Jun 8, 2026 · 59 min · 12 segments
Dan and Paul discuss the role of physical size in D&D. From adventures set in giant-sized environments to scenarios where player characters are magically shrunk, changing scale can completely alter…
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Dan CollinsHost
Paul SiegelHost
We would, uh, love, uh, engaging with, uh, with your thoughts about this issue in person.
I did not realize how much I use this theme in my adventures, and I was trying to find one particular adventure in my, on my hard drive here, and was like, "Oh, well, this isn't what I thought, but I, I shrank the characters in this adventure.
And then, w- well, this adventure isn't what I thought, but I, I used, I used giant mummies.
So it's, it seems like it's really, um, a, a through line that I would forget about, but it's a common through line through a lot of D&D stuff at the very inception.
And of course, you know, I was thinking like what are some literary traditions of this, and I thought of, you know, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, uh, all the way back in 1865.
The very first thing that happens to Alice is she gets thrown into a f- a foreign world down the, down a rabbit hole, like, which I sympathize with today, and then there's this very...
There's a door that's too small for her, and there's a, there's a, there's a drink me potion that makes her small, but then she's left the key way up on the table that's too high.
And now there's the, there's the eat me cake that makes her grow and she has to balance that out in order, in order to get through.
Part of that, Alice is, like, wondering, "Oh, should I drink this potion? 'Cause it might be poison.
If you look at original D&D, on the potions list, if I can get this in camera, that's the first two potions.
We would, uh, love, uh, engaging with, uh, with your thoughts about this issue in person.
I did not realize how much I use this theme in my adventures, and I was trying to find one particular adventure in my, on my hard drive here, and was like, "Oh, well, this isn't what I thought, but I, I shrank the characters in this adventure.
And then, w- well, this adventure isn't what I thought, but I, I used, I used giant mummies.
So it's, it seems like it's really, um, a, a through line that I would forget about, but it's a common through line through a lot of D&D stuff at the very inception.
And of course, you know, I was thinking like what are some literary traditions of this, and I thought of, you know, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, uh, all the way back in 1865.
The very first thing that happens to Alice is she gets thrown into a f- a foreign world down the, down a rabbit hole, like, which I sympathize with today, and then there's this very...
There's a door that's too small for her, and there's a, there's a, there's a drink me potion that makes her small, but then she's left the key way up on the table that's too high.
And now there's the, there's the eat me cake that makes her grow and she has to balance that out in order, in order to get through.
Part of that, Alice is, like, wondering, "Oh, should I drink this potion? 'Cause it might be poison.
If you look at original D&D, on the potions list, if I can get this in camera, that's the first two potions.
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