You can nerd out on anything these days.
It’s maybe one of the 21st century’s best innovations:
the jock
and the nerd
and the princess
and the burnout
and the basket case from The Breakfast Club… are suddenly equal when it comes to personally productive obsessions.
I get it: nerd culture is stereotypically all about the fantasy realm in theory.
Comic books, graphic novels, role-playing games (let’s call them RPG’s; you’ll understand in a bit about the acronym here), movies based on all those things…the level of depth in service to the whole realm of things is endless, it seems.
But as March Madness has dawned as it does this time each year, you realize that it’s no different being a sports nerd.
Bracketology, as it’s called; the bracket, the Round of 64 to the Final Four, it lends the jock class of human a different level of nerdery.
It’s no different down the line.
Whether you’re into Drag Race, Real Housewives, or The Last Of Us, all the way down to things like general hobbies, the ability to geek out as a pleasurable thing is now very democratic. You can share anything with anyone, anytime, because the online community has made it a Grand Central Station for hobbyists to squee with delight towards one another. God bless the Internet.
And the reason TNOCS.com exists is based on nerds.
We’re the Top 40 historical music geeks from Stereogum, after all. We can challenge one another on chart data, song rankings, quality, and a defense of Olivia Newton-John’s Magic. We’re in it for justice, baby.
Nevertheless, it proves that everyone has a nerdy side to them. And it doesn’t have to be video game-related or dependent on James Gunn’s approval.
My example for myself:
I can throwdown with the Billboard Hot 100 chart positions…
…Tell you who won the 1929 Kentucky Derby (Clyde Van Dusen, kids…)
… and give you all kinds of trivial arcana:
My passions are wide-ranging, from horse racing to music to nostalgia and cultural history.
But they include one more they didn’t have before, until sometime last year, when I discovered something I had left dormant back when I was a teenager:
Actual play.
“Actual play” is something I discovered when scanning YouTube looking for anything interesting to turn my head, starting in 2021. What that is, in as brief a way I can explain, is the act of watching other people play table-top RPG’s (see above).
Your first instinct might be to say, “Isn’t that a bit nerdier than actually playing RPG’s yourself?”
Off with your heads, guys. It actually is not, because you’re watching other people pick up what the game allows them to throw down. What is called “actual play” usually involves personality, style, wit, creation, and excellent storytelling.
The theater-of-the-mind part is the best part of actual play, where the dungeon master – the DM, if you will – guides the story along for the players. And the DM usually has to be quicker on the draw to both guide the game into a direction it should go, and add enough personality to keep it interesting for the players and the viewer.
That leads to how I got into it.
I saw in one of YouTube’s interminable ads last year that there was a show on the recently-revived-and-equally-recently-re-deceased G4 Network that was featuring some fearless gamers, who could improvise quickly as improv comedians, playing an RPG in front of the cameras in a studio. I was piqued, and decided after being head-butted repeatedly by YouTube’s ad algorithms to tune in and see what it was like.
If you’re interested, it’s called:
D&D Presents Invitation to Party: The Scoundrels of Waterdeep.
It’s a multi-part, multi-hour series of episodes of Dungeons & Dragons (hence the D&D part) set among that part of the vaunted universe of gaming.
What G4 did here was invite a few people, including some comedians who had never played an RPG before.
And thanks to the idea of character creation, improv comedy, and a well-established storytelling DM in B. Dave Walters, they fleshed out a story set among D&D’s universe that became compelling to watch.
I found out that D&D, far from being some kind of scourge from the 1980s game played in musty basements with a select group of nerds, was actually a fun fantasy tale.
Where elves and bards and orcs and clerics and scoundrels could both tell a great story with personality while still generally kicking ass in various adventures. It helped to have comedians who could improvise and flesh out personalities on the fly, and it didn’t hurt either that the talented B. Dave Walters was helping create a narrative that had give and take to it, with a sense of humor to balance out the sense of fantasy atmosphere D&D is known for.
After completing this one, I found that D&D was starting to get into my blood, even though I probably couldn’t tell you anything about the game itself. But actual play allowed me to get invested into a genre of entertainment that I had never latched onto as a teenager in 1980s Long Island. And it was in the stories, and how they got told, and portrayed by people who weren’t above lightening the game up with levity without ruining it for the hardcore RPG fan.
The most recent actual play RPGs I have been watching are my favorites so far.
They’re done by Dimension 20, an offshoot of the website College Humor, and they feature again a cast of comedians who were into these fantasy games, this time on a more veteran level than before.
The Dimension 20 actual play videos are a variety of RPG games, set in various, relatable universes.
Imaging playing D&D in a setting of high school, like in Fantasy High. Or in a world of food pyramid-based kingdoms, such as A Crown Of Candy. Or a sort-of take on space operas like Star Trek, within A Starstruck Odyssey.
No two of these shows are the same stories.
But they have one thing in common. And that is Brennan Lee Mulligan.
Brennan is a long-time D&D player; a comedian, actor and writer who performed with Upright Citizen’s Brigade; and an excellent storyteller.
He is an expert at gently allowing the actual play to head out in a number of different directions, all while controlling the action deftly to keep the trains running on time, for lack of a better word.
In short, he leads a table of comedians (depending on things, usually numbering six) with creatively geeky backgrounds and with a range of D&D experience in campaigns inside the world of Dungeons & Dragons. (In the case of A Starstruck Odyssey, that’s an RPG based on his mother Elaine Lee’s own graphic-novel series Starstruck.)
Brennan, first up, is adorably handsome. (I’m gay, I can say that out loud without getting into trouble as long as I just. stop. there.) But more than that, his ability to craft stories within a universe’s framework that are exciting, funny, occasionally quite touching, and certainly raucous, is astounding. Sometimes it’s not solely about a narrative, but who is in charge of creating and expanding it spontaneously, to allow for tension, drama, conflict, and humor in a way that feels natural without venturing into silliness.
I’m in awe of his talent, particularly after seeing some of his other work in improv and at College Humor.
What’s most important: he’s the reason why, at 51, I’m actually now very interested in trying to play Dungeons & Dragons for myself, for the first time.
Granted, not all DM’s are going to be like an actual play one, and not all DM’s may have the ability to aspire to quality storytelling. But Brennan has a way about him that makes you believe all these RPG campaigns should have that mix of light and dark, or humor and action, tension and release within their stories.
To make it approachable for anyone. Even a rank, rank outsider like me.
A seed was planted, somewhere, metaphorically speaking.
It gives me a little hope at this stage in my life, where I’m trying to find and experience a lot of new and different things, that I can find and maintain interest in something that stokes my creative side.
As that aforementioned gay man, it hearkens back to that idea of coming out, finding your own tribe, banding together…
and trying to conquer a new and exciting universe where survival was always something of a priority.
tnocs.com contributing author irishbeartx
It’s weird.
In thinking about this piece, it was starting out as just an appreciation for stories that escaped me back when I was that young, in high school and probably a need of some kind of fantastic outlet. Actual play RPG, whether it’s Dungeons & Dragons or any other specific universe, provided that nudge to the imagination that watching some movie blockbuster of similar fantasy adventure origins couldn’t do.
Now, it seems like a fan letter to someone who got me interested in something I missed out on when I was younger, after years of struggling to find a story compelling enough for my imagination to dive deeper.
Brennan, thank you for that metaphoric seed-planting, and for what you create, if I never get to “get in the comments” to tell you personally.
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Thanks, Irishbear, for this incisive reflection. It’s great to see you peeling back the layers of collective and individual fascination — and the love of good storytelling.
Funny story: I was raised to believe that Dungeons and Dragons was a game of devil worship. My parents once took part in a boycott of Walden Books because they sold pornography and D&D sets.
Cut to my first year of high school: I was part of the Theater stage crew, and one of the members mentioned he was heading to a Strategy and Tactics Club meetup. I asked what that was, and he said it’s just people playing Dungeons and Dragons. My mind lit up. The school actually allowed this? That is crazy! The transgressive teenager in me wanted to check out this sordid scene immediately, so I tagged along with him.
Suffice it to say that what I saw when I got there did not live up to the hype of my imagination. Like, at all. No offense guys, but your game was a little disappointing!
But with the reveal came revelation. I began to appreciate that there was an older tradition of fantasy role playing where the DMs use their imagination and storytelling skills to keep others trapped in the labyrinths of their fears. And I would very quickly look for different people to play with.
Those people to play with did not include RPG players, but it’s not to say that I’d be against it in the right conditions with the right people. To be continued?
Pretty much me, at this point. Like with everything else in a social life, the right combination of folks is everything. Like us in TNOCS.
The closest I’ve come to watching D&D is this video of Matthew Mercer and Stephen Colbert playing a benefit game. The childlike wonder is Colbert’s eyes as the game progresses is everything.
https://youtu.be/3658C2y4LlA
I am intrigued, thanks for sharing some info on that corner of the internet, irish! I totally see myself watching that, sounds like a hoot.
I never played D&D myself. And every time I start an account to play an online RPG (Star Wars, World of Warcraft, etc), the whole mythical backstory that these game makers invest so much time in developing just goes right over my head. I never even consider what the evolving storyline is trying to tell, I’m just tooling along on my missions and trying to level up.
I distinctly recall the moment I realized how awesome the internet was in having nerdy niches for everybody – early 2000’s, and the map company I was working at got us all hooked up with computers and the internet for the first time ever, so I could finally start doing my editing much more efficiently with all kinds of info to cross check at my fingertips. One day I was trying to figure out some info on a new interstate being built in some city I was updating their map of, and stumbled across this site:
https://www.aaroads.com/
I was like – no way, there’s other highway nerd brains like me out there???!!! The people would discuss the history of major highways and interstates, photograph every exit and along the drive, explain the difference between cloverleaf and trumpet interchanges, marvel at the complexity in some interchanges in Texas, down to calling out road signs that dared to NOT use the standard highway font and how jarring that was to see. I got lost chasing down so many rabbit holes back then, it was pretty mind blowing to find this odd comfort zone in the early internet days. 🙂
I’ve been on a travel bender for the past six weeks, and it’s not settling down, but instead ramping up. Not just in the sky, but quite a lot behind the wheel as well.
I notice a lot of the things that you mentioned while driving, especially when in areas that are new to me. I was stoked last week when I realized that I’d been on four different route numbers in one day that I’d never experienced before. I-92? US23?? They are now part of my slightly compulsive “lifetime route numbers” collection.
If this makes me a comrade road-nerd, Dutch, then bring it on.
One of my goals is driving US-20, the longest road in the States. It starts in Kenmore Square, Boston (my old stomping grounds) and ends in Newport, OR.
I’d probably take the Interstate back, though.
That sounds like a good retirement goal for me, too. Of course, retirement is still seven years down the line…
I have driven on well over half of US-20. Good road!
Before Google Earth, when I was a kid, I obsessed over those roadmap atlas guides they’d put out for New York City and Long Island. I wanted to explore every little thing on them that I never had much access to in the family.
When I got my license, in that interim before I left New York, I finally got to drive to many of those places, in Queens, Nassau and Suffolk, that I had fancying for a long time, just for the hell of it.
Oh, and I live right next to one of those complex interchanges, at I-30 and I-35W. Madness.
Sorry Irish, I feel like I’ve hijacked your DM chat! I’m thinking, for the NYC area, you had Hagstrom Maps as your map bible back in the day?!
For the folks mentioning about US 20, well now I know what my northern part of my dream retirement travel adventure would be! I totally want to do a US 1/A1A jaunt up the east coast starting in Key West, then it can be US 20 across to the Pacific, then Hwy 101 down the Pacific Coast, and I-10 back to Jacksonville.
Fun facts-
All East-West roads in US are even numbered. Interstate #’s increase from south to north, while the US routes increase in # from N-S.
Roads that run north-south are the odd numbers; lowest interstate # starts on the west coast, while the lowest US Route # begins on the East Coast.
Interstates are only 1 or 2 digits; if it begins with an odd number, it indicates a spur off the main interstate in an urban area. A 3 digit interstate # that begins with an even # are bypasses or beltways.
😁
Yesssss! I was lucky enough to have met a fellow road-geek at an early age. I love maps, love highways, and I collect counties! See this website (with it’s circa 1998 design) where you can keep track of which counties you’ve been to.
http://www.mob-rule.com/home
😍
There goes the rest of my workday…..
Reading through this entire thread, and happy to know there are so many roadgeeks here besides me. I too am familiar with AARoads, and can happily spend hours on the FDOT district sites looking through current and upcoming projects, not-so-patiently waiting for the monthly-or-so drone photo updates of work zones.
You FDOT Under Construction Stan, you….😁
You wanna check out a doozy? I-66 and Rte 28 in Centreville, VA via VDOT. It’s the exit from I-66 to Dulles Airport outside DC, and has been under a massive redesign reconstruction for the past 5 years or so, I think it’s finally within the final 6 month stretch now. That’s been my go to Road Construction-porn for awhile. Ha!
Whoa… Reminds me of when they revamped the Tampa Airport interchange about ten years ago! My current porn (ha, love it) is the Gateway Express in Pinellas, used to live a few blocks from the northern end of it until a few years ago. That one is finally wrapping up later this year, but it’s tied into the ongoing Howard Frankland Bridge replacement span construction, and that will tie into a soon-to-commence major reconstruction of the Westshore interchange adjacent to the aforementioned TIA.
I think I need a cold shower now. 😂🤣
That used to be part of my route to/from work. Thankfully it no longer is.
I was a (mediocre) DM as a tween, and my son started DM-ing when he was 12 – it’s a lot of fun, even if if you’re not particularly good at it. Enthusiastic, flexible players make all the difference.
I would strongly encourage you to try a campaign – as you’re well aware, it doesn’t have to specifically be D&D – there are a bunch of great role-playing games out there (I loved, loved, loved the Marvel & Star Wars games from the 80s/90s).
I played D&D as a teenager back in the ’80s, then started up again about 5 years ago with a bunch of scattered college friends, thanks to the new technologies that allow remote D&D play.
I got into Critical Role about 18 months ago at the start of Campaign 3, and then into Dimension 20 last fall, and now enjoy D20 more than CR, but they’re both great. It’s certainly easier to get into, with shorter campaigns, and more varied settings and characters. And Dropout.TV is the best bargain in streaming. You will get more laughs per dollar with an annual subscription than any other possible service.
I do have to put in a recommendation for one Critical Role miniseries – Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. It is also DMed by Brennan Lee Mulligan, and set a new high-water mark for actual play. Watching it felt like watching an entertainment medium discover it can be an artform, and since then I think all of the top actual play DMs have upped their game.
It’s all available on YouTube for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlIkkeWmVvA&list=PL1tiwbzkOjQwzhdskYekmjr0h2tsbKaZw&ab_channel=CriticalRole
This Wednesday is the final episode of the current Dimension 20 arc; Neverafter, and coming up soon after that is a special miniseries DMed by Matt Mercer (DM of Critical Role, and the other 800 lb. gorilla of actual play.)
Critical Role, I’ve only started to look at. The initial jumping-off point always seems a little dry and overwhelming to me, but I’ve seen enough to know their table is dedicated, and they bring the personalities to the table to get you interested. CR’s players seem to really love each other’s company, and that’s something I appreciate.
Wow…I’ve caught myself up in all of this, haven’t I?
Yeah, CR is daunting – each Campaign is over 100 episodes, and episodes run about 4 hours. I do recommed The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon, the animated series based on Campaign One.
And they’re probably at an inflection point right now. They’ve grown their hobby into a big fucking business, but they’ve got a fan base with components that seem to be ready to find any hint of compromising their values and jump all over it. They may end Campaign Three earlier than intended so they can do Campaign Four with a non-D&D system (for reasons that are better explained elsewhere) and may also be ready to permanently change the lineup.
Do you watch any of the other Dropout shows? Make Some Noise is just ridiculously funny, and I can not recommend it enough.
I had to subscribe via YouTube to see any of the other actual play on Dimension 20, so I’ve seen a lot of stuff, and what suprises me is, in spite of the fact I’m older than their target audience, a lot of their material is very funny above and beyond that. It’s an inexpensive way to get my fix and still get involved in the worlds the channel inhabits..
I enjoy RPGs. However, playing online is a pale substitute for playing face-to-face. My local group seems to enjoy my bardic ways as I play a real lute at the table. When the DM gave my character a magic hurdy-gurdy as a joke, I took it upon myself to acquire a real one and learn to play it. It’s a strange instrument.
I have a hurdy gurdy but I don’t think it’s a good one. It sounds like I’m strangling a cat.
I don’t much like it. With all the drone strings and the buzzing bridge it sounds too much like bagpipes. I also tend to start cranking faster when the tempo speeds up, which isn’t how the thing works of course.
Donovan has entered the chat.
My daughter and son-in-law went all in on D&D during COVID incarceration. She just got back from a weekend bachelorette party where she was the DM for the first time ever. At first, I just kind of glazed over and repeated “That’s nice” over and over when she talked about it, but lately I find myself getting interested in the stories of the games that she is playing. Who know? I may take the plunge myself someday.
Wow, Irishbeartx, you’ve opened up a whole Pandora’s Box for me.
As many of you have deduced through the years here on Stereogum and TNOC, I have my one foot firmly planted on the jock side (playing college sports and coaching high school sports for many years) and one foot firmly planted in the arts ( acting, directing, choreographing plays and dance concerts).
I was the one who first introduced the Lord of the Rings trilogy to my high school in the late sixties (It’s now part of the curriculum) and have read everyone from Lewis, to Burroughs to Howard(as well as Verne and Welles, and to be fair, Lovecraft) to be aware of all that’s out there.
But I have never been enamored of D&D and have never been tempted to try it.
I don’t dismiss the ones who play it (my second son was enamoured of it for several years but he has since moved on) but it has never appealed to me.
What I’m probably trying to say, is I honor both sides and appreciate the ardor they have for their passions and, basically, I love being able to indulge in both your love of arts and others love of arts.
The skeptic would say you can’t love both but I reply I can and do love it all.
And I will put my dragon against yours any time!
I guess my childhood friends and I weren’t too imaginative. What we did play was electronic baseball. Gosh. I forgot the name of the company it’s been so long. Figured it out. Entex. Best out of seven. We were broke. We were children. We wagered candy. So much more fun than your fancy-schmancy EA sports games.
Filling out a bracket; oh, god. When the tournament expanded to 64 teams, nobody had to tell me that scribbling in names to project the national championship was fun. Nobody could. I didn’t have cable. I still remember walking to my friend’s house to watch Xavier vs. Missouri at six in the morning on a school day. When Cleveland State upset Indiana, I was hooked.
Off the top of my head, my favorite game ever was Vermont over Syracuse. They had not one, but two unusually good players for a low-mid major. T.J. Sorrentine and Taylor Coppenrath. They don’t show this highlight: Sorrentine hitting from 25-feet at the top of the key, because it wasn’t a buzzer-beater or exceedingly late in the game. But it put the Catamounts in command.
I can’t remember the context, but I brought up Northwestern State’s upset over Iowa, and one of the Stereogum OGs responded jokingly, “Get the **** out, I remember that game. I’m from Iowa.” It’s an underrated shot. It’s Stephen Curry-like. My alma mater played Northwestern State that year, but they were missing one player. We beat them.
Guess who made the game-winning shot.
Well, thanks irishbearx. That bracket and your comments about the bracket brought me out of my funk. So the name Joe Lunardi means something to you, I’m guessing.
By the way, on the women’s side, I swear my alma mater was supposed to be the #15 seed. We were supposed to play Utah in Salt Lake City. Gardner-Webb was sent there. They were the Big South regular season and conference champs. UH was four games above .500. It’s a controversy nobody noticed, women’s basketball being a niche sport. There is no Dick Vitale analogue going apoplectic about slights. The committee I suspect sensed it would be a tough game for LSU. So my alma mater was a convoluted #14 seed. And lost by twenty-three points.
Okay, the previous paragraph should go here.
My alma mater lost as a men’s #15 seed twice, in ’98 on a buzzer-beater against Cincinnati, and a ’00 defeat against St. John’s in which we led by one with 15 seconds left. And their women’s team (a #14) got beat by Baylor in 2006, but “only” by 18, which frankly was a win.
So, yeah, Cappie, I notice things (though I’m not a “Bracketology” fan, not on that site).
I remember 2010. I like Bob Huggins.
Did you watch LSU/Iowa? Coach Mulkey was so animated, I think the referee developed a nervous tic and ended up calling a technical foul on Caitlin Clark. Clark is something new, a female basketball player with unlimited range.
When my alma mater played Xavier in the aughts, I could have stayed home, but I respected my academic advisor too much. British Literature. That’s what VCRs are for. But some jerk told us the final score. Both, me and my professor delivered a strong reprimand simultaneously. She went to Rutgers. I didn’t peg her for a college basketball fan. And vice-versa.
I can’t stand Mulkey, or her fashion sense, but I was away from TV Sunday anyway. I did see the semis. though, and Caitlin Clark is for real.
I loathe people who spoil sportsball events. My family knew enough to leave me alone until I saw all my recorded NFL action every season. Then I convinced my parents to get Sunday Ticket so that the Packer games were available for my father. By that time, I saw everything everywhere all at once, and it was fun.
I am not totally opposed to fantasy stuff. I dig Star Wars and Harry Potter and Stranger Things. But Mrs. Crawford just dives head-first into that stuff and can’t keep up with her. I’m not a gamer, and I don’t really enjoy Lord of the Rings or Brandon Sanderson books or D&D or anything with a vampire (save Hotel Transylvania, which is cool). Nothing against all of you that love that stuff, though. It’s fun to find a new niche on the internet.
Back in early internet days, I got absorbed into a forum of (mostly) housewives that milked cows. I read about their adventures religiously for a few years. I know a lot about owning your own family cow! Just goes to show how we can enjoy ourselves in little corners of the internet that we wouldn’t expect.
Never did get my own cow. But I do love fresh, unpasteurized cow milk.
“Never did get my own cow. But I do love fresh, unpasteurized cow milk.”
This sounds like it could be a lost Donald Fagen lyric.
“Bessie, Don’t Milk that Udder”