Kyle Thomas has been rolling dice and telling stories since the 1990s. Like many kids of that era, he first discovered Dungeons & Dragons through friends, but life soon pulled him toward music and other pursuits. Years later, improv classes unexpectedly reignited his passion for role-playing. While wandering through a Manhattan bookstore, Thomas spotted a Fourth Edition Player’s Handbook and felt the spark return. That rediscovery led to years of play and a whole new set of friendships built around the table.
For Kyle, improv became a gateway into DMing. The skills of quick thinking, adopting voices, and inhabiting characters translated perfectly into guiding groups through adventures. He found that running games scratched his creative itch, letting him be every monster, NPC, and supporting role at once. While he enjoys playing, his natural energy leans toward the Dungeon Master’s chair.
That instinct has served him well over the years. Thomas has spent many campaigns DMing purely for fun with friends, and occasionally stepped into professional gigs, including with Cast Party. No matter the setting, his joy comes from seeing players light up when the world and its characters come alive.
Ask Kyle about his favorite NPCs, and the list comes quickly. Tiny Mitch, a barrel-sitting newsboy with a cockney accent, became an unexpected star in one campaign. Players never let him go, demanding his return every session. Then there was Mudgraw, a turtle in Tomb of Annihilation who spoke as slowly as he walked. When the party eventually buried him, it was clear Thomas had given the group someone worth remembering.
He also loves working in impressions. Whether it’s channeling the Swedish Chef or slipping into Randy Savage’s booming bravado, Kyle treats NPCs like opportunities to entertain. One goblin wrestler, complete with tassels and over-the-top promos, became a fan favorite in its own right. These touches make his tables unpredictable and fun.
This variety highlights why Thomas enjoys the Dungeon Master role. For him, it’s never just about stat blocks or combat encounters. It’s about creating characters that feel alive, often larger than life, and letting the players decide how to engage with them.
Thomas also credits third-party resources with shaping his campaigns. Kobold Press sits at the top of his list, particularly the Tome of Beasts and its tough, inventive monsters. He praises the variety of spells, player options, and imaginative designs that keep encounters fresh. He also appreciates Tales of the Valiant, a 5E-adjacent system that opens space for creativity without straying far from familiar mechanics.
One example stands out: a player-created humanoid blowfish character, stitched together using flexible lineage rules. Kyle was able to balance the concept quickly and bring it to life in play. For him, that flexibility is part of the fun, whether drawing from published modules or tweaking pieces to fit his own campaign arcs.
His current Division 7 story on Tabletop Bob reflects this approach. It’s a short run, just eight episodes, but it draws from a homebrew world he has cultivated for years. By weaving in outside material and his own improvisation, Thomas shapes something cohesive without relying solely on prewritten scripts.
Division 7 has already aired seven episodes, with the finale live-streaming next Tuesday. For Kyle, the experience has been a chance to share his style with a broader audience, while still staying rooted in the improvisation and interaction he values most. He encourages long-form campaigns when possible, since that’s where deeper relationships between characters and NPCs can emerge.
Still, even shorter arcs carry those moments of magic. Whether it’s a goblin collapsing mid-battle after a vicious mockery spell, or a heartfelt burial for a beloved turtle, Thomas believes in giving players memories they’ll carry long after the dice stop rolling. His DMing is less about controlling outcomes and more about building shared stories that feel personal and alive.
Looking back, Kyle often describes marathon sessions that flew by in a blur of laughter and role-play. Those are the times that remind him why he loves running games: the table becomes a place where friends escape, experiment, and connect. With Division 7 closing soon, fans will get to see that philosophy in action one more time on Tabletop Bob.
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Eileen Delgadillo: Welcome people of PopGeeks. My name is Eileen, and we’re going to be speaking with someone special today. We’re going to be speaking with my husband, Kyle. Kyle is currently running a campaign over at Tabletop Bob’s YouTube channel, and it was really quite a treat to sit and get to interview my own husband.
We talked about that his origin story, so far as getting into Dungeons & Dragons and where that journey has taken him over time. And we got to touch on, you know, some of his favorite DND moments and the current campaign he’s running over at Tabletop Bob, and some other fun stuff too.
Oh, and by the way, our seating arrangement is really awkward in this one. Don’t mind it. We’re working with a very tight space over here, and you know, there’s just not a lot of room to zoom out.
Because see that over there, that that’s a curtain over there, and there’s immediately, like this tiny bit above the shot, there’s all the rungs and stuff like that. So we’re just working with what we have around here. So thank you for joining us, and here’s the interview.
We are back right now with Kyle Thomas, Dungeon Master extraordinaire, and Kyle you’re running a campaign right now, but you’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for quite a while. Why don’t you tell us about your origin story?
Kyle Thomas: Well, you know, back in the 90s, you know, prehistoric days. You know, every 12 year-old got into D&D at some point. I would think. I was a movie nerd and stuff like that.
But, you know, you you learn about it, you try it out with your friends and everything like that. But, you know, high school, and you get into music, and you get into other things, and I kind of gaming wasn’t really something that I did a lot of.
Kyle Thomas: And then in 2014 I was kind of starting over with a lot of things, and I started taking improv classes, which were awesome. One of the best experiences I ever had. And I stumbled. I was in a bookstore in Manhattan, and I was walking around people, watching for ideas on how to be other people.
And I saw the cover of the Fourth Edition Player’s Handbook, and had a Dragonborn on the cover. I never seen one before. And I’m like, that’s a dude. That’s dragon. What is that? I want to do that? What is that? And so I picked it up, I bought it up, I bought it immediately, and I’m thumbing through and then, you know, I found people playing, and taught me the new stuff and all that. And I did it because I thought it would be good practice for improv.
But the little bit of improv experience I got just made me really good at D&D, because the D&D stuff completely took over. I found a lot of great new friends groups that, you know, I’ve been buddies with ever since, and it was just such a great bonding and socialization and just fun experience that it’s my whole thing.
Eileen Delgadillo: And you’ve done some dungeon mastering. You’ve done it for fun, and you’ve also done a little bit professionally. What do you like most about being a Dungeon Master?
Kyle Thomas: I think my skill set is more aligned to being a Dungeon Master than a player, because I was an only child. So, whenever I was playing anything with my G.I. Joes, my Transformers, anything I was everyone in the room, every character was me. I deciphered the scenario.
Everything that was happening was all came out of me when I’m a player and I’m just this one guy, like, it’s fun and I get in, you know, sometimes it’s silly, sometimes it’s serious, and it’s I really, really enjoy it. I tend to my mind starts to wander about other people, other NPCs, other planet, and it I get pulled away just a little bit life left to my own devices for a little too long, and I can kind of lose focus. But when I’m a dungeon master, I’m everybody again.
So I’m every monster. If a goblin has a speech impediment, I’m gonna give you a goblin with a speech impediment just because I feel like it. And I can do whatever I want. You know, anytime I want a shark or some bees, they just show up because that’s what I want.
So I get to have that spontaneous, sort of random fun that I sometimes crave, well, at the same time, like I’m playing with people I like, and I want them to have fun too. So I can give them things that they can interact with and and sort of mold the story their way. But I can also kind of scratch that itch of being every little NPC and everyone’s got a personality and everybody’s got a thing and a gimmick, you know.
So I think that’s why I think I’m better at that. Although I do love playing, I just think my personality leads me to being a better DM.
Eileen Delgadillo: What’s your favorite NPC that you’ve gotten to play as?
Kyle Thomas: Ooh, God. There’s so many. There’s so many. There’s Tiny Mitch.
Eileen Delgadillo: What was tiny Mitch’s deal?
Kyle Thomas: Well, he was, you know, like in the movies, like from, like, the the 40s, they had those newsboys with the floppy hat. Of course, you know, they were always kind of getting into trouble in the neighborhood. Like, that’s who I pictured in my head. He was just a kid.
Like, I had this group that was running a module called Madness at Gardmore Abbey, which is, like. Sandbox, and there’s a town that’s the central club. So they keep going back to the town and then going on this adventure and coming back to the so they were new to the town, so they needed a guy.
So off the cuff, I just said, Oh, this little kid sitting on a barrel, and he sees you guys, and he’s really excited, so he hops off the very and how, you know, and he had the old timey British accent. He’s like Tiny Mitch, on account of me short stature. Me Name is Mitch, and then forget it. The group would not leave this kid alone. They wanted this kid.
They wanted to see him every session, every textbook. D&D, yeah, go for a time. And you know, you got to give the players what they want, of course. So he was just a lot of fun. You know, right now, I’m, I’m running a Tomb of Annihilation.
It’s been going on forever. We’ve been playing this game since 2019, and it’s still going strong.
Eileen Delgadillo: I know!
Kyle Thomas: Kyle Thomas: It’s almost finished.
Eileen Delgadillo: I was part of that.
We had a whole child in that time.
Kyle Thomas: So, yeah, it’s almost finished. We got about three sessions maybe left since, you know, in a six year game, you know, with a few breaks.
Yes. So, yes, pre-parenting is, yeah, yeah. And so there’s an NPC in that named Mudgraw. He’s a turtle and I just decided that he talks as slow as he moves. That was fun for me to just because, you know, my brain moves too quick and I talk fast and everything. So to intentionally slow myself down like that.
It was fun for me and the players like them, and he, unfortunately, is no longer with us.
Eileen Delgadillo: Oh no.
Kyle Thomas: And they gave him a burial, and they was like, before we can move on, we have to, we have to bury Mudgraw. We have to show our respect.
I remember him. RIP Mudgraw.
Yeah, yeah. He died heroically. But those, those are two highlights that come to mind. And there’s been a million random people you know over the years, like too many to count.
Eileen Delgadillo: You’ve even gotten to work in some of your favorite impressions, like you got to do a Swedish Chef and you got, oh yeah, some Randy Savage along the way.
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): You see another goblin climb up on top of The wagon, and he’s dressed in like this super colorful, flashy, flamboyant jacket with these long tassels, kind of hanging down. And he is on top of the wagon, and he’s looking around, and he’s shouting to anyone that will hear him.
Now, I have to warn you what happens, during what happens next may give me an aneurysm, but I’m going to do it anyway, because I’m going all out. Gotta go all out for Tabletop Bob. So, okay.
Oh yeah! Oh yeah! See. Macho Goblin Dib is on the scene. He’s in your town, messing around. Yeah? Lady in the Lake showed me the way to infamy, yeah, oh, yeah. I’m losing it. I’m losing it. I’m taking you all down. Everybody’s going to remember the name. I’m the greatest goblin professional wrestler that’s ever lived, and I’m alive right now. Yeah, I’m take you all down, yeah, ooh, yeah.
Okay. Oh bro, I’m still alive. I’m still here. I’m still here.
Kyle Thomas: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Swedish Chef. Huge. Swedish Chef. I think there was an encounter where he was just, like, playing cards at a table, and it was just an excuse to be Swedish Chef. It was, I was like, what’s good?
Yeah, let’s be Swedish Chef today. And, you know, any, any excuse to be Randy Savage, I’m going to take it. Yeah? I Those are probably two that I enjoy the most.
Eileen Delgadillo: As a DM, you have a lot of resources that you pull upon to put a story together, and you like going to third party creators for that. What’s your favorite third party publisher?
Kyle Thomas: As far as overall, I would definitely say Kobold Press is my favorite. You know, they, they’ve been around a long time, but I really got tuned into their work when I stumbled on their first Tome of Beasts, which is their line of, uh, monster manuals for fifth edition.
I just saw it randomly on the shelf at our LGs when we had an LGs, unfortunately, rest in peace, uh, modern myths. It was just a random but it was, it was it stood out because it was so big. I’m like, this, wow, this is crazy. And I just flipped to, like, two random pages, I’m buying this, like, I’m gonna use, and I found that the creatures were tougher and they were really interesting, and they had really cool, different kinds of abilities. And of course, the artwork, you know, that’s that wrote me in.
But when I actually got into the nuts and bolts of the mechanics and everything, and since that time, I’ve purchased just about everything that I can get my hands on, creature manuals, you know, setting books, player options, which they have tons of, you know, books of just spells, just hundreds of spells to use against my party, and then also give them as. Sort of, instead of loot, like, there’s a cool thing you can do that you didn’t think of, and who knows if you even wanted it, but now you have it.
Eileen Delgadillo: And maybe sometimes you challenge Gene.
Kyle Thomas: Yes, yes. I gave him a whole book. Yeah, the Lost Spells thing from Necromancer Games, which is really good, but overall, you know. And then, of course, they came out with, you know, Tales of the Valiant, which is their sort of 5E adjacent system.
You know, they had the OGL thing, and nobody was sure what was going to happen with D&D. And all these wonderful creators out there that were making great content for this great game, like, what are we going to do?
So they all kind of had to make their own system that was familiar, but kind of their own. And I really like it for DMing, it’s kind of the same. You give out luck points sometimes, but otherwise it’s the exact same game.
It’s mostly player options. Some of them are really good. Some of them, eh, they kind of had to change it, sure, no, because copyright and things like that. So they’re not all spectacular. But overall, I think it’s a really good, slightly adjacent, but really, really good system leaves a lot of space for creativity.
They use a heritage lineage system instead of race, which allows for some interesting combinations. A lot leaves space for variety.
My game that is gonna be wrapping up pretty soon on Tabletop Bob. One of the players invented a humanoid blowfish from just basically the skeletal sort of things from the Player’s Handbook. Okay, this is, he’s a Beastfolk kind of, fish are kind of they’re animals. They’re beasts, I guess.
So we kind of pieced it together a little bit, not too strong, not too weak, and we made it within a couple of minutes, and it’s working really well. The players were really happy with it.
Eileen Delgadillo: You are running a campaign right now on Tabletop, Bob, why don’t you tell us a little more about that whole campaign?
Kyle Thomas: Sure, it’s Tales of the Valiant run that we’re doing in sort of a world I created during one of our home campaigns. It’s sort of the continuation of that world a little bit.
Eileen Delgadillo: Division 7?
Kyle Thomas: Yes, Division 7. That’s kind of my shtick. And again, it’s just a line of BS I threw out there during a session one time, and it made everybody laugh. So I stuck with it, and now it’s like this reoccurring thing that we were able to build, you know, as friends, as a group, you know.
So the world feels certainly lived in. For me, the people playing in it. Now it’s their first foray into there, but it’s allowed me to make it a little bit more vibrant, at least in my standpoint, because I understand the world like it’s already built, and now we’re having fun in it.
Division 7 Session Clip (Bobby): I’m gonna call to that one, and I’m gonna say in Goblin, “Asteroids have more direction than you.” and use Vicious Mockery.
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): Okay, all right, and that’s the saving throw, right?
Division 7 Session Clip Bobby: It is a saving throw, and I was just looking for it in the book, because I just want to make sure it’s the same as it is for like D&D. Here we go, Vicious Mockery. Yeah, it’s a cantrip 60 feet wisdom saving throw, or take one d4 psychic damage and have disadvantage on the next attack roll. It makes… Okay. Save is 13,
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): Six.
Division 7 Session Clip (Bobby): Suck it.
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): It takes damage.
Division 7 Session Clip (Bobby): He takes four.
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): He immediately drops dead.
Division 7 Session Clip (Bobby): Oh, my God. Okay, I I kind of recoil in horror. Like I’ve, I don’t think I’ve killed many…
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): Two of you, you hear this guy in the fancy, you know, starry robes, you know, El, you know, from grabbing at his beard. Like, it’s very well manicured, and it’s got beard oil in it and things like that. You hear him cackle something. And sound a lot like the goblins.
He just sort of shouts at one, and then it just, like, has a heart attack or something. He just beckons to it and it drops dead..
Division 7 Session Clip (Estelle): Who’s the real evil here?
Division 7 Session Clip (Kyle): So you still have the rest of your turn, Calvin. Is there anything else you would like to do?
Kyle Thomas: And it’s on my friend Bob’s YouTube channel, Tabletop. Bob, one of my gaming friends for years now, has his own channel runs right now. He’s running Curse of Strahd. He’s doing the Vecna Eve of Ruin thing, and he was able to find some room in his schedule, and we’ve been doing it. It’s gonna be wrapping up pretty soon, but it’s been a lot of fun.
Eileen Delgadillo: And what’s your been your favorite part of putting the whole campaign together?
Kyle Thomas: Ooh, well, as you said, I love third party content, right? So when I was getting ready to do this. I just looked out there in the ether for anything interesting that I could use.
I’m not a great design guy, like, I’m not numbers guy, so I like to take a module or a campaign or something, a published piece of work, right? Stay true to it when I think it’s, you know, really, really good. Give it my own little details for my own taste, or for the world, you know, little tweaks here and there, and then, you know, use that as the base that’s, that’s, it works out better when I do that.
When I try to make it from scratch, there’s usually something I find lacking. It’s just something in my creativity. It’s just, it’s the mechanic part of it. I’m just, you know, not. Great, I can do it, but it’s not right.
Eileen Delgadillo: You’re great at, like, mixing everything together.
Kyle Thomas: Yes, yes. So I basically combed the Internet and I found a bunch of great stuff, and I’m kind of putting it together, and I’m like, Okay, well, how does one seem into the other? And that’s where the inspiration for, like, a larger story, a larger arc, from, you know, from the ground up this journey that the players go on, like, how do I do that?
And that’s where, sort of, okay, this is the world, and this is how, and you kind of start moving pieces around, and then it becomes an idea as as the material plays out parts of the story, you’re thinking of the overall experience. And this great idea of this arc kind of came to me, and I just kept going, like, I have, like, way more stuff than we’re going to be able to do in this run.
Hopefully we’ll be able to do some more episodes, you know, another time, because there’s just so much material. Yes, you know, the the overarching idea, just, I think it has so much potential. There’s a lot of meat there.
But it wouldn’t have materialized if I didn’t have the pieces, right? Like, it’s like stones on a path, you know, if there’s only one stone, it’s not a path. You know, you need those those steps. Every story has beats, and it’s been really fun, even, you know, regardless of how long it takes to play it out, or even if I get to finish it, just that creative process was really, really fun.
And that’s also something that a DM gets to do away from the table. You get to create by yourself as you’re putting these things together, and sometimes it doesn’t work. You kind of like, look at and the players that you know, the waste of players time with that, you know, you put it to the side, and you come up with something else, or things like that. So I enjoy that part too. Like, kind of putting it all together, and the concept.
Eileen Delgadillo: And your preference when DMing is, like, some DMs are more about control and laying the smack down. You’re more about, like, the whole experience.
Kyle Thomas: Yes, you know, the interactions between the players. I like to encourage for our run on TableTop, Bob, I actually we did, like, a two part session zero, where a couple of players were together and then a different, you know, it was three and two to kind of get their relationships, and then they come together and then begin their adventuring career, you know, interacting with NPCs, just just messing around for a little bit to break any tension.
Or, and you never know, like, which character is going to mesh with an NPC, or which character is going to gravitate or which player is going to enjoy a certain town or a certain organization, or just a certain interaction that they’re going to want to come back to. Or, Oh, wow, they really like that. We’re going to give them. Give them more.
Okay, when they go over here, I’m gonna make sure there’s something like that. Because it’s not just the player and what the player likes, it’s the player playing a character. And what, oh, we got a cat attack.
What does the what does this player’s character like to do? And you really don’t know until you do it, right? So you throw stuff at the wall and see what’s dead. That’s why I prefer, like longer things, like longer stories and longer…
I mean, one shots are fun, you know, you can try things out. Oh, I haven’t been a cleric in a while. Let me try this cleric idea. Or, you know, I haven’t gotten to use these spells that were in this new book. Let me be this class so I can try out these spells and see how I like I prefer, you know, those are fun. But I do prefer the longer run, because you can really get in there.
Eileen Delgadillo: Yeah, you really want to get into the meat of all the characters.
Kyle Thomas: And, yeah, yeah, everybody’s a little different. Some groups, like, lots of little stories. Or to go from story to story and character to character, you know, within your group, you just find the balance. You find, you know, the happy medium for everybody.
And, you know, it’s, it’s a great, a great escape. It’s a great exercise for your mind. And it’s just, you know, a great pastime. In my opinion, if you’re socially awkward, you can be the strong silent type, until you can kind of open up. If you’re a blabber mouth like me, clearly, I don’t shut up.
Other people get gotta, gotta play. You gotta shut up and let other people play. Like, like, Don’t be that guy. I mean, there’s room for, you know, the math people, the quiet people, oh yeah. Oh math boy. Serious people, they’re great. Oh yeah. Math people are so great. Like, they remember stuff.
Eileen Delgadillo: Who’s the best math person, you know.
Kyle Thomas: Ooh, probably my friend, Alex. He can do things in his head that like…
Eileen Delgadillo: And he’s got that balance between personality and…
Kyle Thomas: Yes, great role player, too. I love playing with him at the table from a from a character standpoint, but that mechanical stuff, that number stuff, he just has sometimes that’s detrimental.
Because I had a one particularly bad session of rolling, and he was telling me what the probability was of how bad I was there, like, like, the odds of me rolling this bad, and the no, like, just he was trying to make me feel proud because I achieved this incredible…
Eileen Delgadillo: Amazing thing.
Kyle Thomas: By defying the odds, like he was trying to cheer me up. I don’t know if it made it worse, yeah, definitely didn’t cheer me up. I don’t think it made it worse, but, and that was like, and he did it all in his head. It wasn’t even on paper. So, like, he’s definitely the best, uh, numbers guy, definitely.
Eileen Delgadillo: Why don’t you tell us about your best campaign memory, whether it be as a DM or as a player?
Kyle Thomas: Ooh, I think as a player, that’s easy. You and I played Tomb of Annihilation with our friends from Cast Party, which is another great organization out there on YouTube, and they do live shows and stuff like that.
Great group of people, very good friends of ours and my character and. Never really got to play this out, because it was through annihilation, and I died before, but like, we were going through the story, and we’re like in the jungles, and it has all this life threatening thing, and I had this idea of who my character was, and the environment changed him, and it changed his goals in life.
And there was a certain point where my character thinks he figured out, like the big Bad’s real motivation, and felt sorry for him, felt sympathy, wow. And because he saw a commonality between, like, my character, saw something of himself, like, oh, this could have been me, right? And almost like a kinship, and I was hoping, like to not die, and then kind of play that a little bit, because the DM was very good, and he definitely would have played with that.
Eileen Delgadillo: Oh, definitely.
Kyle Thomas: But I was pulverized by undead dwarfs before that could happen. But, um, I remember being really excited to play because of that. Yeah, it had nothing to do with the the actual story, and nothing to do with my mechanical nuts and bolts of my character was just this guy in this environment, like, got there, right? And it was, it was a great, great, great feeling, you know, that, like, that’s really, that’s creating, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s a character right there. Like, I put so much effort and thought into it.
I probably have a million DM memories that are just some of the best times ever. Um, I mean, too many to count. We once we had that one session. We were doing the Owl Bear Run, where we played till like four o’clock in the morning.
Yeah, it was like a six hour session, and it felt like 10 minutes, because it was just like everything hit every like every moment was just laughter and silliness and craziness and excitement. That session is probably my most favorite of all time overall, because it went on forever. Nobody cared. Nobody regretted playing that late.
Everybody went home happy, and it was just like this great experience. So I would have to say that’s my favorite session, DMing moments. There’s just it’s countless, countless…
Eileen Delgadillo: All right, excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining all of us today. And this one over here. Kyle is is DMing… Sorry, it’s difficult to manage a whole cat and do this at the same time. So you got her? Yeah, there you go, Essie.
Kyle Thomas: We’ll get this culprit to chill out here for a second.
Eileen Delgadillo: All right. So thank you for joining us. You can be found on Tabletop, Bob, and you’re going to be how many more sessions do you have?
Kyle Thomas: We have tonight, yeah, and then we have next Tuesday at 830 but if you go to the tabletop Bob YouTube channel, go to their live tab, you’ll find all of our episodes, from the 2p zero session to all of the standard episode tomfoolery. And it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a really great group and a really good experience,
Eileen Delgadillo: And we will catch you next time. Have a good one. Thank you!
If you want to check out more Tabletop Bob, we’re going to include some links down in the description, not just sessions that Kyle has been DMing, but a couple of their other favorite sessions as well.
If you enjoyed what you saw today, don’t forget to like and subscribe and see you on the flippy.
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