How Dimension 20’s Brennan and Ally keep their gaming groups together

But we were curious about one more thing: What has their time with the show’s core cast members (the “Intrepid Heroes”), their numerous spinoff seasons, and their own personal gaming lives taught them about defeating the scheduling boss, mastering the snack rotation, and keeping a group of friends gaming together for the long haul?

The answer spiraled out from the serendipitous assembly of the Dimension 20 cast to simple techniques to keep a gaming table full, as well as the ancient role of ritual in preserving vital human connections. Not that we were surprised.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.

Polygon: What’s your advice on how to keep a gaming group together, professional or otherwise? You guys have careers, you have families, this is not your only gig. And that’s on top of just “keeping the band together,” the basic, interpersonal friend stuff. Working with your friends is not always easy. How do you navigate that?

Ally Beardsley: I’ve been on a lot of sets, I’ve had a lot of work friends. I feel like there’s a type of personality that wants to bond through complaining or being negative. Maybe that feels truthful, or a fun way to pass the time. And I’ve never even been in an improv group [like this] where every single person is committed to not talking about what’s wrong, and really committed to keeping the vibes positive and grateful. There’s something very special about this group of seven, I feel.

Brennan Lee Mulligan: It’s really true. I mean, yeah, at a certain point, there’s nothing clever to say. We just won the lottery. Finding each other was a miracle, and getting the show was a miracle.

For people that are looking to keep their home game going — I ran a 14-year home game that only ended because we wanted to give the campaign the proper ending. I was becoming a father, and it felt [like the right] time. Rather than having it fizzle after 14 years, which would be catastrophic, “Let’s send it off in style!”

I would say there is this attitude that people take [with increasing and not entirely performative venom] and it’s so disrespectful and it’s so childish. Where you’ll see people that are too cool for school, and they come along and they go, [whining] “Why do we need a poker game? Why do we need D&D? Just text. If you want to hang, just text!”

Why don’t you shut up, OK?! People need ritual. They need ceremony. They need structure. Who are you to defy thousands of years of maypole dances and bowling leagues and fucking all of it?

Mulligan: The structure of play facilitates community. You need a little box to put the love in. And I think that that’s real! And if it makes you feel weird, like, Shouldn’t we just have the wherewithal to fucking hang? No, you’re not gonna. You need a weird little game.

Beardsley: You need a weird little game. With some snacks.

Mulligan: Someone’s got to put it out, someone’s got to send the Doodle.

Beardsley: I think it’s also cool — I’ve talked to a lot of friends when we have board game nights where you check in on bandwidth and it’s like, “OK, we’re not going to play the game that takes five hours.” You can have it make sense for your life, you can do check-ins and morph what the hang is going to look like so you can keep it going.

Mulligan: And I would say, flexibility, but also flexibility with some resilience to flakiness. Someone can’t make it last-minute? Still do it, have a contingency. One time, when someone couldn’t make it to our 14-year home game — it was the kind of campaign where without one person there, it makes no sense to play. So we did a related one-shot in that world with brand-new characters built that weekend.

Because it’s a death spiral. Someone flakes and we say, “All right, well, let’s push it off to next week.” Next week rolls around, the day before, “Hey guys, are we sure we’re doing it?” And someone’s feeling a little under the weather, so they’re like, “Ahh, I don’t think I can do it tomorrow.” And then people go, “I’m clearing my Thursday evenings for a thing that never happens.” And it falls apart. Do it. Even if someone can’t make it, get together.