3 Wise DMs

Books, movies, and television shows benefit from one major advantage: the entire story is planned before the audience experiences it. D&D campaigns don't have that luxury. Players miss clues, chase unexpected leads, ignore carefully crafted plot hooks, and sometimes decide that the villain's plan sounds surprisingly reasonable. As a result, even the most carefully prepared campaign can become...

Some listener questions come in and just HAVE to be answered. This was the case with a question that came in from longtime friend of the show, Dr. DM himself, Jason. His son’s school D&D club was planning a seriously epic finale to multiple campaign tables in a stupendous one-shot. Everything was gong well until the head DM brought their BBEG… we’ll let Jason tell you the rest. In this episode...

Birthday games are 3WDs specialty… and it has now begun to grow. New DMs are joining in on the fun and running new, unique, and exciting games in all types of systems and taking on the challenge of one-upping the Wise DMs. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down with returning guests, Bonnie and Elizabeth, to review, unpack, and discuss the steps they took to take a one-off Call of Cthulhu...

Recently, Matt Colville of the Running the Game YouTube series and author of the new Draw Steel TTRPG, discussed the concept of “DM Style.” With someone who has been involved in all things tabletop for over 40 years, you would think that he would believe in developing a DM Style. However, his hot take was that he wasn’t sure there even was such a thing. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit d...

Maybe you’ve run some one-shots or even multi-night campaigns. But now you’ve made the decision to run a long-term campaign for many levels – maybe all the way to 20th. How do you make the jump? What do you need to know that will make the transition seamless? What are the differences between running a single session and many sessions that tell an epic, massive story? In this episode, Tony, Chris,...

Over the course of twelve episodes, we have enlisted the help of all our listeners to create the first-ever crowdsourced and collaborative campaign setting – what we call Boomtown! In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down to reveal the end of this very successful experiment… well, maybe not the end, but a very solid foundation from which to launch Boomtown. For anyone who is new to the podc...

You’ve seen the trailer. You saw the #MinisMonday post… Tony’s birthday game where Chris and Dave teamed up to run our group through a tabletop wargame in our own custom Marvel Universe of 6-1-SHIT, where the heroes were brought to Battleplanet to fight the SECRET WARS! In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of our custom, simplified, Heroclix sy...

One of the easiest ways to make your campaign and your setting feel real, immersive, and unique is by taking away the certitude that magic is always going to act the same way. This mysterious, world-altering energy should not ever be completely understood by your characters, as the discovery of it is a big part of the fun. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down to respond to a listener qu...

We continue to build upon Boomtown - our real-time worldbuilding experiment - armed with the comments of our listeners. Having been playing through the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, we’ve experienced firsthand how alterations to the classes available for players really helps to lend a unique and immersive quality to the campaign setting – setting it apart from all others. In this episode, To...

We continue to build upon Boomtown - our real-time worldbuilding experiment - armed with the comments of our listeners. Having been playing through the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game , we’ve experienced firsthand how alterations to the classes available for players really helps to lend a unique and immersive quality to the campaign setting – setting it apart from all others. In this episode, T...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. Having been playing through the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game , we’ve experienced firsthand how alterations to the classes available for players really helps to lend a unique and immersive quality to the campaign setting – setting it apart from all others. In this episode, To...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. Having been playing through the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game , we’ve experienced firsthand how alterations to the classes available for players really helps to lend a unique and immersive quality to the campaign setting – setting it apart from all others. In this episode, To...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. One of the best things you can build for your campaign to feel real and immersive is by creating factions. Groups and organizations that have their own motives and goals that are distinct from the players. This creates inciting incidents, backstory fodder, and moving parts that co...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. Science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke formulated three adages known as Clarke’s Laws that he expounded on in his writings. The third of these is the most famous, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave begin...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave return to the conversation started in Episode 174 and begin to build out the town that will be the start of most adventures in our Boomtown Campaign Setting.  Make sure to Join the Conversation! 1:55 Where are we now? We asked, you answe...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave finish out the discussion of how magic will work in our crowdsourced “Boomtown” campaign setting by asking “Where does divine magic come from?” Make sure to Join the Conversation! 1:40 “Where Are We Now”: the Boomtown campaign setting, as it...

We continue to drive down deeper into our real-time worldbuilding experiment armed with the comments of our listeners. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave begin to ask the most basic question when building a town: why is the town there? In our D&D Tombstone idea, we realize the short answer is money. And what drives that money? Magic. Make sure to join the conversation as we build a Wonderf...

Following on the heels of our last episode , we drive down deeper into our continued exploration of real-time worldbuilding armed with the comments of our listeners. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss how magic might work in this new world, how the environment helps to create the setting, and stumble into an idea for a setting that has us really excited. Make sure to join the conversat...

Worldbuilding. It’s one of the most talked about aspects of running TTRPGs, as it is the sandbox into which you will throw your party to adventure in. We’ve talked about tips and tricks in past episodes and articles, and have come down on both sides of the debate surrounding how much to do with a focus totally on your specific table and party. However, in this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave have d...

Movies. TV series. Books. Other DMs running games. There are a multitude of sources that provide fodder for our imagination in developing cool ideas that we want to play with in our own games. But how many ideas are TOO MANY ideas? Can you have too many ideas? In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down to answer a listener question from our “Co-DM” Dr. DM (Jason) where he asks the question “I...

Our last episode was the preamble. Last week’s article discussed some of what we learned from playing with new people. But, in this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down with the newest addition to our gaming group, Elizabeth, to delve deep into what went into running the Call of Cthulhu one-shot, playing with brand new people, and how to build a serious level of immersion into any game you’re r...

Backstory. Character development. It’s one of the most discussed topics in the TTRPG space. And the 3 Wise DMs were faced with the question when a friend offered to run a Call of Cthulhu one-shot for our group. This was followed by a Google Doc with twenty in-depth questions as to the character’s background, motivations, loves, and fears. For a one-shot. If you’ve ever asked yourself the question,...

You’ve been the DM for a long time (maybe even Forever!) and one of your players has finally said those magic words: “I think I wanna run a game.” So, with all your wisdom, all your experience, all your skills – how do you help the new DM along in the game so that they have a good time and the table has a good time? So that they want to get back into the DM chair? For all you Forever DMs, and all...

Possession. Dominate. Alignment shifts. There are a multitude of times where the rules make the DM take control of one of the player characters in the game. But, is that a good thing? In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down to discuss an issue that came up in DM Chris' Tales of the Yawning Portal campaign that he's running for 2 new players to the hobby and a run-in with a dwarven ghost. 1...

Top Secret: New World Order. That’s right, for DM Dave’s Birthday Game (of which we are quickly becoming well-versed), DM Chris ran our gaming group through the update to the TSR classic espionage RPG, Top Secret from TSR, Inc. by Merle Rasmussen. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave sit down to review the system, and discuss what they liked and didn’t about playing as Agents of ICON. For anyone...