#d20 is so so so good have SO much fun watching!!! the important thing is it doesn't matter how you watch just have fun with it!
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Yo!! Hello!!! I am like 90% sure I've seen you post about dimension 20 before!!
I just got a dropout subscription and I'm thriving but I am looking for advice for where to start/go with the dnd-verse on it? I'm assuming that the separate campaigns are relatively stand-alone but I would love an opinion (or just input on what the actual chronology is lmao)
hehe sleeper phrase discovered i'm honored you came to me :)
so the first thing to know which you probably already do is that there is a main returning cast for some seasons, and then some campaigns are a different group with an occasional different dm. the Intrepid Heroes are Lou Wilson, Zac Oyama, Brian Murphy, Ally Beardsley, Siobhan Thompson, and Emily Axford with Brennan Lee Mulligan dming, so they play as that exact group multiple times. There's usually one or two of them in a non-main-cast campaign, too, including Brennan sometimes as a player when somebody else is dming.
So! In terms of watch order! I recommend starting with Fantasy High because it's the original campaign and also fantastic. There are currently two seasons, Fantasy High and Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, and they are both masterpieces. We're also getting Junior Year this winter which is extremely exciting for me personally because I Love Fantasy High lol. Fantasy High is a great starting point especially if you're new to dnd/dnd actual play shows (which you may not be so feel free to disregard this bit of advice lol) because multiple players are learning how to play in the first season, so there's plenty of opportunity to learn with them. It's also generally pretty light-hearted and funny, though it doesn't sacrifice story for comedy which I love. If you don't know, the concept of Fantasy High is that these young teenagers live in a world where everywhere else is a stereotypical fantasy world but their country is like. Classic high school Americana. It's silly, the characters are great, the storylines are great and only get better in Sophomore Year, it's an all around great time and great intro to D20!
I went right from Fantasy High to Unsleeping City, which is also fantastic (you'll notice a recurring theme here, I love every campaign I've watched so far lol). If you like the lighter parts of Fantasy High but want a little bit more tension, Unsleeping City is perfect. It's set in modern-day New York with a twist: there's a magical underside to the city. Lots of fantastic commentary on modern life in the storytelling that slaps, I won't spoil but it slaps, and also really wonderful characters! Unsleeping City also has two seasons, so you get to see the characters grow and change a lot over two full plotlines which is very fun!
If you like the more serious side of things, my personal favorite D20 campaign is A Crown of Candy. I watched this third and it made me cry hard enough at work that my boss asked if I was okay lol. The set-up is simple: fantasy world made of food, but make it Game of Thrones. It's intense, the stakes are high from episode one, it's incredibly character driven and everybody plays really, really interesting characters, and because of how high-stakes it is, every payoff is just insane. We all talk about Ally's poetic nat 20s and believe me, they exist, but Mr. Lou Wilson (love of my life) has a nat 20 near the end of A Crown of Candy that genuinely made me feel so crazy when it happened that I had to take a walk lol. Cannot recommend it enough, it's devastating and perfect.
A Starstruck Odyssey is really good again if you like the lighter end of thing but still want stakes and tension! The world is based of comics that Brenna's mom wrote which is really sweet, and it's a very different vibe because is sci-fi instead of pure fantasy, which is honestly really fun. Some of the characters are up there on my favorites list, shoutout to Skipper and Sundry Sydney!
In terms of the campaigns that aren't Intrepid Heroes, the first one I listened to was Misfits and Magic, which is a Harry Potter spoof dmed by Abria Ayangar, who's fantastic, and featuring Brennan as an utterly unhinged in the best way player. There's also Mice and Murder, which is a super great mystery with anthropomorphic animals that was shot on zoom over the first lockdown (a few seasons were so don't be shocked by that lol). I'm a bit more than halfway through A Court of Fey and Flowers which has been great so far, and I'm super looking forward to getting to The Ravening War, which is a prequel to A Crown of Candy, and Mentoplis, as well as the current season, Burrow's End. I have to watch Neverafter first though, which is the most recent Intrepid Heroes campaign.
Anyway! To summarize!
My advice is to start with Fantasy High and Fantasy High: Sophomore Year, and then pick which elements you liked best to decide what you want next! All of the campaigns that aren't explicitly linked are completely standalone, like I'm not missing anything important from the one's I've watched by not having watched some of the others, so don't worry too much about chronology or anything like that! The only ones that need to be watched in a specific order are the two with two seasons already, which are Fantasy High and Unsleeping City, but those are labelled quite clearly with season titles! Also if it's easier to keep track of, Dropout has the campaigns sorted into their own shows on the site so you don't have to choose seasons of D20, you can just choose A Crown of Candy.
PLEASE update me as you watch! I love love love talking D20 lol it's one of my favorite shows like ever!!
#dimension 20#dropout#d20 is so so so good have SO much fun watching!!! the important thing is it doesn't matter how you watch just have fun with it!
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Sorry for that question but I really curious!
What made you fell in love with Cross and Lust?
Tell us more!!
😳😳😳 hhuh what rreally,, , ,,, 😳 u wanna hear me yap abt my sillies, my beloveds,,, (i appreciate the enthusiasm tho omg 🥺🫶🫶🫶)
i want to have the yuris with lust and the yaois with cross I I MEAN HWHWAT 🧍♂️
UM.
haha anyWAY,, (oh gog this ended up long)
🍫—
cross checks so many boxes for me it makes me go insane. too good to be true. versatile(??)— like it's somehow way too easy to put him in Situations. (he's bf and husbone material??? just -20hp me now; that already kills me) he's. hh. gawddamn there's reasons why he won a utmv sans sexyman poll.
he's like a crush that you can't get out of your head no matter what you do, i'm so freaking down bad for him it's not even funny anymore. ever since simping for cross i have not been the same since. the man has changed me. the attraction/simp feelings hit me like a bat out of nowhere and i don't understand why it's so intense— i. hh.
,,i like when ppl make him dorky. stupidly silly (absolutely love shitpost shenanigans and would absolutely LOVE to get into silly shenanigans with him and with/without his bestie epic). fun to be around when he's deemed you as a good friend. stars, he'd give good hugs. strong, solid, and warm, the kind of hugs u don't wanna pull away from so soon. a little endearingly cringe. fanon simp cross is adorable and fun to mess around with. tsundere cross is adorable and fun to mess with. cute anxious guy under all that intimidating aloofness. when i say his smile is an absolute treasure, i mean that. his blush making him look like a grape or a glowing bulb is adorable and makes me wanna tease him more. anime protag/character vibes so strong i wanna have a cute bl/shoujo manga romance with him type shit yk.
then there's times when he's The Hot Dude and i think it's illegal if he's all confident and smug and dom actually (/hj) cause that makes me wanna fucking fite him HELLO? SIR? ILLEGAL????? (<- the fight or flight response of a tsundere towards a milder tsundere LOL).
-hp every single time. mf gets successful d20 rolls w/ rizz on me and i get a critical hit every time. it's a 50/50 either i fluster to death and become weak or i wanna fite his dumbass
i'll. i can fight him. i'll lose but i can fight him for sure. (why is he so cool⁉️‼️💢💢💢RRRRRRR)
he makes me feel things. lots of things. (mostly fluster but when i'm feelin sooper soff i jst wanna shower his skull in keeses. ima kissy lil guy)
tired cross makes me just wanna take care of him. want him to come home to me without any worry because he thinks i'm his safe space.
when he's being stubborn i want to tell him to chill out for a little while, take a break and watch some funny stuff while drinking choccy milk or eating his fav foods and be cozy. bapping him if he's gonna try to get out of this too soon. he's gonna get the free time he deserves n relax n get cuddles n kithes.
the way he can gently hold my hand and look at me with a sincere look in his eyelights and say something genuinely affectionate feels like cupid shooting an arrow through my soul, but also feels like a balm. (a promise of loyalty and faithfulness.) (a kiss on the forehead? a cherry on top.)
well now i can't be mean to him with all the nice he's saying and doing. i just want nice things for him o(-< (even if he's a bastard sometimes lol<3 all circles back to the silly) (silly is always important)
💜—
i love lust. so so so much. the fanon interpretation of him, anyway.
(don't get me wrong, i absolutely adore the feminine slay content of lust; but am i wrong for yearning for more masc lust content?)
i like my lust sans respectful, goofy, sans-like, an absolute sweetheart, and a caring, wonderful life partner. under the flirty personality and charm(ing looks), is a sans behavior that made me fall deeper. (he makes me feel very gender too) (ohmygofd yeah no he actually makes me think of gender sometimes rauauagrrgh<3/pos). i don't have to worry about showing my cring, weird side to him, because he's also a gremlin,, o(-< he doesn't have to present himself all nice and pretty all the time (although he's always pretty in my eyes). he can be comfortably himself; with me 🥺
i want to be his safe space.
i want to see him heal and be happy and be happy with me and give him all the love i can give and care for him and make him soso happy i just want him to feel SO sosososo loved, he deserves so much more
he's the only one who's able to get a certain reaction out of me; to pull flowers out of my heart. to pull out words of love and devotion and appreciation, heart bursting with affection only for him.
for him, i would try. i would live for him. i wish someone like him (the him i've created from interpretations and headcanons) was real irl.
i want to not care i don't care if he's a gorgeous well-known person that people fawn over, or if he's a campus crush, etc.,
i want him to think i'm worthy enough to keep in his life. for him to know how special he is to me, for him to know how much i want him in my life as much as i want him to keep me in his.
my immediate reaction when i think of him is: 😊💕💜💜💜eeeee kicks and giggles and flaps hands teehee
i love him so much i get a heart-on for him (/silly but it is true sometimes; love him so much it aches (in a good way))
#ask#mblue talks#m rambles#(embarrassing myself under the cut 😁!11! !)#(these words are messy like my thoughts hahagahgs forgive me for not making it proper or something)#(oh whoops is that my heart down there uh haha sry i must've dropped it lemme pick it back up—)#(honestly it gets kinda personalll?? but yeah my heart haha whoops)#(head full yet empty only purple beloveds...)#(took me so long to answer bc... thoughts... i wasn't sure which ones to omit or include)#crossrot#lm#cm
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If you don't already know, @prokopetz is hosting a thing this month, where people are making 200-word RPGs. Here's some I thought were cool, and my commentary on them; in order of how they showed up in daily compilations. Disclaimer that I'm finding these entirely based on the compilation posts, which only show the title and the creator, so there's a chance I'm missing something I'd thought was really cool, simply because I didn't remember what it was called.
Bun Chaos by @nyalaholic
This one just seems delightful. I always love stuff where the literal premise is "you are little creatures, and causing problems on purpose"; and everyone loves "stats that rhyme" (or at least I do, and that's what's most important when we're looking at my opinion). A thing I particularly thought was cool, was using a d20 to put a "time limit" (really more of a "rounds limit") on the game. Also, how the points are for the group total, because what really matters is "how much chaos was caused" and not "who did what".
Crushing It by @writemeasandwich
I would never play this game myself, because folding paper into any shape more complicated than a basic paper airplane, makes my eyes glaze over, and also I have slow reflexes. However, I am glad that it exists, and it seems like it would be tremendous fun to watch; probably also to play, for people who don't have my particular issues. I enjoy the bit about "more dots shown is better, unless it's the most dots shown, in which case you want to avoid it".
Knock Knock, Cthul-Who's There? by @bookoramaenderteeth
This one goes on the list because I absolutely ADORE the premise, it's just so GOOD. And also I like the mental image of just calling up some unrelated person and having them listen to the stuff you came up with.
Raccoons and Goblins by @kaninchen-reblogs
Honestly pretty much ANYTHING where you play as raccoons and goblins would prolly make it on here. The gameplay seems pretty generic, which, there's only so much you can put into a thing when you're limited to 200 words, but 'generic' also means 'functional' (absolutely not a given with these kinds of weird games). Within that though, I love how the "goblin" actions all start with G, and the "raccoon" actions all start with R; incredibly basic stuff that just makes my brain happy. I like the bit about most of the 'actions' you choose are from your own list, plus one from the other list.
VAMPIRE DANCE FLOOR (not sure if it's supposed to be all caps, or if that was just to emphasize the title) by @danacarajb
First off I always love stuff where there's various 'traditional' monsters; that's like a cheat code for my brain. But aside from that, the STRUCTURE of this is fascinating, how each type of monster has a different win condition, and WHAT the win condition is for each of them; they're all things that make sense for that type of monster, AND work within the mechanics. I think this is my favourite of the games from the first day, but I genuinely can't say how much of that is from its own quality, and how much is because it aligns with my tastes.
And I think that's where I'll stop for now, to post it, because I don't want this to just stay forever in my "I'll finish it eventually", and also there's a nice clear cut-off point of "this is the stuff from the first day".
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I’m not super into the fandom side of d20 but I do watch religiously so i dont know where to really ask this but what do other people think about the downtime mechanic? Earlier in the season I really liked it bc it felt like a good way to include a bunch of less critically important things in the narrative (like going to classes and extracurriculars) without it feeling like the narrative was dragging. But the last two downtime episodes have been deeply unsatisfying to watch bc the plot is so much bigger now and successful rolls can no longer be addressed as they happen and they have to be put off until we’re out of downtime, and so the episodes end up feeling like filler? I don’t I feel like it’s great Fabian and mazey went on a date but this episode really kind of ground to a halt any momentum the end of last weeks episode built for me.
Thanks for the ask!
Tbh while I enjoyed this latest session of downtime, I do kind of get what you're saying. Earlier sessions of downtime I thought worked really well as a way to have the Bad Kids move through the year in an organic way while also introducing a prioritization mechanic that I thought really fit with the theme this seasons of stress and responsibilities piling up. I think its natural though that since now we're moving in to the crux of the mystery and the climax of the story that we'd naturally expect an escalation and things moving very quickly rather than the slower pace downtime was made for.
I think Brennan removing the need for an academic track was his way of addressing this shift in priorities, since like he said now they have more time to devote to the mystery. And for what its worth most of the rolls made in this downtime were in service of this mystery, as even the relationship track rolls revealed new info about the plot.
i do think the downtime mechanic has served its purpose and won't be used for much longer anyways. If I had one minor note its that without the downtime mechanic the Bad Kids most likely would have immediately followed up on the Rat Grinders and their Mountains of Chaos trip, but we'll be getting that next episode anyway so I think this last bit of downtime was just to have the teacher evals (which I thought were really fun lol) and give space for any last relationship goals before heading in to the finale.
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Hello, hope you're going well! You introduced me to dimension20 and I love it so thank you!!
What advice would you give to a first-time DM?
Thanks in advance and have a wonderful week!
That's so awesome! I'm so glad you found D20, I love them so much! <3 What are you watching at the moment? I'm into Neverafter, as you probably know 😉, but my absolute favourite is Misfits and Magic. It's just four episodes, but everyone is absolutely killing it, it's so much fun!
Are you thinking about taking the plunge and go see what the gras looks like from the other side of the screen? That's really awesome! Ok, here's what I know (I've only GMed a couple of sessions yet, so it's all very new for me, too^^):
- I think there's a few things you probably should decide in advance, with your players or alone: what genre and tone you wanna hit, and if you wanna homebrew your world completely, play in a campaign setting like Eberron or Wildemount, or play a module with a storyline. Essentially, the question is how much of a world builder and overarching story crafter are you?
- When we decided on a campaign setting, it was important for me to let my players know that it's my Eberron, and that things will probably be different from the books. It gave me the freedom to improvise, which I absolutely needed.
- Have a session zero, it's really important. You need to make sure you and your players are on the same page about genre and tone. Also, you need to communicate any limitations on character creation. I told them they all have to find a reason to work at this one newspaper. Another thing is establishing lines and veils, and other safety tools. Google them, they're important. I think it's best to keep an open document somewhere everyone has access to, so it can be added on by everyone. Also, talk about logistics (when, where, how often, how do you handle food, etc.). You can also make your characters together, maybe they'll find the first touching points (two characters already know each other, etc.)
- Character creation is a process, I find. I love being involved in it, it helps me get to know the characters before we play, and it can be a very creative process for both you and your player.
- I don't think of it as 'writing a story', because that's really not what I'm doing. I'm 'yes, and'-ing my players with story. I'm putting stuff in front of my PCs and see what they do with it. Then I take their reactions and make up new stuff based on what they did. And by stuff I mean plot beats, world building details, monsters, puzzles, etc. And sometimes I do it on the spot at the table, and sometimes I do it at home in preparation. Both are equally valid.
- I think of my 'story' as layered storybeats. I know the overall layer: what happened in the past, and what different factions and sometimes my PCs want to happen in the future. Everyone at the table knows the present, and I have planned stuff for the near future. But the near future can change based on what's happening at the table. And sometimes, those changes mean the overall layer of the story also needs to change, past and future.
- It's only canon if you said it at the table. It was very important for me to realise, because it gave me the freedom to shape what's happening into a good story. And if I have to change a past my PCs don't know about yet to make it fit the story we're currently telling, of course I'll change it. I don't tell my players, though. For me as GM, both past and future is to be decided; for my players, the past needs to be fixed to be discovered, and the future theirs to influence.
- Take notes. Lots of notes. Details, people you made up, things to come back to, things that affect other things, consequences, etc. I haven't found a good way to organise them yet, but I keep a detailed session log, and also files on places and the people/organisations associated with them.
- I reskin monsters all the time. Making them look different, or taking a more dangerous monster and nerf some of its abilities, etc. I feel it serves me better that way.
- Encounter building is difficult in general, so I started small. I used kobold fight club for the first three encounters, but for the bbeg I made a character sheet and just went to town. I also adjust at the table, both how many monsters there are, and sometimes their abilities.
- Don't plan more than your next session. Maybe some shops and stuff like that, but I find it easy to improvise these things at the table. Remembering them after is the more interesting task here^^
- What you need is a good understanding of the setting and the world, but you don't really need to know every detail. Think about the mechanics of things, and details will follow logically. For example, the main communication device in my Eberron are crystals, so newspapers are also distributed by it. Which means there are big crystal screens in every city and town for the public, and also private news crystals for the wealthy. My newspaper also has a squad of low-level magic users who send news articles in a chanting ritual every Tuesday and Friday morning to these crystals. The rest of the time they use divination magic to check facts, establish timelines and connections, etc.
- Make a list of names, it'll come in really handy.
- I don't really concern myself with my player's character sheets. I sometimes ask for clarification, and sometimes my players do and I make a ruling, but overall, I trust them to know their shit, especially in a fight where I'm busy running everything else.
- I was so fucking jittery before my first session. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, and my nerves kept me on adrenaline the whole day. If you have this too, practice your first sentences, it helps. And tell your players, they will be very understanding.
- There is a lot more out of game communication involved than you'll think. Depending on the type of campaign you're running, you'll need check ins and aftercare and sometimes just talking and shooting the shit together. I think of it like a BDSM session, because it can be just as emotionally intense sometimes. And even if it's just a lighthearted thing, make sure everyone is alright after a session, even if it's just a quick check in the next day.
- Give yourself some grace. A lot of it, actually. You're new to this, and it is a lot. Something Aabria once said helped me so much. She said something like: 'But see me in six months'. And it's true. I learned so much with every session, and I'm still learning. I put a lot of it down in my 'dming' tag, so you can see for yourself and follow my progress if you like.
It's a lot of work, nonny, and it's a lot of fun. I'm not sure if I like it better than being a player, but it certainly has made me into a much better player, even after a few sessions. Try it out for yourself, and let me know what you think.
Edit: I got a lot of this stuff from Adventuring Academy, or the GMs of Exandria Round Table, or Matthew Colville.
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🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻
(Fight me, Blue)
we've got a full garden in here!
im currently watching dimension 20 ravening war. i think i'm gonna rewatch all of d20 after. i love them very much
im taking a personal day off of work today. i feel a little guilty about it but like, self care is important or whatever. also i am so so sleepytired
when i was like 14, i was very very into les mis. also that's when 8tracks was at is peak. as a result i listened to a bunch of les mis fanmixes. one of them (grantaire-centric) included the song icarus by bastille. i really liked it so i started listening to the band. several months later, suddenly everyone knew pompeii. i was a little annoyed tbh
gerard way, patrick stump, and brendon urie were all born in mid-april. iirc there was a short period where brendon was in his 20s, patrick was in his 30s, and gerard was in his 40s. idk i just find that interesting
succession and barry are both ending very soon. im not ready. i dont like it when things i love end
also good omens and wwdits are coming back pretty soon! that's exciting. my mom also watches them which like. it's kinda weird that she likes the gay vampire sex show but it's fun
i wish i was part of college humor. obviously im not funny/creative enough but i sometimes fantasize about it. is that weird? just imagining being on game changer or d20 or dirty laundry, hanging out with my friends. alas
i play stardew valley on my computer and switch but mainly on my phone. i did talk about this, idk if anyone remembers, but a while ago i lost all my data from the game on my phone. i had a file where i was in year 9 or 10 and i still miss it and my husband sebastian, but it's ok. i'll get back up there in one of my other files
when my sibling and i were younger, we spent a lot of time at our grandparents' house. they had to move a few years ago when our grandpa got sick and needed a smaller place. i miss that house. it was on a lake and there was a forest and a ravine. i still live in the house i grew up in so it's weird having a place that used to be home and now someone else lives there.
when i was like 17ish i was in driver's training. i didn't end up getting the license for a few years tho. anyway at one point the instructor turned on the radio and there was an ad talking about a fob concert which was unplanned i think? like they were on tour and one date got cancelled so they just played at a random casino. and i went! it was the first time i saw them. i was scared bc i had to go through the casino despite being a minor and then the concert was outside and people were smoking and drinking. but also it was incredible and i loved it. i've seen them a few times since and i love them so much
//send me 🌻, if you dare
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so i only started watching d20 this year and i started with Neverafter man what a ride! I loved it so much and I'll be back to watch it again sometime I love little red and my frog man so much lmao
and then once that was finished, I decided hmm let's do A Crown of Candy that seems fun! And this was of course while I'm in the middle of 3rd year so I don't have A Lot of time and honestly just added to my extremely high stress levels already. (I haven't actually finished the campaign yet 😬 classes ramped up and it much stress abounded lmao I think there's like 4 eps left? After the betrayal and jet dying and meeting Frostwhip and rescuing Jawbreaker I believe I've seen the episode after jawbreaker is rescued and that's the last. I will come back eventually when I'm less stressed and farther from metal breakdown lol)
And then I watched the first and I think second? episode of dungeons and drag queens. And I truly enjoyed it! I will return to watching it and finish it for sure I just got very deep into school and had no time and then breakdown era lmao
Then I watched Mentopolis! My friend and I both watched and talked theories and honestly I loved it. Just so good, I believe made me cry. Will likely rewatch.
And now I am Obsessed with Burrow's End. Like, I don't even know how to put it in words. (Is it probably because Im mentally unwell right now and under vast stress and strain and have been since September? Lmao probably a small contributing factor) but like I have rewatched episodes already in this season it's that fucking good.
And now while waiting for the weekly episode to drop rather than doing any of my truly enormous list of Extremely important and Critical things to do, I decided I haven't had enough of d20 and I needed more Aabria DM in my life rn. So now I am honestly plowing my way through a court of fey and flowers and I'm in love. Ok Chirp and Squawk are truly marvelous and play off eachother so damn well I am in love with these birds and all the bird puns and references they make endlessly bring me joy. And fucking K P Hob omg 😭 truly going to make me cry this fucking goblin man. I don't really know much about this campaign or what happens but I stg if Hob and Rue don't end up together I will be heartbroken. I just finished the hedge maze EP and honestly up to this point just fucking heartbreaking. But like Holy shit honestly the whole cast is killing it and Aabria bringing the fucking thunder and not even like just A game the fucking A+ extra credit graduate early with honors game holy shit. Like I'm not big into regency, I've never read p&p or seen Downton Abbey or Bridgeton but I've read a few books set in that era and have knowledge of the media and like the cadence and tropes of the genre, so like when I say I'm invested so much I'm like sooo invested. I love all the mechanics with the tokens and the letters and the rumors especially it's amazing. Truly revolutionary and groundbreaking and in the least creepy way possible I would give Aabria a kidney her work is just so amazing.
Anyways! The point I started making this with was that I can't wait until I finish acofaf so that way I can actually go through the tags without getting spoiled!
#my textposts#ok it's like 2am rn i am falling asleep#i would just keep watching eps but im too sleepy to fully appreciate whats halpening#it's quite and intricate network of things to follow and remember#also like Wuvvy totally wants to get w Rue and is in love with them but knows the relationship isnt and wont be like that rignt#like that duel was more than you've hurt my friend and mentor its u have hurt the unobtainable object of my affection#how dsre u sqander their affection and desire so carelessly when i would do anythjnf to have even a fractions of it energy going on
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Do you prefer longer actual play campaigns like CR or the anthology format of stuff like D20?
I think there’s a specific appeal in both, but I tend to prefer longer campaigns, and then perhaps having shorter campaigns as additional content because those let you do things that a longer campaign won’t necessarily do.
this is a topic I think about a whole lot so anyway if you wanted a short answer that paragraph is my answer! if you want to read me ramble while the squash is baking, continue!
For example - long campaigns (CR, NADDPod’s main campaigns, TAZ’s main campaigns, RQG) really allow the depth of characterization and worldbuilding that I enjoy. You get to see the characters grow and change over a long period of time, and the world react to them, and there’s so much freedom in what you do.
A shorter campaign can be really good if you want to explore a single mystery, and it also works well for comedy because a concept that would wear thin in a years-long campaign...doesn’t do that. I’ve talked about this before for the Darrington Brigade - I don’t really want to watch the 100+ episode campaign of those characters without drastic changes but it’s a really fun one-shot. Something like Trinyvale or Escape from the Bloodkeep is not going to be as good as a long campaign because it relies on either a degree of tension you can’t maintain (Bloodkeep) or the characters really never growing or changing for the better by much (Trinyvale) - it’s much more fun as a shorter series. I think a really important part of storytelling is knowing when a story should end, so shorter campaigns let you tell you a story that wouldn’t work in a longer context, and I appreciate that.
I think D20 is an interesting example because of the main campaigns (vs. sidequests) we’ve had three different examples of those stories:
- Fantasy High would work as a long-running campaign and I hope they ultimately do every year, which would add up to an 80-something episode campaign in full. I think the structure kind of worked against the story in the first season and it became so much better as Fantasy High Live, which allowed for much more flexibility.
- A Crown of Candy was a complete story and while I’d love to see perhaps a sidequest with some of the unused backup characters, I think it wouldn’t have been as good a story if it did not have a beginning, middle, and end within that tight, short structure - this was a story that would not benefit from being drawn out. I also think the creativity with combat episodes was really helpful in making it more dynamic. See below for the Unsleeping City but while I wouldn’t mind revisiting Calorum as a setting, I would not want to see those same characters necessarily (maybe a few of them? but not the full party.)
- The Unsleeping City season 1 also was a complete story, but the conceit is such that it actually benefits from being kind of an anthology, in which PCs can return or can leave, and this is something the adventuring party episodes have covered. It makes sense that the city will go through periods of quiet when people are just living their lives, and that characters will come and go for whatever reason, and then there will be periods of active adventure (the seasons of The Unsleeping City). Having that structure allows for a character like Misty/Rowan, who has her full arc and leave, and it also allows for big jumps in characterization offscreen as with Pete, Ricky, and Sofia. It lets you have that grand finale feeling with Kugrash while still letting other characters continue to grow.
basically, D20 can tell stories that don’t require a reason for the characters to be an adventuring party (where that’s their main job) which is something of a unique position within actual play, but it also often makes sense as shorter/anthological (if that’s not a word it is now) seasons.
I’ve mentioned before that CR is character-driven and TAZ has typically been plot-driven, which doesn’t mean CR doesn’t have good plotting or TAZ doesnt have good character development, but anyway a longer campaign allows a character-driven story and a shorter campaign often works better for plot-driven stories, and I happen to like character-driven stories precisely because actual play is perhaps the only way to truly do that kind of story justice, whereas you can get a good plot-driven story in a lot of different media.
#d&d#dungeons & dragons#actual play#feel free to ask me about this if I didn't make sense I know it's a little rambly#Anonymous
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You could explain individual stuff! I find these explanations very fascinating, actually! OwO
okay! lets do this (this may be a very long post with lots of my random opinions but we’ll go with it) (and also please bear in mind these are jokey and in no real way a representation of these real people with real actual lives.)
***spoilers for most D20 seasons with this cast***
1.The babysitting
Actual parent:Brennan
From my experience DMing, you are effectively a parent to the players. He would also be an excellent dad
Wine aunt: Siobhan
Siobhan gives me vibes of someone who would take a bottle of wine to go babysit, then sit and tell the kids stuff about cults that they weren’t meant to hear. She would definitely teach the kids swear words, and they would love their cool auntie
Great at babysitting: Lou
Part of the key to babysitting is being relatable to the kids, but also self assured enough to get them to behave. the person who holds that key is Lou Wilson. He also has played dad-energy characters, and that is the kind of vibes that you look for in a babysitter.
Mediocre at babysitting: Murph
This scenario needs some theatre of the mind. Imagine Murph, he’s read all the babysitting books, he knows everything he could need to know, he lives with Emily Axeford. He’s more than prepared for this task. He tries so hard. The kids love him. The kids also walk all over him. They don’t get to bed in time. He wanted to do a good job. He tried so hard to do a good job. Yet somehow, luck is against him.
The house is on fire, God is dead: Emily
Fig. Sofia. Jet. All three of these characters would set a house on fire without hesitation, and not one fears God. What does this have to do with Emily’s babysitting ability? Well, all these characters are teaching us to be chaotic beings, just like Emily. We are the children, and D20 is our babysitter. Emily would only replicate the same thing in this babysitting scenario.
The children: Zac and Ally
I believe it was episode 9 of the unsleeping city. Neither Zac nor Ally were involved in the scene in question. Siobhan makes a reference to Eliza Doolittle, to which Zac makes a Dr Doolittle joke. Beardsley then shouts ‘I can see my dick’, a reference to a different film. This is fairly normal behaviour, and would not make either of them children in this scenario, had they not continued to hysterically laugh for the next ten minutes or so. Sat at opposite sides of the table. I think Zac starts crying at some point. They are absolute children, and also both have strong baby energy. Neither babysit, they are the ones that need babysitting.
2. Can they be killed?
Cannot be killed: Brennan
The man is a God. Enough said. Also I’m pretty sure your body would reject your soul before it allows you to kill him.
Can only be killed by one thing: Siobhan
You would be tricked into thinking Siobhan would be easy to kill- her constitution score is so low, after all. However, you would be wrong. The low constitution score has only made her stronger. More aware. What is the one thing that can kill her, though? Nobody knows, she’s only told those she truly trusts. It could be the most rare poison in the world. Or it could just be Mike Trapp. He (allegedly) has previous.
Can be killed but it won’t last: Emily
It is not anything to do with Emily that her death won’t last. In fact, Emily would be pretty easy to kill. However, if you kill her, Murph will do everything in his power to bring her back. He travels to the end of the earth, and then Emily Axeford is back and gets her new death date in a fancy gothic necklace.
Can be killed but at what cost?: Lou
What cost? The cost to the world. The world would be significantly worse off. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. It’s not worth it.
Can be killed but it’s not worth it: Murph
It’s not worth killing Murph because you would have precisely 0.7 seconds before you were killed by Emily. There is no way you can profit from this scenario, you would be dead before you even realise you’ve been successful.
Can be killed and it would be pretty funny: Zac
I feel like we don’t discus the correlation between Zac Oyama characters and dying enough. Gorgug was the first D20 death. Lapain was the first D20 perma death. Ricky just like had a weapon that causes him to die. If you killed Zac, it would just be funny because its happened so much. Sorry Zac.
Can be killed but why would you, you monster?!?!: Ally
We’ve already discussed this. Beardsley is Baby. Leave them alone.
Please kill them they suck: Box of Doom
I dont trust them
3. The fitness gram pacer test
this is definitely the most controversial of the charts, but there’s three of things you need to understand about my reasoning.
1. Zac is fast at running
This has been seen a couple of times, namely: adventuring party, where Zac tried to tease Brennan about showing off how fast he his at running, but it turns out it was just Zac speaking his mind, and he is the one who always shows off at how fast he is at running. Also, the video on Siobhan’s instagram of Zac jumping over that table.
He is also very bad a squats. Why would you be bad at squats? Bad knees. Why would you get bad knees? Running without sufficient warm up. Why would you skip warm up? Because you are very focussed on being able to run fast.
2. Zac is willing to defend his title of running fast
The way he accused Brennan on adventuring party, he knew what he was doing. Sabotage. Brennan may also be able to run fast, but Zac would prevent him from getting a good score. How? He has his ways. Zac is a good boy, but not when it comes to running fast.
3. I felt bad
I had to give Zac at least one good one :)
Anyways onto the other choices:
Actually tried and got a low score: Brennan, Murph, Siobhan
We’ve already spoken about how Zac sabotaged Brennan to be the best at running. Murph is here because he would try really hard but something unlucky would happen. His shoelaces come untied. He accidentally gets caught in the Zac/Brennan feud.
Siobhan started off with the intention to try, but after Lou, Emily and Ally had all done, she realised they were in fact much more interesting than the fighting going on. She walks out mid lap
Didn’t try, got a low score, doesn’t give a shit: Lou and Emily
Its important to understand that both Lou and Emily are capable of getting a high score, they are just better than the whole thing. Why is their DnD group doing a pacer test? Why did Zac suspiciously force them to do this whole thing?
The difference between them is Lou knows the feud is stupid and has like actual work to do? He sits and auditions for some other big film. He still watches over his laptop.
Emily however, simply wants to watch the world burn.
Despite their different approaches to the situation, they both have a bet going on who’s going to be the fastest runner.
Ran one singular lap and finished: Ally
Ally Beardsley shows up at the track wearing a rainbow bucket hat and a tie dye shirt that is impracticable to run in. They have a llama with them. At no point do they explain this. They walk round the track once, drink their water from a plant pot, then spend the rest of the time cheering on the others with words that don’t quite make sense.
4. Storming Area 51
They cant stop us all: Zac and Brennan
Neither mean it maliciously, but both believe entirely in what they are saying.
Brennan is definitely the guy to go mad over a conspiracy theory. He made all the crown of candy NPCs. He is basically betraying himself. He knows not to trust anyone. He doesn’t trust area 51. The next season of dimension 20 is this as a subliminal messages all the way through.
Zac says it accidentally. He’s making a character for the charity livestream. He’s still got a hundred hours of character making left. He’s done so many bad squats. Unintentionally, he makes a character that forces all the zesbians to storm area 51.
Have fun getting shot, dumbasses: Lou
The rest of the cast are being weird again. Lou is equally as capable of being weird, but sometimes they need to chill. It starts with Emily talking about diner ice. It finishes with Brennan wearing a foil hat at all times.
You guys stop, someones actually gonna do it: Murph
Murph is a good, lawful boy.
Actually shows up: Emily and Siobhan
They ride a motorcycle there together. They wouldn’t have gone alone, but as a duo they are an unstoppable pair. Emily wants to break into a government facility. Siobhan desperately want to be in the real life x-files.
One of the Aliens: Ally
Emily and Siobhan open a door at area 51. Behind it is Ally Beardsley. They are wearing a rainbow bucket hat and a tie dye shirt. They have a llama standing behind them. This is not explained at any point. They drink from a flower pot and eat a quesadilla that appears out of nowhere.
5. Stabbing
Would never stab anyone: Murph
Murph is a good, lawful boy
Would stab in retaliation: Lou, Murph, Zac
Lets be honest, the entirety of a crown of candy so far has been these three taking stabs (or metaphorical ‘where is your bulb now’ stabs) as retaliation for a stab another one of these three had done.
Yells “I won’t hesitate bitch” first: Ally and Siobhan
I can’t really explain this one much more other than i’m pretty sure both these people have said this phrase at least once in their life.
Would stab as a warning: Emily
This would be promptly followed by Murph getting her to stop stabbing. Or, depending on the situation, encouraging her to keep stabbing.
6. The water fountain
Fills up a bottle and drinks from it: Lou and Siobhan
This is the normal way to drink from the water fountain. They were also both very concerned at watching Beardsley’s various different drinking apparatuses in adventuring party.
Bought 4 water bottles so this wouldn’t happen: Murph
He is prepared. Something probably still goes wrong, but at least he’s got three water bottles left.
Drinks straight from the tap: Brennan
Brennan is a busy guy. The tap is there, it’s convenient, he needs to get back to planning. There’s so many campaigns, so many characters, so many voices.
Dehydrates: Zac
Honestly I’m not sure if this man would drink water if nobody told him so
Drinks from a puddle: Ally
like they drink from a vase with a flower, a puddle really isn’t that much of a stretch.
Licks the tap: Emily
She just wants to see the world burn. Also, she knows Brennan drinks straight from the tap. She has to get payback somehow.
7. A child starts crying
Makes the child laugh: Lou
We’ve already discussed how Lou has dad energy. I feel like he’s know exactly what to say and how to act to get the child to stop crying. This is less stupid than the rest of my explanations, but I always love how expressive Lou is when he plays dnd. I’m not sure whether its the way he holds himself or the way he gestures, but I’m pretty sure if I was a crying child, I would stop crying if Lou Wilson told me a joke in that very soothing point.
Tries to play with the child: Siobhan and Ally
These two kinda give me older/younger sibling vibes. As a team I recon they could create a game that would calm this child down. Also Ally knows techniques to help adults calm down, they could probably implement these ideas into a game for children.
Gives detailed instructions: Murph
His knowledge comes from the books he has read to learn how to babysit, and the one time he babysat. His explanation is rather frantic however, mostly because he is trying to defend Emily in his answer.
Cries with the child: Zac
He’s sad because all his friends are speaking to this child an nobody noticed how fast he just ran.
He’s also baby, as we’ve said previously, so he probably relates to the child somewhat
The reason the child is crying: Emily and Brennan
The child just watched episode 9 of a crown of candy.
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How does one get into dungeons and dragons. I'm not really understanding the game and don't even know how to play
This is kinda long, but ill do my best to break it down to the basics so you can understand easily!! important things are bolded, and i have only played ONE homebrew game and watched a lot of critrole, so my knowledge is limited. This is for 5th edition dnd btw, i don't know anything about other versions
that’s a-ok!!! it’s very daunting at first but once you get the basic gist of it, it’ll be a lot of fun! I recommend a way to start is listening/watching a show like TAZ/Dimension 20/Critical Role if you’re more into the fandom rather than gameplay. Critical Role is a really big one, and they’re also on a very professional scale so that might be hard to get into, but they have smaller things like one-shots (one session stories) which are much easier to take in lol. TAZ is a little more chill with it (im on episode 3 of TAZ Balance) and they’re kinda learning as they go as well, so it’s great for people who don’t really know how to play yet! Haven’t watched dimension 20, but i heard its good, and its hosted by Brennan Lee Mulligan and he’s super funny!
DnD really simple at its core, you don’t even need to follow the rule book bc it’s a really versatile game (most common setting is fantasy-medieval but people do sci-fi, western, underwater, space etc). You do need at least one other person to be your game master (dungeon master in most cases), they’re the one who crafts the story and the world for you and makes up NPCs, while you get to be a character you either make or they make for you!
Once you have a campaign going (either a 1-1 session with the game master or with some friends), you have to make a character, which is usually the most confusing part! You’ll need at least one six-sided die, online or in person. I won’t go into detail on how you use that, it’s a lot of explaining, but either search it up or dm me if you want a walkthrough on character sheets. So with different creature races (you can be a human if you’d like!), backgrounds (basically what you worked as before the story starts) and “roles” called classes, you get different stats (called ability-modifiers and skills). There’s basically a bunch of skills with 6 main ability-modifiers, which determine how well you can fight stuff, how flexible you are and if you’re smart etc.etc. and every time you make a decision, the game master will tell you to roll a 20 sided die (called a d20. Other dice are D(number of sides) and are used for other attacks/healing points etc.) with your stats and calculate how well you pull off the action! This includes things like swinging a sword, investigating things, trying to sneak around, seducing your local tavern maid etc. You might be “proficient” in something, which gives you added bonuses to your roll and means that because of your background/class/race, you’re just a little better at that thing than most people are! (ex: An cleric, basically a priest-doctor, will likely be proficient with anything related to medicine. A soldier will also probably be proficient in using swords. The rule book has some pre-set ones for you, but you can change that to suit your character better, just talk to your game master before doing so!). Last, your character will have certain traits, stuff like being able to see in the dark, resistance against fire damage, stuff like that.
that’s the basics of it, you can also do things with weapons, magic etc. depending on your class, which all have their own stats. You can keep track of it on a character sheet which you can find by just googling it lol. Your game master might also give you certain bonuses (”Advantage”) or penalties (”Disadvantage”) based on your situation where you can roll twice and take the higher or lower, depending on your situation. It’s really fun, you can play it as gruesome, lighthearted or absolutely batshit as you want, the end of the day, you’re going on an adventure! I actually like filling up character sheets very much, its a fun way to keep track of OCs, so dm me if you want me to give you a hand!
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thoughts on this week's ep?
**spoilers for broadway brawl**
***Before we start, I remembered as I was typing this one of the important notes I lost from last week’s recap: Interesting that Christmas seemingly went off without a hitch. I expected Santa to come back into play somehow (like, someone would check on him to make sure Christmas was still on or he’d call them in to help or something) but he hasn’t, at least not yet.***
My guys, my guys, my guys. Was that something or was that something?
I think I am on record as saying that combat is my least favorite part of ttrpgs generally speaking because I’m here for the RP but when a combat episode shines it really freaking shines (see eg: that first combat ep of Bloodkeep where everyone went full Galaxy Brain except for Matt who couldn’t hit a single thing) and this is such a good example. This is easily a top five ep of the season for me, maybe top three so let’s get into it and break down why it was so awesome.
We start right where we left off with Titania and members of her court having come into the theater to beat the tar out of Misty mid-show.
Quick note: At the end of last ep, it was set up so that Misty was thrust on stage right after hearing the mirror was on stage which would place this fight right at the top of Act 2 but at the start of this ep, Brennan seems to indicate that it’s taking place during what would be the closing number. Which would make more sense but imagine you go see a play, the first act is super dope, and then the second act is an insane, minute long fight that’s pretty unconnected to the plot and then a buff, naked, beautiful man tells you the show is over and you should leave. Wild. Anyway.
Pixies with tommy guns in inherently funny.
So one of the things that makes this fight really great is the way it directly ties into the story in a way besides “These bad guys are in our way.” Misty is using this show as a part of her reincarnation spell so if the show is messed up, it fails and she’s on her last life. Brennan has a cool mechanic of making her roll death saves every round at a difficulty lower than her modifier (which is s/t crazy like 11) but that gets harder with damage done to her and performance checks failed by other players who decide to jump on stage. It’s a great way to make the battle feel like it has more personal stakes and it’s my fave original Brennan mechanic since the Family in Flames Sophie’s Choice situation.
(I love that the death save counter is changed for theater comedy/tragedy masks for this. Nice touch.)
Em, Esther, and Wally are also at the fight which is clutch.
Also, Sondheim is specifically here which is an insane detail to add just because.
WILD that no one knows what’s going on with the ritual initially because, as Lou almost does, getting all the civilians out is the smart move and it would COMPLETELY ruin Misty’s plans instantly.
Lou having Kingston take the stairs bc’s he’s 50+ years old and has no time for that nonsense has equal but opposite energy to him doing extra rolls for Fabian to do unnecessary parkour before a simple attack because Fabian’s Like That.
Murph fireblasts the hell out of Titania’s foot soldiers right off the bat from outside of counterspell range which is very cool.
“Give me a performance check for the cockroach.”
“You’re upstaging me bitch?”
Another great thing about this fight is that because of it’s theatrical nature, everyone’s RPing it more than a usual battle ep (or more intensely maybe is what I mean).
Titania hypnotizes Don Confetti and his goons into fighting for her.
“She doesn’t know she’s in a play but she does sing most of her dialogue which is helpful for you.” Titania is just Like That.
Pete drops an erupting earth and drops a sick 37 damage on those same minions Kug got.
I didn’t notice before but yeah, Ally does roll die like a f-ing beyblade champion.
Emily hearing Murph’s low key, offhand comments and cracking up is great.
“Get Sondheim!” (Emily and then Ally: WHAT?!)
Actual living dude Stephen Sondheim being involved in this fight is just so ridiculous and fun and crazy.
We go around to Misty’s turn and she has to beat a 28 (upped from 10) and she fails which feels worse than a normal failed death save somehow.
Lou, in a very good RP move, tells Pete to tell Misty to end the show so she can tell them not to so the group has a valid reason to not evacuate which is a thing they (or at least him and Ricky) would obviously want to do.
Sophie, the madwoman, jumps out of the balcony, grabs a costume, then runs on stage. Emily’s glee at being told that her grabbing the costume will give her advantage is great. She’s always trying to figure out how to make the most of her moves. She is the living embodiment of the concept of method to madness (which is from Hamlet since we’re talking Shakespeare today).
Ox is constantly dying (Brennan!) but also it’s like, why was he even there before the fight started? I’ve never seen a non-service dog in a theater.
Ricky: Is this part of it?
Oh, forgot to mention that everything that happens on stage is kinda shielded by the Umbral Arcana so everyone watching thinks it’s part of the show, which is a cool plot detail.
Ricky gets fULLY NAKED (Emily, with perfect comic timing: Now do I roll with disadvantage?) and leaps into the fray. He casts Protection from Evil and Good on her which (1) He does by Magic Mike body-rolling on her while he’s naked and considering how much shorter she is that her raises some interesting questions about positioning and (2) is the most clutch use of this spell I’ve seen in a while. It’s a spell I always wanna take as a Paladin because it makes sense character-wise, but I’ve never been able to actually use it because we’re never fighting fiends, fae, or celestial.
Brennan’s dime change change reversal of the critic’s comments on Ricky’s body rolls when Zac re-rolls his 11 makes me glad I never had to face him in a debate team setting.
Ally: What’s Esther’s deal ;)/Brennan: *Esther’s Weapon Stats*
“Your only secret you’ve ever had in your life is that you have a crush on her.”
Wally has a beautiful singing voice and a working knowledge of Midsummer's which is wild.
Lou’s periodic, “My man”’s when Ally/Pete does something cool. He’s very dialed into being Kingston.
Ricky’s aura keeps everyone near him from being charmed and Misty saves everyone else w/ a nat 20 counterspell. Few things in D&D are more satisfying than a well executed counterspell.
Titania trying to get Pete to be her consort or something when he just over the super posh Priya is very funny.
“I mean between me and Sondheim, get Sondheim!”
“DO WE HAVE HOMEWORK TONIGHT?” (“We did have homework.”)
Anyway, Misty has one success now!
Misty tries to use puppet to get Titania to drop her crown and it doesn’t work. Brennan says the crown is Crown of Stars which I looked up and it’s actually a spell, not a physical crown, but I’m assuming he used the mechanical effects of the spell on a physical item.
Brennan doing all these musical/singing bits when he absolutely doesn’t have to. I love it.
I love Ricky and Sophie being the two martial fighting heavy hitters of the group. Like, the two fighters, having the spellcasters’ backs.
I hope the one kung fu fan in the back of the theater never sees another Broadway show again because he’s gonna be so disappointed.
“I’m just so inspired by that beautiful penis.”
Murph, out of character, verbally acknowledging how insane what they’re doing is. I love when someone pauses in a game of D&D to just recite what’s currently happening out of context so everyone can appreciate how crazy it is. D&D. Gotta love it..
Emily and Siobhan have a quick conversation in the background about whether Sondheim did Les Mis or not (not, that’s Claude-Michel Schönberg) while Brennan and Murph are Ring nonsense.
I also was mildly suspicious of Alyssa so I’m glad Kingston checked her out.
The entire roast of Brennan when he’s selecting D6s is an instantly iconic D20 moment. I can’t do it justice. You kinda just have to see it.
“Someone call Wizards of the Coast!”
Em, Wally, and Alyssa go out when Titania puts out a huge spell that blinds Kug.
“Yummy, yummy, tastes like ass.”
On Misty’s next turn, she rolls a fail which makes it 2 failures to 1 success. Brennan mentions that a nat 1 counts as 2 failures and a nat 20 counts as 2 successes. I’m sure that won’t be relevant later because you can’t foreshadow things when dice rolls are completely random.
Misty fails on puppet again again and Titania goes full Wicked Witch of the West on her and starts Jonesing for those shoessss.
Emily’s Emily(tm) move of the session is doing a flying leap at Titania, hitting her with a stunning strike and having Brennan retract the Box off Doom he was pulling out because she can’t save when she’s stunned. She just plummets out of the sky.
Don Confetti respecting the sacrament of marriage as he goes full Opera ghost and tries to garrote Sophie.
Ricky (still naked) grabs the crown from Titania, tosses it to Misty, and, with some improv and a good charisma roll, makes the show suddenly make sense to the very confused but entertained audience.
I’m so glad that Murph decided to turn into a bear and that they made the Winter’s tale ref. I should have had faith in Brennan and Siobhan, the theater nerds. Exit pursued by a bear y’all.
Lou and Emily bonding over being proud of their die for rolling well when they lend it out for a big roll.
Really wish Pete had wild magic surged in this fight. Just to add that extra bit of chaos.
With a very good turn (no damage taken, no performances failed) Misty only has to avoid snake eyes to get through this turn. She leapfrogs over that low bar and rolls a nat 20, instantly fulfilling her win condition. At this point, the play is superfluous and Titania is still down.
“Brennan lost and now he knows reddit is gonna eat his ass.”
OK, remember how I said earlier that Misty seems like the kind of character you nudge a little temptation at just to spice things up? Yeah, her killing Titania and getting the crown of the Seelie Fae makes me a liiiitle apprehensive, but we’ll see how that turns out.
“I killed my queen! This is America we don’t have royalty here.”
“Bear, I don’t know who you are, but take me on your back, let me ride on stage.” —creator of West Side Story, Stephen Sondheim
Misty charms the critic at the show to make sure they get a good review which is such a fae thing to do.
Kingston’s clearly not loving attacking Don and Co. post “real fight” what with his whole Do No Harm thing (well, that’s Dr’s but same principle applies I assume) is a good character detail. For that matter, so is Ricky just taking Titania’s crown and not beheading her which he super could have done while she was down but it would have been very incongruous with everything else about him.
Brian “This isn’t Loony Tunes” Murphy throws Sondheim as a projectile weapon at a pixie who snaps the pixie’s neck and then does a monologue at the audience.
I love it when someone rolls low on an insight check and Brennan gives them useless info and then they repeat it in their character’s voice.
4 mins from the end of the ep, Siobhan realizes there are two Perrys in this story for the first time and has a bigger reaction to that than almost everything else in this ep except her nat 20.
Ricky looks for costume faun legs to cover his fully out dick instead of costume pants or even his own pants.
Misty starts glowing with reincarnation energy and she runs into her dressing room for privacy. Also, she still super hasn’t told anyone what’s going on. (ALSO, assuming she’s gonna make the world think she died, it’s gonna be wild for the company of the show to have their leading lady put on the performance of her life and then die on opening night).
“Who am I to refuse a crown when it’s placed so deftly upon my head?”
You know that behind the scenes thing where Brennan is like, “Yeah, I knew Siobhan was gonna steal that book,”? I got some of those vibes during the crown scene.
The implications of what Misty did are gonna be left until next ep but Brennan says something about her creating her own court and it looks like she’s recruiting followers in the promo. IDK how I feel about that (these stories tend to have great power--especially tied to powerful magical items--as a corrupting force) but I am very excited to see how it goes down! See you then!
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VLD6x03 – “Monsters & Mana”
6x03 – “Monsters & Mana”
I love this episode.
This show has done several non-standard episodes, and they are at the bottom of the list of episodes for me. This one is the exception. This is my favorite episode since season two ended (though I do like 3x05 “The Journey”).
The episode is basically the Paladins sitting around playing Dungeons & Dragons, and it’s great. When I first watched this episode, it was part of my big marathon of seasons 3 through 7, and I had no idea this episode existed. When it first started, I instantly thought it seemed like D&D, so the more I realized that it was, the more excited I got about the episode.
We start with a monster pursuing Pidge and Hunk’s characters. Pidge’s character is geared up in heavy armor, and Hunk’s character seems to be a wizard, what with his casting a lightning bolt spell. That spell does next to nothing, and as they run away, Hunk’s character says that he’s “a healer, not a fighter,” so then how did he get access to a lightning bolt spell. I mean, he looks enough like a cleric that I thought he was one, but the lightning bolt spell made me think I must be wrong and he had to be a wizard. It doesn’t really matter.
The ogre (looked like an orc to me, but they eventually call it an ogre) continues to chase them, and he has an ocarina that he uses to make Hunk fall asleep. Pidge is immune to sleep because she’s playing a dwarf character (of course Pidge’s character would be immune to negative things). She uses a jump attack to smash the ocarina with her axe, giving Hunk a chance to cast some binding spell on the ogre. Pidge whacks the ogre sideways with her axe (can’t show a big giant wound like an axe would cause), and they defeat him. In a bit of cross-genre RPG content, the ogre poofs into a floating crystal more reminiscent of monster deaths in video games.
The crystal is one that neither Pidge nor Hunk have seen the likes of before, and Pidge proposes taking it to an innkeeper who for some reason she assumes will know more about it than the two of them do. I know the episode is setting up the innkeeper being the villain, and I know this episode can be looser with logic given its non-standard style of story, but that is an unexplained jump in logic for Pidge to make. Apparently, Hunk’s character’s village was turned to stone, so that’s his quest, to un-petrify them. Hunk’s character, anxious about travelling to wherever they’re going, says of his village, “I mean, they’re not really going anywhere.” That made me laugh.
They arrive at the inn, but apparently have no money for food. The animation changes to have a 16-bit RPG style as Pidge smashes some pots looking for coins. I have smashed a lot of pots in video games in my life, so I love that moment. They take the coin and Pidge orders a “greasy meat pile,” which the Coran-innkeeper calls a “health plate.” It kind of makes me go eew hearing Pidge specifically order it “greasy.”
Coran’s innkeeper NPC is something. Seriously tall, like giant-level height, super muscular, but hair that seems like more of a feminine style, but ever still Coran’s mustache. The innkeeper says the crystal is the type some evil wizard named Dakin uses. He’s, of course, located inside a dungeon.
As the innkeeper tells Pidge and Hunk where that dungeon is located (mirroring Lotor telling the group about both Oriande and the rift between realities, wherein they fight at the end of the season), Shiro’s character in a shadowy corner of the inn speaks up. I super love Shiro’s character. He’s a paladin! It’s really sad though knowing that the EPs thought they were mocking Shiro himself by having his character be a paladin concerned with protecting and helping people. It’s kind of infuriating that the EPs think there’s something wrong with a person just being a good person like Shiro is.
Anyway, Pidge and Hunk go over to talk to Shiro. Hunk says his character is named Block, and that he’s a sorcerer. I’m kind of confused now. Not that this episode is adhering to an actual game system, but with Block having earlier said that he was “a healer, not a fighter,” his being a sorcerer doesn’t feel right. Being a sorcerer matches the spells he’s cast though, so it was that particular “healer” line of dialog that is the dissonant element. Pidge’s character is named Meklavar, a fighter.
I love Shiro’s character wearing a shiny crown/horn in place of his white floof of hair. He gives the backstory of his character. He was chosen to be a paladin at a young age. He was raised in a monastery, but one day a leviathan-demon attacked, destroying the monastery, and killing his master. (He was educated at the Galaxy Garrison, and one day a Galra ship attacked, setting of his quest.) The master’s last words and immediate death is making fun of the cliché of so many stories having of a character dying as they say something important, and I laughed. And then the master is still alive just long enough to speak again and die again. And Shiro, recounting the tale while sitting in the inn, cries a big, long tear. The moment definitely plays with some tropes.
Hunk and Pidge’s characters get up and walk out of the inn. (Granted, they’re playing characters in a game, but it reflects their non-game character that they walk away from someone they’re supposedly friends with. Any decent friends playing a game together like this want their friends to feel included in the game, but that’s not their behavior here.) The sound of Shiro’s voice panicking, saying, “Where are you guys going?” as Block and Meklavar leave really gets to me.
Then Block says, “Man, that guy was so boring.” This is the voice of Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery talking about Shiro, not just Block talking about Shiro’s character in the game. This infuriates me. This is textual proof to go along with what they’ve said in interviews about how this episode is supposed to be mocking Shiro. JDS and LM always thought Shiro was boring. That’s why they resented being told they couldn’t kill off Shiro. One, if a character is boring, as head of the creative team, it’s your fault that that character is boring. Two, Shiro was never boring. That they think of him as boring tells us about how JDS and LM think about people. They think that someone who wants to serve and protect aren’t good people, that there’s something wrong with them being that way, and that they think no one could find value in a character who displays those qualities.
Shiro’s character refuses to stay behind and runs to join Block and Meklavar. Then a giant mouse attacks, eating Shiro. Cut to the table that Coran, Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge are playing at. One of the mice is chewing on Shiro’s character miniature. Shiro is mildly incredulous that Coran is declaring his character dead in the game just because the mouse jumped on the table.
Coran says, “Don’t worry, you can just make a new character.” There is a differential in people who play RPGs demonstrated here: Some players really don’t care about characters. As some people far more clever than I am have said, they’re the kind of players who roll play, not role play. Player characters for this style of player are little more than the numbers on the character sheet. For others of us, the character is a lot more than what’s printed on that sheet. We invest ourselves emotionally in our characters, think about their backstory, and can’t just discard them so easily when they die in game.
Shiro takes his mini and puts it back on the table, saying, “I’m going to be a paladin again.” Yes!
Coran says, “Come on now, do you really want to play a paladin?” and then lists a bunch of other classes.
Shiro counters, “I don’t know what’s more fulfilling than being a paladin.” I love it!
And Coran is animated angry and yells, “But you’re already a Paladin in real life!” Coran then growls. I’m sorry, but no. Coran getting angry here is unjustifiable. Why does it bother him if Shiro wants to play as a paladin in the game? (Because it bothers the show’s EPs and writers that they have to include Shiro as a Paladin in the show. The EPs wanted to get rid of Shiro so that they could have Keith as the Black Paladin, and so they’ve written their anger at not being able to into Coran’s dialog. Of course, they were eventually able to talk their way into completely sidelining Shiro in seasons 7 and 8 in order to get what they wanted in having Keith be Black Paladin.)
Also, this is technically the clone playing the game here, not the actual Shiro. The show eventually blatantly proclaims the clone to be an “evil thing.” But here we see the clone and subtextually here he’s telling us how much being a Paladin means to him. Here the clone is showing us through that subtext that he is not evil. He, as much as the real Shiro, cares about helping people, about serving and protecting. We saw that in 4x01 “Code of Honor” when he begged the Black Lion to let him help the other Paladins. But again, the EPs think that this makes a person “boring.”
Allura and Lance enter the room and see them playing. Allura is interested in joining them, though Lance is skeptical since it involves a book. He also freaks out over the idea of a d20. Lance asks if they don’t all have something more important to do (ignoring the fact that he himself isn’t doing anything important right now). Pidge and Hunk are waiting on diagnostic to run on some system of the Castle Ship.
Shiro responds, “And I’m trying to take a mental break. We’ve been going really hard lately.” Awe!! Let Shiro have some fun! (Especially since the show almost never writes him to have any moments like this.)
Lance is more interested in playing once he hears that Allura wants to play. Sigh.
We return to their game. Block, Meklavar, and Shiro’s character are walking through the woods. Allura’s character, an elven mystical archer, joins them. Lance is a cat-eared thief named Pike, which he says is not a thief but a ninja-assassin. He poofs around with smoke bombs, and loudly yells about his character “lurking in the shadows, silently watching!” The effect of having him yell so loudly about being silent is funny. And then they see him stealing money from a pouch. So yeah, thief.
Allura’s character summons a flying mount that they all then ride on to the dungeon.
I love Block asking, “Did anyone remember to bring torches.” Needing to see in dark environments is something RPG players are kind of notorious for forgetting, so Block’s comment is so very meta.
Shiro then says, “I really think my character would have remembered to bring a torch.” I do agree with him, and a good dungeon master, game master, or as Coran’s calling himself in this episode lore master wouldn’t be so strict as Coran is here. It reads more like Coran is again voicing the EPs’ dislike of Shiro. Allura realizes her character an make an arrow glow, so they have light.
They come to a dead-end in the dungeon. Lance says, “Maybe you just have to knock,” knocks on the wall, and they door is revealed. It totally references back to 1x01 “The New Alliance” where he gained access to the Blue Lion by knocking on its forcefield. So of course, I’m now thinking of how Blue valued Lance so much that she let him in just because he knocked, and then by moving Lance from Blue to Red, that bond he’s had with Blue from the beginning was senselessly taken from him.
The episode then goes meta again by having Lance’s character, as the thief, have to check for traps on the door. My experience suggests that the presence and use of traps in D&D is such that players rarely speak about the process in any in-character terms, only in terms of game mechanics. The way the dialog is written here totally matches that real way checking for traps is usually handled in games. So, Lance rolls low, the trap is triggered, and everyone plunges down a shaft/highly sloping tunnel. Once they fall out into the open, Block casts a spell that gives everyone a flying chicken to hold on to so that they don’t fall. The chickens are funny.
Then, there’s a montage of the group fighting various monsters, until they come upon a giant pile of gold and treasure. Allura gets a “quick draw quiver with a magical creature-summoning arrow.” Pidge gets “goves of transmutation,” the description of which kind of makes me think of Allura’s alchemy. Lance gets an invisibility cloak. Hunk gets a bowl of endless food because of course he does. (Sigh.) And Shiro gets a “blazing sword.” This makes me think of Voltron’s sword’s flaming version, and then I again think of how this show takes being the Black Paladin away from Shiro. As soon as his character lifts the sword, he’s super excited, and then he gets hit by black and red lightning and dies screaming, his hair-floof crown and the sword being the only things left behind. And how do the others’ characters react? Pidge says, “Ooo, he dropped a rare item.” They don’t care about Shiro.
The innkeeper is the villain. A silly, simplistic twist like this is okay since they’re playing a game here, but it does reflect on what the show is doing with Lotor. Like the innkeeper, he was brought in as an ally to the Paladins, providing them with information about where to go and what to do, and then, out of nowhere really, he’s suddenly not a good person but a villain. It’s a process that’s fine when they’re all sitting around here playing a game, but the main show itself needed to do way better than this.
Shiro’s new character arrives, teleporting into the dungeon. Shiro’s twin brother Jiro, “here to complete Shiro’s quest.” It has to be a meta reference to the clone story. And still, his new character, like the clone, is a good person, trying to help and protect people. Pidge responds, “A paladin again?” with a lot of derision, so this is more of the EPs’ dislike of Shiro being written into the meta-dialog of the characters. It doesn’t hurt anybody for Shiro to play whatever character he wants, so how about you shut up, Pidge.
Dakin talks about Block’s petrified village, saying, “I’ve already siphoned off their life force.” Clearly, this is a cryptic foreshadowing of Lotor’s colony and the Alteans there being the source of the unexpected quintessence. It almost feels like this is the show semi-consciously recognizing that how the rest of the season writes Lotor is super underdeveloped and shallow. Either the writers know they wrote Lotor’s end badly and just didn’t have the writing skills to do better or weren’t allowed by the EPs or something, or they actually think they’ve written Lotor well and are just mirroring it here, unaware that this reveals how shallow they wrote Lotor’s end.
Dakin blasts Jiro with flame, and his shield even generates some glowing forcefield-like energy to help deflect the blast. I love shields as tools and symbols, so I love that his character has one.
The episode changes animation style again to look like that of a video game while Allura’s character shoots enemies with arrows. The party takes damage, and Allura uses a “healing arrow,” complete with yelling the name of the ability as she does so – that’s meta. There is something odd, in a funny way, of shooting someone causing them to be healed.
Jiro then vows to avenge his twin. I wish with this show had Shiro care about the clone after it falls as much as Jiro cares about Shiro. If the EPs thought Shiro was a boring character, then how about writing him to want vengeance against Haggar for what she’s done to him and to all the clones the same way Jiro wants revenge here? It would have been a plot that would have let the show wrestle with the implications and significance of the clone story instead of just instantly forgetting any of it ever happened.
The shot from behind of Jiro running toward Dakin… yeah, that’s nice.
They keep fighting, Block casting “embiggen” on Meklavar, who grows giant and axes Dakin.
Jiro speaks, but with Shiro-the-player’s comments, “This game is so amazing. It requires problem-solving, teamwork, creativity. All the skills you want to imbue when doing team-building exercises.” I love Shiro going a little nerdy in the moment. I love seeing and hearing! him be excited about something. He’s clearly having fun. And it also reflects his character as a leader that he sees the game through that lens of leadership and teamwork. But remember, this guy is supposed to be an “evil thing.” Grr.
And Lance then yells at him, “Stop trying to ruin our fun with learning!” Stop trying to ruin Shiro’s fun, Lance. This show lets Shiro have such little fun as it is!
Surprise, Dakin isn’t dead. With the show using Dakin to foreshadow and mirror Lotor, his not being dead here could be read as further foreshadowing, a hint to the viewer that Lotor’s story isn’t over just because he dies at the end of the season. But it’s not.
Dakin is now a dragon. Block is hurt, and Allura shoots another healing arrow. Pidge gets smashed by a dragon tail. Shiro tries to draw the dragon’s attacks away from the rest of the characters, just like a tank character like the paladin class usually does in RPGs. Hunk realizes they need a plan, so he casts a “secret” spell, and the players huddle away from Coran to devise that plan.
Pike distracts the dragon with his quick speed and cloak of invisibility. Block throws out some food from his endless bowl. Meklavar transmutes the food into oil with her gloves. Allura summons what looks like a hippocampus, a creature from Greek mythology with a horse-like body, fish-like tail, and wings. Jiro mounts it, lights his sword on fire, and sets the oil on fire. The fire destroys the dragon.
Victory.
Pidge and Hunk have a breakthrough on what they’re working on on the Castle Ship. Lance reacts, saying, “Somehow I understand the fantasy words better than the science ones.” Is that the writers telling us that they know they don’t understand the science they try to write into this show?
Shiro says, “I can’t get over how great that game was!” It’s so nice. This man deserves to have fun!
Allura comments about how the fun of playing has made the time go by quickly, and Lance, of course, responds out of his attraction to Allura, “We have pretty good time together, don’t we?” She says, “We sure do,” and this feels like it’s setting up the idea that the problem is Allura just hasn’t realized the right guy for her (Lance) has been there all along, and that she’s wrong for having not been interested in him before. I really do not like this trope of romantic storytelling (and the ignorance it demonstrates some men to have about women).
Lotor contacts Allura to tell her the ship is ready to begin testing. Lance is instantly dejected, but I guess at least this jealous reaction isn’t one of anger and arrogance. Coran offers another round of playing, and Lance says sure.
Shiro says, “I want to be a paladin again.” So much meta on this line. It reflects how being a Paladin is so fundamental to Shiro’s character arc, and it makes that the show takes being a Paladin away from him infuriating. It also again reflects the goodness of the clone, and it makes the show declaring the clone to be an “evil thing” infuriating. And of course, Lance and Coran react like Shiro’s wanting to be a paladin (and thus the show/EPs/writers thinking Shiro being a Paladin) is somehow weird.
It amazes me that the EPs thought this episode would get viewers on their side in thinking Shiro was boring. And if I understand the broader audience reaction to this episode, that backfired on the EPs, as this episode just further reinforced for viewers why they like Shiro so much. At the least, it did so for me.
#voltron legendary defender#voltron#vld#voltron criticism#vld criticism#voltron critical#vld critical#vld season 6#vld 6x03#commentary
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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E23 (June 19, 2018)
Welcome to tonight’s Talks Machina. Today’s preshow: the weather throughout the Dwendalian Empire. I’m sure this isn’t foreboding at all. Tonight’s guests: Matt & Emmy-award-winning Sam Riegel. Sam has a prepared bit for the opening that he just found out he was supposed to prepare. He gets out, “How many... light bulbs...” before BWF has pity and throws us to the title screen.
Tonight’s announcements: New M9 shirt in the new CR store at shop.critrole.com. The show also now has their very own dedicated Critical Role Youtube & Twitch channels--however, don’t worry, as it’ll still be broadcast in all current locations as well. After Dark will continue to be available on After Dark only. There also will not be any Talks Machina or new Critical Role episode July 3 or July 5, as they’ll be making the move to a new studio during this week. (Marisha’s stepped down at G&S to make this move to full-time CR management as well.) There’s a summary post of these announcements with a FAQ on critrole.com, if you need more information.
Before we can get to CR Stats, Sam interrupts to ask Matt why they’ve never had an NPC with a French accent. Matt, answering in an excellent French accent, explains that they’ve not come across any regional areas that are analogous to France yet. He suggests they visit the Menagerie Coast.
CR Stats! The M9 have now officially rolled 99 natural ones. Nott’s in the lead with 22. Sam only has one d20 that he rolls, and he thinks Laura’s bad luck is rubbing off on him.
The M9 have now been traveling together for about a month. Matt, deadpan: “They’re such a tight-knit family.” He does like that everyone’s getting to see the ground-floor development and occasionally has to remind himself to set the scene because he gets sucked into the roleplay.
Kiri has imitated people 82 times--Sam loves Matt’s imitations.
The D&D Beyond theme song was a greater achievement than the Emmy (per Sam): “It was a thing that I just came up with...that became the anthem for a generation.” The Emmy is a bucket list, pinnacle professional achievement, but he loves that he got to write & make the theme song. (Also: two years on one cartoon vs. fifteen minutes on a song.)
Matt has a tumultuous history with the Streamys. He directed a web series ten years ago and was invited to contribute to a big montage...only to find out right before the show that it had been cut from the program altogether.
The battle with the Merrow played out fairly close to how Matt had envisioned it, although the players’ positioning led to some interesting situations. It was more challenging in certain moments without Nott, especially when Matt was trying to decide how certain events would play out. Sam sidebars to point out how much he loves it when a battle changes halfway through (either due to traps, additional enemies, or the map changing). Matt says there are many battles they’ve had in the past where certain traps were never triggered. However, you can’t do it too often or it becomes expected. (Matt does feel bad when he’s rolling well and the PCs are rolling badly.)
Nott’s water thing Sam invented during the game (because he thought it would be funny, natch), but he’s come up with a backstory since then that explains why she’s so afraid of water.
Matt plays out combat as designed even when a PC suddenly decides to not participate--unless it’s a new group that doesn’t fully understand D&D combat yet, and it would impact their enjoyment of the game. He wants people to understand that there are consequences with character choices.
Sam often finds it bothersome when they know they’ve missed something in game, especially when it’s an important story beat. It’s the worst when Matt gives them multiple chances to succeed, and they still end up failing all of them. Matt confesses sometimes he makes them roll checks on general knowledge they’d have known anyway just to make them feel a certain esoteric skill was useful for once.
Nott feels terrible she sat out the Merrow fight only for Caleb to come close to death. Sam: “Nott feels awful about it. Sam Riegel feels great about it! I love situations where it doesn’t look like it’s going well.” Plus, the night before she also got Caleb in trouble with the bowl thing. BWF’s a little worried it’ll affect their relationship.
Matt claims that Kiri was not at all related to wanting to prove he could do Jester’s accent. He rolls for random encounters when they’re traveling, and Kiri was one he’d considered to demonstrate the presence of kenku, while also highlighting that non-Empire people are moving away from the conflict. He half-expected them to ignore her altogether.
Matt reveals that Kiri has six (6) (SIX) hit points. “She’s practically a baby bird!” Sam has a retroactive panic attack that they’ve been bringing her to all these battles. Me too, bud. Sam accuses Matt of “not having brought anyone worthy of taking a baby bird off our hands.” Matt: “You haven’t even looked!” They wonder together about the possibility of a baby bird orphanage in Hupperdook.
GIF of the Week! @justjamesearle. It’s long and perfect and details the Fjord whack-a-mole death saga with the venom splashes.
Nott’s opinion of Kiri hasn’t changed at all with the reveal that she heard/repeated her conversation with Caleb. Sam thinks Nott should have known better than to talk with a recording device in the room, especially since she only ever repeats it when it’s hilarious or well-timed. “It’s hard to live with a soundboard.”
Matt keeps a list of notes of what Kiri can say. It’s super fun, and he sometimes gets so caught up in conversations he forgets to write down things for her to repeat later.
Nott wished Kiri hadn’t repeated the facts from her backstory, but she’d never considered being aggressive towards “little RiRi” (oh God it’s too adorable). She still doesn’t like a lot of attention. Both BWF & Sam applaud Matt for giving them little prods to reveal backstory.
Dagon, Matt & Marisha’s bird, provides a lot of inspiration for Kiri. Matt talks about being a bird owner after growing up with cats and dogs, and reveals that wanting to utilize that knowledge was part of why he introduced kenku.
Nott finds Beau the exception to her general mistrust of the group, which is why she let her care for Caleb after the last fight. She feels Beau has been weirdly sensitive and protective even through her lens of abrasiveness, and she respects that she hasn’t spilled the beans about Caleb’s backstory.
Fanart of the Week! @obeymybrain, which is a great group portrait in four vertical-column stylings after the Haunted Mansion from Disneyland.
If the troll hadn’t been slowed by Caleb, Matt thinks the group would have permanently lost someone. Matt loves the new monsters that are punishing to melee characters. He thinks they did a good job damaging it at range at first, and Sam waxes poetic on all the options they didn’t pursue instead (like Saran-wrapping the door before it came running out). Oh, what could have been.
Sam’s love for Liam is stronger than Nott’s love for Caleb, because “...Liam kisses back.” They’ve known each other half their lives now.
If the M9 pursue dynamite as a common battle tactic, Matt may need to prepare for his builds to be destroyed more often. It’s still limited by the relatively new availability of blackpowder and has a high possibility of backfiring depending on their rolls.
Nott wishes she could tell everything to Caleb, but is limited by the realities of their show, since it’s hard to find a time that’s not full of dick or drug jokes. There’s been times they’ve been alone together but Caleb hasn’t asked any questions; Sam thinks “He needs to do some Marisha-style questioning. That is an inquisitive monk, and I love her for it.” Matt points out it’s a critical aspect of her character that she wants to know everything.
Matt played out the last Fjord moment in front of the whole group in part because it would have interrupted the flow to have everyone leave, and in part because he trusts his players not to metagame now that they’re all learning bits and pieces of each other. He liked the visceral smash-cut of the vision to the party watching Fjord jam this thing into his stomach.
Matt does have to juggle all the party’s backstories since it’s such a large group; some will be long-game just because of the natures of their stories. He likes to drop threads as they go, though, so everyone feels more connected to their world. Players feel like the stakes are higher when they can see their stories reflected and affecting the living and breathing world around them.
Nott wasn’t particularly bothered by Molly immediately forgiving the bandits right after they hurt her. “They’re just dumb. They’re just dumb and they need to go. They’re too dumb to hurt.”
Matt knew the outline of Hupperdook before the party ever heard of it. Now that they’ve expressed interest in it, he’s begun filling in the details since it looks likely that they’ll visit it soon. It helps that they’re limited to speed of foot & horse; when they can start bamfing everywhere in later game, it gets a lot harder. Matt’s advice in that situation is to give the town a unique social structure or aspect, to make a bold choice that will cause it to stand out in their mind. It helps if you can ask what the players are looking for, then “yes and” based on what they’re seeking (he builds an idea of two competing taverns poaching clients from each other off a spur-of-the-moment request from a player asking if there’s an inn nearby).
Sam does rehearse his more performative ads ahead of time. He usually writes them the day of over lunch, although lately he’s been trying to get them done on Mondays and Tuesdays so he’s not as stressed on Thursday.
There’s no specific inspirational character for the Gentleman. Matt wanted to create an outside-the-law businessman who wasn’t your typical ~thief-lord~ while still seeming unique against the world. He wanted him to be charismatic and domineering, welcoming until you crossed a personal or business line, in which case he’d immediately put you in your place.
Nott still considers her old goblin tribe a threat to her & is reluctant to confront them. She does feel a little more prepared now that she has more allies, but is hesitant to meet old demons & old memories. Matt sidebars to point out that a lot of these character backstories could be self-driven, since there’s nothing keeping them from visiting Nott’s hometown now. They could pursue it at any time if they wanted.
The firearms in the world are a direct result from Percy & Ripley; she dealt them out in heavy trade areas like Marquet, which results in the technology being distributed in a way that now impacts the M9 in their world. They’re still limited by materials, though.
Matt loves the joy on Tal’s face every time they mention firearms are readily available in Wildemount.
Everyone’s distraught over Tal’s Vicious Mockery in the last episode. Bless his heart. Matt: “Sometimes you come out of the gate and realize you’ve come out without your pants on. You commit, and you walk away.”
Sam misses giving inspiration on a regular basis. He also has a lot of insecurities over his current inability to contribute to a battle with much more than crossbow bolts. BWF: “Just sent Nott to a bard college.” Matt: With a -3 charisma, I think you’re taking inspiration away from people.”
Favorite M9 voice to mimic as Kiri? Partially Jester, because it’s just funny, Nott is shrill and ridiculous, and has lately been enjoying mimicking Fjord for the few times he’s been echoed.
The Nott voice is not hard at all on Sam; it’s mostly falsetto, which BWF says he usually talks in off-camera all the time anyway.
After Dark: After This
In CriticalRoleLand, Dani would like to see Vex’s Flying Brooms. BWF suggests a waterslide that ends in Vex’s & Percy’s bathtub; Matt suggests it be a goldfish ride that goes over the side. He also likes a teleporting ride that goes into Umbrasyl’s belly, and Sam comes up with a dunk tank for heckling Tary.
Matt talks about that viral Youtube video with the weather forecaster naming the city that’s like 100 characters long. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, that’s the one.
Nott’s Tinder profile? “Short, green, looking for mean. Buy me a drink and I’m yours.”
Matt wouldn’t be surprised if this campaign does eventually touch on family in the same way the first one did. However, Sam feels so far it’s much more about identity, and Matt tacks on regret & making amends. He also thinks trust & learning to accept help from others is still developing, since so many of these characters have been hurt in some way.
VM had a lot of very classical heroic archetypes; this campaign is full of many more human, subtly complicated characters. Matt loves the contrast.
The eyes. The EYES.
Sam agonizes that in his Friday retellings of the campaign’s story to his six-year-old son, it drives him crazy that he can’t answer his son’s questions as to why something happened. His son does ask “does Matt Mercer know?” and Sam is glad he can say yes.
Sam loves the idea of the world hinging on the bandit troupe they keep running into. I debated troop or troupe there, but given the hysterics they keep causing, I’m sticking with troupe.
If they met, Nott would steal every single thing from Taryon Darrington. Except that lame book, of course. “That’d be amazing. And! Possible! We’re on the continent, right?” Sam rubs his hands together gleefully...until Matt points out Taryon’s been relegated to NPC status & Matt would be the one controlling him now.
Matt usually prepares a guest for the show by meeting with them ahead of time. Depending on how much (or if ever) they’ve played before, he helps them build a character and teaches them the basics of the class. Mark, obviously, didn’t need that introduction, so instead they focused on loose backstory and finding ways to integrate that backstory into the existing world. When it’s time for them to actually play, they’ll discuss in advance a way to bring their paths across each other, such as Cali looking for a specific relic at the same time that the M9 were going to be investigating a safehouse full of stolen relics. As soon as they meet, it’s hands off. (It can be hard to get someone out of the group if they for sure can’t return the next week.)
MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END OF CAMPAIGN ONE IN THE SECTION BELOW.
BWF jokes that last campaign Joe Manganiello just showed up and said, “Hey, so, I’m playing Arkhan,” and that was that. Actually...that’s pretty close to what really happened. Matt & Joe did meet for a long evening in Joe’s kitchen in advance to discuss backstory & motivations, after which he finally managed to convince Joe’s wife, Sofía Vergara, to play a small game with him, Joe, and Marisha. Sam laughs that at Matt & Marisha’s wedding, they had two sentences with Joe before the conversation immediately devolved into D&D and Joe’s wife rolled her eyes out of her head.
They did discuss that Joe wanted to steal the hand at the end of the last campaign. “You don’t have the Hand of Vecna, the Hand of Vecna has you.” They had a long conversation about Arkhan’s denouement after that episode.
END OF MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS.
And that’s all for the night! Have a lovely week, and is it Thursday yet?
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Role Charisma
Modern AU where the Newsies play D&D!
“Alright, Thistlewyrd, what do you do?” Kath asked, turning to Davey with a grin.
She delighted in creating situations that required a great deal of clever thinking to get out of and she currently had the entire party surrounded by 30 Illithid with no visible way out.
“I…” Davey began, leaning forward to get a better look at where his little Druid figure was on the crude but functional map Kath had drawn out, and flipping through his folder of carefully organised spells to find one he could shape in the way he wanted. “I want to cast Fire Storm across them all,” he decided.
“Okay,” Kath shrugged. It wasn’t a bad plan. “Roll for damage.”
“I would like to inspire Thiss with a love ballad,” Jack butted in, sending a wink in Davey’s direction.
The entire group groaned. Jack’s constant in-game flirting with Davey’s character was constant and insistent. He defended himself every time on the basis of being a bard with high charisma, but Thistlewyrd never yielded to it.
“It’s not your turn,” Sarah pointed out, making Jack pout.
Davey fought a grimace. He was used to Jack flirting through Pete but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with it, even after almost a full year. As soon as the game ended, so did Jack’s affection and that was the part Davey hated. He was far too in love with his friend to be suffering through the fake flirting only to have it taken away so abruptly each week.
“Thiss is good without it,” Davey said, looking up from his decent dice roll. “Forty-six.”
Katherine nodded approvingly, rolling 30 saving throws and noting down which Illithid made them and which didn’t.
An hour later their party had survived their ordeal and reconvened at their camp, bandaging their wounds and counting their steals.
“I would like to sidle up to Thistlewyrd and proposition him to spend the night with me,” Jack smirked.
The familiar groans chimed in as Davey’s cheeks turned bright red and he sunk back into his chair a little.
“No,” he managed, strangled. “Thiss says no.” Then he climbed to his feet, almost knocking his chair back in the process. “Excuse me.”
He headed for the bathroom and locked himself in, willing the blush that was currently staining most of his face to dissipate. Everything Jack said to Thistlewyrd through Pete was something he wished Jack would just say straight to him. If Jack asked him to stay the night at Casa Del Kellitzer, as they’d all named his and Kath’s apartment, he’d say yes. He wanted everything that entailed, but instead his fictional half-elven druid got the opportunity instead. And it was slowly killing him.
It was ten minutes before he could walk back out into the living room, braced and ready to take more of Jack’s onslaught. But as he made his way out, everyone was already packing up.
Sarah kissed Katherine goodnight and made her way home to the apartment she shared with Jojo and Buttons, after making her usual teasing remarks about nepotism getting her nowhere even when she was dating the dungeon master. Spot left and Race immediately looked down at his watch, timing two minutes exactly until walking after him. They did it every week, trying to pretend they weren’t leaving together. Everyone was well aware they were but they’d all mutually decided to leave them to it until they were ready to admit to it. Only Kath and Jack were left, tidying up their dining table of all Dungeon and Dragons related paraphernalia.
“Are you okay?” Kath asked, looking up when she heard the door to the bathroom click.
Davey nodded mutely and, just before Jack could speak up he moved over to Katherine and mumbled something close to her ear. Drawing back, she looked at him with surprise but squeezed his arm reassuringly.
“Of course,” she agreed, leaving the rest of her D&D papers and dice on the table as she retreated into her bedroom to give Davey and Jack some privacy.
“You sure you’re alright?” Jack tried, concerned and confused. “Did I do something wrong?”
“I need you to stop flirting with me. Or Pete to stop flirting with Thistlewyrd, I mean,” Davey sighed. “I can’t take it anymore.”
“What?” Jack blinked. “I…”
“Please,” Davey begged. “It’s too much.”
“I… I had no idea.” Jack was devastated. He’d never meant to hurt Davey. What he was doing had been selfish, for sure, since he’d been using it as an outlet for his feelings for Davey, but it has always been innocent fun. Or so he’d assumed. “I won’t do it anymore. I’m sorry. Did I… Push too far?”
“It’s…” Davey didn’t know how to explain without admitting to his crush. But he looked over at Kath’s door and it was firmly shut. He trusted her not to listen in – nothing he said was going to leave this room. And he trusted Jack not to judge or hate him. “It’s…” He searched for the word. “Painful. To have you say those things to Thiss. And not… to me.”
By the end of the sentence he was trailing off quietly, half wishing he could take the admission back.
Jack was stunned, staring at Davey with wide, hopeful eyes.
“You- Wait- Can we just-,” he stumbled over his words, unsure. “I just want to be certain I know what’s going on here. Put it in simple terms.”
“Jack, please don’t make me-”
“I need to know,” Jack begged.
Davey’s lungs has tightened and his heart was echoing in his ears and he wanted no more than to get away, but he had gotten himself into this mess and he couldn’t cut and run.
“You want me to tell you that I’m in love with you?” he asked, forcing himself to be bold. “That I have a crush on you? That I wish you’d talk to me like Pete talks to Thiss? There. There’s all of it.”
Taking a deep breath, Jack steadied himself against the table. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch, but he didn’t have permission and he wouldn’t take without first being given.
“Yes, I want you to tell me that,” Jack confessed. “That sounds amazing.”
“What?” Davey froze.
“You really think I don’t love you, too? Dave, I’ve been flirting with you, with your character, every moment I can. If I knew… If I thought I could say those things to you straight out and you wouldn’t hate me for it, I’d have been doing that the whole time,” Jack explained, trying not to stumble over every word.
They were at a stalemate. Neither of them wanted to make the next move first, not wanting to fuck up everything they might be laying the groundwork for. Davey searched for a response but his mind was empty and he looked around for inspiration. The only thing his gaze fell on was the dice that were left on the table. Okay. He could work with that.
“Roll charisma,” he decided, gesturing to the dice.
Blinking for a moment or two, Jack was jolted into movement. The dice left closest to him on the table were Davey’s, still resting in the ashtray Les had made at school and gifted to him for his birthday many years ago, and usually Jack would have rolled them without thought. They tended to share dice a lot. But this really mattered, so Jack forced himself to take several steps back and grabbed his dice box, flipping the lid open and scrambling around for the little velveteen bag that held his favourite d20. It was beautiful swirled metal, a present from Kath for the first Christmas they’d lived together, and he tended to never roll it unless it was a life-or-death situation in a campaign. It was still smooth and crisp and he didn’t want to wear down the edges if he didn’t have to. But this was the most important roll he’d ever had to contend with.
He shook the die, gripping it tight and praying the dice gods would be on his side, and let it go across the table with his eyes closed. When he forced them open, he found a 1 staring back at him.
“Critical fail,” he said through a bitter laugh, his hands shaking.
Davey stepped forward to meet him, steadying his hands gently and meeting his gaze.
“You have advantage,” he says softly. Considering Jack already had his heart, it would be unfair not to let him take a second roll.
Eagerly, Jack reached for the die again and rerolled. When he checked the score it was far better and he managed a sigh of relief, as if Davey was actually going to rely on the dice to make his next decision.
“Eighteen.”
He wasn’t sure what to add. Pete had a plus four charisma modifier, but this wasn’t Pete’s roll. This was Jack’s roll and he didn’t know how to categorise his own charisma. Luckily, Davey didn’t seem to care.
“My saving throw never stood a chance,” Davey mumbled, letting his hands drift up to Jack’s t-shirt and pull him close into a kiss.
It was something Pete had never gotten from Thistlewyrd and probably never would – Davey didn’t want to roleplay his affection with Jack if he got it in real life. Whilst Jack would almost certainly keep up his in-game characterisation, Davey was going to keep up his too. But when they put the dice down, Davey was going to do more of this kissing thing.
“I would like to sidle up to Davey and proposition him to spend the night with me,” Jack mumbled against the corner of Davey’s mouth, crossing his fingers behind his back and hoping he wasn’t pushing things too far too soon.
Davey laughed, giddy and grinning.
“You’re such a nerd,” he said fondly, brushing back a lock of hair that had fallen across Jack’s forehead.
“Hypocrite,” Jack shot back, equally as affectionate. “So, will you?”
“Yeah.” Davey nodded, biting his bottom lip. “I will.”
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Dog-boys and Dragons chpt 1
By @mustardyellowsunshine , @grapefruitwannabe and myself. Enjoy!
“Alright so you entered the spooky woods, are you sneaking or just walking along?” Kagome said, pausing in her introduction to the so called ‘spooky woods’.
“Why the fuck would I do either?” Inuyasha grumbled. “I would’a just jumped up into one of the trees.”
“You wanna roll an athletics check to climb a tree?” she asked far too smoothly.
“Jump,” he corrected. “I don’t need ta climb it.”
“Your character is a level 1 Dragonborn Inuyasha, he can’t just jump that high.”
“The fuck I can’t!”
“Kagome’s right, dumbass,” Kouga interjected smugly. “At level 1 you’d be lucky to skip through a field of daisies without tripping.”
Inuyasha’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell do YOU know so much about this damn game? Isn’t this YOUR first-time playin too?”
Kouga shrugged. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that ‘level 1’ means incompetent.” He paused, then added almost pleasantly, “dumbass.”
As Inuyasha growled out something foul, Miroku looked up from the elf guide book he’d been reading. “Master Kagome, I shall sneak into the woods. That should be the safest option.”
“Miroku,” Inuyasha growled. “Don’t call her that.”
“Well she IS the Dungeon Master, Inuyasha,” he said with exaggerated innocence.
“It’s STILL fuckin weird!”
“Okay so MIROKU is sneaking,” Kagome interjected. “Anyone else want to sneak or are we ALL rolling athletics to go jumping through trees?”
“I agree with the pervert,” Kikyo spoke up, “I wish to sneak as well.”
“I dunno,” Sango piped in, “I think the name of the woods is deceiving. Walking should be fine. We just started.”
“Nothing will attack us with ME around,” Kouga said, “Because I’m going to climb the tallest tree here and see if any enemies are nearby. I can succeed at climbing a tree, unlike SOME people...”
“Okay, so two for sneaking, one for walking, and two for climbing a tree.” Kagome reiterated, rolling her eyes at the men on either side of her.
Inuyasha’s eyes narrowed in challenge. “I’m gonna climb that tree before that idiot even reaches its lowest branch.”
“Then roll for it,” Kagome ordered calmly.
Glaring directly at Kouga, Inuyasha rolled the dice. It landed 10 up.
“You make it up, barely.”
Inuyasha snorted in reply while Kouga laughed. “Barely?!” he let out, “Just like always, you cheat your way through, you mutt.”
“Kagome,” Shippo chirped from his position between Sango and Kouga as Inuyasha threw the dice at the wolf demon’s head, “I wanna transform into a walking tree. That way the things in the spooky woods won’t see me!”
“I think that’s a level five spell Shippo,” Kagome replied apologetically.
“B-But,” Shippo sniffed giving her puppy dog eyes.
“Rules are rules Shippo,” Miroku sighed.
“But Inuyasha got to roll to climb the tree!” he cried. “I should get to roll to see if I can transform myself into a walking tree! Fair is fair!” He turned his pleading eyes back to Kagome. “PLEEEEAAAASE Kagome??”
“Shippo it wouldn’t be fair to anyone else if I just let you roll for a level five spell.”
“Give me the dice,” Kikyo demanded, shooting a glare at Kagome who kept the remaining dice that hadn’t been pelted across the table in a black bag at her side. “I just want to roll already, you are taking way too long.”
Kagome gave her cousin a look and begrudgingly handed over a D20.
“Rolling for stealth?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The group watched as the die hit the bottom of their shallow wooden box and bounced off the side before spinning and stopping on a 9.
“You are sneaking clumsily,” Kagome translated with a barely hidden smile.
Kikyo huffed at that but didn’t have more time to complain as Shippo dove in and grabbed the dice next.
“I’m gonna be a walking tree!” he announced as he rolled the dice into the box. The dice stopped on a 4.
Kouga snickered as Kagome said as gently as possible, “I’m sorry Shippo, that’s a failed roll. Guess you can’t be a tree.”
“My turn,” Kouga said briskly as he took the die from the sulking Shippo. Shaking the D20 in his closed fist, he gave his knuckles a loud smacking kiss before tossing it into the box. The dice rolled to a stop. The number 1 stared back up at them.
Kouga’s mouth fell open.
“What were you rolling for again?” Kagome asked with badly muffled laughter.
“To climb the tree…” he answered reluctantly.
She gave him a sympathetic look. “Well, you just critically failed your roll so you fall off the first branch and land on your face.”
Inuyasha cackled so hard he nearly wheezed, his laughter drowning out Kagome’s words.
Face red, Kouga glared at the breathless hanyou and muttered, “We’ll see who’s laughing after the next roll, dumbass.”
“Okay, Miroku you’re up.”
Miroku’s roll yielded a 10. Kagome shrugged. “You successfully sneak. Now Inuyasha, you want to roll a perception to see if you spot any enemies?”
“Yeah,” he replied, casting Kouga a cocky grin that went blatantly ignored.
With a roll of 7 Kagome reluctantly revealed that up ahead he could see smoke. Kouga snorted loudly.
“Do you want to tell your companions?” she asked chipperly.
Inuyasha flashed the group a fanged smile. “No,” he replied snarkily.
“Oh real mature,” Kouga said with a sneer. Kikyo and the others rolled their eyes and sighed at Inuyasha, but didn’t comment.
“Okay I’m gonna jump through the trees toward the smoke,” he carried on nonchalantly.
“You’re going to have to roll an athletics check for EVERY tree you jump to.” Kagome warned him with a slight frown.
Inuyasha paused and considered this silently.
“...You wanna just roll to climb down?” she asked leadingly.
He sighed, picking back up the dice. “Yeah, I guess.”
He rolled and was rewarded with a 2.
It came as no surprise to anyone when he uttered a sharp curse or when Kouga took his turn to burst out laughing.
“So Inuyasha falls too?” Shippo asked, giving Inuyasha a knowing look.
“Yep, flat on his face,” Kagome confirmed.
“But when Kouga rolled a one he fell on his face. I thought rolling a ONE was supposed to be the worst,” Inuyasha complained.
“Well yeah, rolling a one is bad enough that I could have even made Kouga fall on his own sword or something,” she shrugged. “But you guys are only at level one so I let it slide.”
Kouga leaned towards Kagome with a winning smile. “You know as my woman you don’t have to play favorites.”
Inuyasha growled and lunged forward to pull the wolf away when Sango interjected.
“Hey, I would like to know what that smoke ahead is,” she said loud enough to grab everyone’s attention.
“Technically Sango, your character doesn’t know about the smoke.”
Her eyes narrowed on their white-haired friend. “But we know he went up the tree to look around right?”
Kagome nodded in confirmation.
Miroku smirked. “Then as a sexy bombshell elf maiden I wish to seduce the answer from my friend,” he said, going over the page in the book Kagome gave him again and glancing up with a smirk.
Inuyasha drew back with a look of disgust but Kagome grinned and once more nodded. “Okay. Miroku, roll your persuasion, and Inuyasha you roll to resist.”
The two of them rolled at the same time. Inuyasha’s red die once more came up with a 2. Miroku’s black die came up with a 4.
“Wow,” Sango commented looking from her overly pleased boyfriend to the mortified half-demon.”That had to be the lamest sexual overture to have ever WORKED.”
“You know what that means,” Kouga said gleefully. “Inuyasha and Miroku are about to bang. Badly.”
Inuyasha snatched up the wooden box and reached over the table to roughly whack it over Kouga’s head with a snarl. The dice flew out and rattled across the table.
“Why did I agree to play with these idiots?” Kikyo sighed to herself from Inuyasha’s other side, though not so quietly that the others didn’t hear her. He huffed and crossed his arms angrily while Kouga rubbed the bump on his head.
“You guys are getting some terrible rolls,” Kagome chuckled.
“Sooo what did you see?” Miroku asked.
“Damn it,” Inuyasha growled, “I saw some smoke ya happy??”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kouga said, still grinning despite the recent head-bashing, “This is D&D. You gotta roleplay it.”
“Oh hell no!” Inuyasha growled, throwing a disgusted look at him then Miroku.
“I demand roleplay!” Kouga insisted gleefully.
“Yeah, Inuyasha,” Miroku said with a completely straight face. “Roleplay is an important part of good seduction.”
“HELL. NO.”
Kagome giggled just as Sango sighed loudly and said, “Alright, so do we continue on toward the smoke or...?”
“We continue,” Kikyou snapped. The bickering was grating on her nerves. She then sent a glare over to Kagome. “Was the sneaking just to distract us or something? Just get to what we need to do. There’s nothing happening.”
Kagome narrowed her eyes slightly in return. She’d already been well aware of her cousin’s attitude before she’d suggested hosting this game of D&D. But that was why it was only at Inuyasha’s suggestion that she’d gotten an invitation at all.
“In my experience, Kikyo,” Miroku said smoothly, “nothing makes D&D more fun than questioning how long it’s taking.”
Kagome’s agitation eased and she glanced over, smiling her thanks at Miroku, who winked in return.
Glancing back at Kikyo, Kagome explained, “Asking you whether you wanted to sneak or not was just something I put on the table for you to do if you wanted to avoid a fight or get a sneak attack bonus on anything you DO fight,” she explained calmly. “If you don’t like it then, by all means, talk everyone else into tromping through the woods and we can speed this up.”
“I know how the game works,” Kikyo said defensively, “I would just like to move from this spot seeing as how everyone has rolled. Surely you put more effort into this game then just woods?”
Kagome’s eyebrow ticked but Inuyasha cut in with, “What are you gettin’ mad about? The game ain't even really started yet.”
Kikyo took a breath and leaned back. She wasn’t going to apologize when she was technically right. “Humph.”
“Don’t worry Kagome,” Kouga said, scooting up closer to her. “I think you’re the best Dungeon Master.” He flashed her a suggestive smirk. “And the best looking.”
Another die shot across the table and hit the wolf demon in the head with a dull thunk. The table glanced at Inuyasha who sat innocently in his seat. He seemed lost in examining his claws. Kouga’s eye twitched in irritation.
“OKAY, SO,” Kagome continued hurriedly. “As you’re traveling closer to the source of the smoke you hear the sound of people talking and can smell cooking food.”
“Ooooh, food sounds good, I’m hungry,” Shippo moaned. Kouga elbowed him and muttered, “Don’t interrupt Kagome.”
Shippo glared. “YOU’VE been interrupting her all afternoon!”
“SHUT UP, RUNT.”
“ANYWAY,” Kagome said forcefully, glaring at the two demons. “Do you approach? Or what?”
“As I am sneaking I would like to approach without being detected,” Kikyo said somewhat impatiently.
“Okay, then ro- where are all the dice?”
Three demons looked up at her a little sheepishly and quickly got up to gather the dice back into the box on the table. Kikyou snorted and pulled the box toward her. Reaching inside she plucked up a green die and rolled a 7.
“Fail,” Sango predicted but Kagome shook her head. “She rolled a successful stealth earlier so a seven isn’t that big a deal. Okay anyone else have something they want to do while she’s sneaking or are you going to wait for her to come back?”
“Ahem,” Kouga coughed. “There’s no need to sneak around, I’m just gonna head in there.”
Kikyo’s eyes narrowed, “You are just going to get yourself killed.”
“I can take on anything we’ll run up against!” he argued.
“You try to run in there and I will stop you,” Sango threatened coldly. “And Inuyasha’s going to help me.”
Inuyasha blinked at the statement. “I am?”
“YES, you are.” The look Sango glared his way made the half demon’s ears flick back.
“Oh, uh, o-okay.”
Kouga smirked at the girl. “Just try it.”
Sango picked up a die and dramatically dropped it into the box. It was a 14.
Kagome looked to Kouga. “Your turn.”
Kouga picked up the die in his fist and then with the biggest shit-eating grin, he extended it towards Kagome. “A kiss for good luck?”
With a snarl, Inuyasha swatted across the table and knocked the die from Kouga’s hand. It hit the wall behind them and clinked to the floor, landing with the number 12 facing up. Most of the group leaned over or stood up to get a better look at it.
“Oi!” Kouga growled, “That doesn’t count!”
Kagome sighed. “I’m calling that your roll, Kouga.” She looked at Sango. “You’ve successfully grappled Kouga and stopped from going ahead.”
Kouga exchanged a look of irritation with Sango who simply smiled.
“Okay, Kikyou you sneak ahead and see a small troop of five goblins gathered around a campfire, what do you do?”
“I go back to the group and tell them what I saw.”
“How do you want to tell them?”
“Yes,” said Miroku, “let’s remember the roleplay part of the roleplay game.”
Kikyou rolled her eyes. “Everyone, goblins ahead,” she monotoned.
“Oh yeah, grade A roleplaying right there,” Sango muttered leaning her elbows on the table.
Inuyasha leaned forward as well but he seemed more enthused. “Finally we’re gettin somewhere. Sango, you an’ me take the front. Wolf breath, you stay behind an’ watch out for Kikyou and Shippo.“
“Hey! Who the hell do you think you’re bossin’ around mutt?”
Inuyasha scowled. “Fine, leave the cleric and the pipsqueak mage to fend for themselves, we won’t regret THAT.”
Kikyou scoffed. “As if I need his help.”
Kouga grunted and said, “See? She’s fine. I’m goin’ in with you and Sango.”
Miroku piped in, “I’ll volunteer to stay behind with Kikyou and Shippo.”
“Nobody cares what you do Miroku,” Inuyasha snorted. “You're a thief.”
“I’m a rogue, thank you very much.” Miroku corrected with a sigh.
“Same thing!”
“All right then,” Sango said, “why don’t we try a sneak attack on the goblins?”
“Good idea, Sango,” Inuyasha nodded in approval.
“I’ll go!” Kouga rushed, casting a look at Kagome.
“Okay are you ah… Sure you want to sneak attack?” Kagome asked hesitantly.
“Yes already! Now let’s get a move on.”
Kagome reluctantly nodded. “All right. As the three of you move ahead, and see the 5 goblins sitting around a campfire eating what looks like rabbit stew. They have weapons but their guard is clearly lowered.”
Sango who seemed to take notice of their D.M.’s tone, frowned. “Maybe we should try to--”
“I’m gonna attack ‘em now while their guard is down!” Kouga said decisively, leaning forward in his seat eagerly.
“Yeah, let’s do it,” Inuyasha agreed.
Kagome looked from one battle hungry male to the other and sighed. “Okay then, Kouga roll for your sneak attack on the goblins.”
Kouga rolled a 3. “Oh, come ON!” he muttered under his breath with a mutinous look at the dice. “These things are cursed!”
Inuyasha instantly barked a laugh. “Nope, I’m pretty sure it’s just you fleabag!” Then he rolled his own die, landing a 10.
“Okay so, Inuyasha, you and Kouga go in together with your swords drawn. But while you’re sneaking forward a bug suddenly flies into Kouga’s mouth and he starts choking loudly, drawing their attention.”
Kouga’s eye twitched in irritation.
“This gives them enough time to get their weapons and meet your attack. Inuyasha, roll a D10 to check the damage of your attack.”
Inuyasha tossed the die into the box. It landed 9 up. He looked back at her expectantly for a translation.
Kagome nodded. “Your sword hits one of the goblin warriors, slashing it across the chest and bloodying him pretty badly.”
Inuyasha grinned and threw a smug look at Kouga. “Thanks for choking on that bug, fleabag.”
“All right, everybody,” Kagome said briskly, stalling the argument before it could start, “Roll for initiative.”
After everyone had rolled, Kagome said, “Looks like the goblin warrior Inuyasha attacked had the highest roll, so he’ll go first. He fell to the ground after Inuyasha slashed him, so he’ll use his turn to try to get back to his feet. Next is the goblin archer.”
Kagome rolled the die and frowned at the resulting 3. Then she sighed. “He tries to shout at you all and trips over his bow and falls over. Miroku, you’re next.”
“Hmm. Master Kagome, am I close enough to see the others?”
“Stop calling her that!” Inuyasha grumbled.
Kagome thought about it for a moment. “You’re not close enough to see them, but you’re close enough to hear the sounds of combat.”
“Hmm... I suppose I’ll move closer to keep an eye on things.”
“Inuyasha, you’re up next,” Kagome said. “What do you wanna do?”
“Keh! I’m gonna finish off that goblin,” he declared with a toothy smirk.
“All right, roll to see if you’re successful.”
He rolled, and then grinned wider. “18! Read it and weep.”
Kagome grinned back encouragingly. “That’s definitely a hit. So, you…?”
“I drive my sword into his throat.”
She winced slightly. “Gorey much?”
“This isn’t a game for wimps, Kagome, it’s a BATTLE.”
Nonetheless, Kagome frowned in distaste. “So you impale this poor goblin’s neck, and since you got a decent roll on your damage check, he dies instantly.”
“First fucker down!”
---
One by one Kouga, Inuyasha, and Sango killed off the remaining goblins, and Miroku, Kikyo, and Shippo rejoined the group.
“Woohoo!” cheered Kouga, “First successful battle!”
“I dunno,” Miroku said, “ Even for level 1 that was suspiciously easy. Shouldn’t that have been harder?”
“Stop being a wet blanket,” Kouga snorted.
But Inuyasha was frowning in thought. “Miroku might be right… That was a little too quick.”
Heaving a sigh, Kagome pulled the sourcebook to her and opened it up. “You’re right, those were your quest givers.”
The entire table went silent.
Sango was the first to break the silence when she groaned and rolled her eyes. “I KNEW we should’ve been more careful!”
“Wha… what the hell!” Kouga said, appalled. “But they were goblins!”
Kagome turned to him with raised eyebrow. “Yeah, and?”
“And goblins are bad guys, aren’t they?”
“Wow. Racist much?”
Everyone could see the cogs turning in Kouga’s head. “Uh…”
Inuyasha--who remembered uncomfortably that he had done the most damage--shrugged down into his chair, doing his best to escape notice.
Kikyo slapped a palm against her forehead. “Idiots.”
“So… What should we do now?” Miroku asked, turning with the rest of the group to their dungeon master.
“I don’t know,” Kagome grumbled, “I guess I’m gonna have to come up with an alternative quest.” She flipped through the sourcebook with clear exasperation. “Let’s take a break while I figure that out, okay?”
“SNACK BREAK!” Shippo announced, jumping up from his seat. “I’ve been starving for ages.”
Everyone got up to follow the kitsune into the kitchen, except for Inuyasha, who kept his seat by Kagome.
“So…” he said casually, “Uh, need some help?”
She glanced over at him, then back at her book. “You can’t really help me with this, Inuyasha. That would give you an unfair advantage in the game.”
He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head, the motion almost exaggerated in its nonchalance. “I won’t tell if you don’t.” he offered conspiratorially.
Her lips twitched up. “If you REALLY want to help, why don’t you tell me what you’d like to see happen next? Do you want a story, or do you just wanna keep fighting things?”
“Um, duh. Fight!”
She smiled at him, and a little dusting of pink spread across the bridge of his nose. “I’ll see what I can do.”
(note: all rolls were real) (we are planning on making this a two shot)
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I am currently very tired so this probably might not even make sense in the morning but...
I’m imagining a D&D minigame (probably lasts 1-2 hours tops unless you’re having fun with it) meant to break the ice for new groups, in which the DM controls an adventuring party and the players control NPCs as they naturally pop up. Specifically, it could help new players get comfortable with roleplaying without the pressure of sticking to a character they just made. If you do this before the character creation stage, then even better because they may stumble into a character they like acting out.
Rules that I’m just rambling out please forgive me if they are nonsensical:
It’s all improv. Don’t break a scene to look up game mechanics like prices, or which checks to make, or what would give advantage/disadvantage. This is about the acting so if it’ll throw off the groove, make it up on the spot. It’s all about quick thinking.
No modifiers. You’re all making things up on the spot so if you have to roll something, don’t waste time justifying who would have what stats. You could even go without dice altogether. The d20 is just an optional element of chance here.
Mandatory introductions. I don’t care how goofy it is. state your name, race, class/occupation, a random character trait, and how their day’s been going up until this point. As many as you can off the top of your head. Go nuts because things get silly before they get really creative, in my experience. Note: Character voices are encouraged. For funsies.
Everyone participates in a scene. No pressure on how much they interact, but in each new setting, every player has to put one NPC in that tavern, shopping square, riot crowd, etc.
Plot not needed. The adventuring party strategically wanders in a way that builds a town/city/etc as the players make it up. The DM isn’t in charge of telling a story here, just keeping the energy of the improv scene going. This includes-
Leading Questions. This one’s the challenge for you, DM who likely already has a control complex and likes to plan out every detail of everything in their world because it gives them a sense of security. If anything, you are the one who most needs to be good at rolling with whatever your players hand you. For the sole purposes of making you uncomfortable, the newcomer adventuring party knows absolutely nothing about this town. Thankfully, the citizens know everything about it. Which is good because you need directions to find your way out of your rented hovel room let alone to the temple--oh that’s right. Who’s the patron there? You sure don’t know! Better ask someone! Get that DMs?? YOU KNOW NOTHING.
Important: If the scene starts slowing down, it’s up to you to either encourage and interact with these townsfolk some more, or get moving somewhere else.
Example scene: order of NPC choice is determined by an initiative roll.
DM: “Alright, so four adventurers walk into the tavern you’re in--”
Player 1: “Oh! I call the bartender.”
Player 3: “Aw... I had a bit I was gonna do.”
Player 1: “Okay, okay fine, I’m the owner of the tavern, Marcus McMuffin the half orc--stop laughing--and uh... I have a tattoo of a dwarf lover that literally no one else knows about? And my day’s been...hm. It’s been awful because I got stood up for a meeting. DM, I basically live in here, so I’d know they’re new, right? I wanna know if these guys look like trouble makers.”
DM: “The Barbarian’s flexing at anyone who looks in his general direction but other than him fancying a typical bar brawl, they seem decent--if lost.”
Player 2: “I’m the elven bard in the corner and I start trying to seduce the Barbarian with my beautiful voice!!”
DM: “Listen... you can’t just use your character from the last game. Cherry the Elven Bard would’ve totally seduced the barbarian but who are you now?... Nah it’s fine, dude. Take your time. We’ll come back to you.”
Player 3: “I’m the crazy old village drunkard who’s a human named Steve--”
Player 1: “I thought you said you wanted the bartender!”
Player 3: “--Who samples a lot of the wares and is thus the village drunkard! I said I was doing a bit, jeez! DM, I start rambling loudly at the strangers about something that sounds like one of those super infuriating sidequests--you know the kind--where you have to go through a lot of bullshit busywork and the longest fetch quest of your life but there’s a promise of GREAT loot at the end so you consider it anyway. You know what I mean? What do I do for that, roll deception? Persuasion?”
DM: “Nope. No rolls. Personally, I am so on board with this but I need you to make this speech right here and I need you to sell it.”
Player 3: “Oh boy.”
If for some reason you want to try this please give me a rundown of how it went because I feel like it’s the perfect recipe for hilarious trainwrecks that come with all good icebreakers. (I feel like it’d be a fun drinking game somehow? But I don’t play enough to know how to work alcohol in in a reasonable manner. I’ll leave that one up to house rules.)
Taverns & Tanneries, never coming to a game store near you lmao
Edit: I just realized that when the group starts playing a real campaign, you can embarrass them by working their goofily-named NPCs in, keeping an entirely straight face while doing so. Watch as they squirm and laugh-cry over having to discuss the fate of the world with Marcus McMuf’an. If only they’d known.
If only they’d known what was to become of Marcus McMuffin.
#Ramblings of an Art Goblin#dnd#long post#it's 6AM and I'm trying to get art for project done but it's going too slowly#bluh#I'm gonna look back at this after sleeping and completely lose my mind I can just tell#Taverns and Tanneries
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