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How Critical Role's Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham would play Dimension 20's wildest campaign: Never Stop Blowing Up

D20's Never Stop Blowing Up (led by Critical Role's campaign 4 GM Brennan Lee Mulligan) is a balls-to-the-wall parody of the action genre, and Bailey and Willingham know just which action movie types they'd play

Brennan Lee Mulligan Never Stop Blowing Up Dimension 20
Image credit: Dimension 20

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think it's safe to assume that Critical Role and Dimension 20 are probably the two most popular TTRPG liveplay series out there today. And though you'd think that would put them at constant odds with each other, they've proven to be nothing but the best of pals, with castmembers (and Critical Role's upcoming campaign 4 GM Brennan Lee Mulligan) hopping back and forth for years at this point. And even when they're not actually participating in each others' campaigns, they're always at least willing to do so, as CR founders Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham recently proved.

The story comes from GalaxyCon San Jose 2025, where Willingham and Bailey were participating in a Critical Role panel on the Main Stage. However, at least one fan in the audience wanted to leave Exandria behind for a moment to chat about one of Dimension 20's most insane (and most popular) seasons, Never Stop Blowing Up. As you might guess from the name, Never Stop Blowing up was a TTRPG parody of Hollywood's biggest action movie tropes, with GM Mulligan leading his Dropout pals into a guns-blazing, motorcycle-revving, aviator-wearing cacophony that has earned a wide swath of fans.

A swath that includes, apparently, Bailey and Willingham.

"My question for both of you," asked the fan in question to the voice actors, "is if you got Jumanji'd into this kind of world, what like action media would you pick? What kind of character would you make?"

"I would pick Top Gun," answered Willingham, "But I would be like Starscream in Top Gun."

(For those that don't know, Starscream is a popular villain in the Transformers franchise, whose transformable machine of choice is - you guessed it - a jet. It's an idea that writes itself.)

Meanwhile, Bailey went for perhaps the most badass sci-fi action character outside of Ellen Ripley herself, saying, "I would want to be like full Sarah Connor." 

A transforming evil jet and literal Mother of the Revolution teaming up in the Never Stop Blowing Up world sounds absolutely incredible, but we're not sure that either Willingham or Bailey has the time to do something like that right now, even if Mulligan were free to GM a sequel to the D20 season. Remember, all three are going to be taking part in Critical Role's sprawling campaign 4, and the married couple are doing more work at Prime Video to wrap up The Legend of Vox Machina and get The Mighty Nein off the ground.

Still, the Critical Role/Dimension 20 friendship doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and if the latter TTRPG liveplay ever does get back into the habit of Never Stopping Blowing Up, it's got at least two willing participants with some great ideas.

Dimension 20's Never Stop Blowing Up is on Dropout now. Critical Role's Campaign 4, which debuts on October 2 on Critical Role's BeaconYouTube, and Twitch channels.


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Grant DeArmitt

Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.

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