Ally Beardsley and Siobhan Thompson are core cast members, aka the Intrepid Heroes, of hit comedy show Dimension20. We caught up with them to find out more about the pulp-action adventure story, Cloudward Ho!
So, this Dimension20 campaign is steampunk! How did that come about?
Siobhan: It’s something that we’ve joked about for a long time, and we’re calling it steampunk, which is more of an aesthetic. Really, though, it’s a pulp action adventure on The Seven Seas, sort of an Indiana Jones-type adventure.
What’s the loudest laugh or the biggest chortle that you’ve had with Cloudward Ho!
Ally: The biggest chortle. I love that.
Siobhan: I mean, in this season, or just in general, I think anytime anybody goes fully off the rails and then commits to it as hard as they can. I think for us and probably all comedians, the funniest thing is always somebody doing the stupidest thing as seriously as possible. None of us go in to a day going, you know what? Today I’m going to go crazy.
Ally: So Zach is such a mild mannered player, but there was a NPC that he really hated this season, and there was just kind of like a fire in his eyes for how much he hated this NPC and that that was very funny, that was constantly making me laugh, was Zach saying, like, I’m gonna kill you, to an NPC quietly.
Which system are you using this time?
Siobhan: We’re using 5e (Dungeons and Dragons). We did look into some other systems and play-tested some stuff, but ultimately we just felt that 5e was the best fit for the story we were telling this time around. But we do have a lot of homebrewed stuff in it, including a couple of people who have fully home-brewed sub-classes.
We have also, just like a bunch of other little mechanics that we came up with over the course of the game, that are created by Brennan in conjunction with multiple different game designers.
Is commitment to the bit king?
Siobhan: I think that the two of us are probably the furthest poles of that in the six of us.
Ally: I mean, Murph is definitely a North Star for keeping things on the rails. But, yeah, totally.
Siobhan: I feel like I tend to keep the bit going by pretending to want to get back to the story. That’s great, but I don’t know, I think that we’re all following what gives us the most joy in the moment, knowing that we’ll get there eventually.
Ally: I also am doing some math, because I’m like, you only get one blimey every few seasons. So this season, I was, I was definitely playing like a little bit more of an on-rails character this season, which I love to do, I really liked playing Margaret Encino, that was like the kind of the end of the spectrum that I can get to that’s like most on the rails. And this character is still crazy, like she’s the youngest one in the group, so she is also just kind of like less mature, but not as crazy as Christina Applebees or K2.
Will we get a sequel to Cloudward Ho?
Ally: I hope we go back
Siobhan: I loved playing in this world. It really depends at this point, we have so many fun worlds to play in, and also it’s so fun to make a new thing. I feel a little spoiled for choice on it.
What is your quick pitch for the show?
Siobhan: It’s such a romp. It really doesn’t slow down. There’s so much fun stuff, there’s so much world building, there’s so many fun characters it playing. It really felt like what it felt like to watch Indiana Jones for the first time, or watch the Goonies for the first time. And I hope that we’ve sort of captured that energy and that essence within the show, because that’s really what it felt like to be there.
Ally: We’re doing steampunk. That’s the pitch. It’s steampunk with a matriarch as the kind of like storyline. I think it’s like a really fun version of legacy through a feminine lens, which it was one of my favorite parts. It was cool, cool.
You can catch the entire season now Dropout.TV and their shows here. And there’s a link to a sample of the show below. (We’ve updated this article to let you know that you can also join Dropout as Superfan, details are here.)
