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If you watched Tales from Woodcreek season 1, you've seen that DM (and Daredevil: Born Again) Deborah Ann Woll knows how to welcome a TTRPG newbie into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Even before her reality/escape room/actual play series debuted on The Dungeon Dudes channel, though, Woll was already roping celebrity costars into fantasy worlds by way of D&D, and there was one celebrity that stood out: Kevin Smith.

I spoke to Woll ahead of the current Tales from Woodcreek season 2 campaign on Kickstarter, but our conversation went back a little bit further than that project, to when Woll was running the mystical Relics and Rarities series for Geek and Sundry. Clerks director Smith appeared in episode 8 of the actual play webseries, where he portrayed a Tiefling Warlock called Private Detective Sam.

"Kevin was great," the True Blood star began, "He's like you would expect, extraordinarily busy, and so leading up to Relics and Rarities, I reached out several times. I was like, 'Would you like a primer on the rules? Do you want to go over your character or anything?' He'd give me a basic idea of who he wanted to play, and I'd made him a character because he didn't he didn't play D&D at that point, and I was offering that to all of our new guests. But he didn't have time, so he showed up on the day."

"I was like," she continued, "'Hey, great to see you.' We joked a little bit about how he killed Karen Page and how I was going to kill him back. It was my opportunity for revenge, which I think you know, made him just the right amount of scared of me."

As any player should be a little frightened of their DM, reader.

"We never actually got around to having any conversation about rules," Woll said, "And this is one of my favorite stories to tell, because I think he is extraordinary on the on those episodes. He is so good in that character, he jumped right into the story. [...] We had a death at the end of that episode, and it really took him back. Suddenly, you could see on his face he was like, 'Wait, this is happening.' He felt the feels."

"The experience that he had on the show," she concluded, "Was one of those experience that we all remember that when it happens at our own tables, we go, 'Oh God, I've got to tell somebody about that.' [...] I'm so glad that he had that experience when he came on with us. And so I, you know, I say he came in not knowing how to play D&D. He left not knowing how to play D&D. And he was one of the best D&D players I've had the pleasure of playing with."

Tales from Woodcreek season 2 is currently running on Kickstarter. 

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