3 Wise DMs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.