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The age of TTRPG actual play is upon us. Critical Role and Dimension 20 are serving up some of the most popular stories in fantasy today, and they're doing it with only the power of their imaginations, a couple of cameras, and a table setup. But that doesn't mean that the world of actual play doesn't have room to grow. Case in point, Tales from Woodcreek, an actual play web series that blends the format with escape room-like puzzles and a reality TV series-esque atmosphere. And what's even cooler than that; it all comes from the mind of one of D&D's most popular pop culture champions: Daredevil: Born Again star Deborah Ann Woll.

Popverse recently sat down with some of the players in Woll's game of terror and trickery, Kelly McLaughlin and Monty Martin - or as you may know them, The Dungeon Dudes. In case you don't know, McLaughlin and Martin's YouTube channel is one of the most watched in the Dungeons & Dragons community, but for their upcoming, immersive folk horror story, they're giving all the credit to Woll. 

"She was the DM of this whole project," explains McLaughlin, "And she had the conceptual idea for it as well. She's a big puzzle fan and immersion, so those are the two things that she wanted to lead with. When she presented the idea to us, we were confused, like, 'What are we going to be doing?' She was like, 'Yeah, we're going to be playing D&D, but you're going to be getting up and interacting with parts of the world like it's an escape room, and we're going to film it like it's a reality TV show.' Monty and I said yes, because we love and trust Deb, and we were like, 'This sounds cool,' but we didn't really understand how it works. When we arrived on set, though, it was magical."

"What audiences can expect," expands Martin, "Is a bit of a synthesis of D&D actual play mixed with escape room, filmed in the style of reality TV. A lot of actual play is traditionally filmed with very fixed cameras. Players just sit around a table and that's it. But for this project, we had wireless mic packs that we were mic’d up with. Camera crews were on their feet, running around and chasing after us. And while there are times where we are sitting around a table and rolling dice and while playing characters - that does happen - there are other times where we are on our feet solving puzzles, wandering through these really fantastic environments."

Solving on-your-feet puzzles in a built-out setting and participating in one-on-one interviews feels a lot more like Squid Game: The Challenge or even Popverse favorite The Traitors than is does traditional TTRPG liveplay, and according to veteran liveplayers McLaughlin and Martin, the final product was indeed something a lot closer to one of those shows than what fans would usually find on their channels. And even more than that, says the Dudes, Woll's invention allowed them to explore an era of liveplay that they don't get to explore in their typical character-driven adventures: themselves.

"[Woll] kept saying, 'I want the audience to know you as much as they know your character,'" recounted McLaughlin, "So although we were playing characters, we were fully immersed. If you watch the trailer, there's a full-on jumpscare that I’m reacting to. There's a little clip of me with a lantern going down a hallway, and somebody just banged on the wall. I was trying to be in character in that moment, but then the moment the bang on the wall happens, I lost my character completely because I was too busy being so scared of everything. To me, that was part of the fun of the show. Yes, we're bringing characters to the table, but it's also about the Dungeon Dudes being brought into an improv, haunted house, escape room, D&D set that we’re dealing with."

Tales from Woodcreek debuts on the Dungeon Dudes' YouTube channel October 31. 

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