ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you first start playing D&D?
DAN HARMON:Around 12 or 13 years old is when I played for the first time.
There was a new kid in the neighborhood who was cooler than all the other kids.
Credit: Seeso
He was from California, we were in Milwaukee, and he smoked pot and had a skateboard.
All the other kids my age liked to play baseball.
But this guy was like, why dont we go to my house and play D&D?
Id never seen a die that wasnt shaped like a Yahtzee die until that day.
You need a certain membrane of alienation and intimidation in order for something to become uniquely your culture.
It needs some element of being scary to some people.
It was just perfect.
What do you enjoy most about playing D&D?
The most valuable thing about it is its incentivization of collaborative, spontaneous storytelling.
But if we cant make our own happiness, wheres it going to come from?
I just like the invitation to create your own world.
How did you go about translating that collaborative experience into an animated show?
Falling back on my improv comedy experience was helpful there.
Like inWhos Line Is It Anyway, where the host says ok you guys are having a party.
Its something that has a lot in common with fantasy roleplaying.
You have a live audience for that, and people enjoy things being made up as they go.
The thing about fantasy role-playing is you almost enjoy it most after its finished.
Thats what animation gets to do in real time.
They have six months to draw what happened as you were making it up.
I thought the combination all rolled down at once would create a cool effect.
Youve got some guest stars, like Paul F. Tompkins in the first episode.
Every comedian has their own strategy of survival in a conversation.
You mentioned getting into D&D when it still had that weird aura around it.
How do you account for that change?
The Lord of the Ringswas a hugely important thing to happen.
Its hard to say which chicken laid which egg for this whole nerd culture we saw erupt.
The internet exploded around the timeLostwas on TV, and people were picking that apart.
The internet really allowed everyone to realize that everyone was a nerd.
So now Marvel is making the most successful mainstream movies.
To separate the two things.
I wanted to create an in-the-moment-ness as much as possible with the live-action component.
One quickRick & Mortyquestion for you.
Ive seen conflicting reports of season 3s return date.
Its vaguely set right now.
Third seasons are harder than second seasons, andRick & Mortyhas always been harder than other things.
Between all of those variables, were still a while from being able to announce a hard date.
