The Dream SMP is a survival multiplayer server in Minecraft. Created by the popular gaming YouTuber Dream in May 2020 during quarantine, the SMP features popular and creative content creators/influencers from across the US and Europe. Most of them participate in the roleplay story that spans across the server. New members are constantly being added to the group, with invitations from Dream.

Minecraft is currently the #1 bestselling game in the world. Having originally released in 2011, its features include creating a world and mining materials to build houses and whatever the player wishes. The members of the Dream SMP play with each other while streaming on Twitch. They later publish the VODs on their YouTube channels.

The roleplay aspect of the server came when member Wilbur Soot joined. He became the head writer for the group during the first season, guiding them through the Hamilton-esque ‘Independence’ and ‘Election’ arcs, where his character and TommyInnit created the nation of L’Manberg within the DSMP and led the war for its independence against Dream. They held an election afterwards, which led to the exile of Wilbur and Tommy with a tone similar to “Heathers.” The first season finale was Nov. 16, 2020, and the second season—with arcs such as ‘Exile’ and events like ‘Doomsday’—ended recently on Jan. 21, 2021. The third season thus far has been intense and full of twists.

Members/characters include Dream, Jschlatt and Wilbur as main villains, and Tommy, Tubbo_ and Ranboo as main heroes. Philza and Technoblade are other major players, and there are over 20 other players. Each player chooses for themselves whether to participate in the roleplay aspect, so plenty do and some do not, instead choosing to chill with the other players and build. Each character has three “canon” lives, and only four characters have lost all three so far. The fan community is full of artists, animators and singers. Many of the members of the DSMP release videos of them reacting to these creations.

Those who do participate in the roleplay have quite a bit of freedom in their arcs. While there is a head writer for each season, that person is in charge of noting major plot points, and it is up to each individual to get their character to that point. The majority of the members are commended for their acting skills (with Wilbur and Ranboo being favorites due to their range and ability to make their viewers emotional), and have grown a lot in this aspect over the past year. There is no shortage of emotional quotes such as “It was never meant to be,” a villainous declaration from Eret just after betraying his friends. This line has since been echoed by several other members of the server at key points in the story.

Many of the content creators have been subject to controversies, most notably Dream, Jschlatt and Technoblade. However, the roleplay series has managed to keep a major fan following and there are no plans for an ending to the story in the foreseeable future. Because of the variety of characters and arcs, fans enjoy the ability to experience different perspectives of the stories and choose which characters’ eyes they prefer to see the events through.

[Note: the series contains explicit language and mature themes such as death and suicide.]