Many elements must converge just right to make an actual play season special: The game system, the setting, the presentation, the game master. But there’s perhaps nothing more important than a good cast, and Dimension 20’s Never Stop Blowing Up delivered a group for the ages.
Six of the funniest members of Dropout’s deep roster of talented comedians — Rekha Shankar, Ify Nwadiwe, Isabella Roland, Alex Song-Xia, Ally Beardsley, and Dimension 20 newcomer Jacob Wysocki — joined game master Brennan Lee Mulligan for a rip-roaring ride through a ridiculously fun ’80s action movie setting.
In Never Stop Blowing Up, the six awesome action heroes played employees of the struggling Dave’s Video Store. They get pulled into a magic VHS tape of the fictional movie Never Stop Blowing Up and find themselves in the bodies of larger-than-life action heroes. While the setting was often a vehicle for action movie hijinks and hilarious gags, the players still found room for genuinely meaningful character moments: characters learning who they are through who they aren’t, threats of people that aren’t you taking over your body, and coming to grips with what truly makes you strong.
But what did they think about it all? Polygon spoke with the Never Stop Blowing Up cast members (with the exception of Ally Beardsley, who was sadly unavailable) about the setting, their character creation influences, their favorite moments of the season, and much more.
[Ed. note: We talk about major plot points from Never Stop Blowing Up, including the ending.]
Inspirations for character creation
Each player had to create two characters — one who worked at Dave’s Video Store, and one who would be their avatar in the universe of Never Stop Blowing Up. Some players based their Dave’s Video Store characters on elements of their own life or background, while others borrowed from other people, real and fictional. In the universe of the movie, most players chose to play a character closely based on a famous action hero, with an emphasis on creating a juxtaposition between their two characters.
Rekha Shankar (Usha Rao/G13): I always start with: What do I like to do? What am I good at? And I really like doing very strange, off-kilter characters that have kind of a core of empathy to them. And I love playing low status. In my D20 history, I’ve played a confused girlfriend that’s always in the shadows. I’ve played a hard-ass detective, way too hard. I’ve played a teen horse girl. So I’m like, OK, cool. What is a flavor of the thing I like that I haven’t done yet? I haven’t done a batty old lady, and that feels like it fits this sort of VHS tape rental place very well.
And I love the elderly. I was half raised by my grandparents. I know this type of person very well, and I had just come from playing an old lady in DesiQuest, an all-South Asian D&D campaign. So I wanted to make sure it was different from Laddoo Auntie, who’s kind of like a hard-ass auntie who knows best. Usha is just like, [airily] Hmm. And I loved it, I loved playing just a character who’s like, endlessly old. Like that weird relative that claims they were in the Vietnam War, but they were also at Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, but they were also at a Rush concert. I think that’s so funny to me, to Forrest Gump this woman into all of history. Indian woman representation all throughout history. She was there for the first egg. She was the first cave person. Whatever, she’s there. And in all of them, she’s the same age as she is now.
And then for G13, it was just kind of playing a game of opposites. What’s the opposite of this battier, older lady who doesn’t like technology? It’s the young hacker. I was thinking of Riley from National Treasure, just the guy in the van with the rectangular glasses. Always a sidekick, always available at all times, always kind of smoothing over any potential plot hole with quote- unquote “computer stuff,” right? Like anytime there’s a hiccup that, in real life, would stop you, it’s like, “I got into the mainframe.” When are you not in the mainframe? Riley, you live in the mainframe. I was born in the mainframe!
Jacob Wysocki (Andy “Dang” Lightfoot/Greg Stocks): There’s definitely a little bit of my own interests in Dang. I love DIY and I love punk music, but I think I was trying to paint this picture of the kid that was cooler than me in high school and middle school, who really, like dedicated himself to that lifestyle. I feel like this is a real SoCal, San Bernardino type of guy. He exists. And kind of everybody has weirdly stepped over Dang while he’s asleep in the hallway or whatever. And then there was that sort of just like, it’d be fun if he was like, a hick who didn’t immediately live in LA. Like, it all built on top of each other, where he was kind of a weirdo, maybe he’s punk. And then, we decided on a [familial] relationship with [Ally] Beardsley[’s character Russell] and was like, Well, how’d that work? And then the voice came in. And then it’s like, So what’s the biggest opposite of this? James Bond.
Ify Nwadiwe (Wendell Morris/Vic Ethanol): The inspiration for Wendell was just myself. It was just an extension of myself. When I was living in Lake Elsinore, I was going to community college out there, and I felt like I didn’t fit in with anyone, because they all cared about riding on dirt bikes and skydiving and stuff. And so when I had the chance to meet this other nerdy kid who was like, “Yo, check out Dota,” that just kind of stuck with me, and that’s why all those details are in there. That’s all the stuff I was doing while I was out in Lake Elsinore.
Alex Song-Xia (Liv Skyler/Kingskin): Liv Skyler is just Liv Tyler’s character from Empire Records, and instead of a pill addiction, she loves to steal. That’s it.
Isabella Roland (Paula Donvalson/Jack Manhattan): Paula is just Vicki Gunvalson from Real Housewives of Orange County if she was Paul Blart: Mall Cop. That’s it.
The setting
Never Stop Blowing Up is set in two places: Modern day Lake Elsinore, California, and a version of 1980s Los Angeles contained within the fictional movie Never Stop Blowing Up. Inspired by movies like Die Hard, The Last Action Hero, and the Fast & Furious franchise, Never Stop Blowing Up takes its cues from a legion of over-the-top action movies that prefer fun vibes over an adherence to realism. That allowed for plenty of gags and expression through play that some actual play settings might not make as much room for.
Rekha: Part of learning D&D to me is learning how big our playground is. And I think with this campaign, we’d throw something out and be like, Whoa, that seemed easy. Throw something out a little further, like, Holy crap, the playground is even bigger. And you keep going and pushing and pushing, and it was like, Wow, there seems to be no end. So that was so fun. To me, that felt like home. I thrive in that space where we’re all just going a little nuts. I love just yes, and-ing anything. I love the idea of someone making a crazy move [and then we’re like], “No no no no no no, we don’t take it back, Jacob, you fart everyone to sleep. No no no no no no, Alex, you do impromptu brain surgery on G13.” I think that is so fun, and I think it’s a bummer when people don’t like that or don’t encourage that. To me, you don’t get the big rewards if you don’t make those big swings. You don’t get to see how big that world is unless you’re trying those things. The DM can totally say no, and you can jokingly fight back. I’m always joking when I fight back, but you don’t know until you try.
Isabella: I love being extreme, and being big, and people going insane, and people making the most insane choice it is possible to make. You know, it’s so often that [game master] Brennan [Lee Mulligan] has to rein everybody in and keep control over everything that’s going on in the different seasons. And to see him just casually, be like, “Yep, you got it.” Or like, “OK, [there’s a] vampire.” It was so fun. It really was like, We’re playing. We’re here to play.
Ify: When we were making our characters, we inherently were choosing how that was gonna shake out for us. Even before Brennan agreed to it, I was like, if I’m being Vin Diesel in the Fast & Furious world, it’s always going to shake out in a way where he’s going to have everything he has access to. He is just a guy who is always going to be tapped in, someone’s always going to be bringing him what he needs. I was picking that knowing that’s going to happen eventually, because he’s a guy who has access to any car, and he’s able to get into it.
Alex: I feel like really from episode 1, it was already feeling like a fever dream, and I couldn’t fathom how we could top that nine more times without the game exploding. And somehow, I don’t know, each episode happened, and I love that it encouraged the dumbest choices, and it would be supported, and it would be justified. It was just so much fun without having to overthink things.
Jacob: I think there was a fun sub-game of like, Well, let’s see what Brennan says no to. That was sort of like the secret game that I was playing was like, Well, can it become a plane? Can the knife be a laser? It was that sort of stuff, where it’s like, How many hats can I put on the hat?
Rekha: When I got Agent Haldwell’s badge/finger, I didn’t realize, like, Oh, I got a 52, I guess I can kind of do anything I want to this guy, right? I was really surprised, because I’m not used to my crazy rolls working out. So when I was like, “Can I pop off his outfit so I can disguise myself once we’re past Doug at the door?” and Brennan’s like, “Yes, on a 52 you can,” I’m like, “Can I also give him severe punishment of pissing himself all the time?” Brennan’s like, “Yes.” I’m like, Oh my god, I’m a queen.
The musical DM chair
Late in the campaign, a new mechanic was introduced to Never Stop Blowing Up: Once per episode, if you roll a natural 20, you could take over Brennan’s seat as game master for 60 seconds and do whatever you wanted to the game and the world. The production team set up a 60-second timer that would appear on the screens around the dome, building pressure as the players tried to cram in as much as possible during their allotted time. Only three players actually got the opportunity — Ify (twice), Rekha, and Isabella. A note: This question was asked before the release of Adventuring Party episode 10, “An Evil Guided Meditation,” where the other cast members discussed what they would have done had they gotten the opportunity.
Ify: I’m pretty happy with what [I did]. It was very fun. I got so caught up in the fun of playing the story and playing the game and doing that, that I didn’t even… because the whole time when we first heard about this, I was like, I’m going to use this to beat the kill count. And the first time, I was so deep within the moment of the story that I was like, Oh, what’s the move that tells this story? And, you know, it is a trust thing. I think everyone’s like, Oh, it’s so crazy of Brennan to do that, but Brennan’s a great improviser. He knows we’re great improvisers, and we also have the trust that we’re not going to put him in a situation that he’s not gonna be able to come out of.
[Ed. note: When Ify got his second chance at DMing, among the many things he did was kill 250 million white supremacists, simultaneously making the world of Never Stop Blowing Up a better place and sending Jacob temporarily off the deep end. One of the main goals for Jacob in the game was to lead the kill count charts in the party, and Ify’s decision made that very difficult.]
Jacob: Lost my mind [when Ify took the kill count lead]. I talk about this with Brennan a lot. There’s not a lot of things where I kind of get my head hung up on, but there was a point where I was like, sitting at the table being like, Well, I know that I should focus on the story and this overall narrative. But Ify got my goat. I’m not a very competitive person. But in that moment, the competitive nature that I rarely tap into came over and was like, I can’t have this. And it won. It defeated me, and I just had to service that itch. You said you’re gonna have the highest kill count. You gotta do it.
[If I got the DM chair], I was gonna assure that nobody could have more kills than I could. I was going to say something like, “No matter how many people you kill, I kill one more. An 18-year-old clone who’s a bad person steps out of a cloning facility that I run and is protected by the Santo Patron, and every time you kill one person, I’m transported and kill two.” Some crazy thing like that.
Rekha: I can safely say I made no mistakes in the DM chair. I think that’s just 100% true. I had no nerves going up. I had no nerves in the chair. I did it flawlessly, and I didn’t make a mistake, because I’ve never made a mistake.
Isabella: It was everything I wanted it to be. It was perfect. No notes. I said everything right. It was unforgettable. The production design team, they just made it so exciting. It always felt like we just took a fucking shot of adrenaline, or adrenanoxinil plutonium sulfate. We’re so tired, you’re sitting, you’re performing for so long, especially for two episode days, and then we would get in it, and we would just — it was like a roller coaster ride of being like, Yeah, no regrets.
Alex: I had something written in my notebook that I don’t remember anymore. I’ll choose to say I’m not revealing what it was, but I do remember being very mad to not be given the opportunity. It did seem stressful to have to, like, get up and get into the chair, so I was relieved about that.
Favorite NPCs
Like any great tabletop session, Never Stop Blowing Up was filled with memorable NPCs. But which were the cast’s (and Brennan’s) favorites?
Ify: Oh, it’s gonna be Doug Meat. I feel like Doug Meat is just a version of an NPC that is in every actual play, and I think a lot of times, in every home game. The throwaway NPC that the players just latch onto for any reason. I think that there’s just something about it. I think that it’s an internal bit for the players where we know that you just made this guy a throwaway, but we love the fact that we’re gonna force you to keep up with what he is and what that means.
Rekha: I gotta give it up to J-Kwon and Bad Bunny. They really risked their life to be in that movie. And it sucks that in the real world, they’re no longer with us. Rest in peace, J-Kwon and Bad Bunny.
Jacob: Saxamillion Jones. The man who can play a horn note longer than anybody else.
Isabella: My favorite NPC was Saxamillion.
Alex: It’s got to go to Doug Meat, but there were so many all-stars. Why did he have so many feelings?
Isabella: I think Kingskin brought the feelings out of Doug.
Brennan: Barsimmeon Higgs. Gotta be. You know, I’ve played a lot of wacky old people, but what I loved about Barsimmeon the most was the idea of someone in this kind of dialect who completely has a philosophy that I the most don’t have in my life, which was, “Don’t think about it.” The idea of this little intellectual old man being like, This is awesome. Who cares? Let’s go! was just such a funny perspective for someone like that to have.
Favorite props
Never Stop Blowing Up eschewed the tactical mini-figurines or TaleSpire-generated combats of some past Dimension 20 seasons for an aesthetic that relied more heavily on physical props and costuming, like the approach for A Court of Fey & Flowers. The effect was tremendous — not only did the cast get to level up their looks over the course of the campaign, but the tactical effect of having real-life props to touch and hold had a clear effect on the players’ immersion in the story. We asked the players (and Brennan) for their favorites from the season.
Jacob: Probably the pack of Bilson’s [cigarettes], because it was truly a surprise. And I retroactively learned that it was like, “Hey, [creative producer and production designer] Rick Perry, go make this.” It was not a planned prop, and all of our things were there day one. And then this came up episode 6 or 7 and the fucking genius and guru that is Rick Perry was like, “Here you go, sir.” Like the hand of God.
Ify: Mine is just the dynamite, specifically because there was just this visceral reaction to seeing this action movie item that you always see, and just to hold it in your hands.
Isabella: The bag of cocaine, and our stim toys.
Alex: I was gonna say both of those!
Rekha: My favorite prop is the tape hidden under Jacob’s chair at the end of the finale. That’s got to be the best, because… it’s such a game where as the players, we are not privy to the creative decisions they’re making, we just show up and do what we’re told. So I didn’t know there would be physical props, and sometimes there aren’t. Sometimes you’re talking about imagined props, you’re using theater of imagination. Sometimes you see the storyboards when they see fit. So we had no idea there would be a real physical prop that one of us would really discover under our chair. That was such a cool thing.
Jacob: You’re just sort of asking, “Has it just been here the whole time?” Right? You start replaying little, tiny, micro interactions of, like, “Did you ask me to stand up and go put my mic on over here so you could tape a fucking VHS under the chair?” Man, especially it being my first time, it felt very special to have a story that I created pay off in that way, and honored in that way. As a people pleaser, I’m like, well, am I being too selfish? Am I taking too much time? It was very nice to kind of have that time and, like, be allowed it.
Brennan: That VHS is pretty remarkable. I loved, loved the VHS tape. Just a very sweet and a lovely shoutout to physical media.
Yearbook superlatives
Now for some more creative categories. While most of the characters in Never Stop Blowing Up are not in high school, why not assign some senior* superlatives? We asked the players what they would pick.
*some more senior than others; old girls gotta stick together
Rekha: I think G13 would be Most Likely to Lurk or Most Likely to Accidentally Photobomb. He’s never trying to be in the photos. He’s never trying to be seen. He’s just in the background everywhere. He’s everywhere you are. For Usha, I feel like… the First Superlative.
Jacob: Dang is probably Most Likely to Drink 1,000 Beers. Greg, I don’t know. He’s probably, unfortunately, just prom king. Like, you know he got it. He’s the hottest guy.
Ify: Wendell — Most Likely to Win an Esports Tournament, playing Dota. You know, he’s pretty good at it. He’d never admit it, but he’s pretty good at it. That’s the fantasy that I get out of the show, is that I’m actually good at Dota in this world.
Isabella: Paula’s would be Most Likely to Get a Divorce in Every World. And Jack’s, I guess, is probably the same.
Alex: I think Liv would have gotten Most Likely to Succeed, and then in a move of self sabotage, not shown up for the picture. I think Kingskin would also win Most Likely to Succeed, and he would get his picture taken, and then seeing it in the yearbook would be the catalyst for him changing his entire life.
Favorite emoji
A little on how the Dave’s Video Store characters communicate in modern parlance.
Rekha: Why are you trying to give [Usha] a troll’s riddle? She doesn’t know emoji from memoji from bluemoji. She doesn’t know emoji. If you explain to her what an emoji was, I think she could fax an emoji to somebody. It would be the word, all lowercase, “smile.”
Jacob: Dang’s not using emojis. He’s doing it old-school, like, where you can, like, make Kirby out of, like, ASCII. Like, a full type-out. He’s doing type-outs.
Wendell: Wendell’s is the anime smile with the flop sweat. He uses that any time he says something he feels embarrassed about.
Isabella: Crying laughing [for Paula].
Alex: Liv likes the two pink hearts, like the one slightly bigger and the one a little smaller, because she thinks a red heart is too much commitment.
And everything else…
Rekha, on how many very high DC checks she had: OK, this is a question a lot of people have been asking. [Big sigh] Brennan’s tough. Sometimes you want to ask him if you can spill a bunch of beans on the ground and he gives you a little bit of attitude. What? It’s beans. Come on. Let me spill beans on the ground. Usha is probably spilling beans on the ground all the time. I should have proficiency in spilling beans on the ground. I don’t know, Brennan, he might be out to get me. I’m not positive, but it kind of seems that way. If you believe me, say so in the comments. And if you don’t think that’s true, don’t say anything in the comments.
Ify, on introducing Vic speaking to Wendell: For me, it was like improv instinct. We’re just kind of heightening the fish out of water, jumping into this video, figuring out their body. And I think that, coupled with the idea that Vic is a guy who takes initiative and Wendell… isn’t that, was just gonna naturally happen. We’re already in a mystical video world. What happens if you just take over this character? If these characters are living, breathing parts of this video, I imagine they have consciousness. And even though we went inside them, I don’t think they go away. And I feel like anything at the table, and just in improv, is an invitation. I would never do a move and expect me to be the only one to do it. And I thought it would give us just more real estate to play with the idea of what it meant to be in this video.
Alex, on the relationship between Liv and Kingskin: When we were making our characters and their avatars, the most different from the starting point felt interesting. As the season went on, it was like, Oh, Liv has elements of Kingskin in her all along. And then getting to play the two combined, I think is what gender means to me. I think that’s the nonbinary experience for me personally, is teenage girl plus big mob boss.
Isabella, on making Paula so dominant over Jack: It was solely based off of rolls. It was just seeing Rekha get blow up after blow up and going towards this G13 infusion narrative. And I was just like beefing it and beefing it and beefing it. And I was like, OK, the dice tell the story. It became a blessing, because the game of Paula constantly taking L’s over and over again was very funny from that character.
Jacob, on his first experience in the dome: The dome’s an electric place. The dome’s an intimidating place. And I had a blast. I had so much fun. Maybe one of the best jobs in the world, you know what I mean? I think it’s hard to beat.
Never Stop Blowing Up is available to watch on Dropout.
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