Celebrity Side Quest in Tabletop Gaming

The Gaming and Manufacturing Association (GAMA) is working with Six Sides of Gaming in partnership with Anime Central (ACen), bringing you a unique experience that promises to level up your entertainment.

Celebrity Side Quest is a new initiative where we bring celebrities and industry professionals together to live-play Dungeons and Dragons as well as other tabletop roleplaying games on stage with you, the audience, as participants in the game!

We don’t stop there. We are bringing you specialized panels about the TTRPG industry from the creators themselves as well as those who make a prominent living off it while entertaining you. Panels such as ‘Design an RPG module LIVE’, ‘How to be a professional role-player’, ‘Gaming Inclusivity’ and more!

Celebrity Side Quest at Anime Central, brought to you by GAMA – The Games Manufacturer’s Association; coming live to you from Anime Central in Rosemont, Illinois on May 19-21st. In this D&D 5e live-play, join The Guild’s Vince Caso as he takes his party on an adventure that promises shenanigans and absolute mayhem! Our special cast of characters include Elisa Teague (Tasha’s Cauldron, My Little Pony RPG, D&D in a Castle), Tommy Gofton (The Gamers, Cowboy Bebop Board Game Boogie, Naruto Village Defenders), Surena Marie (Dimension 20 and Critical Role) and Faye Mata (League of Legends, SonoKuba, Fire Emblem), AND Ashelia Rinkou (Phase Connect Vtuber) will be joining them digitally live on stage!

From professional gaming to voice acting, Faye Mata is a Wisconsin born Asian-American and an advocate of chasing dreams. She’s known for playing the roles of Aqua (Konosuba), Astolfo/Rider of Black (Fate/Apocrypha), Yukako Yamagishi (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure), Petra (Fire Emblem), Kagami (Miraculous Ladybug), Lulu (League of Legends), and Ling Xiaoyu (Netflix’s TEKKEN).
She is also known as Sailor Aluminum Siren (Sailor Moon), Princess Malty (Rising of the Shield Hero), Miyu/Fukaziroh (Sword Art Online: GGO), Rin Hoshizora (Love Live!), and Neon Nostrade (Hunter x Hunter). Some game roles are NiCO (Dead or Alive 6), Lene (Fire Emblem Heroes), Fleet (Rivals of Aether), Daria and Lishenna (Shadowverse), and scattered throughout the world in Genshin Impact!

Faye also competed semi-professionally in video game tournaments around the world such as EVO, CEO, and Pokémon Worlds under the gamertag “Princess Aura,” the same name she used as a competitor on a national reality TV show on SyFy. She used to be a content creator for an eSports organization. Faye brings a lot of fun and energy to cons and currently enjoys challenging people to 1v1 battles in Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

Initiating in film, Thomas produced the comedic award-winning series “The Gamers: Natural One” and “Hands of Fate”. Thomas founded Lynnvander Studios, an Canadian based design studio responsible for tabletop and RPG games including “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Pathfinder: Level 20”, “Imaria: The Legacy of Mana”, “Albion’s Legacy”, “Cowboy Bebop: Boardgame Boogie”, “Dr. Who: Don’t Blink”, “Terminator Genisys: Rise of the Resistance”, “Evil Dead 2”, “Army of Darkness the Board Game”, “Star Trek Attack Wing’s Alliance System” as well as “Battletech: Aces”, “Starfinder’s Pirates of Skydock”, “Naruto Village Defenders” and “Shadowrun Takedown”. When Thomas is not filming for his channel www.youtube.com/sixsidesofgaming (Destiny of Worlds Series) or managing his www.roundtablekingdom.ca series of establishments including board game café’s, archery range and escape rooms, he is found traveling the world hosting screenings, design sessions and panels to creators, gamers, filmmakers and viewers.

A 22 year veteran in the Tabletop Games Industry, Elisa Teague has worked on over 100 published card and board games including Kingdom Hearts Talisman, Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow’s Walk, Dad Joke Faceoff, and her best-selling party trivia game, Geek Out! She has also written for various RPGs including Dungeons & Dragons, the G.I. JOE, Transformers, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Games, Wardlings, Kids on Bikes, and many more, as well as developed, edited, and produced RPG books for the fifth edition Vampire: the Masquerade and Hunter: the Reckoning lines.

Known for social intrigue, deep mystery plots, and puzzles in her RPG writing, she wrote the chapter on how to use puzzles in your game for D&D’s Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, wrote an exclusive adventure featured in Beadle & Grimm’s Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons Silver Edition, and has designed puzzle events and ARGs for some of the largest companies, theme parks, and events in the world.

A past Guest of Honor at conventions all over the world, including Gen Con, Gary Con, Origins Game Fair, Gamehole Con, and more, she has spoken on panels teaching the how-tos of success in the tabletop game industry. She is a featured Dungeon Master at D&D in a Castle, and she is a cast member of Six Sides of Gaming’s D&D Actual Play show, “Destiny of Mana” as well as many one-shot Actual Plays for charity every year.

Vince Caso is an actor, writer, and tabletop role player based in Los Angeles, where he was educated in a school for the arts, training in improv, acting, music, and Shakespeare from an early age. His experience in on-screen performance began in the Slamdance darling “Humble Pie”, after which he played Bladezz on Felicia Day’s multi-award winning “The Guild”, which spawned a legion of successive media including comic books, music videos, and an exhibit in the Smithsonian.

Vince began voice acting at this time as well, landing roles in Guys From Andromeda’s “Space Venture”, the animated show “Lost Hope”, and the audio drama “Veronica”. Simultaneous to this, Vince was building a repertoire of vocal performances in the form of over 50 live action radio plays, in which he would play up to 9 different characters per show, and swiftly became known for his broad vocal dexterity.

His experience, further, extends to theater, having performed renditions of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and “The Tempest”, as well as Sondheim’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and a highly lauded performance in a stage production of “12 Angry Men”.

Vince’s latest foray is into the world of TTRPGs, where he began DM’ing professionally on the actualplay series’ “Failed Save” and “Banesbreak”, but has further appeared as a performer on Paradox Interactive’s “Vampire the Masquerade: LA By Night”, Legendary Digital Networks’ “We’re Alive: Frontier”, and a variety of other shows. Aside from his performances, Vince is also busy at work as a writer, having penned a slew of TV pilots, short stories, and D&D one-shot adventures, and is currently working on a slate of short film projects to shoot in 2023 and 2024. He loves to cook, read, and game, and is a proud cat-dad to two fuzzy hellions.

Surena is a multi-passionate actor, writer, and TTRPG industry professional. Previously she served as the Product Marketing Manager at Critical Role before becoming the Head of Marketing & Communication for Quest Portal, a virtual tabletop based in Iceland. When she’s not working 9-5, she performs with her friends at Dropout (Dimension 20’s Court of Fey and Flowers, Um Actually, Dirty Laundry), The Dungeon Run, and Pixel Circus. She also voiced a very stressed ship ai named Doty in Jackbox Party Pack 5. In addition, Surena also crafted the cover adventure for the Nebula Award Nominated Journeys through the Radiant Citadel from the Wizards of the Coast. Ask her about Disney Dreamlight Valley or Sailor Moon to receive an unreasonable amount of information.

The mischievous AI from Phase-Connect – Lia! Once the greatest thief in the galaxy, she was forced to give up her life of crime and has instead focused on the new goal of becoming a picture-perfect idol. Lia is known for her deep dive streams into internet culture on Youtube and is a big fan of RPG and gacha games. Lia’a appearance at Anime Central is sponsored by Phase Connect.

Meet her in Celebrity Side quest this ACen!

Anime Central (ACen) is the largest anime, manga and Japanese popular culture convention in Chicago and the Midwest. Anime Central 2023 will take place from May 19-21 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois.