Do you build a railroad straight through the story, or an open world for the players to explore in their own way at their own pace? Or do yo...

RPG Economics: What Can Players Do With All That Gold? from 2020-10-25T09:00

Gold and jewels are all over the treasure tables in the Dungeon Master Guide. Player characters can get filthy rich from adventuring! But then … What can they do with it? After a 1,500 GP suit o...

Digging Into Character Backstories for Fun and Pathos from 2020-10-18T09:00

Some players come into any RPG they play with a 4-page character origin and personal history that drives them to adventure — others can barely pick a name. What do you do with player character b...

19 Crazy Player Characters’ Stunts and How We DMed Them from 2020-10-11T09:00

It’s the heart of every D&D story: The player characters did something crazy and their whacky adventures in getting themselves out. That’s what tabletop RPGs are all about, no video game wil...

9 Things D&D 5E Does Really Well, and 10 Things It Doesn’t from 2020-10-04T09:00

Dungeons & Dragons is the biggest role-playing game in the world, and frankly, it’s our game of choice. But that doesn’t mean it does everything great. There are design choices, and in some ...

Adventure Time: 15 Tips to Build and DM Great Adventures, and the Ways We Fail at Them from 2020-09-27T07:00

Role-playing games, at their heart, are all about adventure! But are the stories you’re telling and sessions you’re building really creating “an adventure” your players will enjoy? How do you bu...

7 Questions Dungeon Masters Ask and Our ‘Wisest’ Answers from 2020-09-20T09:00

How do you handle a TPK? How do you get players to do their homework? What are some good D&D 5E monster combos? From Facebook to Twitter to the 3WiseDMs.com website, these are the top Dungeo...

3 Styles of RPG Campaign Storytelling from 2020-09-13T09:00

Whether you have an epic story to tell or just hope your new RPG campaign survives week-to-week, mastering long-form storytelling is an essential part of being a Dungeon Master or game master in...

The Tao of D&D Encounters: How We Build Fights That Fit Our Games from 2020-09-06T09:00

The encounter is the heartbeat of most D&D games, especially in 5E. A lot of the system is built around them, and that’s where you get to play with the toys: Characters get to use their neat...

39 Tips for New Dungeon Masters — and a Few for Veteran DMs, Too from 2020-08-30T09:00

New to being a dungeon master or game master and not sure how to get better? Been doing it for a while and still don’t feel like you know what you’re doing? Well, we’ve been there. In fact, all ...

13 Crazy DM Stunts You Won't Believe We Pulled from 2020-08-23T09:00

Have you ever wanted to give your PC party a pet dragon? What about when it turns out to be unbelievably OP? Well, we’ve done it and hundreds of other DM stunts that ranged from “unconventional”...

3 Ways to Pace D&D Encounters, Sessions and Games from 2020-08-16T09:00

Players know speed kills, but DMs know lack of pace can wipe out whole games. How many encounters should you get through in a session? How long should combat take? What do you do when the player...

What’s Fun for the Dungeon Master? from 2020-08-09T09:00

A lot of what we see around the Dungeons & Dragons culture is so focused on how dungeon masters can be good DMs — and how you can ruin a game if you’re not — that we lose sight of the fact t...

The 8 D&D Player Types and How to DM Them from 2020-08-02T09:00

In an ancient tome — the 4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide — WotC broke down what it considered to be the eight main types of players and gave DMs tips on how to handle them. Understanding who ...

What Makes Good Players and Problem Players? from 2020-07-26T09:00

As much as DMs like to take responsibility for the success or failure of their games, you’re one person running a group that could be six or more players. Their personalities, attitudes, relatio...

The Biggest DM Mistakes We’ve Made from 2020-07-19T09:00

From accidental party kills to evil campaigns that went … well, evil … we’re only Wise DMs because we’ve made all the mistakes more times than we care to remember. What happened, what did we do ...

Rules vs. Continuity: Managing the Verisimilitude of Your Game from 2020-07-12T09:00

As a DM, the world is your character. And sometimes the rules as written, what they call “RAW,” may conflict with the way you want your world to work. How do you handle those conflicts? What do ...

WotC's Racism Fix: Can Good DMs Help D&D's Stereotypes Problems? from 2020-07-05T09:00

Wizards of the Coast recently announced that they’re doing away with “evil” al...

Roll20 DM Newbs: Tips and Tricks From the Wise DMs'First Online Campaigns from 2020-06-28T09:00

COVID-19 forced the Wise DMs to put their games on hiatus or take them online with Roll20. And they were not wise to that!

Hear how Thorin, Tony and Dave stumbled through the new platform ...

Introductions: Traumatized Players, Improv Tricks and Our Biggest Struggles from 2020-06-21T09:00

In the first episode of 3 Wise DMs, meet the so-called "Wise Dungeon Masters" Thorin, Tony and Dave, and hear how they handle some of their biggest DMing struggles. Along the way hear how the gu...

Trailer from 2020-06-20T11:15

Meet the guys behind the 3 Wise DMs podcast and hear what this podcast for roleplaying game Dungeon Masters and Game Masters will bring to you and your game.