"It's all fun and games here, literally~!"
CrafD&D is a fortnightly Actual Play YouTube series. It is an indirect spin-off of Dr. Crafty, both of which were created by Crafty.
Each episode contains footage of various tabletop game campaigns played by Crafty and his friends outside of his Crewmates from Dr. Crafty. The videos are assisted with visuals illustrated by Crafty himself, showing off the various characters and the locations that they visit.
The first campaign on the show is The Champions' Challenge, which began on February 4th, 2022. On August 11th, Crafty later announced
that the campaign was abruptly canceled due to an undisclosed conflict; all the episodes produced for it were made publicly available the following day. Afterward, CrafDnD fell into a brief hiatus as the production team set about starting from scratch.
The show shares an official website with Dr. Crafty, and you can visit it here.
CrafD&D provides examples of:
The Champions' Challenge
The titular Champion's Challenge is held in the continent of Grandure
for its residents to take on and become recognized for their skill, strength, and power. It involves taking on the many Champions stationed across the land, with the journey culminating in a final confrontation with Grandure's Grand Champions. Among the latest challengers is a party called Passione, comprised of five graduates from the Grandure Champion's Guild Academy. Each of them set out on this journey for their own purposes and do what they can to help each other succeed. Along the way, the adventurers find themselves involved in an unusual mystery surrounding enigmatic, malevolent slime creatures with mysterious powers, who seem interested in the Champion's Challenge themselves for their own nefarious ends.
The Champions' Challenge's cast is as follows:
- Dr. Crafty as the Dungeon Master.
- Hitenmitsuru as Osra Kiyomizu, a Half-Orc Forge Cleric.
- Kayden Monroe as Calum Fentris Lockheart III, a Dragonborn mutant Bloodhunter.
- Boonslayer as Jet, a Fire Genasi Sun Soul Monk.
- 7purplekirbies as Cerastes, a Yuan-ti divine soul Sorcerer.
- Blazetheweirdo as Ash, an Aarakocra Phantom Rogue.
As scheduling conflicts prevent certain players from continuing to play, new players and characters are introduced to take their place. They are as follows:
- ScarletOtaku as Ophelia Rheinhessan, a Dhampir Paladin Bloodhunter
- Bizarrchitecture: No two buildings in Lordpact share the same design, leading to an extremely chaotic-looking city. In addition to its potential structural issues, the result is a bit of an eyesore; it's the first thing that Helena and Angelo mutually agree upon when Passione attempts to convince them to lead together in "Pact or No Pact."
- Cassandra Truth: As discussed in "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1's" recap segment, the first champion that Passione encounters is Captain Cervantes Custer, who leads the royal guard of Osra's hometown, Joughstic. Unfortunately for them, he's too concerned over his suspicions about a local windmill to test them. He's convinced that it's a monster, but the concept of a living windmill menace is so absurd that everyone in town dismisses his claims. Osra and company are just as hesitant to believe him, yet they still decide to help ease Cervantes' mind so he won't be distracted from his challenge for them... And his suspicions turn out to be correct; the windmill is a titanic mimic that puts up quite a fight. Once the creature is felled, Custer fights Passione as their first official challenge. By beating him, they earn their first Champion Emblem.
- Curse: Cera's spellcasting has the occasional side effect of bequeathing inconsequential, but no less inconvenient next-day curses upon her targets. Even her party members aren't safe whenever she casts support spells on them, which becomes an unpredictable Running Gag throughout the campaign. "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1" establishes that this side effect is due to a shield that Cera's father gifted her, which the party names Zeppeli. The shield is tied to Mistrief, the Goddess of Chaos, who sometimes visits Cera to hear about her chaotic secondary powers.
- Eldritch Abomination: An overarching mystery subplot of The Champions' Challenge surrounds a group of amorphous, sand blue entities with beady red eyes and triangular heads. Their exact motives aren't known, but they lash out at anyone who draws near them and are unfathomably powerful. The recap section of "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1" shows Passione's first encounter with one such creature, who flees after demonstrating what they're capable of. Starting with "The Red Trophy," the series starts introducing the creatures' superiors, who seem to have a vested interest in the valuable objects associated with the Champion's Challenge.
- Election Day Episode: The major plot of the Lordpact arc involves Passione holding an election to determine a new local champion of the city. The sole candidates are Helena and Angelo. The former has the strength, courage, and proactivity to lead but is belligerent and impulsive, while the latter is very knowledgeable, observant, and compassionate but is very meek and unconfident as a leader. As dictated by Grandure law, either one of the candidates wins alone, or they both win and become champions of the same town. Recognizing that Helena and Angelo complement each other's strengths and weaknesses, Passione decides to (legally) sway the vote in favor of a tie. To do so, the party splits up to accomplish three different tasks: two advocate for Helena to the working class, another two advocate for Angelo to the noble class, and the remaining member serves as a campaign manager for both candidates.
- Fantasy World Map: The Grandure Continent's map is first shown in the first minute of "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1." It is a massive land that, from a top-down perspective, resembles a massive shield with a sword lain upon it, with two major islands to the north-east. The Champion's challenge path winds through the many different settlements across the land, starting at the north-eastern corner and circling back around to it, not unlike the Kanto and Johto regions of Pokémon fame.
- Failed a Spot Check: Upon meeting Passione in "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1," Dundee is immediately captivated by Cera's snake-like lower body, admiring it as though her teammates caught her in the wild. He fails to notice the person on the other end of the body until she protests his forwardness. He graciously apologizes for his ignorance and immediately gets down to business with the adventurers.
- Five-Man Band: The main two parties of The Champions' Challenge both contain five party members.
- Passione is led by Osra, a practically-minded sort who wishes to hone her skills as a blacksmith and watch out for her family's health. She is followed shortly by Calum, a romantic who was born into a wealthy family; he wishes to win the respect and admiration of his family and continue its legacy. Cera comes next; she was born into a Yuan-Ti cult but was rescued before she could fulfill her elder's intended purpose for her, and she now wishes to practice her sorcery to ensure that it never comes to pass. Jet, having fended for himself since childhood while facing rejection for just as long, seeks to prove himself through his participation in the challenge. Last but not least is Ash, who wishes to hone her skills as an assassin to protect her people, feeling that their acceptance of death as a part of life has left them vulnerable to predators.
- The Renegade Rangers are led by Asole, an elitist bully who takes issue with Passione as the son of one of the champions. Fergus is Asole's dutiful right hand, and he delights in belittling anyone who he doesn't respect as an equal to him or his party. Following them are Dexter, a man of few words who is always on alert around his targets, and Unda, an unstable wild card towards all but her allies. The last Ranger, Taini, stands out as the nicest of the group, being reserved, compassionate, and only willing to fight once she's had a few drinks.
- Fluffy the Terrible: The dragon that slaughtered Qwill's team and left him with severe mental trauma for years was given a name by the time Passione encounters it in "Disarmed and a Leg." A trio of harpies took the beast in as a pet and named it... Barry. Shockingly mundane name aside, Barry puts up as much of a fight for Passione as he did for Qwill. Nevertheless, the party manages to successfully slay the dragon thanks to a finishing blow from Ash, and they safely retrieve the hoard of weapons, with those belonging to Qwill's fallen comrades being among them.
- Foreshadowing: As Passione ventures through the forest that houses Qwill's challenge in "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1," Calum spots Qwill contemplating three unmarked graves before moving on with his challengers. All throughout the challenge thereafter, it's very apparent that something serious is on Qwill's mind, but only Ash is willing to press him on it. The significance behind those graves and Qwill's odd behavior is revealed in "PT. 2": those graves house Qwill's fallen comrades, and he's been dealing with his loss horribly. Mori, who has spent the past two years trying to help Qwill through his grief to no avail, tasks Passione with retrieving his comrades' lost weaponry and avenging their deaths in Qwill's stead.
- Friendship Moment: Passione's members receive lots of moments throughout the campaign in which they support each other through tough times. They only grow more numerous as the heroes continue their journey and experience more that the Grandure Continent has to offer. "Silent Night, Deadly Knife" showcases a few friendship moments between Ophelia and Ash, Osra and Cera, and Cera and Calum as each takes turns watching over their team's camp across the night.
- Ghost Town: Forrnest's Hunter's Dream is a small village that, sometime before the series begins, was home to some very spiritual Aarakocra who had a special connection to the afterlife. Unfortunately, this connection made them extremely susceptible to Mindflayer attacks, which eventually wiped out almost all of Hunter's Dream's population and left it abandoned. Mori now looks after the ruins to allow the dead to rest in peace, and she allows the party to visit it in "Old Flame, New Blood." It is here where Ash reveals that Hunter's Dream used to be her home—for all she knows, she was the sole survivor of its brutal history.
- Leitmotif: During troubling or ominous events throughout the series, Persona 4's "Who's There?" almost always replaces the current background music. It's a perfect blend of unsettling and tense, and it's used during moments such as Atlissa detecting Roid the Red's oncoming appearance in "The Red Trophy" and Helena's reaction to Osra mentioning Don Matriarchy's name in "Pact or No Pact."
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: An unfortunate aspect of the game is that, due to various pieces of audio and footage becoming lost (either to data corruption or the recording bot malfunctioning), the audience doesn't get to witness everything that happens in the game. Fortunately, when notable events are lost from this, Crafty creates comic pages with narration to summarize the events, allowing the audience to get a glimpse at what is otherwise lost to time.
- Pesky Pigeons: For much of "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1," Osra is cursed to attract pigeons who use her as a perch. The curse lasts for a single day, and throughout the first half of Qwill's challenge. When the team sets up camp and settles down for the night, Osra wakes up the next morning to find that her pigeons have finally left her. However, they didn't venture very far; they are just outside of her tent, looking very confused about where they ended up.
- Power Tattoo: Jet seeks out a tattoo to enhance his magic in "The Ranger Challenge PT. 2" as Passione prepares to for their trip to some nearby swamps the next day. The only tattoo artist in the immediate area is in the shadiest part of town, and he has the personality to match. Nevertheless, Jet humors him, earning a Ghost Step tattoo to assist with his evasiveness—but only after the artist does a fairly painful job.Tattoo Artist: All right... awright, now you gonna hold still now; this is gonna hurt like a bitch.
Crafty OOC: [To Boonslayer] And uh, he starts working with the needle on your skin, and yeah, it fuckin' hurts. I need you to make a con save.
[Boonslayer rolls the dice.]
Boonslayer OOC: Heh, heheh, heheheh, that's an eight!
Crafty OOC: Ohhhhh yeah... Um, the rest of you guys? You don't know where it's coming from, but you just hear a high-pitched yell and birds flapping in the distance.
[Blaze imitates Jet's scream and giggles.]
Kayden OOC: Calum just hears it; it's like: 'Ahhh yes. Reminds me of childhood.' And just keeps walking!
Blaze OOC: What kind of fucking childhood do you have?!
Kayden OOC: A pretty fucked up one! - Running Gag: Osra tends to land some terrible stealth checks throughout the campaign. This leads to everyone likening her bungled attempts to making the sounds of banging pots and pans as she moves, as she's typically heavily armored. The gag is brought up without the prerequisite stealth check in "Old Flame, New Blood," as Osra's far too flustered by Taini's sudden kiss to even contemplate sneaking back to bed from their secret meeting.
- Shout-Out:
- The Champions' Challenge is strongly influenced by Pokémon in a few respects.
- The basic concept of the titular challenge uses a similar format to Pokémon's gym challenges, in which challengers must prove their worth to several experts before taking on a quartet of champions as the final task.
- The Treacherous Trix Trio is explicitly based on the Pokémon anime's Team Rocket Trio. Bonnie, Clyde, and Billy the Kid even share colors with Jessie, James, and Meowth, respectively. A post about the trio by Crafty reveals that Billy was also influenced by Elvis Presley—more so than Meowth, even.
- Captain Custer and his subplot in "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1" are based directly on Don Quixote, with Custer being a nod to the titular protagonist and his concerns about a monstrous windmill being a nod to the story's own windmill scene. Unlike in the source material, the windmill that Custer is worried about isn't an imagined threat.
- The Champions' Challenge is strongly influenced by Pokémon in a few respects.
- Treetop Town: Forrnest is a settlement built into a vast forest canopy. It is Ash's hometown, and its demographics mostly consist of other Aarakocra such as Qwill, who helms the Ranger Challenge that those taking on the Champion's Challenge must overcome.
- Unfortunate Names: The components of Asole Dusbarg's name are phonetically similar to "Asshole Douchebag," a deliberate choice by his conceiver to reflect his temperament. Jet picked up on this unfortunate resemblance and used it to insult Asole before a tournament that their teams participated in, a moment discussed in "The Ranger Challenge PT. 1's" recap segment. The same segment also shows that, after the tournament, Jet took Asole aside and apologized to him for this insult.[At night, Asole is preparing to leave. Jet appears and gestures for him.]
Jet: Hey, Asole... I'm sorry I called you an asshole.
[Asole silently turns to face Jet. After considering the apology for a moment, he turns back around.]
Asole: I'm sorry for being one...
[A stunned, blushing Jet silently stares back at Asole.] - Wham Shot: "Disarmed and a Leg" ends with a recap segment to make up for some lost gameplay footage. At the end of the fight with the dragon, Cera is illustrated stashing away all the weapons that she can carry in her backpack. One in particular catches her attention: a crossbow labeled "Toby Hox," the name of one of Qwill's fallen comrades from the past. Because they share a surname with Qwill, Cera immediately concludes that Qwill's hunting partners were also his blood family, which Crafty confirms through his narration. When Passione returns the weapons to Qwill, his grief is understandably intense.Crafty: The dragon felled, Passione gathers as many of the weapons hoarded as they can, though Cera makes a grim discovery. The weapons among the horde belong not just to Qwill's team, but that said team was also his own family. Returning with the lost weapons in-hand, Passione returns them to Qwill, who finally lets out all of the pain he had been harboring for years, in a primal scream of cathartic anguish.
