Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar’s new TRPG podcast finds success well before first episode

Worlds Beyond Number won’t air the first true episode of its audio-only tabletop RPG podcast, but the creative venture is already proving successful. An explosive Patreon launch saw more than 16,000 people pledging their monetary support in the first 48 hours.

The cast of this new show is a veritable who’s who of the most actual play tabletop campaigns around - Brennan Lee Mulligan and Lou Wilson of Dimension 20 fame join the seemingly everywhere Aabria Iyengar and just as prolific Erika Ishii as the main recurring cast. Taylor Moore of Fortunate Horse acclaim will produce the show, which will primarily consist of a “crown jewel” show called Fireside. It’s inaugural campaign: a worldbuilding and lore-heavy fantasy production titled The Wizard, the Witch and the Wild One.

The crew launched their Patreon early on February 1st after an announcement early in January. Worlds Beyond Number will not be tied to any system such as D&D, nor will it exist under a production studio or other entity - no Darrington Press or Dropout.tv equivalent here, (ostensibly) just five creatives and however many fans want to donate their money to the cause.

As it turns out, 16,000 people and counting believe in the show, or at least the names attached to it. Worlds Beyond Number won’t drop the first episode of their main campaign until March 1st, but its official Patreon page has already exploded. To be fair, there is an ‘episode zero’ already in the pipeline, an apparent introduction to the crew and some wider worldbuilding.

Prior to beginning the campaign in earnest, the pod’s four cast members will take part in a character creation exercise presented as a “months-long” adventure all its own. There will also be a dedicated aftershow, Fireside Chats, dedicated to answering questions, digging deeper into creative decisions and general chatting out-of-character.

The initial success of Worlds Beyond Number already puts it near the top of its tabletop RPG podcast peers. The aptly named Dungeons & Daddies ranks highest as the seventh most popular podcast on Patreon with more than 31,000 patrons. Not Another D&D Podcast (NaddPod) slots directly behind those audio fathers at 9th overall and 26,000 subscribers. Who's to say where this new contender will end up - name recognition may very well make up for the loss of actual play series’ ever more sophisticated visual production.