Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast, later a subsidiary of Hasbro, since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, and also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre.
Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and had approximately fifty million players as of February 2023. Over twenty billion Magic cards were produced in the period from 2008 to 2016, during which time it grew in popularity. As of the 2022 fiscal year, Magic generates over $1 billion in revenue annually.
D&D Insider (DDI) was Wizards of the Coast's subscription method of digitally delivering periodic content, information, and online tools for the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons to the game's players from 2008 to 2014. The service officially shut down in 2020.
Critical Role is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after 115 episodes, and campaign two started in January 2018 and ended in June 2021 after 141 episodes. A number of one-shots were aired in the hiatus between the two campaigns. After campaign two was completed, the spin-off limited series Exandria Unlimited aired from June 2021 to August 2021. The third campaign premiered on October 21, 2021.
D&D Beyond (DDB) is the official digital toolset and game companion for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. DDB hosts online versions of the official Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition books, including rulebooks, adventures, and other supplements; it also provides digital tools like a character builder and digital character sheet, monster and spell listings that can be sorted and filtered, an encounter builder, and an interactive overlay Twitch Extension. In addition to the official D&D content available to purchase, it also provides the ability to create and add custom homebrew content.
Rivals of Waterdeep is an American actual play web series, with a podcast adaptation, where the cast plays Dungeons & Dragons using the fifth edition ruleset. It is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and the show's Dungeon Master changes each season. The show premiered in June 2018; the show's thirteenth season ended in August 2022. It is one of the longest running official Dungeons & Dragons web series.
Critical Role Productions, LLC is a multimedia production company incorporated in 2015 by the members of the creator-owned streaming show Critical Role. The first two shows from the company, Critical Role and Talks Machina, originally premiered on Geek & Sundry. The company moved to their own studio space in 2018, and began putting out new shows on their own Twitch and YouTube channels. A split from Legendary Digital Networks was completed in early 2019, at which point Critical Role Productions took over production responsibility and since then has continued to launch new shows independently.
Russ Morrissey, also known as Morrus is a British reporter, game designer, podcaster, author and owner of EN World. Morrissey founded the ENnie Awards in 2001, which he ran until 2018. He also founded the book publisher EN Publishing, and the tabletop gaming news website EN World, both of which he runs currently.
Dimension 20 is a tabletop role-playing game show produced by and broadcast on Dropout, and generally hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show's regular Dungeon Master. Most of the games use Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. Long seasons, featuring a core cast of players in seventeen or more episodes, are interspersed with shorter side quests, featuring a rotating cast in ten or fewer episodes.
Brennan Lee Mulligan is an American comedian, actor, writer, and gamemaster. He has worked with CollegeHumor as a sketch writer and performer, and as gamemaster for their actual play web series, Dimension 20 (2018–present). He also wrote the superhero webcomic Strong Female Protagonist alongside artist Molly Ostertag, on hiatus since 2018.
Erika Ishii is an American voice actor and host. They are best known as the voice of video game characters such as Valkyrie in Apex Legends, and for their appearances in actual play web series including L.A. by Night and Dimension 20.
Actual play, also called live play, is a genre of podcast or web show in which people play tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) for an audience. Actual play often encompasses in-character interactions between players, storytelling from the gamemaster, and out-of-character engagements such as dice rolls and discussion of game mechanics. The genre emerged in the early 2000s and became more popular throughout the decade, particularly with the 2015 debut of Critical Role, an actual play webseries featuring professional voice actors.
Exandria Unlimited (ExU) is an American actual play anthology web series where the cast plays Dungeons & Dragons using the fifth edition ruleset. It is set in the Exandria campaign setting and is a spin-off of the web series Critical Role.
Friends at the Table is an actual play podcast hosted by Austin Walker. The podcast has been active since September 2014, and episodes are released weekly. The collaboration between the gamemaster and the players is a major component of the show, in contrast to many tabletop role-playing games where the gamemaster has total control over worldbuilding.
Lou Wilson is an American actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known for his work as a writer and his roles on actual play anthology web series Dimension 20 and the creator-owned podcast Worlds Beyond Number. He is also known for being the on-air announcer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! and his roles on American Vandal, The King of Staten Island, and The Guest Book.
Aabria Iyengar is an American web series actress known primarily for tabletop role-playing game anthologies, streams and podcasts. She was the Dungeon Master (DM) for the first season of Exandria Unlimited. Iyengar has been both a player and a Game Master for multiple seasons of Dimension 20 and a guest DM on The Adventure Zone.
One Shot Podcast Network is a network of podcast series about tabletop role-playing games, with many shows dedicated to actual play, interviews, and discussion. It was founded by James D'Amato to showcase a wide variety of games and systems, including indie role-playing games, as an alternative to actual play shows that focus exclusively on Dungeons & Dragons.
Candela Obscura is the name of both an American actual play web series and a tabletop role-playing game system.
Grant Howitt is a tabletop role-playing game designer, publisher, and journalist. He won six ENNIE Awards for his game Heart: The City Beneath. His game Honey Heist, which inspired an online trend of self-published games with one-page rulesets, has been featured on Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, and Friends at the Table. Through his publishing company Rowan, Rook and Decard, Howitt is a co-designer on Kieron Gillen's DIE: The Roleplaying Game.
Misfits and Magic is the tenth season of Dimension 20, an actual play tabletop role-playing game show. It was aired from June 30, 2021 to July 21, 2021 on Dropout with two specials released in December 2021 and August 2022. Inspired by Harry Potter, the show features Aabria Iyengar as the game master and Erika Ishii, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Danielle Radford, and Lou Wilson as Americans who are invited to a Hogwarts-like school to study magic. However, the show also deviates from and criticizes the source material for perceived bigotry, making modifications to some aspects of the material and highlighting the absurdity in other aspects. In addition, Misfits and Magic sought to rebut Harry Potter's lack of diversity in its central casting, making its own cast and characters majority-black. The season was reviewed favorably.
