Let’s just get the most distressing bit of news associated with this tale out of the way first: to the best of our research, there is no combination of a co-working space and an all-you-can-game Dungeons & Dragons club currently available in the United States. Please allow a moment for the collective sigh of U.S.-based role-playing game (RPG) enthusiasts to pass.
For gamers in central London, the home of Arcadia Games, the battle for control of the unusual business entity might have them worried about whether the forces of good can triumph in the end. The warring factions, which include ex-spouses on opposite sides, managed to avoid a trial via a last-second tentative agreement in October. They have two months to hack and slash the details out in mediation or else find themselves donning legal armor for a county court battle next year.
How could a magical business venture like Arcadia Games go up in smoke within two weeks of the opening date? Claims of code of conduct violations and hostile takeovers have been flying back and forth like a volley of arrows, culminating in dueling lawsuits totaling over £150,000. With each side accusing the other of behaving like rogues and troglodytes, the sordid story is something for the bards to sing about.
Not That Kind of Dungeon, Sorry
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was created in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Classified as a tabletop role-playing game, D&D uses a variety of dice, maps (optional), and small plastic figures (also optional), but the main component is imagination. Players take on the role of heroes (or bad guys) skilled with weapons, arcane magic, sneaky skills like lockpicking, and divine power to explore imaginary worlds that are often stocked with dungeons and dragons (but not always).
The experience is moderated by a dungeon master, who presents the players with different adventures and challenges that increase in difficulty as the characters grow in power. Unlike most board games, a D&D campaign tells a continuing narrative that can last for years as the dungeon master and the players work together to weave an epic tale.
Designed and published by Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, D&D has catapulted from a niche nerd game to a cultural phenomenon over the past decade. It was used as a plot point in the highly watched Netflix series “Stranger Things” and had a feature film of its own in 2023. The opening of Arcadia Games served as further proof of D&D’s expanding popularity.
Arcadia Games LTD was the brainchild of Raonaid Adrianna Ryn, her ex-husband Alexander Forsyth, and his new wife Madeleine Wilson. The 20-room location by The Strand in London offers a “tavern” complete with cocktails, gamer-oriented co-working spots during office hours, events for both the RPG and tabletop gaming community, and unlimited D&D sessions with dungeon masters, all for a monthly fee of up to £300. However, it didn’t take long for an alleged pair of failed diplomacy checks to instill chaos into the scenario.
Sounds Like Charisma Might Be the Dump Stat
Going into a new business venture with an ex seems to add an extra tier of difficulty, and it doesn’t sound like it helped much with Arcadia Games. Ryn, who now serves as the sole director and claims to own all shares of the company, charges that Forsyth violated the club’s code of conduct on two separate occasions during the first month of operation. The first time was on May 14, 2025, when his alleged comments to a new female member of the bar staff and an ensuing text about a kink club frequented by him and Wilson made the employee extremely uncomfortable.
Ryn said this was followed by Forsyth entering a private D&D room on May 23 with a game in session and allegedly sitting on the female dungeon master’s lap and “inappropriately cuddling” her. Forsyth and Wilson dispute the allegations, with the former accusing the alleged victim of being in league with Ryn and her new partner, Keiran Farr, to help facilitate a “hostile takeover” of Arcadia Games.
The clash increased on May 28, when Forsyth arrived at Arcadia to discover that Farr had changed the locks. Police were summoned on an emergency call, which Forsyth claims was manufactured by Ryn. His former wife claims that after that incident, Forsyth locked her and Farr out of Arcadia’s company accounts and finances. She alleges that he stole money, while he admits to taking a “director’s loan” of £32,000 to protect his interests in the D&D club.
Both claim and counterclaim present two decidedly different interpretations of what happened and who Arcadia Games belongs to. Forsyth and Wilson claim that between the shares they own and funds used to furnish the club, they’re owed £56,000. On the other side of the ramparts, Ryn and Farr claim that Forsyth’s throttling of Arcadia’s accounts and his unauthorized withdrawal have cost the business £100,000.
A proposed settlement might indicate that this will not be a fight to the death but rather a battle for first blood. Members of Arcadia would probably be happy to have the legal high drama solved so they can get back to using swords and sorcery to save their characters’ worlds.
Related Resources
- Requests for Trial By Combat Are Apparantly Making a Comeback (FindLaw’s Practice of Law)
- Partnership Business Law (FindLaw’s Incorporations and Legal Structures)
- Who Really Owns a Corporation? (FindLaw’s Small Business Law)
