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Wanderer posted:Neverafter's going just straight into the Brian Yuzna body horror. I don't know how they'll manage 20 episodes of this. Yeah, they really weren't screwing around with the warnings on this one. It's really good, but oh man does Brennan get real hosed up real fast.
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Dec 1, 2022 18:16
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First five minutes, "You're going to have to edit out my 'Eeeeeeeeee...'" Zack's and Murph's faces are premium.
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Dec 1, 2022 20:22
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That episode was really long, but also easily the best first episode of any DND campaign I've ever watched.
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Dec 1, 2022 23:39
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Brennan carrying over that powerful performance from Calamity.
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Dec 2, 2022 00:36
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Ohhh shiiiit 3rd D&D Chaos dropped. Dimension 20 vets Brennan Lee Mulligan, Becca Scott & GM Aabria Ayengar are joined by returning Mica Burton and newbie Travis McElroy Watch a professional GM desperately try to keep this train, if not on the rails, at least pointed in the right direction https://youtu.be/ccP2ISR0gfI content warning posted:Vulgar language, body horror, sexual themes, comedic death, inaccurate centaur anatomy Xand_Man fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Apr 18, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2022 06:32
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New episode of Dirty Laundry is out. I think dropout is giving me a false sense of how sex positive the US is.
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Dec 11, 2022 11:50
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Xand_Man posted:Ohhh shiiiit Jesus gently caress I love these. I just opened it up out of curiosity, with no intention to watch more than a few seconds so it's saved in my history, and had to watch the 10 minutes of chaos that is just the intro, before Aabria can even start setting up anything. There's just so much silliness in the cast introducing themselves, as they all get side-tracked with the dopiest poo poo. And yet still, somehow, Brennan just saying his character's name is enough to make everyone else bust out laughing immediately.
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Dec 11, 2022 15:40
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Xand_Man posted:Ohhh shiiiit Makes me a little sad that Travis is the McElory that seems to have made the most inroads in the live play dnd circuit, as his play style really rubs me the wrong way. Maybe this one will be different, but I noticed awhile ago he's like the anti-Brennan – where the later goes out of his way to prop up other players and set things up, Travis tends to play it much more self-contained, with dashes of making his one the most important or successful. Same goes for creativity. kiminewt posted:I think dropout is giving me a false sense of how sex positive the US is. Kind of love this show for the mix of people they get on it. Lots of people who apparently never stop loving and also a bunch of nerds and dorks who get locked into amusement parks overnight.
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Dec 11, 2022 16:11
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it's an honest sense of how sex positive 20/30somethings in the LA comedy business are lol
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Dec 11, 2022 16:14
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Xand_Man posted:Ohhh shiiiit tsob posted:Jesus gently caress I love these. I just opened it up out of curiosity, with no intention to watch more than a few seconds so it's saved in my history, and had to watch the 10 minutes of chaos that is just the intro, before Aabria can even start setting up anything. There's just so much silliness in the cast introducing themselves, as they all get side-tracked with the dopiest poo poo. And yet still, somehow, Brennan just saying his character's name is enough to make everyone else bust out laughing immediately. I love this, I've never watched any of these before, but I'm sold. The first 10 minutes is an incredible hook of chaos.
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Dec 12, 2022 06:32
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tmm3k posted:I love this, I've never watched any of these before, but I'm sold. The first 10 minutes is an incredible hook of chaos. The first two episodes are absolutely worth a watch if you liked that one, and have similar energy; including the first ten minutes being complete chaos as everyone talks over each other while getting side tracked on any random thing. Aabrai finds out what "zaddies" are in the opening of the first and decides, off the cuff, to do an extra charity drive with a new "daddy" ending (which she has no idea what it'll mean at the time) if they raise over a certain amount because she finds the whole thing so funny as an example of things just going completely buckwild.
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Dec 12, 2022 18:00
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New Game Changer confirms long time theory that Dropout is just a long con excuse to torture Grant O'Brien.
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Dec 13, 2022 |
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Dec 13, 2022 06:13
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MikeJF posted:New Game Changer confirms long time theory that Dropout is just a long con excuse to torture Grant O'Brien. Oh god, it’s worse than I could ever imagine.
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Dec 13, 2022 08:34
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I was really hoping production had fed her at least one really good, nasty answer ahead of time just to make him squirm. But it was still oh so enjoyable
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Dec 13, 2022 14:13
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She made him squirm regardless.
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Dec 13, 2022 19:47
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I Am Fowl posted:She made him squirm regardless. A few things in the episode made me squirm as well, honestly; especially the lines the 3 guests said as they entered. Rekha's "mommy" attempts sounded both somewhat sexual and somewhat childlike in a way I found kind of uncomfortable too. That aside, a really fun episode and I was kind of wondering even up to the half way point what would happen that people thought this was all about making Grant's life hell. Yeah, for someone so sexually liberated basically every time he appears on screen, he definitely felt like he was out of his element in the back half of the episode. Some real fun answers to the prompts in the episode though, and Rekha was really quick on the spot for almost every one of them too.
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Dec 14, 2022 00:46
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The Karaoke episode was magical. I can't wait to see what they put in the "Cut for Time" special.
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Dec 14, 2022 02:40
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Ill just say as a D&D player of 25 years, Ep3: The rolls and tactics were bad BUT that still felt massively railroaded and the new mechanics are anti-player. Really not vibing this season. The “darkness” feels edgelordy and forced.
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Dec 15, 2022 04:53
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He applies the mechanics equally though so I'm not sure they're specifically anti-player althought they are particularly punishing for level 1s. I got the impression he was just trying to increase the gravitas for the theme. He should've communicated it before the fight though in fairness. I won't go into too many spoilers on the fight itself but I don't that was particularly railroady either, just the usual don't put things in front of your players if they can't actually succeed without really communicating that fact, Brennan has fallen short on that front in the past too, in fact it came up in the recent adventuring academy episode with Lou where they talked about Fabian and the Illthid captain and how that went down.
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Dec 15, 2022 13:42
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Yeah, Brennan sets up some real bullshit fights more often than not.
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Dec 15, 2022 14:24
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It all made sense to me when I realized it's a rogue like
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Dec 15, 2022 14:39
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Hard to blame him though, this crew has pulled off miracles before (that Starstruck combat!). And he spent half of Crown of Candy setting up situations to kill one player and failed for what, three combats straight?weekly font posted:Really not vibing this season. The “darkness” feels edgelordy and forced. Someone didn't play American McGee's Alice. I'm digging it, as the slight tweaks (sometimes more true to the stories) is over the top, but it's fun. A zombified fairy godmother turning objects half into non-functioning people? That's great stuff. It is edgelordy and forced, but so is most dnd. Neat to see another setting. The situation they find themselves in at the end is pretty nuts, with stabilizing only to get bludgeoned to death. Have to imagine he's doing some sort of reset next ep.
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Dec 15, 2022 15:04
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Farg posted:It all made sense to me when I realized it's a rogue like I think this mechanic is why it feels forced. He did that to the party to force a narrative instead of letting them discover it naturally and the end of the fight really showed that. That 3d10 was totally made up bullshit to kill Murph. It’s good its an actual play and obviously the team dynamic and structure is wildly different than a home table but in one if a DM wasted 2.5 hours in a slog of a combat to introduce his mechanics and plot I wouldn’t sit for session 2. It’s really bad form and even in AP form not especially entertaining.
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Dec 15, 2022 15:41
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weekly font posted:I think this mechanic is why it feels forced. He did that to the party to force a narrative instead of letting them discover it naturally and the end of the fight really showed that. That 3d10 was totally made up bullshit to kill Murph. It’s good its an actual play and obviously the team dynamic and structure is wildly different than a home table but in one if a DM wasted 2.5 hours in a slog of a combat to introduce his mechanics and plot I wouldn’t sit for session 2. It’s really bad form and even in AP form not especially entertaining. he tried to do the 3d10 earlier but the only people hitting her were out of its range. it was definitely meant to kill someone going in but I don't think he improvved it on the fly
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Dec 15, 2022 16:32
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I mean if anyone can take traditionally bad DM habits and make it work its an S+ pro DM who has made some of my all time fav DnD. The jury is still out until we know what/how these mechanics work and what the overall plot is but it was a big turn off on what has already been, personally, an aesthetically unappealing season. Late era Tim Burton Hot Topic-core isn’t my jam. Good thing the funny haha shows on Dropout have been killing it the last few weeks and Adventuring Academy’s return is very welcome. I can watch BLM talk DM theory forever.
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Dec 15, 2022 19:00
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Adventuring Academy is already finished 
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Dec 15, 2022 21:38
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I mean she died right after having the shard pulled out, the fight felt winnable but it was a bad strategy to begin with. Railroading doesn't seem fair, that was entirely their plan. They even talk about how scary the furniture people are in their beauty and the beast chat in adventuring party. Level 1 dnd is fantasy rocket-tag. Having them actually lose sets up stakes even if it's hard to watch.
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Dec 15, 2022 22:15
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I could swallow everything up until you need to roll a natural 20 or you die. At that point, I was like, “Oh, Brennan is aiming for a full-party kill.”
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Dec 16, 2022 05:23
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QuoProQuid posted:I could swallow everything up until you need to roll a natural 20 or you die. At that point, I was like, “Oh, Brennan is aiming for a full-party kill.” i think thats proof that he wasnt. between that and being uncertain what to do with the furniture folks, i think he was expecting a very different outcome. he had prepared stuff for each dead character, but he had nothing ready for a tpk
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Dec 16, 2022 13:33
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I think if we really can’t know until we see next week. If the series’ mechanics are roguelike or a “going hollow” Dark Souls thing then there’s no way this wasn’t a forced TPK. Remember they’re filming this over a few days and the major plot points/battles have to be known in advance so they can be built. Mechanics like that can’t be birthed on the fly. The fact he was still giving red gems to dead characters makes me think that’s where its headed.
weekly font fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Dec 16, 2022 |
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Dec 16, 2022 14:10
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Watching the adventuring party clears up a lot of the negatives I felt about the episode. There was a lot of mistakes and bad rolls.
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Dec 16, 2022 14:11
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I will say this episode is also a good argument for just starting your 5e party at Level 3.
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Dec 16, 2022 14:19
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1-3 is a weird-rear end artifact of 5e's player-poll informed design. A large portion of the player base wanted to be fantasy super-heros but there was also a sizable contigent for whom low-level D&D was synonymous with fantasy 'Nam; you just brought half a dozen characters to feed into the funnel of whatever hilariously lethal module your GM brought. 5E made the first few levels fragile but relatively quick to get through as an attempt to satisfy everyone. It was an fairly clever solution. The grognards still jumped ship to OSR and Pathfinder anyway Xand_Man fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Dec 19, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 03:33
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https://www.polygon.com/23509083/dimension-20-neverafter-episode-3-brennan-lee-mulligan-interview Interview in polygon with Brennan about episode 3 lol.
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Dec 20, 2022 03:49
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Reminds me of the campaign I did with some friends at lv.1 where the one child character in our party got crit'd on in the first combat against a slug and died. Was funny and early enough to not feel too bad, and maybe fitting that it isn't a good idea to bring an orphan into a haunted mansion. Given how good this cast is as dnd, feel like Brennan's combats are going to err on the side of very difficult. Combine that with consistent bad rolls and ya get a TPK. There's enough plot threads dangling for each character that I have a hard time seeing how they reset with new ones in the next episode, but curious how he's going to justify bringing them back while maintaining the tension.
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Dec 20, 2022 15:00
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The thing that blows me away is that, based on my understanding of the production of the show, Brennan probably had a day or two (at most) to figure out how to handle this while still holding to the production plans and realities of making a show (maps, figurines, schedule, etc…)
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Dec 20, 2022 15:22
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There's been a few major incidents that he's had to do big rewrites on the fly for. Murph just straight-up killing Coach Daybreak in Fantasy High was a major upset to the plans, they were meant to interrogate him and that was going to lead them down an entire subplot based on the Harvestmen. Ally nat-20ing and succesfully banishing Null in Unsleeping City II was a similar major upset, he mentions the only reason he even let it succeed was because he had a few days extra break after that ep to work it out. (Given that rolling 19 or under would've killed Pete, he would've been perfectly justified to say that the nat 20 still fails the banish but lets Pete live) ' I kinda get the sense that he was prepped for how to handle a TPK in this one though, had contingency plans already in place. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Dec 20, 2022 15:32
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CatstropheWaitress posted:There's enough plot threads dangling for each character that I have a hard time seeing how they reset with new ones in the next episode, but curious how he's going to justify bringing them back while maintaining the tension. I'm not sure there's even been a character death in an Actual Play I listen to or watch where a character was established enough to have some hanging plot left unresolved and that character wasn't eventually brought back or the plot resolved in some fashion. It feels like not just TPKs are rare in Actual Plays, but actual final character death as a whole. A lot of the time if a character does have plot hanging it seems to be because they've been around long enough, and thus they and their compatriots have gained enough levels that the other cast will find some way to bring them back via a resurrection or what have you. I've only watched a couple of the D20 shows, but the only character death to jump to mind is Emily's character in A Crown of Candy, and I don't honestly remember her having any real plot threads hanging to be resolved. I don't recall disliking it as a character death at all, but I do recall disliking her replacement character because it felt like her new character threw off the gameplay and narrative balance of the game in the following couple of episodes, and I never finished the final few episodes because of it honestly. It's been a few years now, but I remember Brennan trying to have a fairly low level of magic or at least magical understanding within the game originally to ape how magic is pretty restrained as an art people can do within Game of Thrones, so that there were no real proper "casters", and then Emily comes in with Saccharina and starts blasting spells left and right, which threw a lot of the gameplay off. I don't blame her at all, since it's within the rules after Brennan agreed to let her play a caster with her second character, and she's just really good at exploiting those rules, but it meant Emily ended up dominating battles in a way she normally doesn't, I suppose because Brennan originally created the outline of the season without factoring such a class into things at all. Which, when combined with a character whose story was about confronting and trying to push into the political sphere because she'd felt ostracized due to her birth and how she was raised, and it just ended up making that one character feel like they were taking over the entire game. The whole cast seemed like they were enjoying it, so obviously wasn't a problem for them, but I lost interest after it. I assume there's been at least one major character death (and possibly resurrection) in some of the Fantasy High or Unsleeping City seasons, but I haven't watched either to know. I must get around to them at some point. I've started several others like Starstruck Odyssey and never finished them either; not because I disliked it, but I just got distracted and bounced off for no reason after only one or two episodes. MikeJF posted:There's been a few major incidents that he's had to do big rewrites on the fly for. Murph just straight-up killing Coach Daybreak in Fantasy High was a major upset to the plans, they were meant to interrogate him and that was going to lead them down an entire subplot based on the Harvestmen. Ally nat-20ing and succesfully banishing Null in Unsleeping City II was a similar major upset, he mentions the only reason he even let it succeed was because he had a few days extra break after that ep to work it out. (Given that rolling 19 or under would've killed Pete, he would've been perfectly justified to say that the nat 20 still fails the banish but lets Pete live) The rejiggering he had to do for Escape the Bloodkeep is probably my favorite example just because it wasn't a lucky dice roll or any one player that hosed his plans, but the whole party as one gestalt that caused it. Not even the whole party as one consciously making a decision, but everyone gelling together in a way that threw his initial plans out completely, because he had initially planned for the season all about a group of villains to end in a PvP brawl to crown a new dark lord, only the cast were so friendly and cooperative from the off, probably as a conscious decision to subvert things that he knew within one or two episodes his plan was never going to work and he had to come up with a new ending for it altogether. Which must have been one hell of an overhaul. The Samwise Gamgee analogue he made for a joke but that Matt Mercer's character got obsessed with trying to beat and just never even dented because Brennan gave the Halfling a Storm Giant's stats as a joke was great too. Man that was a great season. It has one of Brennan's best NPC's too; Avanash the "my bones" guy. tsob fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Dec 20, 2022 16:36
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tsob posted:The rejiggering he had to do for Escape the Bloodkeep is probably my favorite example just because it wasn't a lucky dice roll or any one player that hosed his plans, but the whole party as one gestalt that caused it. Not even the whole party as one consciously making a decision, but everyone gelling together in a way that threw his initial plans out completely, because he had initially planned for the season all about a group of villains to end in a PvP brawl to crown a new dark lord, only the cast were so friendly and cooperative from the off, probably as a conscious decision to subvert things that he knew within one or two episodes his plan was never going to work and he had to come up with a new ending for it altogether. Which must have been one hell of an overhaul. The Samwise Gamgee analogue he made for a joke but that Matt Mercer's character got obsessed with trying to beat and just never even dented because Brennan gave the Halfling a Storm Giant's stats as a joke was great too. Man that was a great season. It has one of Brennan's best NPC's too; Avanash the "my bones" guy. Bloodkeep did also continue the bit in the first fantasy high of having the players focus on some random bit of coolness in the set, like the crow in the first season. That whole boatman thing was pretty obviously made up on the fly, and all because someone thought the mini was cool but it became a huge part of the last battle.
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Dec 20, 2022 16:49
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tsob posted:I've only watched a couple of the D20 shows, but the only character death to jump to mind is Emily's character in A Crown of Candy, and I don't honestly remember her having any real plot threads hanging to be resolved. I don't recall disliking it as a character death at all, but I do recall disliking her replacement character because it felt like her new character threw off the gameplay and narrative balance of the game in the following couple of episodes, and I never finished the final few episodes because of it honestly. It's been a few years now, but I remember Brennan trying to have a fairly low level of magic or at least magical understanding within the game originally to ape how magic is pretty restrained as an art people can do within Game of Thrones, so that there were no real proper "casters", and then Emily comes in with Saccharina and starts blasting spells left and right, which threw a lot of the gameplay off. My understanding with this is that for A Crown of Candy, all of the cast made backup characters and all of the backup characters were supposed to be more magically oriented (and therefore probably stronger) than their initial low-magic characters were. However, unfortunately the only ones we saw were Cumulous (who did have a few cool moments but overall didn't stand out so not sure if he was an outlier for the backup characters or what happened) and Saccharina (who as you said went on to dominate gameplay). I wonder if things would have seemed more balanced if we'd gotten more backup characters or at least different ones. But I completely agree with you that it changed the dynamic of the season in a very negative way for me. And this was before she got a dragon. Emily did nothing wrong in creating this character and she shouldn't have gotten the backlash from it but it made it very difficult for me to make it through the back half of the season.
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