Ahead of Erika Ishii’s guest appearance on The Twenty-Sided Tavern in New York City, we sat down with Ishii, as well as veteran performers and roleplayers Felicia Day and Aabria Iyengar, for a wide-ranging conversation on roleplay, cringe, and how to prepare for a chaotic off-Broadway appearance!

The Twenty-Sided Tavern is an actual-play DnD show where the audience participates. Scanning a QR code on your program gets you assigned one of the three players onstage, and lets you help out in their challenges along the way. I’ve been to the show myself, and really enjoyed the level of participation. It was snappy and fun, and kept the show moving and feeling interactive without being distracting.

Iyengar and Day have both taken a turn as players, and imparted some critical advice for Ishii over the course of our conversation, which was livestreamed to Polygon’s Twitch channel.

Of course, a straightfoward interview isn’t really our style — and with three veteran roleplayers, we felt it would be a shame not to take advantage of their skills! We had the three roll against a QC (question class) to determine the quality of questions we asked. They rose to the challenge, even adeptly handling a critical fail from Ishii in the Cringe Dungeon along the way. Check out the full interview, which is full of wisdom and insights and kindness from three incredibly talented performers.