Let’s be candid: It can feel daunting to get into most of the long-running, popular actual play shows, like Critical Role, or Dimension 20’s Fantasy High setting. A lot of that is about time.
Compared to the other narrative things you can put on your TV, individual actual play sessions are long. Just like most people’s RPG sessions, they can run for two, three, even four hours. A campaign arc can last dozens of episodes, so a single actual play arc can rival the length of several seasons of television combined — even the luxurious 20-episodes-plus seasons of TV’s yesteryear.
Even if you have that kind of time to invest in entertainment, it can still be intimidating to pick up a show that already has multiple wikis full of lore, and a huge fandom that has absorbed it all. Some of the most established actual play shows have years of interconnected fictional history to catch up on. Faced with that commitment of time and brainspace, it can feel much easier to cue up anything else during your finite TV-watching time.
Time and mental load are certainly why it took me until 2023 to start watching Dropout’s blockbuster actual play series Dimension 20, regularly (but not always) hosted by game master Brennan Lee Mulligan for a group of (usually) improv comedians using the rules of Dungeons & Dragons. Even as a fan of Dropout’s comedy shows, and a huge fan of tabletop RPGs and actual play podcasts, I wasn’t sure where to start. The time commitment is also the top barrier that my TTRPG-friendly, already-enjoying-Dropout buddies present when I tell them there’s a D20 season they’d really dig: “Two and a half hours? That’s my whole evening.”
But here’s how Dimension 20 got me well and truly hooked: Mulligan and his crew fully commit to the anthology format. With D20, all you really have to do is pick a genre, and there’s a self-contained season waiting to pull you in.
Image: Dropout
I started Dimension 20 in the usual TV show way, by watching from the beginning. But after putting just a couple of early seasons under my belt, I followed the siren song of social media clips and skipped a full 12 seasons ahead to Neverafter, the 2022-2023 season, which was airing at the time. Since then, I’ve taken the liberty to hop around to whichever season caught my fancy, from the combat-low magical Regency romance story of A Court of Fey & Flowers to the bloody medieval drama of A Crown of Candy. Sometimes I just leaped to seasons featuring the performers I most wanted to see more of.
Dimension 20 mixes things up from season to season by changing the genre, performer lineup, and game system. The seasons also vary in run time, alternating “full-length” 20-ish-episode seasons with shorter seasons of four to 10 episodes. Don’t have the stomach for a show that’s already built up more than 50 hours of lore? Relax — you can just watch a one-and-done 12-hour season that’s essentially “Inside Out, but silly film noir.” Not really into the currently airing season? No worries; there’ll be another one along in a few months, and it will almost certainly be totally different.
In a media landscape ruled by sequels and lore dumps, Dimension 20’s anthology format allows it to settle into the magical middle ground between familiarity and variety. The show offers length as well as tidily capped brevity. Deep storytelling to dig into and the option to dabble.
Curious about which season you personally should start with? Pick your genre and peruse this quick rundown of some of viraltrendingcontent’s favorite self-contained Dimension 20 seasons:
Season 15, A Court of Fey and Flowers: Regency-era romance, set in a flamboyant fairy court, using a combat-low tweak on D&D rules that includes regular rounds of scandalous-letter writing. For the kind of person who shrieks and hugs a pillow when the cravat-wearing male lead finally confesses his love — or utterly ruins his chances via inevitable misunderstanding.
Season 16, Neverafter: Fairy tale heroes like Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots become aware of their own fictional state in a world of creeping fear. For fans of folklore and existential horror.
Season 17, The Ravening War: Sharing a setting with Dimension 20’s Crown of Candy season, but fully self-contained, this short season is for people who wish House of the Dragon had more jokes, and also wish everyone was made of food.
Season 18, Dungeons and Drag Queens: Classic Dungeons & Dragons fantasy, played by four stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race over a short and sweet four episodes. For anyone new to D&D itself, and especially for Drag Race fans.
Season 19, Mentopolis: A film noir parody where every character is a different aspect of one harried scientist’s mind, trying to help him survive a very eventful day. For people who think too much about the implications of Inside Out.
Season 22, Never Stop Blowing Up: Jumanji and Last Action Hero combine with a tweaked RPG system designed with a complete disregard for balance. For anyone who would enjoy watching an ’80s action film turned up until the knob breaks off.
Dimension 20 airs on Dropout.tv.
