Review: Tartan Tabletop In A Dungeons & Dragon Comedy – The Never-Ending Quest – The Return, Fringe 2024

Tartan Tabletop’s Fringe show, live-streamed to TikTok, is a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and improv comedy.

It helps hugely if you like both and are precious about neither.

D&D has a whole new audience. Smash hits like Dimension 20 and Critical Role are working wonders, and this year, a revised edition (D&D 2024) was published.

Tartan Tabletop was the only act a co-worker at my day job had booked and was looking forward to before August.

Edinburgh Reviews’ sister site, Geek Native, is all about tabletop RPGs and nerdy entertainment. 

In other words, I felt as if I had some skin in the game as I settled into my first-ever encounter with Tartan Tabletop.

On the negative side, running an innuendo-laden Hogwarts parody was an error. Those are kids.

On the positive side, the Tartan Tabletop team and the two guest stars from Shoot From The Hip Improv are funny and talented as heck. I was pleasantly surprised that there was enough structure and pacing in the adventure to actually have an adventure, and I don’t think the innuendo was intended to be edge lord.

Tone

The night started in Edinburgh. Our heroes took a steam train (ScotRail late) to the magical school Cockwarts. Yeah, childish humour from the outset, edging into adult.

However, it was all good-natured. In an uncontested PvP encounter, a Hagrid-parody magical barbarian was shrunk down to pocket size, and the Hagrid player went with it. If that had happened in an actual D&D, there would have been much awkwardness.

The night kicks off with a little audience interaction. Someone is chosen to roll a giant d20 (one of the best giant d20s I’ve seen—and I can’t believe I’m now in the situation where I can make that judgment) to win some prizes. We picked a nervous but wonderful young woman. She’ll go far in real life.

Our heroes are introduced by their players. In this adventure, our new arrivals to the magical school are starting a whole new house and soon encounter the Chosen One, a student with a lightning-shaped scar that hurts when the Dark Lord is nearby.

The scar hurts, the innuendo continues, the Tartan Tabletop team reminds each other that the characters and some of the audience are kids, and the plot hastens to the confrontation with the Dark Lord.

You don’t need to know D&D to follow what’s going on. I sensed more D&D behind the scenes (such as custom-built wild magic tables because a character might need to roll on them) than was ever overtly discussed, and you just needed to grasp that sometimes randomness would strike.

That randomness allows naturally talented improv comedians to turn D&D from a participant hobby to one that can be watched.

The tone in this show is of whacky danger.

What to expect

Except for one brave dice roller at the start of the show, there isn’t really any audience involvement. There’s no time for it, but I predict that if future audiences were to shout out, future improv guest stars would work the crowd.

It’s a suitable venue and space for an actual play, and you won’t struggle to hear it or be too far from the GM screen. A traditional TTRPG might arrange the players in a u-shape around the Dungeon Master so everyone can hear. In this format, the players sit in a row for the camera. So, you in the audience won’t struggle to hear, but the players will naturally interact more with the comedians they’re sitting beside.

I would estimate that a typical Tartan Tabletop hour spends the first 10 minutes explaining the concept, warming up the audience, and handing out a prize. The following 15 minutes, give or take, introduce the characters (such as Noblin the Goblin) and sets up the scenario. That gives about half the time left for the adventure.

As noted, I was impressed that so much of the plot was unearthed and progressed in those 30 minutes. We went from being new at the school to the dramatic magic battle at the end. However, your experience may differ, as it’s entirely possible for gamers to spend a whole 30 minutes discussing how they’re going to enter a room. My gut feeling is that the Tartan Tabletop veterans are savvy to this risk and will try to push forward.

Overall

Hmm. I had some “Irk, it better not all be like this” moments at the start, especially when the adventure was revealed as a boy wizard parody.

The innuendo chat then fell flat with me. I make adult jokes in my regular gaming sessions all the time but I don’t play as kids, with kids or for an audience of kids.

So, a rocky start? Yes.

Fortunately, the show turned it around quickly and did well because the people involved were intelligent and funny.

Success was planned, too. As noted, the adventure was designed to be like a railgun in that once the heroes were loaded, the plot shot them to the target at a rapid speed. Anything else, and we’d have stalled in the awkwardness.

I’m sure my work colleague will love the show, and I know Tartan Tabletop fans will, too. However, I don’t know what anyone turning up out of curiosity would make of it all.