The following is a video transcript

Todd: I spoke with Jared from Dice, Camera, Action about his character, Diath, as well as why he loves D&D.

Jared: This is the most fully realized, Diath has ever been. I've had him since maybe 1998, give or take, and he's gone through a lot of different variations. One time, he prestige classed into an assassin, and just was very neutral evil. That was interesting. So, this is the most fully realized and my favorite version of him. I feel like this is the closest idealization of what I always had for him in mind, plus whatever wackiness Chris Perkins throws into it.

Todd: Is he at all any facet of your own personality?

Jared: Oh, absolutely. I channel very specific parts of myself into Diath, and just increase it exponentially to make that part of his character, so being pragmatic and logical, and just trying to solve situations, trying to put others before himself, to a unhealthy degree, something that I kind of took beyond with him. So, that really helps me role play him too, because it's not just a character I'm trying to force. It makes it a little bit more natural, because there's so much of me in it.

Jared: Well, Diath is always the ... certainly the straight man. That became very clear early on as everyone else had very strong personalities, and we needed something there to kind of ground it, to also have like a more natural reaction, and thanks to that, that kind of ended up making him the natural leader of the group. Evelyn being so high energetic and high-spirited, is that force of positivity, and is a strong representation of the good that the group wants to do. Whereas Strix is more or less the anxiety and the fear of everyone, where if anything terrifies anyone, Strix is the first person to show that, but she also has just a strong love for everyone else, even if she expresses it in her own bizarre ways. And Paultin, which I love, really shows a certain degree of selfishness that every character has, but he's the most overt about it, yet does not abandon everyone else, and he doesn't leave, so there's also something there that keeps Paultin around too. So he's the wildcard and the troublemaker, but also ends up making almost every episode the most interesting, because of whatever it is he does.

Jared: I usually get asked, you know, "Hey, it's my first time DMing. What should I do?" I get asked, "Hey, it's my first time playing. What kind of character I should make?" For the most part, the general advice that I give to them is just, "Whatever you want." People worry so much about making their character an exact, specific way. It's like, "Hey, if I do this race and this class with these stats, is that okay?" It's like, "Yeah, do you want it to be?" Or even being first time dungeon mastering, they worry so much about getting the rules right, and I tell them, like, "Don't even worry about it." Like, the rules are probably the least important part of telling this story with your friends.

Jared: I started talking about D&D just because it was always such a strong passion of mine, and I love video games as well, but D&D and role playing has also been such a huge part of my life, and I kind of took it on as a challenge, to find a way to put that onto YouTube and talk about it in a way that would be interesting for someone who knows nothing about it. And I feel like thanks to that, so much more people have gotten into it, and now there are just so many more livestreams, or even just people who are just playing with their friends over Skype, or Discord, or Zoom, or whatever it is they can, because they realize like thanks to the internet, it's not way easier to play Dungeons and Dragons.

Todd: Thank you, Jared, for being on D&D Beyond. I'm Todd Kenreck, your host. Thank you for watching.