Critical Role’s newest DM changes the game
Many fans of Critical Role are likely familiar with Brennan Lee Mulligan’s work as game master for Dropout’s TTRPG actual play series Dimension 20. For others, the brand-new Critical Role miniseries Exandria Unlimited: Calamity will be their first time seeing Mulligan in action behind the Dungeon Master’s screen. Polygon recently sat down with the writer, world-builder, and forever-GM. The goal? To learn more about what we can expect from the four-episode campaign premiering on Thursday, and to acquaint readers with the personality entrusted with one of Exandria’s most legendary events.
Mulligan is a Dungeons & Dragons lifer, crediting his early years as a GM as well as time at live-action role-play camp for developing his improvisation skills, which led him to Upright Citizens Brigade and later CollegeHumor. It was there, writing for the game show Um, Actually, where Mulligan first met Matthew Mercer. “I wrote a big question where [players had to] notice all the rule breaks in a couple comic panels of a D&D game. Matt found some that I had not even accounted for. It was like watching a bald eagle take wing and go into the sky,” he beams.
In 2018, Mulligan debuted as GM for CollegeHumor and Dropout’s actual play series, Dimension 20, which he’s helmed ever since. The series features regulars Emily Axford, Ally Beardsley, Brian Murphy, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, and Lou Wilson, as well as side quests with rotating GMs and casts including Aabria Iyengar and Erika Ishii. As a serialized show, Dimension 20 takes viewers through imaginative worlds dreamed up by Mulligan and his players — from the John Hughes-inspired coming-of-age of Fantasy High to a Candy Land that would make George R.R. Martin proud in A Crown of
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