What do the terms “Fatherhood,” “BDSM,” and “Dungeons and Dragons” have in common?
For most people, absolutely nothing. But if you’re a fan of the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) podcast “Dungeons and Daddies,” they make a lot of sense when put together!
Especially the BDSM. Only occasionally, though.
“Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies”
Photo from Dungeons and Daddies About Us Page
Started back in 2019 by Freddie Wong (co-founder of RocketJump, Video Game High School) and Anthony Burch (lead writer on projects like Borderlands 2), Dungeons and Daddies is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. Each episode follows “four dads from our realm [who] are flung into the Forgotten Realms in the quest to rescue their lost sons.” Anthony Burch plays the Dungeon Master, or “Daddy Master,” sketching out the campaign and creating characters for the players to interact with. Freddie Wong and fellow comedians Matt Arnold (RocketJump co-founder), Will Campos (Video Game High School), and Beth May (playwright and spoken word actress) play the four eponymous Daddies of the game. Each episode of Dungeons and Daddies generally consists of the players overcoming any number of challenges set out by the Daddy Master. With 5,906 Patrons on Patreon at time-of-writing, the podcast has amassed a dedicated following.
Each episode begins with the four players reintroducing their characters and giving a quick fun fact. As their character profiles might suggest, each character represents (in a hyperbolic way) a different kind of parenting:
- Freddie plays Glenn Close, a “rock and roll cover band dad” and Bard
- Has a relaxed approach to his son Nicholas
- Matt plays Darryl Wilson, a “stay-at-home sports dad” and Barbarian
- Keeps a close eye on his son Grant and has a tough time showing his affection for him
- Will is Henry Oak, the “granola munching,” Birkenstock-rocking, Hippie-nature-dad and Druid of the party
- utilizes a pretty extreme version of ‘free range parenting’ with his “two beautiful boys” Lark and Sparrow
- Beth plays Ron Stampler, an “emotionally restrained stepfather” and the party’s Rogue.
- Has a hard time connecting to his stepson Terry Jr
Dungeons and Daddies is primarily a comedy podcast (and sometimes a BDSM one), but it has a number of surprisingly poignant lessons to teach listeners about parenting. Most of these lessons are cautionary tales, but some of them are instances of legitimately positive parenting advice.
(And a warning: the following section includes general spoilers for the first twenty episodes of Dungeons and Daddies. Reader beware!)
How to Rock (at parenting poorly)
Glenn Close represents the dad archetype of the ‘band-rocker dad’ who is always on the road. Glenn is, in the words of DM Anthony Burch, one of if not the worst dads of the party. True to the stereotype Glenn portrays, he seems to take his son for granted. When we first meet Glenn, he is sitting with his 13 year old son on the sidewalk smoking weed with him. Nicholas, despite how shitty his dad is, wants to emulate Glenn’s lifestyle. He wants to go on the same crazy rock-and-roll adventures as Glenn, even while knowing how dangerous those are. Rather than rebuff Nicholas’s attempts to take on his destructive lifestyle, Glenn eggs his son on.
Glenn is simply a cautionary tale of what happens when you have too open of a relationship with your kids.
But if you have too many barriers…
Darryl Wilson, the most “macho” of the dads, represents what can happen when you have too many barriers between you and your kids. When the party meets Grant again (in a fantastical version of Fortnite, yes I am being serious) they lie and hide crucial secrets from Grant, and later on when Darryl kills an elf with a shotgun they hide this fact from Grant as well. This causes Grant to leave the dads temporarily and find his own friends to hang out with.
Ultimately, what ameliorates Grant and Darryl’s relationship is when Darryl breaks down the barriers between himself and his son. Darryl drops his machismo and lets Grant see him cry for the first time since Grant lost the family dog. This is a lesson in how to break down barriers while still maintaining a healthy relationship.
Top left = Ron, Top right = Darryl, Bottom left = Glenn, Bottom right = Henry
“My Favorite Show is the Sunrise”
Henry Oak, geologist and hippy dad, has virtually no control over his twin sons. Lark and Sparrow Oak are those kids, whose parents are helpless to control them while they savage their surroundings. Henry maintains good boundaries, but has nu authority to back those boundaries up. Lark and Sparrow only respond well to Henry after he instills respect in them. This respect is garnered through Henry’s badass Druid powers, but the point stands.
Though most parents don’t have magical powers, Henry is only able to get through to his kids when he shows his authority. What we can learn from this is while you shouldn’t be an authoritarian parent, having your kids respect you is important.
Tell Your Terries You Care
Lastly, Ron Stampler teaches maybe one of the most important lessons of the podcast. Ron’s stepson Terry Jr. is still grappling with the loss of his biological father when we meet him again. The way that Ron gets through to Terry is not by coercing or punishing Terry. Ron becomes a “step-up dad” by simply communicating to Terry how much he loves him and wants to be his dad.
The lesson Beth teaches us through Ron is simple. Tell your kids that you love them. Show them that you care, and that you want to be with them.
“It’ll be alriiiight…”
Dungeons and Daddies may be a comedy (sometimes BDSM) podcast, but it can teach you a lot about being a good dad. By maintaining good boundaries with you kids, allowing them to respect you instead of forcing them to, and showing them that you care about them, you can at least begin to make a better relationship with them.
But don’t do BDSM with them. That’s just weird.
