Article by Christopher Cruz
It’s not just video games that dominate the digital airwaves on platforms like Twitch — there’s a huge contingent of viewers who yearn for the old days of pen and paper, with tabletop RPGs making a huge splash virtually in the last few years. In fact, once-niche games like Dungeons & Dragons (which turns 50 this year) have taken on new life in the age of livestreaming, and more popular than ever.
Leading the charge are “actual plays,” podcasts or web shows that feature groups of players creating narratives from their imaginations, without the aid of flashy video game visuals, and their popularity has led to a tabletop resurgence whose audience is now more inclusive and diverse. Spanning the genre mainstays, officially licensed extensions of existing franchises, and even homebrew titles people are making themselves, it’s one of the most unexpectedly engrossing ways to lose yourself online.
But how can watching folks roll dice and making up a story out of thin air be so engaging? Like anything online, it begins with the personalities. With known super geeks Vin Diesel, Joe Manganiello, and Wil Wheaton pushing their favorite hobbies in interviews and YouTube appearances for years, alongside the rise of content creators whose fans hang captive for hours on end, it was only a matter of time before tabletop games took hold of mainstream attention. Most groups in the space, like some of the ones featured below, are comprised of beloved figures of nerdom, from voice actors who dominate the anime and video spaces, to comedians who kill on socials, but what makes actual plays so addictive to watch boils down to what has always made them work. It’s about community.
For those who play, the appeal of games like Dungeons & Dragons has long been sitting down with a group of friends week after week just shooting the shit. It’s a shared experience, limited only by imagination, where people can work together (or against each other) to create worlds and stories that reflect their own desires. It’s a ritual. And nothing describes the rise of livestreaming itself than ritualistic viewing. Think of it as an ongoing audio book that’s written in real time, narrated by a handful of professional friends just having a good time. It’s all the joys of TTRPG without having to manage the rules...
I must also recommend the podcast Worlds Beyond Number. There is a concerted effort in sound design to draw you in, and I truly enjoyed it. There was also a beautiful return by the GM of the show, Brennan Lee Mulligan, announcing the arrival of his child and thanking the company for Paternity Leave. They're keeping her actual name private until she can consent to releasing it online. Until then, the little darling is to be called "Sunny". Below is the introduction to the campaign and the reveal that the previous episodes were an entire Campaign Zero.
Brennan Lee Mulligan, Lou Wilson, Aabria Iyengar, and Erika Ishii
Soon, my pretties, we’ll all be listening to The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One, an epic campaign with incredible characters in a verdant, full-sized world handmade by our first dungeon master: Brennan Lee Mulligan.
We wanted our first story to feel like the perfect home game of D&D, a sprawling world scratched out on graph paper behind the DM screen, characters crafted and pored over with the excitement of a kid opening presents, and most of all: time. Free to adventure in a world of limitless possibility, this surging saga affords us the chance to spend time in these characters and to fully explore, and change, the world. We wanted the kind of game that keeps you and your friends coming back to the table, not for weeks, but for years.
We think we got it.
To create these characters and to help build out Brennan’s new setting, we didn’t just roll up new stats on a sheet and hit send, oh no. We played an entire Level 0 campaign, linking every aspect of character creation to the events of the fateful summer when our three protagonists first met. We call this the Children’s Adventure.
In February we’ll be releasing previews of our main story as well as scenes from the Children’s Adventure, first on our Patreon, then a week later for the public. In March, as the first episodes of The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One are being released to everyone, all our Patrons will receive the entire Children’s Campaign, over 12 hours of play focused on character and world building, all at the edge of that old dark forest, down that little dirt road, by the little cottage with the garden, and the old, mean rooster.
Over the next two weeks we’ll be sharing more details and first glimpses (!) of the world and the player characters. And then the week after we’ll be dropping the smells of our first setting. Kidding about the smells, but can you imagine?
Oh and don’t despair that an epic campaign means you won’t be hearing other games, systems, and worlds from us in the meantime. You will, sweet child, oh how you will.