3 Wise DMs

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 slaloming down the plot with barely a weekend to get their equipment sharpened?What do you let the PCs attempt when they do get a weekend off? Is it taverns and tax collectors, or can they create new spells, magic items and heists? In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about different ways to handle downtime and keep the game moving and fun. They also talk about what’s not fun in downtime, and things they’ve tried that the players didn’t like.But first, we have an ogre to bury … A quantum ogre! A recent article on our site kicked a hornets’ nest of a broader discussion about encounters that DMs op in no matter which way the PCs go. Here’s what we think of the debate and how it fits into reasonable game prep.It’s all in this week’s episode of 3 Wise DMs.1:00 Schrodinger’s Encounter gets ambushed by the Quantum Ogre 8:00 Revisiting traumatized players and how it influences online discussions13:00 The lies DMs tell … and should keep telling20:00 A frank discussion of how we build and change things on the fly27:00 Downtime activities: How they fit into 5E vs. prior editions of D&D32:00 Libraries?! How Quaint! Ways to portray downtime research 39:00 Pros and cons of letting players find incorrect “facts” and false research 47:00 Do you want to let players design new items and spells with downtime?50:00 Does your adventure even have room for downtime activities?53:00 Giving PCs a cool base of operations55:00 Do you open up the world and give players a chance to take on other big downtime projects like building armies, magic items, spells, kingdoms, etc.?63:00 Training, titles and taxes: Are your downtime activities actually fun?68:00 How do you bring a long-running, high-level, epic campaign to a satisfying end?79:00 Final thoughts

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’t like it? What do you do when you find yourself running a TTRPG game you don’t enjoy?The DM is a player, too. If you’re not having fun, there’s no game. We’d never recommend trudging through a campaign you hate just for the players or your pride. Your time’s too valuable. For the game to go on, you must get it back to a point where you enjoy running it. How do you that?In this episode, hear how Thorin, Tony and Dave make sure their games stay fun — for their players and themselves. Along the way, we’ll talk about how we lean into the things we enjoy and cut the things we don’t, even when those things may seem essential to the game. Plus, we’ll go deeper into DMPCs and how they can be one way for unhappy DMs to reconnect with the fun of the game (and how to keep them from overshadowing your players).1:00 A new DM who isn’t having fun in Icewind Dale3:00 DMPCs: Do they make the game more fun for the DM or are they just one more thing to manage?6:00 What do you do when you start a new game as the DM and it’s not fun for you?8:00 DM know thyself: What specific parts of DMing do you actually enjoy? 11:00 Don’t be afraid to pull a “Princess Bride” and run your own “good parts” version of the module16:00 Never listen to what anyone online says you’re doing wrong19:00 “Your DMPC should be like Gandalf”22:00 How to make DM prep work more reasonable and more fun27:00 Run the kind of campaign you’d enjoy reading/watching/playing in31:00 RPG environment and the limits of survival-focused settings for super-heroic D&D characters34:00 Encounter difficulty and how the feel of fights should change as you go up in level40:00 How do you fix a game you don’t like DMing?43:00 Stop doing the things that make you miserable and find your own DMing style47:00 Are you playing any NPCs you enjoy being?50:00 Are you playing with players you enjoy DMing?55:00 Final thoughts

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 times, it can be a problem for the campaign you want to run. Have you ever had players who actively spoil what all the monsters do? Or players who think they know what your NPCs are all about? Or a fellow DM who’s DMed every Ravenloft module D&D has produced and is trying not to spoil your run through Curse of Strahd? How do you handle players who don’t separate their personal knowledge from what their characters would know? Thorin, Tony and Dave go off-book a lot, homebrewing, up-scaling, and repurposing all the time. In this episode they talk about what is OK and not OK metagaming, problems metagaming has created in their games, and how they deal with the players and situations it spawns.1:00 Dueling Strahds: Metagaming rears its blood-sucking head3:00 What out-of-character knowledge is or isn’t a problem?6:00 How metagame expectations can undermine attempts to create original adventures10:00 How we sometimes struggle with meta-knowledge as PCs15:00 Reimagining Strahd18:00 Really, how should PCs react when literally The Devil invites them to dinner or to do a job?23:00 The Strahd dinners that might’ve been…29:00 What to do when players think they know what the monsters do? 36:00 “You just don’t want us to win!” When the world doesn’t work the way the players assumed, and they blame the DM38:00 The Deck of Many Editions: What worked then doesn’t work now, and some players hate that!45:00 In-depth on vampire challenge levels and the problem with nonmagical damage immunities and 53:00 Changing monsters to create interesting thematic, cinematic, moments58:00 Metagaming: How do you get players to cut it out and respect your “authority”?68:00 Monk Owl Bears are too far … Or are they?72:00 Final thoughts

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 monsters your players slay along the way. But how do you bring those NPCs to life in a way your players will engage with, trust and remember? Does the DM make an NPC memorable, or is that something the players decide? Does it all come down to who lives, who dies and who tells their story?In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about their biggest successes and failures creating memorable NPCs, their favorite characters in gaming and beyond, and all the tricks they use to bring their favorite characters to life.1:00 Metagaming against the NPCs: Fighting snap judgments about the Zhentarim in Storm King’s Thunder5:00 I KILL IT! When the PCs instantly hate an NPC and kill someone you had bigger plans for13:00 What makes an NPC memorable? ·        What is the NPC doing for the party? ·        Do the players make them memorable?·        The NPC that knows things the party doesn’t·        The comic relief who supports the environment26:00 How do we bring these NPCs to life?·        Communicate that they have something to offer·        Get the party to trust them, but not fully·        Don’t spill the beans, NPC secrets should tease the party over time·        Good NPCs have an internal compass, motives and secrets that drive how they act·        They need a distinct description and personality·        They need a backstory, but the players don’t need to hear it33:00 Building NPC personalities41:00 Our picks for the most memorable NPCs (in RPGs and pop culture)53:00 What to avoid when creating and playing memorable NPCs (and WTF is a “non-descript” man?!)58:00 Tips for creating NPCs with depth and character development62:00 What makes an NPC not work?72:00 Great NPCs don’t need to stay in their campaign: Tony’s Ra’s Al Ghul75:00 Final thoughts

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 content and see the game grind to a slog of travel encounters or petty larcenies or extended haggling sessions that bore everyone at the table.How do you get the party back on track and involved with the big, bad plotline? How do you make it epic again if the game’s gotten a bit mundane? How do you link the little adventures into the big adventures, so you have a campaign that’s truly worthy of legend? How do you get the party out of the weeds and back on the path to adventure?In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they link elements together to let the PCs explore the town or woods, but still keep them engaging with the big epic content heroes are made of. They’ll also talk about some of their favorite things to do in a campaign and their DMing trademarks.For more basics about how to build an adventure, check out: Adventure Time: 15 Tips to Build and DM Great Adventures3:00 A new DM gets lost in Wildemount, and how we’d try to find our way out9:00 How do you progress the party from low-level missions to epic adventures?14:00 How the player characters and party dynamic can shift where the campaign is heading17:00 “You’re meddling in affairs you do not understand!” Using lower-level enemies to yank the party into the BBEG’s plans23:00 “You need other things in there.” The value of one-shots, side quests and “palate cleansers”26:00 Protagonist-driven (party) vs. antagonist-driven (BBEG) plotlines30:00 Our favorite ways to hook the party on an adventure plot32:00 Is Strahd’s schtick too stuck in the 80s?35:00 When PCs don’t reveal their key backstories, secrets and potentially important plot points38:00 Creating adventures that lead into more adventures43:00 Completing PC quests and backstories encourages protagonist-driven plot development49:00 Our trademark DM moves55:00 Things that annoy us as players that we’re trying to learn from as DMs65:00 Final thoughts

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 to run with 3 to 5 players (plus the DM), and DM gets tougher are you expand to 6, 8 even 10 players. Throughout our DMing careers, we’ve run a lot of large tables. Most of our current games have 6 or more players, and we routinely have 7 or 8 at the table. We’ve all had some experience running even more than that, too.In this episode, we’ll dive into the many issues that make large tables challenging and what Thorin, Tony and Dave do to overcome those obstacles. 1:00 The biggest games we’ve ever DMed3:00 What happens when you start getting a lot of players? Players’ backstories start to slip through the cracksEncounter balance: The party starts blasting through encounters super easilySlow play and “the interminable slog of 2-hour combats”Table talk and trying to keep the game moving without losing player attention10:00 How virtual tabletops like Roll20 influence table talk, combat and player attention12:00 Monster lineup, CR and the sweet spot that challenges a large party without making it a slog17:00 How we use CR (and before that, HD and monster category) to plan encounters and adjust for large parties24:00 Running Curse of Strahd with 6 players and the encounters that still took the party to the edge27:00 Building encounters to challenge the front and back of the party30:00 Scene control: How to handle 8 players fighting for airtime, and the ones who don’t36:00 Encouraging everyone to step up and have a voice39:00 Overlapping character roles/backgrounds/personalities45:00 Choosing and distributing treasure for large parties — and dealing with the exponential escalation of magic in and out of combat47:00 Club band vs. stadium show: Dealing with compounded player expectations50:00 Can you trust large parties to make consensus decisions quickly, or should you railroad them to keep things moving?56:00 Should you bring new D&D players into large games?62:00 How to keep from bogging down, running slow and getting boring71:00 Technology issues using Roll20 using 6+ players and how we solved them76:00 Final thoughts

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 world? Once you got into the games, what shaped the stories you tell and worlds you build? Where do your characters come from? Where do your mechanical parts come from?We all stand on the shoulders of giants in games, whether those are metaphorical giants, literary giants or literal giants. In this episode, the 3 Wise DMs talk about the things that shape their games and how they directly impact what they do. Whether you’re looking for inspiration of ways to make the inspirations you already have a bigger part of your game, this episode will give you the big picture of how all these crazy parts come together to make our DMing whole.2:00 Movies, myths, the ancient Celts … Things that laid the foundations of our DM styles6:00 Magenta-colored glasses: The first TTRPG products we were exposed to10:00 What drives people’s interest in D&D13:00 Excitement and mystery: That feeling of getting sucked into an RPG book before the Internet ... even before computer games18:00 Art and awesomeness20:00 Crunchy influences: The things that influenced us mechanically and thematically, good and bad27:00 D&D 2E Memories: Why did DRUIDs have to kill each other to level up? Why could a Celtic warrior throw a spear with its FOOT for evisceration-level damage?32:00 The problem with very simulationist games: Are they fun?33:00 Adventuring in the “real” history: Reactions to our first 3WD Call of Cthulhu campaign39:00 When D&D got Medieval: The 2E Arms & Equipment Guide43:00 Stream of influence: The impact of online campaigns like Critical Role on us and TTRPGs as a whole46:00 Music in our games: Influences and game soundtracks (DM Dave, say it ain’t so!)51:00 Video games that influenced our DMing57:00 How 5E D&D is still influencing us60:00 The D&D 2E Monstrous Compendium and Expanding Universe: A Creatively Encouraging Vision for TTRPGs69:00 Making D&D combat look and sound more like real or theatrical combat72:00 Can you do it simpler? How can we fit interesting details into our games without spiraling complexity?80:00 Aur’k Ka’ang, the Fire Giants’ Iron Golem (SKT) and making solo NPCs the party-crushing bastards they were born to be86:00 Unearthed Arcana: The excitement of spells that used to do really weird stuff93:00 Final thoughts: “Feed your creative soul”

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 campaign-ruining jerks! Or not — maybe your players are victims of your burnout just as much as you are. Every TTRPG campaign is different, but one thing never changes: Without the DM, there is no game. And a burned-out DM is one of the biggest game-killers in any table-top RPG you’ll play.What does burnout look like? What does it feel like? Can you play your way through it? If not, how do you handle it? Thorin, Tony and Dave have all had their own brushes, and sometimes head-on collisions, with burnout. Here’s what they’ve learned and tips to start healing.2:00 What does DM burnout feel like? 9:00 Can you play your way through it?15:00 Things that burn us out #1: The setting gets old22:00 Things that burn us out #2: Spending too much time on maps26:00 Things that burn us out #3: When we’re not playing the kind of game we want to play37:00 Things that burn us out #4: High expectations – both from the players and ourselves40:00 Balancing DM and player expectations with running the kind of game you want to play50:00 Things that burn us out #5: Players who think they can kill everything52:00 The one biggest sign that you’re burning out58:00 Things our players do that protect us from burnout65:00 Things that burn us out #6: Players set in character roles they can’t/won’t/don’t play well68:00 What we do to heal from burnout76:00 Final thoughts

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 start a game? Do you need to read all the rulebooks cover to cover? No. Do you need to design a minimum of 6 dungeon levels and populate it with monsters like Gary Gygax first intended? Absolutely not. So, what do you actually need to know to bring some friends together, throw your first game, and help everyone learn how to play along the way? Here’s how Thorin, Tony and Dave learned to DM themselves, and their advice for mastering the game while you run it.3:00 Start with character creation9:00 Just get to “minimum viable build” system understanding14:00 It’s fine to launch with the system’s starter adventure and pre-gen characters19:00 The core rules you need to know to start a game in any system: Dice, core rule, what kinds of encounters and conflicts is it built around?27:00 Why you shouldn’t try to read the whole handbook and DM/GM guide before playing32:00 How to prep your first starter adventure35:00 Don’t be afraid to stop to look things up — set an expectation with your players that you’re all learning and supporting each other39:00 Don’t be afraid to adlib and make a judgment call – and to revisit rules after the game44:00 Monster wrangling for beginners – no one has fun in a first-game TPK52:00 Some thoughts on introductory adventures, difficulty and leveling58:00 What you want out of the player group for your first game61:00 Final thoughts

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 entire plan went into the garbage along with concerts, vacations and sending kids to school. But as the year went on and we figured out online gaming and recording, the podcast and our games took off.2020 was an “interesting” year for everyone. But if you had access to a computer and some friends, it was a pretty great time to be gaming online. For a lot of us, it was our first time playing on virtual tabletops, and that blossomed into more gaming than we’ve ever done before.For some people, 2020 was a quarantine lockdown. For us, it was a year in the lab doing intensive DMing and podcasting. Here’s how it went, what we learned and our resolutions for gaming in 2021.2:00 How COVID almost derailed 3 Wise DMS but wound up letting us do more gaming than ever8:00 2020 as Dave’s intensive DM workshop12:00 Holiday one-shot games became our personal TV holiday specials·        Dressing up as the Avengers for Halloween·        Rescuing Kidnapped elves from Evil Frosty and his Krampus minions·        A Very Marvel Christmas Carol·        Spending a Barovian Yule in Charlie Manx’s Christmasland from NOS4A2·        Tips to come up with good magic items gifts on the fly·        Curse of Strahd tip: An off-brand vampire encounter lets you scout how the party might fight Strahd34:00 Lessons of 2021: Mix theater-of-the-mind combat with battle maps to speed up the game38:00 Resolving to use more splash images and fewer maps (and tips for finding them)44:00 Getting players to ask the right questions and look for clues (and how Call of Cthulhu can help)51:00 Our 7 most memorable gaming moments of 202058:00 The 8 most important lessons we learned in 2020·        Get more player buy-in with a session 0·        Have players make their characters together so they already know each other·        Better table communication·        Drop more clues and don’t be afraid to point out options the party isn’t seeing·        Sometimes your story-heavy campaign needs a one-shot palette cleanser·        One of us LOVES running published WotC adventures·        We’re not afraid to go beyond module level-limits·        Play in more games to be a better DM (and maybe watch some live play streams)67:00 Honorable mentions and superlatives: Who does what best in our games70:00 Why we want to play more games and more game systems in 202174:00 Curse of Strahd vs. Castle Ravenloft and older versions80:00 Tony’s version of Storm King’s Thunder, with a Gummi ship84:00 Lesson: How does a Vampire’s charm work, anyway?90:00 Final thoughts and 2021 gaming resolutions

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 in previous editions. But that doesn’t make them any less important to the game, or any less tricky for the DM to get right.D&D Traps require the DM to walk a fine line. Balance them right, and your PCs will find themselves in a world of trouble that’s entirely their fault. But overdo it, or make traps too randomly deadly, and the party can slow to a crawl as they check for traps every 5 feet — cursing the DM the whole time. Deathtraps are a dungeon classic, but the best traps cause chaos more than straight kills. Before you line the entryway of your fort with lightning runes, are you sure the people living there can get in and out themselves? Do these traps even make sense in the dungeon you’re running?You want a trap to engage your players in some kind of problem-solving. In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they build hazards that up the mayhem and force layers to solve problems, without reducing traps to two rolls to avoid random death … at least not too often.2:00 Do traps still fit into modern, encounter-heavy, exploration-light D&D with its murder rogues? 7:00 Your traps should make sense in the world and the environment, and also at your table11:00 What do good and bad traps look like? Would you want to live next to it? 14:00 Do you want the party checking for traps every 5 feet? How careful do you want them to be? 19:00 What’s the goal of your trap makers?27:00 Tony’s favorite traps: The Mirror of Opposition, Glyphs of Warding29:00 Dave’s favorite Traps: The no-trap trap, the stone wall that splits the party34:00 Aside: Handling magic weapons with unarmed PCs or PCs with specific weapon needs40:00 Cursed treasure and the Lich that faked his death to let the party TPK themselves44:00 “That was on us!” What good traps teach the party45:00 Bad Traps: Revisiting the Murder House debate and the salt it left on the table51:00 Bad Traps, Marvel Edition: The “Big Bomb” with multiple fail states and what it taught the PCs58:00 Traps that create chaos and disadvantages for monsters to exploit are better than instant death64:00 Trap specialist classes vs. D&D 5E’s approach where anyone can find/disarm traps72:00 Final thoughts

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 feel like his character was ruined. And even though she’s a therapist, that reaction surprised her.None of the 3 Wise DMs have DMed a player diagnosed with autism before, but we have had many players with special circumstances. We’ve learned a lot from playing with them — sometimes from our mistakes. In this episode, we talk about those experiences, D&D’s impact on players with all types of personal issues, and how we try to handle communication challenges at our tables. And, for the first time on 3 Wise DMs, we have a special guest! Bonnie is in our game groups and she’s a therapist who uses D&D to reach teens going through special circumstances. She joins us to talk about her experiences there and how her charges react to the game.2:00 Reader Question: DMing players with special circumstances that impact how they view the game and unexpected challenges7:00 Revisiting miscommunication with cognitive challenges: Everyone brings something to the table11:00 Using D&D to connect with teens in a therapy setting16:00 Unexpected player reactions may be more about personal issues than the game19:00 D&D helps explore issues that aren’t easy to express and gets players excited to discuss them27:00 How therapists can use scenarios that gently push triggers to create room to talk34:00 Don’t take mental health issues lightly or use triggers to terrorize your friends! (And an aside on giant spiders)38:00 Mental flexibility and feeling like something “ruined” the game42:00 Characters as the players’ ideal selves and its impact on their perception of the game47:00 Communicating when something isn’t fun for the players or the DM49:00 How hard table communication can be for people who struggle with social queues 52:00 Empowering, and not overpowering, your players’ voices59:00 Is murder hoboing a risk in using D&D for therapy, and how does a therapist handle that?63:00 We all want to be the hero in our own story … don’t we?70:00 The soft skills at the heart of D&D — and the extra weight they can put on DMs77:00 Final thoughtsRelated Links: “How Dungeons & Dragons Saved My Autistic Son” — Salon“Tips for Managing an Autistic Player” — Reddit“Dungeons, Dragons and Autism” — Altogether Autism

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 super dangerous, and a PC runs up to give it a hug — then the players get angry when it attacks them. Or the players come up with a plan, but when they try to execute it, the actions they take work out more like the Keystone Cops than Seal Team 6. Or the tough, henchmen-level bad guys seem too hard, and players start accusing the DM of cheating for the outcome they wanted. This is no academic discussion. One of our own games is suffering from miscommunication, and it’s not fun. Can it be saved? Can yours if it’s starting to see some of these same issues? Listen in as Thorin, Tony and Dave dig into the miscommunications issues their games have had (and are having) and talk about why it happens, where it leads, and what can be done to try to save it.2:00 “The world is this way.” “No, it’s not, it’s this way.” What is a DM-player communication breakdown?4:00 When the “super-rare” power you were warned about shows up in the first adventure8:00 The psychology of D&D: How the game reads behind the screen and to each individual player is vastly different12:00 Reader question: How to handle recklessly naïve PCs who keep trying to make friends with things they should run from·        16:00 Demanding very-low DC insight checks to give players a final warning·        18:00 Embracing multiple fail states to allow a negative outcome that doesn’t destroy the party·        20:00 The smackdown encounter the party can easily escape from·        22:00 Give the rest of the party an opportunity to intervene·        24:00 You COULD decide the outreach works in a way that fits your game world25:00 Do you want to adjust the world to fit your player’s understanding/assumptions/mistakes?29:00 “You didn’t have to do that!” When the NPCs do something the players really dislike — and they reject it35:00 What do you do when an NPC ruins the players’ fun? What if it ruins the DM’s fun?38:00 Is the DM getting blamed for the PCs having different goals?41:00 The interrogation that went very, very wrong (And how much power should a tied-up NPC have?)49:00 When players start to feel like they don’t have agency and you’re just pushing them around53:00 How do you try to fix communication issues that are becoming toxic?55:00 Did you step on a player character’s big moment?57:00 The Power of Ghatanothoa: What do you do when you reveal the power of the big bad, and players don’t (or refuse to) recognize it?66:00 How often do you ask the players what they’re enjoying or not enjoying about the game? Or if they understand what’s going on? 73:00 It’s just a game: We bring ourselves to our characters and our tables, and in 2020, that can mean extra strain on the group80:00 Reader question: How do you deal with players who don’t provide character backstories?86:00 Final thoughts

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 errata that impact books printed years ago that have been used at tables for years since. Some of it just clarifies rules interactions in a helpful way, but other errata literally make books we bought obsolete.The most recent changes significantly change Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade, which no longer work with Shadow Blade. Taken in a vacuum that sounds fine, but what does a DM do if they have a player who uses that combo or built a character around the interaction. There are also changes to how Changelings allocate their attribute boosts that may impact characters you’ve been playing with for years. Do you go back and “fix” them to match the new rules?These can be thorny questions for any DM. In this episode, we dig into what Thorin, Tony and Dave think about errata and how they DM it their games. 2:00 How do we feel about WotC changing rules years after they were released5:00 Sage Advice is great! It has answered a lot of non-errata questions for us as DMs and PCs8:00 What the recent errata has changed and how WotC tries to empower Dungeon Masters11:00 WotC vs. TSR: How Magic: The Gathering influences today’s D&D errata15:00 Changing print editions, outdated Players Handbooks and the old days of checking magazines for rules clarifications18:00 If I play $60 or $70 for a book, shouldn’t that book should be finished?21:00 How WotC takes a lighter hand with D&D to give DM’s creative control25:00 How strong is errata in your game? What do you do if you or a player wants to ignore it? Do you walk back character creation that violates new attribute rules?32:00 The downsides of ignoring errata (and of making errata in the first place)38:00 Are you strict about material components?43:00 How the game has changed: From exploring magical worlds to fun tactical combat, and what it means for errata50:00 Continuity concerns: Clarification errata > patchwork changes to books we already own56:00 Is it a better game experience to play by your physical books or up-to-date online text?59:00 Make rulings that leave room to change your mind in the future63:00 Taking down the Frost Giant Jarl in Storm King’s Thunder and other campaign updates68:00 Getting sick of Hunger of Hadar71:00 Where we establish that the 3 Wise DMs love D&D 5E exactly as it is and there is nothing we’d like WotC to change/errata/muck with in the published material (not even the Coffeelock!)79:00 Players love playing with the toys they think are overpowered81:00 Sickening Radiance tricks83:00 The fight where everyone got a personal Pixie86:00 Final thoughts

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 minis and maps. Our game happened entirely in “The Theater of the Mind.” And, in many ways, it was a different experience from the maps-and-minis style of game most DMs run today.Some DMs still prefer theater of the mind. Thorin, for one! Dave’s not as hot on the idea, and Tony kind of likes it both ways. Would you? Even if it’s not your preferred style, you might run a theater of the mind game whenever you don’t have all the accessories for maps-and-minis playIn this episode, we answer Marshall, a DM from Brazil who asked to explain how to play D&D in Theater of the Mind. We talk about what we like about this style of play, what we don’t, and our best tips for making theater of the mind games flow and resonate with your PCs.1:00 What is theater of the mind? How we use it and when we use it5:00 Thinking beyond the battle map9:00 Which style has faster combat: Mas-and-minis or theater of the mind?13:00 What are the players paying attention to: You or the map?15:00 How do you keep ruling consistency in combat without a map?17:00 Tips for tracking turns, distances and combat details behind the DM screen in theater of the mind21:00 Is D&D traditionally a minis game? Busting the myth that 1st, 2nd and other early editions were “mostly" minis games23:00 When should you break theater of the mind and show the party a map?27:00 Problems that can arise with theater of the mind30:00 Pressure on the DM to provide engaging descriptions that focus on the right things37:00 How much longer does it take to prep maps and minis compared theater of the mind?41:00 How Tony’s game survived the Frost Giant Jarl in Storm King’s Thunder (on a map!)43:00 Combat descriptions with minis vs. theater of the mind46:00 All Eyes on Me! The biggest advantage of theater of the mind53:00 Tips for doing theater of the mind well ·Simplify movement into 1-move units equal to the party’s most common speedTailor the length and detail of your descriptions to the roomLet players do things beyond what you had planned – they’re adding to the storyGet cool with your combat descriptions! Adjudicating area effect spells64:00 Final thoughts

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 them and why? What kind of game are you teaching your players to play? Can rolling the dice even discourage role-playing?In this episode of 3 Wise DMs, Thorin, Tony and Dave dig into everything you always wanted to know about rolling polyhedral dice but were afraid to ask. From random encounters to fudging rolls, they talk about what’s going on behind the screen when their players are trying to interact with the world. 1:00 When and why do we roll the dice?6:00 Using random tables (encounters, terrain, weather) to represent the world10:00 Balancing random encounters vs. planned encounters vs. “plandom encounters”12:00 Is random treasure a recipe for disappointed players?14:00 Dice psychosis: Logical cause-and-effect vs. “We love rolling dice!”17:00 Can dice discourage roleplay?26:00 Do skill-ability substitutions (i.e. allowing intimidate with strength) encourage roleplaying?30:00 Don’t let the “need” to roll stop you from rewarding play you want to encourage35:00 When is it OK to fudge your dice as a DM?43:00 Hedging your bets: Techniques for creating the tension of rolls without the risk48:00 When rolls go wrong!53:00 The Rules of Rolling: How we each decide when and what should get a roll in our games60:00 Why Tony hates in-game haggling and Dave doesn’t66:00 How the DM and players accidentally negotiate how the game is going to be played69:00 When do we not allow a roll?72:00 Do you want to have truly game-changing dice rolls in your campaign? 74:00 Different kinds of rolls (beyond a simple d20) that can make challenges feel unique79:00 Final thoughts

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? How much do you adjust the game world or homebrew mechanics to support it?That’s a question one of our listeners recently asked on the website, and Thorin, Tony and Dave have come across it before. As DMs who’ve played PC knockoffs of Hulk Hogan, King Arthur and the Buddha (two of them currently), they’re certainly not against the idea, but there’s a lot of ways it can get complicated. What if a player wants The Power Cosmic at first level? How do you make that fit into your medieval world? Hear what the 3 Wise DMs think is OK and not OK in running pop-culture clone characters, and how they make them work in their campaigns. 4:00 An we’ll played clone character is better than no character7:00 Recreating pop culture is the root of all role-playing games11:00 What if that kind of character doesn’t fit the world you’re building, or you’re not familiar with the property it comes from?15:00 How “Not Iron Man,” “Not All Might” and “Not Ang” played out in Dave’s games17:00 How to make bad-ass character concepts fit first-level power scaling … and how it can go wrong20:00 What do you do if the other players aren’t on board with having that character in the game?25:00 How we try to handle players who have issues with other people’s characters35:00 What do you do if the player decides to change the character concept later in the game?43:00 What if someone wants to be a seemingly impossible PC, like The Silver Surfer? (And then we figure out how to do it)46:00 Do you push the player to change the character to tell their own, unique story50:00 How character development makes every PC unique over the course of the campaign55:00 How much homebrew should you do to make a character concept work?63:00 If your player has a character that inspires them and will keep them engaged, let them play it66:00 Character we’ve always wanted to play but haven’t … yet75:00 How character stories are developing in our games83:00 Final thoughts

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 you do what DM Dave does, and try to split the difference between a tight story and an open world without getting lost along the way? In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they build their campaigns, from what they want to accomplish to how they prepare week to week. Along they’ll way, we’ll look at how the different styles affect the players and their game experience. And we’ll discuss whether or not, in the end, they’re really all that different?2:00 3 Different styles of campaign building3:00 Building Dave’s Halloween railroad to Weird New Jersey5:00 Adjusting BBEGs for player level10:00 Building Woodstock: A border town on the edge of MADNESS12:00 Is there really that much difference between paying in an open world and tight story-focused adventure?17:00 How players must find their way in an open world (and some freeze up)24:00 Can player characters REALLY have agency in a pre-built adventure?33:00 The “No” reflex: How DMs react when players try to do big, cool (campaign ruining?) things 41:00 The limits of memory: One advantage straightforward, story-focused games have over open worlds44:00 How even open-world games see their paths narrow to a railroad as the game goes on48:00 Gaming outside the box: What does a truly player-driven campaign look like?52:00 Pacing, technology and the great fear of coming up short59:00 Who defines a PC’s role in the story, the DM or player? (i.e. Who wants to be a sidekick?)63:00 Player agency on the large scale: How the campaign unfolds, not just encounters68:00 1st level to 20th in 3 months: RPG timelines are weird76:00 How we build our campaigns and prep for sessions week by week85:00 Final thoughts

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 of plate mail, the only expensive things left for players to buy in the D&D PHB are boats. How many boats is a level-15 wizard supposed to own? Does high-level play morph into some weird naval combat sim we haven’t seen yet? The DMG has a few more options, but the entire D&D economy is underwhelming, and many other modern TTRPGs have that same issue. These are design decisions: The game is supposed to be about character powers and adventures, not shopping. Yet, gold is still a huge part of the RPG reward system. This leaves a ton of interesting depth you can add to your game by creating an economy that lets players make choices and build out their characters. After all, is Batman any less interesting because he has all those wonderful toys?In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they handle the RPG economy and the crazy things players can and can’t do with gold in their games. 2:00 Why does the economy matter in a roleplaying game?7:00 The problem with D&D 4E’s residuum and 1-to-1 magic item swapping10:00 What role should money play in your game world? Can players buy magic items? Spells? Property? Adventure access?17:00 The argument for a magic item shop and how to run them22:00 How closely do you track the party’s gold?25:00 Different systems for tracking PC money and resources and how they change the game30:00 Does a magic item economy break continuity in your game?33:00 Managing the power curve of games with more magic items39:00: Power money can’t buy: High-level magic items, false honor and money-related party dynamics45:00 Economic mechanics: Making money part of story goals and side quests50:00 Do your players even want a castle?54:00 The amount of money PCs find is preposterous compared to the rest of the village. What could they do with that?58:00 What we’d like to see out of crafting and professions63:00 Should players be able to buy training in skills, abilities, combat, etc. beyond normal leveling? How do you balance that?75:00 Is high-level play boring for some classes? Can you use the economy to shake it up?80:00 Other crazy stuff you might let players might do with their gold: Paying the thieves guild to do their adventure, upgrading a pet imp like a Pokémon, have the king assassinated?87:00 Final Thoughts

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 backgrounds like these? Would you rather have the deep story, and the story baggage that comes with it, or the blank campaign canvas? Do PC backstories ever lead to unfair play, special treatment or other problems in the TTRPGs you play?In this week’s episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave dig into what they want and don’t want from character backstories, and how they use them in their games. Along the way, the guys talk about where their backstory boundaries are and a few times when background plans went way wrong.3:00 Who writes the PC backstory: DM or Player?8:00 The risks of embracing backstories15:00 Background bias: Do you find PCs with more better backstories overshadow other players?19:00 Using backstories to keep players invested24:00 What do you want out of a PC backstory for your game?29:00 How we make sure background details don’t become a problem34:00 Some good ways to handle background contacts in the game39:00 What’s off-limits in character backgrounds?41:00 Do you give mechanical, in-game benefits based on backstories?48:00 Secret history: Is it a good idea for the DM to “reveal” secret details the player doesn’t know about their character?57:00 How secret do you keep player backgrounds and side-play?60:00 What we want from a boss fight, and breaking down a good one: COS Baba Lysaga66:00 Group backstories: What about having the whole party come in with a combined history?72:00 When not using a PC’s backstory goes wrong75:00 Final thoughts

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 will ever let players embrace free will and agency like a pen-and-paper role-playing game, and we’d never want it any other way. But it’s also where playing by the book stops and the real art of being a dungeon master (or any game master) begins. Can you think on your feet to keep the game running as the players carry out their crazy plans? Or will you panic and squash the fun?In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about 19 of the craziest stunts players have pulled in their games and how they bent the systems to make it happen — or sometimes didn’t. Along the way, hear our best secrets for adlibbing and adjudicating some of the hardest situations DMs face.2:00 That’s Just D&D4:00 Stunt 1: Oblivious in Bloodstone 26:00 Stunt 2: The Sphere of Annihilation is not an illusion11:00 Stunt 3: Down the Blue Hole in Weird New Jersey14:00 Stunt 4: Vorpal sword tricks, and just how sharp is a magic sword?16:00 Stunt 5: The Deck of Many Things and a 2nd Edition Wild Mage with BIIIG plans … that only kinda worked.20:00 DMing difficult wishes33:00 Stunt 6: Wishing a Storm Giant into an itty-bitty wizard body, and how we made it balanced (more or less) with level-appropriate benchmarks40:00 Stunt 7: Hawk Hogan! Supporting a real Barovian hero’s wrestling obsession43:00 Appreciating D&D 5E’s Wish limits and bounded accuracy47:00 Stunt 8: Balancing cool: Could the players hotwire Baba Lysaga’s hut? Should they?50:00 Stunt 9: High-level play and PC’s wielding god-like powers53:00 Stunt 10: PCs inventing spells, powers and magic items58:00 Stunt 11: Crazy at low-level: The Paladin that talked down a raging Brontosaurus and Oathbreaker Anti-Paladin with the power of faith61:00 Stunt 12: Species tension with the old Human Wizard and the trouble it got him into64:00 Stunt 13: Mad Wizard X 13: Abusing the 2E Clone spell66:00 Stunt 14: The wizard who seduced the Bronze Lich69:00 Stunt 15: Rifts mutant shenanigans: Robbing Fort Knox with Super Strength and taking the money to another dimension73:00 Tips for adjudicating crazy player stunts76:00 Why DM-player trust is not optional80:00 Stunt 16: The players that stormed directly into Strahd’s castle … and won82:00 Stunt 17: Player enterprise: Trying to start an orphan-run newspaper to spread the party’s legend88:00 Stunt 18: The PC who tried to create a Venom suit … failed and became a Venom suit … then wound up being worn by another PC who had no clue.93:00 Stunt 19: The Wizard that blew himself to molecules with a 1st Edition bouncing chain lightning95:00 Final thoughts

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 cases design shortcomings, that shape how a game of D&D plays and separates the experience from other systems. From D&D’s own basic roots (and the old-school renaissance — OSR — games recreating it) to the 3.5 spin-off Pathfinder to investigative games like Call of Cthulhu to completely different systems like FATE, Cypher, Marvel, Warhammer, Kids on Bikes and a hundred more, every RPG system creates a different feel of game. The better you understand what D&D does well and doesn’t, the better you’ll be able to DM it.In this podcast, we dig into what makes D&D 5E different: The experiences that define the system, what it does well and what it doesn’t do well. Along the way, we’ll talk about how we lean in to the best of 5E while adjusting and homebrewing the aspects we wish worked differently for the styles of games we want to run.1:00 What does D&D 5E do well?2:00 Plus #1: 5E stopped letting players hose the boss monsters!3:00 Plus #2: Accessible ruleset has built the widest player base yet6:00 Plus #3: D&D 5E is a very good encounter-oriented game7:00 Plus #4: Gives players and the DMs cool “toys” to play with (PC powers, DM monsters, etc.)9:00 Plus #5: Entire system supports encounter-focused style (at the expense of exploration)10:00 Plus #6: Simpler to learn and DM15:00 Plus #7: D&D is now optimized to teach to generations who understand video games17:00 Plus #8: How 5E got rid of all that spell-stacking bullshit19:00 Plus #9: The most balanced system D&D has produced yet21:00 What about Lucky?22:00 What doesn’t D&D 5E do as well?22:00 Minus #1: Make travel and exploration exciting. “You can do it, but the system doesn’t embrace it.”25:00 Minus #2: Investigations can drag26:00 Minus #3: It’s too hard for characters to die for real30:00 Minus #4: Grappling and unarmed combat are shallow33:00 Minus #5: The skills system is mushy and limited compared to other systems (complexity vs. playability is always a compromise)37:00 Minus #6: Weapons, armor and equipment are too simplified and limited41:00 Minus #7: Lack of mass combat mechanics42:00 Minus #8: Not enough to do with your time and money (including Tony’s instant long-rest tent, training and other things he lets players buy in his campaigns)51:00 Why add this stuff into 5E when you could just play another game that’s made for them?59:00 Minus #9: The limits of D&D strength and the hard boundaries on D&D’s so-called high fantasy setting67:00 How DMs teach players how to play in their games (and why you can’t help it)79:00 Would Strahd care if the PCs stole Baba Lysaga’s Hut and partied through Ravenloft? (an aside)80:00 Minus #10: Encounter balance is delicate, and the CR system doesn’t work well at higher levels82:00 How to keep encounters challenging86:00 How we’re building the stuff 5E is missing into our games90:00 Final ThoughtsWe mentioned that we talked about these across some of our favorite Facebook Groups. We really appreciate that they let us have the conversation! Check these out:The discussion on our pageDungeon Craft5th Edition Dungeons & DragonsMyDND GroupChaotic Good DnD MemesD&D 5E Group FindingTenkar's TavernOld School RPGersFans of Roll20DnD Bedtime Stories

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 build focused, engaging, self-contained quests that span 3-6 sessions (roughly) with a tight theme, clear goals, fun ways to achieve them, and satisfying rewards at the end?In this episode of 3 Wise DMs, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they build adventures — and sometimes fail to — to keep players happy and the DMs in business.1:00 What makes an adventure? Thinking in terms of movies, series and books.10:00 Working adventures into your world and long-arc story13:00 What makes a great adventure?18:00 Are we focused so much on campaigns that we’re forgetting to run adventures?22:00 Theme and plots: How do you put an adventure together? 27:00 Getting players to take the hook … and to see it clearly32:00 Tricks and ideas to make sure the players know what they need to do38:00 Does your treasure suck? How we give it out.45:00 How do you make sure the adventure is engaging and fun?48:00 Organic dungeon building: Motives maketh the monsters54:00 Manipulating the story so the PCs stay motivated and can’t just walk away63:00 What makes a good goal/villain to drive your adventure?69:00 Do we put enough thought into what makes a good adventure vs. the session or the long-arc story?73:00 Final Thoughts: Hook the party, clarify what they need to do, and focus them on doing it.

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 Dungeon Master questions listeners have asked the wise guys at 3WD. We answer them all and more in this week’s episode. If your question isn’t here, send it to us on any of those platforms or [email protected], and we’ll do our best to answer it in an upcoming episode!4:00 DM Question 1: What do you do with a TPK?9:00 “Battle map psychosis” and TPCs (Total Party Captures)17:00 Encouraging PCs to retreat25:00 Adventuring in the afterlife27:00 DM Question 2: How do you get a player to do their homework?34:00 Love for players who pay attention and take notes! 41:00 Don’t lose sleep tracking gold46:00 DM Question 3: What are some good monster combos?58:00 Use your whole battle map, but beware too much distance in combat61:00 DM Question 4: DMing lines-of-site vs. line-of-effect for different types of spells and effects67:00 Ruling on the viability of player actions and ideas73:00 DM Question 5: How do you handle knowledge roles and metagame knowledge the player has?81:00 DM Question 6: Do you allow skill substitution during skill checks? (i.e. Can you use strength instead of charisma to make an intimidation check?)89:00 DM Question 7: How do you handle parties that are a combination of newbies and more experienced players?93:00 The players need to be invested in each other’s success, and what to do when they’re not97:00 Final thoughts

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 any game system. And it’s not easy. As the person running the show, you experience the story in a way that’s completely different than the players. It may be a big picture in your head with tendrils in everything the party does, but for them it’s a series of immersive, detailed episodes that may or may not feel like they’re building a story. If you want your players to remember why they did it as much as what they did, you need to learn how to plant those story hooks deep and keep the party on them.In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they try (and sometimes fail) to tell stories that players remember in their different styles of games. While they’re at it, you’ll get deep dives into how they’re running Curse of Strahd and Storm King’s Thunder; hear how players come to each game as different people; understand that PCs are unreliable narrators of their own stories; and see why, as the DM, you need to be telling intricate, sensitive, emotional stories … narrated in Knife Hand.1:00 Where we get our campaign ideas7:00 How much time we spend getting the ideas together12:00 How we structure our games and how do the players experience them13:00 Thorin: Thinking in worlds and themes15:00 Players don’t experience your story the same way you do16:00 Dave: Kit-bashing modules and going location-by-location at the players’ pace19:00 Tony: Making the story your own23:00 How to make the players (and their characters) care about your story27:00 How the DM experience is different than the player experience, and what that means for your story and campaign31:00 What do you do when the players aren’t getting your plot? (Storm King’s Thunder spoilers)43:00 How to make plot points stick in your players’ memories49:00 How do you handle PC death, especially when they’re essential to your story?58:00 Making resurrection and divine intervention feel worthy63:00 What do you do when players say your campaign ideas are dumb? 70:00 Session 0 and getting players on board with your campaign ideas (hat tip to Matt Colville)76:00 Long story pacing, mini-climaxes and story beats84:00 Planting plot points in an open-world, player-driven game88:00 What role does treasure play? How does giving out more magic items affect your game?91:00 The joy of Hunger of Hadar in a 20x20 room97:00 Tony’s manual of off-prime skill and stat boosting100:00 Final thoughts: Advice for new and veteran storytellers

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 powers and DMs get to bring out cool new monsters, traps and challenges. Get your encounters right, and the players have a great time. Get them wrong, and your session may not be very fun. In this episode, we talk about how we lay our own dastardly plans for encounters. We get into our philosophies for what we want to accomplish with encounters, as well as the tactics and tips we use to build the challenges. We’ll also talk about what hasn’t worked for us and times our encounters have gone totally wrong.2:00 What’s the role of encounters in our games? What are we trying to accomplish with them?8:00 Encounter balance … and how it’s not always what you think it is12:00 What encounters teach players about the game world and where they are17:00 Encounter balance, CR and party size22:00 Building tension and intellectual engagement28:00 Fast vs. slow encounters29:00 How allowing players to occasionally do the impossible builds your group’s gaming mythology35:00 What makes a bad encounter and how do you get the party to fix it?41:00 When the party doesn’t listen, take the bait, or otherwise trigger your cool stuff48:00 Using monster lore and backgrounds to shape encounters51:00 Encounters without tactical thinking are boring — ways we keep them interesting 53:00 Motivations make the monster — and great encounters56:00 Crunchy tips for building interesting encounters65:00 Common encounter mistakes and how to tell when you’ve made one75:00 TPK, TPC (capture) or TPR (retreat): How we handle encounter deaths and defeats85:00 Unapologetic DMing87:00 Final thoughts and how many rounds should an encounter go?

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 three of us were the DMs the very first times we played, and it’s been a long, strange ride ever since. From getting comfortable with your material to avoiding over-prep, here are 39 things the 3 Wise DMs wish they knew when they started running role-playing games. Along the way, we’ll talk about how players interact with the DM’s creations and reveal how we’ve felt playing through each other’s games.1:00 When do you stop feeling like a “new” DM?3:00 Tips #1-#4: Be prepared … but not too prepared14:00 Tip #5: Don’t say no, determine difficulty18:00 Tip #6: If you want to be a good DM, try to play as a PC, too21:00 Tip #7: Embrace the players’ character inspirations, they can do a lot of the creative work for you23:00 Tip #8: Keep your first adventure tight and know the room — what do your players want out of the game?25:00 Tip #9: Set an expectation you’re comfortable hitting.26:00 Tips #10-#15: Thorin’s 6 Steps to building your first session in a new campaign34:00 Tip #16: Try to play every game like it’s your last. Bring the big, fun, memorable things to the table today!35:00 Tip #17: Steal smart: Grab something pre-published for your first game40:00 Tip #18: What kind of memorable encounter can you throw in there?41:00 Tip #19: Don’t start by building a town — it’s a trap!42:00 Tip #20-#25: Adjusting on the fly52:00 Tip #26-#27: Encounter building rules of thumb55:00 Tip #28: If your players introduce a potential plot idea that you like, act like it was always there58:00 Tip #29: Don’t be afraid to modify book modules to fit your ideas60:00 Pros and cons of building your own worlds/kingdoms/towns/dungeons66:00 Tip #30: Your world-building details only matter when they impact the party70:00 Tip #31: Don’t cut the things that make it fun for you to be the DM74:00 Final Thoughts: Tips #32-#39

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” to “ill-advised” to “Are you C-R-A-Z-Y?!” Here are the stunts we’ve pulled DMing TTRPGs that even we thought might have gone too far. Including how we implemented them in the game mechanics, how they worked out, and what we wish we did differently. These stories cross many editions of D&D, including 5E, but the lessons apply to any RPG you play. This is system-agnostic mayhem. … We just hope you’ll still respect us in the morning.    3:00 Stunt 1: My Pet Dragon … The Super OP Spawn of Tiamat11:00 Stunt 2: The +50 Sword of Dragon Slaying18:00 Stunt 3: Turning a PC into a Pile of Undead Bugs … and Letting Him Continue to Play the Character26:00 Can you do something crazy with one player without alienating the other players?31:00 Stunt 4: Fighting Cthulhu in an Airship34:00 Stunt 5: The Christmas Game –Satan Claws and the Epic-level Gifts36:00 Stunt 6: Beef, the Impossibly Strong Gnoll Warrior NPC with a Giant Ballista41:00 Stunt 7: The World’s Most Wholesome Evil Campaign Where the PCs Destroyed Each Other (Perhaps the perfect evil campaign?)46:00 Tips for running an evil campaign48:00 Stunt 8: The Homebrew Werewolf PC Race (and why Thorin toned down his homebrew)50:00 Stunt 9: “The Wizard Knows What He Did!” Warping Overpowered Magic Users to a World Where Magic Is Blocked!55:00 When is it OK to take away PC powers?62:00 3 Rules for pulling off a successful depowering campaign64:00 Stunt 10: The 1st-Level PC Necromancer Who Could Not Be Killed … And His Doppelganger NPC Nemesis70:00 The Stunt We Didn’t Pull: Allowing a PC Ghost72:00 Stunt 11: The Samurai That Was Reincarnated as a Satyr75:00 Tips for adapting higher-level monsters into PC races (benchmarking and balancing)76:00 Stunt 12: The Deck of Many Things at 5th Level (This one killed a game and spawned a Storm Giant Wizard)82:00 How we made the Storm Giant Wizard PC85:00 Stunt 13: Players Decided to Keep Orcus’s Wand and Become Monsters Who Conquered Dimensions93:00 The Big Takeaway and Final Thoughts

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 players are board? How can you adjust pace if things are going to fast or too slow?In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave reveal the details of their three wildly different pacing strategies and how they play out at the table, along with how they spot trouble and the adjustments they make when things aren’t going to plan. 1:00 Three DMs, three markedly different pacing strategies2:00 Dave adjusts to Barovian time5:00 Is one combat per session enough for Thorin’s Wanderers?8:00 How Tony turns seven maps per session in Storm King’s Thunder11:00 Advancement speed: How does the XP chart influence game pace? (And, is WotC skewing XP to favor published modules with milestone leveling?)19:00 Skyrim vs. Devil May Cry: Should your games ramble across multiple sessions or play out like self-contained episodes?22:00 How session frequency (monthly/weekly/daily) and platform (Roll20) impact pace26:00 Balancing roleplay and combat30:00 Rewards and pacing: What makes it feel worthwhile for the players to be there?39:00 How the party’s playstyle impacts game pace — and what DMs do that trains them46:00 Whose responsibility is player engagement? (i.e. Am I getting paid to drag your lazy butt on an adventure?)51:00 Finding character motivations when the players don’t have them64:00 Ways to optimize the pace of your game72:00 Optimizing initiative order74:00 Final thoughts: What do you plan to get done in a night and how do you adjust if it’s not getting done

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 that DMs are players, too. What’s fun for you? What interferes with that fun? How do you try to keep things fun? And what happens when it stops being fun for you?Hear what Thorin, Tony and Dave think is fun — and not fun — for them as DMs, along with a bunch of anecdotes about how games turned out in unexpected ways and how the guys handled it.2:00 Camaraderie, player investment and wanting the day to go well10:00 Published modules: Love ‘em, hate ‘em, how do you use them?17:00 It’s your world, don’t be afraid to adjust published material20:00 Why homebrew and improv? “The characters are yours; the world is mine.”27:00 How we build settings that account for unpredictable players (and fit it into busy adult schedules)37:00 Using box sets and campaign settings as the base of your homebrew (also reminiscing about Greyhawk)43:00 How character death is like firing somebody47:00 What makes the game not fun to DM59:00 Whose story are we telling: the DM’s or the PCs’?62:00 How players make it worthwhile for the DM, and what to do when they don’t. (i.e. “I don’t think you can have fun as the DM if you’re constantly getting blamed for all the players’ problems.”)72:00 How much time we spend prepping for a session and how we spend it85:00 Final thoughts

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 your players are, what they want and why they play can be a big help in DMing them. At the same time, how much should a DM have to adjust their game to fit different kinds of players? In this episode, we revisit the eight player types to talk about whether the advice still applies, how we relate to different types of players (sometimes poorly), and strategies to bring out the best in your party and yourself. 2:00 Understanding different types of players — a 4E lessons today’s DMs should learn4:00 The 8 player types according to 4E: Actor, Explorer, Instigator, Power Gamer, Slayer, Storyteller, Thinker and Watcher7:00 Casting different player types into the right roles10:00 How we handle Actors and Explorers16:00 Engaging Watchers and Storytellers18:00 Instigators starting trouble we still talk about decades later20:00 Helping players understand their power to impact an RPG game22:00 How we engage or don’t engage with different player types (Thorin does not put on a show)23:00 Philosophies in encounter building25:00 Is the DM more (most?) responsible for everyone’s fun?27:00 Monster wrangling for Slayers and Power Gamers30:00 To what extent do we influence PC character selection and party roles?35:00 Pitching you campaign to players (shout out to Matt Colville)41:00 Is it the DM’s job to adjust to the players, or should they adjust to you?44:00 Specific strategies we use to interact with different player types52:00 Curse of Strahd: What to do when even the module designer tones down the encounter57:00 What your encounters teach the players: Should they be brave or scared in your game word?1:04:00 Fun with secret Lovecraftian monsters1:06:00 Getting players to accept and embrace the consequences of their actions1:09:00 How different groups and circumstances impact DM style, players types and game expectations1:13:00 It’s important to also play as a PC1:16:00 Final thoughts: The DM is a player, too

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, relationships, and a hundred other factors will have a big impact on the game. Some players are going to be very easy for you to work with and others may not be. In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about the struggles they’ve had with player-DM relationships, including:What makes “good” players for their gamesWhat kinds of players can be hard for them to DMThe ways leveling and rewards impact player funHow they’ve dealt with the hardest challenge for any DM: When the players turn on each other. 1:00 What makes a “good” player?4:00 Maybe drinking at the game IS a problem?5:00 Attitude, enthusiasm and players being “game” for the game12:00 What kind of players cause problems for us:15:00 Adversarial player-DM relationships16:00 A strategy for handling power gamers17:00 Players who don’t want to adventure20:00 Players who don’t know what their characters do22:00 Ways players help make it a good game28:00 Guiding players to character classes they’ll enjoy (beware the casual player who comes to play a wizard).36:00 When players become secretly disgruntled42:00 Does faster leveling make better games and happier players?46:00 How non-D&D RPGs handle leveling and character rewards differently (story rewards)51:00 Grinding games: When the rewards are too low and slow58:00 When players turn on each other — the hardest thing to DM1:05:00 Figuring out what is true to you as a DM1:12:00 D&D brings out everyone’s vulnerable side, be gentle with them1:16:00 Final thoughts

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 about it, and what do we wish we’d done differently? We get into all the details and what we’ve learned from them in this episode. And maybe the real treasure was the TPKs we made along the way.1:00: What do we really consider “DM mistakes”?3:00 TPKs: Epic memories, The Red Cap Incident, and how to save your game10:00 When the party should really know better14:00 Monty Hall and mistakes that warp your campaign in the long-run (the campaign where Thorin had to start breeding Tarrasques)17:00 Adamantine Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out: When your villain gets unfun21:00 Continuity: If the super villain keeps showing up, why wouldn’t he just kill the party?24:00 When the party TPKs themselves27:00 Casting the wrong players as your epic “heroes” (especially in the Marvel Heroes RPG)31:00 Aligning player character expectations with the game you’re running39:00 When EVIL campaigns go bad42:00 The dangers of DM-player side communication45:00 How to run a successful EVIL campaign48:00 DM burnout: When you get tired of trying to make your game work60:00 The 6 trillion credit mistake65:00 The fun of giving players unlimited resources66:00 Final thoughts

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 you do when a character ability disrupts the way you want that world to work? Perhaps you’ve found yourself saying things like, “There’s no way a monk could stun a dragon with a punch!” and then had to face a disappointed player whose character no longer works the way they built it?In this episode, the 3 Wise DMs talk about their own problems with continuity and verisimilitude, when it becomes a problem, and how they manage those issues and the players they effect.  1:00 How important is world/power continuity?3:00 What breaks continuity?4:00 A history of DMs dealing with D&D rules bullshit from 1st through 5th Edition.7:00 Can a monk stun Cthulhu? 10:00 Do verisimilitude and continuity matter in a fantasy-based world?13:00 How can/should a DM address verisimilitude issues?18:00 Big bad boss battles and disruptive character powers that can “ruin” them.24:00 How to describe counterintuitive effects so they make sense.27:00 How DM fiat against character powers can ruin the fun for a player. (Plus: Thorin admits he’s a poor sport and Tony hates monks, again.)30:00 Are we starting characters too powerful?32:00 Can a monk stun Unicron with a bo stick? Is it disruptive to your game world if it can?35:00 How else can you handle verisimilitude issues? 38:00 The DM has to have fun, too.40:00 The psychology of the DM vs. the psychology of the players.44:00 DM tactics to prevent verisimilitude problems.49:00 How your Big Bad can counter overpowered player abilities.54:00 Managing continuity for the player vs. continuity for the DM.62:00 The DM’s art: How do you make your world work the way you want it to AND the way the players want it to.

Wizards of the Coast recently announced that they’re doing away with “evil” alignments and intelligence penalties as racial attributes. But that's left some traditional gamers crying about PC culture run amok. How can you build a campaign without “evil” races? Does this undermine your bad guys? Does assuming “orcs are evil” make you look racist to your friends? (Maybe it’s not just a look?) In this episode, the 3 Wise DMs talk about what's happening, why it’s about time, and how hackneyed racial stereotypes don’t belong in your fantasy world any more than they do the real one.1:00 The orc in the room 6:00 Fantasy politics and more interesting monsters9:00 The Vikings were &#%!@?! evil!12:00 Evil is a choice 14:00 Alignment, context and perspectives17:00 Class typecasting22:00 Good villains aren’t born bad24:00 Customizing races30:00 Should character powers be tied to RP pillars?33:00 The great D&D tradition of ignoring stupid rules37:00 What is alignment good for?41:00 How a bad DM abused alignment and his players45:00 Diversity in gaming and at our tables (and maybe our lack thereof)47:00 D&D as the great connector49:00 Tony continues hating on Monks52:00 Gaming with our friends’ kids53:00 Making D&D more inclusive and less alienating56:00 Skyrim’s Ebony Knight: The ultimate anti-melee boss trick (A light aside)57:00 Final thoughts

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 with tips, tricks, and adjustments they’ve made to keep the online campaigns as vivid as their nights around the gaming table. Plus, the guys discuss theater-of-the-mind vs. battle-maps, how much search is too much, and what your details teach players about how to play your game.The Roll20 Rundown1:00 Our previous online DM experiences6:00 First impressions of Roll20 (Tony Loves It!)10:00 Working around audio/video issues (Thorin Hates It!)13:00 Advantages of using “boxed” modules from the Roll20 marketplace (Dave Loves It!)16:00 Player commitment and building a good Roll20 party20:00 Mixing Roll20 with physical dice rolling and other offline tools22:00 Accidentally deleting maps and other easy Roll20 errors to avoid 28:00 Map hoarding and homebrew adventure prep31:00 Monster management hacksRandom DM Tips and Stuff35:00 Maps vs. theater of the mind, and how Roll20 impacts different play styles40:00 How much search detail is too much?46:00 Single-point plot failures and how to split the party without even trying49:00 PC skills should matter51:00 How small choices teach players how to play your game60:00 Milestone leveling has its advantages69:00 Managing players and future episodes70:00 Final thoughts and Roll20 solutions75:00 Device flexibility and older players

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 guys are running Storm King's Thunder, Curse of Strahd, and their own homebrew/improvised stuff.2:00 Dealing with unexpected and keeping players on the rails11:00 Letting the players lead20:00 Staying on track (or not)27:00 Traumatized players31:00 Single-point plot failures and whose job is it to decide what happens next?40:00 House rules gone awry (the Russian Roulette critical miss table)49:00 Rules lawyers59:00 Player selection and handling backstories 106:00 Uneven player-DM game expectations114:00 Final thoughts

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.