Meet the guy who lets a D20 decide what goes into his sandwiches

Dungeons & Dragons TikToker Jake Pauwels doesn’t start his videos with rulebooks or character sheets, but instead with paper plates and sandwich ingredients. During many lunchtimes this spring, the high fantasy writer and Dungeon Master has written lists of everything he had in his fridge onto a series of plates and used dice rolls to decide what Frankenstein sandwich he’ll build before eating his creation. His TikTok following is more than 800k. Many are coming to him for his creations. Sandwich RollThe popularity of soared with the rise in demand for.

Pauwels begins by rolling down six sides of the die. The tower then becomes a formidable dice tower. A chart listing all possible ingredients is displayed beside a piece of paper or plate. The side that it hits first is the bread type. There are many options, including naan, croissants and peanut butter. Next is cheese, “roughage,” and wild magic — which uses a D20 die and adds anything from spice to sprinkles to fire. The sauce chart is the most dangerous, as it could change the whole taste of the sandwich with spruce tips jam or chocolate frosting. The complete sandwich is assembled by him, although it may be a little questionable.Sandwiches on a Roll Since then, he has produced many episodes. These range from marshmallow fluff sammies and roast beef to heart of palm pretzel bagel and horseradish. It’s not all ick factor — many combos are wonderful and teach both Pauwels and the viewer something about flavor.

As a stay-at-home dad, Pauwels started the series as a fun way to retool D&D gameplay with components he had around his house, especially after grocery runs, he told Polygon. Since the early episodes, the production quality has expanded with customized dice, a dice tower to help roll them, and a chainmail glove and axe to help cut the sandwiches — the wielding of which got Pauwels temporarily slapped with a TikTok Community Guidelines violation. The series has maintained his consistent, insightful voice-over. He originally added it out of necessity so he wouldn’t wake his young daughter, who was asleep just out of the frame of the sandwich-making station.

Sandwich Roll has been an instant success on TikTok, with thousands returning for each new episode and some even asking for permission to start their own dice-roll series, such as Jared Frazier’s Drink a Cocktail. Pauwels chatted video with Polygon about the cinnamon raisin happy accidentals, and the final of the Sandwich Season, the pleasure of randomness and gaming/storytelling. These are edited answers to ensure clarity and length.

Polygon: Do you finish every sandwich?

Pauwels:This was vital to the idea of the show. Rolling for a randomly generated lunch that I can just throw away if I don’t like it doesn’t have the same weight. There are real consequences to the rolls that you make in D&D. Well, real fantasy consequences. That was what I wanted to do with this project. And it’s not like I’m putting anything dangerous on that list — I can suffer for five minutes to eat a bad sandwich to maintain the integrity of the show and to provide some entertainment for people.

And there’s so much food waste on TikTok where people are making awful, horrendous things for views and not eating it. I’m not in a place financially where I can buy a bunch of groceries and then throw half of them away every week.

Did you find a random food combination that proved to be a huge success?

My perception of cinnamon raisin bread is changing. I always used to think of it as a breakfast treat, but it’s been good with salty lunch meats. When I was young, I used cinnamon raisin bread, pastrami and cheese to make it. Then, came the hot mustard. It was wonderful.

There’s something chaotically joyful about letting randomness decide what you’re going to eat. Why do you think it’s so fun to watch series or play games that incorporate similar randomness?

The beauty of true randomness of the dice rolling system is that you have the potential for two different outcomes; both are enjoyable when you’re sitting down with your friends and playing a game. You have the successes/critical successes that move the story along, and then you have the critical fails that provide comedy or situations that you didn’t foresee at all. This makes the experience more communal. To tell the entire story I’d just continue writing.

If people discover your D&D and world-building account through your Sandwich RollYou want videos to remember one lesson.

It’s good to be open-minded about food, because it can surprise you. I’ve gotten tons of messages from people saying “you’ve super helped me with my eating disorder.” I’ve gotten long messages about how watching me take risks with food has helped people that may have sensory issues or food aversions, things I never expected to get but are awesome. I’ve had plenty of people comment on my videos, saying, “I’ve never really been interested in D&D, but these do make me want to try it out.”

Image: Jake Pauwels

What are they seeing in your lunch series that’s turning them to tabletop role-playing?

I think part of it is the unexpectedness of rolling and the excitement of saying, “We just missed having a crab, cheese, and chocolate sauce sandwich again.” That’s core to role-playing. Any unforeseen outcome in a video game is just because you didn’t expect it to happen, but it was programmed in as a possibility. Whereas in D&D, that thing that happened only happened to you. Your life can be as individual as yours.

Relatedly, you’ve discussed how Adventures in Aardia is your main account now, even though you didn’t intend it to be, and have a lot of DM/fantasy author aspects to your account that you also want to pull on. What are your plans for using the success of Sandwich Roll to bolster these other passions, like the high fantasy novel you’re writing?

It is something I plan on using as a forum to continue doing. Sandwich RollDo the work that is most important to you. It’s not like I’m completely famous for food and then I’m all of a sudden like, “Hey, I wrote this fantasy book.” It’s in the name of my account. This summer, I’m going to be taking a bit of vacation. Sandwich Roll Season 1 is over, and we are now entering season 2. I’ll be able to focus on actually working on my novel and maybe sharing some of that content in the channel as well.

What will season 2 look like mechanically?

Not a lot! About 30% of all my comments about every video involve rolling twice and rolling for how toasty it is. I thought about most of them. I can’t do all of them. I’m already pushing the boundaries of the length of TikTok videos at three minutes. But I continue to experiment with what I can do — I just recently got a propane pastry torch.

Sandwich Roll grew out of you being the Dungeon Master for a D&D campaign, but before then, what was your go-to D&D character?

My most recent character before I started DMing was a Warforged monk, built by an assassin’s guild as a mindless killing automaton. They didn’t have a name but a designation, which was Guild Requisition Elimination Golem: GREG.