Fantasy table-top roleplaying is a big thing at the moment, and it feels like half of the people who perform for a living also roll dice and fight orcs. Who would have thought that a game that requires a level of improvisational skill and imagination would appeal to comedians and actors?
The Twenty-Sided Tavern comprises of Gamesmaster David Andrew Greener Laws aka DAGL and Tavern Keeper Sarah Davis Reynolds. Sarah runs the more technical side of things (and co-runs the game) and DAGL is the primary story-teller. The game is something that would be familiar to anyone who’s ever played Dungeons and Dragons, though they never directly call it that.
Of course you can’t have an adventure without adventurers, and we get three skilled comedian who will adopt roles chosen by the audience for the adventure. This is done in a fairly novel way.
The show uses a thing called Gamiotics to allow the audience to interact with the show; you’ll need to scan a QR code with your phone. The audience are divided into three separate groups, one for each of the players, and then you get to make choices for that player throughout the show. Everything from what sort of character they get to play to how they should respond to certain things. The audience can also aid their champion through a series of interactive votes and pop-quizzes.
This lends a nice bit of variation to the show and the crew on stage obviously get a lot out of this interaction. It also does tend to slow down the action a bit. The adventurers are good at mining funny situations from the story and it would have been nice to see the world and story explored a little bit more, rather than mucking around with trivia challenges. This is more a limitation of the fringe festival itself; these elements would be welcome in a longer show but when you only have an hour it all feels a little rushed.
They do have an enormous twenty-sided die for resolving certain critical things, and the tech set-up for the show is very impressive throughout. This is a slickly produced affair.
DAGL’s world building is pretty strong, so much so that solo adventures are available on their website. The show ends with a promise of future adventures and the implication is that more story will be revealed if you come back to the show for more episodes. This is an intriguing idea, though with so many shows on at the Edinburgh Fringe, something that few will be able to do.
The Twenty-Sided Tavern is fantastic fantasy fun for everyone, and we heartily recommend it. Tickets can be found here.
