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What does the next phase of TTRPG live play look like? It's a question that I know I'm not the only one in wondering - here we have a medium that is both skyrocketing in popularity thanks to things like Critical Role and Dimension 20, but also is very much in its infancy. Earlier this year, you may recall that I asked D&D YouTubers The Dungeon Dudes what they thought on the subject, and at PAX Unplugged '25, I was lucky enough to chat with someone else who knows the medium in and out.

That is, DesiQuest, Dimension 20, and Tales from Woodcreek star Anjali Bhimani. 

"II think we're already seeing it," Bhimani said of live play's future, "Because for the longest time - and by the longest time, I mean, in that 10-15 years since Acquisitions Incorporated started it - it was the basic actual play, the basic thing. But now, we've seen that. And Deb [Deborah Ann Woll, Daredevil star and Tales from Woodcreek GM] says this all the time: nobody needs another Critical Role. Nobody needs another Dimension 20. Everybody wants to see something new and different and unique to the people who are creating it."

Bhimani makes a fantastic point. Her show, Tales from Woodcreek, combines live play (or actual play, depending on who you ask) with escape room-like puzzles, packaged in a reality-show style confessional TV series. As of this writing, the first episode has reached nearly 160K views.

"So I think the evolution is," Bhimani continued, 'What more can we do? How more can we integrate different media with it? How more can we make it more immersive or more connected or experiential? [...] I think it's people being like, 'What more can we do that isn't trying to be anything else?' And I think, honestly, that is one of the challenges of every artist."

"When you first start out," continued the Miss Marvel and Overwatch 2 star, "You're watching those who are successful while you are learning your craft. You are seeing what they are doing, and they give you a chance to aspire to something like what they are doing. But ideally speaking, what you learned from them, you put into the unique milkshake of you. It's an ingredient. It's not a road map. You know, if you're trying to follow someone else's path, you're you're going to be a lesser version of them rather than the best version of you."

Bhimani told me that, even though shows like Critical Role and Dimesnion 20 are "proof that there is an audience out there," they can't be the only thing new folks entering the live play space are attempting to do. And perhaps even more importantly, what new live players can't make their sole focus is commerical success that those shows have seen. "What excites you can't just be," she said, "'I want to have millions of followers.' Because that will die quickly. That joy goes away, and it becomes... It becomes a law diminishing returns."

Bhimani admitted, though, that pursing that new territory can be frightening. 

"It's so much scarier than just looking at someone else," she told me, "And being like, 'I want what he's having. I want what she's having.' It's so much scarier because it's the unknown. But that's part of our job as artists, is to... to live in terror. [Laughs] No, part of our job, as artists, is to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And that that sweet spot, where we're creating something brand new and we have no idea whether people are going to like it or not, that's the spot that you have to at least live in some of the time. Otherwise, you don't get the reward of watching people being changed by it.

Tales from Woodcreek is streaming on The Dungeon Dudes' YouTube channel now.

Click here for proof Anjali Bhimani loves Overwatch 2 fanart just as much as you do.