Throughout the last few years, I’ve had multiple encounters with “Dungeons and Dragons,” otherwise known as “D&D.” Whether it was through tv shows like “Community” or “Stranger Things,” or conversations with friends who play regularly, I’ve heard more about the game now than ever before in my life. 

I’ve learned the basics through these small interactions: a roleplaying game where players participate in what’s basically a choose-your-own-adventure story with characters they’ve created themselves. The game is run by a dungeon master, who is the unbiased storyteller leading the players through their various adventures. 

An offshoot of the popular social media company CollegeHumor, “Dimension 20” is the brainchild of Brennan Lee Mulligan, a writer for CollegeHumor and professional dungeon master. “Dimension 20” is a “D&D” show run by Mulligan, where entire campaigns – a D&D term meaning a continuing storyline containing a certain set of characters – are filmed and uploaded to YouTube or CollegeHumor’s streaming service, Dropout. 

Each episode is about two-and-a-half hours long, and each season has around 17 episodes. I was exposed to “Dimension 20” through clips on TikTok and was quickly intrigued, as all the clips were hilarious, even with little context to the larger story, so I decided to see what it was all about. 

What really sold the show for me was the sheer commitment from all of the players. Not everyone had played the game before, but each player came to the table with an excited energy and a genuine care for the characters they had created. “D&D” at its core requires a lot of improvisation, strategy, and just overall creativity. You have to completely understand the character you’ve created, as they’re made to interact with other characters and make difficult choices in situations of crisis. It helps that all of the players work at CollegeHumor, so they have backgrounds in improv and character acting. At certain moments, it was hard to tell where the characters began and the players’ personalities stopped.

Before my viewing of the first season of this show, I didn’t really have an opinion about “D&D.” After watching, I have a great appreciation for the game, and especially for dungeon masters. A dungeon master’s job is to keep the story on its tracks. They have the general bare bones of a plot in their mind, but they have to be ready to accommodate any amount of choices the characters choose to make and sometimes rewrite the story as they go. 

It’s extremely impressive when it’s done well, and “Dimension 20” does it very well. Mulligan is a very talented storyteller, building off the players and tying together so many plot points he lays out in the beginning, no matter how small.

I can see why “D&D” appeals to me so much as a writer. Stories have always been important to me, especially fiction, which I’ve found is often more revealing of truth than any nonfiction is. As much as “D&D” doesn’t have to be deep and can just be a casual game with friends, it can easily be so much more. It can be a way to become a person you never let yourself be, to explore complex emotions through gameplay, or just to grow closer with the people around you. 

In the words of Mulligan, “The game matters because it’s attached to a story that you love, and the story matters because it’s a game you’re all playing together. It’s the best thing in the world.”