The Most Intense Pop Culture Experience Of 2025 Isn't A Movie – It's A Live D&D Show

Imagine, if you will, standing in line for hours covered head-to-toe in full body paint, surviving on overpriced concession food, and shuffling through massive crowds for the fleeting chance to see Robert Downey Jr. wink mid-gum chew. For years, that was the mystique of Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con. It wasn't merely a convention room; it was a modern-day coliseum, a rite of passage for the most committed pop culture devotees. Hall H once felt alive — a collective organism of cheers, gasps, and groans erupting in perfect synchronicity. For a few charged hours, before everyone stumbled out sweaty, overstimulated, and high on adrenaline, it was unfiltered nerd nirvana.

But in recent years, the roar has faded to a murmur. Marvel understandably forewent Hall H in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, missed it in 2023 due to the dual strikes, and recently announced that they'll sit out 2025 as well. The throne is vacant — or would be, if it weren't for the live shows of "Dimension 20," the tabletop role-playing game show created by Brennan Lee Mulligan. I was fortunate enough to attend "Battle at the Bowl" at the historic Hollywood Bowl, a venue that has hosted legendary artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles.

But on June 1, 2025, the Bowl was transformed into a battleground for Fantasy High, the "Dimension 20" campaign that first launched the ongoing series on the Dropout streaming platform. Joining Mulligan were Emily Axford as Figueroth "Fig" Faeth, Zac Oyama as Gorgug Thistlespring, Siobhan Thompson as Adaine Abernant, Ally Beardsley as Kristen Applebees, Brian Murphy as Riz "The Ball" Gukgak, and Lou Wilson as Fabian Aramais Seacaster — who, in a canon-defining event titled "A Rumble in the Chungle," was facing potential permanent character death at the hands of recurring nemesis Chungledown Bim, a gnome pirate (also played by Mulligan).

Hall H seats a little over 6,000 people. The Hollywood Bowl? 17,500. I've sat in both, and I can say with confidence that "Dimension 20" delivers the kind of communal, cathartic joy Hall H once did. And the wildest part? I hadn't seen a single episode before that night.

In the interest of full transparency, I've never been one for Dungeons & Dragons or other TTRPGs. I have aphantasia — a condition that makes "theater of the mind" about as immersive for me as reading IKEA assembly instructions. I've tried playing in the past, but without the ability to fully visualize the adventure alongside my fellow players, the experience mostly feels like collaborative math homework, with occasional detours into flexing my "retired collegiate improv team captain" muscles. Because of that, "Dimension 20" had always been a bit of a void in my Dropout subscription — a flagship series with a massive, passionate fandom ... that I wasn't part of. Heading into the Bowl, I brought no prior emotional investment, no parasocial ties to the characters, and zero knowledge of the lore. In a way, that made me the perfect test case. And despite this being a continuation of three full seasons of plot, I followed along without issue — a credit to the players and their incredible storytelling chops.

The crowd, on the other hand, came prepared — flooding the seats with cosplay, homemade "Avenue Q" style puppets, and personalized merch, all inspired by the characters the Adventuring Party created for their campaign. And just like in the world of comic books and cinematic universes, no reference was too obscure. I passed a duo dressed as rats in bondage gear and was later informed that they were cosplaying as "Sexy Rat," a random character introduced in season 1, reappearing later as illusions. I'm also pretty sure looking that up put me on a new government watch list.

Thousands of people scurried about to their seats, shrieked with joy upon catching a glimpse of their favorite members of the Dropout extended universe (I like to think of them as "The Hot and Ready For Prime Time Players," personally), and exchanged friendship bracelets. If you closed your eyes, it sounded no different than the Comic-Con floor. But lest we forget, these aren't fans celebrating adaptations of characters with decades of cultural legacy or billion-dollar IPs — just the creations of talented storytellers with ingenious, unconventional ideas and the freedom to try something new. As studios, streamers, and corporations rely on algorithms to tell them what bets are safest to make, thousands of people screamed like their team had won the World Series because someone rolled a natural 20.

Once upon a time, being able to say you were in The Room Where It Happened — aka Hall H at Comic-Con — was a badge of honor. These days? Even the press has started asking, "Why bother?" when everything Kevin Feige says is live-tweeted and dissected online before he's even stepped off stage. But "Battle at the Bowl" won't stream on Dropout for months, and attendees are sworn to secrecy. You could try sleuthing on Reddit for spoilers, but good luck. Most of what you'll find is fans s**tposting, misdirecting, or politely (and not-so-politely) trolling. There's an exceptional level of mutual respect between the players and their audience — a kind of unspoken pact that this is one event you don't spoil. Opportunistic grifting? Leaks for clout? Not in this house.

And that's because people don't just love "D20" — they love the people who bring it to life. The joy isn't relegated to what happens, but how it happened. A ragtag crew of wildly talented comedians and storytellers, armed with dice, costumes, emotional trauma, and zero fear of looking ridiculous, carves a story in real time that's unpredictable, hilarious, and often sneakily profound. All of the jokes land because they are earned, sometimes with setups laid years in the past, and injected with a spontaneous and sharp-tongued wit that's never out of step with the narrative.

As a first-timer, "Battle at the Bowl" felt like the perfect entry point because the audience doubled as a live commentary track. Every time a new character appeared, an illustration was projected on the screen — and the crowd's reaction told me everything I needed to know. Gasps, cheers, chants of "HOOT GROWL" (shoutout to Fantasy High's beloved Aguefort Adventuring Academy mascot) ... honestly, it's a hell of a lot like watching professional wrestling, which is fitting because "Dimension 20" season 25's "Titan Takedown" campaign starred WWE Superstars Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Chelsea Green, and Bayley.

Outsiders may be tempted to dismiss "Dimension 20" as just a show where people play TTRPGs, but to do so is to entirely dismiss the magic. There's a reason that fans don't just watch it; they devour it, make it a core part of their personality, and host watch parties. The show transcends its premise because it's not just a game nor is it just a show — it's a genre-blurring, emotionally rich, riotously funny masterclass in collaborative storytelling. It's theater, improv, character study, and dice-fueled chaos, all wrapped in a deep and abiding sense of friendship and play. Watching "D20" means watching players in real time care about each other, the world, and whatever beautifully unhinged NPC Brennan Lee Mulligan manifests from his infinitely stacked cerebral library. When his voice boomed throughout the Bowl to command the audience to roll the dice on their phones to be a part of the game, thousands of people obeyed the request with uncanny synchronicity like sleeper agents who had heard their activation phrase. I can't imagine what this looked like during their sold-out game at Madison Square Garden earlier this year. 

At the end of last year, I wrote that Dropout was the best streaming service, and I stand by it, with added emphasis. The day before "Battle at the Bowl," I attended Netflix's Tudum event: an impressive, hyper-produced spectacle featuring A-list celebs, a powerhouse Lady Gaga performance, and "Squid Game" guards doing a choreographed routine alongside Hanumankind. Sofia Carson descended from the rafters on a wire. Glenn Close dropped two f-bombs. Gaga sang "Abracadabra" flanked by dancers dressed like Wednesday Addams. It was objectively surreal — but even that couldn't compare to the unfiltered, feral joy that erupted from the Bowl when the Box of Doom resolved a pivotal roll.

That moment — that raw, collective thrill — is what scripted prestige events often miss in favor of pained line deliveries of a workshopped script for multimillionaire actors to recite off teleprompters. You can't replicate the crackling spontaneity of Ally Beardsley improvising a hilariously hyper-specific character choice. You can't manufacture the stakes of a story where everyone at the table is all in. And "Dimension 20," as a show on streaming or live for an engaged audience, can only exist the way that it does because of Dropout, a platform that believes in weird, wonderful, radically creative storytelling and dares to let it thrive exactly as it is.