You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show that's been chronicling how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief since September 2014.

I'm Eric Milinsky.

When I cover different topics as a journalist, I often feel like an anthropologist who gets parachuted into a new country.

I imagine myself talking with the locals and taking notes as I go.

I try to write the most accurate report that I can,

doing justice to everyone that I heard.

And then I move on to the next land. But every so often as I'm talking to the locals, I realize I like it here. I think I'm just gonna buy a house up the road and live here and become one of you.

That's only happened with three topics for me.

Dr. Who, larping, and Dungeons and Dragons. When I began my podcast I hadn't played D&D. I know that sounds

strange for a guy like me but as I explained in my 2015 episode, rolling the 20-sided dice.

I was not happy about being labeled a nerd as a kid.

I was afraid of ending up on the bottom rung of the popularity ladder.

So I tried desperately to fit in, which failed on many levels.

And when I began my podcast, I decided to record myself learning how to play D&D at a game shop.

I fell in love with role-playing games.

I mean I never really got comfortable with all the math in D&D, but what I loved was the way that the game brought me back to my days doing improv in Los Angeles,

or my time doing theater in college and high school,

or when I was a little kid and would play in the backyard.

And when I made that 2015 episode about D&D,

I met a few people at the game shop that I really connected with.

And we began a D&D campaign which lasted for years.

In the last episode we looked at how film, TV,

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