RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants Monet X Change, Alaska Thunderfuck, Jujubee and Bob The Drag Queen are back on screen for more addictive reality television this month. But they’re not here to slay mini and maxi challenges, or even the runway – they’re here to slay, literally.
In Dungeons and Drag Queens, you will soon come to see them not as earthly drag queens, but as the half-mermaid assassin Troyanne, the tutu-wearing barbarian orc Princess, the ditzy fairy-druid Twyla, and the tiefling witch Gertrude, all of whom are on their way to save the realms of Kelvorda from death and destruction – and learn a few life lessons along the way.
I started watching Dimension 20 last year, having never played D&D before, because they’d just announced Dungeons and Drag Queens as the new spinoff, and I recognised the cast from Drag Race. I fell instantly in love. It’s fun, fantastical, and so, so queer. The 90+ minute episode lengths always seem far too short because the story is so compelling, and the queer joy so palpable.
Having no D&D experience themselves, Monet, Alaska, Jujubee and Bob stumbled their way into naturally hilarious situations, all the while being gently guided – and often antagonised – by host Brennan Lee Mulligan. After just a few episodes, I had a robust understanding of the D&D game system and how it works, as well as how you can turn a simple round table into a compelling world.
After defeating the evil Thanara, uncovering a conspiracy, restoring the fairy lands and more in Season 1, we meet our ‘questing queens’ in the throes of celebration in Season 2. It’s a masquerade ball in order to find Princess the orc a suitable suitor so that her family can pay off significant debts. But nothing is ever that simple in Dimension 20, so of course it leads to a series of events that soon see the four heroes searching for a dragon in the icy lands of Winter’s Eve.
How to play Dungeons and Drag Queens
As mentioned, the queens themselves are not D&D players, and Season 2 was filmed only two weeks after Season 1, so it marks the second-ever time they’ve properly played it, which brings plenty more learning-by-doing with it. They may be slightly wiser, but they still make plenty of mistakes, which lead to more opportunities – after all, injury and death raise the stakes super high, which makes for very compelling TV.
The series is often hilarious, thanks in large part to the fumbles of the newbie players, but it’s also hugely heartfelt, and has made me cry on more than one occasion. Brennan Lee Mulligan, who runs the game and crafts all of the side characters and stories, is tremendously talented and engaging, and his patience with the drag queen’s blunders is just wonderful to behold.
With every unexpected turn caused by a less-than-ideal dice roll or a forgetful moment, he adapts and moulds the story around the players, ensuring they can keep moving toward their goal. He also understands each of the player’s characters deeply, and and has created very fulfilling emotional arcs for each of them, which only go deeper in the second season (which we’re currently about halfway through). I can’t wait to see how this season’s big problems are solved.
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Dungeons and Drag Queens is part of a long-running series called Dimension 20, which is currently hosted on US-owned alternative streaming service Dropout. The table-top role playing show that primarily uses D&D (that’s Dungeons & Dragons) as its game system, and employs ‘theatre of the mind’ techniques to bring stories to life, is so long-running that it predates Dropout as an independent platform (it goes back to when it was still a part of College Humor).
It’s most certainly Dropout’s most popular series, and it’s easy to see why: with instantly likeable and endlessly knowledgeable Game Masters like Brennan Lee Mulligan, and accompanying casts that ooze charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent, each of them excelling in storytelling and comedic improvisation, it’s the perfect watch for D&D die-hards and those who have never touched a 20-sided die in their lives.
Of course, Dropout has the money to go an extra step – within The Dome, the studio where Dimension 20 is filmed, they have LED screens that can display multiple images at once, and are often used to show beautifully rendered animations of the lands these characters travel to.
On the table itself you’ll usually see a miniature set (imagine a flat-lay doll’s house on steroids), often rigged up with lights, miniature figures of the characters, and sometimes smoke machines. What they do with a certain mythical beast in Dungeons and Drag Queens Season 2 is a sight to behold.
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Taking their queue from other reality TV series, Dropout also releases behind-the-scenes videos called Adventuring Party, which features the Dimension 20 players and Mulligan recapping what happened in the last episode, how it felt to play, and what decisions went into the creation of the scenes. It’s a smart model, and a great bonus feature for the hopelessly addicted fans who can’t get enough (AKA, me).
Dungeons and Drag Queens Season 1 was one of my streaming highlights of 2024, and I’m delighted that it’s back and better than ever for Season 2. The stakes are higher, the queens are wiser, and the set design truly goes the extra mile. If you’ve never watched a playthrough of D&D before, I highly recommend you check it out.
Dimension 20: Dungeons and Drag Queens is available to stream now on Dropout. You can watch all seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Stan.
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