Hi everyone! It's Rat again, and I wanted to take some time to go back to our roots and introduce some of the members of our small company. If you recall, we have a D&D-campaign-became-videogame story! And as we have come about this process, there has been a lot of reflection and reminiscing over the series of events as they happened, and thus, this little interview series was born!

I wanted to allow space for other campaign players to give their thoughts on the entire process, and talk a little about the behind-the-scenes of the campaign, their original characters, thoughts and intentions, and just their overall perspectives so far. Without further ado, please welcome the wonderful couple, M&M! Also, PSA: there will be a lot of Dungeons and Dragons lingo here, so be forewarned! 😂 

M&M Part 1: A dispatch from “Meldan”

Rat: Hello! Please introduce yourself, and how you know Annie!

M1: Hello everyone, I’m one of the original players from Annie’s DnD campaign that V:ACS is based on, and a Spicy Bread team member. Annie and I both got into DnD around the same time through a mutual friend. It’s since brought me probably hundreds of hours of friendship, joy, and creative fulfillment through being both a DM and a player.

Rat: And who did you play in the campaign?

Meldan: My character's name was "Meldan."

Rat: Can you tell us more about Meldan as a character in the campaign? 

Meldan: Yeah, of course! Based on what Annie had told me about the campaign, plus from campaigns of hers I’d played in before, I decided to make Meldan a cleric. Since we were roleplaying a murder mystery and Annie likes character-focused roleplaying in general, I knew we’d spend more time talking to people rather than fighting hordes of goblins. Therefore, I chose the cleric class because of its great access to utility spells (Guidance, amirite?).

Rat: What's a cleric, for those that are unfamiliar with D&D?

Meldan: In D&D, they're people devoted to the service of a deity who get magical power granted to them by that deity.

Rat: Very cool. I would've wanted to be a cleric, too. How was the experience of playing as a cleric?

Meldan: Very fun! However, Annie put some modifications on the spells. I couldn’t use any spells that raised the dead, nor could I use Speak With Dead (since this would easily spoil the campaign). I could take Commune, which allowed me to ask several questions each day of my sworn deity, but I wasn’t allowed to ask directly who did the murder. I’d say Commune was our most influential spell in the campaign. We had a certain number of questions each day. Usually, at the end of each session, we’d cast Commune before long resting, ask certain questions to try to give us more leads, and then use the information gained to plan our course of action for the next session.

Rat: Oh, wow! That was awesome. D&D campaigns like to have a lot of combat events. What were your most memorable fight/combats?

Meldan: In one of maybe two combat encounters we ever had, there was a kid in danger of being zombified. I really wanted to save them, but we played things too slow and cautious, and they were turned into a zombie before we could reach them. 

Rat: I remember! The zombification was crazy!

Meldan: [laughs] Yeah, it was. I was really sad about that, so I used Divine Intervention (a cleric special ability) to reverse the zombification and save the kid. That has still been the only time in all my years of D&D that I’ve used Divine Intervention (not counting Baldur’s Gate 3).

Rat: That sounded like a lot of fun. There weren't a ton of fights in this campaign, though. 

Meldan: Despite this being a more chill and less combat-focused campaign, I still like designing my D&D characters around giving them good stats. Then I come with a personality based on their build. Meldan was a half-orc forge cleric in the campaign because I liked the benefits of the forge domain. Annie had the idea to make Meldan part of an actual forge in the city, which fleshed out his backstory and gave him a comforting home-base. (And a place that he could be meldin’).

Rat: Haha! Good one. And how about Meldan's relationship with Minerva?

Meldan: My then-girlfriend/now-wife “Minerva” was also playing in Annie’s campaign, and we thought it’d be fun for our characters to know each other. At one point, we had the idea of Meldan being really shy, so he would whisper to Minerva who would relay messages. But we absolutely did not stick to that whatsoever because I like talking (especially when it came to strategizing with the other players) and cannot commit to acting out characters the way Annie can.

Rat: Hah!! So true. And you DM, too. What do you think about Annie's campaign as DM yourself?

Meldan: Yeah! As I mentioned, I also DM, and I was running a campaign at the time. My mentality in running my campaigns was to have the NPCs primarily on the sidelines. If the players really cared, they could choose to engage with them more and get to know them better. If not, the players could just go do their thing unhindered. While that's not bad, what stands out to me about this campaign was the fact that Annie wasn’t afraid to put her characters solidly in the story. She orchestrated opportunities for us to get to know them quite deeply and had them be relevant to solving the mystery. She leaned into the characters rather than leaning away. I found myself emotionally invested in the characters, their interests, and their fates in a way I really haven’t been in other campaigns.

Rat: Yeah, that's why we believe in this game so much.

Meldan: Yeah!

Rat: What do you have to say to the readers of this blog about the game?

Meldan: Since the characters are so well-written, I think this game is a great opportunity for you to get to meet them and get to know them, too!

Rat: Well, thanks for your time, Meldan! I'm sure the readers appreciate it so much.

Meldan: Thanks for having me!

...

M&M Part 2: A dispatch from “Minerva”

Rat: Hello! Please introduce yourself! Who did you play in the campaign?

M2: Hi, everyone.  I played, "Minerva," in the campaign.

Rat: How did you come up with a name like Minerva? It's very unique!

Minerva: Like so many storied D&D characters, mine started with a pun. The name of my first-ever character was “Macks,” pronounced “Max.” For Annie’s campaign, I wanted a character nicknamed “Min.” And so Minerva was born.

Rat: Wow, what a great backstory! I love the name, "Minerva." I would've thought the nickname would be, "Minnie," and not, "Min," though.

Minerva: [laughs] Actually,  Annie gave us each unique character-specific abilities, and mine was called “Minnie M’Knee.” The vision was that if anyone called Minerva, “Minnie,” a nickname I decided she loathed, the aggravator would suddenly feel their knee giving out (random whether left or right) and they would yell “M’knee!” [laughs] Unfortunately, it only triggered once or twice if I recall correctly, but was still hilarious nonetheless.

Rat: [laughs] That's hilarious!

Minerva: Right?

Rat: [chuckles] Oh gosh, my stomach hurts. You're hysterical, seriously. Anyway, what kind of character was Minerva?

Minerva: Minerva was a Wild Magic Sorcerer, which in D&D mechanics means her spellcasting could unleash surges of random magical effects.

Rat: Very cool! Everyone has such cool abilities! What did you think of her personality in the campaign?

Minerva: Flavor-wise, I tried to play her as impulsive and almost idiotically courageous at times. This disposition is not always helpful when trying to methodically question suspects, but, oh it was fun. 

Rat: Oh man, it definitely was. You were on top of it!

Minerva: Yeah, for sure. I especially loved exploring Annie’s intricately crafted Ventreville as we got to know its characters and uncovered its secrets. 

Rat: Definitely. What were your favorite parts of the campaign?

Minerva: Hm. Mainly, Annie’s imagination, storytelling, and amazing voice acting that imbued the city with life over the course of our campaign.

Rat: Yeah. Annie is amazing, isn't she?

Minerva: Hundred percent.

Rat: Well, that's all there's time for today! Thanks so much for this interview! If you had a final reason to give to readers to give this game a shot, what would it be?

Minerva: Well, our characters as well as our actual selves felt so many feelings for the fictional inhabitants. So, I’m super excited to see the story made real in a different way through this new medium!

Rat: Yeah, we were so invested~So, we hope you guys become invested, too! Thanks for today, Minerva!

Minerva: Thanks so much for having me!

...

And, that's the end of this interview! Thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoyed hearing some thoughts from some of the founders, and how much fun we had both playing this game ourselves and creating it for you all. We would love to hear your experiences playing in D&D (or even DMing??? Wow!) campaigns, so comment down below! 

See you next time,

Rat