Games

The 50th-anniversary D&D actual play at Gen Con is now on YouTube

BBG News

As a seasoned tabletop role-playing enthusiast who’s been spinning dice since the days of yore, I can confidently say that the D&D Live presentation at Gen Con this year was a spectacle to behold! With its roots deeply entwined in the very soil of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin – the cradle of Dungeons & Dragons itself – it was a veritable homecoming for fans like me.

As a devoted fan, I must say this year’s Gen Con was brimming with excitement for Wizards of the Coast, the colossal name in table-top role-playing games, especially at the grandest table-top convention named after Lake Geneva, Wisconsin – the birthplace of D&D. But what truly caught my attention was the D&D Live presentation, where Wizards unveiled their latest endeavor: a virtual tabletop they’ve been secretly working on, code-named Project Sigil.

In the style of a live-action gameplay, the duration was initially planned to be just two hours, but given the captivating performance by the celebrated cast, it extended beyond that time. The event featured Aabria Iyengar in the role of Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan portraying a Dwarven cleric, Samantha Béart reprising her character Karlach from Baldur’s Gate 3, Neil Newbon as Astarion, and Anjali Bhimani as a human wizard.

In a nutshell, Charlie Hall, an editor at TopMob, personally attended the event and noted that the actors seemed to relish their roles excessively during the initial half, thereby reducing the time for the crew to experiment with Project Sigil. He described the demonstration of Project Sigil as somewhat choppy, yet it was generally appreciated – a minor hiccup isn’t surprising given the project hasn’t even entered its closed beta phase yet. (Wizards are still welcoming applications for the closed beta, which is expected to launch in fall 2024.)

Fortunately for us, the entire game called “An Astarion and Karlach Adventure: Love is a Legendary Action,” which was played by Gen Con and affectionately named so, has been recorded and can now be watched on YouTube in its humorous entirety. As Hall suggests, the playthrough is definitely worth watching.

Hall remarked, “In essence, there’s a significant unveiling in the latter part that offers ample scope for your preferred actual play actors to delve into… the original content.”

In their ongoing series titled “The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One“, you can either watch or listen to Lee Mulligan and Iyengar. Meanwhile, Bhimani is set to join Jon Hamm’s D&D-inspired thriller podcast, which revolves around the notorious Satanic Panic era.

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2024-08-06 01:18

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