Brennan Lee Mulligan: Everything You Wanted to Know About Dimension 20’s Hilarious DM
From co-founding a LARP camp to classic CollegeHumor sketches to earning notoriety as a top-notch DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan has done it all.
If you’re a fan of the ‘watching other nerds do nerdy stuff’ genre, you’re almost definitely familiar with Brennan Lee Mulligan. If you don’t know him from Dimension 20m you know him as a writer, performer, comedian, and walking Dungeons and Dragons encyclopedia. Mulligan is one of those renaissance men of nerd culture who manages to make it just a little more fun and more joyful for the rest of us.
Early Life
Brennan Lee Mulligan was born in 1988 in New York to Joe Mulligan and writer Elaine Lee. His mother introduced him to tabletop RPGs and Dungeons and Dragons at nine, and by the time he was ten, he was running his own game as a DM.
His interest in roleplaying games continued as he attended The Wayfinder Experience LARP (live-action role-playing) summer camp, and became a lead performer, story writer, and counselor there. At 15, he and his brothers co-founded Bootleg Adventures, one-day RPGs and games meant to introduce kids to LARP to have them “come out healthier beings than when they first arrived.”
Mulligan graduated SUNY Ulster in 2005 at just seventeen years old with an associate degree in philosophy and humanities. And then four years later in 2009 he graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a BA in screenwriting.
READ MORE: Who is Matt Mercer Exactly?
Career
In 2012 Mulligan co-created the webcomic Strong Female Protagonist alongside artist Molly Ostertag. In 2015, the comic won an Autostraddle Comic and Sequential Art Award.
Through much of this time, he taught and performed comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade, which eventually brought him to work for CollegeHumor as a writer in 2017. When CollegeHumor launched the streaming service, Dropout, Mulligan stayed on as a writer on a number of projects including Um Actually and Dimension 20, the service’s ongoing series of actual-play D&D games.
In fact, as part of Dropout, Mulligan has not only been writing for Dimension 20, but acting as the show’s executive producer and primary DM. Here he uses the improv and theatrical gaming skills that he had honed since childhood to become one of the most noteworthy professional DMs in the industry.
Bleeding Cool, Comic Book Resources, Wired, NPR, and even Wizards of the Coast’s own official D&D podcast, Dragon Talk, have highlighted Mulligan’s unique skill for bringing a world so completely to life for his players.
At this point, Dimension 20 has been running for twenty-one seasons with a few continuing stories and campaigns that have returned for multiple seasons. Fantasy High follows a group of teenagers who attend a high school for fantasy creatures and magic users. A Crown of Candy was a Candy Land met Game of Thrones. And Starstruck was a space opera that took place in a universe created by Mulligan’s mother, Elaine Lee.
In addition to Dimension 20, Mulligan has DM’d games for Critical Role with Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, and The Adventure Zone with The Dadlands.
Notable Performing Credits
Some of the most notable roles Brennan Lee Mulligan has taken on include:
Sean Finnerty in Candela Obscura
The DM in Worlds Beyond Number
The DM in Exandria Unlimited Calamity (a Critical Role spinoff)
Brigidda in Critical Role
Kalhaxorus the Grim in Hello from the Magic Tavern
Kreedis in Rude Tales of Magic
The DM in The Adventure Zone: The Dadlands
Kor Balevor in Mission to Zyxx
Deadeye in Not Another D&D Podcast
The DM in Dimension 20
Numerous Supporting Roles on Adam Ruins Everything
as well as numerous appearances as himself in various Dropout and CollegeHumor projects like Game Changer, Adventuring Academy, and original comedy skits.
Why did Brennan Lee Mulligan Leave Dropout?
I don’t believe he has. He’s been with the Dropout team since they were CollegeHumor, writing for Um, Actually. Though he only wrote for Um, Actually through 2020, he is still involved with Dimension 20 and Adventuring Academy as well as a frequent contestant on some of the gameshow style shows such as Game Changer and Make Some Noise.
Did Brennan Lee Mulligan win Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
No. But he came really close. In 2015 he appeared on the 14th season of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and won $50,000 after answering the $100,000 question wrong.
The question Brennan lost on asked which pair of famous people were alive at the same time between Charlie Chaplin and Pharrell Williams, John F. Kennedy and J. K. Rowling, Pablo Picasso and James Franco, and Johnny Carson and Honey Boo Boo. Would you have gotten this one right for $100,000?
Does Brennan Lee Mulligan do Cameos?
He has in the past! As of right now, he’s listed as “temporarily unavailable,” but you can be notified when and if he becomes available for more personalized messages in the future.
Which skit or campaign made you a fan of Brandon Lee Mulligan?
Happy adventuring!
