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3 Wise DMs

The 3 Wise DMs

3 Wise DMs

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A weekly Games, Education and Society podcast
 8 people rated this podcast
3 Wise DMs

The 3 Wise DMs

3 Wise DMs

Claimed
Episodes
3 Wise DMs

The 3 Wise DMs

3 Wise DMs

Claimed
A weekly Games, Education and Society podcast
 8 people rated this podcast
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Best Episodes of 3 Wise DMs

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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 be an important clue or secret! If it weren’t, why
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 themselves, expand the hobby, and all that other good stu
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 favors a more numerically balanced battle. But with seven lev
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 PC
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 m
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 kil
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 hundreds of points of damage pouring into your helpless mel
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 is it OK to kill a character and how do you make su
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 criminals and guards, or you could build a world w
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 DMing against your players’ distractions. And a table full
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 it’s here to stay. But the decision of when to appl
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 doesn’t need to be a deal-breaker. In fact, not many P
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 about running RPGs from Dungeons and Dragons to Marvel
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 anywhere your imagination can create and customize th
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 dozens of sessions over perhaps years. How do you wrap
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 across the table: The sidekick.The sidekick mechanics w
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 is to not over-prepare, but YouTube DM guru Ginny D
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 trying to run a game)? This idea comes from Kaila
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 Edition runs into a lot of issues once you pass a certain numb
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 seem like an easy situation – do it my way or play wi
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, sleep deprivation changes the game!As we’ve started our
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 this game. But from D&D, many of these monsters have beco
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 using it across all of our campaigns to understand how th
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 own quest to find. But how long should that quest
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 chance to go to town. Before you know it, the party
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