Jeff Goldblum Is Very Good at Dungeons and Dragons
Last week, the real-play Dungeons & Dragons podcast Dark Dice announced that legendary actor Jeff Goldblum had amazingly, inexplicably, wonderfully signed on to play the Elven sorcerer Balmur for the series’ second season. It sounds like this roll of the die was a critical success.
In a very good interview over at Syfy Wire, the podcast’s producer and editor Travis Vengroff gave more details about the game’s story in general and a bit about Balmer in particular:
“Balmur is someone that you really can’t help but be drawn toward. On the surface, he seems carefree and keeps things light, but much like his partner-in-crime Soren, there’s an invisible weight that seems to hang over him. Balmur is a wild elf woodsman, trapper, and sorcerer of the Dead Pines who is initially just searching for his daughter’s missing locket.”
I’d still desperately love to see Balmur’s character sheet, but maybe in the future. Regardless, a seemingly carefree character who bears some kind of tragic secret sounds dead center in the middle of Goldblum’s wheelhouse. Furthermore, the actor has always seemed to feel perfectly at ease no matter how weird his projects are—look no further than the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok—so I imagine playing a trapper/sorcerer and casting Magic Missle at Bugbears doesn’t faze him in the slight. That is presumably why, according to Vengroff, Jeff Goldblum rules at D&D:
“For me, D&D is about having fun and getting together with friends (or strangers who ideally become friends) to tell a story. I see “bad” players as those who are self-absorbed, who use out-of-game knowledge, who cheat, or who power game. ‘Great’ players are those who are team-focused, will embrace the role of their characters (flaws and all), and who find creative uses for their abilities. The current edition of D&D is really easy to play, even compared to many board games, and it really focuses on how creative you are, as opposed to how well you know the rules. That’s what makes Jeff an absolute badass at D&D.”
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The whole interview is worth a read, whether you’re interested in the podcast or Jeff Goldblum. If you’re interested in both, you should probably know that he’ll be making his D&D debut on May 12, when the second season of Dark Dice premieres.
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