Wally DM

Hello there adventurers, and welcome to Wally DM! It’s hard to believe that it has been ten years since I posted my very first TTRPG puzzle video on YouTube. Let me begin by saying that the 2016 version of me would have scoffed at the idea that I would still be a D&D YouTuber ten years later. Even after uploading my first handful of videos, I had no visions of grandeur that this would become a thing for me. But here I am in 2026, time sure flies by, so I thought today, I would create a quick post to share my origin story. 

A Long, Long Time Ago

You see, I’ve always needed an outlet for creativity, and back then I was writing EDH articles on my website MagicEDH.com (formerly MTGCasualPlay.com) while also creating fantasy football logos for my other site, WallyDFantasyFootball.com.

In January 2016, I had been on hiatus from D&D for 15 years, ending my run of playing BECMI Basic with my brother and friends from 1984 to 2001. One of my friends that I played EDH with, Tony, asked if I would be interested in playing Pathfinder. Of course, I had no idea what that was, but when he told me it was like Dungeons & Dragons, my eyes lit up. I told Tony I would put a group together and run the Pathfinder games as the game master, and of course, I went to my friendly local game store to pick up the Core Rulebook and Bestiary to get us started.

I went into the attic to knock the dust off my boxes of AD&D and BECMI books, along with all of the old dungeons and ideas that I had saved. The candle of creativity was lit once again. I hadn’t played for 15 years and had no idea what this “Pathfinder” game was all about, so I took to YouTube to find out how to play. I binge-watched videos by WASD20, Nerdarchy, A Fist Full of Dice, and yes, the controversial Dawnforged Cast. But there were two other channels that inspired me in one of my favorite aspects of the Dungeons & Dragons game: puzzles and traps. Those videos were by Dungeon Master Johnny and The Player’s DM. After absorbing their content, I knew I wanted to share some of my own ideas as well. Soon afterward, I created my channel, Wally DM.

For my profile picture, I wanted something mystical, like Jedi robes, but I settled for a photo of myself wearing a brown hoodie with the hood pulled up over my head, positioned in front of my old AD&D Dungeon Master screen. I called my channel “Wally DM” because I’ve had the nickname “Wally D” since the early 90s when I was in the military. Wally D is a play on my last name and the first initial of my legal first name. It felt quite natural, honestly, to go from Wally D to Wally DM as a nod to being a dungeon master for the greatest roleplaying game in the world.

The Original Three Puzzles

My first few videos were recorded with me demonstrating puzzles on my Chessex battlemat, using cutouts from the AD&D 2nd Edition Cardmaster Adventure Design Deck and my old pewter miniatures from the 80s and 90s. I recorded the videos with my 3rd generation iPad from 2012, edited them with Windows Movie Maker, which I still use today, and uploaded them to YouTube in 720p potato quality. Those first three puzzle videos were:

• March 1, 2016: Door of Children’s Bedtime
• March 3, 2016: Door of the Unlucky
• March 5, 2016: Door of the Pacifist

Ten years later, those videos have 27,000, 24,000, and 32,000 views respectively. Technically, I had already playtested each of these puzzles. I included them in my first game of Pathfinder a few weeks prior in a strange, non-synergistic dungeon that ended in a boss fight with a troglodyte camp and memory moss.

Today, I am sharing that dungeon with all of my Patreon members at the $2 level or higher along with a rewrite of those first three puzzles (March 2026 Patreon – Troglodyte Puzzle Dungeon). While they were all published in my original Journal of Puzzle Encounters, they have been touched up in this document with a proper edit. I also created a modern version of that original Troglodyte Camp map using Dungeonscrawl, based on a picture I found from February 2016. I labeled each room with its contents based on what I could recall about the adventure.

You Liked and Subscribed

After uploading my first three videos, I quickly recorded two more puzzle videos, bringing the total to five. Honestly, I thought that would be it. I had no plans to continue creating YouTube content and assumed I would be done after that. I simply wanted to share a few ideas that I had in order to give back to the community, very much like Dungeon Master Johnny and The Player’s DM had done. It’s incredibly strange to look back on things today, and looking back at those original videos, wow, they were awful, lol.

But when viewers started subscribing to my channel and commenting on those first five videos, I was hooked. I wanted to share more ideas and, well… here I am today, with over 21,000 subscribers and more than 400 videos. Even though the number of videos I publish has slowed down, I still plan on doing this for several more years. And I hope you continue with me on that journey.

Here are two interesting facts about things that have stayed the same over the last ten years. First, the intro and outro music I used in the first several years of videos came from the YouTube Audio Library and is called Eviction by Silent Partner. To this day, I still use this track as the outro music on my live streams. The second, is that while my style of videos has improved dramatically over the past 10 years, two things have remained consistent throughout my YouTube career. I use my miniatures and battlemat to help demonstrate a puzzle, and I end all of my videos, just like my written articles, with “On to the Next!”

There is so much more good stuff to come, and I can’t wait to share it with you. It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m grateful to every adventurer who’s been part of it. Thank you for reading, and on to the next!