Dimension 20
Dimension 20 is a fork from CollegeHumor on Youtube. Its URL is https://www.youtube.com/c/dimension20show
This is a D&D channel, presumably inspired by Critical Role. The channel started in 2019.
If you’ve frequently watched CollegeHumor on Youtube, you will find the whole cast very familiar because they are the same.
Brennan lee mulligan is the DM of the channel. Aabria Iyengar is also another DM on the channel later.
Aside from Critical Role, this is one of very few proper D&D channel where players are gathered together physically and play on a stage.
The style of Dimension 20, or to be more specific, Brennan’s style of DMing, is quite different. His style is more casual and informal. Swear words are common throughout the show. I guess you could even say that he is a modern DM who acts more like a big brother instead of a big old nerd.
He is certainly a different type of DM. I’ve never seen a DM swear as casually as he has done.
D20: Fantasy High
This was their first D&D campaign which I am going to cover. It has 17 episodes with a running time of 90 minutes each on average.
Their setting is pretty unique. Most of D&D campaigns are set in a medieval world. The world of Dimension 20 is modern with occult + fantasy elements.
It all starts at Aguefort adventuring academy in Solace. The environment is modern, such as buildings, but the characters themselves are fantasy, featuring orcs, tieflings and such. Character classes are what you’d expect from typical D&D.
A group of freshmen students start out their days as adventurer trainees at the academy. Of course, pretty much from day one, troubles start to brew.
The show is, overall, quite entertaining. It does have a different flavor. But I’d like to point out that the plot is driven by the DM, meaning a very liner plot progression. Players don’t have freedom to cause havoc and they are not looking for loopholes, either.
To be honest, that’s normal. It’s just that I’ve been spoiled by Critical Role where a plot is driven by its players instead of their DM.
To explain in more details, the plot of D20 Fantasy High is driven solely by Brennan. He is the only one who throws in plot devices, and his players simply follow cues given by him. Basically, players are reactive to their DM.
In the case of Critical Role, it is the players who find things to do. Their DM, Matt Mercer, has to be duly prepared for whatever his players may end up doing. In other words, players are proactive in this case.
The later requires highly experienced and close-knit friends to make it happen, and such a group of players would be a DM’s ultimate nightmare.
Moving on, the show is, as I mentioned, overall fun. The players are a little stiff in the beginning but it does get far better as episodes go on. It’s also clear that they’ve done their homework because none of them struggles to add proper modifiers unlike VLDL D&D….
This campaign also creates a few running gags, like “Pulling an Ally” and Gorgug’s never-ending search for his real father which is probably the most hilarious part of the show where he stupidly asks anyone, including females, if they are his real dad if he rolls low on a perception / insight check.
Personally, it took me a while to get into the show. I think, for the first five episodes, I struggled to keep my interest on it. For me, constant combat proved to be a somewhat of a let-off. It’s a combat after a combat which I found it excessive.
But it does have its brilliant moments, and by the last episode, 17, I was completely hooked in it. Basically, D20 Fantasy high takes a while to get really going.
I’ve also watched a side story, Bloodkeep which featured Matt Mercer at which point my interest in Dimension 20 started to wane because their campaigns after Bloodkeep started to get a bit silly and overblown.
Their DMs don’t appear to be the issue for me. It’s the players. The original players from Fantasy High were playing really well together but later campaigns feature completely different players, and I found some of them a bit annoying; they were acting too much.
In the end, I strongly recommend you to watch CollegeHumor first in order to get to know the cast so that the players won’t be just strangers to you.
