The recent surge in popularity of Dungeons & Dragons and other TTRPGs hasn’t just centred around playing it. More and more people are tuning in to watch other people enjoying tabletop games and telling a story in the process.

The ‘actual play’ genre of podcasts and web series has taken off in the past decade. Most tabletop gaming fans alive are at least passively aware of the phenomenon and particularly iconic series like Critical Role or The Adventure Zone.

Storytelling through the medium of D&D 5e and other TTRPGs has become an accepted thing on the internet. With thousands of actual plays to choose from, some of the series available do stand above the others in their scope, quality, presentation, and more.

Note, even a total D&D nerd like me has only seen a fraction of the actual plays out there, and this is a list angled toward the bigger ones. If your favourite isn’t on there, I don’t mean it as a slight against the show. Please tell me about it, I’m sure it’s excellent.

Critical Role’s First Campaign is Iconic for a Reason

I’m not going to win any obscurity awards by putting Critical Role on this list. However, that doesn’t mark it down at all in terms of the most iconic, most beloved, and flat-out best D&D shows available on the internet.

Critical Role bears some responsibility for promoting the actual play format and remains undoubtedly the most popular example (as well as one of Twitch’s top earners).

And yet it’s this way with good cause. Critical Role‘s first campaign remains a shining example of what you can achieve with a handful of voice actors sitting around a table playing D&D.

Every Critical Role campaign (two, with a third well underway) has its fans, particularly the second. However, for my money, Critical Role Campaign One balances its high production values (eventually) with an authentic feel and genuine first-time excitement on the players’ part.

Later Critical Role campaigns have slick production and a much broader scope. Nonetheless, there’s something charming about watching Vox Machina’s ascent from vaguely-amoral adventurers to heroes standing against evil gods. Similarly, this is matched by the “nerdy-ass voice actors” growing more comfortable with the game and performing on camera.

Now, Critical Role‘s first campaign does have its issues. In particular, the early episodes struggle with audio balance and certain elements of table chemistry. As these get smoothed out, however, the show really comes into its own.

I hope you have a free four hundred hours coming up to enjoy the entire thing.

Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark Is A Grim Farce

Oxventure is the tabletop gaming outlet of British YouTube channels OutsideXbox and OutsideXtra. Having begun with a D&D 5e one-shot, it has grown into multiple seasons of D&D gameplay, typically with a rules-light humour reminiscent of a Saturday morning cartoon.

However, the OutsideXbox and OutsideXtra crews have ventured into non-D&D TTRPGs for some of their actual play content, often taking a more serious tone. One of the best examples of this is Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark.

I’m somewhat biased, in that Blades in the Dark is one of my favourite TTRPGs ever made. But this isn’t the only thing making Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark one of the best TTRPG actual plays around.

The flashback-heavy and improvised nature of Blades in the Dark is a perfect fit for the comedic stylings of OutsideXbox and OutsideXtra. At the same time, the greater rules-strictness and darker tone prevent them from defaulting to zany humour at every moment.

Another strength of Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark is its tendency to break its crew up into smaller sub-groups for most episodes. Each pairing has a completely unique dynamic, giving each episode a fresh feel and source of entertainment.

All in all, I’d say it’s well worth checking out, even if you don’t know much about Blades in the Dark.

Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy Hits Hard at Every Opportunity

Dimension 20 is one of the other biggest names in the TTRPG actual play space. Rather than Critical Role‘s lengthy, hundred-episodes-spanning campaigns, Dimension 20 has mastered the art of shorter anthology campaigns.

Every Dimension 20 campaign has a different feel, themes, and story. Most use different settings and casts of characters. There are several Dimension 20 campaigns that fans consider the best, but A Crown of Candy is one of the most beloved.

Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy is a masterpiece of juxtaposition. It takes place in a brightly-colored and comedic setting where everyone and everything is made of sweets and foodstuffs. Except it’s also a corrupt hotbed of politics and backstabbing comparable to Game of Thrones, with some of Dimension 20‘s most brutal combat ever.

It’s easy to forget that you’re watching sapient pieces of food backstab, fight, and talk with one another when you get swept up in Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy. You’ll end up gobsmacked by political revelations and touched by character development even though they involve bits of cake with arms and legs.

A Crown of Candy is one of the best actual play series ever for showing how much a talented DM and cast can do with the most unlikely of material. It also shows just how well any D&D group can play when pushed.

Glass Cannon Podcast: Androids and Aliens

The Glass Cannon Podcast has helped make its name by highlighting things other than D&D. Its main content takes place in Pathfinder (including both Pathfinder First Edition and Pathfinder 2e), but it has cast its net wide with other content.

Androids and Aliens is a series from the Glass Cannon podcast that uses the sci-fi themed Starfinder system for another change of pace. It’s actually officially licensed by Paizo Entertainment to show off the Dead Suns Starfinder campaign.

This doesn’t make it feel artificial, phoned-in, or fake, however. Androids & Aliens has every bit of the charm, fun party dynamics, and genuinely high-quality TTRPG gameplay that Glass Cannon Podcast fans have come to expect from the crew.

The show highlights an underused TTRPG (compared to the industry juggernauts) in Starfinder, while also managing to explore and elevate a very well-liked Adventure Path into an unforgettable narrative.

Androids & Aliens, like many Glass Cannon Podcast shows, does have a similar problem to Critical Role. It’s over a hundred and fifty episodes, all of which run longer than an hour.

If you have a lot of free time, such as if you can listen at work, you’ll rarely find a more fulfilling way to spend your time than listening to Androids & Aliens or any other Glass Cannon show.

Exandria Unlimited: Calamity Is On Its Own Level

I am afraid I am beginning and ending this list of the best TTRPG actual play podcasts with the D&D elephant in the room, Critical Role. However, it’s with very good reason.

Exandria Unlimited: Calamity is a prequel in the Exandria Unlimited line, short-length campaigns that let other DMs tell stories in Critical Role‘s Exandria setting.

In Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Dimension 20 and Worlds Without Number DM Brennan Lee Mulligan tells the story of one of Exandria’s biggest ever disasters, the Calamity. In particular, he explores how very human hubris and arrogance led to an extraplanar war between gods.

Exandria Unlimited: Calamity consists of about twenty hours of content in just four episodes. In that time, it does more than some stories have with three times the time. It’s almost entirely unlike any other D&D podcast in its depth and breathtaking nature.

It tells a story that is highly unusual for D&D, one of certain failure where player choice appears to not matter on the surface. However, it manges to pull this off perfectly due to pitch-perfect DMing and excellent buy-in from the cast.

If you want more background on Critical Role, I recommend Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. If you’ve never seen the franchise at all and are curious, I recommend Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. If you don’t think a D&D game around the table can make you gasp, cry, or fall deathly silent, I recommend Exandria Unlimited: Calamity.

These have been five of the best TTRPG actual play shows and podcasts around, all of which I recommend. However, there’s a vast world out there! Not Another D&D Podcast, Dungeons & Daddies, High Rollers, LA By Night, Pretending to be People, and many more all offer a vast amount of fun. You don’t need to do anything else with your time, right?

(I’m wary to put links to all of those in case it looks spammy, but please check them out!)

Please, if you have another favourite D&D or other TTRPG actual play, tell me about it. As always, I welcome feedback, comments, criticism, opinions, and more. I also really appreciate people leaving a like, sharing articles, or reading my other stuff. Thank you!

If you enjoy the rich characters and storytelling of these shows, check out my article on ‘Tips for Writing a D&D Character Backstory‘.

If the possibilities available in the actual space have got you grasping for other systems, ‘Five Fantasy TTRPGs That Aren’t D&D 5e‘ might be able to help.