Dumb-Dumbs & Dragons: A D&D Podcast

Dumb-Dumbs & Dragons is Dungeons & Dragons actual play built on a hook it repeats in its welcome: the players are improvisers who had never roleplayed before. Show materials name Tom McGee as dungeon master, with Tyler Hewitt, Laura Hamstra and Ryan LaPlante as regular players. The result is a game whose rules get worked out in plain sight. One exchange turns on whether a character yelling at a horse in Common should roll persuasion or animal handling. The roll comes up 19, and the horse, plainly unimpressed, gallops over anyway. From there the talk drifts to whether an albino horse can cope with the desert sun, and it emerges that Moe made horse sunscreen instead of potions that restore spell slots. That swing from rules to nonsense and back is much of the appeal. The story itself is serialized and keeps track of its threads. Recaps come from a narrator styled as the great wizard Bortlesnort, who lists what each hero managed last time and ends on a teasing question. In one stretch of the campaign, the party saves a caravan from giant animals and a strange cannon-firing man, befriends a band of warriors called the Beclothed Men, and brings a captive back to Asgard. Gartok cures the group of assorted poisons and strikes down a demonic coyote, while Quinny fells a fleeing villain called Snake. The Ghost Skull Brigade looms over all of it. In one scene the heroes plot to slip decoy prisoners in beside an obstinate Ghost Skull captive to see whether he talks. Combat has real structure: initiative order, a hero going first on a plus five, an attack of opportunity as a raptor named Saffron leaps a line of snakes. The leap is described with a nod to the Jurassic Park games on the SNES. Asgard gives the campaign a home base, with a reopened market, a fortress at its center and a party member serving as king. Not everything there is a fight. Quinny has an uncomfortable conversation with his daughter, and Ginny opens up about a breakup. The people of this world get vivid costumes, like Seamus in a floppy feathered cushion hat and a brilliant blue courtier's suit. Episode titles such as '9.07 - Pigeon Fight', '9.03 - The Giggle-Pot' and '9.09 - You Suck' share the same goofy streak. A roll call of Patreon supporters closes several episodes. The language and jokes get crude at times, so it suits headphones better than a family car ride.