An Interview with PeakD&D (part 1)

The four members of PeakD&D sat down, turned on the mics, and recorded an interview for RPG Counterpoint. 

Here is the transcript. (Note: Contains PG-13+ content and language)

Jared: First off introduce the team here at PeakD&D

Ben: “Okay. Who wants to start? Max? Go for it.”
Max: “I’m Max… … …”
Ben: “Wow.”
Tony: “A+”
Ben:  “Nice”
Max: “Thank you. I aim to please.”
Ben: “Great. I’m Ben, uh I am…”
Tony: “Nope. Shut up. I’m Tony.”
Will: “And I’m Will.”
Tony: “He set the stage”
Max: “Next Question.”

Jared: How did this group start? 

Ben: “It was all Tony’s idea, actually. Well…”
Tony: “Sort of”
Ben: “It was weird. It was weird.” 
Max: “It was very weird.”
Tony: “You tell your story and then I’ll tell my part of the story and we’ll converge.”
Max: “And I’m in the middle of both of them then we’ll tell how Will got here.” 
Will: “Yeah, maybe I’ll start.”
Ben: “So the three champ… Yeah, you know what?” 
Max: “Go on. Will, you tell the story.” 
Ben: “Everyone shut up, shut up.”
Tony: “How did we start, Will? How big of a fan are you?”
(Will is the “new guy” who joined in the fall of ’23.)
Ben: “So Max and I, it was 20…20…”
Max: “September”
Tony: “It was 2019.”
Ben: “Max and I had been talking about collaborating on something together, like doing D&D videos sort of came up organically. And so we were like, ‘Hey, you know, we’ll do these because I was talking about it and it all started with the Dungeon Dudes because I was like, f*ck these videos, they’re just reading out of the players handbook. We can do that!’” 
Max: “These guys were literally reading out of the PHB, it’s true.”
Ben: “We were walking around town like, going on a little walk on the rec path and like, talk and grab some coffee. And then like literally that same day…”
Tony: “The next day.”
Ben: “Max calls me and tells me about a conversation he had with Tony.” 
Tony: “What was it? What were we even doing?”
Max: “Discgolf course. We were throwing at Dillon. I have an image of throwing on…”
Tony: “Eight?”
Max: “Seven? No, not eight. No, six.” 
Tony: “Okay. The other big drop.”
Max: “Yeah, totally.” 
Tony: “Yeah, I guess that’s maybe where the original pitch was but I remember we went on a walk around your house for some reason. I was hanging out at your house for some reason.” 
Max: “Probably before the monthly game.” 
Tony: “That’s where we actually talked logistics. And then you texted me like, ‘Who? Who is going to be playing?” I just said, me, you, Ben, Nick being the DM, and Geoff.”
Ben: “And we were talking about how you liked the stories that Nick tells. That was sort of the impetus.”
Tony: “Mostly the pacing he tells them by, but yes. I like his stories too but mostly his pacing was just, impeccable, and thought it was really good for the viewers, the viewership.” 
Max: “Will – how did you get here?”
Will: “Uh, my wife. My wife was touring the space that you film in.”
Ben: “You and I were filming a D&D ideas. Or Peaked Interest at the time.”
Max: “We did. We helped them get the grant.”
Will: “She came through the space. I think she almost probably was the only one in the tour group that knew what was going on in here.”
Ben: “Yeah.”
Will: “But got back to me and I consume a lot of like live play D&D content. She’s like, ‘It’s a mile away. Like you’ve got to meet these guys. Like this is everything that you want to do. So I took like two months and I got on your discord.’”
Tony: “And we literally probably had just launched. Maybe.”
Will: “And I didn’t know how to make an introduction. So I just threw out all the possibilities. Like, ‘I’ll do graphic design. I’ll film. I’ll play. I’ll DM like whatever you need.’ And then we got coffee and realized we had a bunch in common.”
Max: “High vibes. Yeah.” 
Will: “And then I got invited to hang out for some of your gameplay sessions. Which was awesome. Yeah. Super fan. I was like, just sitting on the corner. It was like, ‘oh, this is so cool to see it live.’”
Max: “Which is awesome. ‘Cause what you didn’t know is that, like, just the fact that somebody reached out to us via Discord, it was like, ‘Hey, we want to help.’ Like, “Oh my God.”
Ben: “This is it!”
Tony: “It’s working!”
Ben: “And then you ended up in a sketch with us randomly. Well, not randomly. You were there and we were like, ‘We need pieces.’”
Max: “Apology video #47. Will, we were grooming you and I know that’s wrong.” 
Will: “Well that was one of the things I volunteered for.”
Ben: “‘And I’ll be groomed.’”
Will: “Whatever you need! Whatever you need! I don’t care.”
Tony: “But funny enough I feel like you might, you may have kind of sort of been groomed to the point where I might have left. Well, just in general, I feel like I’ve had the most hands in other projects that it seemed to me that I might be the most likely to leave. Not that I want to. But something….”
Max: “Oh, wow. This interview just got real.” 
Tony: “…But like something was. Something else. Something else with a. Because that’s where I was going in 2020 because I had possibly two bands I was going to be a part of: One full-time, one possibly full-time, plus my sister’s business. Plus this and then plus maybe like getting a job. So I was going to have to make some tough decisions that summer anyway.”
Max: “And yet you’re still here.”
Tony: “Then 2020 happened and all of it fell apart, so I got to pick what I wanted to be a part of”

Jared: What keeps you going? Making videos? Running games? Making skits? Etc.? 

Ben: “For me, it’s the etc.” 
Tony: “For me it’s this stuff. The monster games. The etc.” 
Ben: “Yeah. I mean, I guess honestly, like I am nervous as hell to start running the game and having to think about all the other shit that goes into DMing a game. But I’m also really excited. Like, I think I’m excited to tell some stories and sort of do it in my in my way. I’m like, I don’t know. I think it’ll be fun. I hope it’s fun. And yeah. And then, you know, I think I’ve told Max this, I like writing the sketches and I like making funny videos with my friends. That’s a good time. I mean, that was the whole point, I like this game and I like playing it with you guys.”
Tony: “Whether they’re a long form or short form.”
Max: “If only other people…”
Ben: “If only other people liked our content. That would be great.”
<lots of laughs>
Tony: “That would be. But they don’t.” 
Ben: “About 100 people see our shit. We just hang out around…they just don’t want to give us that 1500 again.”
Tony: “No. They don’t.” 
Ben: “It was 1499 the other day! I don’t know if you saw?”
Max: “It was. It was. 1497 now.” 
Ben: “Max does his sad dance every time.”
Max: “No. I do gratitude dances when we get new subscribers. I don’t have a sad dance when we lose them.” 
Ben: “I just imagine you like <sobbing and half hearted dancing>”
Max: “That’s awesome.”
Tony: “Sad dab.” 
Max: “Sad dab. Wiping the tears away. HA! The snot…”
Ben: “I’ll throw it to you guys, Why do we keep doing this? Why are we torturing ourselves?”
Tony: “That’s a very good question” 
Ben: “What are we doing here? What the f*ck are any of us doing here?… We have this bitchin’ studio, we have to do it!” 
Tony: “I mean, it’s kind of like, I don’t know, when I first came to you guys, we’re playing D&D anyways. We might as well put on film because that’s a thing now. So it’s like, I don’t know, what keeps me going is probably the gameplay because if we weren’t filming at PeakD&D, I don’t think this group would be together as far as playing in the same capacity.”
Max: “You commute an hour and a half every time just to be here.”
Ben: “Sometimes longer depending on the snow and the traffic.” 
Tony: “Yeah, it’s not that bad. I don’t know, I just wouldn’t be in that space of being able to play all the games we have. Two years’ worth of games every week, pretty much, which has been a blast. But if we didn’t have PeakD&D, that would not happen. So yeah, literally just getting together and playing the game has been fun. I’ve also very much enjoyed, well, it is a slog, but I’ve also enjoyed it, learning a lot more about, yeah, video, like, yeah, just doing the video and stuff. A little bit of audio, even though I hate it.”
Ben: “Tony – superstar editor, man. I started to reach the point where I couldn’t do it anymore and I was like, I can’t. I can’t.”
Tony: “Yeah. Well, we were pumping out two a week.” 
Ben: “We were doing two a week for that first year and that was, that got intense pretty quick.”
Tony: “Three months in? I took over gameplay. Two months in?” 
Ben: “A couple months in.” 
Tony: “It was like episode 11.”
Ben: “It was, yeah, because I didn’t do that many in the long run because we ended up, the first campaign was like two and a half months.” 
Tony: “Was it 36 episodes for ‘Into The Fey?’ So you did about a third. Yeah. I took over in 11 of the first campaign.”
Ben: “Will, what keeps you going?”
Will: “uh…I just started. I’m just happy to be here. Um, I mean, I think it’s just an opportunity. It’s a creative outlet to use my imagination and to be ridiculous and to like make new friends and hang out.” 
Tony: “It’s new and exciting.”
Max: “Yeah. For now. The honeymoon phase.”
Will: “It’s got that new D&D dice set smell.”
Max: “Let us know when that fades. I’d say the thing that I think is cool is the fact that because there are four of us and it’s not just one of us, like I… It’s been rare that all of us have been down in the dumps about this project at the same time. Like usually I feel as though, like usually one of us and there’s like three of us that can lift them up or like it’s rare that all of us are. Yeah. And so like I have definitely, like you guys have kept me going. and then just the hope and ridiculousness of this. All of this? This is ridiculous. This is all ridiculous. Yeah. You guys can’t see our studio, but if you saw our studio, you too would say it’s ridiculous.”
Tony: “We’ll do a studio tour video”
<check it out! Ben totally did a studio tour! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkeciFxe6Pc >
Will: “I mean, it’s pretty pro.”
Max: “<laughing> Exactly.”
Ben: “Compared to most YouTubers? We’re not in a bedroom.”
Tony: “The earlier studio too was even better than this because we had the whole f*cking bullshit on top. I would say the collective enthusiasm.”
Will: “Yeah…where did you get all this stuff from that made this such a pro studio?”
Max: “Around… It fell off a truck.”
Ben: “Pretty much, yeah.” 
Tony: “Oh, that. Now I know what you’re talking about.”
Ben: “Moving on! Next question! Number 4! 

Jared: Where did the name PeakD&D come from? 

Ben: “It was a long road to get to that name.” 
Max: “Oh, f*ck yeah.” 
Will: “Are there some earlier version?”
Ben: “There were a lot. There were several.” 
Will: “Did you say ‘Dungeon Dudes’?
Ben: “Yeah, it was going to be ‘The Dungeon Dudes,’ but apparently that was taken.”
Tony: “I just remember like Peak Gamers, Peak Players.”
Ben: “Yeah. We had all kinds. It was ‘Peak’ pretty early on.” 
Tony: “Mostly because we live in Breckenridge/Keystone/Silverthorne, Colorado. We live in the mountains.”
Ben: “So that was the inspiration, the location.”
Max: “And also, like, if anybody comes up here, like every business up here is ‘Peak’ something. Peak Appliance. Peak Materials.”
Ben: “Peak One shuttle service.”
Tony: “We could have been Summit D&D but that doesn’t have the same…”
Max: “Plus we like, you know, we also came with the idea of like helping people become better players. Oh yeah. Reaching their peak as well.”
Tony: “Yep. Because I was a tagline for a while in a lot of those earlier videos, especially while definitely the Peak Interest.”
Ben: “Some of the names we picked up ended up being other people’s channel names later on. Like we had, at one point it was like Roll Four Initiative, with the number four. There were four of us.”
Tony: “Oh. I did not realize.”
Max: “Are they better than us? Do they have more subscribers?” 
Ben: “No. I don’t know. Probably. Most people do.” 
Will: “Good thing you trademarked all these phrases.”
Ben: “‘Dice Mountain’ was one of them that I was pushing for. ‘Dice Mountain Games’ or ‘Dice Mountain Gaming’ or something like that. Which I still think would be a cool, like, brick-and-mortar shop if we were open one.”
Tony: “F*cking shitbags.”
Ben: “Yeah, they have more than us. I’ve seen them.”
Tony: “‘Be better at failing in your game.’”
Ben: “Yeah. Don’t fall down that hole, man. Let me tell you right now. It’s a sad scary place when you’re just…”
Max: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” 
Tony: “It is.” 
Will: “I also felt there was just that other meaning of just like, oh, this is peak D&D. Like, oh, that’s like such a peak D&D moment.”
Tony: “Their gameplay has just as little subscribers as ours.” 
Ben: “We actually have more views on our gameplay than they do on that. I like our gameplay too. I just wish somebody else did.” 
Tony: “Ed does!”
Ben: “Ed likes our gameplay.” 
Max: “Marleau likes our gameplay. Will’s been watching and commenting.” 
Tony: “Greg likes our gameplay.”
Max: “My mom likes it!” 
Tony: “That’s like four people!”
Ben: “I wanted to be the Rocky Mountain Oyster Cult, but nobody wanted to do that.” 
Tony: “Are you kidding? Let’s change it right now.”
Max: “Dude, that logo is going to be dope.” 
Tony: “Dope. Dope logo. Is it just two testicles with a d20?”
Max: “Shaved d20 testicles? Short, stubby hairs.” 
Ben: <reading from his phone> “Possible channel names, I found it. ‘Slow Your Roll, with R-O-L-E.’ ‘On a Roll,’ ‘Rolling Over,’ ‘Roll Past, ‘Roll Out.’ ‘Dorkvision.’ There was ‘L-O-T-V’ for… oh, ‘Lord’s of the Vale’ or something like that. ‘Lord’s of the…’”
Tony: ‘’V-A-I-L.’ I do remember that. I forgot about, I forgot about ‘Lord’s of the Vale.’ Even though we don’t live in Vail. But I think that was the point.”
Ben: “There was a bunch that was like, Max themed, like Max was the, I don’t know, ‘Max Tabletop,’ ‘To the Max?,’ ‘Max Quest.’”
Will: “This is before AI.”
Max: “I made none of these up, for the record.”
Ben: “I thought ‘Dork Side of the Moon’ was pretty funny. But then there was ‘Crit Happens,’ ‘Crit Fails,’ ‘Crit and Fail,’ ‘Crit Hits the Fan,’ ‘The fail cast.’”
Tony: “‘Carpe DM’.”
Ben: “That is one.” 
Tony: “Let’s look them up then.”
Max: “Don’t do it, it’s just going to make us sad.”
Ben: “‘Mountains and Miscreants’ was one I had. ‘Mountain Hold,’ ‘Magic Miscasts,’ ‘Mountain Hold.’”
Tony: “Carpe DM Dating? Matchmaking 101?” 
Ben: “No.”
Tony: “Are you sure?”
Will: “Roll for your perfect match. Let’s, uh, do a D&D-flavored dating app.”
Tony: “Do you hit her AC? Nope? You failed.” 

(To be continued in part 2…)