Brennan Lee Mulligan and the Questing Queens struggle with the consequences

Like an old tabletop roleplayer watching Dimension 20’s Dungeons and Drag Queens is the same experience as introducing a friend to a favorite television show that you know they will enjoy. All the fun of watching your beloved show, And the joy of seeing someone else learn to love it too.

The actual playing environment, guided by gamemaster Brennan Lee Mulligan with players and RuPaul’s Drag Race stars Alaska Thunderfuck, Bob the Drag Queen, Jujubee and Monét X Change returned for a second season this week. After the success of their Season 1 adventure, the Questing Queens discovered what’s to come after you will become famous heroes.

You are called to more adventure, is the answer, but Dungeons and Drag Queens season 2 deepens and broadens its mandate, adding another great facet of sharing your favorite with your friend: you can see the twist coming and they can’t.

(Ed. remark: This story contains mild spoilers for Dungeons and Drag Queens‘ first season, and even lighter spoilers for the first episode of season 2.)

From the beginning, Dungeons and Drag Queens has spread across the audience of experienced and knowing TTRPG players/real game watchers and the audience of people who have never dabbled in the hobby or medium. You just have to look at it the comments about any Dungeons and Drag Queens YouTube clip to see it. They’re full Drag race fans who started watching to get more of their favorites, and stayed subscribed because of how effectively the first season presented the appeal of TTRPGs and the actual gaming medium (and, it should be said, vice versa).

The brilliance of DaDQ‘s first season – what makes it more than just the thrill of “two things that don’t usually go together” – were the subtle ways in which Dimension 20 adapted itself to the expectations of an audience new to the actual gaming medium and even the TTRPG hobby yourself. The season featured a simpler (but still twisty) story than other seasons, leaving enough rules explanations reflected in the edit so that non-TTRPG players could get a sense of the stakes. And Mulligan’s own improvisational skills got a real workout from a group of players who were discovering the ways they liked to interact with a TTRPG world, hatching antics like deciding on a whim to steal from a high-level shopkeeper, for example. and try in vain to flee.

It was wonderful to see the queens challenge Mulligan in ways his usual casts don’t, and season 2 is already continuing that theme. Instead of long improvisational comedians they drilled ‘yes, and’ and play in spaceAlaska et al are improv artists from a more hostile, shall we say… tit for tat tradition, and it gives the seasons some of their best metatextual moments. Like in this week’s episode, where Jujubee described her character Twyla pulling a piece of “elf rope” around a package, saying, “And I’m keeping the rope because I think it’ll come in handy later.” Then she looked at Mulligan and snapped, “Right?!”

It’s not the classic moment where a player focuses too much on an unimportant detail, but a player invent the importance of a detail of an entire canvas, pointing directly at their DM, and declaring that they are better make it important later when they know what is good for them. A gauntlet that has clearly been thrown.

And for a die-hard Dimension 20 fan – and a die-hard TTRPG player – it’s clear what Mulligan is doing in this Season 2 episode. Now for the characters And their players have mastered the basics, he takes them to a masquerade ball (every TTRPG player should know how fun it is to take your character to a fancy party instead of a forbidden dungeon) and introduces a range of plot threads. Suitors, devious recurring NPCs, secret messages you may not be able to trust, new revelations about the downsides of your sudden fame.

Dungeons and Drag Queens season 1 was about establishing the appeal of TTRPG gameplay, and season 2 shows exactly how that gameplay can deepen and broaden once there’s a foundation of characters, world-building, and plot elements to call back to.

And that’s where the dramatic irony comes in.

Like any creative, Mulligan has themes he’s consistently drawn to, and longtime viewers will be excited about them. An NPC who builds a beachfront estate at the top of a mountain range while leaving coastal mansions vacant? Mulligan has to get up very early to come That predict the past me. But have the Questing Queens noticed? Will they notice? When will they notice?

There is still plenty for them to discover, and I can enjoy watching them explore as they are introduced to one of my favorite hobbies.