More Than a Roll: How NatBlue Found His Game

Jellyfish Fact 🪼

Jellyfish don’t have brains, hearts, or bones… yet they’ve survived for over 500 million years, making them older than dinosaurs.

“Don’t Worry About It”

Dylan is a major part of what we do at Risu, we love him and you should too.

Q: Who is NatBlue when the stream is off?

A: I work in a factory during the week, and I try to spend as much time as possible with my wife and our two cats on the weekends. I am always trying to learn something, whether that be college classes or juggling. I want to keep learning and growing.

Q: Where did the name “NatBlue” come from?

A: There is a species in Dungeons & Dragons called the halfling. They can reroll any natural one - a roll that is often an automatic failure. Because of this, a natural (Nat) two is the worst roll a halfling can have. And my favorite color, blue, rhymes with two. At one point, my friend was going to stream with me and we were going to be color coded (blue for me and red for him).

Q: What game made you realize “yeah... this is my thing”?

A: This is a tough question. It might be Call of Duty years ago playing it with my brothers. I’ve never been great at video games, but I have always tried to be entertaining while playing them. When we would play Call of Duty, I would try to rage bait them or make jokes while we played. Winning wasn’t the objective most of the time. I just liked trying to keep the vibes up while I was playing.

Q: What kind of experience do you want people to have when they watch your stream?

A: I try to be genuine. I will make jokes and badly play video games, but I won’t pretend to be someone that I’m not. The constant is that I probably won’t be great at the game I’m playing.

Q: How did you get into Dungeons & Dragons?

A: I grew up a bit of a nerd. I loved comic books and fantasy books like Eragon and Harry Potter growing up. Sadly, I didn’t have a lot of friends that were fans of fantasy. Near the beginning of Covid, I had a friend that knew I had been interested in Dungeons & Dragons, and he knew someone starting a campaign. I instantly fell in love with the game as soon as I started. Every conversation with my friend turned into me talking about our campaign.

Q: What’s your favorite character you’ve ever created?

A: I normally say that my favorite character was my first character Jeffrey. He was a psychopathic fighter that was terrified of gnomes and had a great character arc full of growth. I have loved something about every character I have played though, so it can be tough to have a favorite and it is constantly changing. I will say most of my characters have been bards and I have loved every single bard I have played.

Q: What’s the most unhinged thing that’s happened in one of your campaigns?

A: Every campaign I have played has at least one incredibly unhinged moment, but one sticks out. One of my characters was a gnome named Gimble who was a retired thief. There was a moment when he was in his hometown and they found a dungeon full of homeless people that could not move and had big grins on their faces. He thought that he needed to put them out of their misery, and no one mentioned finding a different way to fix them. He killed a homeless man. Then 5. Then 10. Eventually, he ended up killing 20 homeless people in this room while the rest of his party was chatting about something else in the corner. It changed him for the rest of the campaign. He was traumatized and dreamt of those people each night.

Q: If your life was a DND campaign, what class would you be?

A: I would like to think of myself as a bard because I do love story telling. Realistically, I would probably just be a commoner.

Q: How did you end up becoming part of Risu?

A: I went five or six years without talking to anyone in our friend group. One day, I came upon the Quickies! podcast and binge watched the episodes. I think I was the one to reach out about the episodes, but it led to me being invited on as a guest. To my surprise, after recording, our friend Cozy reached out and asked if I wanted to be a host on Quickies! I had to ask if you, Eric, okayed it because I just hadn’t expected to be hosting a show. It all snowballed from there.

Q: What do people NOT see about what you do behind the scenes?

A: I do a lot of camera stuff behind the scenes. Normally, if there is an issue with a camera shot, it is my fault. I’m not a professional, but we are figuring it out.

I do the editing for Trash Buddy Games. I love doing it, but it can be very time-consuming. I also edit for the NatBlue channel obviously. I do everything for that channel.

Lastly, I do a decent amount of research for our stuff. I spend time looking up jellyfish facts for The Jellyfish Manifesto and I have been doing a lot of work for future Trash Buddy Games videos.

Q: What role do you actually enjoy more — on camera or behind it?

A: For the most part, I prefer to be behind the camera. Outside of recording and work, I am not the most social person. Socializing for that long can be draining and I am constantly worried that I am talking too much on camera. Sitting behind a camera monitoring things is less stressful overall. At the same time, I do watch all my own content and think I do an alright job.

Q: Have you ever doubted doing content creation?

A: Constantly. Views are very up and down. Original ideas can be tough to come up with. Content takes up a lot of my time between planning, recording, and editing. I know it is a tough dream to chase and 99% of people fail, but I have never wanted something more.

Q: What keeps you going when numbers don’t hit the way you want?

A: When I watch my own videos, I consider whether I would enjoy them if someone else released them. Most of the time, that answer is yes. I enjoy the content that I make. The nice comments help a lot too. Every time someone comments that they liked a video and want me to keep it up, it fuels me a little bit.

It also helps to have a supportive group of friends to record with. The Risu team all have a similar goal and everyone helps anyway they can. It’s also great to hear when our guests from Jellyfish Manifesto have watched and enjoyed our content.

Q: What does success look like for you personally?

A: My dream is to do this professionally. If I could make a living by making fun videos with my friends and playing games that I love, I think I could feel satisfied. I also would love to just help people make content. We have had a few Jellyfish guests that have mentioned they’ve considered making their own podcast and I always make sure to tell them to reach out if they need help getting started.

Q: If your stream had a warning label, what would it say?

A: Bad at video games. I cannot stress enough that I am not a good gamer. I have my moments and there are definitely games that I am better at. For the most part, I would say that I am a subpar gamer and I am okay with that. As long as I am having fun, I don’t need to be good.

Q: You’re stuck in one game for the rest of your life — what are you picking?

A: Runescape. I could chop down trees every day until I got a fancy cape. I love chopping trees in that game. I have spent probably days worth of a childhood just chopping down trees and burning the wood. Those were simpler times.

Q: What’s your gamer toxic trait?

A: I have a tendency to throw a game if I think it would be funny. I played Split Fiction with my friend Joe last year and there were a lot of moments where it was funnier to sabotage him than it was to just play the game the right way.

Q: If your life had a Twitch chat... what would they spam?

A: Probably directions. I am so bad at getting anywhere. Even when I have a GPS, I miss turns a lot. My dad has lived in the same house for probably 15 years, and I don’t know how to get there without help. Even in video games, I can’t figure out where I am going if I don’t have an in-game map. This caused a lot of issues in Expedition 33 recently.

Q: Do you think you’re more “go with the flow” or “create your own current”?

A: I’d like to think I create my own current. I could have just focused on my professional life and never stepped out of my comfort zone to make content. I make a comfortable living and it would be easier to go with the flow. But I told myself that I could do this and I have made it my mission to make that dream come true.

Q: What’s next for NatBlue?

A: I have some fun things planned. I took a short hiatus from streaming to focus on work and college, but I plan to get back to it soon. This year, I want to release some homebrewed (self-made) content for D&D. I want to review some source books I have bought. And we are launching a D&D campaign on Trash Buddy Games soon that I have been hard at work on. I’m also planning some other great tabletop content for the channel soon. We’ve even talked about a couple of spin off channels and some Patreon content for Risu.

Q: If someone’s watching this thinking about starting streaming... what would you tell them?

A: Do it but be patient. Most streamers don’t blow up overnight. Famously, the streamer Jynxzi spent a year streaming to one or less viewers before he had any success. It can be tough to talk to no one and try to be entertaining, but you should consider VOD (video on demand) exposure. People might watch your VODs after your stream finishes, and it is important that they enjoy the VOD and want to come back. Most streamers quit very quickly.

There are also stereotypical pieces of advice for streaming. Short form content is one of the best ways to get exposure now. It has helped a lot of streamers grow over the last few years. You can also multi-stream nowadays. Twitch and YouTube are the most common choices. With a little bit of a TikTok following, you can also stream there. Lastly, something I have struggled with is finding a niche, but that can be important. Especially starting out, it is good for people to be able to expect what they are coming in to.

Most importantly, just enjoy it. If you are only doing it for fame or money, you probably won’t enjoy yourself. Just try to have fun playing and hope that people like the energy you are giving off.