For people who haven’t played Dungeons & Dragons before, it can seem daunting in many ways. There’s this big book of stuff that you ostensibly have to know about, and you have this weird sheet of stats and abilities that you have to constantly reference and update based on what’s going on in your campaign. And then there’s the story and setting – who can keep track of all this Lord of the Rings-style lore? Should I be taking notes? Do I need to study on my own time? Will this be on the test?

An outsider can look at all the paperwork and understandably wonder “how is this fun”? Well, the McElroy brothers (and their dad) do a great job of showcasing just how fun, silly, thrilling, and even heartbreaking a good Dungeons & Dragons campaign can be with their Dungeons & Dragons actual play podcast, The Adventure Zone.

The first campaign of the show (retroactively titled “Balance”) starts from almost literally square one – only one of the players has any past experience with Dungeons & Dragons, so the first episode is pretty much a tutorial on character creation and basic game mechanics.

From there, the first arc is a pre-written campaign from the Dungeons & Dragons starter pack, with high fantasy names like Gundren Rockseeker and Sildar Hallwinter, and a quest to find the lost mines of Wave Echo Cave. It starts off a bit dry, but it doesn’t take long for the McElroys to add their own brand of silliness to the game, introducing characters like Barry Bluejeans and Magic Brian, and giving their own characters silly voices and catchphrases.

In the early arcs, the players make a lot of joke skill checks (“Can I roll to see if he likes being tickled?”). It’s a silly running joke, but it also highlights the near-limitless possibility space of Dungeons & Dragons. You can attempt to do basically anything, provided that you can sufficiently explain how and why.

This is the true beauty of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s so much more than just rolling dice and doing paperwork – it’s a collaborative storytelling effort. The books and the sheets are just a framework to build your own epic story around, and the dice are a way to add drama and unpredictability to your adventure.

The rest of the “Balance” campaign perfectly highlights the versatility of the game. As Griffin gains more confidence as a dungeon master, he puts his players into increasingly fantastical and dangerous scenarios, from a Mad Max-inspired death race to a town caught in a time loop to an honest-to-god moon base.

Likewise, as the players gain a better understanding of their characters both mechanically and narratively, they attempt more incredible feats and make more dramatic decisions, like rappelling sideways across an out-of-control train, or investigating their mysterious employers, or ejecting their own souls out of their bodies to save a friend.

So, if you’ve always been a little curious about Dungeons & Dragons but have been intimidated by behemoths like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Critical Role, I invite you to give this modest podcast a try. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and hopefully you’ll learn a little bit about how to play Dungeons & Dragons and, more importantly, why you should play it.

Do you have your own favorite D&D gateway drug? Want to share your favorite Adventure Zone moments? Heck, maybe you want to start your own campaign with some fellow geeks! Head on over to our Discord and join the conversation!

---

---

Featured Image: Carey Pietsch (via MacMillan Publishers)