Bad plans, fast banter, real consequences.
Hapless Heroes turns D&D into a noisy group argument where jokes, rules calls, and scene work all arrive at once. Recent episodes bounce between space travel, pursuit, family explanations, strange technology, and one very disputed table.
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Hapless Heroes is a Dungeons & Dragons actual play where the party rarely reaches a decision in a straight line. That is the charm. Recent episodes move through space travel, homecoming anxiety, pursuit, family fallout, and improvised cover stories, but the engine is still the table itself. Francesco serves as host and DM in these excerpts, setting scenes and then giving the players enough room to interrupt the machinery. The result feels live, crowded, and deliberately a little unstable. A normal table becomes a running problem. A round table becomes another running problem. A plan to pass as a government official depends on borrowed fur, authority posture, and the phrase everyone thinks might work if said with enough force. The show treats these digressions as fuel rather than clutter. Rules, jokes, character logic, and scene description all compete for space, and the story advances through that competition. The current arc carries a strong sci-fi-fantasy strain, with space routes, an ether drive, a space car, a flaming carpet, the Seeker, Astral Tech, and a group trying to get home without drawing the wrong kind of attention. It can still turn inward. Several recent moments circle around what the characters will tell their families, what the government might know, and whether returning home will actually make anything simpler. That gives the comedy a useful pressure point. The players are very funny, but their characters are also frightened, evasive, proud, homesick, and prone to choosing the loud option. Dave, Lewis, Mike, Sebastian, Nicole, and Jack give the table a busy ensemble texture, with characters including March, Lev Zangiev, Brunner Brew Blitzbor, Chum DeLume, Glorp Glup Glup, and Jam Jam recurring in the sampled episodes. Other episodes in the same batch feature Yeti, Captain Brock Stark, Ulyana Zangiev, Nikita Zangiev, and Morris DeLume in a parallel mess of facilities, scientists, vehicles, and improvised disguise work. The show is not polished into neat scenes. It keeps the seams audible because that is where many of the best turns happen. Listeners who want actual play to feel like friends building a strange story faster than they can organize it will find plenty to hold onto here. Hapless Heroes is warm, ridiculous, and surprisingly committed to the consequences of its own nonsense.
Made for: Best for actual-play fans who enjoy ensemble table chaos, long-running callbacks, and D&D scenes where the joke and the tactic arrive in the same breath. It especially suits listeners who like fantasy adventure tilted toward sci-fi weirdness and improvised problem solving.
What sets it apart: Hapless Heroes makes the table talk feel like part of the fiction, not a pause around it. The players' cross-talk, corrections, alibis, and half-formed plans become the show’s main propulsion.
A D&D 5th edition podcast featuring rotating DMs, homebrewed campaigns, and some rather unlucky players. New episodes released weekly!
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Hapless Heroes makes tabletop rules a springboard for ensemble comedy, elaborate bad ideas and a spacefaring adventure with real continuity.
Hapless Heroes turns an ongoing tabletop adventure into quick-witted ensemble comedy, letting absurd plans collide with the practical limits of the game.
A robot survives the 'off' spell; you'll recognize the moment a clever plan becomes everyone's problem.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A missing-person problem turns into a chaotic hunt for alibis, government worries, and one very normal table.
Hapless Heroes turns a disappearance problem into a messy little planning session about excuses that might keep families from running to the government.
A facility escape runs on fur, bluffing, and full commitment to the walrus mustache.
Hapless Heroes turns a facility escape into a scramble for improvised authority. Francesco, as host and DM, guides the table through scientists, infiltrators, and a disguise problem that keeps gaining momentum.
A flaming carpet gives The Hapless Heroes' desert escape a funny, physical charge.
The Hapless Heroes turn a desert escape into a tight bit of actual-play chaos, where a near head-on collision can become a daycare joke before anyone has settled their breathing.
A paranoid route home turns space travel into a party problem, mixing survival checks, smuggler tactics, and engine-room improvisation.
Jam Jam's return plan turns the trip home into a cosmic paranoia drill, using a dense jump schedule to shake off, or at least expose, anyone tracking the ship.
A wary delivery follow-up and a vampire retcon give this Flotilla homecoming some bite.
Hapless Heroes turns a simple courier handoff into a guarded debate about what makes a home worth defending. Once Plix-Plox reaches Mr. Keen, the crew is pressed on Astral Tech, and the Flotilla's worry sharpens into something more than suspicion: dangerous technology in the…
A chaotic robot firefight where failed magic and table banter keep the crisis sharp.
Hapless Heroes turns a killer-robot firefight aboard a smoke-filled ship into a brisk showcase for messy tabletop chemistry. Brew wakes into the panic, Glorp tries to see whether a cantrip can simply switch the robot off, and March drops prone for cover as alarms and laser fire…
A dinner with Old Vic turns spaceship favors into the night's most personal negotiation.
A dinner date with death plays like a favor negotiation wrapped in table talk, with Claude Montrose seated beside Victor Black, also known as Old Vic, the current face of death.
Four McElroys narrate a wizard battle-royale tournament across elimination trials on Octave Ziggurat.
A continuous Fabula Ultima actual-play campaign following one party through the world of Perpetua.
An ensemble cast plays teen superheroes through Masks: A New Generation campaigns and guest one-shots.
A recurring cast plays full Pathfinder 2E, Shadowdark, and Pendragon campaigns session by session.
A Dungeon World actual-play campaign following three comedians battling villain Callum Blackhammer.
The Hapless Heroes continue their dinner with Death, personified as Victor Black, and his associate Claude Montrose.
The host introduces the cast of a D&D actual play podcast and sets up a recap of recent events on a space riverboat.
The hapless heroes podcast continues with a Dungeons & Dragons session where the party faces a wyvern and comedic chaos.
The Hapless Heroes continue their fight against killer robots in a shuttle hangar, with Brew waking up mid-combat.
Hapless Heroes S2E120 follows the crew on the last stretch toward Concordia and Verdara, with four goblini babies now aboard the ship and less than two weeks left in transit.
Francesco leads Hapless Heroes S2E119, "The Secretary," as Dave, Mike, Nicole, Sebastian, and Louis sneak into an Intergalactic Arcane Initiative launch facility on Concordia.
Hapless Heroes S2E118, 'Break Out to Break In,' opens on a desert van chase after the Arcadia Heights breakout.
The Hapless Heroes podcast introduces its cast and the premise of building a space car.
The Hapless Heroes podcast continues a role-playing game session where the characters deal with family matters after an intense encounter with the Seeker.
The Hapless Heroes podcast episode begins with character introductions and a humorous discussion about robots.
In this episode of Hapless Heroes, the six-player actual-play RPG party departs the flotilla for a four-week journey home through the astral sea, carrying secrets about a quantum phylactery and their home planet Concordia.
In Hapless Heroes S2E113, the party makes a pit stop at the flotilla before heading home to Concordia Prime, collecting their belongings from their home on the raft and receiving a briefing from intelligence contact Proxy Keen.
The Hapless Heroes begin a new Dungeons & Dragons session with a comedic intro and a uniquely shaped table.
The Hapless Heroes podcast continues a dinner date with death and a demigod, introducing characters and setting up the evening's adventure.