Review: Character Building Experience, Fringe 2024

I still consider myself a newbie to Dungeons and Dragons, although I’ve spent around three years now. Still, it’d been a while, as our group ran into the curse of D&D paired with adult life; finding the time, and things getting in the way.

So, I was curious to see how Character Building Experience would work as a show, knowing I’d get some references and am already clued in to how D&D works.

The show is described as follows:

Character Building Experience is a Dungeons-and-Dragons-style comedic interactive roleplaying game show, suitable for the experts, the novices and the uninitiated-but-curious. No two quests are alike; a unique mini-adventure with improvised music, songs and questionable choices, hosted by Gamesmaster Sasha Ellen.

The vibe

There’s some good energy in the room as the audience wait for the show to start, and we’re told Sasha will be recording with two cameras. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the vibe is very D&D – in other words, unpredictable, a little chaotic – so don’t go into this show expecting a strong narrative.

Two of the players from this game had shows on at the Fringe, and I believe we were told the players – and the experience – would change every night.

The show itself

The show starts with Sasha, our confident and capable host, arriving on stage and explaining how everything’s going to work, as well as judging who’s in the room in terms of newbies and D&D veterans alike. Then we’re introduced to the players, and told a little about their characters and their backgrounds.

Sasha, a D&D pro, has spent time designing the experience that the players take part in, and she’s the only one to make dice rolls – the rest is mainly comedy and improv from the guests.

For this particular night – which is not necessarily representative of the show in general – the main problem-solving solution was the melted butter move (might have been something like ‘butter fingers’) which was used to get the guests out of situations on around four separate occasions.

It was the only running joke of the show, the joke mainly being that it always worked. I think the audience found this funnier than I did, to be fair.

I did find myself a bit bored during the show, and I wasn’t sure if that was just me, as generally I find watching people playing games whilst not actually being involved in them myself to be a little disengaging.

However, around 45 minutes during the show, Sasha did point out it was slightly worrying that the funniest moment was when one of the guests (I think it was Adam) had to go to the loo, having “been bursting for a pee for 45 minutes”. She was entirely right; I did laugh at that point.

I was also wondering where the improvised music and songs were. Did I zone out? (I wouldn’t entirely put it past me, but I honestly have no recollection of any musical fun in this show)

Overall

Although I can see Character Building Experience has had some rave reviews elsewhere, I found this show to be a bit of a flop – but maybe it wasn’t a particularly good night for Sasha and her guests. And, as anyone who plays D&D will know, that’s a thing that happens!

Still, I probably won’t be signing up to watch any other D&D live plays any time soon, because I get the feeling it’s just not for me (well, unless it includes some of my favourite celebrities as players. That might be fun).