D&D Podcaster Absolutely Hates Playing Dungeons & Dragons
Liam Niven, a player in the popular Dungeons & Dragons actual play podcast Drinks & Drunks, has announced that after five years of playing the game, he really hates it. “It started out fun, just getting together with some buddies and joking around, despite the problems I had with the system. But when it blew up, we all started to think we could make some money off of it, and that’s really sucked what little joy there was out of it.” Niven says that the success of their Patreon even exacerbated the problem. “One of our tiers is for a bonus podcast, which means that now I have to play even more D&D!”
Listeners say that they had come to suspect Niven’s true feelings months, even years before his public announcement. ‘There have been a few subtle hints,” says longtime fan Mark Benson. “He still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the rules even after years of recorded play time. Also, when the DM tells him the rules don’t work the way he wants them to, he starts to drop hints like ‘this sucks,’ or ‘I hate playing this fucking game.’”
Niven says that despite his announcement, he has no plans to stop playing Dungeons & Dragons. “I just needed to get that off of my chest, you know? I’ve talked it out with the others, and we’re all pretty much on the same page that we’d rather being doing a story-heavy radio show with some improvisation, but that’s not the brand we’ve built. So we’ll just keep on cheering natural 20s and gnashing our teeth and beating our breasts at natural 1s, even when they don’t really make a big difference, because that’s what the people want.” When we asked Niven if the group had ever thought of trying out a different system to see if it fit their playstyle better, he blew a minute-long raspberry at us.
