AC Spotlight: Idlywylde
We sat down with the cosplay queen, actual play producer, and GM of Girls Gone Wasteland.
Welcome back to AC Spotlight! Today, we are joined by Idlywylde, a cosplay queen, roleplay extraordinaire, producer of the Bad Ideas Actual Play channel, and GM of the stunning series Girls Gone Wasteland. Idlywylde has spent years weaving intricate stories, bringing fantastical characters to life, and crafting inclusive spaces for tabletop lovers across the internet.
Building a Foundation: Tabletop Snacks & Early Days
Unlike players who rely on constant table snacking, Idlywylde has popularized a strict ritual she calls "second meal”, consisting of Taco Bell or summer rolls with heavily addictive peanut sauce, eaten right before game time. As a GM, this pre-game ritual keeps her focused and prevents the dread of on mic chewing sounds.
Her TTRPG journey stretches back to middle school, with consistent play starting in 2007. One of her earliest and most beloved characters was Minerva, a sweet southern-bell mad scientist in an old edition of Deadlands (Savage Worlds). Minerva ran around in her bloomers and eliminated targets using an acid loaded squirt gun, slowly going mad from her experiments with demon-possessed ghost rock.
Girls Gone Wasteland
Idlywylde's flagship show, Girls Gone Wasteland, is what she warmly calls a inclusive, post-apocalyptic "girls' trip" set 200 years in the future. Rather than a bleak, empty desert, the game takes place in a vibrant, surreal version of Joshua Tree and Palm Springs.
Using The Electric State system engine as a base, Idlywylde customizes the lore deeply. The mystery of how the world ended remains open. For her, backstory is important, but how the survivors choose to react and rebuild a better society matters more. The setting is a love letter to the real-life resiliency, dark astronomy skies, and the striking outdoor desert art installations of Joshua Tree, like the Noah Purifoy exhibits.
"The only rule that I have that is written in stone is: make sure you're communicating with your table, your players, and your GM and do so with empathy. 90% of TTRPG horror stories come from a lack of communication." |
Cosplay, Community & What's Next
When she isn't running games, Idely is a prolific cosplayer who has taught herself advanced crafts like creating scale mail and custom pauldrons. This love of cosplay blends seamlessly into her storytelling.
June is lined up to be a massive month for her production channel Bad Ideas, featuring several upcoming releases:
· Hot Summer Nights: A political intrigue and jousting campaign styled like a sports anime, running on Big Eyes, Small Mouth (2nd Edition). Idely plays the noble Lady Rosalyn.
· Young Gods: A Scion system game exploring middle-aged, late-bloomer deities. Idely plays Core, the Spartan-variant scion of Aphrodite who was a former child reality star and Olympic gymnast.
· Curse of Lestrad: A 'Noir Orleans' take on Curse of Strahd blended with Interview with the Vampire, hosted on Tabletop Misfits.
You can find Idlywylde and the Bad Ideas crew on their channels here.