The current main Mann Shorts series are:
- Drunk Before Noon, a scripted skit series where Chaz (rapper Chaz "Yahzick" Bates) gets wasted and calls up his friend Justen (creator Justen Mann) with crazy ideas.
- Dungeons & Dragons: (Something) Edition, a scripted skit series where The DM (Bates) and players Lance, Wailin, and Sara participate in games of Dungeons & Dragons based on particular themes that range from other pop culture properties like Harry Potter to holidays like Oktoberfest to real-world situations like working in a Wal-Mart.
- Bard Advice, an unscripted advice show where Chaz answers questions from other TTRPG fans.
Members of the cast and crew and their friends have also streamed some Actual Play campaigns, mostly using DnD 5th Edition rules in the Star Wars universe or original settings. In years past the channel also dabbled in Let's Play content, as well as a short-lived MST-style series called Let's Watch Bad Stuff. Mann Shorts isn't all about comedy, though: the minds behind the channel have also made several more dramatically-inclined short films which have been well-received at festivals.
The Mann Shorts channel can be found here
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Mann Shorts provides examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The Ballad of Beauregard the Badly Burned Bard.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Inspired by rumors that Wizards of the Coast planned to introduce an AI DM service as part of its online D&D Beyond platform, Chaz runs the players through an adventure (supposedly) generated entirely by ChatGPT. The result is poorly-built characters with names copied from Warcraft and a singularly boring, paint-by-numbers scenario.
- All Your Powers Combined:Lance: Alligators!Sara: Sun-damaged Skin!Wailin: Meth and Mic Ultra!Florida Man: Y'all put yer powers together; here I am.
- And Starring: If he shows up in the background, expect this in the credits for Kepler.
- Berserk Button: Making fun of Wash is one for The DM in "Firefly Edition."The DM: You know, I let you get away with a lot of nonsense at this table, but I'm not going to let you sully the good name of Hoban Washburne! He's a hero and he'll be remembered as such!Sara (meekly): ...Got it.
- Better the Devil You Know: The players realize this when The DM pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here and is replaced by the robotic, controlling, Barry. Barry considers the idea of playing the usual themed "editions" ridiculous, passes out pre-made characters sheets with intentionally bad stats (such as a Rogue with terrible dexterity) to make the game more "challenging," and arbitrarily kills player characters to punish "deviation." Within minutes, Wailin has thrown Barry out, and Sara is on the phone with The DM asking him to return.
- Big Friendly Dog: Kepler. Usually seen in the background, he's appeared as a lion in "Circus Edition," as The DM in "Dog Edition," and as the secret villain in "Time Travel Edition," trying to wipe TTRPG's out of existence so that humans spend less time playing games and more time playing with him.
- Big "NO!": Sarah and Wailin's reaction to Lance declaring he throws water on a grease fire in "Restaurant Edition".
- Black Dude Dies First: Invoked and lampshaded in the first "Halloween Edition" with guest player Darius.
- Brick Joke: In "Halloween Edition", Lance is seen playing chess after his character is killed. Years later, in "Barbarian Edition", he uses his IRL chess knowledge to beat a scenario where their characters are used as living chess pieces.
- Casting Couch: Parodied in the video where Wailin joins the D&D group.
- Cool Shades: Lance is very rarely seen without sunglasses on, despite being indoors. He actually seems to have trouble seeing without them, suggesting perhaps they're prescription.
- Credits Gag: Instead of the normal closing credits, "Meta Edition", listed Melissa as Wailin, Jay as Sarah, and Kyle as Lance.
- Day in the Limelight: When The GM needed a break, Wailin, Lance, and Sara took turns in his chair, running Anime Edition, Wrestling Edition, and Conspiracy Edition Part 6, respectively.
- Deliberate VHS Quality: In "Get a DM to narrate your life."
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Sara's reaction upon finding out Justen was playing D&D with another group in their home.Sara: "What, you just thought I was never gonna find out? How many times did it happen??"
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Bates ("The DM") performs all of the songs that play over the closing credits. The sole exception is "D&D", by Stephen Lynch, which sends off the first season.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The earliest of the D&D Edition videos (starting with "Hipster Edition" in 2015) had a different player named Elliot instead of Wailin at the table with Lance and Sara.
- Evil Counterpart: Barry, to The DM. While The DM does become frustrated with the antics of the party, he ultimately wants them to have fun, allowing out of the box thinking and homebrew materials. Barry, on the other hand, has his players sign Non-Disclosure Agreements with Non-Compete Clauses, asks for "offerings" before they begin, and penalizes characters for not eating before an encounter.
- Gag Reel: Done for most of the D&D edition videos. Formerly they were uploaded to the channel separately, more recently they've just been included at the end of each respective video.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: "Groundhog Day Edition" (originally uploaded in 2020) features the usual player trio arriving in Punxsutawney to find that Phil has gone missing... again and again and again, as they are sent back to the beginning of the adventure each time they fail to overcome a trap or puzzle on their quest. Taken a step further when the exact same video (except for the gag reel for the making of the episode being included rather than uploaded separately) was posted again for Groundhog Day 2023 as a meta-joke.
- The same video was uploaded AGAIN in 2024, but with a new opening segment showing Justen waking up to the sound of the game going on in another room and looking exasperated, perhaps indicating that he, rather than The DM or the players, is the one experiencing the loop.
- Identically Named Group: Played with in "Ranger Edition". When asked to create characters of the eponymous class, Sarah is the only one who did so. Wailin brought a park ranger, while Lance made one of the Power Rangers
- A similar incident happened in "Pirate Edition". The GM was planning on running a Sword & Sails era game, Sara played a modern day Somalian, while Wailin made a pilot (he misheard). Lance thought they were going to spend the day illegally downloading movies.
- In Another Man's Shoes: "NPC Edition" features the three players forced to take on the roles of typical NPC's who become collateral damage in the quests of adventurers they come in contact with. Lance is a tavern keeper whose establishment is burned down in a barfight, and he's the lucky one; both Wailin (a farmer) and Sara (an elderly librarian) are more or less kidnapped by adventuring parties and end up quickly getting killed by villains.
- Jerkass: Barry. He first appeared (almost literally - nobody knows where he came from) as a replacement for The DM in "D&D Edition," where his tyrannical, no-fun-allowed style left the players fed up within minutes, and has since become a recurring antagonist both in-game and in the series' (scripted) "real life."
- No Full Name Given: Sara, as opposed to Lance (Meltzer), Wailin (Brandleburger), or Finnbar "Barry" Hohenzollern.
- Only in Florida: The general theme of the recurring "Florida Edition" installments.
- Only Sane Man: In the D&D videos, this is most often The DM, as he often becomes incredulous at the players' actions. Of the players, Lance is the one most likely to react with dismay to the bizarre situations the party finds itself in (whereas Wailin tends to go with the flow and make jokes and Sara just wants to be a Murderhobo).
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: All the players in the "Gangsta Edition" videos (although one of their characters is Black and another is Hispanic, poking fun at the TTRPG convention of player "races").
- The Munchkin: Sara, for the most part. With her bonuses to skills and attacks, she rarely gets lower than 10 after the dice are rolled. You should still check her dice, just in case.
- Product Placement:
- The "Mini Edition" video, which features The DM using a Shrink Ray on the players so they can battle it out with TTRPG monster minis provided by the video's sponsor. The players immediately call the whole thing out as just being a commercial, and get annoyed as The DM keeps finding ways to work reading ad copy into the game.
- "Sponsor Edition" features the characters coming oddly close to playing a "normal" fantasy-themed game of D&D, except with ambient music and sound effects... provided by the video's sponsor, an app that provides ambient music and sound effects for TTRPG sessions.
- The Real Man: Sara. Might also be classified as a "Combat Master" in Aaron Allston's Player Archetypes system, or a "Butt-Kicker" in Robin Laws' taxonomy. Her primary goal at the table is to kill stuff, with anything else a very distant second.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: "Time Travel Edition" features the party going into the past in order to protect Gary Gygax from a The Terminator-esque assassination attempt that will prevent TTRPG's from ever being invented.
- Stereotypical Nerd: The "players" at Sara's table in the "DM Edition" video - specifically, of the "overweight, awkward sexists with poor hygiene" Basement-Dweller variety.
- The Stoner: The entire cast in the "Stoner Edition" episode, not surprisingly.
- Straight Man: Justen's role in the Drunk Before Noon videos, where he has to be the voice of reason to Chaz's alcohol-fueled ramblings.
- Take That!: "Twitch Edition" is one to Dr. Disrespect (via Lance's character "The Macho Medic"), Tyler "Ninja" Blevins (via Wailin's blue-haired, racial-slur-using character "Samurai") and female streamers who rely on looks and a fake airheaded persona to get viewers (via Sara's character "PrettyGirlOnTV").
- The '90s: Invoked in "90s Edition", complete with Totally Radical speech.
- Total Party Kill: Too many times to count.
- Unsatisfiable Customer: The foes of the players in the "Karen Edition" and recurring "Customer Service Edition" episodes.
- Wrestler in All of Us: The whole party in the two "Pro Wrestling Edition" videos. Lance is also a huge wrestling fan in general, frequently wearing wrestling-related T-shirts or hats at the table or incorporating wrestling references into his characters in other videos, and his last name (Meltzer) is a Shout-Out to a wrestling industry journalist.
