Factually! with Adam Conover - How D&D Took Over Sports Arenas with Brennan Lee Mulligan

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

In the past several years, the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons has firmly made the leap from subculture to pop culture. Massively popular “actual play” shows like Dimension 20 now sell out arenas like Madison Square Garden, a feat which would have been unheard of not so long ago. This week, Adam speaks with Dimension 20 creator and game master Brennan Lee Mulligan about the stratospheric rise in popularity of D&D, the changing entertainment landscape, and what the insidious machinations of capitalism have to do with a game about goblins. SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. I don't know anything Hey there, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thanks for joining me on the show. You know, this is gonna be a bit of a shocker for you, but I was a nerd as a kid. I loved video games. I loved computers.

I loved books. I also loved collectible card games like Magic the Gathering. And I really loved Dungeons and Dragons. You know, I used to buy D&D source books, the player's handbook, the dungeon master's guide. I would pour over them. I bought the box sets of the different campaign settings like Dark Sun and Ravenloft. I even got into more niche role-playing games like Inomune and GURPS. I was deep into this shit, but there was one big problem. I didn't have anyone to play with because I had no social skills, so it turns out I had no friends.

And it turns out those are two things that running a D&D campaign needs a lot of. So I never actually played the game until I was in my 20s. I would just buy the books and read them alone on the back of the school bus. Now that's kind of sad, but in the years since, Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games have gone from being a thing that nerds did in the back of the bus by themselves to a worldwide phenomenon. It is now a $20 billion industry with tens of millions of players. And for those of you who today are like me as a kid and still can't find anyone to play

with, well guess what, now you can just watch other people play on the internet and establish parasocial relationships with them. This explains the massive success of the tabletop game show, Dimension 20, on Dropout. This show is so big, it recently sold out Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl right here in LA.

Well today on the show, we have the Game Master of that very program. He is in fact one of the very best and most famous Dungeon Masters working today. His name is Brendan Lee Mulligan. He happens to be a good friend of mine and I am so thrilled that he agreed to come on the show today. Before we get to that interview, I want to remind you that if you want to support the show and all the conversations we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of this show ad free. You can join our awesome online community as well.

And if you want to come see me on the road, well guess what? You can head to adamconover.net for all my tickets and tour dates. Coming up soon, I'm headed to Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Spokane, Washington, Tacoma, Washington, Brea, California. And by the time you watch this, we might have announced a bunch of other dates as well. Head to AdamConover.net for all my dates. I hope to see you out there. And now, let's welcome Brennan Lee Mulligan. This man is the host of Dimension 20, and again, he is one of the most famous and accomplished dungeon masters in the entire world, which is a job that simply did not exist

a couple decades ago, and now it does. So I'm so thrilled to have him on. Please welcome Brennan Lee Mulligan. You gonna switch to? What's that? You gonna switch to? Switch to here, we have a Passo Gelato. It's the only, the only Gelato named

after a Beckett character. Oh, Pazzo from Waiting for Gufman, Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Gufman. That's what came to mind first, because I was thinking about Best in Show yesterday. God, let's see, let's get Christopher Guest into Waiting for Godot as fast as we can. I wish he would make another movie. My favorite movie, Best in Show, my favorite movie. Really? I love that. It's phenomenal, it's unbelievable.

Every character, God, they're all so good. I love it so much. Yeah, the Parker Posey yuppie character, the you got busy, like those characters, those characters are so, like the most fully fleshed out like improv characters I've ever seen, the most specific. The adult braces, yeah, it's so.

The gray outfits, they order all their clothing catalogs, they're over-therapies, you know. Thanks for being here, man. Thank you for having me, man. Good to have you back. I appreciate it. So for those who don't know, we already recorded this entire interview,

and then we lost the video for the interview. It did not make it through. Tough. Tough. Tough, it's tough. That's tough. Wait, what? I can't tell if you're making fun of my extreme first world problem of losing a video for an interview

or if you're like sort of subtly criticizing our professionalism. No, in this moment, what you have to know is to, like you know how things enter your vocabulary as bit words that are just funny to you? Tough is the new word that has entered my vocabulary that I say in response to too many things. I say it at home a lot, where it'll be like,

oh, like that place we wanted to order from is closed. And I'll be like, tough, that's tough. That's really tough. See, to me, to me, you're a dad now. To me, that sounds like condescending dad. Oh, tough kid, yeah, that's tough. Because here's- You're gonna have to learn to deal with that.

Yeah. Here's what's happened, and I'm gonna say something. It's not bleak. It's cool and relatable. You'll like it when I say it. In my internal experience of my life, It's not bleak. It's cool and relatable. You'll like it when I say it. In my, my internal experience of my life, in terms of workload, parental responsibilities, timeline, the state of the world

is I'm commanding a starship from within my mind that is taking so much damage that I have shut down the sensors. Like I no longer want to know how the engines are doing taking so much damage that I have shut down the sensors. Like I no longer want to know how the engines are doing. Cause the beeping means I can't steer the ship. So what we've done is we've walled walled off the sensory apparatus. So all I have is a pre-programmed empathetic response, which is tough because I have no idea how I'm doing. That's cool.

You relate to that, no one be sad, no one feel sad, okay? You're like one of those people who can't feel pain and then eventually they have to get their arms amputated because they sleep on their arms and they fuck up their bodies. Right, you're like pain is an extremely adaptive evolutionary trait. And you no longer have it.

You need pain, and I'm like, we cannot process, it's just like getting mail in. How many envelopes can I get in my conscious mind saying, you're tired, you're tired, you're tired, before I'm like, throw these out when they get in the mailbox. Yeah, you have problems, man. You're like, you're really cruising for a breakdown.

This does not. If I break down, I'll never know. And that's the important part. Can I say it's unbelievable you agreed to come back and do this podcast again because you're so busy and you're you're you're clearly dealing with so much. You're not mentally well. And yet I said we lost the video.

By the way, we're going to post the audio of the first interview on Patreon because we're going to talk about some of the same stuff, but it's going to go in different directions. So so join the Patreon if you want the audio of the first interview on Patreon because we're gonna talk about some of the same stuff, but it's gonna go in different directions. So join the Patreon if you want the audio, if you want a bonus, like 90 minutes of us free associating. Beautiful. Also, not doing well, would a man not doing well have this much joie de vivre?

Ask yourself that. I'm having a ball, I just don't know it. You're having... So you were saying right before we started rolling, like so much has happened since the last time we talked, it was like a month ago. Right, this 90 minutes of audio on the Patreon, which I'm glad, because I fucking loved

the last conversation we had. It was so much fun. So much fun, so I'm glad it'll be in front of people on the Patreon. Go join the Patreon. What I'm psyched about is the world that we were talking about, which is by the way, this is like what happened in the first

Trump presidency as well, is you're like, the fucking shelf life of a conversation about the state of the world is like, either it's intractable, it's an intractable ongoing problem or the chess pieces have totally rearranged. I have this problem as a guy who makes YouTube videos because we've been trying to get our cadence up Okay, so I'm gonna the news happens. Okay, we want to do a video about it, but it's still you know

There's only like four of us on the team It's it's sort of like a week and a half turn around a week if we really book book feet beat feet Oh feet feet. Yeah, if you really book it if you really beat feet if you really book feet Yeah, and you can book feet by joining the patreon. You'll get this guy's feet at the top tier. You know, the audience gets mad at how much I plug. I feel like you doing it is gonna go down a lot smoother. I dig it. I especially like to plug things

that I have no financial stake in, because you have to be so apologetic. When it's you, you have to be like, I'm sorry. But I'm like, you can fucking support the Patreon, support Kickstart. I have to go, as you know, you can support on Patreon. I know I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm like you fucking support the support a patron support kickstarter I have to go as you know you can support on patreon I know I say it every time but you can you can be well Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to keep up right like it's we're always still behind even though

We're trying to do it as quickly as possible the only way to do it fast enough is to be one of those people who just like Fucking Hassan piker just like every day day I hit go and I'm just like, just freaking out on the internet live. I don't want that life. Hassan Piker, the fact that he is so like, you know, the other top streamers around him politically are like all conservative. He is truly like a sin eater for the world. Just like, I'm just looking at like, this is, he has,

he is like the ones who lift weights in Omelas. He is like fucking- I know what you're talking about. Yeah, no, we've cursed him to sit in that room, sit in that little room of his and watch MSNBC all day long, 10 hours a day. He makes 150 grand every time he does it,

but he cannot leave his little room. Yeah, what is he doing with the 150 grand? He's gotta be in front of the computer for eight hours again tomorrow. The rest of the house is empty. Grabbing kids on the way to the Manosphere alt-right pipeline and shunting them off into the left like, no, no, get back, get back.

Oh, the coverage of him is so funny where it's just like all of these reporters are going and like, can this one jacked man in this little room change politics? Is this the new, like, no, this is just, this is just one guy. I'm trapped in behind the camera. I don't know how he doesn't freak the fuck out at main like, like mainstream reporters being like this one man stand against the forces of reactionary conservatism. And the fact that he doesn't go, help.

Somebody else do this. Well, that was the thing. Anybody can start a Twitch account. Anybody. Do you feel like you have a friend? Have you ever said something cool? Get it! Well, that was the funny thing too,

is you saw the entire thing of being like, who's the Joe Rogan of the left. And when you see that infographic about how many podcaster, YouTube, Twitch, things are dominated by the right, you're like, the Joe Rogan, we need a fucking million. We need a hundred. It's so funny because I feel like the joke for so long, our mutual friend, the brilliant and wonderful Zach Oyama was like, no one needs a podcast. There's like a College Human Resketch many, many years ago. And that is not true.

It's like, if you, literally looking at that infographic, because I was sort of jokingly like, working in media is always sort of funny, because you're, by your definitionally self aggrandizing and narcissistic, because you're selling yourself as a product, you're like, don't you wanna hear me talk? There is this attitude in Hollywood for a while around comedy people, who some of them would be like, Don't you want to hear me talk? There's this attitude in Hollywood for a while around

comedy writer comedy people who some of them would be like We we got to have podcasts now. Everyone's got to have a podcast. You don't need to have a part I don't need to have a podcast. I work in television and now that doesn't exist There's no such thing. Oh you want wanna make money, you wanna get health insurance by writing really funny things for hot people to say? Hmm, capitalism's not interested in that anymore. It's crazy. Well, that's also the funny thing. That's when you really realize too,

that like whatever the fucking, whatever Adam Smith wrote about capitalism is so fucking irrelevant and has been forever, where you're like, what capitalism really is, is there is a social class of aristocrats across a business fraternity based on companionship from like certain prestigious universities or where they went to school.

They are totally insulated from any consequence that the businesses they captain face. Like, is anyone that renamed it Max gonna face jail time? Like, you know, like, no! No, and they're changing it back. It was the thing that every person went, well, that seems catastrophically stupid. And then-

I was on the platform. I was like, I'm on your fucking thing. Keep HBO in the name. It's the most prestigious brand in media. You're taking it out? In media. What are you fucking doing? Yeah.

But the issue is, listen, I'm not a fan of the idealized form of capitalism that economists write about. I don't like that either. But let's be clear, that's a fucking fantasy. That's a fiction. What actually exists is a sort of like oligarchic, you know, aristocratic social club of people

that fail upwards and bounce from corporate leadership to corporate leadership, never face the consequences of their actions. And on a personal level, they run perpendicular to how the institutions they steward do. Like, I remember there was one, this is a crazy fucking story.

We're immediately off to a different tangent. I'll come back another time. I'll come back another time. The intro was about Dungeons and Dragons, which is not related to any of this, but we'll come back to it. There was a funny thing where I worked at a important NBC holiday live spectacular as a PA.

Way back in the day, I was getting coffee for people. And it was one of these things where like, you see. No, not gonna say which live Hollywood spectacular, but let's just say it happened at Mer Mer Mer Rockefeller Center. Exactly. Okay.

So there was this thing where the, essentially what happened was, it was the, oh what the fuck, this is so many years ago. It was the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting. I was working as a PA and the, there were a bunch of people performing. Jackie Ivanko performs, who's like a little,

was at that point like a little operatic child. And then right after her Boys to Men perform. Boys to Men gets out on stage, say, wish, like say hello to everybody, Merry Christmas. And they launch into what? Jackie Avonko. Everyone was lip syncing, it was being kept secret, it was too cold, and boys to men starts to perform,

and Jackie Avonko's voice comes out of the exact same performance. Like the famous SNL thing with What's Your Face. With fucking Ashley Simpson. Ashley Simpson, yes. So this happens, chaos, and it's after weeks of like extremely grandiose, you know, like producers looking at like a scared 19 year old being like,

people would kill to be working the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting. You better wake up when I say macchiato. I mean fucking Macchiato. You know, like that level of that all of this abuse heaped on the fucking people, the working people involved. And then this huge thing goes wrong. And I'm like, God, this is a clusterfuck. And later that night, I'm talking to a buddy of mine

who was also working, this guy, Eric Sagotsky, he's a great director. I just got caught up with him recently in LA. Very talented guy who does huge interactive effects stuff for live immersive. He's very cool dude. He was a fellow PA and afterwards we heard that someone was going to get fired, who was very important on the production. And I was like, oh my God, the Jackie Ivanko thing, that guy's going to get fired for that.

That's crazy. Actual consequences for a huge fuck up. And he went, oh, it's not anything to do with the Jackie Ivanko thing. And I went, what? And he's like, yeah, one of the, oh, it's not anything to do with the Jackie Ivanka thing. And I went, what? And he's like, yeah, one of the, it was like a Univision executive thought they would get to sit at the front of the skybox, but their assigned seat was to Rose, Rose back. And I was like, this is really,

understand that what we call capitalism is still feudalism and it's still court intrigue and these bozos do not have a hand on the wheel. My seat was not where I expected it to be. Yeah, it's all the same shit, it's aristocrats. That's incredibly funny. But the actual thing that went wrong, that was the responsibility of somebody who's invulnerable,

who can't be fired. Yeah, exactly, that. Or it doesn't matter, the actual work product doesn't matter. Right, and in that sense, you know, like if I'm being as like bleak and dystopian as possible, it's like they come in the next day and they're like, look, the Jackie Vonko track, we're so sorry.

The person who was in front of the button that told me not to press it and I pressed it anyway, I fired that guy, he's gone. And someone goes, actually, we saw an increase in traffic on the Peanut M&M's landing page of the M&M store based on people wanting to see if another fuck up would happen. Next year, could we plan a couple of these fuck up?

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the conversation that would happen. We see traffic going up around these mistakes. Now you, though, let's, I'm gonna do a great segue, watch this. Now you are in the middle of such large live spectacular events. You're on stage. It's crazy, man.

You were just at the Hollywood Bowl you guys sold out. The Hollywood Bowl. And before that Madison Square Garden. That's what we talked about last time. Now since then you've done it here in fucking Los Angeles. The most famous venue in LA outside of, I don't know've done it here in fucking Los Angeles. The most famous venue in LA, outside of, I don't know, the fucking Forum in Inglewood. It's crazy.

You know, it's like, it was really funny. The Hollywood Bowl's insane. We did Bigger, my wife and I, Isabella Rowland, incredible comedian. Come see Bigger, we're performing in Seattle and then Las Vegas. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

We did The Will Turn, and that was great, too. The Will Turn is obviously an awesome classic venue in LA. Big, beautiful theater. And that one was crazy because I was like, ooh, this is the one, like the Hollywood Bowl kind of belongs to the world, it feels like. And the Will Turn, every Angelino that I knew was like, you're performing at the Will Turn.

It was like, oh, this is like where you saw your favorite band when you were 16 and it changed your fucking brain wiring. You know, like, like, is, we talked about being there all the time as a teenager, like in middle school. And it's just very fucking cool, man. That's really sick. I mean, the Hollywood Bowl is where people,

this is a venue where people bring picnic baskets. Yes. Where half the time, people are not even paying attention to the show, they're just like drinking wine and eating charcuterie. Dude, it's crazy. I love that too. It's beautiful.

The venue's beautiful. It's freaky because it's a comparable capacity to Madison Square Garden. But I was amazed at how different it felt because Hollywood Bowl is all one direction. So when you walk into Madison Square Garden, it's a huge 360. It's 360 and because of the way the balconies are set up,

I know this is a fucking crazy thing to say, and it's not lost on me that this is the privilege and good fortune that I have to say this, but it feels like a closer room. You feel closer to the people around you. There's an intimacy, even a place like Madison Square Garden, because the balconies and the bleachers,

it's all, everyone's right on top of each other. So the farthest away person is much closer than at a comparable space, like the Hollywood bowl, which is the same capacity all in one direction. So you're shooting up. I got there in the daytime and looked up and got a real feeling of vertigo looking up at the high. The seats banking up. It's freaky, you have to crane your neck up

to see these seats stretching away. And you are there doing perhaps the arch-typical performance that no one should watch. The thing that people feel that they should do in their basements, away from prying eyes, even if someone opens the door, mom, get out of here. Do not, you drop your elf voice, no! I cannot have another person witness me do this activity.

You're doing it for countless, tens of thousands of people. Yeah, it's crazy. for tens of thousands of people. Yeah, it's crazy. The thought, playing D&D was a thing, far from sharing it with thousands of people live and in person. The thought of the wrong people finding out that you had played D&D.

There's literally posters around LA of Brennan Lee Mulligan's gonna be playing D&D. That would be your nightmare when you're 17 years old. Don't tell anybody we're doing this. Like a drop top Jeep with a bunch of Letterman jacket wearing jocks. I'm gonna ride by and go, these nerds are at the Hollywood Bowl,

June 1st, let's get them. Truly, insane, really insane. It's fucking crazy, man. There's no, it also, it was really fun, I feel like the, you are someone, so for fans, I was an Adam Conover fan way back in the fucking day with a sketch comedy group called Old English, look up Ken Swissell's Time Machine.

It's on YouTube still. It's fucking perfect. Oh man. It's a real time machine. That sketch is still one of my proudest pieces of comedy writing I've ever done. Of that, that was my college sketch comedy group, most of the stuff I'm like is unwatchable.

That sketch I still love. I fucking love it, it's great. And the, so I was watching your stuff way, way back in the day and you, it's very cool to follow the careers of people that you have been a fan of over multiple chapters of a career and see the fucking dividends that authenticity and discipline regarding one's own voice can pay. Because I think about this in context,

to loop it back to D&D, when I talk to people that are like, so what's gonna happen in five years with this? And what do you da, da, da, da, da? It makes me wanna shake them and go like, do you think I could have predicted any fucking, every part of, listen, I am endlessly proud of the work that our cast and crew do. I will hold up our standard of work to anybody. If we zoom out, who would you have been to 10 or 15 years ago

have predicted that performed Dungeons and Dragons would be the next thing? So for all the people out there that are trend watchers or trying to predict the future or trying to create art in conversation with the market, I think my career, I look at my career, I look at the career of the people I respect and I go, that is not it. You got to honor the freaky little light in your heart because how could you predict the shit that ends up happening? Like if Ken Swizzle makes you happy, that is, you have to fucking honor that.

You know, if rolling dice and talking about dragons makes you happy, your odds of, I feel like, forget the degree of like, whether you connect with an audience or not, your sense of purpose and pride in your own work is sustaining and your odds feel just as good at least, if not slightly better, of connecting with audiences rather than trying to game out.

Like, hmm, I bet this game that's getting kids to get their head dunked in toilets, I bet that's gonna be at Madison Square Garden. Well, it's a hard thing, man, because I, I have always followed my own creative sense of what I think is interesting and what I think is funny, but at the same time, I've always had to have a keen sense of what the audience is interested in.

I used to say when I was working on Adam Ruins Everything, I would imagine myself as a kid watching cable, right? On the carpet, watching television, what would interest me? And part of that's because I'm trying to please myself. Part of it is because I'm also, I'm trying to create mass media. I'm trying to create something that is going to catch

and have hook and get people in. That's also part of the job of a broadcaster or of a comedian is like, knowing, okay, here's the latent desire in people that I'm going to fill. Here's the unsaid thing that they're going to wish someone will say or whatever. You do have to have a little bit of that sense.

But maybe I've been, what you're saying, I'm like maybe I've been letting that second part get away from me a little bit. Get ahead of me. There's a huge, I think you're absolutely right. There's an interesting release valve that I get through what I do, which is that by being improvisational, interesting release valve that I get through what I do,

which is that by being improvisational, I can't not think of an audience, but the audience I get to think about is my players. So in other words, I think it helps you avoid some of what you would probably call, like at the far negative end of that spectrum, where all the way over here is you're doing heartless work that's totally calculated to just maximize on a trend.

And then the far other end is probably like masturbatory or narcissistic, like who is this for other than me? I know a lot of great artists, friends of mine, who make work just for themselves. And sometimes I'm like, well, no one's gonna like this, but you, and sometimes nobody does. And some of them are very happy with that. And that's a valid way to make art.

But it doesn't work for other people often. Folks, this week's episode is brought to you by Alma. If you are struggling with your mental health, it's easy to look to the internet for solutions. After all, isn't social media supposed to be social? But I think you know as well as I do that the more time we spend on the internet, the more isolated we can begin to feel.

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that experts are hunting down or removing your personal information every three months, well, check out Delete Me. Go to joindeleteme.com slash Adam and get 20% off for all consumer plans with the code ADAM. I think the nice little safety net built into Dungeons and Dragons and Tabletop actual play is that you have this representative audience in each other. And like a lot of improv, you know, I remember the first time I saw a show at UCB Chelsea in New York, and I remember falling in love with the fact that the other performers were laughing on the back line. And I'm like, where else do you get to see the creators supporting each other in the process of creation like this? And so what's interesting is I feel like audiences like two things. They do like to be catered to, but they also don't like to be catered

to. And there's a weird paradox and contradiction in that they don't wanna feel like it's fan service. They wanna feel like they're seeing something authentic and they wanna be a fly on the wall. There's a voyeuristic principle where they're like, what if no one knew I was here watching? I'm peering into the magical glade and seeing something I'm not supposed to see. But on the flip side, if it's completely off-putting to them

and doesn't take their taste into consideration at all, that's bad. So in this moment, I'm realizing by trying to make my players happy, I sort of inadvertently am creating something that is meant for a group. And the audience gets to get in on that. Because if I'm making Murph and Emily and Lou and Siobhan and Zach and Allie laugh, then I am probably creating

something that is also going gonna appeal to this bigger circle outside of our intimate circle. Does it change the nature of the art form at all though? Because part of the, I said this in our previous recording, but I'll say it again, my good friend Jared Logan, who's a wonderful game master I've done, I've played games with him, that he puts so much work into where I was like, dude, who's a wonderful game master I've done, I've played games with him, that he puts so much work into,

where I was like, dude, you're a comedian, you should write a screenplay. But he has chosen to invest himself in creating a work of art just for five friends, right? And that's a beautiful thing, you know? Totally. And that is in some ways inherent to tabletop role playing, that it is like, it's a home-cooked meal, you know, and

There's something that is nice about There's something that's great about a restaurant, but a restaurants a factory What's nice about a home-cooked meal is it really is someone making food a lot more? Laboriously for a smaller number of people's gonna be lumpy. It's gonna be bumpy It's gonna be there's gonna be one a vegetarian bumpy, it's gonna be, there's gonna be one vegetarian option, like oh we made one version of it with no meat, but that one's not as good, because I didn't really know how the recipe would work.

Whatever, it was made special just for you. And like, that's a completely different thing from a mass market piece of entertainment. It's very fascinating, and by the way, that's what I love about Tabletop. Even the ones that I play for work, for for work for an audience to enjoy is you're still there going, well, I serve the audience. I really believe that the audience wants me to honor my players more than them.

Right. They want to see us making this for each other and that's what makes it special to share. Right. In the same way that like you listen to listen to your favorite bands at your was it. Allison Bechdel talks about this because she she used you know she had a great thing as a graphic novelist and as a sequential artist that was basically like.

The there is no such thing as universal. The universal exists the more specific you can get. The more you honor exactly what you felt and exactly how you happened with all of the warts and ugliness and all of the specificity, people will find the universal in that. This is a rule in comedy writing too, the more specific the joke is.

Like even if you don't get the reference, the fact that there was a specific reference makes the joke more universal. It's such a bizarre shortcut, but it is a hack. I used to say it as an improv teacher, where I would go like, your roommate didn't eat your ice cream, he ate your Ben and Jerry's.

If you, you know, like, it's just, it's always, there's something about the texture of getting a little bit more granular and a little bit more specific that actually ends up, for whatever reason, creating more surfaces to connect to a work on. Yes. Um, uh, I love that.

But I think to your point about Jared Logan and, and DMs, even like myself, like I, I, I had been running dimension 20 for a couple of years and was still running a 14 year long home game. Like I ended a couple of years ago because I was about to become a dad and also because it was time for the story to end. It was like, they fucking, the heroes of Azuha they fucking did it. They were the revolution, the glorious revolution succeeded. After a while you kill God and then you're like, I, who else is there to kill?

You know, they did kill a God at the end. It's true. They killed Harfang, the God of death and winter. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Death and winter? He had been eating other gods and absorbing their domains. Oh my God. So he started as a god of death and had been

out, out, out. He sort of curbed being. They did us all a service, it sounds like. They did a huge service. Honestly, it was really sick. Listen, I know this is just me talking about a D&D campaign that no one's ever gotten to watch, but they were so fucking dope.

We ended in a week long cabin retreat in New Paltz, New York. We played for a week straight to give the campaign its final send off. And this bad guy had been their biggest enemy. He was the villain of the campaign. They overthrew the empire and then it was, okay, we've taken care of this geopolitical military threat.

Now this magical threat, we gotta go deal with this evil god. They show up, this dude has given so many monologues and in my head, I'm kinda actually nervous in a way where I'm like, this is my last monologue as a 14 year long villain. And I narrate them coming into the square where one of them had died before.

The snow is falling on this little mountain town, this broken fountain. The god is there with his fucking monsters behind him. And he laughs and goes like, "'Not much left to say is there.'" Which is the first thing that occurred to me to say because all of my PCs were so locked in. And I said, not much left to say is there.

Way to horn of the PC is to be like, "'We've come here to finish you off. I look at my players, the look of grim determination on my players faces was so in character that I felt real life frightened. I'm like, are they, I'm like, is this, are we gonna do like Tom Hanks, Monsters and Mazes where my friends get lost in the sauce

and jump out of their chairs and stomp my ass in this Airbnb? Like I'm in danger. And so he said, no, I'm just going to say is there. And I just went, oh, there is no monologue roll initiative. And after 14 years, the fucking impact of this guy who's been talker, talker, yapper, yapper, yapper tries to provoke us into saying something and there's nothing left to say here to kill you.

Um, it was fucking sick. What a beautiful, bespoke, home-cooked moment that was. Yes. ["Table Top Role Playing"] Something that I'm really curious about, though, is like, okay, the existence of Table Top Role Playing at all is, it's one of the weirdest activities known to man and it's hard for me somehow to imagine

anybody does it, right? You have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of books, everyone has to learn all these rules, there's like various rules light role playing systems but the most popular ones are the ones with the most rules. Yeah, learn all these rules. And then you need one person who is sort of gifted and dedicated enough of a storyteller and social group manager to like run the whole thing.

And then you need a schedule. You need to do all this. Like it is an extremely high functionality requirement activity. Now, at the same time, you are providing something similar. People can just, you know, pay five bucks a month to drop out, you know, requirement, activity. Now, at the same time you are providing something similar, people can just, you know, pay five bucks a month to drop out, you know, and they can watch you do it. And as I said in the intro, you know, as a kid, I loved D&D, but I did not have the things you needed to play, mainly friends and social skills,

and also just like stick-to-itiveness and determination. And so I could say, all right, well you are, you're providing the D&D experience for a lot of folks who maybe they can't actually play in their lives and that's a wonderful thing. But I also wonder, do you ever worry that it's a little bit like how, hey, you know, everyone used to be able to play an instrument but now we all listen

to recorded music. Because, you know, it's pretty hard to play an instrument well takes all this time and you know musical ability and and You know what we can just put on a Beatles record and now you can hear the best musicians alive play Yeah, but as a result we've sort of like lost You know our cultural ability to to play music for each other at least as much less common than it used to be. You ever worry about what you do replacing tabletop role playing for the average person? Well, it's a fascinating thing. So first of all, what I'd say is that

there are a lot of great tools to use to find gaming groups. That didn't used to exist, right? I work with this company called Start Playing Games. That is a great, it's basically like a marketplace for people to find other players, to find dungeon masters. Some dungeon, like there are dungeon masters that are there for free, just sort of on their message boards looking for people there.

There's also professional dungeon masters that are like, hey, I'll straight up like make a homebrew world based around what you and your friends want me to do. This is a service I can pay for someone to do. Yeah, and it's a funny thing, because there's a weird, I was thinking about it in my head, because obviously D&D for me was the vector of my closest friendships,

and I did it for free for my entire life. And I had to think for a second where I was, you know, partnering with them, and I was like, oh wow, like how do I feel about paid dungeon masters? And then thought for literally half a second, and was like, you'd better be a big fucking fan, Brennan, of paid dungeon masters,

because that's your fucking job, baby. Like, so in other words, it's like, looking at that, I'm like, oh, that is, there should be opportunities for dungeon masters to do what I do, which is doing it for a living, without having to do it at the fucking Hollywood Bowl. You know, like, they should be able to like, make, like you're saying, make these beautiful

home-cooked meals for people. And being at DM able to like make, like you're saying, make these beautiful home cooked meals for people. And being a DM is work, man. If you, I ran countless campaigns for my friends all throughout growing up. I'm so glad I did. It was the honor of a lifetime. It's a lot of free work. It's like if you were cooking like your friend group

family dinner every week, you know, like, and it's like some people do that and that's fucking awesome. But that is, that's labor. That's real work. Or it's, you know, there's the labor, you know, like, and it's like, some people do that, and that's fucking awesome, but that's labor, that's real work. Or there's the labor, you know, analysis of a family. That's why we have alimony, right? And women's rights and divorces, because we finally acknowledged culturally

that cooking meals and that sort of thing is also labor of a sort, right? Even when it's done out of love. Totally, totally. There's a tremendous amount where you go like, where are the contributions? We don't have to be transactional in every aspect of our lives,

but we have to honor, say work is work. You know, like work is work. You are doing this extra, you're putting this extra effort into it. I think that like like for my purposes, the chance of your question about like, what happens to people? I don't know, man, I'm nervous.

I feel, I, you know, I don't know how much of the AI stuff to like truly freak out about, or is this snake oil, or is this the death of civilization? But I do genuinely feel bad, environmental impact notwithstanding, and issues of theft.

And like, I know what I hate about the businesses that are trying to make AI happen. I know how annoyed I am at constantly being prompted to use AI, when it's like, I know how to write an email, man, I'm good, you know, like, but I do think- Get out of here, Clippy. Get out of here, Clippy, get the fuck out of here. And also, when you're like, is this revolutionary,

or did you guys rebrand Clippy? You know, like, it's kind of, a lot of it, it's kind of a lot of it is rebranded. A lot of it is rebranded Clippy. Right. Yeah. So so but within that, I do. Get into this this space where I'm like, I hope people know that comfort can become deleterious, that they're that like constantly pursuing the easier ways

of doing something is not necessarily good for the soul, it's not necessarily good for yourself. Removing tasks, like, I think all the time about missing the New York City subway, where it used to not have service in it, and it would be 20 minutes where I go, ah, my mind, what's mind. I used to carry a, I used to carry the New Yorker in my back pocket when I first moved to New York.

I didn't have a cell phone yet and I had a subscription from the New Yorker and the New Yorker would go a on the back of the toilet and be in my back pocket when I was on the subway and I would read the whole thing in a week because a week of subway rides would be a week of reading the New Yorker and then, uh, yeah Yeah, or I pick up a I pick up a poster of Daily News at the bodega 50 cents Karen the subway or you'd find one On the trash can Oh someone left people used to leave newspapers for I'm sorry This is turning entirely different people used to leave newspapers for each other subway You'd get off the truck you begin and it'd be there'd be a New York Post waiting for you on the bench from some other Guy who's like someone might need to read

Show me the AI that can do what Jimmy Breslin does No, but it was it was like yes I and and that was a more nourishing experience than anything I have done on my phone on the New York City subway totally And and there's a certain degree, like you're saying, I see there are certain complaints that occur in conversations about actual play, which is like, this is not, is this replacing home games?

And my whole thing would be like, dear God, let it not be that. Like, I don't know how to, like, watching basketball and playing basketball are both so fun and are very different. And I think- And in fact, the people who enjoy watching basketball the most are the people who play basketball.

I never played basketball. As an adult in my 40s, I don't really wanna start now, because I don't wanna injure myself, and I'm just not whatever. I mean, whatever, it'd be fun. But people who play, who have played, like grew up playing pickup basketball, when they watch it on television,

they have a different experience than I do. Because they know how physically difficult it is to do. Yeah, absolutely. And like I'm saying, you know, as someone who obviously plays D&D, you know, and then creates actual play, yeah, the feeling is completely separate. And I don't think there hopefully

is any competition between them because like, you know, the one of the things that people have actually said in the dome, which I think is really funny is a lot of guests that we've had have been like, I sometimes forget that I'm here playing. There'd be like, I was just watching other people go and then they turned and asked me something and I was like, Oh shit, I'm here. And that's always so funny. The players, the players, like new players will be like, because they'll be like, you know, if you're there watching fucking Zach Oyama

and Lou Wilson, you know, like Ali Beards, you know, it's like all these incredible, the intrepid heroes are all so fucking good at what they do and you're watching them perform. There is literally a thing where some people come in and been like. Your voices are so funny. This is, you're describing the problem I've had every time I've tried to do improv, honestly, in my life,

is I'm always just watching the scene go, oh shit, I'm supposed to step off the back line. That's why I didn't get on the Herald team, was I just watched everyone else audition. You're like, this is crazy. I love that, but no, I think that the point about people playing instruments, people doing these things, there's multiple factors at work. I love that, but no, I think that the point about people playing instruments, people doing

these things, there's multiple factors at work here. Number one, we have access to all recorded music ever, right? So it's an interesting thing of what happens to culture when something that was a hit 50 years ago is just as streamable as something that's a hit today. We had our music thing where I realized that all a hit today. You know, we had our, like, music thing where I realized that all of my top listen to things, nothing in my top listen to column is from the last 20 years.

Which Izzy tells me means I'm, that's- What's your number one? The House That Jack Built by Aretha Franklin. Wow, that's the number one song. Number one song still in place, but there's a million that are, you know, I love probably my most number one listen to artists is Sam Cooke. Uh, I just love that's the music I like.

Uh, the best music ever made. It's incredible. Um, uh, but I, to your point of like, where do we get folk art? Where do we get like people doing it for themselves? I think that the barriers to that are the barriers to the music that we make. to your point of like, where do we get folk art? Where do we get like people doing it for themselves? I think that the barriers to that are partially,

how much, like if I had to blame, if I was gonna assign blame, I would maybe have a little sliver to, oh, I can just listen to the Beatles. I don't have to play music for, I don't have to do the fucking Dickens thing of like, we're having a dinner party, I'll play the piano for the guests. Like you don't have to play music for I don't have to do the fucking Dickens thing of like we're having a dinner party I'll play the piano for the guests like you don't have to do that, but I think another issue too is just that like

The way our society is is every technological advancement rather than creating creating leisure and harmony either has to be monetizable by the person and doing it to justify its time in the week, or that people are, you know, for lack of a better word, it's like, do you have time? Do you have leisure time? Or is all of your time spoken for because of factors of exploitation outside of your- You know what, like, comparison keeps coming to mind

as you're describing this, and it's only half there, but it's to sex. It's that like two people, or more people, having sex together in a non-monetized, completely human way, obviously one of the heights of human experience, not always accessible to everybody. You know what you can do? Watch other people do it on the internet, right?

And like, for some people, that's nice, right? It's like, well, hey, that gives you some sexual release in your life, which everybody needs and deserves, right? And what's in the middle, what's the equivalent of the paid dungeon master? That would be sex work, which at its best would be something that we'd want to support because, hey, guess what? If someone wants to give you a nice homebrew experience

that is what you need, then that would be great. Now, what is the problem with porn and with sex work? It's that capitalism often turns them into something that is deleterious to human wellness and the human spirit and true human sexuality. I'm trying to picture the conservative Supreme Court justice being like, well, I can't define Dungeons and Dragons, but I know it when I see it.

The Lord has made his position on rolling dice. Absolutely clear. Dude, it's very well, I think to your point, like the, the, um, and again, the idea of. Media and how we relate to it, because whether the analogy is sports, whether it's pornography, whether it's the Great British Bake Off,

the idea, I love watching those little cakes. I love to watch those little cakes. And I love to watch those polite British people make those little cakes. And you could make a cake yourself, but you're not. You're sitting on the couch watching the British people do. But I will make a cake myself. And that's the thing is like, I'm, you know,

like Mother's Day, like making pancakes and having the fruit. I know that my pancake is not as good as a restaurant pancake, but it's a totally different joy of making it. It's a different meaning. You know, I think about the, in the height of lockdown, my wife and I, who were then not yet engaged, were supposed to go on a trip to Scotland and we couldn't.

And for our anniversary locked in our apartment is had gone out and gotten all the things to make steak and ale pie and sticky toffee pudding. Cause like, Hey, we were supposed to be in Scotland, right? And we spent all day making it together. And the edge of the steak and ale pie was burnt and the sticky toffee pudding had, it was a little bit lumpier, like you said. And I haven't had a better meal in my life

cause it was made with love. And I, and I really, it sounds corny. I'm not doing a fucking bit. It was better because it was made with love. I remember that steak and ale pie, what it tasted like, what it was like to make in a way that I do not with ones that were made with more technical proficiency. And so I think the same is true for D and D there that you cannot get away from what it means. The game you play with you and your friends. Okay.

You and your friends can't do voices or, or your friends, NPCs or like your, your friend, your dungeon master needs to take breaks during the session because they need to be more prepared and they have a harder time improvising through something. It's like these technical quibbles of like holding yourself up to this other standard. I promise you that the game you have together is going to mean more. Yeah. If it's done with love, the only thing that makes a home game suck is the same thing that makes actual play suck, which is if the people don't give a shit. Like that's the thing you're up against, right?

The thing you're up against is, yeah, if me and the people doing this don't love it, then yeah, it won't be filled with love. But if it is, no degree of technical lack of proficiency will get in the way of making something that means the world to you. Yeah, first of all, steak and ale pie and sticky toffee pudding are real Scottish dishes.

Dog, you gotta get out there, okay? So fucking on the nose, these people. Sticky toffee, it's crazy. So me and Iz had sticky toffee pudding in this place called, oh well, I'm not even gonna say it, because it's so far, I don't want word to get out. I mean, I do, I wanna support their business. Okay, there's an inn in Glenelg,

which is this Scottish town way far off in the fucking boonies of Scotland. And they had a sticky toffee pudding that was like it was like a powerful Scottish Highlander had reached into a deep cauldron of sweet sticky toffee pudding and a craggy mountain of it landed on a plate and it was steaming and covered in syrup. It was the best thing ever. It was the best fucking thing. This sticky toffee pudding was so fucking good. I'm salivating.

You've just destroyed the town of West Elg. Glenelg. There are just a million Brennan Lee Mulligan fans are showing up. People are like complaining at the neighborhood council meeting. I can't believe there's the traffic. The traffic? Well, it's a crazy thing too.

And by the way, it's like these things... Yeah, Glenelg is so funny. I've never been to a place where the road literally just becomes woods. It's just like... It's like, right, we're done. The road's done. You've got as far as you can. Just stops at a place called, I think, the She's Tea Hut at the, which is just near the lock. And you're just, it's like, Hey baby, you made it. Ain't no more places to go.

And we ran out of Scotland. We ran out of Scotland. You're done. And there's straight up like driving there. The road turns into gravel. And there's just, we, there are a bunch of cows. You're just like, okay, I guess we wait for these guys to go. The, but to your point, like it's a fascinating thing because love and passion and technical proficiency. I think about this all the time with, so I do a podcast called Worlds Beyond Number, which is this, I'm incredibly proud of it. It's myself, Lou Wilson, Abreya, Iyengar, Eric Ishii, and our incredible producer and sound designer and composer,

Taylor Moore, who has been working in podcasts forever, but just decided on raw passion alone to become a world-class composer just for this podcast. And we make this, our first campaign has been this high, this like fantasy folklore Miyazaki inspired thing called the Wizard, the Witch and the Wild One. And it's crazy because the passion and love that gets born, born into that, you see the relationship that where love by some process of alchemy gets transmuted into technical proficiency, Taylor's music work, the performances that Erica and Lou and Abrea have put in

that I think are these like long, it's seeing all of them in a long form campaign that is a true work of capital F fantasy. It's like heroic, epic fantasy and the performances across the board. It's like, you see where that like home cooked meal becomes this thing that you suddenly put this technical proficiency and skill behind. So I think the whole thing for anyone that wants to like listen to that podcast as an example for me at least of like, if you love something, the skill follows. You know, like when I started doing Dimension 20 at Dropa, it was after 15 years of doing it for free, for doing it for my friends, doing it for pure love

of the game. And I think a lot of this is an interesting thing that I think about in terms of our labor politics, because I think a lot about working at my old summer camp, the Wayfinder experience, which was fucking amazing. And you're working your ass off as a 19 year old for, you know, a rate that this wonderful summer camp, you know, is paying its camp counselors. And I look back at that and I'm like,

I'm like, those were long summers for not much money that forged me into the person I am. And I owe everything to that summer camp. Yeah. All those things that I would get to the end and end of the summer, like I'm burnout. That's fucking rough. I don't know if I can do next summer. And then you go out into the world and you're like, Oh, that, that summer camp and the

love and camaraderie and passion of doing this thing, which didn't have like a beaucoup bucks financial incentive in doing it. You did it because you love these kids and you love this community. It turned me and all these other people that I care about into people that knew how to fucking work. Yeah, okay, this is a really interesting area because I think that you said when something's made with love, I'm gonna say care.

Care, yeah. That someone really cares about what they're making, right? That is an aesthetic feeling that the audience can sense and it's also a really essential piece of creative work. Like the, you know, I've sort of put myself in this position where on this YouTube channel I'm like pumping out content, right? And one of the issues is while the cadence goes up, it's harder for me to care about each piece.

And when I go back and look at the ones that I'm really proud of, just talking about the monologue videos I've done over the last two years, the ones I love are the ones I really cared about what I was saying, and I really personally slaved over the wording of each individual piece and there's other ones where it was like that's a pretty good topic and like we you know We banged a script together and we did it and it's fine Yeah, but like at the end of the day, you know, the audience can tell You can tell and so the challenge is always how to how to do both those things at once and You know when when someone when you watch a really wonderful film, for example,

what did I watch recently that felt this way? I'm blanking on it. I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt, right? A very famous novel. And it's just like every word of this novel is exactly where it should be, you know? I love how you put that. Yeah, I know what you mean, that kind of book. Yeah, it's just like every, oh my God, like every sentence. Sometimes you're reading a book, you're like, I'm supposed to enjoy the language. And sometimes you read one where you're just every sentence, you're like,

oh, what a good sentence. And like this woman takes 10 years to write each book. Right. So it's like care, care, care, care, care. And that being as like the fundamental ingredient of creative work from a production standpoint and enjoyment standpoint, great. At the same time, that kind of care is constantly exploited by capitalism.

I mean, just look at improv as a perfect example. I mean, let's not, we don't need to call out any of the many exploitative improv enterprises that use this model, but the way that they will use the performers' love of the art form to get them to work for free. Beyond just being on stage, but like, you know. Also, UCB used to send us emails, hey guys, we're repainting the theater.

Why don't you come show up and help us repaint the theater? And even at the time I was like, you want me to paint for free? One of my first things there was I went and did the cleanup at the Chelsea stage. And I was just so happy because people that worked in the theater were getting to meet me and I was getting a chance to talk to someone.

Well, let me ask you something. When they sold that theater for some unknown million number millions of dollars Did you get a cut of that? Were you paid for any you know like that that sweat equity that you put in? I got to be real man. I remember being at a theater meeting when I was a teacher there and that you came to oh, yeah Adam ruins everything was on and came in to I the the amount of admiration I felt for you in that meeting was The amount of admiration I felt for you in that meeting was because I was like, this dude does not need to be here. And he knows that it would be really reasonable for a lot of these teachers and a lot of these

performers to be really scared. Not because anyone involved is a malicious or nefarious person, but because calling out something that you think is unfair, of course creates animosity with the people that you are accusing of unfairness. And people as livelihoods are like, even if they're not at stake, even if the people in charge wouldn't be, you know, retributive or whatever, the fear of it is real, right? It's hard to do anything about that. And I remember you being like, Hey,

I don't even teach here anymore, but I think this is fucked up and I think you gotta, you know, it meant a lot, man, it meant a lot. It was at a moment, I had been at UCB for a long time, and it was in LA, it was like, and it was an all theater meeting of the LA theater, and it had finally gotten to the point where the fact that performers were not paid

at this profitable theater had become like an issue, like an issue that people were discussing. And at the meeting, the people who ran the theater were like, if anybody here thinks that they should ever be paid, leave the room right now. Like that was their attitude. And, and I, yeah, it felt like this was something that we should be discussing. And I got into it a little bit with them. And it's very, you know, that was, that was many years ago at this point. I'm not sure what the, what the current pro you want to be clear that like, I don't know what the current processes and protocols are. I don't know what the current. Yeah, there's new ownership and they, and they're, yeah, I know that the performers

are getting paid and that's, there have been a lot of like those material improvements, which is great. Um, uh, and the, the, there's a interesting element of that, right? Which is, you know, it's very funny cause I, I, uh, I remember getting into a period. So I came out to LA auditioned for Harold night. I had been on her old night in New York, came out to LA. I was teaching, I auditioned for Harold night a bunch of years in a row. I did not get put on, uh, and it hurt really stung. Uh, there was one year, the last year

that I auditioned for Herald Night out here, I came on, I was in the group doing zip, zap, zap before warmups. And I had just started working at college humor and a guy leaned over in my warmup group and went, I'm a big fan. And I went, I'm going to kill myself. I was like, I was like, oh, don't. It just puts you in your head. You're just like, I'm about to audition for a group of people and the guy that I'm about to go audition with, who I hope does great and I hope he gets onto.

And you know, but now I'm like, this guy is. In other words, it was just a hop, skip and a jump from why are you here? You know, like, you know what I'm saying? It was there was that weird attitude to it. But within that, I felt, there was, there were many years where I felt, I was very resentful.

I was like, they should be paying performers. This is exploitative. This is fucked up and they didn't do this stuff. And the decisions that were made were not made with the care of the community. And by the way, the same across punk music or across artistic movements, it's like the relationship of institutions

to the community that inhabits them. And the relationship, I think in a lot of ways where it's like, sometimes institutions are chosen as just a popular movement and they're filled with a, it's almost like, you know, institutions are asking for gratitude, but isn't, is there any gratitude owed to the community that has blessed the institution and how those two things interact? So there's a lot of complexity going on,

but I remember being very negative. And then the pandemics started and I watched young kids watching college humor, which was all people that had trained and met at UCB. Let me be clear, without UCB, no one would have recommended me for that College Humor job. So Dimension 20 never happens. I performed there for 10 years. I got a huge amount out of it.

Huge amount out of it. And I remember talking to my mom, who's a brilliant artist and author in her own right and wonderful, but who was sort of like, oh, well, had some criticisms of UCB and said one at a Christmas after a couple of years of the pandemic where I was watching kids start to post on college humor, dropout stuff, saying, I want to do something like this. How do I do that?

And I realized, I don't know, you can't do it. Like how I did it because the theater had shut down at that point. Right. Yeah. And I went, I don't know, you can't do it like how I did it. Because the theater had shut down at that point, right? And I went, I don't know. And I suddenly tempered some of my negativity with, oh shit, I don't know how I would tell a young kid how to do what I did. And I remember my mom very rightfully bringing up the paid, like they didn't pay performers.

Like you went to a place that didn't pay performers and in a way that was perhaps overly glib, I was like, you know, like they didn't pay performers. Like why, like you went to a place that didn't pay performers. And in a way that was perhaps overly glib, I was like, you know what? I should have gone to the theater two doors down that was paying absolute nobodies. You know, like why didn't I get the better, I should have gotten a job at Saturday Night Live or I should have gotten, you know, like,

in other words, there was this weird thing where you look at a landscape under capitalism, and there's a certain degree, if you're a young person, where it's like, pick your poison. How do you wanna be exploited? Like, how do you want to move your way through this? Do you wanna be exploited by an algorithm where you do front-facing video?

Do you wanna be exploited by a theater? Do you wanna be exploited by this or by that? You know? Or do you wanna stay totally pure and photocopy your zine and you know, like hand it out at the illustration festival, which you know, no one will, very few people will see it. And also by the way,

that place is rife with sexual harassment. You know, like what are you gonna do? Right, and like it's like you look at places that become more corporate and more sterile and you're like, I don't fuck with that. Let's go over here to the place that's super fucking punk. And you're like, Oh, the punk place is home to a lot of forces that seem to be happy about the lack of rules.

Are we safe? You know, there's like, in other words, the, the, the, the example I've talked about before is you're trying to make this bargain where, where am I fighting? Where am I fighting and where am I, uh, selectively picking a battle? You know, if you think about it in terms of like the running man or like a hunger games analogy, you know, it's like, it's like, okay, these guys are televising our blood sport for ratings. And we're here slaughtering each other.

We need to band together and have a revolution. We need to overthrow people at the top of this oppressive system. So we need to get weapons. We need to meet where the cameras can't see us. We need to get together. And the person goes, right. And if that blood clown jumps out of that thing and tries to kill us with a chainsaw, that's for the ratings. So we shouldn't fight the blood clown. You're like, no, fight the blood. Wait, hold on. If he shouldn't fight the blood clown. You're like, no, fight the blood, wait, hold on, if he kills you with the chainsaw, you're just fucking dead.

So let me be clear, even though it helps with the ratings and even though it's part of the system that we're in, don't let the blood clown cut your head off with the chainsaw, you gotta stop that. And in that weird way where you end up making these things where I look at my own career, where I go like, yeah, there are places where you have to fight and especially like organize, unionize, get together,

do what you did in the meeting, which was like, I'm going to use my invulnerability to reprisal from this thing to speak out on behalf of people that can't speak out on their own behalf without being nervous about that. But the flip side of that is then going like you're out of college and you go, okay, there's no non exploitative choice. So what am I going to do? You know, I think about working at that camp where it was like that camp's mission was completely pure. The kids that were there needed it and they couldn't pay a lot of money. But what summer camp, you know, can necessarily pay like, what would that mean? And like, if they did pay a lot of money, would they be hiring me a clueless? When I was like, they,

I was like working there when I was 15, like writing adventure games. That's the, if you're, if you're giving healthcare and benefits, some fucking 35 year old is going to come smoke my ass. They're going to be so much better and more reliable than I am. They're gonna fucking shunt me off to the side. And then do I get years of practice running adventure games? Does that mean I'm not ready to be a producer for Dimension 20 when Dimension 20 launches?

So there's all this weird stuff where you're, we're all fighting these oppressive systems at the same time. And, and it is, you are not a bad person for understanding that within the imperfect system that we are in, you're probably not going to fully dodge exploitation, but can you turn a kill shot into a glancing blow and learn how to fight this a little better. Yeah, it's a desire or you have to learn to not seek purity or perfection, but just like improvement, you know, which was all we were fighting for at UCB.

For example, was like there were plenty of ways to pay people a little bit or make the system a little bit more sustainable that would not have cut off the flow. We're just trying to move in that direction a little bit. If coaches are gonna be mandatory for teams, the theater should be paying for coaches because now you have literally made getting on a house team putting people in the red.

You are losing money. We don't pay you for shows, but you have to pay for a coach. It was really funny because there were parts of it that I was like, I still recognize why this is a good opportunity. We are you are meeting and creating collaborative networks

of fellow people. You're doing good work. You're and the value proposition as put forward in those conversations was it was never that it was false. It was like, yeah, getting on a house team and getting a great audience week after week after week is awesome.

There's a reason people seek out this opportunity. But like you're saying, we're not asking for the moon. I remember as a coach, my little anti authoritarian thing that I did was that coaches had to report absences at rehearsal. If people were absent and a lot of times people were absent, it was because they couldn't get out of work. They couldn't whatever. was that coaches had to report absences at rehearsal. If people were absent, and a lot of times people were absent, it was because they couldn't get out of work.

They couldn't whatever. I told every team I coached, I said, check this out. I will never fucking snitch on you guys. I will lie on your behalf. I will tell the theater that you were here if you were not here. As long as we have an understanding that your heart is in it,

you will never have to worry about me fucking narking. That's wonderful, but it's also indicate, we're spending a lot of time on UCB, but actually it's very helpful, I think, to talk about because, you know, UCB provided so many opportunities, still does, to people who are learning how to do comedy, why should they be paid? But the longer you were there, the more that they would

sort of try to control your time, right? You need to show up, you need to put money into this, you need to, hey guys, ticket sales are down. And after a while, people started going, why am I not being paid when you're telling me where I should be, when I need to be there, how long I need to be there for, and what the metrics of success are.

And that's like, it just started to tip over the line for people, and you know, there were plenty of shows that were student shows, but there were also, very clearly, and then there were plenty of shows that were like bringing money in there were also very clearly and then there were plenty of shows that were like Bringing money in or at the very least were promoting the classes And I remember talking to a friend who was a veteran performer there older than me I've been performing there much longer than me was on a weekend show with a higher ticket price He had been doing the same show for years and I was like don't you want to be paid for that?

I mean you're clearly of financial value Don't you think they should pay you 20 bucks to do this show? And he was like, no, I love this place so much. I feel like I am. This is the sweetest thing I've ever heard a performer say. He's like, I feel like I'm a guy in the crowd and I'm watching Led Zeppelin perform. And they're saying, who wants to come play drums for a little bit? And they picked me and I get to go play drums a little bit.

And it's how grateful I feel to be here. Yeah. And I was like, that's cool, man. But if you if you were going to every single Led Zeppelin show, I think they were doing that every night. And they were saying you're going to play the rest of the show now. Yeah. Don't you don't you think she could pay?

It was kind of like, huh, all right. You know, like, like there's a point point at which you just realize that your love and your care of the thing is being, not being rewarded, and you have to stand up for yourself at that moment. Yeah, I agree with that. I think too there's a part of it that has a, if the logic of this is like, which I think at one point the logic was like,

the successful and expensive shows that always sell out are subsidizing the shows that are not selling out or the more experimental or the student shows or shows we work in their voice. And I go like, well, that's cool. Do the performers of the successful shows vibe with that? And if so, can they get, if, if this is a sacrifice that we are saying is the model, that like you don't participate in the success of your shows because that's going back into the theater to train the next crop of people,

do we get like an artistic advisory board where we can say like, hey, we continue to sell out our shows. So here's what we'd love to see in the experiment. Here's who we want to champion. Can we get a more diverse student body that we're championing? In other words, like, oh, so we're like making a sacrifice,

but we don't have any input on the thing that our contribution is, you know what I mean? There's that sort of idea behind it. And it reached this point where the community was feeling like the balance had gone, people had enough of those questions, and there was a point at which the management couldn't hear it. And that's why there was conflict at that, at that moment, which I think thankfully, you know,

now that the business has new ownership, they've, they've resolved. Well, uh, you know, speaking of capitalism and creative work, dropout itself gets a lot of really positive coverage as being like a bright spot in the media landscape and as also being a place that is ethical, right, in the way that it treats creatives and its audience. But I mean, do you feel there are compromises there at all? Well, like compromises exclusively with like the nature

that like making shows is hard, it's hard work. You know, the the cool thing, you know, the the profit sharing, the the fact that we pay for auditions, the fact that there's there's so much about the show, the platform that I'm deeply proud of. Yeah.

And the fact that we're continuing to grow, like things are going well. I don't know. It's it's I'm very, very proud. I think that Sam has done a phenomenal job as leading the company. Our incredible staff, you know, all of us, like David Kearns, Andrew

Bridgman, Greg Webber are amazing. And then Dimension 20 in particular, you know, but like the dropout writ large, Ebony Hardin, our supervising producer is fucking amazing. And and the our Dimension 20 in particular, you know, but like the Dropout writ large, Ebony Harden, our supervising producers, fucking amazing and the, all our Dimension 20. If you leave anyone out, you're gonna, there's gonna be hell to pay.

I'm gonna hell to pay. You better do the whole fucking org chart. Michael Schaubach, Rick Perry, Sky Smith, Carlos Luna, Denise Valentine, all my Dimension 20 department heads and great people. John Wolf, check out Cloudward Ho airing now now a brand new season with all of our intrepid heroes. Dropout.tv. It's phenomenal. You know, I, I it's,

it's an incredible gift to work at a place. You know, we had a, we had a staff summit a while ago where we were talking about the fact that our company, you know, we profit share we pay for auditions We try to take care of our people were expanding or trying to do so reasonably and we we Want the company to grow sustainably, you know The was the new integration the company was born out of a mass layoff event, which I think is you know Something we never want to see again. So everything is done very carefully and cautiously to grow. Not with this insane vulture capital mindset of like,

we're going to five X and then we're going to head shop and then we're going to come in. God, I hate finance as a sector of the economy. It's destroying the country and the world. It's really bad. What does it make that's good? What does it make that works? We don't know. It does nothing.

It does nothing. It contributes nothing. It is a, well, actually it does one thing really efficiently, which is sack and pillage the wealth of our planet to reward it to the aristocratic fucking social club of corporate oligarchs that I mentioned earlier. They don't see a difference between government and the private sector,

so maybe we should just call it what it is. They're like, beep boop boop boop, just moving from one to the other. Can you believe Elon Musk? That shit's crazy. Dude, we've done enough of it on this channel, honestly. That's crazy. Dude, we've done enough of it on this channel, honestly. It's fucking nuts, man. I can't believe he was, apparently, he was high on ketamine to the point where he was not clean at all times.

Like, it's like- He was not clean at all times? There was something about soiling himself somewhere. Oh! People are saying that he pissed himself. He shit and pissed himself. People are saying, I can neither confirm nor deny. Yeah, we needed to get Azalea Banks in the White House

to tweet about what she was seeing. You know what I mean? That's the only way we ever found out. Do you remember this? No. You don't remember this? No, what was this? There was like one weekend where Azalea Banks

was hanging out with Grimes and Elon and was live tweeting it. This was like six years ago or something, but she was just like, this motherfucker is on so much acid while he's trying to negotiate some deal or whatever. And just having one person like near in that inner circle, just like, you know, gossiping and reporting

what they're seeing was so valuable. It was the only thing people knew about that for years. There is a service that he has provided that is great for us to acknowledge, which is deep and pro no billionaire has had more of a halo of public celebration. He, he had somehow conned the world into being like Tony Stark is real and his dad owned a diamond mine or an Emerald mine. right? And it all blew up because he couldn't stop posting. And it all blew up because he couldn't stop getting

on camera and letting us all know how deeply strange he was. And listen, I don't want to make a light of this guy. He's caused irreparable damage. He is responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths through just the USAID cuts alone. Catastrophically evil. Not to mention the Teslas that have, you know,

swerved into medians under autopilot and killed people. But I guess we can be grateful that you can point to someone and say, billionaires are casino winners. The law of big numbers dictates that a certain number of people making a certain number of investments will result in a certain small number of billionaires. In the same way that if you drop a million chips down a Plinko bird, you know, like,

one's gonna get in the jackpot. And these guys are fucking morons. They are morons. Can you set up a structure, a guaranteed structure to produce a winner. If you do a bracket, right, you, you take a million people, you put them in a bracket format, you have them all compete. You will end up with one person at the end who is the winner. Does that mean that that person is actually the best person in the world? No, it was a production of the algorithm that you ended up with one winner. Right. He said, well, it's like, it's like one, two, four, eight, 16, 32.

You go all the way out. And if you make that the result of a roulette wheel, everyone does black or red, then the person at the end will say, hey, I bet right a hundred times I'm the smartest man in the world. And a bunch of breathless journalists will come and say, what unique quality do you have,

perhaps larger than normal brain or penis, to have so brilliantly come to this end? Could you predict the future? You predicted black or red on the roulette wheel a hundred times in a row. And they'll say, what do you see happening in the next five years? And those people will give an answer, and it's wrong. No one knows what's going to happen in the next five years.

Journalists, stop asking that question to anybody. Stop asking it to me. I don't know, no one knows, please stop. Maybe we could just report on what's really happening and then organize around that. Someone really asked you recently what's happening in the next five years and it's stuck in your crop. Well, it's because I reject the mythology.

People don't think of it as a mythologizing question. They don't think of it as being harmful. And it's not, it's like, it's a perfectly, you know, like I want to make people feel bad if they ask that question, but it, it's a mythologizing that unintentionally reinforces, I think some root great man theory of history. Yeah.

I didn't make me perform at the Hollywood Bowl. What made me perform at the Hollywood Bowl is a bunch of people that were fans of college humor, and then that overlapped with people that were into D&D, and that had gotten popular because of a new edition release at the same time that podcasting and streaming technology took off. It's a big fucking wave, and the winners and losers of the wave, it's not fair.

It's not accorded to merit. If you have achieved some degree of financial security and some career success, the number one thing you should be feeling is fucking gratitude. And if you are having a hard time, you should not feel that it is your no one gets to go. It was me. And what that means is, if you're having a hard time, it's because systems have been created to leave you out and we should organize to make that not the case. And if you're riding high on the hog,

you should be thanking your lucky fucking stars. Luck is not a magic force. It is an acknowledgement of the preponderance of factors outside of any one individual's control. The world acts more forcefully than any one person. So I'd like to ask you for our last question, just kind of going back to Dropout, is your, I agree with you about systems over people

and the need to reform systems, the need for collective action to build better systems and systems determining outcomes. At Dropout, you have tried to create better systems, more equitable systems, creatively and financially. But at the same time, Dropout exists under capitalism as do we all, right? And to your point earlier about,

sometimes all you can do is choose the means of your exploitation and choose a slightly better system, but not a perfect one. And so, are there, and you see this in the fan discourse about Dropout, is it the perfect place, or are there problems, or do we accept them? So I'm curious how you, if you have a view of, are there still systems at work within the structure that are exploitative or deleterious,

and how do you deal with those, knowing that perfection is not possible? Well, I think to that point, I've been thinking about this a lot recently. One of the things is when we hold up billionaires as being uniquely evil, it's because of the systems of exploitation they personally control.

Like making Amazon warehouse workers piss in bottles because they can't go to the fucking bathroom is evil. That could be changed tomorrow. they personally control, like making Amazon warehouse workers piss in bottles because they can't go to the fucking bathroom is evil. That could be changed tomorrow. These systems could be. So the thing that I look at dropout as being positive is like the control you have over your little corner of the world is enormous. So when these guys do these expletive things, they're ruining the lives of the people around

them and the interconnected systems around them. And especially buying fucking newspapers and determine this is evil shit. Evil fucking shit. However, it is also something to say that it's worthwhile that if one of these billionaires got fucking scrooged and three spirits appeared to them, they could absolutely amend their corporate practices. But even the richest people in the world can't go to socialism.org and donate all their wealth and make global socialism happen.

Yeah, well, and those people are to a certain extent, they are the result of the systems that they live in. Like, during the writer's strike, people would say all the time, why don't the writers and actors, who are on strike as well, just start their own movie studio? And occasionally I would walk someone through

that thought experiment. What if we were to do that? Well, movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make sometimes. Where do you get the hundreds of millions of dollars? From a banker. What's the banker gonna wanna see? A profit.

Now you're trying to make a movie at a profit. What sort of incentives happen to you when you are taking a loan in order to get, or raising money, right? Like you become part of the system, right? And you can try to do a better job than, but you know, to a certain extent, it's Animal Farm, right? You become the farmer, you start walking on two legs, you start doing the same shit, you know, to a certain extent, it's animal farm, right? You become the farmer, you start walking on two legs,

you start doing the same shit. Well, that's exactly the thing that sort of like when I say like you, even a massive individual amount of wealth can't make global socialism happen. I've been thinking a lot about people power, organizing ground up. Yes. I grew up around a lot of hippies and power to the people. There was always this attitude whenever I heard people say power to the people that was, or like people power,

that was all, it had a tone even from people that loved it of being like, hey, we may not have real power, but we have people power. And you're like, in other words, it's like this weird little consolation, but the reality is it's the greatest power. It is the fucking Goku's Spirit Bomb. It is the only thing that changes the world.

And when you recognize that there are individuals that have the power to fucking wait elections and donate to candidates and buy media and do all this other shit. But that person can't actually overturn the global system of capital. The only thing that can actually do that is people. All working together.

So in other words, like, yeah, we are under this system having to do the best we can in the patch of ground that we tend to. Like, the best thing that Dropout can do, the best thing I Dropout can do, the best thing I can do is like, try to make the systems that I'm in more equitable, but there is no substitute for unionizing,

for organizing, for mutual aid. And that's tough to hear because I think we all would love the idea of what if three spirits came to all of these oligarchs and they made it all different tomorrow. They can't. There's not a button in the constitution that you press that goes,

and no, we can get healthcare, we can organize for bills, we can do the sort of gritty work of organizing, but there is nothing, when we talk about the power of people organizing en masse, that's not a fucking consolation prize. That is the finisher combo. That is the power of people organizing en masse. That's not a fucking consolation prize. That is the finisher combo. That is the power.

And unfortunately, it's the hardest thing to do. Of course, coordination. You have to actually make it happen. People say so often, it's like a cliche on the left on the internet. People say, what if we have a general strike? Let's have a general strike. And my answer to that is always,

okay, how do we fucking organize one? So you wanna get a large percentage of the population to go on strike simultaneously. You can't just post about it, man. But that's the thing is there's a cross industry. I forget who it was. There was some UAW, talking about May Day, 2028. Yeah, so yeah, Sean Fain, the head of the UAW, is trying to get different unions

to align their contract expiration simultaneously so that they could go on strike simultaneously. So that's great. And the point is, some people will hear like 2028, that's years away. Yeah. That's a bare minimum to get that done. That's a bare minimum.

In other words, it's like you're saying, the thing we have to contend with, to me, isn't these bad systems. The thing you have to contend with, to me, isn't these bad systems. The thing you have to contend with is stones and bricks and time and the amount of hours in a day. So when you're organizing and when you're thinking about, like, how do I, you know, like, I think about people that are sort of talk shit about, like, voting. The thing about voting is it takes anywhere from 20 minutes

to if the lines are really long, a couple hours. There are things that are civically engaged that do yield greater results than a single individual vote. They don't take 90 minutes. I know a guy who's been organizing his Trader Joe's for three years. That's a fucking hero.

That is a hero. We cannot pretend like it is not the work of years. And so looking at that more broadly, setting a date in 2028 to have something like a general strike, that's what it is. Is it's just like, it's, it's, you are building a fucking cathedral that your grandchildren will finish.

You are engaged, you are planting of seeds, the fruit of whose trees you will not live to see. And that's okay. That, why would meaningful change be easier than that? Right? The goal is fucking like healthcare and full bellies and freedom and equality for all. That's utopia.

It's okay if that goal is fucking a lot of work. Why do I feel like I'm, you're just laying out a role playing campaign for me right now that this will be the work of years. Your children will eat at the fruit of the tree. Yeah. But like that's, that's great. It's English. There's no, nothing.

There's no benefit to us about being Pollyanna or rose colored glasses about the length of the challenge. For me, when I hear general strike, as like, we're gonna have a general, we did have a general strike. Like, fuck yeah, great, love the sentiment. When I hear someone say like, we should plan it for a couple years from now,

that's when I get excited. Because you go, oh, that person's taking it seriously. That's what it takes. Or I'm going to go talk to the board of my union about participating, or I'm going to unionize my workplace so that we can have a vehicle of organization for the people. All general strikes are the result of multiple unions

unionizing simultaneously. Absolutely. Striking at once. Dude, I can't thank you enough for being here. I mean, where can people find your work? They don't need it. Your platform is bigger than this one, but hey, if you want a couple extra views.

Dimension 20 on dropout.tv, World's Beyond Number, wherever fine pods are casted. You can find me at Brennan Lee Mulligan on Instagram. And then I'm probably doing some other stuff somewhere, oh shows. Yeah, go to your live fucking shows man, plug those. Climate Pledge Arena July 20th in Seattle and then MGM Grant.

Speaking of evil billionaires, oh Jeff Bezos' Climate Pledge Arena, you're just performing at the Climate Pledge Arena. Got it. Jeff, come by, shake my hand. It'll be fine. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Also the biggest venue anyone has ever plugged on this podcast by- Oh, the Climate Pledge Arena? Yes. Yeah. Incredible. And then we're doing the MGM Grand in fucking November 1st. God bless you, man.

I'm so happy for you. Thanks, man. And congratulations for everything. Thank you so much for being here. Dude, thank you for having me, man. I'm so happy for you and congratulations for everything. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, man. Enjoy, a privilege. If you want to hear another hour of this, by the way, patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Thanks so much, man. Well, thank you once again to Brennan

for coming on the show. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. If you want to support the show and all the conversations we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show and all the conversations we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show ad free for 15 bucks a month. I will read your name at the end of the show. This week I want to thank Avaro Eggburger, Tracy, Nicholas, Jose Soura, Aaron Harmony,

Joseph Mode, Rodney Patnam, Greg 0692, Marcella Johnson, and Matthew Bertelsen, aka The Bunkmeister. If you'd like me to read your name or silly username at the end of the show, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. We would love to see you there. Once again, if you'd like to come see me on the road, head to adamconover.net for all my tickets and tour dates. I wanna thank my producers, Sam Roudman and Tony Wilson, everybody here at Headgun for making the show possible.

Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time on Factually. That was a HeadGum Podcast. Hey, I'm Jake Johnson and I host the HeadGum Podcast We're Here to Help with my partner, Gareth Reynolds. We're Here to Help is a call and advice show. Think car talk from back in the day. We're determined to help fix life's dumbest problems. We also have guest helpers join us from the entire cast of New Girl to Michael Cera, Andy Sandberg, Jimmy Kimmel, just to name a few. So do me a favor and come check out an episode and then bounce around our catalog.

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