Tabletop Games part 2: how they became digital entertainment

Nowadays its hard to talk about tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons without talking about the concept of "actual plays" (or live plays) in the same breath. First popularised by Critical Role which began in 2015, actual plays have since grown to be one of the most popular forms of tabletop content online. The progression of actual plays is something I find fascinating, as tabletop games are inherently personal affair and are also typically boring as sin to watch as an outside observer. Turns in combat tend to be slow and especially since most tabletop players aren't actors, role-play heavy scenes can also be boring to watch. But that is where actual plays can be different to a home game, these people are in fact actors.

Critical Role features a cast of voice actors and voice directors all several years into their careers. They began livestreaming the home game that they had been playing for about 2 years before so were all intimately familiar with their characters at this point. The show is nothing but them playing DnD but due to the nature of DnD being a storytelling medium combined with their natual aptitude as actors and improvisors, it ends up being an entertaining, albeit long, watch. The show for many acted as a way of experiencing DnD without needing to commit to either running or playing in a game themselves, which can be hard due to the scheduling requirements. However, soon after Critical Role came other shows.

Dimension 20, streamed on Dropout, took a different approach in terms of presentation. Rather than Critical Role's 3-hour or longer episodes of nothing but DnD being played, Dimension 20 took a more streamlined approach. It trims a lot of the between-turn action and book reading and also incorporates more editing in the form of music, character art for introductions and close-up shots of miniatures on the battle maps. Episodes are also shorter, typically being 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours at most, with the only exceptions being the season finales. It's season structure is also different. Critical Role at the time of writing has 3 seasons each of which are massive 100+ episode campaigns. Dimension 20 takes a more anthological approach, with most seasons being roughly 6-20 episode self-contained stories with massively different genres and settings.

I find it incredibly interesting how there are 2 massively popular shows about nothing but playing DnD and they are so different. They also act as a way of modernising the hobby in a way, by having them streamed on YouTube and Dropout they reach a wide audience that may have never attempted the tabletop hobby. These two shows have other social media on platforms like TikTok where they share short comedic and emotional beats from the shows and those alone act as a way of bringing tabletop gaming to a modern audience. Someone may randomly get a funny clip of someone rolling a dice really well or really poorly on their feed and think to themselves "that looks like fun, I wonder if my friends want to try that". In talking about actual play content, French says:

"Actual play media circumvents D&D’s insulated or exclusionary aspects, skewing away from “basement dwelling nerds” in favor of a networked, global fandom. Live streaming is now a means of introducing individuals to the game, bringing it into the mainstream at a time when other geek pursuits have also achieved wider visibility and popularity"

French (2023)

These shows create online fandoms not only for themselves but for tabletop games in general. There is a popular term called the "Matt Mercer effect", named after Critical Role's regular dungeon master, where due to the sheer popularity of actual play shows like it, the general consencus of what DnD is about shifted. More and more people nowadays are intersted in the storytelling and role-play heavy side of DnD as compared to the dungeon-crawling combat-heavy side. While this has brought on some level of elitism with players expecting their dungeon masters to be at the same level of acting and management skill as Matt Mercer, it has largely been a positive effect with many more players striving to be confident actors and role-players like those seen on Dimension 20 and Critical Role.

By just having a bunch of voice actors playing DnD together, actual plays have managed to not only digitise tabletop games as an entertainment form, but also bring together a strong fandom on their own merits. They are a testament to the strength of fandom and how wide of a reach these kinds of platforms can have and also act as an inspiration to people like me when we write our own adventures for our friends.

Bibliography:

French, E. (2023) '"We Play Dungeons & Dragons!": How Actual Play Live Streams Have (Re)shaped the D&D Gaming community', in J. Brewer, B. Ruberg, A.L.L. Cullen and C.J. Persaud (eds) Real Life in Real Time: Live Streaming Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p.213

Critical Role (2015) Critical Role Productions, Available at: YouTube (accessed: 15/04/2025).

Dimension 20 (2018) Dropout, Available at: Dropout (accessed: 15/04/2025).