While football and Dungeons & Dragons might not be a combination that is associated often, Cleveland Browns fullback Johnny Stanton made it look as natural as rolling a 20 on a 20-sided dice.
Stanton held the “Rolling for Red Nose Day” Dungeons & Dragons event for fans at Tabletop Board Game Cafe in Ohio City on May 26th, raising money for Red Nose Day, a charity to help end child poverty in the United States, as well as around the globe.
Stanton was joined by his teammates: Browns guard Wyatt Teller and star edge rusher Myles Garrett, both of whom play in a separate campaign with Stanton. The trio was also joined by Aabria Iyengar and actor Ify Nwadiwe, both known for their work with Dimension20 and Critical Role, two of the most successful D&D campaigns online.
Leading the campaign was Dungeon Master Brandon Tharp of The Cantrip Cast. Tharp, a Cleveland native and lifelong Browns fan, has been creating content for sometime, amassing quite the following on TikTok with over 300,000 followers. While Tharp was leading the game, The Cantrip Cast crew was behind the scenes producing the broadcast, which aired on their Twitch channel.
“I’m super passionate about [Dungeons & Dragons],” Stanton told 92.3 The Fan prior to the event. “Obviously, I’m extremely passionate about football and made it my career. … Being able to combine those things and be able to share with my teammates and with incredible people like Brandon [Tharp], Aabria [Iyengar], Ify [Nwadiwe], and all of the people coming in tonight, it’s an absolute dream come true.”
The event was sold out almost two weeks prior to the event, with fans able to win various items prior to and during the event, with many also able to take photographs with the players throughout the night, including Teller, who was glad he could help change some of the stigma surrounding the game.
“Once you actually get to play, you realize that there’s so much more to it,” Teller said after the event on Thursday night. “It’s a little adventure. It’s a whole campaign. It’s not just some people sitting around with staffs and smoke going and it’s all this crazy, mystic stuff. It’s a lot of fun and its a good time with good people. [It’s] storytelling.”
Between donations from fans both in attendance and watching online on Twitch along with silent auctions going on throughout the event, Stanton’s event was able to raise $18,460 for Red Nose Day USA, confirmed by Stanton via Twitter on Friday.
With so much effort and planning for an event like this, it was clear that the passion behind this could be felt by everyone in the building, and the energy was definitely rolling at an all-time high throughout the night.
