An interview with Worlds Beyond Number, the next hit actual play

Actual play experiences — video or audio performances featuring people playing tabletop role-playing games — are extremely popular right now. Look no further than the gang at Critical Role, a group of talented actors who have parlayed their private weekly game of Dungeons & Dragons into a multi-million-dollar entertainment machine. A new generation of entertainers is emerging, with Worlds Beyond Number being one of the most interesting.

Worlds Beyond Number launched in January, and its first official campaign — titled The Wizard, The Witch, & The Wild One — Podcast platforms worldwide will launch March 1, 2013. The crowdfunding program was launched on March 1st, and it quickly rose to the top of the list of 20 most popular Patreon profiles. On the day of the premiere, more than 22,000 people have signed up for the program.

Why did so many people show up to this particular play? The incredible talent involved in the creation of it. Polygon caught up with Brennan Lee Mulligan, Dropout TV and Dimension 20, as well as Erika Ishii (CollegeHumor), the inaugural game master.Apex Legends, Destiny 2), Aabria Iyengar (Critical Role: Exandria UnlimitedDimension 20: The Adventure Zone KollokLou Wilson (Jimmy Kimmel Live, The King of Staten IslandDimension 20, to discuss their plans.

This interview has been edited lightly to make it more understandable.

Polygon: Y’all come from very successful, very interesting actual play experiences before this — including Critical Role and Dimension 20. What is the purpose of this project? Which are your objectives for the project?

Brennan Lee Mulligan I’ll field that… Aabria?

Aabria Iyengar: [Laughs] Impressive. This is more than a bunch of friends. We sort of realized pretty early on that in order for us to have a good home game, we would have to make it work so we could all get together consistently — because everyone’s incredibly busy.

We’ve all played together, and in different permutations of the four of us, for so long that finally we were like, what if we sit down and — using a format that most of us don’t work in very often, podcasting — what if we told as much and as many stories as we wanted to? And so that’s kind of where we started.

We’re kicking off with forcing Brennan to be our first GM, but the goal was always that we would share the narrative load. So Brennan’s going first, and we will all be taking turns telling different kinds of stories ranging from epic to very silly, slapstick stuff. But yeah, it’s just us hanging out, doing what we like to do with our favorite people in the world.

Brennan, although this is quite a bit of responsibility, Brennan sets the scene and starts things off. What are the things that you’re calling on from your past — from your own body of work — and when you sit down to set this experience, what are you drawing from and what will it be?

Mulligan: I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons since I was 10 years old. Between the ages of 11 and 17, I ran a campaign, from the first level to the 20th. This allowed me to experience the strange feeling of being 17 years old bound by all the creative decisions of an 11. Are you surrounded by dragons? That doesn’t make sense!

Ishii: Who manages the banks?

Mulligan: Are there dragon barsistas? Is this how the city works?Another campaign I managed, with more than 40 characters per player, was run for five years, from 17 to 22. It was held at summer camp. West Marches-style. I’m still running a campaign and started when I was 21. I’m now 35, so now 14-year home game that has now just gotten to 20th level in 3.5 D&D.

So there’s a certain degree of long-form epic fantasy tabletop storytelling that I have been fortunate enough to run. Because I was raised in tabletop games, it’s rare for any game to run consistently. To have a game that continues to occur and doesn’t stall is an amazing blessing. So I’ve been very, very fortunate to have had many of those games. […]

Studio Ghibli/GKIDS

Talking about all our influences was a common thread. I believe we shared many of the same touchstones. Hayao Mikaziki was an important influence. Everyone in my generation was raised. [with that stuff]. I watched Kiki’s Delivery ServiceAnd My Neighbor Totoro. I saw those movies countless times. My godfather Michael Kaluta was an illustrator for Elaine Lee’s comic books. He had Japanese VHS tapes that were undubbed and unsubbed. I couldn’t speak English either, so it was totally fine. It was like being a lump. Great! This is great!

Like a 2-year-old I would watch them endlessly as they move. It’s everything that the doctor wanted. This is what a growin’ boy needs! So there’s a lot of that love letter in it. My mom is like a Celtic pagan scholar, and there’s a lot that idea of a world just filled with spirits and fairies, and a world with magic around every corner. These are some of my influences.

The campaign’s name is however The Wizard, The Witch, & The Wild One, so I think there’s a lot joy for me because this is such long-form storytelling that was a lot about building the world around the characters that our players wanted to be. The influences that have shaped who we are today can be seen in the following: [player characters]They wanted to do a lot more lifting. These two were built in tandem. This was not a world I created. It was us talking about what’s the world we all want to be in together. The wizard, the witch, or the wild one are all part of this universe’s DNA.

Ishii: Yeah, there’s definitely something to be said about Miyazaki’s universal storytelling that you don’t even need English, or any language for it. All of us found that to be true. Additionally, that was almost two years ago. We went on a cabin getaway and put up whiteboard stories we enjoyed.

It could be anything from a genre or a world mythology to “I like trains.” We had playlists that we shared, and childhood books. A lot of this first campaign — even though this world sprung from Brennan Lee Mulligan’s ginger head, it’s kind of a love letter to all of the things that we all loved [growing up].

I would like to sort of approach the horn. Because I’m running the interview I get to start with my favorite, and that’s Lou. I have loved all of your work — especially in The Unsleeping City. It’s very dear to me and is one of my most favorite play experiences. What was the source of your character’s inspiration? This project? Who is that person, and how do they fit into this world that you’re creating together?

Lou WilsonA long silence was the source of my character. [everyone laughs]

Mulligan:It was mythological.

Wilson:The wild silence was the first to fall in the universe. The first cacophony went to — No […] I don’t want to jump ahead of my friends talking about their characters, but there was a confidence with which the two of them came to the table, being I’m some version of thisI thought you were kind of like. Oh — I’m not there.We had talked, I recall. I was generating ideas. It was clear to me that I desired to connect to the spirit realm. This was my core. That was all I knew. You wanted that in the character, and I remember I had been kind of spinning my wheels and people had been bouncing questions off of me, and it wasn’t getting me where I wanted it to go.

The only thing I can remember was pausing for a while. And everyone’s just being very kind in letting me do this incredibly awkward thing, where I just didn’t talk and sat in comfort with them. The first thing I said, or something similar, was “I feel like that first word out of mine.” I would like to portray a spirit who wished to become a knight.. Then it spun this into a reverse isekai. A spirit finds their way to the material world and land of mortals but is then trapped there. And so that’s the beginning of Eursulon’s journey, this falling into the human world and then struggling to find his way home.

Erika, my eyes turn towards you. I can see you laughing loudest at that. How does your character interact with Eursulon and who is it?

Ishii: First off, I am the one who laughs loudest about everything. [more laughing]

Iyengar: That doesn’t erase Charlie’s original point.

Ishii:Ame is the witch. The thing that I wanted most from this campaign was to touch on some of the things that I want to see in storytelling, but that Dungeons & Dragons isn’t necessarily built for. It’s not necessary to spoil the story or reveal too much about the protagonist: I believe that [my character is built around the] idea of community and creating and helping grow and nurture — which is very integral to a lot of global stories about witches, and [also]Our touchstone is Miyazaki. Witches create, build and then give gifts. Witches can also be played as non-player characters. There are heroes and adventurers who have to be rescued by witches. They stay there and help the community, while grand adventures continue. However, what happens if the witch has to leave their home? […]

Brennan and M Veselak [co-creator of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast]Me custom-built [5th edition D&D]The class of the witch who fucking rules It’s so good, and it’s been professionally balanced, and it’s definitely tailored towards being able to hold its own [in combat]They are not only a great match for the other classes. But they also tie in perfectly with our campaign. [that]It relies heavily on the trust between a GM (or their PCs).

Aabriya tell me more about you.

Iyengar: I think you’ve done a really nice gradient here for the world and for our characters, and if Lou’s wild one is the sort of isekai into this world, someone in the group had to play a representative of the world.

Wait, you’reThe grounded one? [more laughter]

Iyengar: In the same way that Erika has a custom-built witch that does something that Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t necessarily care about all the time, in community and [being] grounded, I’m the one that is an existing class in D&D. Because the wizard represents the stakes, the world and setting, it was really satisfying to work on the character. It was a strong feeling of energy that I brought with me. Brennan, it sounds cool! That is exactly how I wish to feel.

So when our characters all come together, theirs is the perspective that the audience will be looking through — primarily through Eursulon’s eyes — to discover the world at the same time that he does.

Suvi, my character is deeply involved in every political and socioeconomic thing that makes this world work. Suvi will kind of be there as a member of the group. I’m of the world because I know it.. You will immediately understand the magic of my work [by the audience] and sort of is part of the makeup of the society, and it’s very nice that way because again, wizard is an existing D&D class.

Everyone’s arcs burn at different rates, though, even this early in the campaign. […] If you’ve ever seen visualizations of different time signatures where they all start off on the same beat, and then all the beats sort of like break, and it still sounds musical but the cadence changes and occasionally they’ll line up and hit again? All of us start with different cadences. Suvi begins strong because we need to know something in order to have that ground moment. So that’s kind of who I am there. Suvi is an expert. It is grounded. It is generous.

You spoke of a retreat where you had done your preparation work. Most Polygon readers will not be familiar the idea of session zero. They may, however, be more familiar when it comes to consumer campaigns. However, what was the difference? YouHow does session zero compare to the type of work you do?

For readers of Polygon who play tabletop games, they’ll know session zero as a way to kind of set expectations. Safety tools have become the byword of session zero. Safety tools: Lines and Veils X card. How do you create moderation tools for tabletop games that are improvised and extemporaneous? What are boundaries and communication tools? Is it possible to manage improvised content? It’s a really challenging thing to do, and there’s a lot of great safety tools for them. […]Professionals, for us it might be less important. […]

When I looked down at the retreat I noticed that I had found the photographs. So I have them. These are mine. [everyone cheers]

I’m so excited that I get to demand these now.

Mulligan: Yeah, incredible.

So we have… there’s little nicknames — Bella, 100 Jellyfish. We have a little whiteboard with categories that says “diegetic.” Those are all just words that we thought were cool for stories.

External things were discussed, as well as themes and genres. You know, the diegetic stuff, like cultural mythology and other touchstones. […] There’s just a huge underline on the word “taxonomy.” […] There’s one that’s a lot more informal, which is names and different epic storytelling: the keywords that we sort of wanted to double down on. And then there’s one picture of all four of us. Oh, that’s so sweet!

Photo by Worlds Beyond Number

And then then it’s just the word “heist,” which — we haven’t done a heist yet, but we just liked the word.

Wilson:These are my memories!

Ishii:This was me!

Wilson:Erika was like I’d like to be at a ball. A heist is what I would like. Trains are my favorite thing. I like hedge mazes and a masquerade!

Mulligan:There are elements. Heist. Fancy gala. Politics and espionage. Betrayal. Romance. Corruption-slash-temptation. Named weapon? […] Prophecy. Arcane foci, parentheses mass produced?

So a session zero is [always about safety tools], but it’s also, I think, a tuning fork. It’s all of us taking our conductors’ batons out, and hitting the stand. […] What’s the story we want to tell? Because once we’re doing it, we’re going to be immersed. When we dive into the water, it’s going to be swim time. Where do you want go? Now that we’re up on the diving board, before we go in, where are we trying to get to? Is there a route we want to follow?

One of the things that you’re known for is the emphasis that your actual play work places on the mechanics of the game that you’re playing. So why are you using D&D, and what are you adding to traditional D&D, à la some of the things brought in on Dimension 20 Neverafter?

Mulligan:This campaign felt like a kind of fantasy adventure. This campaign had many elements that were similar to ours. This first installment is sure to be an epic tale. It’s going to go for a long time. It’s going to have characters that become more powerful over time. We desire the distinctness of various classes.

There’s a lot of mechanical things that Dungeons & Dragons does that make sense for the creative vision of this first campaign. It is likely that the majority of homebrew people will be able to view over the campaign. Already, even just with the characters at zero and first level, there’s homebrewed magic items. There’s an entire new base class! It’s hard to homebrew something more substantive than an entire first-to-20th-level class, right? That’s the most core component of the game.

Ishii:The truth is, Worlds Beyond Number has always been envisioned as a hub for storytelling. It’s not based around just Dungeons & Dragons. It might be different from traditional tabletop games. All of us just really wanted to tell stories together, and I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons since I was 14. But I think I’m correct in saying that Aabria and I have actually probably played more non-D&D than we have D&D.

Iyengar: Oh, 100%.

Ishii: And so, when each of us takes our turn behind screen, it could be in something that doesn’t even use dice. We are primarily focused on weaving stories with one another. Dungeons & Dragons was [something where]We all share that same background. We’ve all gotten to play Dungeons & Dragons together, and it’s a beautiful system for creating the physics of a world in which we have the freedom to tell stories together. But really, we’re just kind of excited about saying words at each other.

We just have a few minutes left together, but you know I can’t let you go without talking about the the incredible success that you’ve all had Patreon.

So many actual play experiences have come from a place of the private being made public; of people’s individual experiences being shared out of a want to share them with someone outside the group. The guys coming from a different source are you? This is almost a commercial venture.

You are all creators, and you’re bringing people together through this unique kind of creator economy that we find ourselves in right now. What does it mean to have over 20,000 people behind you? How do you feel about having more than 20,000 people supporting your cause?

Ishii:My goal was, personally, to make the friendships’ storytelling sustainable. In the back of my brain, I thought, Look around, we’ve all been doing it publicly for many years. This could prove to be extremely successful.. Truly, [within]Within 24 hours of Patreon’s launch, I felt like: Oh, good! This can be continued for many years. You can keep your long-term home for many years. The fact that it really moved so many other people is… it’s just kind of wild to me.

Wilson:I am in agreement. It has been a profound experience. It’s exciting, because it means that this, the small flame that we all shared, that we brought together to create this fire, that we are now asking people to sit beside it with us — that that is something that people want. It is something they desire to contribute to and a place they feel they can be part of.

And so the fact that we’ve already hit 20,000 so quickly, I think, just makes me more excited. We’re recording today, and I can’t wait to get on the mics with these people and continue to tell these stories for our audience to get their input, their feedback, what they’re excited about, what they love, to let that inform our process, and for us to continue to grow with this community that is already so supportive and behind us.

Iyengar:Here’s a quick overview of what we owe to our audience and how our relationship is with them. I think the moment you move into a space, and a setting, and a distribution mechanism that is new territory for us — We’re all on Twitch, and YouTube, all over the place — the moment you move to podcasts, you have to talk about what can be different. It’s possible to reach new people.

We’ve heard from Brennan and Erika about being connected to D&D in their youth. I came to Dungeons & Dragons at a big age that I don’t want to share because everyone will know how incredibly old I am. But for me, the most exciting thing is now, as we tell the story, I have something that’s a little easier to consume that I can send to my cousin’s young children; to all the people who, like me, were never connected to D&D, were never connected to this kind of storytelling. They can now connect to it in a different way.

It is my opinion […] the thing that I’m the most proud of being able to accomplish is being able to have a vector through which I can tell stories that are important and very dear to me. So it’s a wonderful gift to have the opportunity to talk with the best storytellers, share the stories that mean the most to me, tell the stories that make me happy, give stories to those who can relate to my stories, and to create the stories that can be shared to other people. You can have fantasy! Here’s an example. Meet The Wizard, the Witch, & The Wild One. Find out the stories we’re about to tell. It’s so consumable in this way!

So when we talk about the audience we’re making it for: of course, we’re deeply grateful and so excited that we get to share this with the friends that we’ve made along the way, but the prospect of the new people we’ll get to be able to reach with this is the thing that keeps me up at night in the best possible way.

Brennan. It’s time to close it, Bud.

Mulligan: I can’t follow that! Charlie. Look, I’ll talk, but you gotta switch the order. I need your help. Put Aabria last. That’s the note to go out on! [laughter]

Your use of the word “responsibility” is a wonderful thing. It’s mind boggling. The day when my thoughts are free from my body is long gone. I get to play D&D for my job, and it’s something that I hope everyone that consumes this content, everyone who listens to this podcast, knows that that is possible because of their support. And it’s a life that I will never be able to say thank you enough for. It’s a huge responsibility. Every day, I am aware of it. […]

The thing that’s so hard to hold in your mind is: This is independent. We’re a bunch of independent creators who came in to make this thing. It’s a home game. It’s this small thing. It’s the four of us. We’re all best pals. We’re playing a game together, and then 20,000 people roll up. That is a huge feeling: our small campfire and our… 20,000 buddies? And the mind can’t hold it.

Weirdly, I think that there’s a part of this, that the only way my mind can metabolize the kindness, generosity, meaningfulness, and support of everybody who joins our Patreon, of everybody who listens to the show, of everybody who makes fan art, who tweets about it, who shares it, just talks to a friend about it, is that I can just promise you — you reading this — that the weight of that kindness is felt by all of us, and it is my solemn vow to work as hard as I can and share as much joy as I can with these friends in this show to make that generosity of yours repaid, and to show you that we take it seriously. It is a word I love. This is what I love most.

Your kindness and support are greatly appreciated. I appreciate you taking the time today to get on the line to talk about this journey that you’re about to embark on, and I just more than anything wish you the best of luck. Roll a lot of 20s to break Brennan’s record. I can’t wait for it.

Mulligan: Charlie! You must help me! Please help me!

It’s what it is.

Wilson:It is exactly what it says.