Dungeon Masters is a complete D&D game for the Nerd-Curious

A quarter of a century ago, I gathered around a table with my middle school friends and rolled a 20-sided dice — my first ever Dungeons & Dragons game. Rolling the dice is easy, but finding a series of rules in tabletop role-playing games takes time to understand. It would have been so much easier if I had just watched Dungeon Masters, the new YouTube show from D&D creators Wizards of the Coast — and it’s premiering today, April 22.

In recent years, online tabletop RPGs like Critical Role and Dimension 20 have exploded in popularity. Viewers tune in to watch dungeon masters lead the players through the events of the theater, explaining what happens when heroes do great deeds, face obstacles and defeat villains. It makes sense that Wizards of the Coast would want to tap into the success, especially since many of these shows use the rules of Dungeons & Dragons (the most popular tabletop RPG system, although there are many others).

It’s smart that Wizards of the Coast started a program that advertises their products (more on this later), but Dungeon Masters also goes out of their way to help newcomers. It’s hard to grasp if you’re not a giant like me who has watched and listened to other tabletop RPG shows and podcasts, which do a lot of slow dice and rules explanations to keep things moving.

In contrast, Dungeon Masters caters to the new player, briefly explaining things like spells and conditions so that people watching at home understand the rules behind the rolls.

I saw the first episode of Dungeon Masters at a press screening at the Universal Studios offices in Los Angeles, after which I got to chat with the cast. If you’ve ever watched Critical Role or tabletop RPG shows, you know how an enthusiastic player can elevate the game and immerse the audience in the belief.

Dungeon Masters features a storied collection of characters from TV shows, video games and other tabletop RPG series. The four actors include Neil Newbon (Astarion in Baldur’s Gate III), Devora Wilde (Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate III), Christian Navarro (Tony Padilla in 13 Reasons Why, Key Role) and Mayanna Berrin (Janelle / Coupé in Dispatch, StoryQuest). The champion of prisons in this season of the show is Jasmine Bhullar (Dimension 20, DesiQuest).

Fans will be able to watch the first two episodes of the first season of Dungeon Masters live on the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel at 6:30 pm PT on April 22, with additional episodes coming every Wednesday at the same time. Show details hint at guest appearances, though we’ll all have to watch to find out who they might be.

What I saw in the first episode was familiar to the D&D veteran, but I promise what it offers to newbies (or those who need a refresher on the rules every now and then).

Dungeon Masters is the perfect D&D show for the curious

If you’ve watched a tabletop RPG show before, you’ll be familiar with the set-up of the Dungeon Masters show, with four players gathered around a table while the titular dungeon master sits on a platform above them, playing their multiple roles as narrator, world-builder and monster-controller.

The first episode of Dungeon Masters opens with the cast introducing themselves — Newbon as the founding professor Artificer gnome Crem, Wilde as his eleventh witch Zora, Navarro as the noble vampire warden Eloin and Berrin as the cemetery priest Wesley — before Bhururay’s murder. Before long, they’re threatened in a different place, Ravenloft, one of Dungeons & Dragons’ most beloved settings for haunted, gothic adventures.

In fact, the show is inspired by and uses never-before-seen features from the upcoming D&D expansion book, Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, which will be released on June 16. (Viewers can purchase the accompanying Play-Along Pack to download monsters and episode content from the online D&DBeyond website to play with their commercial games) for their Wizard commercials. of the next Coastal production, but that doesn’t make the acting less authentic or the drama less predictable. It’s designed to show what players will be able to do once they get the materials, which is shown in what I believe is the best feature of Dungeon Masters: explaining what’s really going on in the game through visual aids.

With many other tabletop RPG shows, the characters go through the usual process of seeing what happens: the player says what they want to do, the warden says what kind of dice to roll, the player rolls and the result is decided.

But Dungeon Masters goes further, not only having players explain on the rolls (bonuses that must be added or removed) but also display information on the screen about what is being discussed. If it is witchcraft, they will explain what it does. If it’s a roll, it shows the number of points to win. If it’s a damaging fireball that hits a large part of the battlefield, they’ll cast a circle on the map to show who’s in range — both friends and foes.

That fits the spirit of D&D, Newbon said during my interview with the cast. The pitmaster is there to help guide the story and explain the rules, bringing everyone to the table together.

“Most games I’ve played in D&D, we’ve always had someone who needed some help with the rules. It creates a sense of togetherness and togetherness that you’re there to support each other,” Newbon said. “Nobody knows where the story goes, but it’s all about telling a story together. Even if you end up arguing, it happens.”

It also helps slow down the show when you explain new things that no one has seen before, Bhullar added — including the actors, who learn about it in real time each episode.

The actors are aware of what happens to their characters and what viewers expect during the show, but I couldn’t resist asking CNET’s signature question: what gadget would each of their characters want, and which one shouldn’t they grab?

“It’s a camera to capture memories,” Navarro says of his half-vampire guardian, Eloin.

“I think the scanner that lets you know who’s a zombie or not, is probably a heat sensor,” Berrin said of his instructor Wesley, perhaps hinting at the prospect. “Don’t give him a heat gun! You know who’s immortal, you’ll bring them back down.”

“I think Zora probably shouldn’t be allowed access to a phone with any dating apps, I think that would be a huge mistake, or maybe a really good time,” Wilde Coyly said of her witch.

“I think Crem would like an MRI device. He probably shouldn’t put his hands on an MRI device,” Newbon said. (Good luck reading that.)

What the cast hopes viewers take away from Dungeon Masters is that they watch it and want to have that experience with their friends. People are afraid of writing stories, Newbon said, but the point of doing it is to have fun — it doesn’t have to be all hard work.

“Yes, there might be a lot of preparation for that [dungeon masters] do, but it’s all in the spirit of fun,” Newbon said. “So if they’re having fun, they can be…”

“Dungeon Master!” Wilde nodded.