New Dungeons & Dragons Show Begins in Baldur’s Gate, Then Gets Spookier
Wizards of the Coast just unveiled a new official actual play
Actual plays—shows where you can watch people playing tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, Daggerheart, and Vampire: The Masquerade—are really having a moment right now. Popularized by “Critical Role” and perfected by Dropout‘s “Dimension 20,” actual play shows are a great way to experience tabletop role-playing games when you don’t have a group of your own to play with.
That’s why it’s so surprising that it took Wizards of the Coast, the company behind Dungeons & Dragons, so long to produce its own official actual play series. It’s produced one-shots in the past, but this week tried something new with the premiere of “Dungeon Masters,” a full campaign actual play with Jasmine Bhullar at the helm.
How does “Dungeon Masters” stack up to “Critical Role” and “Dimension 20?” Keep reading to find out more, and how you can catch up with the show’s two-part premiere.
How to watch “Dungeon Masters”
The first two episodes of “Dungeon Masters” released on the Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. Each episode is an hour long but is combined into one two-hour-long video. Compared to the four-hour episodes of “Critical Role,” it feels much more approachable.
New episodes will continue to air every Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET. It’s unclear how long the series will last, but this first campaign is meant to promote the release of the new “Ravenloft: The Horrors Within” gameplay book on June 16. D&D Beyond is offering tie-in digital game content after each episode of the show up to July 2, implying at least ten more episodes in Campaign 1.
After that, I wouldn’t be surprised if the show pivoted away from Ravenloft and into something more arcane to hype up the release of the new “Arcana Unleashed” books in September. Hopefully with Bhullar & co. still at the table.
Who’s in “Dungeon Masters?”
“Dimension 20” fans will recognize Jasmine Bhullar from “Coffin Run,” a vampire-themed season that aired in 2022. Given her experience with the dark and spooky, it makes total sense that she’d be the official Dungeon Master—or DM—for our first look at the horror-themed Ravenloft campaign.
Bhullar is joined at the table by some more faces that tabletop fans might recognize:
Mayanna Berrin is Wesley, a drow elf Grave Domain Cleric. Berrin is an actual play pro, previously appearing on “StoryQuest,” “The Wandering Path,” and “Vampire: The Masquerade.” She also voiced Coupé in the video game “Dispatch.”
Christian Navarro is Eloin Emberleaf, a dhampir Winter Walker Ranger. Navarro played Tony Padilla in “13 Reasons Why” on Netflix, although D&D fans will know him better from his guest appearance on “Critical Role” in 2023.
Neil Newbon is Crem de la Crem, a rock gnome Reanimator Artificer. Newbon is a motion capture and voice actor best known for his roles as Astarion in “Baldur’s Gate III” and Karl Heisenberg in “Resident Evil Village.”
Devora Wilde is Zora Thornska, a hexblood Shadow Sorcerer. Wilde also starred in “Baldur’s Gate III” as Lae’zel, and appeared more recently in “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” as the voice of Clea.
Each of these characters uses subclasses, backgrounds, and/or species featured in “Ravenloft: The Horrors Within.”
What is “Dungeon Masters” about?
The first “Dungeon Masters” campaign begins on a rooftop in Baldur’s Gate, a famous city within the official setting of the Forgotten Realms. It’s also the city at the heart of “Baldur’s Gate III,” the award-winning game that Newbon and Wilde both starred in. Most big actual play shows don’t have the rights to namedrop official locations like that, so it’s pretty cool to see it mentioned.
But our four heroes don’t stay in Baldur’s Gate for long, as an encounter with an overpowered foe sends them off to another plane, to a Domain of Dread called Sithicus. Once there, they face all of the horrors that give “The Horrors Within” its name, from undead flesh monsters to strange paper birds.
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