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Jetrauben posted:I'm really intrigued by the choice to presumably have, instead of Diplomacy as a glove, it as a prosthetic implant instead. It's interesting both because it implies that they are either toning down healing, or Percy actually thinks it would be cooler to have a magical implant in his hand. I can't help but think that would be very uncomfortable or even painful? But then it's probably magical, so it probably is as comfortable as flesh. I noticed that too. There's no way embedding an electroshock glove into your palm, with the thing that actually holds the electric charge buried in your flesh, wouldn't be painful. Buuuuut Percy's historically been a bit of a masochist and a martyr for science so light 'em up baby. I mean as I recall, he got the stream version of Diplomacy working by willingly letting Keyleth hit him with a lightning bolt to charge it. He's the dumbest genius around.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 03:39 |
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# ? May 31, 2024 19:47 |
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CuwiKhons posted:Oh yeah, sorry, I meant I could defend it happening in the stream. There definitely wasn't time to do it in the show. Good eye, agree it'll be interesting to see. sexpig by night posted:Yea I liked how it went down on stream a lot but they did a great job translating that to a more short term cartoon. Changed a bit of the tones and dynamics but it told a more cohesive singular story which I'm sure was the entire point of doing this project. In addition to general reactions, I'd love to hear from those who haven't seen campaign 1 who (if anyone) they feel the protagonist of the series is. I think I'm probably overreading a few moments based how things end and curious what vibes are resonating with you.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 03:45 |
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I think the show did really well at making it a proper ensemble cast. Pike in particular benefits so much from the adaptation, she's far more assertive and outspoken. But the writers and cast also seem to have been particularly interested in counterbalancing the natural assumption that Percy is "the protagonist," and in particular pushing back hard to remind people that Keyleth is great. (Ray is really quite good in the role, obviously.)
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 03:47 |
keyleth's goofy little smile while sacrificing herself for vex was a perfect character moment i liked marisha's portrayal of her in the twitch but that's a character that really benefits from the way TV lengths condense some of the nervous/unsteady/unsure of herself character arc
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 04:05 |
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Grog started as my favorite character of the group and firmly remains there. I'm a sucker for the big dumb kind-hearted brute characters. Also he stripped naked and dove into acid to solve a puzzle. That's about as "drunken D&D campaign" as you can get. Didn't see the twist with the gun and Cassandra coming at all. Thought it would be Percy's name for the last barrel. I also liked how she got her own revenge. I found the Briarwoods themselves to be the most boring of their crew, but the last fight and the hook that they left seems interesting enough. While Delilah was giving her little monologue I was actually starting to get frustrated with the show constantly backing out of killing characters just to seemingly keep the plot going, but thankfully I was proved very wrong. random thoughts: - show needed more bear buddy - Scanlan wasn't near as annoying through the whole thing as I thought he would be (still annoying, but he's at least shown to be intelligent and capable and most of the jokes landed for me) - the fight with Percy's old teacher was hands down my favorite fight of the show so far - Grog and Pike are still the best pairing - Percy is my least favorite character so far, hoping he gets more interesting now that he doesn't have to be the main character anymore - I thought Keylith's crown was horns this entire time - really looking forward to next season even though the dragon episodes it started with weren't my favorite
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 04:33 |
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My wife pointed out that the part where Pike’s astral projection flickers is the part of the Twitch stream where Ashley’s Skype session hung up for a second.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 04:59 |
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CuwiKhons posted:Among other things they changed, one of the more interesting ones is that Grog just finds Craven Edge (Sylas' sword) in the rubble and decides to keep it. In the original stream, the party chilled out in Whitestone for like a week afterwards for a well-timed Fantasy Christmas episode and Percy found the sword. And after inspecting it and coming to the conclusion that hmm yes, this sword is kind of hosed up, he.... gave it to Grog as a Fantasy Christmas present. Grog loved it. This change makes Percy a lot less of an rear end in a top hat but also to be honest, I kind of like that Percy's an rear end in a top hat sometimes. Paracaidas posted:I think this is purely a consequence of timing. With most of the season's arc being Percy is driven to nearly killing himself, his last remaining family, and all of his friends by his evil weapon, turning within minutes of screentime and knowingly giving Grog Craven's Edge isn't an rear end in a top hat move. It's pure villany. Wyld Karde posted:To be fair, Percy just got done trying to murder his sister and all his friends. Additional arseholery on top of that would push him over the edge from 'bad boy who is kind of an arsehole' into 'irredeemably bad why the gently caress does anyone associate with him' territory. Gaz-L posted:To be fair, that part was more Taliesen than Percy, I feel. Honestly? Tal just wanted to see what happened, and boy howdy! Cursed items, when used correctly by a DM, create drama and are loving hilarious.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 06:58 |
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Assuming that the show ends the way the original campaign did, it's a nice touch that explicitly Orthax is denied the souls of Delilah or Sylas, which is what allows the Whispered One to bring at least Sylas back later, whereas Anders and Stonefell are killed by it and presumably snacked upon.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 09:36 |
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Overall good season and kudos for making 30+ hours work in ~3 My only nitpicks is that the CGI was a bit spotty in some episodes. I get that it's hard and expensive to animate dragons and hordes of zombies but they stood out against the gorgeous hand painted stuff. Hopefully it improves in future seasons and they can use some of that Amazon money for it. Again, I know this is hard, but the team really needs to get comfortable in drawing a bear. Vex might has well not have a pet considering the amount of time Trinket is off screen. There was also something off with some of the dialogue in the last 3 episodes. I'm not sure how to articulate it but some of it felt easy? more cheesy than usual? Felt like it needed another pass to match the tone of the episodes.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 15:18 |
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Finale good. Season good. Series good. This bodes well for more adult animation
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 18:31 |
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I enjoyed the show but am mad we didn't get Keyleth talking to the Suntree. PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN SOMETIME
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 18:39 |
As someone who never watched the stream except for maybe one episode I really loved the show. The final fight was epic and done really well. I like how as a D&D player I can make a correlation with what was most likely happening in the campaign with what was happening on screen. I hope this is the last of Percy's background being a focus because I like his character the least. Give me more grog and scanlan pls.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 18:45 |
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D-Pad posted:As someone who never watched the stream except for maybe one episode I really loved the show. The final fight was epic and done really well. I like how as a D&D player I can make a correlation with what was most likely happening in the campaign with what was happening on screen. They also made a lot of good changes for narrative flow that make sense in a DnD campaign but are terrible for story flow, like Vex blowing up the Briarwood's carriage and them just teleporting away.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 18:47 |
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C-SPAN Caller posted:I enjoyed the show but am mad we didn't get Keyleth talking to the Suntree. (Minor stream spoilers though nothing likely to connect to S2, but for those who want to see one of Matt's stronger vocal choices (and a continually corpsing cast) with KeKe) D-Pad posted:I hope this is the last of Percy's background being a focus because I like his character the least. Give me more grog and scanlan pls. Also thanks for sharing your view on the season. Glad to hear it's resonating. ETA: https://mobile.twitter.com/Polygon/status/1494679699729039361 An earlier version of the OPs mentioned more about the amount of poo poo of Keyleth/Marisha took from part of the fanbase during the first campaign. This piece connects some of that with how the first season played out. To that end, I find it interesting that she seems to have benefited from the animated and streamlined structure for the same reasons it hurt Scanlan, and that Grog somehow wound up mostly no worse for wear despite a lot of the same challenges faced in adapting Scanlan. I'll probably dive deeper on those thoughts later. Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Feb 18, 2022 |
# ? Feb 18, 2022 18:50 |
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I was always Team Keyleth since even the start of the campaign because I could tell Marisha is a nervous player. She was a rookie amongst a team of professionals. The vitriol against her bad choices was pretty awful because it lead to the removal of the live chat feed on the stream. I played D&D for years and those people acted like making a bad call is something that never happens to even professional players. The show did a great job with Keyleth. I know she may seem like a cliché 'chosen one' but her backstory is literally to become the I also like that the show acknowledges her making bad calls. Like when she cast lightning on a goddamn lighting dragon.
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 20:17 |
When I thought of where the end the season, the exact point they did is where I thought I'd end it, so I guess have good instincts
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# ? Feb 18, 2022 20:23 |
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I liked it! Keyleth and Pike seem to be the most powerful of the cast so far, granted each one specializes in their own talents and can likely carry a battle depending on their particular set of skills being called on, Keyleth so far seems more versatile. Am I the only one a bit sorry that Percy lost the demon? I kinda liked that aspect of him where he could go a bit dark, it gave him some added dimension. So his gun being thrown in the acid by Scalan. Did perchance when this was being role played the guy playing Scalan just do that without the others expecting it only for it to be yes the right move. If so that sounds like a cool moment. I do know that they did a change with Cassandra, the game had her being on the Briarwood side by her own choice and not mind controlled as is in the show, I would have preferred that as well but I get it that they're pressed for time. The king suddenly giving up his crown, I don't know why but that whole scene was weird to me. It made little sense of him to give it up when one of the counsellors turned out to be a freaking dragon. Besides, what king doesn't gently caress up now and then? Something about it just annoys me. I really want to see the character sheets now. Also is Keyleth getting a crush on Vex or is it my imagination.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 00:31 |
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The Last Call posted:I liked it! Keyleth thinks she's talking to her brother
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 01:15 |
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The Last Call posted:I liked it! So in the game, Percy had his gun in hand after the ordeal with Orthax, and everyone was not sure if the demon was gone for good. Scanlan used Friends on Percy, and convinced him through either an opposed persuasion or deception check, and convinced him to hand it over. He then said "you'll thank me for this, one day", threw it into the acid, and ran behind Grog for protection. It was a pretty great moment.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 01:57 |
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The Last Call posted:Keyleth and Pike seem to be the most powerful of the cast so far, granted each one specializes in their own talents and can likely carry a battle depending on their particular set of skills being called on, Keyleth so far seems more versatile. Am I the only one a bit sorry that Percy lost the demon? I kinda liked that aspect of him where he could go a bit dark, it gave him some added dimension. So his gun being thrown in the acid by Scalan. Did perchance when this was being role played the guy playing Scalan just do that without the others expecting it only for it to be yes the right move. If so that sounds like a cool moment. I do know that they did a change with Cassandra, the game had her being on the Briarwood side by her own choice and not mind controlled as is in the show, I would have preferred that as well but I get it that they're pressed for time. The king suddenly giving up his crown, I don't know why but that whole scene was weird to me. It made little sense of him to give it up when one of the counsellors turned out to be a freaking dragon. Besides, what king doesn't gently caress up now and then? Something about it just annoys me. I can clarify most of this. I too am sad that Percy lost the demon because drat those eyes were hot. However in the campaign, even after Orthax was gone, Percy retained the ability to cast Hex as a lingering effect of being possessed (he actually got it from the Magic Initiate feat but in terms of story, it was because of Orthax). I don't know if the animated series will include that going forward but believe me, Percy is a dark person by nature, not because of what a demon did to him. Arguably, he gets more of his darker impulses from what Ripley did to him than what Orthax did. When Scanlan chucked Percy's gun in acid on the stream, Sam did not know the demon was tied to the gun. He probably suspected it, but he had no proof. One thing I actually regret that they didn't include was that Percy was holding the gun and refused to give it to Scanlan when he asked, so Scanlan cast the Friends cantrip on him (a very minor mind control spell) and Scanlan, being a bard, blew the persuasion check out of the water to convince Percy to hand it over. Then he threw it in the acid and Percy was so pissed that Keyleth had to cast Hold Person on him to stop him from reaching into the acid to get it back. Re: Cassandra being mind controlled - yes and no. Matt's never been super clear on this but the line between where Cassandra was being mind controlled versus where she was a terrified child held hostage by her family's murderers and obeying them out of both fear and a bit of Stockholm Syndrome (yes I know that's not real, shh) was incredibly blurry. It's clear from the bite marks on Cassandra's neck and the fact that, y'know, the Briarwoods murdered her family and were going to sacrifice her that it was not a positive relationship but it's also clear that Cassandra did hold some residual anger at Percy for what she saw as abandoning her. And lastly for Uriel - the problem is we're missing a storyline. Prior to the stream and in fact prior to the Krieg/Brimscythe storyline, Matt had a plot where a demon, a Glabrezu specifically, was mind controlling the king and having him make increasingly poor and malicious decisions about how to rule the kingdom. Uriel's wife and councilors were getting increasingly concerned, pressed VM to investigate, they eventually figured out it was a demon and fought it and in fact something happened in that fight that we might eventually see on the cartoon in a flashback or something but basically it was the first time one of the party died and had to be brought back to life. It's how Pike got her white hair (it used to be black before she was killed) and the scar across her face. At any rate, because of this, the demon, Krieg, and Sylas marked three times in a row that Uriel had been either mind controlled or tricked into doing damage to his own kingdom and he decided it was on him to make sure that couldn't happen anymore. Thus, stepping down. But the cartoon doesn't provide the context of the Glabrezu and Sylas didn't have time to make Uriel do anything stupid beyond just choosing not to investigate Whitestone so it reads as weird. Phew, that was a lot. The bit about Uriel is probably the most important information we're missing from the cartoon because new viewers probably are going to be confused about it - stream viewers were confused to some extent before Matt explained things more. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Feb 19, 2022 |
# ? Feb 19, 2022 01:57 |
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Came into this knowing absolutely nothing about Critical Role and enjoyed the show a lot. A goth, aristocratic vampire and necromancer couple make for good D&D boss villains, and the brooding anime pretty-boy gunslinger is a fun, offbeat character to have in an otherwise conventional D&D party.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 02:00 |
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Started with campaign 2, learned a lot of the major character beats of campaign 1 by osmosis over the years. This is a really strong adaptation overall. Everything past the first two episodes was good television and even the first two had David Tennant. But these last three? Delightful. Okay, I'm a little tipsy and it's the start of a long weekend, but just delightful.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 02:59 |
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Grog continues to be the best.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:23 |
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Pussy Quipped posted:Grog continues to be the best. He's really taking advantage of that barbarian health pool
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:31 |
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Why does Pike refer to Grog as buddies? Is it a dick joke?
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:40 |
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Why does Pike refer to Grog as buddies? Is it a dick joke? It's just Buddy, and no, they are just really good friends.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:44 |
Paracaidas posted:I'm possibly as excited for the reactions to the end of this season of you, Robobot, and the others ITT who aren't familiar with campaign one as I am to see it myself Please do report in! Because of similarities in how they're drawn, my wife and I both briefly thought that the big twist was going to be that the Briarwoods were, in fact, Lord and Lady De Rolo themselves come back as undead. I really enjoyed this season, not least because my own tabletop sessions have been largely defunct for the past six months or so and this show has really scratched that itch. I'm a huge fan of Stephen Root since his NewsRadio days and was amazed to realize he was Anders. A lot of this is making me want to go back to watch Campaign 1, but for now I still have a couple more episodes before I'm fully caught up on C3. I think overall my reaction is that this is the first legitimately artistically good adaptation of a D&D campaign that I've ever seen, and I've read a lot of books based on D&D campaigns. I think the difference between this and other "this is my campaign, enjoy" fantasy adaptations is an interesting puzzle to dissect precisely because so many adaptations are either failures or the kind of glaring cheap success you get by paying a quarter into a gumball machine. A few guesses as to why this adaptation works so well:
Overall I'm really looking forward to the next season and have found myself going back and watching bits and pieces of campaign one. My wife is a huge jurassic park fan (will sometimes just sing the theme to herself without even realizing she's doing it) so the Gunpowder Plot episode folks linked above where Scanlan went Triceratops and the whole cast started singing the theme is literally the only time I've seen her actively engaged and watching a Twitch stream recording of any kind. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Feb 19, 2022 |
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:48 |
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CuwiKhons posted:I can clarify most of this The glabrezu storyline is contained in the teaser trailer! redbrouw fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Feb 19, 2022 |
# ? Feb 19, 2022 03:58 |
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Dexo posted:It's just Buddy, and no, they are just really good friends. She used the plural a few times, at least in this last batch of episodes.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 05:53 |
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C-SPAN Caller posted:I enjoyed the show but am mad we didn't get Keyleth talking to the Suntree. It NEEDS to happen so we get to see the much grumpier Suntree she tries to talk to later on
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 06:05 |
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Pussy Quipped posted:Grog continues to be the best. Grog is really the best kind of dumb character. I felt the earlier episodes didn't do him justice because it focused more on him being dumb and strong instead of dumb, strong and absolutely caring. There's a part much later in the series that I consider to be one of my top Grog moments and that's when Keyleth talks to him privately about how to handle her emotions. The part where he grappled Sylas and was willing to take Keyleth's deux ex machina attack was absolutely Goku kind of poo poo and I know they intended that .
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 06:39 |
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My biggest regret with the fight with Sylas was that we didn't get to hear Keyleth say "I want Sylas to eat a bag of holy dicks" when she cast Sunlight.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 06:50 |
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I know people don’t like bringing him up but was Tiberius instrumental to any of the plots this season Just curious what changed from his removal
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 08:24 |
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No, he wasn't. I mean, I'm sure he was involved in the Krieg plot but we don't know how so it doesn't matter. The player left by the time the party was leaving Emon for Whitestone so he was irrelevant to pretty much everything past the Feast. And the only thing he really did at the Feast was metagame about Sylas and get hit by a Feeblemind spell from Delilah, probably as deliberate punishment from Matt.
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 08:49 |
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Alan Smithee posted:I know people don’t like bringing him up but was Tiberius instrumental to any of the plots this season He left just before the plot went into overdrive, so he really didn't matter
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 08:50 |
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What a drat good show. I'm so glad this turned out well. Seeing campaign 1 animated is so wild. In the finale there was a split second shot of Percy putting on the mask with a crazy smile that made me jump out of my skin. 10/10
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 09:14 |
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DarklyDreaming posted:He left just before the plot went into overdrive, so he really didn't matter The only thing he would have brought to the fight was a bunch of mirrors Literally all the mirrors in Emon
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 09:21 |
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Dragonstoned posted:The only thing he would have brought to the fight was a bunch of mirrors Well maybe if his dad didn’t refuse to invade Whitestone…
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 10:03 |
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DesertIslandHermit posted:Well maybe if his dad didn’t refuse to invade Whitestone… Context?
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 10:11 |
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# ? May 31, 2024 19:47 |
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Alan Smithee posted:Context? Tiberius' backstory was that he was the son of a political figure in his home city of Draconia. When the group was making plans to go to Whitestone, Tiberius' player, Orion, hated the idea of not being the center of attention and wrote a letter asking his dad to send an army to the city on the basis of... basically nothing? They knew very little about the Briarwoods at the time outside of what Percy had told them and even less about what the state of Whitestone was these days. Matt responded in character as his father and said the request was nonsense and he absolutely wasn't going to do that because of course he wasn't. Out of character, it'd ruin the entire adventure Matt had set up and in character, Draconia isn't even on the same continent as Whitestone and Tiberius wasn't the son of a general or the king, he was the son of a minor politician. What the gently caress was his dad going to do? Write a stern letter to the Briarwoods?
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# ? Feb 19, 2022 10:58 |