It all started when…

The It's A Mimic! podcast was founded in Vancouver, Canada in 2018 by three friends, Adam Nason, Dan O'Coin, and Terry Williams.

After a few false starts and beta tests, the three founders began releasing episodes in early 2019 with a focus on bringing inspiration and encouragement through friendship and communication to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. The first thirty episodes or so were chaotic and often strayed into inappropriate comments and insults hurled across the table, but it was clear from the beginning that the passion for the game and a deep respect for each other was keeping this podcast alive. The original agreement was that Adam would be in charge of writing and prepping episodes, Dan would take on hardware and editing, and Terry would market the podcast on social media.

After the first few months, the focus of the show would shift to cover Class Breakdowns, Lore, Worldbuilding, DM Tips, Monster Breakdowns, and Dragons. When year one ended, Worldbuilding was transitioned into the series called Campaign Builder, and Playable Races replaced it as a constant topic. As the hosts consumed more media from other content creators, though, they discovered that most podcasts were Top Ten lists, Info Dumps, or How To guides. Looking to further develop its own voice, the It's A Mimic! team decided to focus instead on inspiration, implications of mechanics, personal interpretations, and entertainment. The listener numbers began to grow, and so did the ambitions of Adam Nason and Dan O'Coin. In short time, Adam joined Dan in managing the editing workload.

Late in 2019, three new cast members, Brad McMann (Mayle Slave Brad), Megan Lengle (Totally Normal Megan), and Coffee Bitch Dave were added to the roster of the It's A Mimic! podcast. The podcast began to broaden its scope with Actual Plays (D&D 5th Edition and Call of Cthulhu 7e - the latter of which strained Adam and Dan's friendship nearly to the breaking point), the Campaign Builder series, and Touring the Multiverse: Eberron. When the Covid-19 pandemic forced everyone into isolation and lockdown, the podcast briefly shifted gears to bring on even more hosts to help tackle the many mob monsters in D&D. Covid hit the entire podcast industry hard and other podcasts dwindled or were abandoned. Adam and Dan debated frequently about putting the podcast on hiatus. (They often swapped perspectives and argued heatedly no matter their point of view.) In the end, it was decided that they wanted to provide their listeners with a sense of normalcy as best they could, so the unbroken streak of weekly episodes was doubled-down upon. Calling in from across North America, the large group of friends covered 149 monster stat blocks in just nineteen episodes, further straining the editing capabilities of the overworked founders. It was during this period that the editing team added Brad and Travis Forsythe to the mix. After the lockdown, James Sealy, Jeff Williams, Kyle McQuaid, and Pepperina Sparklegem were added as regular hosts.

At roughly this time, Terry Williams took a half-step back from working behind the scenes to focus on his personal life, and the podcast became far more collaborative by necessity. Scheduling and administrative duties increased exponentially over the next two years, and Adam Nason and Dan O'Coin began living and breathing It's A Mimic! as if it were a full-time job. With more series and more specials (including mailbag episodes for listener questions and chaotic three-DM actual plays), it soon became clear that they were operating beyond their capacity. Two projects fell by the wayside for months (Campaign Builder and The Many Roads to Amelia), and the constant deadlines and mounting pressures to fulfill promises were enough to strain the content creators. It was obvious that the pace was too ambitious for long-term sustainability with such a small crew.

In 2022, Dan decided that he had to take a full break from podcasting. He had become a part-owner of small business and his focus was also shifting more and more toward family. The agreement between Dan and Adam had always been "Life first. Then D&D. Then podcast." Dan O'Coin recorded his last episode (E200) in April 2022, but because of the chaotic scheduling behind the scenes and an aggressive recording schedule, the episode wasn't released until December of that year. Adam, now the sole owner of the podcast, had a number of conversations with the other collaborators on the podcast, trying to find a way to keep it from devolving into "the Adam show". He used the months between the recording and release of Dan's last episode to redesign the workflows, standardize the behind-the-scenes responsibilities, and spread the work more evenly among those who would help.

The first series to be released under the new administrative style was the Giant Summer Special, which introduced Kasi Just Kasi and was a great success for It's A Mimic! It soon became evident that even the measly online store and half-hidden Donate button on the website were doing well enough to bring in just enough revenue to cover webhosting and podcasting fees. With encouragement from the others, Adam decided to finally create the Patreon that so many fans had inquired about. This would allow the artists, musical collaborators, and administrative staff to see some compensation for their work, as well as upgrade the editing the suite with better hardware and software.

On the Patreon, a number of series would be returning. Campaign Builder Tier 2, Touring the Multiverse, and Legend Lore would all shift to be Patreon-only series, and a few other miniseries also began pre-production. At the same time, Megan and Adam began developing an all-women series on the Undead of D&D 5th Edition. This would be available monthly on the main It's A Mimic! feed, so as not to hide the show behind a paywall, and after some quick pre-production decisions, Megan took over completely as showrunner.

Moving forward, the It's A Mimic! team will be branching out to cover more D&D and TTRPG topics, with a number of different series and specials. They bring over 160 years of collective D&D experience to the table, but it's their varied backgrounds, differing opinions, and unique perspectives that gives the show its unique flavour. With different combinations of hosts covering wildly different topics, it's clear that the It's A Mimic! podcast is truly living up to its catchphrase:

"You never know what you're going to get!"