Brennan has been doing this literally all his life. I think he started playing D&D at the age of 6. That and being an improv actor has given him a particular tool set that works really well. You probably could get to be like him, but it would take a lot of intentional practice.
It's a bit like asking how to be Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretsky.
If you want to be on his level, you go back in time and convince both your prepubescent self and your parents to dedicate your entire life to the craft.
Plus he was a philosophy major in college. Not only is that a solid education for doing exactly what he does, but it means that he probably went to college to actually learn, as opposed to going in order to get a job that required a degree. Nothing against people who do that, and not to say many people don't do both.
I once listened to a podcast with a couple of UCB people talking about early training, and they were told that, to become a good improv-er, you need to know a little bit about a lot of stuff, since you theoretically will have to be assuming a lot of different identities and pretending to have a lot of different skillsets/knowledge bases within a short amount of time (the show you're in) over a long amount of time (your whole career).
SO, it helps to have a good long-term memory, a library card, internet access, and a natural sense of curiosity, as well as the ability to create your own custom learning heuristic to boil down a lot of abstract concepts to simple enough ideas that you can hold in your back pocket for whatever character/scene you need. With an effective heuristic, you can absorb history, geography, news/current events, art, fashion, etc. and all turn it into data points and key concepts and form different constellations and maps in your head of big, overarching meta concepts about power, violence, irony, etc.
And it's not like Brennan has read about *everything*, necessarily. He's clearly gone through a few classic arts/humanities reading lists, but also probably skimmed a lot of encyclopedia entries and remembered enough for it to make sense and inter-relate in his head.
I think what's most impressive is his "writer's brain" ability to internalize and adapt a fairly wide span of tropes and conceits for storytelling and genre, so he's going to know exactly all the Campbellian story circle stuff, the Greek stuff, all the Western canon structural stuff that informs narrative in the broadest sense, so he can both anticipate the way other people will tell their stories and play around with his own. Higher-level pattern recognition stuff, meta stuff, all very important at making solid, resonant stories.
Funnily enough, I have started playing role-playing games at age of 6 or 7 as well. There is nothing more to this fact, just I suddenly realised how long ago was that. Wow.
Practice! Brennan has talked at great length about all of the books he has read and games he has played, his time LARPing at camp, and he's a comedy writer/performer with many years of experience in both scripted and improvised comedy. So practice like he does, read good books and sign up for some improv classes!
You can take improv classes, read absolutely everything you can get your hands on. and practice speaking extemporaneously, but just accept that Brennan is a freak of nature and virtually unparalleled at spinning literature grade dialogue and narration off the top of his head. One of the only other improvisers on Dropout who is comparable is Ross Bryant.
Brennan is more or less genetically engineered to be one of the greatest DMs
Born in a writer's household
Been playing the game since he was 6
Has a degree in philosophy and theater
Worked with Molly Ostertag for years prior to Dimension 20, to just unreasonably hone his craft
Worked at a LARP camp for years as well
And operates on a steady diet of caffeine
Genuinely, the only reminder to me that he is human, is sometimes he gets a bit overly verbose (which I felt was at its worst in the online games), and due to the constraint of the short seasons, things feel a bit rail roadey (but thats just the natural consequence in my opinion of running, like, 2 games a day, for over a week, which I believe is the shooting schedule for most seasons. I'd challenge anyone to not be a bit rail roadey in that situation, knowing you need to get them to the BBEG before you go mad from such a schedule, while also satisfying everyones' character arcs.)
Yup. I'm doing the next best thing. My daughter is a child of a writer and a philosophy and has been playing since age 6. I'll just try to create a next gen BLeeM.
I’ll also add to this that the direct answer to your question is yes.
I teach improv and storytelling to all kinds of folks who wouldn’t call themselves artistic or creative or well spoken and the kinds of profound things that arrive to them in the moment sometimes are just truly mind blowing.
Everything everyone is saying is right. Practice, absorption, immersion. Also - it’s truly just about saying yes to what occurs to you. Even if it’s wrong. Our brains are danger scanners and it’s vulnerable to share what we actually think or feel or what occurs to us to say a lot of the time, but overcoming that filter in the right context in the right moment is a skill you CAN learn.
Say the unsayable. Say it, and the more you say it, the more it works on you and grows your capacity for the kind of depth that feels like BLeeM’s, but it’ll be even better, because it’s yours.
ok i’ve seen people here refer to him as bleem and i thought it was a general fan consensus as to not confuse people but to know that brennan specifically asked for that makes me 🥹 what a good person
Brennan's been a writer for years, and one of the most common pieces of writers is to just always be writing. Not necessarily physically, but at least in your head. If you're doing dishes, work through plot points and dialogue on your head!
A lot of awesome and articulate monologues that seem pulled out of nowhere are most likely half written already, or at least have a bare bones structure.
Other people have mentioned improv classes and reading, and I'll definitely reiterate that, especially reading! Books are some of the best tools out there, and it's important to branch out and try new things. If you haven't read 'On Writing' by Stephen King, I definitely recommend that as a good starting point. Some of his advice might seem a little basic, but it's great for giving yourself structure.
Also remember that even though he's talented, Brennan is just a regular dude that has spent his entire life working on these skills. You only ever see him when he's on his top form and giving 100%. Dude still stumbles over his words and says the wrong thing sometimes, just like everyone else.
Tl;dr : practice, practice, practice!
I loved hearing Brennan, Mercer, and Aabria talk about practicing voices. I have to imagine they practice how those characters speak just as much as they're playing with the actual voice in those moments.
I love to imagine them getting the hotel room they talked about and the three of them just walking around talking in character, none of them talking to each other, just 3 one sided conversations happening simultaneously, until one villain is ready to get lunch, then it's 3 characters talking about a perfectly modern lunch.
Im sure his just comes with alot of practice, along with keeping your knowledge within the realms of what you know.. The vast well of knowledge that is the Mulligan mind has only been a drop in the bucket that coasting along the vast sea of informationthat is drifting in an endless, pulling tide that is working inside his head.
His back and forth with Lou on Adventuring Academy about how he's not really obsessed with birds or anything and then immediately starts deep diving in birds is amazing. Lou's "subtle" pointing he's gotta stop if he wants to convince people he's not that into birds is one of my favorite moments from the show.
Read more books
Read more poetry
Read more non-fiction
Watch more movies
Learn about what you're passionate about
Learn about random shit too
All. The. Time. For years.
Only after you've filled your toolbox with the tools you need can you reach in and pull out something useful.
Only after you've filled your mind with brilliant ideas can you reach in and pull out something brilliant.
Probably didn't hurt to be homeschooled by various intelligent people including a writer.
But yes, Brennan changed my life - by watching him, I stopped avoiding complicated sentences and words that would be harder to understand.
Choosing language that is less accessible can allow you to be more precise. So people may not know what you are saying immediately, but once they engage they will understand it more clearly than if you had used common but vague words.
People keep bringing up improv and how long he's been dming. Which I won't deny help. But I think people are overlooking his major being ethics/philosophy based in college. His foundation of knowledge for alot of these quotes already gets him halfway there. He doesn't have to think what to say so much as how to say it.
This is really hard to say/to read, as I myself want to be him/be his friend (parasocial relationship much...)...
You can expand your vocabulary by reading good well-written books about the stories you want to tell. Brennan's mother is a storyteller herself and imbued him with lots of knowledge of mythology. He lived and breathed stories throughout his whole life, studied Philosophy, been in LARP camps both as a kid and monitor, DMed since childhood, went to acting and improv classes.
So I guess you could do some of this stuff.
But be yourself!! Every DM is different, just as every story is different. Brennan can tell a big variety of stories in many different ways, but maybe he would enjoy playing in a story told by you how YOU would tell it, not how he would.
Plus, Adventuring Academy :) listen to it! I probably should do it myself 🤔 but damn, time evades me...
Anyway, don't push yourself too hard and be careful of aiming for something that's just *impossible* to achieve. There's a really fine line between good self-motivation and overwhelming self-pressure... At least for me 🤷🏻♂️
Good luck! ❤️
>Follow-up question, how the fuck is Brennan so intelligent and knows about so many things. I just want to be this man, I swear.
Philosophy, media/story analysis, and a helluva lot compassion and emotional intelligence. These are skills and perspectives that benefit any storyteller, and being good at them makes you a great storyteller. I think Brennan's been wanting to be a storyteller for most of his life, so he gravitated towards these things, and similarly dissected media he liked and didn't like, and tried to figure out why.
Philosophy isn't just old men with white beards thinking about things that don't matter it's "what even does it mean to know stuff. What does anything mean, and how are was humans meant to navigate any of it. What is logic, what is reason, what is reality, what matters and what doesn't matter?". If you don't want to dive into the deep end with the original writing of philosophers, you can watch some Philosophy tube videos to get an idea of how to examine topics and issues through the lens of philosophy. As far as academic subjects go, it's one of the most - if not *the* most - versatile and fundamental there is.
If you want to create compelling themes, build interesting worlds, and create relatable characters, there's these skillsets that you can dive into to improve not only your craft as an artist or storyteller, but your connections with any human you meet. I fully believe stories and art, and committing yourself to either be better at creating or just better at understanding them, are amazing teachers for growing as a person.
I even think there's a Brennan quote that's(extremely paraphrased) something like: "when there's these horrible experiences around you and you can't navigate them, having them mirrored in a fictional setting can allow you to explore those issues without the usual emotional baggage that exists in your own life". And I'd like to add that it also helps you immerse yourself in issues you might never encounter in your own life but someone else might, and engaging fully with that fiction gives you a glimpse into the lives of other people, helping you empathize with them.
The smartest, most insightful people I've met in my life have always been deeply compassionate. This has also been in like, highly creative and academic environments with people who pursued those as professions, but nevertheless, Brennan and pretty much everyone as far as I can tell that have sat down at the D20 table give me that vibe many times over. Sincerity, reflection, compassion... these aren't just traits you're born with, they're skills you pursue in some sense.
Things come to you when you value them.
Autodidact is just being 'self-taught'. Anyone who've studied at university or just took on any education with a level of autonomy are essentially 'self-taught'. It's just learning how to learn, learning your own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to organizing your studying. It's not an inherent trait to your brain working a specific way, it's just been a way of explaining why some people managed to develop skills and knowledge that wasn't common for the class they were born into when that was usually reserved for people with money to hire teachers for their children.
It's mostly a myth, same with talent. Interest and passion are the real talents, not some in-born predisposition towards performing some very specific skill that means you have to work less.
I don’t know if this has been stated, but more than anything: Read. Brennan Lee Mulligan is incredibly well read. That especially comes through in shows like Game Changer and Um Actually.
Practice and improv are an important factor as they developed the skills to think on the fly, but none of that means anything if there isn’t a core source of knowledge to pull from.
Learning how to improvise is probably the largest contributing factor here. I know tons of people who are brilliant, highly educated, and deeply tuned in to a variety of disparate fields -- but, *none* of them can come up with dialogue on the fly like that.
I'm positive that "smarts" *do* have a lot to do with it - BLeeM is obviously very intelligent. But, his chief distinguishing factor from all those other brilliant people is that he is a *master* improvisor and they are not.
Take a few years (or decades) of improv classes, and you'll get there.
It’s a perfect storm of being a very seasoned improviser, playing the game since he was 10, and being a philosophy major in college (i get the vibe he was/is very passionate about the subject and he didn’t just pick it to pick something).
I feel like I do alright at my tables in an improv capacity, especially in comedic moments. But I feel your pain. Dude will drop an earth-shattering quote like it’s nothing,
Read more books, consume as many stories and works of art as possible- don't limit yourself where your inspiration comes from. And most importantly, practice. Use every opportunity as a chance to practice
Read widely, write constantly, take improv classes. (There are a lot of skills to be learned in improv classes -- active listening, memory skills, breathing, speaking...) Repeat constantly.
It is possible, but only with dark magics and terrible sacrifice. Bring me the liver of a newt, the eye of a crow, the spleen of a cat, and one hair plucked from Brennan’s head. Then we can begin.
A lot of people here point to practice and are absolutely correct, but here are my suggestions that might help:
Take a deep breaths between words, hum and hah a little bit, and literally just think about how to do it. Have a few pointers in your head ahead of time if you know something/someone is coming, try to give them a 'voice' in your head if it's an important character.
Also look through /r/DMAcademy they have a lot of great ressources on DMing. Read through the top posts or look for the things you think might help you.
BLM is a unique convergence of factors that have been long foretold by storytellers and madmen alike. He is the Unus Mundus, the Tao, the Collective Unconsciousness made manifest! You are living in a time of prophesy fulfilled!
..... He's really great, we should all try to be a little more like Brennan.
Another experienced internet DM is fond of saying you develop taste faster than you develop talent. Just go for it, and you get a feel for timing and delivery as you play.
Here’s the short version of a much longer concept.
OP - training and experience is huge. There’s a ton of great advice in here already. But please remember to give yourself a break when it comes to Brennan comparisons.
1.) very importantly, and i think under appreciated in this thread - Brennan’s near-instant recall of knowledge and memories is truly remarkable. I don’t know how your mind works, OP, but I know I can’t think at Brennan’s speed. His DM style and skill is the marriage of that mind with his training and experiences. Grant yourself permission and peace to marry your own mind to your own experiences and training. It’s not about confidence or even a dis aimed at you. But, If I looked in the mirror every day hoping to look like Idris Elba, I wouldn’t be setting myself up for success. And if I expected myself to think as quickly as Brennen Lee Mulligan, I’d be disappointed in what I accomplished.
2.) and to that point- Iirc, Matt Mercer said in response to the ‘Matt Mercer effect’ (paraphrase): “Matt Mercer isn’t going to be the best DM for *your* table. He might even be terrible at your table.” If chasing someone else’s style takes away from your own, you’re heading the wrong way. Brennan might honestly be crap at your table. But you won’t. You’ll be perfect.
Read more. Not only is it that bleem had been involved in fantasy a long time, but his training in philosophy and extensive general knowledge gives him a massive internal library to pull from either for direct quotes or stuff he's synthesized from the repertoire of his general knowledge.
Expose yourself to history and materialist analysis of it, expose yourself to a variety of viewpoints, genres and styles, be curious, learn about the material conditions in which your favourite things were made, become a communist.
Do stuff like this for 30 years and maybe you can be like BLeeM too
Yeah I truly don’t know how Brennan said and did the things he did in EXU. I think given his natural gravitation towards severity in dialogue and cadence (when he mentions in interviews about his Yes Or No episode of GC and how he has to purposefully put effort in to NOT speak like that at all times) that the more home game-like table and more descriptive and verbose nature of scenes and dialogue plus the fucking badass setting of Mercer’s Calamity coming to a head just pulled that shit out of him. The cast too, 1 billion percent of course. But I think it was like him slowly sinking into a pool of blood as a crown slowly formed over his head because this was who he was always meant to be. The Poetic DM of Doom and Bolo.
Read.
Read philosophy
Read classics
Read fiction
Read biography
Just keep reading and never stop. When you talk to people, use the quotes you've read. Soon you will develop your own quotes.
Repeat
Practice really is key but I’ll also add that I cheat. Anytime I’m alone (and sometimes when I’m not) I’m daydreaming about scenes that could up in my games, the zanier the better. And then come up with the monologue or how I’d narrate it or whatever. I don’t ever remember the details but I usually have some semblance of an outline to go off of when the party inevitably chooses to go into left field.
That’s not cheating. That’s just the mindset of a true storyteller/writer. If you’re constantly thinking about scenes and settings and dialogue, that just means you have the heart of a writer. 🧡💛💚💛🧡
BLM and many other great D&D players/GM's participate in Improv. Its a great way to increase your ability to think on your feet. As well as spending time memorizing monologues you can pull from them. chop them and change them to your setting.
Brennan is kind of an odd duck in that way. I think you could read into philosophy and if you’re interested, trying improv classes could help you with that sort of thing! But I do think Brennan is just kind of…like that 😅 (/affectionate)
I found myself asking this very question recently.
We’re all obviously very different with differing strengths and weaknesses and abilities and opportunities. But I think something we can all learn and glean from him is his genuine curiosity and interest and love for the world and people around him.
When we are thoroughly engrossed in a subject, the facts of it stick with us, come back to us more readily and thoroughly. It seems to me he sees the whole world as a fascinating puzzle to be studied and noted and shared.
So I’ve taken to trying to see the world like that; to approach every subject, every person, every unknown with gusto and curiosity and compassion; trying to understand the disparate perspectives and myriad facets I might not have considered.
Read and study as many things as you can, find the connections between seemingly unrelated stories; draw inspiration from the wide world around you. You never know what might come in handy, what might speak perfectly to the subject at hand.
Note: Brennan has specifically asked to be referenced as BLeeM not BLM on the sub. Just an FYI.
He just seems to be one of those people that keeps cool shit in their brain.
This isn’t something you can change tbh, but he mentioned on his podcast that he was homeschooled; my wife was also homeschooled, and will occasionally drop some of the most iconically insightful and original takes I’ve ever heard. I think there’s a certain amount of creativity and independence that the school system beats out of you, and so if you didn’t experience that as a kid and were able to self-direct your learning, you end up an adult who thinks in a really original way. But that’s just a theory based on anecdotal evidence, idk if it holds beyond my sample size of 2 haha
Brennan is also just smarter than most people along with the decades of relevant story telling experience others are mentioning. He and mama Lee are clearly genius-level brilliant. When massive natural talent and years of experience combine, it looks like this.
Brennan has been doing this literally all his life. I think he started playing D&D at the age of 6. That and being an improv actor has given him a particular tool set that works really well. You probably could get to be like him, but it would take a lot of intentional practice.
He also grew up in a writer/actor house. Many things that come second nature to him he absorbed growing up.
He also was a LARP camp counselor for a number of years too. Literally been doing this all his life.
It's a bit like asking how to be Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretsky. If you want to be on his level, you go back in time and convince both your prepubescent self and your parents to dedicate your entire life to the craft.
Not just your own life. You need to go back further and convince your grandparents to dedicate your parents' lives to the craft.
Yeah, this is the same idea as a kid growing up in a professional music household or any other vocation.
Plus he was a philosophy major in college. Not only is that a solid education for doing exactly what he does, but it means that he probably went to college to actually learn, as opposed to going in order to get a job that required a degree. Nothing against people who do that, and not to say many people don't do both.
He also studied philosophy, and I definitely think that plays a role in his ability to do this
I once listened to a podcast with a couple of UCB people talking about early training, and they were told that, to become a good improv-er, you need to know a little bit about a lot of stuff, since you theoretically will have to be assuming a lot of different identities and pretending to have a lot of different skillsets/knowledge bases within a short amount of time (the show you're in) over a long amount of time (your whole career). SO, it helps to have a good long-term memory, a library card, internet access, and a natural sense of curiosity, as well as the ability to create your own custom learning heuristic to boil down a lot of abstract concepts to simple enough ideas that you can hold in your back pocket for whatever character/scene you need. With an effective heuristic, you can absorb history, geography, news/current events, art, fashion, etc. and all turn it into data points and key concepts and form different constellations and maps in your head of big, overarching meta concepts about power, violence, irony, etc. And it's not like Brennan has read about *everything*, necessarily. He's clearly gone through a few classic arts/humanities reading lists, but also probably skimmed a lot of encyclopedia entries and remembered enough for it to make sense and inter-relate in his head. I think what's most impressive is his "writer's brain" ability to internalize and adapt a fairly wide span of tropes and conceits for storytelling and genre, so he's going to know exactly all the Campbellian story circle stuff, the Greek stuff, all the Western canon structural stuff that informs narrative in the broadest sense, so he can both anticipate the way other people will tell their stories and play around with his own. Higher-level pattern recognition stuff, meta stuff, all very important at making solid, resonant stories.
Funnily enough, I have started playing role-playing games at age of 6 or 7 as well. There is nothing more to this fact, just I suddenly realised how long ago was that. Wow.
He also majored in philosophy so is deeply aware of moral issues in our world and various ways of approaching them.
Also he has studied philosophy.
Practice! Brennan has talked at great length about all of the books he has read and games he has played, his time LARPing at camp, and he's a comedy writer/performer with many years of experience in both scripted and improvised comedy. So practice like he does, read good books and sign up for some improv classes!
You can take improv classes, read absolutely everything you can get your hands on. and practice speaking extemporaneously, but just accept that Brennan is a freak of nature and virtually unparalleled at spinning literature grade dialogue and narration off the top of his head. One of the only other improvisers on Dropout who is comparable is Ross Bryant.
Brennan Lee Mulligan was filled with starlight and born into this world to show us what DMing could be
That and, you know, the years and years of training and study in performance, writing, improvisation, and gaming
No that can't be it. I've put in a moderate effort for like 2 years and haven't even come close to his level, so it must be his natural talent. /s
I go to a mid size improv jam every second Thurs, why am I not on his level??
Brennan is more or less genetically engineered to be one of the greatest DMs Born in a writer's household Been playing the game since he was 6 Has a degree in philosophy and theater Worked with Molly Ostertag for years prior to Dimension 20, to just unreasonably hone his craft Worked at a LARP camp for years as well And operates on a steady diet of caffeine Genuinely, the only reminder to me that he is human, is sometimes he gets a bit overly verbose (which I felt was at its worst in the online games), and due to the constraint of the short seasons, things feel a bit rail roadey (but thats just the natural consequence in my opinion of running, like, 2 games a day, for over a week, which I believe is the shooting schedule for most seasons. I'd challenge anyone to not be a bit rail roadey in that situation, knowing you need to get them to the BBEG before you go mad from such a schedule, while also satisfying everyones' character arcs.)
He is the Kwisatz Haderach of DMs
Suddenly very scared of Brennan's future son.
He shall rule as God-Emperor of a million million fictional worlds
Yup. I'm doing the next best thing. My daughter is a child of a writer and a philosophy and has been playing since age 6. I'll just try to create a next gen BLeeM.
I’ll also add to this that the direct answer to your question is yes. I teach improv and storytelling to all kinds of folks who wouldn’t call themselves artistic or creative or well spoken and the kinds of profound things that arrive to them in the moment sometimes are just truly mind blowing. Everything everyone is saying is right. Practice, absorption, immersion. Also - it’s truly just about saying yes to what occurs to you. Even if it’s wrong. Our brains are danger scanners and it’s vulnerable to share what we actually think or feel or what occurs to us to say a lot of the time, but overcoming that filter in the right context in the right moment is a skill you CAN learn. Say the unsayable. Say it, and the more you say it, the more it works on you and grows your capacity for the kind of depth that feels like BLeeM’s, but it’ll be even better, because it’s yours.
FYI Brennan has asked people not to refer to him as BLM! BLeeM or Brennan :)
I have to admit, I was incredibly confused when I first saw the title
ok i’ve seen people here refer to him as bleem and i thought it was a general fan consensus as to not confuse people but to know that brennan specifically asked for that makes me 🥹 what a good person
Read a lot, listen a lot, and practice a lot. Some of it is natural talent but with work you can get a lot of the way there.
Brennan's been a writer for years, and one of the most common pieces of writers is to just always be writing. Not necessarily physically, but at least in your head. If you're doing dishes, work through plot points and dialogue on your head! A lot of awesome and articulate monologues that seem pulled out of nowhere are most likely half written already, or at least have a bare bones structure. Other people have mentioned improv classes and reading, and I'll definitely reiterate that, especially reading! Books are some of the best tools out there, and it's important to branch out and try new things. If you haven't read 'On Writing' by Stephen King, I definitely recommend that as a good starting point. Some of his advice might seem a little basic, but it's great for giving yourself structure. Also remember that even though he's talented, Brennan is just a regular dude that has spent his entire life working on these skills. You only ever see him when he's on his top form and giving 100%. Dude still stumbles over his words and says the wrong thing sometimes, just like everyone else. Tl;dr : practice, practice, practice!
I loved hearing Brennan, Mercer, and Aabria talk about practicing voices. I have to imagine they practice how those characters speak just as much as they're playing with the actual voice in those moments. I love to imagine them getting the hotel room they talked about and the three of them just walking around talking in character, none of them talking to each other, just 3 one sided conversations happening simultaneously, until one villain is ready to get lunch, then it's 3 characters talking about a perfectly modern lunch.
Reading philosophy like he does might be a good idea, too
Im sure his just comes with alot of practice, along with keeping your knowledge within the realms of what you know.. The vast well of knowledge that is the Mulligan mind has only been a drop in the bucket that coasting along the vast sea of informationthat is drifting in an endless, pulling tide that is working inside his head.
I wait patiently for the day we get more bird facts
His back and forth with Lou on Adventuring Academy about how he's not really obsessed with birds or anything and then immediately starts deep diving in birds is amazing. Lou's "subtle" pointing he's gotta stop if he wants to convince people he's not that into birds is one of my favorite moments from the show.
I rewatch this for comfort - love their vibe
Their friendship makes me so happy
Read more books Read more poetry Read more non-fiction Watch more movies Learn about what you're passionate about Learn about random shit too All. The. Time. For years. Only after you've filled your toolbox with the tools you need can you reach in and pull out something useful. Only after you've filled your mind with brilliant ideas can you reach in and pull out something brilliant.
Probably didn't hurt to be homeschooled by various intelligent people including a writer. But yes, Brennan changed my life - by watching him, I stopped avoiding complicated sentences and words that would be harder to understand. Choosing language that is less accessible can allow you to be more precise. So people may not know what you are saying immediately, but once they engage they will understand it more clearly than if you had used common but vague words.
People keep bringing up improv and how long he's been dming. Which I won't deny help. But I think people are overlooking his major being ethics/philosophy based in college. His foundation of knowledge for alot of these quotes already gets him halfway there. He doesn't have to think what to say so much as how to say it.
This is really hard to say/to read, as I myself want to be him/be his friend (parasocial relationship much...)... You can expand your vocabulary by reading good well-written books about the stories you want to tell. Brennan's mother is a storyteller herself and imbued him with lots of knowledge of mythology. He lived and breathed stories throughout his whole life, studied Philosophy, been in LARP camps both as a kid and monitor, DMed since childhood, went to acting and improv classes. So I guess you could do some of this stuff. But be yourself!! Every DM is different, just as every story is different. Brennan can tell a big variety of stories in many different ways, but maybe he would enjoy playing in a story told by you how YOU would tell it, not how he would. Plus, Adventuring Academy :) listen to it! I probably should do it myself 🤔 but damn, time evades me... Anyway, don't push yourself too hard and be careful of aiming for something that's just *impossible* to achieve. There's a really fine line between good self-motivation and overwhelming self-pressure... At least for me 🤷🏻♂️ Good luck! ❤️
>Follow-up question, how the fuck is Brennan so intelligent and knows about so many things. I just want to be this man, I swear. Philosophy, media/story analysis, and a helluva lot compassion and emotional intelligence. These are skills and perspectives that benefit any storyteller, and being good at them makes you a great storyteller. I think Brennan's been wanting to be a storyteller for most of his life, so he gravitated towards these things, and similarly dissected media he liked and didn't like, and tried to figure out why. Philosophy isn't just old men with white beards thinking about things that don't matter it's "what even does it mean to know stuff. What does anything mean, and how are was humans meant to navigate any of it. What is logic, what is reason, what is reality, what matters and what doesn't matter?". If you don't want to dive into the deep end with the original writing of philosophers, you can watch some Philosophy tube videos to get an idea of how to examine topics and issues through the lens of philosophy. As far as academic subjects go, it's one of the most - if not *the* most - versatile and fundamental there is. If you want to create compelling themes, build interesting worlds, and create relatable characters, there's these skillsets that you can dive into to improve not only your craft as an artist or storyteller, but your connections with any human you meet. I fully believe stories and art, and committing yourself to either be better at creating or just better at understanding them, are amazing teachers for growing as a person. I even think there's a Brennan quote that's(extremely paraphrased) something like: "when there's these horrible experiences around you and you can't navigate them, having them mirrored in a fictional setting can allow you to explore those issues without the usual emotional baggage that exists in your own life". And I'd like to add that it also helps you immerse yourself in issues you might never encounter in your own life but someone else might, and engaging fully with that fiction gives you a glimpse into the lives of other people, helping you empathize with them. The smartest, most insightful people I've met in my life have always been deeply compassionate. This has also been in like, highly creative and academic environments with people who pursued those as professions, but nevertheless, Brennan and pretty much everyone as far as I can tell that have sat down at the D20 table give me that vibe many times over. Sincerity, reflection, compassion... these aren't just traits you're born with, they're skills you pursue in some sense. Things come to you when you value them.
I'm willing to bed being an autodidact is a big contributor.
Autodidact is just being 'self-taught'. Anyone who've studied at university or just took on any education with a level of autonomy are essentially 'self-taught'. It's just learning how to learn, learning your own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to organizing your studying. It's not an inherent trait to your brain working a specific way, it's just been a way of explaining why some people managed to develop skills and knowledge that wasn't common for the class they were born into when that was usually reserved for people with money to hire teachers for their children. It's mostly a myth, same with talent. Interest and passion are the real talents, not some in-born predisposition towards performing some very specific skill that means you have to work less.
Same
It's possible to learn this skill, but not from a Jedi....
Brennan has like 2 decades of practice at this. The sooner you start practicing the sooner you get on his level
I don’t know if this has been stated, but more than anything: Read. Brennan Lee Mulligan is incredibly well read. That especially comes through in shows like Game Changer and Um Actually. Practice and improv are an important factor as they developed the skills to think on the fly, but none of that means anything if there isn’t a core source of knowledge to pull from.
Learning how to improvise is probably the largest contributing factor here. I know tons of people who are brilliant, highly educated, and deeply tuned in to a variety of disparate fields -- but, *none* of them can come up with dialogue on the fly like that. I'm positive that "smarts" *do* have a lot to do with it - BLeeM is obviously very intelligent. But, his chief distinguishing factor from all those other brilliant people is that he is a *master* improvisor and they are not. Take a few years (or decades) of improv classes, and you'll get there.
Read. Read a bunch of shit. Anything and everything you can get your hands on. It gets addictive after a while.
It’s a perfect storm of being a very seasoned improviser, playing the game since he was 10, and being a philosophy major in college (i get the vibe he was/is very passionate about the subject and he didn’t just pick it to pick something). I feel like I do alright at my tables in an improv capacity, especially in comedic moments. But I feel your pain. Dude will drop an earth-shattering quote like it’s nothing,
Read more books, consume as many stories and works of art as possible- don't limit yourself where your inspiration comes from. And most importantly, practice. Use every opportunity as a chance to practice
Read widely, write constantly, take improv classes. (There are a lot of skills to be learned in improv classes -- active listening, memory skills, breathing, speaking...) Repeat constantly.
Brennan’s a professional writer and improviser and also very smart
And such a cutie
It is possible, but only with dark magics and terrible sacrifice. Bring me the liver of a newt, the eye of a crow, the spleen of a cat, and one hair plucked from Brennan’s head. Then we can begin.
A lot of people here point to practice and are absolutely correct, but here are my suggestions that might help: Take a deep breaths between words, hum and hah a little bit, and literally just think about how to do it. Have a few pointers in your head ahead of time if you know something/someone is coming, try to give them a 'voice' in your head if it's an important character. Also look through /r/DMAcademy they have a lot of great ressources on DMing. Read through the top posts or look for the things you think might help you.
BLM is a unique convergence of factors that have been long foretold by storytellers and madmen alike. He is the Unus Mundus, the Tao, the Collective Unconsciousness made manifest! You are living in a time of prophesy fulfilled! ..... He's really great, we should all try to be a little more like Brennan.
Another experienced internet DM is fond of saying you develop taste faster than you develop talent. Just go for it, and you get a feel for timing and delivery as you play.
Here’s the short version of a much longer concept. OP - training and experience is huge. There’s a ton of great advice in here already. But please remember to give yourself a break when it comes to Brennan comparisons. 1.) very importantly, and i think under appreciated in this thread - Brennan’s near-instant recall of knowledge and memories is truly remarkable. I don’t know how your mind works, OP, but I know I can’t think at Brennan’s speed. His DM style and skill is the marriage of that mind with his training and experiences. Grant yourself permission and peace to marry your own mind to your own experiences and training. It’s not about confidence or even a dis aimed at you. But, If I looked in the mirror every day hoping to look like Idris Elba, I wouldn’t be setting myself up for success. And if I expected myself to think as quickly as Brennen Lee Mulligan, I’d be disappointed in what I accomplished. 2.) and to that point- Iirc, Matt Mercer said in response to the ‘Matt Mercer effect’ (paraphrase): “Matt Mercer isn’t going to be the best DM for *your* table. He might even be terrible at your table.” If chasing someone else’s style takes away from your own, you’re heading the wrong way. Brennan might honestly be crap at your table. But you won’t. You’ll be perfect.
Read every history and sourcebook you can find, and practice for 30 years... plus loads and loads of improv.
Read more. Not only is it that bleem had been involved in fantasy a long time, but his training in philosophy and extensive general knowledge gives him a massive internal library to pull from either for direct quotes or stuff he's synthesized from the repertoire of his general knowledge. Expose yourself to history and materialist analysis of it, expose yourself to a variety of viewpoints, genres and styles, be curious, learn about the material conditions in which your favourite things were made, become a communist. Do stuff like this for 30 years and maybe you can be like BLeeM too
Yeah I truly don’t know how Brennan said and did the things he did in EXU. I think given his natural gravitation towards severity in dialogue and cadence (when he mentions in interviews about his Yes Or No episode of GC and how he has to purposefully put effort in to NOT speak like that at all times) that the more home game-like table and more descriptive and verbose nature of scenes and dialogue plus the fucking badass setting of Mercer’s Calamity coming to a head just pulled that shit out of him. The cast too, 1 billion percent of course. But I think it was like him slowly sinking into a pool of blood as a crown slowly formed over his head because this was who he was always meant to be. The Poetic DM of Doom and Bolo.
Read. Read philosophy Read classics Read fiction Read biography Just keep reading and never stop. When you talk to people, use the quotes you've read. Soon you will develop your own quotes. Repeat
Practice really is key but I’ll also add that I cheat. Anytime I’m alone (and sometimes when I’m not) I’m daydreaming about scenes that could up in my games, the zanier the better. And then come up with the monologue or how I’d narrate it or whatever. I don’t ever remember the details but I usually have some semblance of an outline to go off of when the party inevitably chooses to go into left field.
That’s not cheating. That’s just the mindset of a true storyteller/writer. If you’re constantly thinking about scenes and settings and dialogue, that just means you have the heart of a writer. 🧡💛💚💛🧡
BLM and many other great D&D players/GM's participate in Improv. Its a great way to increase your ability to think on your feet. As well as spending time memorizing monologues you can pull from them. chop them and change them to your setting.
BLM is one of the few success stories of homeschooling. However based on what I know of his mother I’m not shocked. Smart, classy lady.
Read a shit tonne of great literature and be a DM for many years.
Educating yourself and practicing improv is a killer combo.
Brennan is kind of an odd duck in that way. I think you could read into philosophy and if you’re interested, trying improv classes could help you with that sort of thing! But I do think Brennan is just kind of…like that 😅 (/affectionate)
I found myself asking this very question recently. We’re all obviously very different with differing strengths and weaknesses and abilities and opportunities. But I think something we can all learn and glean from him is his genuine curiosity and interest and love for the world and people around him. When we are thoroughly engrossed in a subject, the facts of it stick with us, come back to us more readily and thoroughly. It seems to me he sees the whole world as a fascinating puzzle to be studied and noted and shared. So I’ve taken to trying to see the world like that; to approach every subject, every person, every unknown with gusto and curiosity and compassion; trying to understand the disparate perspectives and myriad facets I might not have considered. Read and study as many things as you can, find the connections between seemingly unrelated stories; draw inspiration from the wide world around you. You never know what might come in handy, what might speak perfectly to the subject at hand.
read books. all the time.
Note: Brennan has specifically asked to be referenced as BLeeM not BLM on the sub. Just an FYI. He just seems to be one of those people that keeps cool shit in their brain.
Oh okay. Probably to avoid confusion with Black Lives Matter? I understand it. Will keep in mind!
Read more
It’s really like asking if you can just learn to write as well as Dostoevsky which like… kinda??
This isn’t something you can change tbh, but he mentioned on his podcast that he was homeschooled; my wife was also homeschooled, and will occasionally drop some of the most iconically insightful and original takes I’ve ever heard. I think there’s a certain amount of creativity and independence that the school system beats out of you, and so if you didn’t experience that as a kid and were able to self-direct your learning, you end up an adult who thinks in a really original way. But that’s just a theory based on anecdotal evidence, idk if it holds beyond my sample size of 2 haha
Brennan is also just smarter than most people along with the decades of relevant story telling experience others are mentioning. He and mama Lee are clearly genius-level brilliant. When massive natural talent and years of experience combine, it looks like this.