“Dimension 20: Gladlands” is the twenty seventh season of Dropout’s actual play series and will consist of six episodes. Brennan Lee Mulligan leads the season as Game Master with an impressive cast including newcomers Vic Michaelis and Kimia Behpoornia. The cast also includes dome veterans Oscar Montoya and Jacob Wysocki along with Intrepid Heroes castmembers Ally Beardsley and Zac Oyama.
“Dimension 20: Gladlands” takes a post-apocolyptic world in the vein of “Mad Max,” but with a happier tilt. The season explores the idea of a world where societal authorities and expectations are gone and in their place is kindness instead of cruelty. This is not the norm for post-apocolyptic stories like “The Last of Us,” “Mad Max,” or “The Walking Dead.” Instead while the setting is familiar the tone and feel of the world is filled with care, kindness, and empathy.
In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Montoya and Wysocki discuss how the players were integral to building out the world of “Dimension 20: Gladlands.” Montoya also shares how the importance of fiction and the politicization of drag queens were inspirations. Wysocki reveals that he was inspired in part by the idea of what could have survived an apocolypse.
Oscar Montoya Explains The Inpiration For Poppy
Temple of Geek: Can I ask you, because this is the second season you both are in the dome. What was your initial thought when you heard the pitch for this season versus the first season you both were in which were very different tonally from this and from each other’s?
Oscar Montoya
“The concept of the show was like, “Oh cool, awesome.” But to be honest with you, I was more floored by the cast. They told me who was in it and I was like, “Uh, what? Yeah, okay, cool.” So, I wasn’t really thinking much about the concept.”
Jacob Wysocki
“Yeah, I don’t care what it is, man. We could all play like dead flies or whatever. As long as I get to hang out with these people.”
Oscar Montoya
“Can’t wait for Dimension 20: Dead Flies.”
Jacob Wysocki
“I think once I talked to Brennan [Lee Mulligan] a little bit and understood the math a little bit more, I was very excited and I saw the avenues in which we could extract some comedy and storytelling.”
Oscar Montoya
“Also, shout out to John Wolf too, who gave us a really good list of movies, and he even had like little get togethers where we watched.”
Jacob Wysocki
“We watched “Babe Pig in the City,” but then we also would watched-“
Oscar Montoya
“The Toxic Avenger.”
Jacob Wysocki
“Yeah. So, he did these really great double pairings. I totally forgot about that. That was so fun.”
Oscar Montoya
“It was super helpful, I thought, and really cool. Because they were like, “Oh, here’s the mood board of what we’re looking for.” You create a character that resonates within these specifics. And so that, that was really great.”
Temple of Geek: So yeah, I actually was curious about how the duality of this world played into each of your character creations because I love how they both have this vibe of the very “Mad Max” look, but then they’re so sweet, and they’re so kind, and they just care and want to help people. So, what was the thought process for you of figuring out not only maybe the sticking point of this is what initially pinged the idea, but this is how the duality of this world really played into who they become?
Oscar Montoya
“Yeah, I think it’s interesting because we associate the apocalypse or the post-apocalypse with this negative wasteland full of unruly anarchy. But isn’t it the most Brennan Lee Mulligan thing to do to be like capitalism is dead, now we can rejoice? So honestly, it’s his freaking weird little brain that caused all this. But I think that’s important. That’s an important thing to consider.
It’s like, when we live in a world where there are no rules, good stuff can happen out of that too. I think it’s a very cynical take to be like, “Oh, humanity devolves if there are things holding us back from acting our impulses.” Sometimes it’s in my nature to help out and create community and provide joy and happiness throughout the post-apocalyptic wasteland. That’s just, that’s how we, the characters live their lives.”
Temple of Geek: And then Oscar, one of the things I loved about Poppy is she’s so invested in story and fantasy and fiction in this world where it seems like that’s kind of not necessarily a priority for a lot of folks that are kind of the history keepers. Why was that an important aspect that you wanted to really not only explore, but really amp up with Poppy, especially as we go further into maybe exploring where she comes from?
Oscar Montoya
“Yeah, thank you for asking that. I think the idea of having a drag queen collect these nonfiction books is sort of a dichotomy, right? Because I think as a drag queen, you live in the world of fantasy. Poppy lives in her drag queen persona. So, her fantasy has become reality. I think also, especially living in this context where society at large is trying to quiet and silence drag voices, especially when we talk about the drag queen story hour that happens and it’s now like a politically charged thing that a lot of conservatives have.
I think it’s important, for Poppy to represent, fiction is essential to human development as well. Yes, there is validity in taking nonfiction, taking science and having a place for that too, but to ignore the imaginative play is just as bad, you know? And also, it speaks to TTRPGs as well. The fact that we find so much comfort in creating these stories with friends is important too. The Dome of Dreams is like the dome itself. Whoa. Oh my God, I’m scared. Wow.”
Jacob Wysocki Shares The Inspiration For Kokomo
Temple of Geek: Jacob, I love Kokomo. I just, I really wish Kokomo was real so I could just hug him.
Oscar Montoya
“Merch, merch, merch, merch. Where’s the plushies? We need it. We truly do need.”
Jacob Wysocki
“Imagine a plushie that’s like nine feet tall, 16 feet wide. A couch. What I’m describing is a couch.”
Temple of Geek: Why do you think Kokomo connects so much, not only with caring about people, but kind of giving people these dreams of “you need a summer.” You need not just the idea of a break, but the idea of a break that is bigger than simply taking maybe five or 10 minutes, but something to dream for and aspire to.
Jacob Wysocki
“I think it comes from kind of two tributaries. I think the summer thing is me sort of embracing this really light idea that I had that Kokomo was influenced by. I had this weird idea of, in the post apocalypse, what survives? I don’t talk about this a lot in maybe in an adventuring party, but what would survive? And it’s most likely because there was so much of it. Beatles merch, Beach Boys merch, the Bible.
There’re certain things that because there’s so much the likelihood of it still existing is very high. So, I was really into this idea of like, “Well, what if a person was influenced by the remnants of something that was likely to still exist?” Which I thought was like finding a Beach Boys tape or something like that. And then that’s where summer came out of is, if I had to distill what Beach Boys are, it’s like it is summer, you know?
And so, I think that’s kind of where that idea came out of. And I wanted to pay homage to this weird little kernel of an idea that I had. And it felt appropriate with everything that we were doing. I think the nurturing aspects of Kokomo just came out of like, if this world that Brennan is pitching me, if it were true, what would live in it? I was thinking about the kids and I was like, you would need like a babysitter.
And I thought a lot about communities that are different than Western communities and how it’s sort of like, everybody kind of watches the kids and everybody kind of takes care of the kids. And I was like, maybe that’s something I can kind of play into of like, there are these community hubs and people that it’s like, “Yeah, I’m the keeper of the children. So, everybody else can go do the thing that they need to do.” And it just sort of stemmed from there.”
Temple of Geek: I love that so much. I was also curious, Jacob, because these are a lot of folks that you do improv with really regularly. Some of them are on your improv team. Was there a certain level of maybe comfortability or confidence you had with the season where you knew if you kind of tossed something to someone, they’d be able to catch it and go with it?
Jacob Wysocki
“I’m trepidatious to answer that question with a yes, because I don’t want it to seem like I wasn’t as comfortable and with the first group of the people of the dome. You know what I mean? I think a way that I prefer to look at it is, I know that somebody like Vic, or Kimia and I have been improvising together since we were both like 18. So, there’s just this psychic thing that happens.
I know that Kimia can tee me up really well. Anybody at that table I’ve been performing with for at least a decade. Probably Oscar being the newest one of those. But we’ve been doing it since we were both on Herald Night. We’ve been really regularly performing. So, I think it’s more that it’s just like, I know that I’m going to be surprised more and that I’m going to be supported in a way that’s a lot more directly proportional to who I am, as opposed to the support that the art form generally has.
There’s this level of support that exists in improv as an art form. But I’m getting like, “I really know Jacob and really know how he plays,” which is very different. It’s just a different level of care and attention. And then you want to give that back because you know them so well. And so, you’re trying to tee them up with that same level of like, care and understanding.”
Dimension 20: Gladlands Was Built Out In Part By The Players
Temple of Geek: I feel like this season really takes that kind of concept of Dungeons & Dragons as therapy in disguise to the next level. And one of the ways I really clocked it was with how you guys build the towns, because it almost sets up the storyline we’re going to see in the town. What was your thought process of getting to really be even more involved in the world building aspects than maybe we’ve seen in past seasons because you guys decide the strengths and weaknesses of the town based on the dice for which kind of ability they have.
Oscar Montoya
“I think it reflects on what I’ve been saying for a while, which is letting the players also tell the stories in a lot of in a lot of tables. You have a GM sort of being seen as this like, overlord of plot and story and sometimes the worst of them can read like, “No, I decide, I decide you are my little playthings.” But what Brennan did is he’s opened up where we create the story as well. We have a huge hand in creating not just the characters that we create, but also the towns that inhabit this world. It’s giving the players so much power and enforces true collaborative play. So yeah, that’s just tells you to recognize that being in a table is about collaboration.”
Jacob Wysocki
“Yeah, and like the seven, how many people are there’s fifteen? Seven? How many people at the table? Plus, Brennan, what’s that seven? seven? Fifteen hundred? Seven people’s ideas collectively, I think, are always going to be more exciting than one person’s idea, no matter how brilliant they are. Not a dig at Brennan at all, even though he deserves it. It’s so much more fun to f-cking jam with your buddies than it is to just be like, “Okay, I guess we’re gonna all play the conductor’s song.””
Oscar Montoya
“Yeah, that’s exactly. Also, that first moment where Brennan was like, “Well, you decide the personality of every town.” There was a moment of like, “Oh, can we do that?” But it’s like, of course we can. Of course we can, we decide whatever we want. That’s the magic of play. And I hope in “Gladlands,” that translates the fact that we were playing the entire time.”
New episodes of “Dimension 20: Gladlands” debut on Dropout Wednesdays.
