Meet the guy who lets a D20 decide what goes in his sandwiches

Dungeons & Dragons TikToker Jake Pauwels doesn’t start his videos with rulebooks or character sheets, but with paper plates and sandwich ingredients. During many lunch breaks this spring, the high-fantasy author and dungeon master wrote lists of everything he had in his fridge on a series of plates and used dice rolls to decide which Frankenstein sandwich to build before he eats his creation. He now has more than 800,000 followers on TikTok, with many coming for it roll for sandwichwhose popularity has skyrocketed.

Pauwels usually begins by throwing a six-sided die over a magnificent dice tower, which is placed next to a plate or paper with a table listing possible ingredients. Whichever side it lands on first equates to one type of bread, with options ranging from naan to croissants, then mains, from corned beef to peanut butter. Next up is Cheese, “Roughage” and Wild Magic – which uses a d20 die and adds everything from spice to sprinkles to fire. Finally comes the risky sauce menu, which could change the entire flavor profile with chocolate icing or spruce tip jam. Then he puts together the complete, if perhaps questionable, sandwich. roll for sandwich has since produced dozens of episodes, from Roast beef and marshmallow fluff sammies to a Horseradish and Hearts of Palm Pretzel Bagel. It’s not all an ick factor – many combos are wonderful and teach both Pauwels and the viewer about taste.

As a stay-at-home dad, Pauwels started the series to repurpose D&D gameplay in a fun way using components he had around his house, especially post-grocery stores, he told Polygon. Since the early episodes, the production quality has been enhanced with customized dice, a dice tower to roll, and a chain gauntlet and ax to cut the sandwiches – handling of which resulted in Pauwels being temporarily slapped with a TikTok community guidelines violation. His insightful, descriptive voiceover has stayed the same throughout the series. He originally added it out of necessity so he wouldn’t wake his infant daughter, who was sleeping just outside the Sandwich Station frame.

roll for sandwich was an instant hit on TikTok, thousands returned for each new episode, and some even asked permission to start their own Dice series, like Jared Frazier’s roll for cocktail. Pauwels video chat with Polygon to talk about happy cinnamon raisin accidents, the end of the sandwich season and the joy of randomness in play and storytelling. His replies have been edited for length and clarity.

Polygon: Do you finish every sandwich?

Pauwels: Yes, that was important to the concept of the show. Rolling for a randomly generated lunch that I can just throw away if I don’t like it doesn’t carry the same weight. There are real consequences to the roles you do in D&D. Well, real fantasy episodes. I was hoping to embody that in this project. And it’s not like I’m putting anything dangerous on this list — I can suffer for five minutes to eat a bad sandwich to maintain the integrity of the show and give people some entertainment.

And there’s so much food waste on TikTok, where people do horrible, horrible things for views and don’t eat it. I’m not financially able to buy a bunch of groceries and then throw away half of it every week.

Is there a meal combination that you happened to be given that was a surprising hit?

The way I think about cinnamon raisin bread has changed a lot. I used to always think of it as a breakfast treat, but it was good with salty lunches. Early on I rolled cinnamon raisin bread and pastrami, cheese, apple slices and hot mustard. It was great.

There’s something chaotically happy about letting chance decide what you eat. Why do you think it’s so much fun to watch series or play games that involve similar randomness?

The beauty of the true randomness of the dice system is that you have the potential for two different outcomes; both are pleasant when you sit down with your friends and play a game. You have the successes/critical successes that drive the story along, and then you have the critical failures that create comedy or situations that you didn’t anticipate at all. That really makes it a community experience. If I wanted to tell the whole story, I would just keep writing my book.

When people discover your D&D and world building account through your roll for sandwich Videos, is there a takeaway you want them to leave your account over?

It’s good to be open-minded about food because it can surprise you. I’ve had countless messages from people saying, “You’ve been a tremendous help to me with my eating disorder.” I’ve had long messages about how seeing how I take risks with foods that may have sensory issues or edibles has helped people Having food aversions, things I never expected but are awesome. A lot of people have commented on my videos and said, “I’ve never really been into D&D, but these make me want to try it.”

Image: Jake Pauwels

What do you see in your lunchtime series that makes it a tabletop RPG?

I think part of that is the unexpectedness of rolling and the excitement of saying, “We just missed another crab, cheese and chocolate sauce sandwich.” That’s the essence of roleplaying. Any unanticipated outcome in a video game is just because you didn’t expect it, but it was programmed in as a possibility. Whereas in D&D what happened happened only to you. You can live a life as unique as your own life.

In this context, you talked about Adventures in Aardia now being your main account, although you didn’t intend it to be, and you have many DM/Fantasy author aspects in your account that you also want to use. How do you feel about using the success of roll for sandwich to fuel those other passions, like the high fantasy novel you’re writing?

I definitely plan on using this as a platform to talk about it while I’m still doing it roll for sandwich, doing things that you know the majority of people here are into. It’s not like I’m super famous for food and then suddenly I’m like, “Hey, I wrote this fantasy book.” It’s in the name of my account. I have some plans to take some time off this summer roll for sandwich as the end of Season 1, which transitions into Season 2. I can focus on actually working on my novel and maybe sharing some of that content on the channel as well.

Will season 2 change mechanically in any way?

Not much! Maybe 30% of my comments on any video revolve around rolling twice for how roasted it is. I’ve thought about most of these things. I can’t do all. I’m already pushing the limits of the length of TikTok videos at three minutes. But I’m still experimenting with what I can do – I just recently got my hands on a propane torch.

roll for sandwich evolved from you being the dungeon master for a D&D campaign, but what was your go-to D&D before Character?

My last character before I started DMing was a warforged monk built by an assassins guild as a mindless killing machine. They didn’t have a name but a designation, namely Guild Requisition Elimination Golem: GREG.