Dimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Upfollows a rag-tag group of nobodies from Dave’s Video World who are sucked into the world’s greatest action movie. As each of them try to figure out how to embody their character and survive the dangers of this world they must work together to find a way home. As they learn more it becomes clear a bigger threat may be at play and the team will need to ban together to fight off the most terrifying villain they’ve ever faced.
Brennan Lee Mulligan leadsNever Stop Blowing Upas the Game Master with a cast that includesintrepid hero Ally Beardsley,Dimension 20veterans Ify Nwadiwe, Isabella Roland, Rekha Shanka, Alex Song-Xia, and newcomer to the dome Jacob Wysocki. Each player balances two characters as their Dave Video World character and theirNever Stop Blowing Upcounter part, who were inspired by iconic action characters and tropes.Never Stop Blowing Uptakes inspiration from iconic action movies and characters, includingDie Hard,The Fast & The Furiousfranchise, Marvel’s Kingpin, James Bond and more.
Dimension 20 Beginners Guide: Where To Start & What You Need To Know
Here’s everything you need to know about Dimension 20, the actual play series on Dimension 20 that turns D&D into a hilarious comedy anthology.
Screen Rantcaught up with Brennan Lee MulliganDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up. Mulligan explained how he has celebrated his family throughoutDimension 20, withNever Stop Blowing Upinspired by Roland’s love of the action genre. He also discussed the Never Stop Blowing Up system and how this season is similar toA Starstruck Odyssey. Mulligan also broke down the ethical implications of the deities' actions inDownfalland why it was so exciting for him to delve into.
Brennan Lee Mulligan Breaks Down The Craziest Dimension 20 Season Yet
“It felt very, very special to have this insane romp in Izzy’s favorite genre.”
Brennan,Never Stop Blowing Upis so rad, and I love it. It’s pure insanity. This season was kind of inspired by Izzy’s love for the genre. Can you talk to me about that aspect of it, and then building out this world with the players?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: It was so exciting. All six of our cast members are these incredible improvisers that were selected because we knew that we wanted a off-the-rails, the brakes are off, let’s go, full-bore comedy, wild swings, no holds barred, right? Also, to having sort of an authority and a familiarity and a comfort with the actions genre. So for me, obviously, like Izzy Roland, my wife notwithstanding, would be at the top of anyone’s list for full-bore improviser in the action comedy space, right? You’d be crazy not to cast her.
But it was very special within that to be able to include her love for this genre. Especially for this time, where we shot 50 episodes of Dimension 20 in nine months, preparing for me to be able to take paternity leave. And it was in the same calendar year that I got married and had my honeymoon. It was a crazy, crazy year. Knowing that we were going to be playing this season, and I was like, “Iz, you’re going to be like eight months pregnant.” And she was like, “I would not miss this for the world. I will be there. I will be there.”
I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve told stories in my mom’s comic book universe, Starstruck; my dad was the person who taught me to fall in love with New York and its history in the Unsleeping City; and it felt very, very special to have this insane romp in Izzy’s favorite genre. And to watch her dissolve into tears, laughing, at the other incredible improvisers at the table, and it just was a dream come true. It was really special.
I have to talk to you for a second about the system, because it’s kind of a Kids on Bikes homebrew. And by the end, it feels so broken in the best way. Did you know going in, that by the end of this, it was going to be that much chaos, or was that something you kind of realized in the back half of, “Oh, no.”?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I defy anyone to have Ify Nwadiwe at their table and not have him break the game. It’s so great because Ify breaks the game twice in this season. He breaks it narratively, when he creates this amazing world building plank of talking to Vic Ethanol, which establishes this cosmological reality in the space that’s truly the height of collaborative storytelling. It’s just such an amazing choice. Ify is so talented and such an incredible storyteller.
And then, does discover the infinite token loophole by the end of the season. So, if and when we find a way to release this game system, we’ll button that up. Thanks, Ify. No, it’s brilliant, and I’m so glad he found it. That’s the joy, right? I don’t know. I suppose you have to, if you’re publishing a game system, you probably shouldn’t have it be broken. But actually, I don’t know.
For someone who’s played a lot of D&D and used to play Magic: The Gathering, finding the combo’s awesome. When Ify found that, I was like, “F-ck, yes.” If anyone was going to do it, I’m glad it was Ify. And yeah, we’re in episode nine, break it, break the game, let’s go. This is happening. We’re unraveling things. Let’s do it. It just felt so joyous to me.
Brennan Explains The Similarities Between A Starstruck Odyssey & Never Stop Blowing Up
It also fits so well for this genre, to have it be just completely busted by the end, where everyone is just doing purely insane things. What was it for you as a DM, who usually has to keep it to a degree on the rails, because you know, “Okay, we have this battle map that we have to get to in this episode.”? Where, this one, you got to fully go off the rails and “yes, and” your players to a degree where they started to question the choices that they made?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Well, so there’s an interesting thing of having worked as a teacher and having worked in a lot of different spaces, where you’re managing space, the fun thing is there are moments where different tactics work. Sometimes, you need to be the person saying, “Okay, we’re moving on. We’re starting a new scene.”
But other times, especially if you are in some position of like, “Okay, I’m the GM, I’m helping direct this,” if you start to display an unhinged energy yourself, that’s often a really compelling tactic for the people in your space to be like, “We need to button up a little bit.”
We saw this in A Starstruck Odyssey where the TaleSpire component, the chaos of Anarch Era, the more I let go and was like, “Hey, I don’t have a mystery for you to try to solve. You’re in a chaotic galaxy.” You watched the party come together and button up and go like, “Brennan is not going to help us. We are out here by ourselves. Only we can save us,” and I think that’s an interesting tactic for game masters to use.
That, it doesn’t always have to be you as this, I don’t know, disciplinarian, trying to keep things on the rails, that actually your players will arrive … That’s a thing you’re sharing back and forth. That’s a baton that’s being passed back and forth between GMs and players. And again, only be on the rails to degree that it serves you.
We all know that sometimes it’s like, Oh, it’s nice for someone to bring up, “Hey, this scene’s been going for a while. Let’s advance the story forward.” That’s a nice way of staying on the rails. But fundamentally, the goal is to have fun. And if people are off-the-rails, having a ball, then let them. That’s great.
I loved whenever Izzy would get something wrong, and you would not let it go. It was like, “Cool. Go to Laguna Beach. That’s where you’re backup is going.”
Brennan Lee Mulligan: It was so funny because I think Iz was very in character as Paula Donvalson, who miss speaking, Jack Manhattan, Laguna Beach. But also, every once in a while I would say to Iz, and she’d be like, “Wait, what?” It’s like listen, Izzy was playing under chemically-altered circumstances, and I think f-cking crushed it.
I could not believe how hysterical Izzy was in this season, how much I loved her performance, as Paula and Jack. But yeah, it was very funny, those little malapropisms? What’s the word I’m looking for? Bowdlerism? I forget. There’s a term for it.
Every interview with you, Brennan, I get new vocab words. That’s how this goes.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: That’s great. I’m actually going to look up and ensure. A malapropism definition. “The mistaken use of a word in place of a similar sounding one.” Yes, I got it right. A malaprop. What the hell is a bowdlerism? Hold on. “The practice of removing or reshaping material into the text of …” Oh, hold on. Oh, “Censorship in the form of prudish expurgation.” It was not bowdlerism. It was first thing I said, malaprop. Thank you. That’s our word lesson for today.
Brennan Lee Mulligan Discusses The Players Jumping In As GMs
“I loved every second of it. I regret nothing. It was perfect.”
For you, which character’s arc kind of surprised you the most this season? Because I love that we almost got two arcs for every player.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Yeah, I think I actually was honestly blown, there was a moment for each and every character that I was blown away, right? Iz, absolutely, obviously, as Jack and Paula, and the idea of Die Hard being our favorite action movie, and the entire divorce of both Lucy Santangelo, but then also the Paula and Don.
But also, Ify’s Choice for Wendell and to communicate, which leads to G13 taking over Usha, which is this incredible choice that Rekha makes. I think Beardsley, as this sort of dealing with isolation in Russell and Jennifer, but also Beardsley just being in that kind of plot hound mode for a lot of the game.
And then, Liv backing off and rebelling against the other players at the end of the season. But also, Jacob, as this person who’s never been at the D20 table before, having such grounded, heartfelt, beautiful wrestling with what Dang is wrestling with. That scene was Wolfman Ann is one of my favorite scenes in the whole season. I loved it. I really loved it.
What were your thoughts as the players did that, one minute in the GM chair, and just went unhinged every time?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I loved every second of it. I regret nothing. I regret nothing. It was perfect. I had to do it, right? In the season about being all gas, no breaks. You have to, at a certain point, say, “There is still a level of control I wield even just by sitting in this seat. That tower too must fall.”
And it was delightful to watch what everybody did with it. We got Ify and Rekha and Iz, I would love if we’d had more time, we would’ve gotten Beardsley and Alex and Jacob in there too. Very touching for me that even prior to birth, my child has been behind the screen at Dimension 20. Very meaningful.
That’s so great. I just love that you get to look back at this season, and just kind of have this special moment of your family with it. That’s so nice. I love that.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: It was really, really sweet. It’s really, really special.
Brennan Lee Mulligan Breaks Down The Ethical Implications Of Downfall
“Downfall is an instance in which it seems that the highest value is divinity itself.”
This season’s so fun. I want to switch gears for just a second. Can you talk to me about why it was so important to show these characters, the Gods, where it’s really there aren’t good guys. There had to be that separation of these are not humans. What for you was not only the most important part of that, but maybe the most challenging and be able to still tell a human story?
Brennan Lee Mulligan: What a great question. For me, my earliest study in college, when I was 14 years old, went to school a little early, was philosophy. And, of course, the fascination within that was ethics, pragmatism, utilitarianism, deontology. Ethics being kind of, to me, what is the most important question in life, which is, “What should I do? I’m here, I’m an organism, I have agency.”
Some philosophers would question whether free will exists or not, but what did Einstein say? “Reality is an illusion and albeit a persistent one, and if the illusion of free will is this persistent, I think it’s real” for all practical purposes. So what do we do with our lives? What’s the right thing to do? And there’s lots of people that would be really happy to answer that question for you in different ways. But I do believe that the unexamined life is not worth living.
And so, the philosophical underpinnings of Downfall come from an interrogation of Matt’s lore. I think for me, it all started with the downfall of Aeor, which we have studied a lot from the side of Aeor, from the side of what the Mighty Nein discovered in Campaign 2, and delving into that place in that society.
But for me, it’s that idea of the Calamity is a centuries-long war between the Betrayers and the Primes. They call a truce to bring low the city of Aeor, developing a weapon to stop them. And I think that for me, Aeor, its society, the weapon, all of it, that all falls away from my focus to the Prime Deities and the Betrayers called a truce. So you had the ability to stop. There was a reason to not keep burning the world, and that reason was a threat to your immortality.
Now, within that, there are a lot of interesting arguments to make. Nick Marini, who I was so happy killed it in Downfall. Nick is one of the best D&D players in the world, and now people know it, and it’s great. As the Dawnfather was basically like, “There are things that only we can stop,” right? He had arguments that I think are interesting to sit with.
But fundamentally, there was something about this truce that happened there. Now, maybe it’s just that that was the only thing that the Betrayers would slow down for? In other words, maybe it all does come down to the Betrayers, and the only thing that could get them to call a truce was a threat to their own existence.
But fundamentally, I think when you realize, and especially the whole thing with the society of Primes, Cassida, is how much pause would it give the Prime Deities to know that they could end the Calamity or potentially end the Calamity by allowing mortals the ability to destroy a God, something that they don’t even seem to have the power to do? And the answer is they didn’t really consider it at all. It was sort of never something that they considered.
You are allowed to feel however you want about that. But exploring that and exploring the idea that, are good and evil, love and hope and kindness versus cruelty and pain and torment, are these the highest values? I think that the thing we most wanted to show with Downfall is an instance in which it seems that the highest value is divinity itself, and that mortality of any kind has to come as a secondary consideration underneath that.
Again, there’s a lot of nuance in this story. But to me, that moment that good and evil would align behind the shared banner of divinity for reasons that you may agree with or not. But that moment did happen in Exandria’s history, and exploring that was painful and worthy and honoring of Matt’s lore in a way that I was just like, “That’s captivating. There’s something to see here.”
I wholeheartedly agree. Brennan, we need to talk aboutDownfallfor seven hours.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: I would love to. Let’s do it.
As soon as I finished my interview with you about it, I called and just talked at my friend for two hours, and she’s like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And I was like, “I am freaking out. Relax. I need you to listen.” It’s so good. Thank you so much for talking to me today.Never Stop Blowing Upis amazing. I somehow need more, although I don’t know how that would work.
Brennan Lee Mulligan: It’s so joyful. It was such a brilliant … You know, the 10th episode of this is Dimension 20’s 250th episode. We are so fortunate, and I’m so proud of this season, so proud of the cast and the crew and everyone who worked in this amazing season. It was a joy, a privilege, and an honor. Thank you for your kind words and questions, Caitlin, I deeply appreciate it.
About Dimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up
Dimension 20’s Never Stop Blowing Up features six players, each playing a dual role in the story. In “real life,” they are employees of a strip mall, until they’re sucked into a magic VHS tape that transforms them into high-octane action heroes. The characters must figure out how to navigate the movie to get home.
Check back for our otherDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Upinterviews:
All 10 episodes ofDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Upare available on Dropout now.
Dimension 20
Cast
Produced under the Dropout TV banner/service, Dimension 20 is a Dungeons & Dragons-based television show that brings together a group of players for comedic adventures in the classic tabletop game. Campaigns last several seasons and switch back and forth between them, with many cast members returning to take on new roles, all hosted by creator Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show’s Dungeon Master.
