3 Wise DMs

Oct 20 2024 152 ep. 68 mins 171
3 Wise DMs Podcast artwork

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  Education
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


The Time Warp – Mastering the Strange Way Time Flows in Your D&D Campaign

Oct 20 2024 52 mins  
Play through an adventure and you’ll realize how strangely time can move in your D&D campaign. Longtime friend of the show, Dr. DM (Jason) returns with a question about his ocean-based campaign that we discussed in Episode 148. His question revolves around how quickly leveling can affect the passage of time in the adventure. In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave discuss the

Don't Worry About A Thing: Essential Tips To Turn Your D&D Fails Into Wins

Oct 06 2024 50 mins  
Bad sessions. We’ve all dealt with them and we’ll continue to have them periodically. It’s all part of running TTRPGs. But how to you deal with them when they happen? What do you do to salvage the game at the next session? DM Dave offers a question to his fellow Wise DMs regarding a recent session that he felt he could have run better, smoother, better improv. But he got stuc

Signed, Sealed, Delivered – Revolutionize Your D&D Games With Digital Tools

Sep 15 2024 49 mins  
Running the adventure outside of the game session? Yes, that’s right. Starting back in DM Dave’s Curse of Strahd campaign, we began to develop characters and backstories with narrative side quests via text, email, and online documents (like Google Docs). In our Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign, we have utilized them from the very beginning for each character ind

Shipping Up To Boston – Uncovering The Secrets To Running An Epic Pirate D&D Campaign

Sep 01 2024 46 mins  
Pirates. It doesn’t take long for a D&D group to want to play as pirates, swashbucklers, privateers, and sailors. In our modern day, we can blame Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. But how do you approach running a seafaring adventure? Is it just a fancy travel mechanic? Is it just a vehicle to get from town to town? Or is it the basis of the who

Love the One You’re With – 3WD’s Top 7 Tips To Running Published D&D Adventures

Aug 18 2024 43 mins  
Movies like The Godfather, The Lord of the Rings, Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Gladiator, Goodfellas… the list is inexhaustible. Movies that are “must-see” movies, classics that are nearly required viewing. Many published adventures, like Curse of Strahd, Storm King’s Thunder, Dragonlance, The Keep on the Borderlands, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, T

It’s the End of the World: 3 Wise DMs Pro Tips to Ending Your D&D Campaign the Right Way

Aug 04 2024 51 mins  
The 3 Wise DMs are all approaching campaign finales: DM Tony’s Journey to Ragnarok, DM Chris’ “Wednesday-Nighters” campaign in our homebrewed world of The Further, and DM Dave’s Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign. Just like the start of a campaign, the end only comes along once. So what should you focus on when your campaign is coming to a climax? What quest

The Ties That Bind – Tying Together Characters, Backstories, And Adventures To Create The Most Immersive D&D Game Ever

Jul 21 2024 48 mins  
Immersion in your D&D game. It’s one of the most sought after and asked about topics in the whole DMing Multiverse. The real trick always lies in how well you can tie together all the seemingly disparate pieces of your group – characters, backstories, motivations, and adventures – into one cohesive, epic story.In this episode, Tony, Chris, and Dave answer a listener quest

Chill, Till The Next Episode – 3WD Answers The Question Of How Long An Adventure Should Be And How To Build Episodic Adventures For Your D&D Game

Jul 07 2024 50 mins  
2:05 A listener question regarding how to run episodic adventures that serves as a jumping off point for Matt Colville’s recent video asking the question, “How long should an adventure be?”3:40 DM Tony’s lead-off question… what is your table hungry for?5:25 The classic Monster of the Week theme and DM Chris’ love of The X-Files.7:25 Episodic Adventures can easily become

What I Like (And Hate) About You – 3 Wise DMs Reflect On A Decade of 5e and Share Tips That Will Make You Have Your Best D&D Game Ever

Jun 23 2024 53 mins  
On July 3rd of 2024, D&D 5e will turn 10! While it has taken some hits in those ten years, no one can deny the positive effect it has had on our TTRPG hobby, bringing in an entire generation of new players.With this anniversary, we started to reflect on what we have loved, what we’ve hated, what we would change, and what we look to for the future. And, as opposed to most of t

Go Go Godzilla! 3WD Brainstorms The Best Ways To Bring Unbeatable Monsters Like Godzilla Into Your D&D Campaign

Jun 09 2024 45 mins  
As we learned from the AD&D release, Deities & Demigods, “If you stat it, players will kill it.” So, what do you do if you want to place an unbeatable Kaiju-type monster, like Godzilla, into your game world? Something way more fearsome than a Tarrasque. A complete force of nature that shapes the entire world and every adventure in it. Something that you can’t just “