The show is exactly thus – four great act­ors play­ing Dun­geons and Dragons on stage, led by an emin­ently like­able DM.

I must admit I had my qualms when com­ing to this show, as I’ve always found play­ing D&D to be more fun than watch­ing it, but the cast is excel­lent, the mood appro­pri­ate, and the cam­paign very fun. Good vibes all round.

Har­riet Preb­ble is the show’s gnome cler­ic, Thistle, who’s badass and per­haps has a bit of a Tra­gic Back­story. Allan Henry plays Armand – a wild-haired tiefling bar­bar­i­an with a pen­chant for pulling off people’s arms and a gen­er­ic East­ern-European/vam­pir­ic accent. Gav­in Ruther­ford brings a cer­tain foot­ball spec­tat­or cheeki­ness to human sor­cer­er Gart, and Gab­ri­ela Rocha plays high elf rogue Kyrrha with a great wili­ness. The four friends are joined by a col­our­ful cast of char­ac­ters played by Dun­geon Mas­ter, Ryan McIntyre.

Our group of trav­el­lers has escaped a port and are sail­ing the wild open seas. To where? Who really knows – but there’ll def­in­itely be some ‘boat things’ to do along the way. Through fights with geo­therm­ic fair­ies, tenu­ous rela­tion­ships and lots of rope coil­ing, they find their way to Thistle’s home­land to dis­cov­er the fate of her vil­lage. But first, they must fight an orc and a much put-upon human account­ant named Steve (STEVE!!!!!) and gen­er­ally make nice with the loc­als.

It’s so nice to join the group from with­in the story some­what – there’s none of that get­ting-to-know-you awk­ward­ness, no uncom­fort­able pos­tur­ing – these char­ac­ters know each oth­er, have rela­tion­ships and def­in­itely have rival­ries. For a fairly impro­vised piece, with a degree of com­plex­ity to it, the show runs smoothly, and there’s some excel­lent one-liners, as well as some excel­lent dice rolls (five nat 20s from Rocha alone). The storytelling is supreme – McIntyre is an excel­lent DM, with plenty of voices for addi­tion­al char­ac­ters, and a quick wit – and the world feels well-formed and well-spoken around the main story.

Per­haps there’s a little too much of the prob­lem­at­ic ele­ments that D&D often falls into (can we say colo­ni­al­ist ideals and iffy ste­reo­typ­ing of cer­tain char­ac­ters?) but for the most part, the show feels fresh and excit­ing.

My only regret is that I did­n’t get tick­ets for the rest of the sea­son.

(Ser­i­ously though, someone keep me pos­ted on the plot?)

 

This show is sold out, but you can (and should) find D&D games being played lit­er­ally every­where in Wel­ling­ton these days. (It’s a good time, get amongst.)