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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?

leisure games

All Episodes

41:35

My Name’s the Teacher: Making Leveling with Character...

3 Wise DMs ·

2023/05/14

Sleep takes you as you wrap yourself into your bedroll in your campsite in the forest. Your slumber is surprisingly restful this night. As you wake in the morning, you find yourself having taken an Oath to a God and possessing several new spells… Not very satisfying, right? We can all understand that Fighters and Rogues just get better at doing the things they do, but what about Paladins, Warlocks, Clerics, etc… characters that gain incredibly powerful class abilities that are not of this world? In

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53:50

It’s So Easy: 3 Wise DMs 18 Favorite Dungeon Master...

3 Wise DMs ·

2023/04/30

Running a game is a lesson in balance. There are so many dials and mechanics that you need to manage while also focusing on being what Gary Gygax referred to as “the Shaper of the Cosmos.” Anyone who has started running games or been running for decades has found hacks to make running the game that much easier and streamlined. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss their favorite DM hacks that we’ve employed in our games.1 :30 Hack# 1: Where are we going next? Focusing your prep.2:30 Hack#

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40:51

When Good Gaming Groups Go Bad: 3 Wise DMs Tips On...

3 Wise DMs ·

2023/04/16

Game groups fall apart. It’s as inevitable as the rain. What do you do when your current group goes south, but you still have a player who wants to continue? Do you continue with the current campaign? Do you now run the entire rest of the party, the monsters, and all the NPCs? The 3 Wise DMs answer long-time listener Jared’s question about his Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign and delve deeper into utilizing Sidekicks, DMPCs, and other tips with one-on-one gaming.0:51 Co-host introduction… whom could

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52:39

Just Do It! 3 Wise DMs Interviews a Brand-New D&D...

3 Wise DMs ·

2023/04/02

New DMs. It’s easily the most discussed topic in the TTRPG hobby. We’ve talked before about tips and tricks for new DMs looking to run their first games. However, this week, we got the chance to sit down with our return guest Chris and his brand-new to all things fantasy, D&D, and DMing friend, Lenny Szot… who decided to dive into the deep end and run his first game ever! Throughout the episode, we detail 13 tips and tricks to help but, in the end, Lenny’s advice is the most succinct: Just Do

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54:26

Terrain, Maps & Minis, Oh My! The Long Tradition of...

3 Wise DMs ·

2023/03/19

In this episode, Tony and Dave sit down with our good friend and fellow gamer, Scott Washburn of Paper Terrain (www.paperterrain.com) to discuss the tradition of using terrain, maps, and minis from the earliest days of the game up to our current times. Along the way, we discuss how we have used and continue to use physical props to enhance our games as well as the tips and tricks to ease the burden on the DM.1:35 Scott’s Story.3:30 The mythical “White Box.”5:20 Minis evolution from wargaming to

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01:16:22

Back in Black: The Players Wrap-Up to the Absolutely...

3 Wise DMs ·

2023/03/05

Hello and welcome BACK to 3 Wise DMs! It’s been quite some time and we’re glad that we’re back… Back in Black, that is - like Vampyr, our epic, final BBEG to end all BBEGs in Barovia. We thought that it worked out that the absolute, final ending to our 2+ year Curse of Strahd campaign coincided almost perfectly with the initial launch of 3 Wise DMs – and that deserves a proper sendoff. So, we gathered the players, the Monster Wrangler (what’s that?), and the DM to discuss how we homebrewed the

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01:16:33

Finish Your Homebrew Campaign With a Bang: DMs’...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/09/04

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 level-15 PCs, that’s exactly how we finished off the main quest in DM Thorin’s homebrew, mostly improv, campaign.We realize that reviewing a homebrew campaign is different from Curse of Strahd or Storm King’s Thunder – after all, you can’t go pick up the

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48:30

Will Player Character Secrets Ruin Your Campaign?

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/08/28

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 PCs murdered in-game by other PCs. Is that second one a failure? That depends on your group, but it certainly wasn’t what the DM had in mind.In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about secrets in the game, how they’ve worked out in their campaigns, and

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01:06:10

The Epic-Tier Divide: Bringing Your DnD Campaign Into...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/08/21

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 make the players as tough as your wildest villain creations. This is why epic-tier play just isn’t the same as everything your campaign has been through before. As you hit the endgame of your campaign, a couple things happen. First, your story should be coming

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55:59

11 Quirky Dungeon Master Habits of the 3 Wise DMs

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/08/14

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 kill that monster?) … Then you, too, may be a quirky Dungeon Master.DMing certainly isn’t subtle. The little things we do to prep for sessions and keep the game fresh can seem a bit … well … weird. Sometimes they even drive our loved ones a little nuts. But

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51:44

DMing All-Ranged Parties in Dungeons and Dragons 5E

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/08/07

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 melee monsters from football fields away. It was near impossible to make the all-ranged party work in earlier editions, but in Dungeons and Dragon 5E, it can work shockingly well. It can even “ruin” the campaign for DMs who don’t know how to handle it. On the

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01:12:57

When Is It OK to Kill a Player Character and What Do...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/07/24

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 sure the player is still into the game with their new PC? Is it even the DM’s choice?These questions come to us from a reader, but they’re not as simple as they may first sound. Sure, let the dice fall where they may and if characters die, so be it … But is that

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52:47

Creating Fantastic RPG Factions: How to Use Groups,...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/07/17

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 with dozens of competing factions all looking to use the PCs to their advantage. Whatever role factions play in your campaign, how do you build them out?In this episode, an old friend of the show brings a new question to Thorin, Tony and Dave: How do you build

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47:24

Playing With the Future: How to DM Foreshadowing in...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/07/10

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 of food, phones and click-clackety math rocks can hide subtle hints more effectively than the rug you put them under. On the other hand, if you hit your players over the head with foreshadowing, it can ruin your surprises and turn the plot into a running

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52:42

DMing Advantage and Disadvantage: How and When to...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/06/26

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 apply discretionary advantage and disadvantage falls on the DM, and the many mechanical ways players have to get advantage themselves sometimes conflict with the DM’s intent when awarding advantage.In this episode, hear how Thorin, Tony and Dave handle advantage

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01:00:18

The Pregnant PC: Handling Odd Character Creation...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/06/19

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 PC backstory requests need to be a deal-breaker. It all depends on how you implement them in your fantasy game.In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave take a deeper look at how to DM a pregnant character without ruining their game. We also look at the starting

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01:04:16

100 Episodes of Dungeon Master Advice: The 22 Most...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/06/12

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 to Call of Cthulhu over two years of intensive gaming and discussion on this podcast. This has been like a 2-year DMing workshop for all of us, and we hope you’ve learned as much from it as we have. How do you make sure your game gets off on the right foot

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01:01:43

A Dark Sun Rising: The Allure and Compromises of...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/06/05

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 the rules exactly how you want them, why use pre-made settings at all? That’s the question posed to us by a listener this week who’s gotten the itch to play a campaign in Dark Sun but is wondering why it has a hold on him.There are a lot of pros and cons for

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50:22

Ending the Campaign: Bringing Your Dungeons & Dragons...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/05/22

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 all that up into a few final sessions that leave you and your players feeling like it all paid off? In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave answer a reader question all about taking your campaign past the point of no return, to the end-game, and beyond

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52:43

DMPCs vs. Sidekicks: What’s the Better Way to Give...

3 Wise DMs ·

2022/05/15

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 work a little differently than a straight DMPC (which is essentially a leveling PC that DM runs in the party). Which one is right for your campaign? That’s the question Minnesota DM brings us this week: “When making a party-companion NPC to fill the healing

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