“The thing that I love about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is that I’m talking to my people,” actor Khary Payton, best known for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Walking Dead, tells me. “I don’t have to deal with weird conservative values and bullsh*t, because they’re not playing Dungeoไns & Dragons. They can go do whatever the hell they’re doing, but I get to talk to my people and give them support and love and they give it back to me. I friggin’ love that.”
You may know Payton as Ezekiel, or possibly as Cyborg from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Teen Titans Go. The experienced and charismatic actor recently joined actual play series Encounter Party on the D&D Adventures🐟 Freevee channel. In it, he plays Tolo, a trans tabaxi barbarian who he hopes will resonate with those tuning in.
“I based Tolo on [my son] Carter and his story of coming out to me and his mom,” Payton says. “This character was going to be going on a journey to find something. What better kind of analogy about this young tabaxi going out in th🎀e world to literally find himself?
“My son ♕talked about when he was trying to understand who he was - I feel like I’m a pretty progressive parent - and still, for a lot of years, my kid was feeling really alone. He was going through this on his own and I didn’t see it. When he finally said, ‘I think I’m transgender’, I swear it was like🏅 the Sixth Sense. I can’t believe I didn’t see it this whole time."
I felt so bad that he felt that feeling of loneliness for so long and so I wanted to create a character that someb♔ody like Carter could watch and be like, ‘That’s me. I’m not alone. I’m just fi👍nding out who I am. And there’s not a lot like me out there? Turns out there are more than you realise.’
Payton says D&D has always been for the “misfits” and outsiders, embracing everything unique about who we are, giving us a medium to express ourselves without the shack🎃les of societal norms. It’s a powerful tool being able to slip into the shoes of whoever you want and see the world through a completely different pair of eyes.
“This is a way for me to explore what [Ca💯rter] is ℱgoing through,” Payton tells me. “There are moments in the campaign that I get so protective of who Tolo is as a character. That’s probably because I based him on my son, but there are moments that I got so angry inside to tell the story, and it was like, ‘Man, this is what it feels like?’ I was asking myself, ‘Am I playing the character? Or am I playing the father who is protecting the character?’ I’ve had these conversations with myself but, when you’re in the midst of performing, it’s a grey area. But so much fun. I get to feel these things happening in the moment and it’s really exciting to me. I’ve gotten a deeper understanding of my son playing this character.”
Carter was the first person Payton told about Tolo, and his response was palpable excitement. He “beamed” when he saw a picture of this new D&D character who will forever be cemented in the annals of the game’s hist꧒ory, but it wasn’t just excitement to see himself brought to life by a supportive father but to know what it would mean to fans who do🃏n’t often get to experience that kind of representation.
“He told me, a couple days after watching it, ‘People are gonna watch this and see themselves, dad. It’s gonna be awesome.’ Hearing it coming from him means so much. And online, getting so much great feedback from the transgender community has been awesome. I feel like I’ve gotten great responses from everybody but hearing it from that community is really g🔜ratifying and somebody even told me that I’m kind of a surrogate dad in a way to a lot of trans people out there and it’s humbling. It’s everything that I wanted. In Encounter Party, we’re doing something you haven’t seen before.”
I was kind of wary of working for ‘the man’. This is a Wizards of the Coast-sanctioned thing, so I wanted to be subversive and do something that felt like what D&D is about - the misfits, us nerds in a dark room finding our b🌳est selves. I was worried the company would want me to play it safe. But everybody was really cool and supportive.
A trans character at the helm of an official D&D show is a huge step forward for representation, ꦬbut looking beyond the channel and Encounter Party, this past year has been🍒 a major leap for queerness in Dungeons & Dragons as a whole.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3 was one of the biggest games of last year, t♍aking home the coveted Game of the Year a♛ward at The Game Awards. It did so with a rich tape𒐪stry of LGBTQ+ characters who defy norms and stand tall and proud as themselves without waveri𝔍ng. I asked Payton about the progress D&D has made over the years and the strides it has taken in welcoming such a wide variety of people.
“Dungeons & Dragons isn’t about being homogenous,” Payton says. “It’s about being different. It is the ultimate in experimenting with aspects of yourself and giv🐽ing them a different colour, or body, or style of movement to better express what you’re feeling inside. It speaks to queer [people], it speaks to neurodivergent communities, the people who in their minds, you can’t look at them - or maybe you can - and see there’s som🧔ething different. But nobody talked about it before. Now you get to.
“That’s how D&D started. ‘I could be myself but hide it in a dragonborn, or a cleric, or an elephant. But we’ve come far enough that I can just say, ‘This character is me. It’s fu**ing me’ and not have to apologise for it. One of the reasons Baldur’s Gate resonates so much - besides the fact that it’s fantastic - is that you get to real♍ly customise and assign it to the self you want to be.”
Payton tells me that he hopes queer people watching Encount💫er Party will see Tolo and realise that they aren’t alone, that they’re accepted and that there are so many people out there in similar circumstances who can relate to their struggles.
It’s eꦐxactly why representation is such a powerful thing. It can help you to discover yourself, going beyond your immediate bubble to find the right words to communicate who you are. Not everyone gets that opportunity, but people like Payton are pushing for that to change.
“I wanted to remind my kid and people like him that they are magic, and they’ve got this thing inside that I think is a universal feeling for all of us who are nerds at heart,” Payton says. “Those who feel like th💮ey don’t fit into everybody’s mould of what you’re supposed to be - that’s what I wanted to key into. Because it was soꦏ personal to me, I went for broke.”
Encou𝔉nter Party airs new episodes weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays at 6PM PST and 9PM PST on Freevee and Plex. You can 🌜watch it on demand via Plex right now by .
🍎 Encounter Part♕y Creators On Turning Their Podcast Into A TV Show
Brian Davi🐼d Judkins and Ned Donovan tell us all about transforming Encounter Party꧅ from a podcast to a brand-new TV show.
