First D&D Campaign Tonight? The 6 Must-Have Tips To Making It Memorable and Stress-Free

First D&D Campaign Tonight? The 6 Must-Have Tips To Making It Memorable and Stress-Free

From 3 Wise DMs by The 3 Wise DMs

April 19, 2026 · 56 min · Episode 186

About this episode

The episode provides essential tips for running a long-term D&D campaign, featuring insights from guest Matt.

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, and Dave sit down with our recurring special guest and player – the Monster Wrangler himself, Matt! Along the way, we discuss the tips, tricks, and pitfalls to making the jump to running a whole campaign. For all you new DMs, check out Episodes 29 , 90 , and 113 for more tips! 4:00 What made Matt want to take it to the next level? 6:40 Matt’s next level of immersive play: costume changes! 8:30 What are you going to run? Homebrew? Published? What made Matt want to run Tyranny of Dragons? 10:15 Tip #1: Published material is just information: use what you want. 14:10 Tip#2: Balance out the stronger and weaker play styles. 15:10 How to go forward when you have to have actions and consequences affect later sessions? 20:38 Tip #3: How the make-up of your table will affect how you run the…

People in this episode

Hosts: Tony, Chris, Dave

Guest: Matt

Topics covered

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Tyranny of Dragons

More episodes of 3 Wise DMs

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the 3 Wise DMs podcast page.