‘Mentopolis’ Episode 1 Sets The Stage For An Existential TTRPG Mystery

Welcome to the table,

This week saw the premier of Dropout’s Dimension 20 Mentopolis. Episode One of the newest season of Dropout’s hit Actual Play TTRPG series was an absolute delight from start to finish!

Weaving the story for this noir-themed adventure was the witty and wonderous Brennan Lee Mulligan. I often find myself watching people work in the actual play space and have a hard time getting an actual feel of how they are approaching storytelling and roleplay.

After getting a chance to sit down with Brennan and talk about his last Dimension 20 offering, Dungeons & Drag Queens, watching him work in the actual-play space feels somehow even more elevated because I know firsthand that he really loves what he is doing and gets giddy just talking about TTRPG. It’s refreshing to know that someone with his platform and reach is actually a champion not only for safe play spaces but also for enjoying the game.

Speaking of safe play spaces in TTRPG, the system for Mentopolis is none other than the very well thought out and packed full of safety tools Kids on Bikes.

I’m a big fan of Hunters Entertainment’s Kids on Bikes, not just because I worked on it, but because Jon Gilmour and Doug Levandowski really took the time to think out how to make a collaborative game system that included considering players and storytellers from all aspects of our society. It was a fundamental part of the game design from inception and I will always love them for that.

While Kids on Bikes was envisioned as a small town, big mystery, 1980’s USA romp through neighborhoods and woodland paths, Mentopolis has taken the theme into a more noir and frankly existential space.

The cast, comprised of some of the industry’s best and brightest, take on charicters who live in Mentopolis, a city that is within the mind of Elias Hodge a Junior Researcher at Gobstopper Industries. This internalized personification of a fantastical noir city landscape occupies lands somewhere in the pop culture landscape between Osmosis Jones (without all the really problematic soundtrack stuff) and Inside Out (without, at least up to this point, external viewpoints considered).

Alex Song-Xia plays the “very small” boy named Conrad Schintz, a newsie who seems to be the magnification of conscience. Alex does such a phenomenal job of voicing this character, their ability to emote this innocent and yet somehow wise-beyond-their-years tone as Conrad was nothing short of magical to behold. While the whole cast is spectacular, Alex really brings something to the table that has stuck with me since watching the episode for the first time and I hope we see much more of them at tables in the future.

Freddie Wong takes on the role of Daniel Fucks, a sexy, bawdy manifestation of pleasure with glittery jewelry, a hairy… everything, and a speakeasy known as Club Sugah’s. Freddie dances this beautiful line between not sexual and not not sexual. It’s akin to when Gilbert Godfrey was reading us 50 Shades of Grey. “Holy fuck” does Daniel feel wrong, but “holy hell” is he “erotic”.

Danielle Radford lends her TTRPG skills to playing Anastasia Tension, a reporter who serves as a personification of Elias Hodge, affectionately known by these entities who exist in the space between his spaces as “The Big Guy.”

Danielle brings an almost overstimulating amount of charm to the table with A. Tension. The character is likable from word one and serves in a lot of ways as not only a valuable member of the newly forming party but also as a bit of a tool of exposition to the audience. At an actual play table, this can be harder to do and puts a lot of work on the person running the game but Danielle really shines in this role.

Mike Trapp takes on the personification of curiosity with Detective Hunch Curio. Mike seems to be channeling equal parts Culumbo and Mr. Magoo with Detective Curio and this weird blending along with Mike’s natural quick wit results in a really amusing and often vice-indulging character.

Siobhan Thompson brings the personification of impulse to life in one of the most jarring and frankly unique performances I have seen in the TTRPG space. This does not just include actual play or performance play TTRPGs productions, Siobhan’s character Imelda Pulse is somehow able to hit all these buttons I did not even know I had and be both riotously funny and terrifying at the same time.

The character is bubbly but also feels like there is a sinister nature looming below the semitransparent surface. All of the things that made The Joker in the Batman comics I enjoy a villain worth worrying about, the unpredictability, the ability to sidestep social constructs and organizations, Imelda feels like they are… along with a bubble-covered pink outfit. It’s a testament to Siobhan’s role-playing abilities she was able to maintain the character the way she did the whole episode and it never once feel false or flat.

The players are rounded out by the absolute gem of a human, Hank Green. Hank is playing The Fix, a hitman who is the manifestation of hyper fixation. The juxtaposition is wonderful here as Hank delivers some of the most unhinged dialogs that would somehow feel more at home coming out of the mouth of a slim energetic scientist and instead bubbles forth from this hulking hitman who has hands so big he needs a special gun so his massive fingers can pull the trigger.

It’s just goofy and wonderful and works in a way that I worried might not as he is such a beloved member of the pop culture conversation that it would be hard for him to be seen by me as anything other than the one and only Hank Green. All of that prestige melts away though as he inhabits The Fix and he really meshes with the table.

Mentopolis feels… special. It could be the time it is coming out in, the fact I myself am exploring some things in a very existential space and doing a ton of self-reflecting with the guidance of a professional, or just the fact that the world feels really heavy and on fire right now and a guided romp through the mindscape of some person named Elias with these talented and charming players is a welcomed escape from the raging inferno around me.

It’s a really special thing when a table of players who are not my own can captivate me so much and this group, in this setting, with Brennan weaving the story does just that.

Subscribe to Dropout. This is not sponsored, they do not pay me anything to tell you that. I just think if you have made it this far, if you love TTRPG, or if you are just looking for something good and fun and true… then you are not going to want to miss out on Mentopolis.

Until next time, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, clauses, or other adverbs. When you watch the episode you will get that… also did you know that Komodo dragons are not actually poisonous?