Introducing Dungeons & Dragons is by far my biggest contribution to my friend group. For them, it was this obscure and niche activity only reserved for nerds; five years later, they do weekly D&D sessions… without me. Seems like a lot more people have hopped onto the D&D train, and its rising popularity has to be attributed to Brennan Lee Mulligan, the creator and Game Master for Dimension 20 and one of the most prolific professional Dungeons & Dragons players in the 2020’s.
Mulligan had to wait a while before his time to shine, spending most of his 20s being a struggling artist in New York. It wasn’t until he joined the cast for CollegeHumor in 2017, that he began to make a name for himself on the internet with banger sketches such as:
Eventually when CollegeHumor asked Brennan to create a show for its streaming platform, :DROPOUT, he created Dimension 20, bringing his decades-long passion for Dungeons & Dragons onto our screens, captivating audiences worldwide with his storytelling and comedic genius. Now he’s finding more success than ever, recently stopping by Australia to tour his live show, Endless Dungeon, plus having a keynote presentation for SXSW Sydney.
During his time Down Under, we were able to sit down and get into the nitty-gritty of the behind-the-scenes of Mulligan’s profession.
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Insider Trading: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Howdy Brennan, for the people at home, may you please list out the various professional titles on your resume.
I’ve worked as a PA, camp counsellor, bartender, nanny, teacher, and tutor.
You know me as the Game Master for Dimension 20 and Critical Role Campaign Four.
I’m a member of Worlds Beyond Number. I’m a performer and producer at :DROPOUT on shows like Make Some Noise and Game Changer, and I’m a husband and a father.
That is a lot. Could you give us a behind-the-scenes peek and tell us what your day-to-day is like?
Sure. I wake up, I spend a few wonderful minutes with my family before daycare and I work.
Work is typically — if not recordings — then a lot of meetings, pre-production, production, planning, occasionally there’ll be some stuff thrown in there like press or interviews. I usually have one or two days in the week that are appointment and schedule free and that’s for writing.
It’s so funny how hard I have to fight my job for time to do my job. Does that make sense? Because my job is like,
“Hey, we need you to write and run D&D games. So, we have about a million meetings and 100,000 emails for you to do that.”
And you’re like, “Do you know that these emails and meetings will make the part of the thing you’ve asked me to do quite challenging.”
And they go, “We know.”
So, we usually get like a like a writing day somewhere in the week and then typically it’s one or more days of recording per week.
We’ll do a little history lesson. Could you speed run through the lore on how you got to where you are now?
I was raised by noted science fiction author Elaine Lee. My dad, Joe Mulligan, was a stand-up comedian. My pop, Richmond Johnston, was a musician and artist. I was raised with a lot of creative people. I had a weird educational background of a little bit of public school, a little bit of homeschooling, went to college pretty early. I went to SUNY Ulster when I was 14, studied the humanities, studied with an amazing philosophy professor, Professor Tom Davis — really important in my life. Went to the School of Visual Arts for screenwriting. At that time, I was also a part owner of the Wayfinder Experience summer camp. My brother and I had gotten shares in the company when we were 15 because we ran this thing called Bootleg Adventures and we became writers and staff members and camp counsellors and I ran a million different LARPS (Live Action Role-Playing) while I was there.
In New York, I got out of college and went “The world’s my oyster!” Immediately became very broke. Frightening amount of medical debt from bad teeth on credit cards. Started taking classes at UCB, improv comedy, performing there, became an improv teacher and coach. That was my main gig for a long, long time. That and PA’ing and a little bit of bartending. One time I got jury duty and I asked if I could stay on because it worked with my schedule, and they said there’s a lot of really good legal and moral reasons we can’t have professional jurors, and I said — “That makes sense.”
In 2016, I got dumped and I won $50,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire so I could afford to move to Los Angeles. Moved there, had the worst year of my life. In the same week that I told my now wife, Isabella Rowland, that I had feelings for her, I also got hired full-time at CollegeHumor. That’s where Dimension 20 started, that’s where CollegeHumor Hardly Working Sketches started and all the other things that came after that.
And now you’re here bringing your Dungeon Mastery to Australia for the first time with your live show Endless Dungeon. If we were to get sentimental, why is this show so significant for you?
I think something that breaks your heart at a certain point is when you realise how many incredible stories are waiting out there in the hearts and minds of people that you’re not going to get a chance to meet. There’s more good people in the world than you can meet in a lifetime, and that’s heartbreaking. So, Endless Dungeon to me represents an opportunity to go out and play with people that I never would have got an opportunity to play with and see how many kindred spirits are out there in this wide and beautiful world.
You’re jumping into this live show with Aussie icons who you’ve never played with before. Which, to me, is astounding. What are the prerequisites to being a Dungeon Master of this calibre?
Just start playing. Nothing’s going to make you a better Dungeon Master than diving in head first, making mistakes, being okay with learning as you go and just starting, right? And that’s probably true for most creative practices; nothing makes you better than doing it. But what I’ll say too is the road that I followed to get here was based on what I was passionate about and based on what I felt like I would love to devote all of my waking hours to. I think if you are looking for what to pursue in your life, the path of least resistance is usually what is already speaking to you because if you’re going to go out and like try to do the best job you can, the greatest advantage will be what you’re passionate about.
It’s a bizarre thing, right? I think that sometimes the thing that’s luckiest about the career I’ve had is all of these skills that I’ve spent a lifetime honing were completely ill advised to pursue at the time I was honing them. I pursued these hobbies with an understanding that it would never open doors for me. I just loved it.
Besides the Australia tour, you’ve got all these shows you’re writing, acting, producing in while also being a husband and father, and you’re a human being. Are you getting enough sleep?
Everybody who’s worried about me — you need to back off [laughs].
There’s a degree of you just want someone to give you that shot, and when that shot comes along, I think you owe it to all those years you spent waiting for that opportunity to run as hard as you can when you get that little bit of sunshine. That’s what it feels like I’m doing. I’m honouring all those years I spent waiting for this opportunity to make the most of it.
I am getting plenty of sleep and what I will say is to anyone who’s looking at the projects I’m involved in and being like, “Brennan Lee Mulligan, the most employed man in the world”. The credit for all of these projects goes to the incredible team of people largely behind the camera. My amazing wife who’s touring the world with her movie right now and is the best partner I could ever ask for, my awesome coordinator Rebecca Slater, our amazing producers and crew members and department heads at Dimension 20, the amazing staff and crew at Critical Role. Know that the credit is due to an army of incredibly talented, hardworking people that make sure I get enough sleep at night, and it’s due to them that all of this is possible.
Have you processed the significance you have in the D&D community globally?
No! Why would I process that? It’s too much! You can’t process it. Truth be told, the reality is I still haven’t processed that I got hired at CollegeHumor. That was 2017, it’s eight years ago now. I have not processed that. It is impossible to process, you know? CollegeHumor was my first full-time job; when I got that job, the starting salary for a CollegeHumor cast member back at that time in 2017 was $50,000 a year, and I remember hearing that and I almost started crying, you know? Like, I realised the first time I bought a burrito and didn’t have to check my ATM to make sure that I could get a burrito. That’s the height of human achievement.
That goal was achieved. Everything that’s happened since then has been, sort of an absurd call it a cherry on top is understating it, it’s just absurd. It’s something that nobody could deserve. So rather than process the enormity of that, all I can do is just move through the world in a state of bewildered gratitude.
With Dimension 20, you’ve introduced Dungeons & Dragons to a new generation of players. What has it been like seeing the reception and landscape of D&D change over the decades you’ve been playing?
I’ve spent the first couple years of working on Dimension 20 talking about the D&D Renaissance. It’s like the revitalisation of this lost period, right? The rebirth. At a certain point, I wonder if this is not itself the Golden Age of TTRPGs. Like when you look at the actual numerical data for how popular these games are, both D&D and the broader TTRPG world, it’s staggering. I mean, at a certain point of adoption and celebration and people’s games playing and all these different digital tools that are now available for people to find each other in amazing different virtual platforms and the and the ancillary sort of like hobbies and professions around it.
The thing about how many people I know that have dice making companies, right? The hobby is so large that there’s an entire pocket industry of just creating the accoutrement and necessary tools of play. That’s fascinating. It’s like you’re standing in a desert being like, “Well, it’s a tough life out here, but we love it and we’ll make it work.” And then slowly over like digging a little well to find water and making a little shelter, you look around one day and realise that you’re in Times Square. You’re like, “When did everyone show up? This is nuts!” It’s absolutely staggering that this place that I would have happily believed would be an eternal pariah condition suddenly became the centre of not only this massive influx of people but of people who were historically denied entry to the hobby, gatekept out of it, or had people tell them it was not for them, showed up in droves and loudly proclaimed, “Actually, it is for me.” It’s a beautiful thing to see.
It was recently announced you’ll be Game Master for Critical Role. With this, plus Dimension 20, plus live tours. In terms of career peak, where do you go from here? What is your ultimate achievement?
Being the Game Master for Campaign Four and continuing to create and GM for Dimension 20 is such a gift. Ambition to me is at its healthiest when it is a game you are playing and not where you draw your identity and sense of self-worth from. I’ve seen people in our broader culture with a weird worship of a feeling of it’s never enough, and I think that’s a really toxic and bad place to move from of, “Okay, I got this. What’s next?”
A big part of my soul, I try to keep focused on, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I got this,” right? And how grateful I am just to be able to do this. So, rather than I think focusing on what the next thing is, I have dreams. I have these things that are like, “Ah, if I got a chance to act in a thing like this or make a TV show or write a book or go to the moon!” If I got a chance to do these other amazing things, what an amazing story that would be, what a fun game that would be to play. One day I want to be a little old man who goes back to school and gets a philosophy degree and teaches philosophy. I think that would be lovely to do one day. But these are things that should be played with and loved and cherished as dreams, almost like toys. Ambition is a game. There’s something fun to do here, rather than thinking about it from a primal hunger perspective of, like, “I still don’t have enough.” To me, I have everything I ever need, and if I get to do more, what a hoot.
(Image: Provided)
Speaking of identity, there’s a moment with your chat with Hank Green last year. You made a separation between who you are versus what you deliver, regarding what has value to the community. Why do you create a separation?
I think you have to create a separation because when you are a public creator, you make a product which is you: You create stories, you deliver performances, and they have your face in them. Unlike an actor, I’m also me. I’m saying, “Hello, welcome to another episode of Dimension 20. I’m your humble Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan.” I use my real name, right? What you have to do is recognise that there are people who will watch a season of your show and not like the next one, who will maybe like tag you in some piece of social media content that praises some part of you. And then maybe a year or two later, they don’t like the next thing you do and maybe they say something really critical of that.
If you fully open your heart to the praise you get from people who are engaging with you not as a pal but as someone who’s delivering a service to them, I’m a performer. I’m like someone cooking them a meal or I’m like someone fixing the plumbing in their house. I’m a professional who’s coming in to provide a service that they’re looking for, which in this case is storytelling. And that can be deeply personal. I know that there are authors that have changed my life but it’s still something where if you fully open your heart to it, you can end up finding yourself suddenly going, “I thought we were friends. You have to like the next season of my show. You’re my buddy.” And I think that ends up putting creators in a place where they unintentionally end up hurting themselves, right?
By not recognising that these relationships are different, just like your relationship with a co-worker is different than a family member. So, for me, the separation between who I am in this public sphere is about realising that where I’m supposed to draw my joy from, and where I’m supposed to think about who I am as a person, is really who I am when I’m at home with my family, or who I am with my friends and my colleagues, right? People that I work with that we actually have a duty of obligation to each other because it’s how we make a living and support our other little family units, right? Those relationships are where I ground my sense of self rather than grounding my sense of self in this incredible large digital projection of how I am perceived by people that — though I would love to meet all of them — I never can.
From a professional standpoint, what’s the one thing aspiring creatives and storytellers should take from you to help with their journey and their art?
What I would say to any young creator is root your effort, your sense of self, your pride in what you do, root that in the things over which you have control. You have control over how hard you work, and you have control over how well you take care of yourself so that you don’t burnout. You have control over who you choose to work with — hopefully, sometimes we don’t, but in an ideal world — and you have control over your own integrity, and your sense of morals, what you will say and what you will not say, or you will refuse to say.
I think that it’s really important to not hang your self-worth off of externalities. To the degree that you are able, try to set your ambitions in the sphere of what you can control. Can you tell a better story today than you told yesterday? That seems like something you maybe have control over. Can you act with more integrity and take better care of your collaborators and co-workers than you did yesterday? Yeah, you might be able to do that. That might be fully within your control. Do not hang your sense of self on things that exist out in the wide wide world. Hang them on the things that are within that slice of the pie that is yours.
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