Under the stadium lights of Madison Square Garden, people cheered for Brennan Lee Mulligan, the game master of "Dimension 20", and the tabletop roleplaying game show's most famous face.
The show, run by Dropout — a media company spun off from the former CollegeHumor — involves Mulligan or other game masters weaving a fantastical tale of adventure and magic.
Mulligan wouldn't have been able to do hours long games, at stadiums and in the show's recorded form without Skye Smith, his lore keeper.
When Business Insider asked Smith to sum up her work, she described herself as the "Google, or Wikipedia, for 'Dimension 20.'" She's in charge of knowing the show's encyclopedic, sprawling history, from timelines to factoids, and making sure her boss and his players keep it all straight, too.
The game master's right-hand
Shows like "Dimension 20" and "Critical Role" need lore keepers for one reason: There's just too much to remember. "Critical Role" has streamed multi-year tabletop games for hundreds of episodes, totaling thousands of hours.
While "Dimension 20" has shorter seasons, the game master leans on an assistant to ensure he gets the plot points and facts right.
"A filming day for me is very different than a regular 10-to-6 workday. It's always going to be at least a 12-hour workday. I get to set the same time as our GM, Brennan. And then I stay until pretty much the very last person has left set," Smith said.
"Dimension 20" films multiple episodes a day, and she and Mulligan have a "consistent Slack" going as they film.
Smith takes notes on the ongoing game, then fields questions called to her off-camera.
Staying organized
To keep track of evolving lore, Smith uses Airtable for most of her notes.
She also uses some good old-fashioned sticky notes.
"I usually have a printout of either the materials that they use at the table for the game that we play, or a visual of the world we're in," Smith said. "And I always have a notebook."
Beyond lorekeeping, Smith is involved in the creative process for "Dimension 20's" new seasons, including pitching and ideation.
"So I get to know what's cooking really early," Smith said.
The AI question
When asked whether her job would be endangered by AI note-takers, Smith said that her work revolves around listening, spotting human error, and understanding the lore of the fantasy world being made in real time.
"A big part of this job and why it's important has to do with human error," Smith said. And so fixing 'errors' with a machine would never work because what you need is another human set of eyes who knows the pitfalls of making something creative, knows where the weak spots are, and you just can't train an electronic artificial intelligence in the same way that you can train human intuition."
Smith added that she enjoys the "hard parts" of her job that other people might find taxing or that they might look to robots to help with, such as taking "hours and hours of notes."
"It's a double-layered answer — it would never be able to do it as well as I do," Smith said. "And then on the other hand, given the environmental effects of AI, it wouldn't even be worth it to try."
How to get the gig
Smith worked her way up to lore keeper from an entry-level role as a production assistant in 2023, then jumped at the chance to work on "Dimension 20" when Dropout offered her the role.
Her career highlights include working behind the scenes at the crew's Madison Square Garden show and getting to showcase her own writing.
"This wasn't where I initially thought I would end up, but if I had remained singularly focused on the things that I thought I wanted, I would never have gotten here," she said. "The closest advice I can give to recreating the path I got that got me here is just do the work that you love, do it well, and then watch the opportunities that come from that."
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Cheryl is the news editor for Business Insider's Asia bureau in Singapore.Her team covers global news, including retail trends, military tech, and US politics. She frequently speaks on international media about top news stories — please email her for booking.As a reporter, Cheryl specializes in the business of nerdworld, covering crews like Critical Role and Dimension 20, as well as new releases in mobile and video gaming.Cheryl joined Business Insider in 2021. She was previously a journalist at the crime and consumer desks at the Straits Times, Singapore's national paper, and a researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. She has an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries from King's College London.Selected features:
- The cofounders of nerdworld giant Critical Role are expanding in 5 areas. Here's an inside look at their master plan.
- Dimension 20 just played a sold-out gig at Madison Square Garden. Here's what is next for one of the nerdworld business' biggest names.
- Our quest to make AI love us back is futile — and dangerous
- I watched 60 hours of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's 96-hour election-fraud livestream so you don't have to. Here are 5 things you missed.
- Japan is trying to lure people into rural areas by selling $500 homes, but it's not enough to fix the country's 'ghost town' problem
- South Korea's millennials say their lives aren't that different from 'Squid Game' as they face a crisis of mounting debt, unaffordable homes, and dead-end jobs
- More and more Chinese 20-somethings are rejecting the rat race and 'lying flat' after watching their friends work themselves to death
- People are pouring into the streets in China to protest COVID lockdowns. It's a rare moment of mass dissent, and experts say it's a demonstration to Xi — and the world.
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