For the Worlds Beyond Number actual play podcast, time is on their side

You’ll be negotiating world-shaking beings with godlike power, as well as facing an immense wizarding apparatus. This is the team behind Worlds Beyond Number’s inaugural Dungeons & Dragons actual-play podcast, The Wizard, Witch and Wild One, have seemingly done it all — and they’ve done it all while playing their characters at level 1. For producer and audio maestro Taylor Moore, it’s at times just a little bit more than he can believe. Moore described how he ran during a pause in action from the audio booth to the front door of the studio when recording an episode.

“It was like in those disaster movies where a submarine is imploding,” Moore said. “They had been bottling up this energy watching those two goobers turn a conversation between a young woman and her mother figure — just a simple conversation about how they were feeling — into some of the most compelling audio that I’ve ever put through my earphones.”

Worlds Beyond Number

Moore and the podcast’s stars (and co-owners) — Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Lou Wilson — are all veterans in the world of actual play. Moore began his career as a podcaster. Rude Tales Of Magic, Fun City, You can also find out more about the following: The stars of space are all around us!. Mulligan is leading Dimension 20Ishii and Iyengar, who have been playing in all the major roles for more than five years now, are Ishii’s co-stars. Critical RoleYou can also find out more about the following: Adventure ZoneAnd beyond. Then there’s more. Worlds Beyond NumberThis is the team’s first fully-owned project. Combined with the indefinite length of the project, they’re freed from many of the limits of time and scope they often face — including how they play the game, and even where their characters begin the journey.

Because Worlds Beyond Number is played entirely in theater of the mind — as opposed to in a physical space, with miniatures on a map at the table — the cast can go anywhere and try anything. Moore, rather than using battle maps or graphics that were created in advance by the production team, comes around to add witty, lush post-production sounds, and composes original music, after the game is played. This has now inspired the players. “It’s like our recording is a bunch of words, and Taylor comes in with punctuation and frames it, and turns it into poetry,” said Iyengar.

They also have something that other actual-play troupes can only dream of — nearly unlimited time in-game. Patreon exclusive Children’s Campaign took a unique path to character creation, playing eight episodes at what amounts to level 0 before reuniting as adults in the main campaign at first level — a level more than a few shows skip. Even if you don’t want to play the game, there are still many ways that it can be done. Critical Role’s massive campaigns have never shown a character below level 2, and Dimension 20In only three of the 20 seasons did characters start at Level 1, and they leveled up in just four episodes. In contrast, over the last seven months and 14 episodes, they’ve been playing at first level the whole time.

“It’s a testament to the group’s cohesion and Brennan’s world-building that it never felt bad or punitive to not have access to the wider range of skills and abilities that we know that we will inherit across the campaign,” Iyengar said. While leveling won’t go quite as slowly moving forward, the pace is deliberate.

“These characters are going to be 20th level within three to four years of playtime,” Mulligan said. “That’s so goofy. Imagine being an evil emperor, and it’s like, ‘Sire, a bunch of bumpkins are now the most powerful wizards on the planet.’ And you’re like, What is their origin? ‘I don’t know. The spiders were killed in the area, but three years on they are able to cast Wish.’”

Playing at extremely low level “really makes things feel high-stakes, and it also forces you to think on your feet as opposed to, you know, hitting something over and over,” Ishii said. “It’s the same feeling of, in the real world, having consequences for actions.” Indeed, consequences are built into their character’s custom Witch class, designed by Mazey Veselak, Brandes Stoddard, and Hannah Rose.

While describing their style as more “whimsical” than strictly naturalistic, it’s clear the team wants powers that feel plausible. As an example, characters found the magical sword Wavebreaker in the middle of the game. Children’s CampaignThey recovered their memories as adults. It’s powerful, but Wilson emphasizes: “It’s not moving in tandem with our narrative. This is a simple assist. Even a level 1 character who has a sword with +3 can still only take one strike. I can’t go running around imposing my will on our world yet. So I think it’s making for a really meaningful balance between narrative and mechanic play.”

Mulligan slyly added that readers might be familiar with “foundational texts within the fantasy genre where a low-level character receives an overpowered magic item” — which is to say The Lord of the RingsThis is a good source of inspiration. But Tolkien is just a small note in their symphonic world-building that blends the folklore and mythos of two small islands — Ireland via Mulligan and Japan via Ishii and the team’s shared love of Miyazaki — and blends them into the small island of Akham. They may be “little guys,” as Ishii repeatedly dubbed them, but it’s going to be fun to watch them grow.

Worlds Beyond NumberYou can listen to the podcasts on any platform. Season 2 of the podcast began on Oct. 24. New episodes are released every second week.