In the summer of 1964, The Beatles performed at the historic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles to droves of fans. It was commonplace at the time for critics to remark on how little could actually be heard of the band’s performance, thanks to the screams of The Beatles' thousands of die-hard fans. In the summer of 2025, not much has changed for the venue with the arrival of Dimension 20’s Battle at the Bowl.
Much like their sold-out Madison Square Garden performance, the wildly talented team performed to a packed house filled with adoring fans. Dimension 20, that is, not The Beatles. But let’s take this back a step. For those not in the know, Dimension 20 is the wildly popular actual playDungeons & Dragonsseries produced by Dropout TV, starring comedians Brennan Lee Mulligan, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, Zac Oyama, Emily Axford, Siobhan Thompson, and Brian Murphy. While the series has had several offshoot shows, this core cast of characters largely belongs to the Fantasy High campaign setting, in which the cast takes on the roles of heroic high schoolers tasked with dealing with fantastical threats and puberty all at once.
The Team Assembles
Battle at the Bowl follows this group of intrepid heroes as they come under attack by Chungledown Bim, a piratical adversary of the party, during the early days of their summer vacation. If that sentence raises some questions for you about the tone of the show, I can assure you, the performance was just as chaotically comedic as it sounds. I was in attendance for the event, where lines for entry and merch stretched far outside the venue, starting as early as 6 o’clock. The fervor was palpable everywhere I looked. Between some of the most intricate cosplays I’ve ever seen, to full-on LARP, everybody was there for the same reason: to celebrate Dimension 20 and D&D as a whole.
While the creative team has asked those in attendance not to spoil the plot of the game, which we were reminded is to be considered canon in the story of Fantasy High, what I can say quite definitively about the performance is that we have likely just witnessed the absolute peak of Dungeons & Dragons actual play. For those who have watched Dimension 20’s Madison Square Garden performance, the atmosphere was much the same at the Bowl, if not even grander.
Are You Ready To Rock?
Pyrotechnics, fog machines, bespoke character animations, and more made the event feel more like a rock concert than a gathering of nerd hobbyists watching improvisers roll dice and mark hit points. In addition to the production value, the costumes of the core cast drew inspiration from glam rock aesthetics, as did the music and lighting.
Beyond just the technical aspects of the performance, the audience’s engagement was what most resembled the intensity of BeatleMania. Announcements of the cast’s names could barely be heard as they stepped on stage. T-shirt guns were fired off into the crowd every time a player character rolled a Natural 20. Horrified gasps of terror echoed through the Bowl anytime a player fumbled an important roll. Any time a key villain, NPC, or memorable character was mentioned or introduced, fans cheered or booed to their liking. And most importantly, ushers at the Hollywood Bowl glanced around in confusion as, at dozens of key moments throughout the night, the audience started their own chants of “Hoot! Growl! Hoot! Growl!”, the same chant the player characters use to mime their fantasy high school’s mascot: the Owlbear.
Half Superbowl, half rock concert, Dimension 20’s Battle at the Bowl felt like the climax of the steady popularization of Dungeons & Dragons actual play. On the rise for the past decade since the release of the 2014 fifth-edition Player’s Handbook, Dungeons & Dragons has gone from something relegated to fringe dorks huddled in basements, to a game revered and celebrated with the same artistic respect and fanatical enthusiasm as any of the great performers who have graced the Hollywood Bowl with their presence.
The End Or The Beginning?
So, where do we go from here? Is this the peak of actual play in the tabletop space, or is this only the beginning? So far, there’s no indication that this bubble is about to burst. Last year, Wizards of the Coast, the company behind Dungeons & Dragons in its current iteration, revamped its 2014 sourcebooks with updated rules, art, and more. Games like Baldur’s Gate 3 have sparked new interest in tabletop. The team at Critical Role, which also gained popularity thanks to its actual play series, has launched its own Dungeons & Dragons-style tabletop game, branching out into uncharted territory for actual play. As a longtime Dungeons & Dragons fan and actual play enthusiast, I certainly hope this is just the start of an even brighter era for the game and actual play performance.
By the end of the show, the cast gathered for a group bow, after what can only be described as the most chaotically delightful climax I’ve ever witnessed at an actual play event – and had the audience roaring with laughter for several minutes. Coy references had been made by Mulligan throughout the night about their ‘hard-out’ for the show. Typically, in actual play, there’s a little more flexibility for longer runtimes, but with a packed house at a venue as large as the Hollywood Bowl, the game was clearly designed to run a certain length and get everyone home at a reasonable hour.
However, as the cast took their bow, there was a palpable sense that neither the cast nor the audience was ready to say goodnight. The cast even jokingly threw out additional suggestions for how the episode could keep going, met with uproarious cheers from the crowd. Nobody wanted the night to end, and as far as I can tell, nobody wants this art form to end either. With any luck, Dimension 20’s Battle at the Bowl doesn’t just have to serve as the peak of Dungeons & Dragons' actual play, but as the beginning of an even bigger era for the game.
