“If anyone were to tell me that getting a job as a full-time cast member on a sketch YouTube channel would lead to playing Dungeons & Dragons at Madison Square Garden, then that person is either a time traveller or the biggest liar on the planet,” says Brennan Lee Mulligan.
The comedian, professional games master and host of the popular streaming show Dimension 20 is speaking ahead of his first trip to Australia, where he will be touring a live game of Dungeons & Dragons at huge venues around the country, including the International Convention & Exhibition Centre in Sydney and Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne. Titled Endless Dungeon, the show will see the LA-based performer teaming up with local comedians including Tom Cardy, Demi Lardner and Jordan Raskopoulos to create an improvised game of D&D.
Diehard fans of the tabletop role playing game will revel in “the absurdity and depth” of the show, Mulligan says. And for everyone else, there’s “absolutely wild hijinks”.
D&D has been around since the 70s, but has previously been considered either a nerdy pursuit for basement dwellers or a scapegoat for satanic panic depending on who you speak to – but in recent years it has exploded in popularity. “Actual play” series – where hosts and guests record the entire, often lengthy process of gameplay for audiences – have burgeoned across podcasts, YouTube and Twitch, becoming a genre in their own right.
From living rooms to arena tours: D&D is now a ‘spectator’ sport. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian
Critical Role – the show which Mulligan will be helming for its fourth campaign – has a fanbase of millions and its own Amazon Prime spin-off. It has helped make Mulligan a tiny king of D&D: another one of his actual play shows, Dimension 20, recently toured around the world with sold-out dates at the Hollywood Bowl and Madison Square Garden.
“It feels crazy. It all just feels so crazy. And I hope it stays feeling crazy because it should,” Mulligan says, describing not only the insanity of playing a tabletop role playing game in front of 20,000 people, but also the general success of his career. “We stay bewildered out here. Bewildering gratitude … as long as I get to do this.”
Notably, many of Mulligan’s tour venues have been traditionally used as sports arenas, including Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena. Could it signal a shift into D&D becoming a spectator sport?
“Sport’s a great analogy for it because nothing about watching a game of soccer means that you are not likely to play a game of soccer yourself, or vice versa,” Mulligan says. “They are really different pursuits, right? Getting a gaming group together is very hard, but you can watch actual play in your normal time where you want to decompress and relax and just watch a great story, or just laugh or something like that. You’re watching, effectively, a panel show where the episodes are hours long, of comedians playing a game.”
‘Sport’s a great analogy for it’: Mulligan on how tabletop games like D&D have become thriving communities
Touring these shows also means that fans are able to connect with their hobby in person – creating a thriving community. While big arena shows might seem less intimate than a living room game, you could see them as a scaling up of the same phenomenon. Mulligan even tells me how fans have found their own D&D groups from connecting with others attending live shows.
“We make no bones about the fact that our show is an inclusive show and a welcoming one,” Mulligan says. “And we want people from identities that, especially in this weird global moment happening, who would have some reason to feel unwelcome in many places, to know that they are welcome at our show. We feel like the forces of oppression and discrimination are ascended in this moment.”
D&D features fantastical characters – but it also offers audiences a chance to exorcise contemporary woes. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian
Perhaps the appeal of D&D lies not just in its fantastical escapism, but in its ability to exorcise our contemporary woes. “To be in an arena of tens of thousands of people who all get to laugh at a libertarian crypto dragon, or all get to cheer as someone’s magical same-sex partner appears on screen? That fucking rules. And I think the live shows are people realising we are very much not alone.”
