VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
If you start really getting into the whole D&D thing...or if you don't necessarily want to play but you're interested in what its like...there's never been a better time to watch OTHER people play, which can be very fun in its own right.
Two examples that I personally recommend:
Critical Role
The GOAT, and one of the main reasons for D&D's recent boom in popularity. Crit Role is streamed on Twitch (and later posted to YouTube and also as an audio podcast) and sees one of the greatest DMs in history, voice actor Matthew Mercer, lead a bunch of his voice actor friends through 3 (so far) campaigns in a world of his own creation. Their campaigns are filled with dramatic moments and a ton of just goofing off...like the best D&D home games. I started watching early in the first campaign and introducing my friends to the show is what got them all hooked on D&D.
Dimension 20
My current obsession, D20 (get it?) is hosted on Dropout.tv, currently my favorite streaming service, which was born from CollegeHumor but is now independently (and ETHICALLY!) owned and operated. The DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, is my personal favorite DM, and his campaigns typically lean more into humor (this is a streaming service built on improv comedy, after all), and take place in a variety of worlds that showcase the range of options you have when worldbuilding in the D&D system. The first campaign was basically a High School Dramedy set in a fantasy world in modern times. There's another campaign set in a world of candy. And many more.
In addition to watching people play D&D there's a couple pieces of D&D media I recommend that are based on campaigns.
The Legend of Vox Machina
One of the most successful Kickstarters of all time, this is an animated adaptation of part of the first Critical Role campaign (I was a backer!) Due to the success of the campaign (the Kickstarter campaign I mean), Amazon picked up what was originally planned as a 4 episode miniseries and spun it into a full series with a multi-season order. If you don't want to sit through like 100 3 hour episodes of Critical Role, this is a much more bite-sized way to enjoy some of the best stories from Campaign 1 of CritRole (still my favorite).
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
This is the movie that came out this year. Not the one with Marlon Wayans from 2000 or the other two that I literally just learned existed as I pulled up Wikipedia to check the year of the Marlon Wayans one. The 2023 movie is WONDERFUL and I wish more people would check it out. Its a fun action comedy that plays with all sorts of common D&D tropes and features maybe my favorite film dragon of all time. Seriously. We bought a stuffed animal AND a Christmas ornament of this majestic beast.
Two examples that I personally recommend:
Critical Role
The GOAT, and one of the main reasons for D&D's recent boom in popularity. Crit Role is streamed on Twitch (and later posted to YouTube and also as an audio podcast) and sees one of the greatest DMs in history, voice actor Matthew Mercer, lead a bunch of his voice actor friends through 3 (so far) campaigns in a world of his own creation. Their campaigns are filled with dramatic moments and a ton of just goofing off...like the best D&D home games. I started watching early in the first campaign and introducing my friends to the show is what got them all hooked on D&D.
Dimension 20
My current obsession, D20 (get it?) is hosted on Dropout.tv, currently my favorite streaming service, which was born from CollegeHumor but is now independently (and ETHICALLY!) owned and operated. The DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, is my personal favorite DM, and his campaigns typically lean more into humor (this is a streaming service built on improv comedy, after all), and take place in a variety of worlds that showcase the range of options you have when worldbuilding in the D&D system. The first campaign was basically a High School Dramedy set in a fantasy world in modern times. There's another campaign set in a world of candy. And many more.
In addition to watching people play D&D there's a couple pieces of D&D media I recommend that are based on campaigns.
The Legend of Vox Machina
One of the most successful Kickstarters of all time, this is an animated adaptation of part of the first Critical Role campaign (I was a backer!) Due to the success of the campaign (the Kickstarter campaign I mean), Amazon picked up what was originally planned as a 4 episode miniseries and spun it into a full series with a multi-season order. If you don't want to sit through like 100 3 hour episodes of Critical Role, this is a much more bite-sized way to enjoy some of the best stories from Campaign 1 of CritRole (still my favorite).
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
This is the movie that came out this year. Not the one with Marlon Wayans from 2000 or the other two that I literally just learned existed as I pulled up Wikipedia to check the year of the Marlon Wayans one. The 2023 movie is WONDERFUL and I wish more people would check it out. Its a fun action comedy that plays with all sorts of common D&D tropes and features maybe my favorite film dragon of all time. Seriously. We bought a stuffed animal AND a Christmas ornament of this majestic beast.
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
I loved that movie. Even not being a huge D&D nerd, it played to so many tropes perfectly, with such intelligent use of mechanics in some parts. Really played to the vibe of the game, and you could tell that the people who made this one actually cared about the source content, they weren't just given the name of an IP and told to make a fantasy movie.
They also snuck a Jurassic Park nod in there too, which I loved. There's a scene very similar to when the raptor busts through the ceiling and Lex almost falls in Jurassic Park 1, with Themberchaud.
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
Been listening to D&D shows to pass the time faster at work for years now, and Critical Role is easily my favorite so far. I wish I could do the type of shit Matt does. Their animated series is awesome too.
Just wanna throw out a recommendation for The Adventure Zone and Not Another D&D Podcast (aka NADDPOD) as well. The former is run by the McElroy brothers and their dad. I believe it started out as like a little side show for their main podcast and followed them as they all learned how to play D&D. Now they've had several different campaigns set in different settings as they try out other TTRPGs and most of it is pretty good stuff.
The latter is the one I'm currently trying to catch up on, but it honestly might be my second favorite show. I think it's kind of adjacent to Dimension 20 in that one or two of the cast members are also on that show? (I haven't gotten around to D20 but it's next on my list because I love what I've seen of Brennan.) NADDPOD leans heavily into the comedy and doesn't take itself too seriously, but still manages to have some very interesting world-building and stories. The first campaign is about the party essentially trying to clean up the mess of a world that a previous adventuring party left behind.
I think they use Fate instead of D&D, but Brute Force is also not a bad choice to check out if you've already watched all the popular stuff in here. If you're into serious stuff you might not like it though. Combat is extremely rare and much of the show is just cast silliness as they fumble through the DM's story and have weird NPC interactions.
Just wanna throw out a recommendation for The Adventure Zone and Not Another D&D Podcast (aka NADDPOD) as well. The former is run by the McElroy brothers and their dad. I believe it started out as like a little side show for their main podcast and followed them as they all learned how to play D&D. Now they've had several different campaigns set in different settings as they try out other TTRPGs and most of it is pretty good stuff.
The latter is the one I'm currently trying to catch up on, but it honestly might be my second favorite show. I think it's kind of adjacent to Dimension 20 in that one or two of the cast members are also on that show? (I haven't gotten around to D20 but it's next on my list because I love what I've seen of Brennan.) NADDPOD leans heavily into the comedy and doesn't take itself too seriously, but still manages to have some very interesting world-building and stories. The first campaign is about the party essentially trying to clean up the mess of a world that a previous adventuring party left behind.
I think they use Fate instead of D&D, but Brute Force is also not a bad choice to check out if you've already watched all the popular stuff in here. If you're into serious stuff you might not like it though. Combat is extremely rare and much of the show is just cast silliness as they fumble through the DM's story and have weird NPC interactions.
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
I humbly suggest watching all of Game Changer and then all of Make Some Noise.
So I can literally only find the Japanese version trailers on Youtube, but there's a new show on Netflix that seemed to pop up just when I started leaning into D&D for this. The first episode was just released, with the next on January 11th. And it is English-dubbed on Netflix.
Delicious In Dungeon.
The episodes seem pretty short at around 26 minutes, but it was enjoyable and scratched an itch. It's got that "all food in anime looks good" vibe, even though it's monster parts. Very much hit like watching our band of ridiculous adventurers try to survive, too.
Delicious In Dungeon.
The episodes seem pretty short at around 26 minutes, but it was enjoyable and scratched an itch. It's got that "all food in anime looks good" vibe, even though it's monster parts. Very much hit like watching our band of ridiculous adventurers try to survive, too.
I just rewatched this and have an important need to shout JARNATHAN.
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
In 2022 I briefly got into an "idle" game that was heavily invested in D&D roots.
I put a lot of time into the game but ending up leaving the game after game dev choices.
It's a good casual game - but the term idle is loosely accurate and you have to do a lot manually, especially in the beginning.
I put a lot of time into the game but ending up leaving the game after game dev choices.
It's a good casual game - but the term idle is loosely accurate and you have to do a lot manually, especially in the beginning.
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
The way I belly-laughed at that the first time. A straight up guffaw.
I am usual one of those people who won't even eat popcorn in a movie theatre because making noise seems like the worst crime.
But I lost my shit at that point.
Probably helped that everyone else did, too.
I'll probably watch these later.
I love their soul logic videos.
This scenario exactly was one of the VLDL skits I posted above
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
man if only we had a thread dedicated to other d&d related mediaThis scenario exactly was one of the VLDL skits I posted above
wait maybe I can learn how to split and merge threads here...
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
Oh god... he's power hungry again.
A new D&D video game is coming...
www.gamespot.com
A Dungeons & Dragons Life Sim Is Being Made By Disney Dreamlight Valley Devs
The project will be a hybrid of "survival, life simulation, and action-RPG," according to Gameloft.
www.gamespot.com
I saw this. My daughter plays Dreamlight Valley some, and it's a decent enough game. Not sure if it'd go for the same feel being D&D, as it'd at least have to have combat unlike Dreamlight Valley, but still.A new D&D video game is coming...
A Dungeons & Dragons Life Sim Is Being Made By Disney Dreamlight Valley Devs
The project will be a hybrid of "survival, life simulation, and action-RPG," according to Gameloft.
Cool.
I am enjoying this guy's D&D videos. Particularly this D&D with a Twist series. They're quite informative, charismatic, and at the end of each one he gives some homebrew content that's all been very sick, and definitely things I'd consider using. Even his paid promotions are tolerable.
The latest one I'm watching;
VashTheStampede
Caterpillar Accountant
Good video.
I think it highlights some of the things we seem to inherently struggle with. What is typically a 3-4 hour campaign IRL, is taking us literal months to get through. I wonder if we can possibly do some shorter "mission" style campaigns where we try to get a group together for a longer period of time that we can hammer out a mission. Can be on Discord at some point but could also arrange a time that we all know we;ll be on together too, and just answer in more rapid fire.
I'm enjoying this, but the months-long campaign can be a drain too.
Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale 21348 | Ideas | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
Collectible play-and-display model for D&D® fans
www.lego.com
Omg omg omg
$350.Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale 21348 | Ideas | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
Collectible play-and-display model for D&D® fans
Omg omg omg
Just finished binging both seasons of Vox Machina! It was so good!
Also on a side note:
www.jcu.edu.au
Also on a side note:
Dungeons and Dragons may improve mental health
Researchers have found that people who play the game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) show improvements in their mental health.