No Rolls Barred

The logo for the channel

**No Rolls Barred** (**NRB**), formerly **Phenoma-Nerds**, is a YouTube channel and group of board game enthusiasts, actors, comedians and wrestling fans who play board games together.

"*That's what we do on this channel - we 'yes, and...', however much it hurts.* "
―Holly (*Your Willy Knows*)
The channel specialises in *playing* games as a friendship group, rather than offering a detailed, dry explanation. The point is to show the experience of playing a mix of games of all levels of complexity. The tone is accessible, irreverent and often adult-themed, with long-term themes and recurring jokes. There are often wrestling-like rivalries with faces and heels that occur between the many cast members, with their different personalities.

## History

### Humble beginnings

The No Rolls Barred channel was originally the personal channel of original Channel Director Adam Blampied, and had been since 2006. In 2020, Adam joined the wrestling commentary channel WrestleTalk under Trident Digital Media, and pitched an additional board games channel set on the intention of getting more people into board gaming. This channel was teased in the WrestleTalk announcement of Adam's recruitment. Plans were somewhat delayed by COVID, but in the summer, Trident gave Adam the go-ahead to restart his channel as Phenoma-Nerds (a name he would later say was "crap"), with the enduring slogan "get on board!"

### Zoom era (Oct 2020 - Sep 2021)

The channel launched in October 2020 with the series Collection Starter alongside its companion series Board Games Explained, hosted by Head of Production Laurie Blake, as well as Luke Owen's series Actually Good?, pinching from Adam's series of the same name on WrestleTalk. Adam's Board Game History began at the end of the same month, while the still-running Board Game Club debuted in November with *Let's Play CODENAMES*, marking the start of a slow increase in emphasis upon the personalities of the cast.

The channel had 40,000 subscribers by Christmas Day 2020. In January 2021, the channel was renamed from Phenoma-Nerds to No Rolls Barred, partly as an homage to a wrestling roleplay series that was of the same name on the partsFUNknown YouTube channel. The majority of content until the end of August 2021 was filmed online, particularly the long-running Board Game Club series in which the cast played various board games together each week. This spawned another monthly series, No Rolls Barred Plays Blood On The Clocktower. Despite this, the channel was losing money and lacked financial stability at the time.

### Draughts era (Sep 2021 - Jun 2023)

In August 2021, No Rolls Barred launched a Patreon (patreon.com/norollsbarred), which as of November 2023 is reportedly the 160th most popular online with more than 6,200 patrons monthly. Patreon-specific content includes exclusive game episodes and extended cuts of Board Game Club episodes. From September 2021, Board Game Club videos were filmed in-person at a brand-new custom studio at Draughts London, which has been referred to as the "spiritual home" of NRB due to several of its members meeting and having worked there. The channel began to hire more crew to produce and edit the various series, allowing the creation of content to reach higher standards of quality.

Two more in-person series were spawned in early 2022; Lord Of The Board and House Rules. The latter of the two quickly became the most viewed series on the channel, particularly *Guess Who, But With VIBES Only* which became one of its most viewed videos. The channel began to focus upon its three flagship series; Board Game Club, Blood on the Clocktower, and House Rules, while series like Collection Starter were put to rest by May of that year. Blood on the Clocktower itself was going down incredibly well, particularly the first in-person episode. A Kickstarter campaign was set up to fund more, which received £109,871 in backing to fund six more whole episodes. While preparing to film this, the channel hit 100,000 subscribers on the 20th July and celebrated with another ten hour marathon, this time in-person, raising $6759 for the charity Mind. The channel welcomed TomSka as a special guest as well as Daniel J. Layton, the latter of whom would become increasingly involved with both NRB and WrestleTalk going forward.

After a prolonged wrestle for wins by Adam in the Board Game Club series, a third marathon livestream took place in January 2023 to fundraise for the charity Shelter. The fans raised £13,264 over the stream, against a target of £3,000. *The Traitors* star Ivan Brett made a guest appearance or two. In March 2023, the channel reached 150,000 YouTube subscribers, and in May, a second Kickstarter was set up in order to film even more in-person episodes of Blood on the Clocktower. Live shows began under the name No Rolls Barred Live! Two new series also began; the first of these, No Holds Board, was situated on Trident's PartsFUNknown channel and focused upon wrestling 'mods' of board games. The second series, NRB Versus, had the cast taking on professionals in their field such as card counter Steven Bridges.

### Trident/New Studio era (Jun 2023 - present)

"*In this room, we now have the license to do pretty much anything that we want.*"
―Adam (*Let's Play PICTURES*)

On 13 June 2023, *Let's Play PICTURES*, the first episode of Board Game Club shot in the new theatre-themed NRB studio built by Rosie Nicholls in Trident's studio space, was released. The move meant more space to play with for cast, crew, lighting and cameras, as well as better sound, but also meant that recordings could now take place at any time, day or night. The change came with a new CGI introduction for the series.

Following the phenomenal success of *Monopoly, But COMMUNIST*, which became the channel's 2nd most watched video within 2 weeks of its release, No Rolls Barred hit 200,000 YouTube subscribers on 30 June 2023. *Guess Who, But With VIBES Only* hit 1 million views on 9 July, the first video to do so. Lord Of The Board was announced to make a return after a year and a half, this time in a livestream format. A further embrace of the livestream format came when NRB expanded onto Twitch, with Holly and Blair having significant roles in this venture.

On 3 August 2023, the channel hit yet another milestone: 250,000 YouTube subscribers. In the week to 7 August 2023, the channel achieved more than 2 million views in a single week for the first time.

On 12 September 2023, Adam resigned from the channel and Trident Digital Media, following an (as yet unfinished) investigation into accusations of inappropriate behaviour. Adam denied all accusations and explained he had resigned to protect his own mental health and those around him.

The channel continued to grow in the later part of 2023, with an increase in the volume of content produced - both public and Patreon-specific.

On 13 November 2023, during the final NRB x Twitch stream (before moving livestreaming to YouTube) the channel hit 300,000 YouTube subscribers.

## Cast

There are many wonderful personalities in the No Rolls Barred family.

### Development of the NRB cast

Aside from Adam, the earliest cast to appear on the channel were mainly from WrestleTalk themselves, particularly Laurie and Luke. Various interviews of board game enthusiasts in the early days included Blair and Isaac who Adam had worked with at Draughts London. Elliott, also from Draughts, appeared on the channel somewhat later. Adam had already been friends with Tom, as well as Jon (through The Beta Males, a sketch comedy group both Jon and Adam were in).

Sully got involved in No Rolls Barred after getting to know Adam through their mutual friend Dom. He brought in a bunch of cast members who had all gone to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, including Rosie, Maanuv, Tilly and Izzy. Sully also brought Brooke into the fold.

Upon the addition of No Rolls Barred Plays Blood On The Clocktower to the series lineup, a new batch of cast appeared; initially, Ben was the only one, but Holly and Patters joined in. Mara later made appearances through a coincidental connection of her friendship with Brooke and her enjoyment of BotC.

### List of cast members

The main members and associates of NRB include (in order of how much they appear on the channel):

**Adam Blampied**
(Former Channel Director)**Sullivan Beau Brown****Laurie Blake**
(Head of Production)**Blair Shepperd****Jon Gracey****Dominic Allen****Holly Musgrave****Brooke Bourgeois****Ben Burns****Rosie Nicholls**
(Associate Producer)**Luke Owen****Isaac Adedoyin-William****Tilly Steele****Ken Cheng****Daniel J. Layton****Oli Davis**
(Executive Producer)**Tempest****Elliott Kinley**
*For more NRB cast members, see Category:Cast.*

1. ↑ Clipped by The CastAway DC