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PODCAST

3 Wise DMs

3 Wise DMs is a podcast for dungeon masters (for Dungeons & Dragons) and game masters (any other RPG) with problems. And when we say problems, we don’t mean the kind of things you find answers for in the gamebooks. Think of it as a gaming philosophy show with a strong emphasis on applied knowledge. We all want to be great DMs, so what do we do to try to get there?

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All Episodes

01:22:36

D&D and Mental Health: Therapy, Autism and Exploring...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/12/13

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

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01:32:11

RPG Communication Breakdowns

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/12/06

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

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01:32:21

D&D Errata: Love It or Hate It, Here’s How We DM It

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/11/29

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

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01:08:28

Theater of the Mind: Is It a Better Way to Play D&D?

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/11/22

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

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01:25:01

Rolling the Dice: How to Balance Randomness, Story...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/11/15

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

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01:30:00

Famous Fictional PCs: Should You Let Players Run...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/11/08

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

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01:33:00

3 Ways to Design RPG Campaigns: Railroad vs. Open...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/11/01

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

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01:32:38

RPG Economics: What Can Players Do With All That Gold?

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/10/25

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,

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01:18:27

Digging Into Character Backstories for Fun and Pathos

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/10/18

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

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01:38:42

19 Crazy Player Characters’ Stunts and How We DMed Them

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/10/11

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

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01:35:52

9 Things D&D 5E Does Really Well, and 10 Things It...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/10/04

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

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01:20:58

Adventure Time: 15 Tips to Build and DM Great...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/09/27

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

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01:40:10

7 Questions Dungeon Masters Ask and Our ‘Wisest’ Answers

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/09/20

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 3wisedms@gmail.com, and we’ll do our best to answer it in an upcoming episode!4:00 DM Question 1: What do you do with a

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01:44:10

3 Styles of RPG Campaign Storytelling

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/09/13

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

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01:30:18

The Tao of D&D Encounters: How We Build Fights That...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/09/06

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

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01:18:05

39 Tips for New Dungeon Masters — and a Few for...

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/08/30

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

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01:38:44

13 Crazy DM Stunts You Won't Believe We Pulled

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/08/23

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,

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01:23:38

3 Ways to Pace D&D Encounters, Sessions and Games

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/08/16

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

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01:28:26

What’s Fun for the Dungeon Master?

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/08/09

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

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01:21:44

The 8 D&D Player Types and How to DM Them

3 Wise DMs ·

2020/08/02

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

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