Rivals of Waterdeep is Back for Season 10!
Oh, hey, Rivals of Waterdeep is back! For Season 10! And Episode 100 this season! HYPE!
For anyone who doesn’t know… wait, who doesn’t know? Rivals of Waterdeep is a long-running Dungeons & Dragons live play show featuring a 100% PoC cast. And last season, I was invited to be a cast member!
I’d sat in with the cast once before for a Star Trek one-shot for Roll20Con which was delightful and chaotic and absolutely nothing like a Star Trek episode should be… so of course it was glorious. Starfleet regulations were both cited and broken, there was an excess of weapons, I played a Betazed which the audience thought was a Vulcan simply because I played it level-headed. Good times!
After we were done, I said that I would happily play with the Rivals of Waterdeep again, and I really meant it. I honestly, didn’t think that would come in the form of an invitation to join the show!
Between you and me, whenever anyone asks if I’m interested in being a part of something, my first impulse is to say, “Are you sure you have the right person?” I actually said, thinking of both their and my location & schedule, that they should consider other cast members who are local to Chicago (since filming the show in-person was a pre-pandemic activity). But when the ask came again, I said yes.
I mean, what else am I gonna do on Sundays right now? Go to brunch? In a pandemic? Nah.
And as I said earlier when talking about Dungeon Crossing, it’s been a while since I’ve played D&D consistently, but this cast, this table, it has been a very welcoming and fun experience. In Season 9 we visited Candlekeep, my and Eugenio’s characters were introduced and thrown right into the thick of it with a plot that even I wasn’t sure we were going to get out of, but as in the best of stories, all was well that ended well.
I’m starting to get the hang of this D&D thing!
I admit that I’m not the most knowledgeable D&D player. I’m much more of an improv player with a good understanding of the world and mechanics. But what I enjoy most about Rivals of Waterdeep is that the DM and players are okay with that. I can ask questions, I can get clarifications, I am not made to feel like I can’t sit at a table because I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of a game that’s over 40 years old.
I get to make a cool character concept, play him and no one tells me it’s silly or ridiculous or won’t work. I get to hang out every Sunday with some of my favorite people and craft a wonderful story. And I hope that people see shows like ours and realize that there will always be a table where they’re welcome. They can try new and different things, and not feel like any grumpy old gatekeepers of the hobby should keep them from having fun with it.
Because personally? I’m having a blast. 💖
Come join in the fun, watch Rivals of Waterdeep, Sundays from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Eastern at twitch.tv/rivalsofwaterdeep!
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[…] anyone who doesn’t know by now, regardless of my many posts, tweets and mentions on-stream, I’m part of the cast of Rivals of Waterdeep, a long-running […]