Dice, spores and saucy kitchen talk around a D&D table.
Idle Fantasy is a Dungeons & Dragons actual-play in which DM Laurie Havelock guides Liam Welton, Paddy Gervers and Zac Cole through multi-part stories such as 'The Fate of the Five'. Rules get checked out loud, food jokes often open episodes, and a mushroom colony can turn eerie within a single description.
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Idle Fantasy is a Dungeons & Dragons actual-play with Laurie Havelock as DM and Liam Welton, Paddy Gervers and Zac Cole playing through the campaign. Its adventures come in numbered parts, under titles like 'Idle Fantasy Ep 19: The Wishbone Wager, Part 5' and 'Idle Fantasy Ep 56: The Fate of the Five, Part 5'. That shape rewards starting at the top of an arc. Introductions are not a habit here, and one opener jokes that anyone who still needs the cast named should go back to earlier episodes. The fiction can get strange fast. A stretch of 'The Fate of the Five' plays out among eyeless mushroom creatures and writhing mycelium, and one description settles on a long-limbed fungal figure hunched over a machine that is slowly printing a pair of elderly, humanoid legs out of mushroom pieces. The DM reaches for Han Solo and the carbonite to help the table picture it. An insight check follows almost at once. Mechanics are worked out in the open. Damage totals are added up aloud, a divine smite gets rolled in after the fact, and the wizard at the table shrugs off a question about how many attacks another character gets. Between the rolls sits the other half of the show. Story episodes often start with a mock-saucy kitchen line before the show's name, from 'hydrate my porcini' to 'open my guac and dip my chip', and the group promptly picks it apart, down to whether porcini can be rehydrated in the jar and whether the guacamole was shop-bought. One such opener sets off a guessing game about its literary inspiration, and Wind in the Willows is ventured and ruled out. Familiars get their own comedy: one whose form nobody can quite recall, another given a home in the folds of someone's armour, perhaps the armpit. Teddy's account of some half-remembered circuitry is likened to 'listening to your grandmother explain a computer'. A line about loose lips sinking ships gets bent into 'loose spores start wars', and the table agrees to sign off on it. Self-mockery comes easily too, since these are, as one of them puts it, the people who sank a boat. 'Idle Fantasy Ep 19: The Wishbone Wager, Part 5' opens on a 'Last time on Idle Fantasy' recap, and its factory scene hinges on a plan that amounts to going to the control box and touching everything, which releases a torrent of water and a sound that, to Glitch, suggests a banshee. The bonus 'Idle Fantasy: Bonus Episode 8 – Smoke Break' steps away from the dice, settling early that it has no host before one of the group compares their tabletop characters with the elf rogue they played in World of Warcraft and the sneaky archer they tended to play in Skyrim. Expect salty language and a steady run of innuendo.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants D&D with the table left audible, from dice sums and half-remembered rules to running food gags, wrapped around a campaign that can turn properly creepy. It is best approached from the start of an arc, since the cast rarely reintroduces itself.
What sets it apart: The comedy comes from the table as much as the tale: mock-saucy kitchen openers, familiars nobody can describe and rules checked mid-fight sit beside unsettling images like a machine printing legs out of mushroom.
Welcome to the thrilling, sexy and episodic Idle Fantasy Podcast - a loosely actual-play Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition podcast. Meet Laurie Havelock (DM), Paddy Gervers (of Jonny & the Baptists fame and the group's wild card), Liam Welton (the most capable of the troupe) and Zac Cole (the novice happy to be involved) as they weave a wonderful, fantastical, tapestry of words; beginning with wildly lofty ambitions only to have those ambitions immediately checked by reality.Listen to Idle Fantasy every #FantasyFreakyFriday on iTunes or any good podcasting place. You can follow us on Instagram @idlefantasypod or email us at [email protected].
An astral-plane cloak sat unused through a puzzle; you get to enjoy the group's gloriously sideways solution.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A relaxed bonus episode about setup troubles, format choices, gaming habits, patron thanks, and a closing riff on rights and Mickey Mouse.
This bonus episode makes the recording room part of the show, beginning with metronome trouble and a small question over whether a host is needed at all.
A mushroom-colony reconstitution turns from odd machinery to one perfect warning about loose spores.
Idle Fancy moves into a stranger, less cosy pocket of the mushroom colony, where Cordy offers privacy by way of spores and Edna tends an apparatus slowly rebuilding one of the colony's friends.
A micanid welcome, an armpit familiar, and a missed astral-plane trick give this fantasy detour its unruly charm.
This fantasy episode sends the adventuring trio toward micanids, a puzzle, and the still-unresolved matter of Joe Tiden, the familiar apparently living in an armpit.
A spore-choked fight where smites, mushroom errands, and literary detours all land in the same messy turn.
A mushroom-filled lair gives this fantasy fight a loose, funny shape without letting the danger disappear. Teddy tries to draw a clear line between his attack and everyone else, urges Vodick to get outside with Glitch and load up on mushrooms, and Attic answers by bringing…
A mushroom-covered tea guest turns an Underdark rescue plan into a chaotic cliffhanger.
Idle Fancy sends its rescue thread sideways in the best way, using John L's possible location in the Underdark as the practical hook before letting the table roam through the stranger edges of the setting.
Grim fantasy at mud level.
Fantasy rereads with jokes sharpened into arguments.
Liam and Paddy discuss whether the show has a host and practice a Coco Pops jingle during a recording session.
The hosts engage in a playful, sensual conversation about dried porcini mushrooms and their preferences for massage and humiliation.
The hosts of Idle Fantasy engage in a meandering, humorous discussion about their names, accents, and shared history.
["Idle Fantasy Episode 54 opens with Roald Dahl wordplay around \u201cpoach my pheasant\u201d and \u201ctickle my trout,\u201d then lands on Danny the Champion of the World.", "The cast pivots into Winter Olympics stories about a Norwegian biathlete who won gold and admitted an affair, plus a Ukrainian helmet ban from the IOC.", "The recap names Hess as an undercover cop tied to the \u201cbanishes of stolen consciousness,\u201d with Jarnell missing and Vandra, Bardolph, and the Duke under suspicion near Vey Round.", "The party reaches Kanza\u2019s stump outside town, steals mushrooms, and triggers an initiative fight that turns on Tasha\u2019s caustic brew, Blight, and mushroom-vine grapples."]
The hosts of the Idle Fantasy podcast engage in a chaotic and humorous discussion about guacamole, chips, and a delayed co-host.
The Wishbone Boys reach the end of a rough sea crossing after weeks on a raft with Taron’s former crew and Leopold.
The Idle Fantasy group resumes its Dungeons & Dragons story four days after a battle that left Draka dead and the salt flats cracked.
Idle Fantasy’s “The Whispering Wake, Part 11” pairs hosts Zach and Laurie for a tabletop role-playing session about Draka’s encounter with Bardolf in the astral plane.
In this episode of Idle Fantasy, the characters explore an industrial building, interact with a control box that releases water and lights, and encounter a banshee-like creature.
Zach Cole and Laurie Havelock discuss new player tips for Dungeons & Dragons in a bonus episode of the Idle Fantasy podcast.
In this episode of Idle Fantasy, the adventurers encounter four skeletons who ask for their help finding their missing master, the stonemason.
A D&D actual play podcast where the party explores a mysterious tower, discovers suspended dwarves, and encounters a threat, ending with an initiative roll.
In this episode of Idle Fantasy, the adventurers continue their quest to bollocks deep, encountering a gnome with a magical box and making a wager with a rival group called the Four Coins.