In a 2019 interview, Brennan Lee Mulligan said “humanoid villains are the best” because they “force players to confront their own humanity”. I intend to explore this idea in my SAT, creating a Dungeons and Dragons actual play set in a post apocalyptic world, using allegory and fantasy to convey an environmentalist and hopeful message. By translating the form of live action roleplay to the genre of post-apocalypse, I plan to contrast the traditional trope of monster-slaying heroic fantasy with the murkier, morally grey idea of humans as the real monsters found in post apocalypse. The narrative of my production will follow a group of heroes as they explore a forgotten library deep in the wastes, learning the truth of how the world was burned while battling the guardians of the dungeon and keeping its secrets out of the hands of the villainous gangs of the wasteland.
On the technical side, my production will be recorded in a long session with 3 players, the audio of the adventure being recorded onto a RODECASTER through 4 PodMics. The long session will then be edited down into 3 30-minute episodes with the software Reaper with “to be continued” breaks to maintain suspense, cutting dead air, unimportant rules talk, and combat rounds that go for too long. The form of Dungeons and Dragons actual play will give my production a sense of spontaneity and stakes, as anything truly could happen to my player characters, as well as allowing me to depict things at a scale that would not be achievable if I was creating within a visual medium. This will engage fans of both actual play and post-apocalyptic media, as the feeling of subversion and possibility will keep them guessing,
I will employ environmental storytelling, immersive sound design, and believable, well characterised villains to convey a sense of brutality in both the setting and the characters who inhabit it for my players to overcome, while exploring the theme of what people are capable of when pushed to their absolute limit. Both actual play and post apocalypse can be used to discuss the effects environments have on people, which is a key theme of my production that I will explore through the use of the traditional convention of the dungeon delve. I want my audience to listen to my work and feel empowered and excited.