All hope seemed to be lost when the zombie cowboy faced off against the putrid walrus in the final boss battle of “Dungeons & Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern,” which opens at Stage 42 on May 5 in New York City.
The cowboy, played by actor Madelyn Murphy, only had one health point left — the result of some unlucky dice rolls and a run-in with a group of dagger-wielding thieves in the first act. Just when it seemed like the walrus would land a fatal blow, the packed audience of Dungeons & Dragons fans roared from their seats for Murphy to use her final dice re-roll (each cast member is allotted one re-roll per show to try to reverse their fortunes). Murphy tossed a comically large 20-sided die, survived by the skin of her teeth by rolling a 16 and vanquished the final boss to a cacophony of “Huzzahs!” from the crowd.
The nail-biting ending seemed so thrilling that it must have been scripted, right?
Well, no, just like an actual game of Dungeons & Dragons, the creators of “The Twenty-Sided Tavern” never know how a show will turn out, but they have contingencies for every possible twist, turn and dice roll. If Murphy had rolled a lower number, her undead cowboy may have returned to the afterlife once again. The onstage Dungeon Master, played by co-creator David Andrew Greener Laws, would have enacted “ghost rules” for Murphy to spectrally remain in the show while her two companions, a barbarian played by Tyler Nowell Felix and a trickster played by Diego Salinas, finished their adventure.
David Carpenter, Sarah Davis Reynolds and Laws, who goes by DAGL, first began working together on an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure show with Dungeons & Dragons elements during the pandemic. Carpenter is a Broadway producer and the creator of Gamiotics, a web-based software that he used to enhance Zoom performances during lockdown with viewer voting, tapping mini-games and interactive puzzles. Reynolds is the game designer and oversees production of “Twenty-Sided Tavern,” plus she appears as the all-knowing Tavern Keeper onstage. Next to her is DAGL, who narrates the performance, dons wigs to play the supporting characters and wrangles audience suggestions for names that can range from Alfonso the wizard to James Garbunk the bartender to the evil Sweaty Pete.
Using Gamiotics on their phones, audience members can vote on major story decisions, solve riddles and tailor the show to how they want so that no two performances are ever the same. When the show starts, Murphy, Felix and Salinas can portray three distinct characters that range from a frat-bro barbarian to a fake wizard pretending to have magical abilities to a party-loving grandma and many more. The actors won’t know who they’re playing until the audience decides. When they arrive, attendees also write down a one-word suggestion on a piece of paper that will be used later in the show — which is how the three adventurers ended up fighting a “putrid, mysterious walrus.”
Behind a control panel disguised as a bar, Reynolds and DAGL keep track of a dizzying amount of story branches, sound cues, script pages and dice rolls on computer monitors. They estimate there are some 300,000 story combinations — and there could someday be more.
“Creatively we want it to be at a place where we have eight different possible campaigns,” Reynolds says. “And every show the audience comes and during the pre-show the choices they’re making determine which campaign we’re going to run.”
There may be dice-rolling and vote tallying, but “Twenty-Sided Tavern” isn’t all about math; there’s also drinking. Whenever an actor rolls a 20 or a 1 on the dice (a critical success or failure) they’re either rewarded or punished with a shot ranging from tequila to Fireball whiskey to Malört. Audience members are encouraged to imbibe if they choose, and they can even opt-in to come on stage to join a scene or play a game like “Uh-Oh, Block Fall Down” — which you may know better by its trademarked name, Jenga. Fans are kept invested in the wacky fantasy story, as the creators plan for at least one interactive moment for roughly every three pages of the script.
After a successful run in Chicago, “The Twenty-Sided Tavern” is ready to graduate to New York’s Off-Broadway, and now it’s officially licensed by Hasbro and Dungeons & Dragons. Before the team couldn’t use trademarked D&D locations, like the Forgotten Realms, or creatures, like the psychic mind flayers or one-eyed beholders, but now everything is fair game. With the popularity of D&D growing thanks to groups like Critical Role or last year’s “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” movie, “The Twenty-Sided Tavern” now has the stamp of approval and support to expand its reach.
“When we had the partnership and we knew that we were going to re-announce as ‘Dungeons & Dragons Twenty-Sided Tavern,’ we went, ‘How’s this going to hit? Will people be interested? Will they be supportive? Will they be as excited as we are?’” DAGL says. “The answer has been a resounding yes.”
Off-Broadway may not be the only realm you can catch the “Twenty-Sided Tavern,” as the team is hoping to tour around the country and go international.
“Hopefully we park here for a long time. We love this theater; this is not a limited run, this is open-ended. So it will stay here as long as we sell tickets and and we continue to grow,” Carpenter says. “We are in plans right now for a U.S. tour, but we don’t have a specific launch date on when that’s gonna go out. Early 2025 is what it’s looking like right now. There are absolutely plans for London, and then some other international stuff is starting to crop up right now.”
So grab your D&D dice, a magic wand and your tickets to “Twenty-Sided Tavern” here.
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