The world of Dungeons & Dragons is always expanding, both in terms of its core mythology and how players interact with it. That’s especially true of the past few years, which have seen the rise of actual plays reach an entirely new audience. Now, what if we were to take that a few steps further and actually create a roleplaying experience that had you living out the adventure in person and solving puzzles and mysteries on location? Well, you would have the delightful new series from Deborah Ann Woll, Ed Gass-Donnelly, and the Dungeon Dudes known as Tales From Woodcreek, and ComicBook had the chance to speak to Woll, Gass-Donnelly, and Anjali Bhimani all about the show’s journey to the screen, putting a new spin on a D&D adventure, and bringing in some of the MCU’s best and brightest to take part in this one of a kind game.
The Beginnings of Woodcreek
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Tales From Woodcreek is a D&D campaign taken to the 11th level, as players actually visit the town of Woodcreek to interact with other characters and solve puzzles and ultimately break the curse of this town in real time, all while being guided by an ever-versatile and talented DM in Woll throughout. Tales From Woodcreek began a while back as just a collection of ideas that Woll had jotted down in a notebook, but little did she know that it would one day find its way to the screen.
“So it’s been in development for about a year, I’d say. A long time ago I had written out a very brief outline that I entitled Tales From Woodcreek and wrote out some ideas, but it wasn’t until about a year ago that Ed Gass-Donnelly, my collaborator and the co creator of the show, was like, I think I could get us some development money and then some real money to make this thing, you know, do you have anything,” Woll said. “And I pulled out this old dusty outline, and he and I then proceeded to spend the next six months or so kind of making it our own. So it went from my little outline to now something that he and I were really working on together and you know, really leaning into.”
“He asked me, what if you were to make an actual play show, what would be your wildest dream? What would that be, what would be the biggest leap? And I was like, well, I like physical puzzles, I like escape room immersion, like immersive theater experiences,” Woll said, “And like obviously there are people who do actual plays very, very well, you know, what do I have to offer that would be different and take it in a new direction. So he really helped, I think, get us to push the envelope on that even farther, and we started talking about being site specific and finding a great location and then getting an incredible props company to make really special puzzles and bring in some really incredible guests who would then elevate it even further. So yeah, it was sort of a fun collaborative process that kept growing as we made it.”
Bhimani has been in the DM chair more over the past year, and has a unique perspective with being on both sides of the game, so to speak. That said, for Bhimani, it matters more about who you are playing the game with than what side of the game you’re on, and there’s no one better to be in a game with than Deborah Ann Woll.
“Here’s the thing. It’s less about the difference between being on either side of it for me than, who are you playing with, and playing with Deborah Ann on either side of the table is like an unmitigated delight,” Bhimani said. “Those are the two words that I will use to describe her in every scenario. And it’s not just, like, me blowing sunshine up her a**, this is me telling you, like, her superpower is delight. She takes such delight in watching us figure things out. She takes such delight in delighting us as players. So for me, this was just, it was this embarrassment of riches as far as surprise after surprise after surprise after surprise, and then on top of it, the joy of watching her have so much joy in response to us being surprised.
“I knew it was going to be a wonderful time because it’s her and it’s the Dungeon Dudes, and I love all of them. I had no idea it was going to be this fulfilling. Just like, my heart was full. By the time we finished this, my heart was so, so, so, so full. It was fantastic, and I will say Deborah has such a unique DM style in that those puzzles are so vital. The fact that we could have those tangibly in our hands. You know it’s one thing to be sitting around a table and trying to cerebrally figure stuff out. It’s a whole other thing to be in this historic village pulling things out of corners and shelves and putting them together. I don’t even know how to describe it other than the way I describe her, which is an unmitigated delight,” Bhimani said.
A Real World Puzzle To Solve
Tales From Woodcreek is quite the undertaking, as it brings the story to life in a more cinematic and real-world way while also maintaining the traditional game systems of D&D. To make that happen, there has to be some creativity and flexibility, though those elements are also inherently part of what makes Dungeons & Dragons such a compelling experience in the first place.
“I mean, a lot of people, I think, look at Dungeons & Dragons and go, how did you plan? And da, da, da, da. And yes, there was probably more planning for Woodcreek than you would for your average home game, simply because we did have to have things prepared, but the key to remember with Dungeons & Dragons in general is it’s always flexibility, right? Like, you can’t plan what people are going to do and what roles you’re going to need. You just have to go, I just need to be prepared to improvise”, Woll said.
“So we knew we needed portable things. So you’ll notice we put their character sheets in a portable booklet with a strap because we knew we were going to be making them walk around and we wanted them to have it with them,” Woll said. “And I have a dice tray that I carry around with me with dice in it and can just jump in and be like, oh, my gosh, yes, roll this. So we just wanted to be light and on our feet in terms of sort of special effects. What we knew were kind of cues, so I didn’t know when something was going to happen. I didn’t know when they were going to discover something. I didn’t know when Tommy was going to start the knocking or anything like that, but I knew that there were going to be cues.”
It was a collaborative effort to not only deliver those cues, but then have the other party pick up on those cues and seamlessly move the story forward as the cast all tried to work things out on the fly. “Well, Tommy is going to wait until Tommy knows that they’re safe to talk to, until he knows that they’re good guys, right? That’s what I know about Tommy. So as soon as I feel like they’ve proven that Tommy’s heard enough to feel like, oh, they’re here to help, he’ll start interacting with them. So we didn’t know exactly when that was going to happen, but that’s the cue, and so Ed behind the scenes is waiting to hear that, to start doing the knocking or to start the letter board or any of that communication,” Woll said.
“So there’s a lot of planning, but that planning has to remain open to whatever moment comes, and luckily the cinematographer that we hired as well as his crew are very familiar with sort of reality show filming, because that is very different. They know to, like, stay on people’s faces, even if they’re doing something with their hands, we’ll come back in and get B-roll with that. We want to see them experiencing it. That’s the shot we want. They knew how to avoid each other, and they knew how to stay out of each other’s camera angles. So I think we had to do very little kind of finessing of that because they were very skilled,” Woll said.
Season 2 Hopes and Plans
Tales From Woodcreek looked to deliver an entertaining story while also showcasing the concept, and those who have watched can see the potential that concept holds for unique and compelling storytelling. The process also got easier over the course of the shoot, and the team is hopeful that those will lead to an even better season 2 if that were to become a reality.
“Of course we got even better as the adventures went on and we kind of learned what we were doing because I’m sure none of them had ever filmed an on-your-feet Dungeons & Dragons escape room experience. So we were all learning, and we’re really hopeful that if we get a season two, we can take everything that we’ve learned and just like, bring it up another notch,” Woll said.
While there wasn’t much that hit the cutting room floor for season 1, there was one specific set of challenges that the team wasn’t able to work into the first season, and hopes to remedy that in a possible season 2.
“There wasn’t a single thing that we actually, like, fully specifically tried,” Gass-Donnelly said. “And I also don’t think there’s anything we tried to do and gave up on other than like, for creative. One day, I’ll do my Gelatinous Cube jello bowl.”
“There were some eating challenges that we thought would be fun to do that we didn’t get in, but again, the great thing about D&D is anything you don’t get to do, you just push to season two, right? So we already have some really fun ideas for season two,” Woll said. “We just wanted to do Gelatinous Cube jello shots is all. We’re really excited.”
A MCU and D&D Crossover
Those who tune into Tales From Woodcreek will also find a few familiar faces from the MCU, including Ms. Marvel’s Iman Velani and Iron Fist’s Jessica Henwick, and Bhimani enjoyed the unexpected Ms. Marvel reunion.
“For me it was heaven because Iman is one of my favorite people on the planet. She’s just, she’s everything you want her to be off-screen. She’s creative and fun and engaged and game and just an extraordinary human being,” Bhimani said. “And so that was just fantastic, but really, the biggest joy I felt was like, oh, yay, I get to pull you into our nerd world and I know you’ll love it, I know you already love it. On the show, it’s a whole different vibe that we had. Like, we got to hang out as peers, but it wasn’t like I was inviting her over to come play D&D when we were hanging out in our free time.”
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Woll also teased the next MCU crossover, saying, “Our next guest coming in is another Marvel inductee, Jess Henwick. She’s extraordinary. If you loved Iman, you will love Jess. She dove in with the same kind of verb and vigor, and kind of blew us away. She had such a strong character. The minute she opened her mouth, we were all like, she is here to play. You’re gonna absolutely love it.”
“It’s so funny because we just finished editing her episodes, and we started every day with an interview before. So I was asking her about the character, and it was so much fun. She was like, so like, oh, I don’t know much about, and she was like fumbling a little bit or just debating about her character in the interview. And then the minute the camera was on, it was like, instantly the character was born,” Gass-Donnelly said. “Whereas at first in the interview, we were trying to find good footage for describing the character, and she’s like, waffling. She’s like, Oh, I’m just put on the spot. She doesn’t know what to do, and then once she’s in the room with the gang, it was like, she was so incredible.” Woll added, “Never seen a more confident first-time player in my life”, and Bhimani agreed, saying, “She might have just decided, okay, camera’s on. Got to make a choice.”
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Henwick being in the show was also incredibly organic, as Woll revealed she happened to stop by the Daredevil set. “And it was kind of a surprise thing because we were, we went out to a lot of different celebrity guests. She just came by the Daredevil set to like, say hi and visit us a little bit, and I was like, hey, Jess. And she was like, what are you doing? I was like, Oh, I’m gearing up to do This D&D thing. She’s like, oh, I’ve always been interested in that. I was like, you want to come? And she did,” Woll said. “And so we wrote her, she showed up and we were like, oh, you should get your check. She was like, oh, you’re paying me for this? We’re like, yeah, we’re paying you for this. So she was like, just as a friend to Deb, I’m going to come to Toronto, do this thing for free that I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, what an extraordinary person. I mean, my goodness. I’m so glad she did. She’s such a highlight.”
Tales From Woodcreek is available now on the Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel, and you can check out all of the episodes right here.
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