Adventure is Served – Role Play Gourmet

Immersive ‘dinner, show and adventure’ crosses culinary skills with role playing games.

Tickets for Role Play Gourmet are available now

The innovative ‘dinner, show and adventure’ styled on a fantasy role playing game Role Play Gourmet is served at Vault Festival 2020.

This interactive, gaming and dining experience all rolled into one is written and directed by Vault Festival favourite and award-winning performer, writer, director and chef Paul Flannery. Flannery deftly combines a Dungeons & Dragons narrative and professional, haute cuisine principles to produce a dining experience fit for a pioneering hero.

Role Play Gourmet comes to the stage for the first time for Vault Festival 2020, showing 11th – 16th February at The Vaults, Waterloo, London.

A heady mix of culinary skill and RPG mechanics… Adventure is served.

Role Play Gourmet is a story of adventure and food. Using the language and narrative of popular role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the show takes the audience (and two volunteers) through the basics of professional cooking. Audience volunteers will learn how to prep, chop and organise a work station, earn XP to put in their skill tree and plot their noble quest – for dinner! Along the way, they will learn of the Lores that govern the culinary realm and begin to master the elemental magic that holds it together.

Premium ticket holders can dine during the show, and every ticket holder receives a Role Play Gourmet starter pack including skill trees, character sheets and recipes.

Food is an adventure, you are the hero, come and eat the adventure. Or just watch the show, no (kitchen) pressure.

“Cooking is a vocation, an endless sea of knowledge to explore,” explains Flannery. “It’s also a journey of discovery about oneself. What you cook and how often will determine your player’s character. There’s a skill tree for that, too.”

Examining culinary skills through the lens of fantasy role playing games, the one-hour immersive theatre production is the culmination of 10 years in gastronomy, frequent game nights with friends and addresses a key challenge for gamers – the desire to protect pristine gaming components from sticky fingers while also impressing your gathering.

Flannery has worked in kitchens at gastropubs, stadiums and high-end catering companies to subsidise his acting career. He has been a professional performer for 15 years, notably creating Knightmare Live, The MMOPRG Show and starring in Ghosts of Darkness.

“Role Play Gourmet is the coming together of several worlds. It’s born from a love of gaming, cooking and writing,” says Flannery.

Flannery wanted to dispel cooking myths: “I thought if only there was a way to navigate the maelstrom of guides, tricks and misinformation out there about gastronomy and cuisine on offer that was also fun.”

Paul began writing the recipes and narrative behind Role Play Gourmet as a series of blog posts for Coaching for Geeks since 2018. The posts follow the novice “Esculerie” as he overcomes culinary challenges and faces fantasy drama, bringing the process of cooking to life with ground-breaking innovation. He has captured the imagination of the active, 2000-strong Coaching for Geeks community and social media campaigns have been picked up by various role playing organisations.

Notable “episodes” in the Role Play Gourmet series:

• Hog sausages and ‘monstrous mash’ made after a hunting expedition captures a boar
• Faux pho, a spin on the classic Vietnamese dish, made to cure a dwarven warrior’s cold
• Jolly Roger Cheesecake with 3 recipes for 3 levels of difficulty (beginner, adept & grand master)

Role Play Gourmet is a unique, multi-faceted show that will feed both the imagination and stomach.

Mostly Harmless Creations and Coaching for Geeks present Role Play Gourmet, an interactive cooking show that takes gastronomy and views it through the lens of a role playing game. Written and directed by Paul Flannery, it is showing at 6pm, 11th – 16th February at the Vault Festival 2020, London.

Tickets for Role Play Gourmet are available now.