Nathan Sharp

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Nathan Sharp (born March 1, 1989)^[1] is a YouTuber, musician and voice actor, also known as NateWantsToBattle. His character in DCA is the human bard, Paultin Seppa.

Personal Life and Career

Nathan is a Korean-American^[2] born in Richmond Virginia^[3], but currently residing in the greater Los Angeles area^[1]. Because his father was in the military, "we moved around a lot. We went from Virginia to Europe to Florida with a couple smaller moves within those." His background and frequent moves caused him to have to "deal with a lot of social anxiety and introversion" growing up.^[4] He became interested in music because "it's the only thing I wasn't horrible at as a kid".^[5] He also enjoyed playing console video games (not so much PC games), saying, "I love playing with a controller on a couch...that is gaming to me, that's just what I grew up with".^[6] In 2012, he combined those two passions into a series of YouTube music videos where he created parodies of popular songs to apply to his favorite video games, especially Pokemon.^[7] As Pokemon fights usually begin with the phrase, "[player name] wants to battle!", he made "NateWantsToBattle" the name of his channel. He also began posting video game playthroughs, Top 10 lists and vlogs, and created the Pokemonday Show.^[7] In 2014, Nate branched out into making unique cover versions of existing video game tracks, music videos dedicated to anime or English versions of anime opening songs, and eventually he began writing and composing his own music. Nate claims the popularity of his his YouTube channel was because "I accidentally found something that had a huge audience that only a few people were catering to. I got the idea to write about a popular game, its lore and the deeper, emotional meaning I found to it and I guess it just resonated with others as much as it did with me".^[8] After releasing several compilation albums of his video game songs,^[7] he released Sandcastle Kingdoms in 2017, his first album of completely original music^[8] which charted on Billboard and iTunes.^[9] He also helped create an independent record label named "Give Heart Records" and joined a new metal band named "Ghost Fight"^[9] and another band named "Roll For It"^[10]. On June 1, 2018, Nate released his second original album known as Paid in Exposure. In addition to singing, Nate can be seen playing the piano, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, Spanish guitar, ocarina, mini-harp, and keyboard in his videos.^[7]

Nate also provides voiceover work for multiple anime series,^[3,11]especially from Funimation. His ex-fiancee Cristina Vee, who is also a voice actor and singer, was also signed by Give Heart Records.^[12,13]

In 2018, Nate announced that he was producing a new D&D show called "Dark & Dicey", a "neutral antihero campaign", where he plays the kenku swamp druid Pluck.^[14-16] He admitted to being open having cross-overs happen with DCA,^[16] and Paultin actually made an appearance in an episode he DMed.^[17]

Nate also made a guest appearance on Holly Conrad's D&D series "Trapped in the Birdcage" as the Lathander-worshiping space cowboy Mason.^[18]

Role in Dice, Camera, Action!

Jared Knabenbaur knew Nate as a fellow internet personality, and invited him to join their team of players on WotC's livestream Dungeons and Dragons show. Nate had only begun playing D&D shortly before DCA started,^[16,19] but as one of the purposes of the stream was to demystify the game for viewers who had never before played,^[20] Nate was able to represent that demographic. Early in the series, Nate drew some fan criticism for not roleplaying as actively as the others or seeming less interested in the game, with Paultin often being indecisive or limiting his reactions to one-word remarks. However, fans acknowledged a multitude of possible reasons, including Nate's busy schedule at the time (which caused him to miss several episodes), his limited familiarity with the rules, the possibility that he might still be exploring his character's motivations, or that he might be feeling overshadowed or spoken over by the more animated members of the cast.^[21] Nate never acknowledged whether he was aware of these opinions, although on his Twitter he occasionally held up a sign that warned, "Never read the comments".^[22] Initially, his opinions on DCA and D&D were largely unknown, as he did not post on the Reddit, appear at DCA Q&A panels, or give interviews on DCA, although he promoted the episodes on his Twitter and left posts praising the cast. He finally made a Twitch account in September 2017,^[23] and began reacting to the chat commentary during the show (though he still avoids making posts himself). In early 2018, he admitted that he is now visiting the subreddit,^[24] that he loves playing D&D,^[25,26] and that he is actually having fun making a new character,^[27] likely referring to Pluck.

Over the course of the series, and especially when Paultin became separated from the group and was forced to act on his own, Nate's improvisation skills noticeably improved. His habit of using single word reactions like "huh" or "interesting" began being seen instead as a comedic call-back to how he used to play. Although he continued to use drunkenness as an excuse to retreat from stressful situations or to not participate as actively (or as sensibly) as everyone else, fans accepted that this was simply a part of Paultin's character. However, Nate also began exploiting Paultin's bardic abilities, taking advantage of every opportunity to persuade or mislead NPC obstacles Chris set on their path. In a Q&A for his YouTube channel, Nate revealed his opinion on Paultin, saying that "for some reason [he] is just a super sassy bastard, and its a ton of fun to play. He's kind of a jerk; hes very chaotic neutral. He's more in it for himself than he is for the party. I don't know, it just kind of turned into that, but I'm not complaining; he's a super fun character".^[6] He later discussed how he was taken by surprise at how invested he became in Paultin, saying, "I didn't know [events] could get so...personal to the character. I didn't realize that was ever a potential [risk] in D&D.... I never really took into account like [how] the actual setting, the story is going to bring that too".^[16] Nate is impressed by Chris's ability to weave the story and adjust to the sudden changes in the plot, saying, "It's magic, I swear.... You never know [what will happen]. And it's so fun that way, too". He revealed that Chris has completely changed Nate's original vision of Paultin, but "in like an amazing way".^[16] Nate admitted that he hadn't even given much thought to Paultin's origins, and that he didn't have much of a backstory in mind when he created him.^[28] If Paultin were to multiclass, Nate said he'd like to play with being a warlock, perhaps having a pact with the Raven Queen or the powers of Ravenloft.^[28] He and Jared have also mentioned they would like to try playing each others' characters, with Nate remarking that his previous characters were rogues, so that's what he knows best.^[28]

Nate is luckier with his dice rolls than others on DCA, such that his natural 20 rolls are called 'Nate 20's (although 'Nate 1's do happen on occasion). His high charisma score also allows him to get away with amusing situations that involve NPC persuasion. Although the other players are careful not to metagame, Nate often uses popular culture references in Paultin's dialog that might be seen as his way of breaking the fourth wall and connecting with the audience (Nate is a fan of the Marvel character Deadpool, who does the same thing).^[29] He suspects there is some kind of connection between Paultin's 4th-wall breaks and Chris himself, which he looks forward to learning.^[28] Nate was the first to begin referring to the cast or the audience as his "fam", a term he commonly uses on his Twitter account, and other cast members and fans began to use "wafflefam" to refer to themselves shortly afterward.^[20]

Interestingly, according to his fellow cast member Jared, Nate can hold his liquor as well as his character can.^[30]