Because pairing this hobby with a beer, pizza or a good latte is always the right move.
When Dropout TV executive producer and comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan set out to create another campaign for his beloved Dungeons & Dragons show Dimension 20, he knew it had to be set in New York City.
As a New York native, his love for his hometown is emphatic and the chance to portray it in a magical setting was particularly appealing now that he lives in L.A. The campaign, “The Unsleeping City,” is described as D&D meets NYC, a city of literal dreams, talking rats, pixie mobsters and Stephen Sondheim.
“New York is a city where you can't not be aware of the humanity of the people around you, and that is good for the soul,” he tells Time Out New York. “And I'll say in terms of adding magic to New York in ‘The Unsleeping City,’ … I’m directly reporting the magic that I sincerely feel from that city.”
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With a giant roster of campaigns under his belt, Mulligan is our digital cover star as he, as the Game Master, and “the intrepid heroes” (a.k.a the Dimension 20 cast members)—improv comedians Lou Wilson, Brian Murphy, Siobhan Thompson, Ally Beardsley, Zac Oyama and Emily Axford—take Madison Square Garden for “Gauntlet at the Garden,” a one-night-only D&D show that sold out all 15,000 tickets in four days.
According to Time magazine, it is expected to be the largest-ever actual play show in the U.S.
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From the dining room table to the stage
For decades, D&D was a relatively niche hobby, beloved by gamers who created characters and acted out dramatic stories with their friends in living rooms across the country.
New York City’s board game shops and cafes have been hosting their own D&D nights for years. But now the hobby has hit the mainstream, thanks in part to a combination of actual play shows (where you watch cast members play the game) and hit series like Stranger Things heavily featuring the game.
Over the last decade, shows such as Critical Role, Dimension 20, “Not Another D&D Podcast,” and more have introduced the hobby to the public in a way that is understandable and welcoming, according to Mikayla ‘Mik’ Wilson, the head of Table Top Roleplaying Games at the Chaotic Good Cafe on the Upper West Side.
“The thing these popular shows have in common is the connections between the storytellers themselves,” she says. “I think what’s drawing people in is the joy of watching the players connect with each other as they gather together to tell a story. I personally can’t think of anything more beautiful, more fun.”
Mulligan says these shows offer something unique: both epic stories of bravery and drama while also serving as a kind of reality TV where talented actors and comedians ham it up for the cameras. It’s a way to both stay engaged with good storytelling, while getting to turn off your brain and have some fun.
“Actual play is a way to be like, ‘what if you were hanging out with your friends and hearing a story that mattered to you?’” he says. “And I think that's the secret sauce.”For Mulligan, Dimension 20’s popularity is thanks in no small part to his cast of players and the crew and producers who help put the polished show together. Mulligan is quick to praise his fellow cast—”the funniest people on the earth”—even getting emotional as he describes how they are not just talented players who disappear into their roles, but also dear friends.
“It’s the honor of a lifetime to play with them,” Mulligan says.
Sam Reich, Dropout’s CEO who wears many hats across the streaming service’s shows, admits he’s always been a huge Dimension 20 fan: “firstly as a producer and secondly as a viewer,” he says. “But these days, I feel like I’ve shown up to cheer on a friend who’s running a marathon, only to realize that friend is winning the marathon. I’m more than proud of the cast; I’m in awe of them.”
“The Gauntlet at the Garden” actually follows on the heels of another NYC D&D show. Last year, the hilarious choose-your-own-adventure The Twenty-Sided Tavern opened Off Broadway and has drawn crowds with a steady stream of guest stars from the TTRPG world, including some of Mulligan’s Dimension 20 cast mates.
David Carpenter, the executive producer, co-creator, and technology designer for the show, tells Time Out New York that D&D is getting noticed now because it’s “an amazing creative collaborative outlet in this increasingly digital and combative world.”
“There's something incredibly good about playing a game with your friends that you all create together,” he says.
It’s not just D&D that’s seeing a surge in popularity. Independent developers have released their own games, ones like the Kids on Bikes system that Dimension 20 uses in some of its other campaigns.
As Carpenter was hitting on, Mulligan says that we’re living in an “age of increasing artifice” where profit drives so much of our entertainment.
“I think that games where you make a community with the people you love most, and you make art and story just for yourselves to find meaning and be together is a completely awesome, natural, moral response.”
A larger-than-life homecoming
Mulligan says it is “flabbergasting” that he’ll play a sold-out show in the same arena where he used to watch the Knicks play. And—in typical New York style—Mulligan recalls he was walking out of the subway when he saw the news.
“It was shocking and stunning and overwhelming,” he says. “It was a real moment of leaving one's own mind in a kind of fugue state.”
It was also a massive departure from his humble beginnings as an improv comedian and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade, long before he joined Dropout (then CollegeHumor) as a cast member and kickstarted his successful streaming show.
But the wild success of Dimension 20 isn’t a surprise to the roleplayers of our city, who know all too well that tabletop gaming’s renaissance has been underway for some time.
Mulligan now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and fellow Dropout alum Isabella Roland (who will be starring with him in an improv show later this month at the Beacon) and their daughter. And while he says Los Angeles has been “nothing but kind” to him and his family, he admits he still misses the Big Apple, riding on the subway, Union Square, his “little corner” where you can walk to get a hero and a cup of coffee.
“I miss New York every day,” he says.
But this month he’ll be back for one of the biggest moments of his life—and he’s ready to put on a show for the hometown crowd that they’ll never forget.
“I am so excited to come to New York and tell a story set in The Unsleeping City,” he says. “Fans of Dimension 20 are going to get the Dimension 20 show of their lives.”
