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Puppy Roll 3: Anjali Bhimani on Annual D&D Pet-Themed TTRPG w/ Petco

Anjali Bhimani (Critical Role, Ms. Marvel) spoke to us about her annual Gen Con charity event, Puppy Roll, Petco Love partnership & more.

Who knew Dungeons & Dragons and pets would make such a great combination? Puppy Roll founder Anjali Bhimani did, launching her third annual event from her production company, Bad Auntie Entertainment, and Petco Love, as she gathers friends from across the entertainment industry to play as their pets in a custom campaign to raise money for new pet adoptions at Gen Con. The star of Ms. Marvel and Critical Role's The Legend of Vox Machina, gamer and dungeon master, spoke with Bleeding Cool about the inspiration behind the event, her latest recruits, and more. Past participants include Matthew Mercer, Aabria Iyengar, Ashley Johnson, Emily Swallow, Ginny Di, and Emily Axford.

Puppy Roll 3: Anjali Bhimani on Continuing the Adventure for Charity

Bleeding Cool: What's the inspiration behind the Puppy Roll? How did it become an annual event, and how did Petco become such an ideal partner in this?

Bhimani: It all started a few years back. I ran a Kickstarter for the book I was writing, I Am Fun Size and So Are You, and my dog, Charley, factored heavily in the book as well. One of the rewards we offered was to 'Come Play D&D with me and my friend, B. Dave Walters, and we offered that as a reward to the Kickstarter supporters. I decided that I wanted to play as my dog, Charley, so we created this character and played the game. It was so much fun, and I kept thinking, "Gosh! We got to do this with more people with their pets," but I couldn't quite figure out the logistics of how to put it together.

I have so many friends who are such wonderful collaborators and so many companies that are doing such great work, but I hadn't quite figured out the logistics of the fundraising. Then, I can't remember the exact year it was, but there was a year that we were at the Astra Awards here in Los Angeles, and the folks at Petco Love showed up to the red carpet with puppies- these adoptable dogs- and I absolutely fell in love, both with the idea of puppies on the red carpet and with the puppies.

We just started talking, then I realized these might be the perfect collaborators because they're already working with people in Hollywood; they're already working on so many levels. They are working to spread the word about animal welfare, adoptions, and whatnot, and so they felt like the perfect partner, so we had a meeting. They were gung-ho, and that was it. That was the partnership, and the love affair between Petco Love and me continued. We turned it into an annual event because it's so fun; I wanted to do it annually. That's the short version of it, and the first one was very successful. When you have something that is fun and can do that much good, you don't stop it. You just keep it going, so it's a great excuse to get a bunch of friends together, do something really fun and really silly, share it with the world, and do some good at the same time

Are these original campaigns, and what's the setting for this year's Puppy Roll?

Yes, they are original campaigns. Once again, since our late dog, Charley, was the inspiration for so much of this, we created a whole original campaign set around his imagination. We created a fictional location called "Doggo," which was the land where dogs go. Charley is the mayor of said little town, and so it's sort of like a fictional land that came from the dreams of dogs everywhere, a perfect haven for them to either get to do all the things and live their best lives, so to speak. If there were dogs who had moved on and passed away, this was the place that they would go and get to be with other dog friends until they wanted to continue their soul's journey by potentially going back to be on earth or staying in Doggo and continuing their time there.

What can you tell me about the featured cast this year with Felicia [Day], Neil [Newbon], Mica [Burton], Jason [Charles], and John [Graziano]?

Yes, I am so excited about this cast. We have a new cast this year, mostly new cast, this year. We do have some returning folks, but we have mostly a new cast, partly because everybody is at Gen Con. It's super fun because it gives us a chance to introduce this lore to new people in a way that is also. Great for the live audiences there at Gen Con, because now we're going to be doing it in front of a live audience, as well as streaming it at the same time. We'll be able to get audiences at the convention, and then we'll also be able to get audiences online.

Felicia is an old friend of mine. We've collaborated on a bunch of things, and right now she's doing her big Kickstarter for The Guild [Reunion] movie, so we're helping each other with sharing the word about the Puppy Roll and The Guild because that's going to be huge, not to mention she's a big dog lover as well. Jason Charles Miller, our wonderful musician, voiceover, friend extraordinaire. His dog, Sherman, was a minor character in the first puppy role, just not a player character, and he actually helped me write the theme song for the game. We have been tight in this business for a while as well.

We have Mica Burton, the beautiful Mika Burton, who's been in the D&D space for a long time, as well as the geek space, and also in Hollywood with 'Picard.' We have, of course, Jonathan Graziano, who is our returning player for the third year now. He and his dog, Milton, are very well known on the internet, and his previous dog, Noodle, as well, who became well known by folks online during the pandemic. Of course, Neil Newbon and everybody knows Neil from Baldur's Gate 3 and from all the great work that he's doing in the gaming space. He will be coming in and playing as his cat, Mochi.

Last year, we began introducing cats to the Puppy Roll, both because we want to make sure that animals of all kinds are getting adopted across the country, but it's been fun. A challenge for the dogs to be like, "Okay, how are we all going to work together, even if we're not used to working together?" So, we have him as well, and then we also have some surprise guests coming along, depending on where we are in the Tiltify right now. I don't know who we have announced yet. I don't think we've announced any of them. Once we hit $1,000 before the stream, we'll be announcing our sixth player.

After that, we have a bunch of special guests who are going to be coming on and playing NPCs, and those NPCs are inspired by adoptable dogs from the shelter partners that we are featuring this year through Petco Love. We will be sharing all the information to be able to adopt those dogs during the stream, and then finally, we will have adoptable dogs there on site as well this time, because we are doing it live in front of an audience. We're also going to have some lovely pets come there from our Indianapolis partner, Indianapolis ACC, and so we're very excited to both incorporate them into the adventure and hopefully get them adopted by some wonderful new dog parents.

Are the guests appearing on the stream, or are they physically appearing at the game?

Nope, we will all physically…yeah, we are all going to be there. The good folks at D&D are giving us the space; they've allowed us to be part of their program at the D&D Tower that they are doing at Gen Con, which is the entire building of the Indiana Repertory Theater. We will be on the main stage at the Indiana Repertory Theater from 10:30 AM on Saturday. We'll be doing that adventure; we'll be streaming it from the theater as well, so we will be live in person playing as our dogs and one cat.

Did you have a favorite moment from last year's Puppy Roll?

Gosh, there are so many fun moments. It's really always hard to pick just one because every year, the cast has been so extraordinary. I really did love the entrance of our two cat characters which were played by Ginny Di and Emily Axford, because the way that both of them, and especially Emily, played the- contradictory energy of a cat versus a dog without it becoming a thing that it was like "One is bad and one is good," was just such a joy to watch her like all of the different my favorite. Two silly things I really loved about the Puppy Roll are, one, every single chance we get to make any pet pun, whether it's dog puns or cat puns, any puns, all the homebrew stuff that we've done where we've changed the spells and whatnot.

Then, everybody who's doing their animal-isms, and Emily was so good at all the different "cat-isms" for lack of a better term, the moments where she would get into it with one of the other cast members or one of the other heroes. It had us all laughing so much at the table. Of course, when we finished, Matthew Mercer had brought his wonderful dog Omar, whom Charley used to love as well, and he had actually brought him to the studio, so getting to put him on the table was pretty fun.

Did you regularly dress up your pets as well, and in character as part of that?

For this, no, because our pets aren't actually physically usually there. We're usually playing as them. Omar was there that one year because Matt brought him, and Charley was there the year before because we had brought him along with us. The fur babies are staying at home, as far as we know this time, except for the little adoptable ones from IACC.

Puppy Roll 3 streams August 1st from 10:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. ET. For more information and tickets, you can visit ThePuppyPoll.com. You can also donate via Tiltify.

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