"hellooo one and all!"
Oh hi, I didn't see you come in.Welcome to my fanpage for the critically-acclaimed funny TTRPG actual play show Dimension 20.
(just a quick aside,
all the goodies in the little box over there
were made by me [the stamps use official art], and are
F2U [no hotlinking]. credit is appreciated, but not required.)
What's This?
Dimension 20 is a TTRPG comedy show produced by Dropout and (usually) hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligen. The show consists of multiple seasons, with each season presenting a different setting, over-arching narrative, and cast of Player Characters. It's basically an anthology series, but with nerdy board game and improvised roleplay shenanigans involved.
The players featured in each season tend to vary between a main core cast of players (consisting of Lou Wilson, Brian Murphy, Emily Axford, Ally Beardsley, Siobahn Thompson and Zac Oyama, referred to as the "Intrepid Heroes"), or a cast featuring some special guest players (and sometimes even a guest Dungeon/Game Master). This also tends to determine how many episodes the season will have, with seasons featuring the Intrepid Heroes lasting longer than guest player/DM seasons, otherwise known as Side Quests.
You can watch the first three seasons, along with every season premiere for free on Youtube, and you can check out the rest of the show on Dropout.tv, their indepentant streaming service.
(You can view the rest of the show on Youtube as well, though that requires a Dropout channel membership.)
Seasons I've Watched
A Starstruck Odyssey
This Intrepid Heroes season was the very first season of Dimension 20 that I actually watched the whole way through. And I absolutely adored it (and I don't even like sci-fi that much)! I think part of that love stems from the chaos of this season, and how all the players at the table (and the dice) feed and play into that chaos. It's all gas no breaks the whole way through. The season intially begins in combat, some of the best moments in the season involve the PCs being absolute maniacs, and it famously features some of the best and worst rolls in Dimension 20 history. So much happens and goes terribly wrong and terribly right, often in rapid succession. And in a setting such as this, a wild and crazy galaxy where anarchy reigns and pretty much anything goes, it just fits, and it's great. And I know that because of what was happening during the period that this season was recorded, they didn't really have a choice in the matter when it came to using digital maps and minis for big combat scenarios. But I think it really enchanced the viewing experience for each combat scene, because it allowed for so much more freedom when it came to space combat and after-effects.
(god that very first initiative roll in the first episode was legendary.)
The Ravening War
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hi, Scrumptious Scoundrels!
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Introducing the highly-anticipated prequel Side Quest to the Intrepid Heroes season famous for its incredibly brutal setting and high PC mortality rate. I think this season was the one that really got me thinking the most after it ended. Mainly about overarching narrative. It's your classic story about the horrors and the pointlessness of war, but with this strange blend of greek tragedy with a pinch of cosmic horror thrown in (stick with me here). Several of the PCs are of relatively high status, and initially, all of them are doing pretty good all things considered. But as the story progresses, we watch as they're pulled lower and lower by various factors like the war that's going on, and their own selfish actions, until eventually they're all so low that all they can really do is hide away from the world and disappear (which conveniently explains the cast of brand new PCs we've never met before). The story also kinda inconspicuously presents us with the idea that everyone in this world is just a tiny drop in this massive ocean, and no drop is bigger or smaller than any other drop. And we see how this idea can either encourage you to come out of hiding and to stop caring about people knowing who you are, because ultimately you are just as insignificant as everyone else is, or it can get you to realize that going out of your way to do all these things and to ruin or take all of these lives, just to be recognized and known throughout the land, it's all a fool's errand. Because ultimately you are just as insignificant as everyone else is.
God, and this was the season I chose to fully watch after finishing A Starstruck Odyssey.
(look at everyone. so happy, so clueless as to what pain and tragedy Matthew Mercer would inflict upon them...)
Tiny Heist
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hi, Tiny Thieves!
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Okay, I will admit, I did try watching this season before diving into The Ravening War, but I ended up losing steam and stopping halfway through. I did eventually finish it though, and I'm glad I did. Being the 5th season (or 4th? I don't know I keep getting different information) and the second Side Quest that was ever recorded, it's a bit more rough around the edges. But that certainly isn't a bad thing. The cast for this season was also a bit more of a rowdy bunch than I'm usually used to, so it did get a bit tough to watch at times, but I think past all that it was a real good time. One thing I was absolutely floored by were the physical combat sets. The setting and theme for this season is basically like if Toy Story was a heist film, so all of the combat/"heist" scenarios have all sorts of phyiscal, real-world objects incorporated into them. Little Tamagotchis being used as slot machines in a casino, cat toy laser pointers being used as art gallery security lasers, a soda can with a straw jammed into its side being used to dispense and serve drinks at a bar, oh it was all wonderful! And I do think the rowdyness and chaos of the players does end up looping back around to being a great joy to watch at certain points, because everyone at the table is so willing to toss the most batshit insane solutions to problems out into the wild, and it's great (when there's a reason that the solution actually works, of course).
(I'm sad that there aren't very many good GIFs of this particular season ]:)
Mentopolis
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hi, Prefrontal PIs!
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This whole season was fantastic. The story is super campy and filled to the brim with psychology puns and classic film noir tropes that have been dialed up to eleven. Yet it is still so very compelling and sad in so many clever ways, and still presents many insightful views and comments on the human mind and how it functions. The lighting and dome effects for this season were also really cool. The dome projections especially, the folks in charge of the art for this season went so incrediibly hard it's not even funny. The cast for this season was also a treat to watch. There are lots of points in the season where the cast splits off into different pairs or groups to go find someone or do something, which in turn allows for individual characters or certain character duos to be explored. And I think that's why this particular cast feels a lot more fleshed out and three-dimensional to me than most of the other seasons I've watched. That, and maybe also the fact that this season was a lot more focused on its narrative, with any combat scenarios being resolved with just a couple dice rolls via the "Kids on Bikes" TTRPG system.
(introducing the set-up to arguably one of the best running gags in all of Dimension 20.)
Fan Works
some of my favorite D20 zines
all of these zines were made for the D20 Zine Jam, a annual fan-run charity event that challenges zine creators to make D20 fanzines in a short period of time!
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2022
✦ D4: the die for lil' guys ✦
a sweet little zine full of lil' guy-ified D20 characters.
✦ COSMIC CHIC ✦
a fashion zine featuring a bunch of Starstruck Odyssey characters.
✦ Dimension 20 as set to a post hardcore band ✦
a beautiful zine consisting of several different D20 characters set to various song lyrics.
2023
✦ A Ravening War Birthday ✦
a short zine set in a far more gentler Ravening War AU.
✦ POST MORTEM ✦
a frankly gorgeous zine centered around Calroy Cruller, obsession, and playing chess.
✦ D20 MS-PAINT ZINE ✦
a silly little zine consisting of a bunch of fan art done by various artists in MS-Paint (and a whole lot of Cakeroy).