I have long wondered if I would love or be completely switched off by watching traditional RPG games like Dungeons & Dragons. On the face of it, I should really enjoy the experience: I'm a sucker for improv, fantasy, and general nerdy shit. But it's also definitely a pastime that I could see being more enjoyable to do rather than watch. Then I started watching more and more of Dropout's brilliant shows, so when I saw that there was a season of their RPG-based Dimension 20 that involved not only regular DM/GM Brennan Lee Mulligan alongside OG cast members Mike Trapp (Um, Actually) and Siobhan Thompson, but was also guest starring Hank freakin' Green, I figured this would be the ideal time to test the waters. Even better, Alison was on board!

And so off we trucked to the vast cerebral city of Mentopolis! I hadn't really looked into how D20 runs their campaigns, but had (rightly) figured that each "season" would be a completely different set up, given that the players/cast changed constantly, so it doesn't really matter where you start, but I do think we picked a particularly special one. The gist was 50% Inside Out and 50% any-noir-film-ever, with a strong dash of Osmosis Jones as a result: the brain is a living city, populated by anthropomorphised equivalents to your actual biological processes and cognitive functions. Everything from emotions through to nervous responses has some kind of parallel and ‒ much like in the Pixar film ‒ these "citizens" can directly affect and control the "Big Guy", one Elias Hodge, whose brain they reside within. Some higher-level functions can even take direct control, whereas others need to assert influence through the shady rungs of either bureaucracy or a criminal underworld.

It took me an episode or two to decode that each of the players themselves were specific cognitive functions as well. For instance, Trapp's wise-crackin' gutter PI, Hunch Curio, was Hodge's sense of curiosity, whilst Green's hitman The Fix was, in fact, hyperfixation. We also got to know Thompson as the socialite femme fatale Imelda Pulse (impulse, or impulsive behaviour); Alex Song-Xia's paper boy/orphan, Conrad Schintz (conscience); Danielle Radford's tenacious journalist Anastasia Tension (attention); and the surprise inclusion of Freddie Wong (yes, that Freddie Wong) as speak-easy owner and criminal Dan Fucks (pleasure). The stage is set when one Norrell Ojiccle is murdered in the main communications relay for the entire city, throwing our cast together, as A. Tension is sent to get the scoop; Imelda hires Hunch to investigate what happened; and (it turns out) that Imelda and Conrad's unlikely previous crossing of paths caused a chain of events that results in The Fix being sent to kill Conrad and anyone else involved. We quickly learn that all is not what it seems, and that the Big Guy has gotten involved in some distinctly dodgy dealings, chiefly surrounding mind control ‒ thereby explaining the strange behaviour of several higher-order functions and the emergence of a powerful "white key" that seems to be able to exact a will of its own on whoever it touches. Indeed, keys become, well, the key to solving the mystery, as first Imelda and then other characters disclose that their special keys let them override the Big Guy's decision-making and take specific actions, when plugged into specific consoles scattered around the city. It's all very clever, with plenty of twists, turns, and shocking revelations throughout, all bound together with a tightly woven world of puns.

Each episode spans an hour or two of them playing the game (impressively cut at cliffhangers, despite the whole thing being improvised) and is aided not just by the excellent cast, but also a full set with a huge game board in front that has a bunch of special effects and clever mechanics, as well as screens all around them that change to provide different ambience or backdrops for the various locations and situations that the players find themselves in. It also offers the ability to briefly show scenes in the "real world", as seen through "oculus" devices that relay the decoded images from Elias' eyes so that the players can both unlock nice set pieces of animation, and have a very immediate feedback on what their decisions have caused. Brennan does a fantastic job of subtly guiding the decision-making and helping avoid any particularly tragic or problematic decisions ‒ though on several occasions the dice take that control away, leading to the unexpected death of the Chief of Police and several instances where Dan Fucks is all but mortally wounded; though he does also become incredibly rich after placing a long-shot bet, too 😂 ‒ alongside both fleshing out the world and playing the various NPCs and villains that are called for. He also manages to weave together various in-jokes and callbacks very well, though the best has to be revealing that Flight's full name is, in fact, actually Stacey Fakename! I also loved the whole, arbitrary birthday cake side quest that is thrown in at the very end 😂

I was also very happy to see how well Hank takes to his role as the towering, brutal Fix, with his constant fact dropping somehow coming across as deeply menacing and changing the course of events in ways I don't think anyone had predicted on multiple occasions. Though, amongst a brilliantly talented cast, and even with the ridiculous whimsy of Thompson or the outright insanity of Wong, it is Alex Song-Xia's Conrad that absolutely steals hearts. I don't know how meek and heart-warming Brennan had planned for this "conscience" to be, but Alex's take is brilliant throughout, showing a real progression from all-but-forgotten personality trait to a full force of nature and higher-order cognitive function. Their genuine and empathetic approach to problem-solving was critical for both selling the character and completely lynch-pinning both the plot and the group dynamic; it's a phenomenal performance!

And, indeed, it's a phenomenal season! The whimsy and charm of the setting; the strength of the characters that are created; the obscene dice rolls (Hunch, in particular, ends up both high-rolling to create a knockout in a boxing match and then, in the final fight, gets such a spread of rolls ‒ I think a -56 against them 😬 ‒ that only their special stat saves them from outright oblivion as they are punched through a building; though you also have to remember Dan's utter failures of plans and then his diamond-hard balls defence being another ridiculous "highlight" 😂); and the overarching plot involving mysterious shadowy figures, oddly-placed grappling guns, and a tale about being true to yourself and overcoming trauma, even in some pretty tight situations, is all top-notch. I'd love to know what side plots and twists were never uncovered, but that's missing the point: this is the story that evolved organically, and it was a fantastic one!