Anjali Bilmani is one of many actresses who have made an impact in the TTRPG space by starring in games like Dimension 20, Critical Role and Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! In the last year, she’s taken a more active role in the community with an assortment of projects, from DMing her first one-shot for the Lego community to co-starring in Desiquest, a D&D Actual Play featuring South Asian creators. Now she’s preparing to bring a new charity TTRPG event with a pet-themed twist. I got a chance to sit down with Bhimani to talk about an assortment of her latest projects.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
FM: So what is the ‘Puppy Roll?’
AB: So this has been a labor of love that’s been percolating in my mind for many, many years and just been waiting to find the right circumstances to make it happen and they came together this year. I’m going to be a livestream charity event sponsored by Petco Love, which is Petco’s 501c3 organization involved that is there to support shelters and free veterinary care for organizations all over and reunite lost owners and lost pets with their owners. So the event is going to be called the puppy roll. Where celebrity game players play Dungeons and Dragons as their pets.
Some of the beloved players from the TTRPG community will be joining us and playing as their own furry friends who are adventurers out to save the world in our one-shot. So far we have Matthew Mercer, we have Ashley Johnson. We’ll also have Emily Swallow (The Mandolorian), Maggie Robertson (Resident Evil, Baldur’s Gate 3) and Aabria Iyengar. We’re also going to have Jonathan Grazion, who is a wonderful combo platter of pet owner. He’s best known for his dog Noodle, who passed away two years ago. Noodle was best known for the “bones/no bones” meme. But Jonathan will be flying out to cohost the event.
The event will be broadcast on my personal channel on Aug. 20, but people will be able to donate via Tiltify on Aug. 1
FM: Will you be DMing the Puppy Roll then?
AB: It will be the second time I’ve DMed. The first being the Lego one-shot that we did earlier this year with D&D, but I figured “It’s puppies in D&D,” There’s nothing but fun here. It felt like a perfect combination for me because it’s two of my very favorite things with some of my very favorite people. And the folks at Petco Love are so wonderful. I’ve been working with them here and was at their Humane Society of the United States event in San Antonio recently, and I told them I want to put together this event with you guys and for you guys to spread the word of the great work that you’re doing.
FM: Do you feel excited or nervous about DMing your second one-shot with the Puppy Roll?
AB: I feel like nervousness and excitement are the exact same thing. It’s just nervousness is when you think about everything that’s gonna go bad and excitement is when you think about everything that’s gonna go well. And so I like to lean into the excitement of it, because you don’t know what you don’t know. And the great thing that I did not know is how much I was going to love so much about DMing. Marisha Ray had been trying to get me to DM for years. And I was like, “please, for the love of God. No, I don’t want to be in charge of things I don’t want to be responsible for so much.” And I have so much responsibility in my real life. I don’t want to make it even worse by messing up the game for people. But what I didn’t realize until the Lego one-shot was that you also get to be responsible for the fun.
“I feel like nervousness and excitement are the exact same thing. It’s just nervousness is when you think about everything that’s gonna go bad and excitement is when you think about everything that’s gonna go well.”
FM: You were recently announced as part of the cast of Jon Hamm’s “Dungeon Master“, a podcast chronicling the real-life missing case that helped made D&D infamous. How did you get connected to that?
AB: I don’t want to tell too much. But it’s an incredible opportunity for me. I wasn’t even aware of this story until the project came to us. And I am so excited that this story is going to be brought to light in the particular way that they are telling it. Because even though it’s based on a true story, there is this lovely narrative gameplay side of things that is going to be highlighted between Jon and [Wil Wheaton’s] characters. And it was taken from the writer’s experiences talking with Gary Gygax about this particular case that had happened so many years ago. And what I found interesting is that I started playing in 1982, soI was a little too young to know that that was happening. But there were the years of the Satanic Panic and the years when people were so worried about so many things and I just think this is gonna be a really fresh and wonderful retelling of of a thing that not a lot of people know about outside of the TTRPG industry.
FM: You wrapped up Season 1 of Desiquest earlier this year. How do you feel about the project so far?
AB: Desiquest is another huge labor of love that I’m so proud of we finished season one, we finished airing season one, but I will not say that we are finished because there is much to come. And yeah, it was it’s our How do I say this? Basic quest is a chance for us as a group of South Asian creators led by Jasmine Pilar to invite people in to our table and into our fantasy world based on South Asian culture. What’s been really lovely about that, is that there’s something very special about seeing yourself represented on screen. If you haven’t seen someone who looks like you, or lives the same life like you or cultures as your background as you that’s always special. But what I think is even more special about this one is the chance to invite other people who may either feel disconnected from their culture. Maybe they’re first-generation born in America, and they have one foot in both cultures. And they don’t necessarily feel connected. We hope both invite those folks to our table as well as people who have absolutely no idea anything about South Asian culture such as India or Pakiston And we want to say “come play at our table.”
All these years, we have all gotten a chance to play at this sort of medieval European fantasy table, right? And we’ve been invited to play at those tables, we’ve been invited to jump into that world. But now inclusivity and inclusion goes both ways. So we want to invite people to our party, we want to show people how fun it is to join us in this world, and how rich the culture is, and how diverse the culture is, and how, when you are exploring something new, whether it’s a culture, or just a new experience, there are going to be moments where you’re scared that maybe you’re going to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. But at our table, it’s a safe space to learn. It’s a safe space to make mistakes, just like it’s a safe space to roll a natural one. It’s a safe space to not know the word for something. It’s a safe space to ask about different different traditions. It’s just it’s been nothing but joy. We had a wonderful panel here at San Diego Comic Con yesterday. That was that was just beautiful. And now we’re going to head off to GenCon and do a live play on [Aug. 3.]
FM: Are there any plans to organize a second season of Desiquest?
AB: There are always discussions, and I’ve always said in my heart “It’s happening.” But we still need to come together and connect with the community, raise our funds and make our plans. We do have plans to announce something at GenCon, but we can’t say anything more until then.
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