No Audio Dramas for me this week. Instead, a friend got me hooked on a D&D live-play podcast called The Adventure Zone. I vaguely remember the show having ads at the end of Mission to Zyxx but never took a chance to listen to it because live-play podcasts are daunting to start.

D&D shows are the MMOs of podcasts. They’re large, usually with hundreds or episodes if they’ve been running for a while. They’re also quite a time investment with episodes running an hour or more. I tend to balk at any type of show that have episodes longer than 45 minutes. If you’re not caught up already it’s going to take a long time to do so.

The exception to this is Fool & Scholar’s Dark Dice where a lot of the downtime, table talk, and combat rolls are cut and described by the DM or players in post production. Episodes for this show tend to run under 30 minutes. They add sound effects too which makes this show feel like more of an audio drama which is what Fool & Scholar typically produces.

The Adventure Zone is different from other your typical D&D show. For one, none of the cast are experiences D&D players. I find this extremely relatable. Their first campaign is running in a similar vain to one of my friend group’s campaigns. In the past, I’ve played D&D with a group of people who have a massive amount of knowledge about the game and were very min/max focused but I much preferred the fun that comes with my current group that plays less seriously.

The couple other D&D shows I’ve listened too also have a bunch of voice actors playing characters. Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy host another podcast called My Brother, My Brother, and Me, which I’ve never listened to but have heard many a MaximumFun ad for…they’re podcasters rather than voice actors so it feels like more of a group of people hanging out rather than a stage production. Their dad, Clint, who has no previous D&D experience, also plays with them in and I find the table interactions between all of them to be one of the best parts of the show.

I’m really enjoying it but it is consuming all of my podcast time right now. This style of podcast seems to be easier to listen to while I’m working so I’m getting more time than usual to listen. I’m going to need it, the first campaign alone is 68 episodes and there’s three campaigns in total!