The Brief

For years after it was invented in the 1970s, Dungeons & Dragons remained a niche game that people — stereotypically, nerdy boys — played at home with their friends.

But in the past decade or so, D&D has emerged as a popular form of spectator entertainment, with comedians, actors and podcasters playing the game for other people to watch. "Actual play," as it's known, has attracted millions of viewers online and has even spilled out into the real world, with D&D shows playing in movie theaters, touring globally and selling out stadiums.

One of the most iconic examples of this phenomenon came earlier this year when the show Dimension 20 sold out Madison Square Garden in New York. Roughly 20,000 fans showed up to watch seven comedians perform D&D, with a few rock show flourishes — like gouts of butane fire around the stage to simulate the wrath of the dragon Kalvaxis, the big villain of the night.

"Kalvaxis breathes in," actor and comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan narrated: "'Trifle with me at your own peril. BWAAAAAH!'"

But the performers are still just playing an analog tabletop game: rolling dice, checking rulebooks and using their imaginations. And the makers of D&D themselves say that actual play and its diverse audiences are helping to fuel a broader golden age of D&D right now, including the kind played by friends at home.

What is D&D?

Brennan Lee Mulligan, who was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in 1998, owes his exposure to his mom. Many parents were wary of D&D after it was swept up in the "Satanic Panic" of the '80s and '90s, when anti-occult campaigns like "Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons" alleged it drew kids to devil worship and suicide.

But Mulligan's mom Elaine Lee, a comic book writer, playwright and actress, was familiar with D&D from her creative circles. She hadn't played it herself, but she saw that her 10-year-old son Mulligan "was a nerdy, nerdy kid" and thought he'd like it.

Vintage game modules from the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons on display at The Dungeon Hobby Shop and Museum in Lake Geneva, which is located in the old offices of TSR, the company Gary Gygax created to sell the game.

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Lee had taken Mulligan out of school in upstate New York and decided to homeschool him.

"I was getting very badly bullied," Mulligan said. "I was hiding under picnic tables at recess reading animal fact cards."

Lee enrolled Mulligan in karate and found a group of college kids who agreed to teach him D&D.

Here are the basics of the game: You and the other players are on a quest. One person narrates the story, and each player improvises their part. Chance often decides how things unfold. When you climb a wall or swing a sword at a goblin, you roll a 20-sided die.

The higher you roll, the better you do. On a 20, you strike a killing blow or bound over the wall. Roll a one, and you trip or mess up so badly your character gets injured. The dice control whether you live or die: In his first two D&D sessions, Mulligan got stepped on by a giant and turned to stone by a Gorgon.

Brennan Lee Mulligan holding a 20-sided die backstage at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle after Dimension 20's performance there in July of 2025.

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But he was hooked. He recruited his friends, played through college and into the beginning of his career as a comedian. Mulligan had a special knack for being the "game master" — the narrator and referee, who leads the players through the world, calls for dice rolls and plays the villains or side characters.

In 2018, Mulligan and six other comedians launched Dimension 20 on the streaming platform Dropout. The stories they tell are mashups: Game of Thrones meets Candyland, Lord of the Rings meets The Breakfast Club, Jane Austen meets A Court of Thorns and Roses.

"As the clouds part, a flock of gulls flies over the Marigold River, heading down to an area of wealth and expansive taste. It's Downtown Elmville," Mulligan begins in the show's first season, "Fantasy High," before asking the other players to introduce themselves.

That first episode, which is nearly two hours long, has 7.7 million views on YouTube. A representative for Dropout says its subscribers number "in the mid-6 figures," and that Dimension 20 is one of its most watched shows.

But while it's one of the more popular actual play shows, Dimension 20 is far from the first or only.

The rise of actual play

Fans of D&D started recording their games in the early 2000s, but actual play didn't pick up as a genre until around a decade later.

The Adventure Zone, which launched in 2014, featured the hosts of the popular advice podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me playing with their dad. In 2015, a group of voice actors started posting their home D&D games online as the show Critical Role. The first episode of Critical Role on YouTube has nearly 25 million views today.

Cast members of Critical Role, Ashley Johnson, Taliesin Jaffe, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer attend a screening for "The Legend of Vox Machina" in 2024. The show premiered on Amazon Prime and was based on Critical Role's actual play.

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As of 2021, there were hundreds of actual play podcasts and web shows like these, Stephanie Hedge at University of Illinois Springfield wrote in Roleplaying Games in the Digital Age.

And they're far from niche. They've spawned bestselling graphic novels and launched as an Amazon Prime animated show.

They're also touring globally — Critical Role has performances scheduled at London's The O2 and Edinburgh Castle in Scotland next year. Fans who can't make it can watch the live games in around 800 movie theaters in North America. After Madison Square Garden, Dimension 20's tour continued on to Los Angeles and Seattle. A show is planned for Las Vegas later this year.

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Why has watching and listening to D&D become so popular?

When Lou Wilson, one of the stars of Dimension 20, was first approached about joining the cast, he had no idea why anyone would watch it. He'd become friends with Mulligan through the improv comedy scene and played D&D with him for fun, but couldn't imagine its potential as entertainment for others.

"That sounds fun for me," Wilson remembers thinking, but "I don't know who [else] that will be fun for."

Dimension 20's main cast performing at Madison Square Garden in 2025. From left to right: Brian Murphy, Siobhan Thompson, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Lou Wilson, Emily Axford and Zac Oyama. Not pictured: Ally Beardsley.

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Once the cast of Dimension 20 started actually making the first season, though, that changed: "Watching how brilliant as writers and actors the other people at the table were," Wilson said, "that's when it finally hit me. … Oh, this is something that people would like to watch."

The people who make actual play shows — and those who watch or listen to them — have different answers to explain why the performances are so popular.

At a recent Dimension 20 live show at Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena — seating capacity 18,000 — Emily Lopez came dressed as Wilson's character Fabian Seacaster, complete with an eye patch, scar and a crab-festooned crown.

"Honestly, I really like the diversity of Dimension 20 and other D&D shows," Lopez said. "Nerd culture in general, it's just kind of hard to find diversity like that. And I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, there's a nonbinary person in this group. Oh my gosh, there's several people of color, and there's women in this group, and, also, they're all hilarious.'"

Hundreds of fans line up outside Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena to watch Dimension 20's live show in July of 2025.

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This reflects a broader trend in D&D — for the first time in D&D's long history, as many women play as men, according to D&D executive producer Greg Bilsland.

Aabria Iyengar, a frequent guest and game master on Dimension 20 and Critical Role, thinks the diverse tables on some actual play shows are pulling in new audiences. She was introduced to D&D about a decade ago by her husband's friends.

As a member of the improv comedy scene, she soon started performing games on a smaller online roleplaying game network. Iyengar still remembers the first time she received a letter from a viewer.

"There was another Black person that reached out and was like, 'I don't see people like us out here,'" Iyengar said. "'You just make me feel like I always belonged here.' I still have the note. … It makes me cry probably once a month. And I think that was the point where I realized actual play could do more than just sort of be niche entertainment."

Suz Pontillo, another attendee at the Seattle show, said what drew her to watching actual play is the same thing that drew her to play D&D: It lets her return to her childhood, playing pretend with her friends.

"D&D gives people a platform to do that again as adults in a way that it's like, 'Oh, it's OK to be silly and have fun and continue to storytell and fantasize and dream and create.'"

Ayla Wallace, Suz Pontillo, Miki Murray, and Rylie Latham — four friends who dressed up as their favorite Dimension 20 characters to attend the live show in Seattle — all play D&D together, "when we can make the scheduling work," Murray said.

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Brennan Lee Mulligan also thinks the popularity has to do with the hanging-out-with-friends feel of these shows. The people he plays with on Dimension 20 are his good friends in real life — Lou Wilson officiated his wedding. Their relationships and personalities come through on-screen. And he thinks it's telling that Dimension 20's popularity exploded during the pandemic, when people were isolated and craving human connection.

"You are watching a reality show while you are watching an epic sci-fi fantasy saga," Mulligan said. "And it has all the best parts of both, because while you are getting engrossed in the fate of the galaxy, while you are shocked and devastated at the sudden betrayal of the Archduke of some faraway fantasy land, you are also here with your friends, and it's their relationships and their patterns that you know and love, just like with everyone's favorite podcasts and their favorite streams."

"This is the age of Dungeons & Dragons"

As more people watch D&D for entertainment, more people seem to be playing it too.

Though an exact number of players is hard to track, Bilsland said something like 85 million people have engaged with the game, associated video games and the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves over the past few years.

The biggest drivers, Bilsland said, are shows like Critical Role, Dimension 20 and others.

"It's widely agreed that [the most recent edition] is the most successful edition of D&D ever, and that is largely accounted for from the success of streaming and live play," Bilsland said.

That newest edition of the game emphasizes fun over following the rules to a T, and actual play is a great demonstration of how that looks at a game night, said Justice Arman, managing game designer of Dungeons & Dragons.

"The actual play players are very comfortable," Arman said. "They often need the rules less, because they have that chemistry and are very funny and good actors."

And Mulligan says that the No. 1 question Dimension 20 gets from fans isn't about their show — it's "How do I start a D&D group?"

"I don't think Renaissance is an appropriate word anymore, because we're not even, like harkening back [to a Golden Age]. It's bigger than it's ever been," Mulligan said. "This is the age of Dungeons & Dragons."

Copyright 2025 NPR

This story was originally published by CalMatters.

Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the November general election in the race for California governor, capping a sudden and dramatic ascent for a career politician who is running on his experience and his willingness to take on President Donald Trump.

Becerra, the former state attorney general, has secured nearly 27% of the vote in the June 2 primary, with about two-thirds of votes counted as of Friday afternoon. If elected in November, he would be the first Latino to serve as California governor in more than a century.

It’s still unclear who his opponent will be: Returns so far show Republican Steve Hilton most likely to advance with more than 26% of votes counted, though the trailing Democrat Tom Steyer has not conceded and could make up ground in the nearly three million votes that remain to be counted.

California uses a top-two primary system; the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November ballot regardless of party.

The November race could differ dramatically depending on the opponent. If it’s Hilton, Becerra would be heavily favored to win: Democrats in California outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one, and Hilton is endorsed by Trump, whom Californians disapprove of in high numbers.

If it’s Steyer, California can expect an all-out slugfest between opposing wings of the Democratic Party, supercharged by the hundreds of millions of dollars Steyer has spent from his personal fortune on the primary alone.

While the hedge fund manager-turned-Democratic donor and climate activist has run a progressive campaign and garnered the support of Bernie Sanders surrogates, Becerra is favored by more of the Democratic establishment.

Becerra, who had lingered in the single-digits in polling, surged in popularity following the political implosion of former frontrunner Eric Swalwell, with establishment Democrats favoring the former Health and Human Services secretary and former state attorney general over former Rep. Katie Porter and the outsider Steyer.

It was a surprising and swift ascent for the mild-mannered career politician who was previously part of a crop of lower-polling Democratic candidates that party chair Rusty Hicks was publicly pressuring to drop out of the race.

“Guess what? The underdog stayed in the fight,” Becerra said at an election night rally Tuesday in Los Angeles, calling his near-victory “the everyday miracle of living in a state that regularly makes the improbable seem inevitable.”

The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Nearly three months ago, the Los Angeles City Council voted to fund homelessness prevention programs to the tune of $177 million. Despite approval by Mayor Karen Bass, the funding still has not been cleared by City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto.

Now, city leaders want answers about the delay.

A motion introduced earlier this week by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said the “contracts remain unexecuted without explanation.” The motion goes on to say the setback has caused “$17 million ... in emergency rental assistance to sit unused” and has put “services for those at risk of homelessness in jeopardy.”

If passed by the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee and later approved by the full council, Jurado’s motion would call on Feldstein Soto to report back to the council within 30 days about the reasons for the delay.

Representatives with the City Attorney’s Office did not respond to LAist’s repeated requests for comment.

Tenant aid providers said they’ve entered their third month without funding from the city. They said without an executed contract, legal aid organizations may soon have to lay off staff and stop taking eviction cases.

“The people who are providing the services are all in nonprofit organizations that don't have a great deal of extra funding to cover this contract that isn't being paid,” said Barbara Schultz, housing director at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

How we got here

Feldstein Soto has held up the tenant aid funding since April 2025, when she refused to sign a previously approved five-year funding deal with the Legal Aid Foundation. At the time, she argued the contract should have gone through a competitive bidding process.

City officials responded by putting out a request for proposals. They ultimately selected the Legal Aid Foundation, along with several other tenant rights groups, to receive funding set aside for rent relief, tenant education, enforcement of the city’s tenant anti-harassment ordinance and programs that provide free attorneys to tenants facing eviction.

Much of the funding for these homelessness prevention programs comes from the city’s Measure ULA, also known as the L.A. “Mansion Tax.” That tax is now facing potential elimination from a statewide November ballot measure from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

The city attorney’s tenant rights track record 

Feldstein Soto has frequently clashed with tenant rights advocates.

She previously attempted to remove the word “right” from the city’s “Right To Counsel” ordinance, which supplies free eviction defense attorneys to qualified tenants.

Feldstein Soto also has faced criticism for not prosecuting more landlords accused of rent gouging in the wake of the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires.

She also was accused of failing to defend the rights of tenants at the high-rise apartment complex Barrington Plaza, who went to court to successfully fight wrongful evictions from landlord company Douglas Emmett, which donated to a campaign opposing Feldstein Soto’s opponent in the 2022 election.

Feldstein Soto launched an audit of the Legal Aid Foundation last year. So far, no findings have been released.

Schultz said the organization has provided all the financial and administrative documentation requested by the L.A. Housing Department related to the contracts.

Why it matters for renters

The Legal Aid Foundation is the lead contractor for the city’s eviction defense funding, but the money is shared with other legal aid organizations as well.

Elena Popp, who leads the Eviction Defense Network, said her small team of lawyers can’t continue to take on tenant cases until funding is approved.

“We're contemplating layoffs effective June 15 unless we can raise the part of the money that is our budget from the city,” Popp said. “If we lay people off, then tenants won't be served.”

Anna Urena, a paralegal with the Eviction Defense Network, says her organization would normally do intake for about 300 tenants per month.

“We're not taking on new cases. We're not representing new people right now because we don't know what's going to happen,” she said. “We really cannot leave our tenants behind.”

What’s next?

Jurado’s motion has not yet been scheduled for a vote in the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee.

Based on her third-place showing so far in the June primary election results, it appears Feldstein Soto will not be L.A.’s city attorney much longer. Popp said Feldstein Soto’s lame duck status doesn’t bode well for the contract getting signed soon.

“She now has no incentive to sign, and pressure on her will not get her to sign,” Popp said. “If that happens and the City Council doesn't take charge of this, maybe hire outside counsel to get the approval, then we won't see any money until the new city attorney comes in.”

Millions of people are about to pack stadiums across the U.S., Canada and Mexico for the World Cup, starting June 11.

Public health officials have been working to ensure the health and safety of the masses of fans they're expecting at the 104 matches across 16 cities through mid-July.

In the U.S., World Cup preparations are coming in a time of a diminished federal health presence and funding. It's upped the workload for host city health departments, as they're also strapped for federal funding.

Nevertheless, World Cup host city health officials say they're prepared for the many challenges that come with large-scale celebrations and gatherings.

"We've been focusing on expecting the expected" — issues related to weather, health and human behavior, says Dr. Marcus Plescia, district health director for Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta.

Planning for the event is ongoing, says Dr. Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services in Texas. "To be able to begin preparations a year out is a luxury for us, compared to a lot of the situations that we deal with," he says.

"We call Atlanta 'Hotlanta' for a reason"

For public health departments, the World Cup is a big deal –- but they're well prepared for the biggest challenges.

Summer heat, for instance. "We call Atlanta 'Hotlanta' for a reason," says Georgia's Dr. Plescia, "It's going to be hot and humid here -– so heat-related injuries are going to be an issue."

Atlanta is hosting eight World Cup matches and the team from Uzbekistan. At downtown Centennial Olympic Park, a month-long fan festival is expected to draw some 15,000 people a day. Cooling stations will offer air-conditioning and hydration.

Then there's feeding the crowds. "The biggest lift for us and for all health departments is that our environmental health workers have to inspect all of the food vendors — and there will be a whole lot of food vendors," Plescia says.

Inspectors will check every day to ensure the facilities are in working order and the food is safe to eat. "We want to make sure that people feel confident that they can go out to eat and have a good time –- and they don't have to worry about getting food poisoning," Plescia says.

When lots of people gather, germs tend to spread. "We're worried about sexually transmitted infections because there's going to be a lot of people here and it's going to be a festive atmosphere," Plescia says. "And then we're worried about things maybe we wouldn't have been worried about as much before, particularly measles." Measles is highly contagious among those who haven't been vaccinated, and there have been 30 U.S. outbreaks this year.

Dallas is hosting nine World Cup matches — the most of any city. The health department is stepping up disease surveillance in wastewater, expanding sites and covering more area, says Dr. Huang, the county health authority. Beyond looking for typical threats like influenza and COVID, they're also testing for "whatever might appear" through genomic sequencing, he says.

They're also broadening mosquito surveillance –- setting insect traps and testing for pathogens they can spread. "We always test for West Nile virus," Huang says, "But we're also increasing our testing for dengue, chikungunya and Zika because of all the [incoming] international travel."

Medical staff are also looking out for symptoms of Ebola or hantavirus, due to outbreaks.

Keeping track of which diseases are circulating means they'll be able to alert hospitals and the public quickly if they see a spike. "It's a lot of things we normally do but certainly more enhanced," Huang says.

They're also preparing health tips for the public in different languages: Wear a hat and sunscreen and hydrate when it's hot out. Bug spray and long sleeves help prevent mosquito bites. Stay home if you're sick. "It's the same messages [we always share], but it's really concentrated because we've got so many people coming during a hot period of time in Dallas," Huang says.

"Most of our staff are not taking vacations"

The World Cup finals are jointly hosted by New York and New Jersey on July 19.

Officials have been running practice simulations to prepare for outbreaks and mass casualty events. "We plan for the worst case scenario and go through it before it actually happens," says Dr. Alister Martin, New York City's health commissioner.

They've also set up "incident command" to "divert resources from normal stuff so that we can manage any potential emergencies," Martin says, adding that the operation will continue through much of the summer, for other big events planned in New York, including America's 250th anniversary, Pride month and the Puerto Rican Day parade.

In Los Angeles, which is hosting eight games, including the U.S. opening match versus Paraguay, risk-assessment teams will monitor the surroundings for chemical exposures and biological threats.

In L.A., diminished federal assistance means the health department is counting on existing staff to do the extra work. "Most of our staff are not taking vacations during the month of the World Cup because they'll need to work -– we'll be obviously accruing overtime costs," says Barbara Ferrer, the L.A. county health director.

And much of their regular work, like routine food inspections, gets put aside. "I know it would be easier if we weren't in a resource constrained environment," Ferrer says. "But I want to provide assurance that even in a resource constrained environment, we're well prepared."

Ferrer says they've successfully planned and managed other events of national significance, like the 2022 Super Bowl. "This work isn't new to us," she says, adding that staff are making great efforts "to make sure this is a joyous time in L.A. county and [that] we're all safe."

This year's experience will better prepare Los Angeles to host other events, she says — like the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Ferrer hopes these events will help authorities see that public health is key to public safety — and worth investing in.

Less of a federal presence

On the federal level, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which serves as the nation's public health agency, has a muted presence this year.

"Usually, the CDC is a visible lead when we have international events in the United States, particularly across the country, versus just in a single state," says Dr. Debra Houry, former chief medical officer for the CDC who resigned last year.

The current Trump administration has pushed thousands of workers out of the CDC workforce and tampered politically with some of its functions, such as setting vaccine policy and publishing scientific papers. The agency's scientists rarely speak directly with the public anymore; their messages are filtered through politically appointed leadership.

Other governmental groups that would typically be involved, such as the National Security Council's biosecurity group, the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, have been disbanded, left vacant or don't have permanent leaders, Houry says.

The diminished federal presence serves as the backdrop for the World Cup.

Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services which oversees the CDC and ASPR, wrote in an email response to NPR: "HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are actively coordinating with state, local, and global partners to ensure public health and safety during FIFA World Cup 2026 and enhance any measures, as needed."

Localities have found that the federal presence is late in coming, and not as coordinated as it may have been in the past, says Lori Freeman, CEO for the National Association of County and City Health Officials, which represents health departments.

Freeman says the CDC started holding coordination calls and issuing some guidance a few months ago –- long after host cities started their own preparations. She notes: "When it comes to merging public health, emergency response and preparedness, that is an area we worry constantly about because the federal government is the agency that must manage across state jurisdictions between and among states."

Some have stepped up to fill perceived gaps. For instance, Georgetown University has set up a Health Security Operations Center to track infectious diseases and send out daily reports, to inform places expecting an influx of travelers throughout the World Cup.
Copyright 2026 NPR

If you’re looking for a great place to watch the upcoming World Cup on L.A.'s Westside — particularly if you can’t break the bank for a ticket — there’s O’Brien’s Irish Pub in Santa Monica.

Owner Willy O'Sullivan sat down with Larry Mantle, host of AirTalk, to discuss how the pub has managed to maintain its customer base, while others — like Brennan's and Britannia Pub — have had to close their doors. He says it all comes down to partnerships with local sports fans, trivia nights and maintaining their authentic Irish pub food and brews.

About the owner

A native of Cork City, the second-largest city in Ireland, O'Sullivan arrived stateside in 1987. He opened the pub in 1994, and as interest in soccer has grown, he's built a community around European football matches, especially after subsequent World Cups. Along the road, he's also built a following for New York sports teams.

The ultimate O'Brien's experience

St. Patrick's Day, obviously.

But ... any other day he'd recommend coming in for the Irish breakfast with a coffee in hand or "the best Guinness in Southern California," in his words.

How he ensures quality Guinness

Because Guinness is the pub's signature drink, he's made sure to give it a short beer tap line, meaning it goes from keg to glass quickly. He also makes sure to clean the tap line every two weeks to ensure quality.

Restaurant details

• O’Brien’s has Irish pub classics, including fish & chips, corned beef and cabbage, and a full Irish breakfast.
• It’s best known for hosting the local Manchester United F.C. fan club known as Los Angeles Red Army.
• Its also hosts groups for Leeds United and the New York Giants.

Menu items we tried

• Potato skins (potatoes, cheddar and bacon)
• Banger sandwich (two English sausages, sautéed onions and mixed greens)
• Irish breakfast (two eggs, two Irish sausages, Irish bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomato, black and white pudding)

What should we try next?