The Legend of Vox Machina S3 – Episode 6

Whats up of us, and welcome again to Fallacious Each Time. At this time we return to Vox Machina in a second of unqualified triumph, as they haven’t solely retrieved Pike’s spiffy new breastplate from the depths of hell, they’ve additionally managed to kill the ice dragon Vorugal within the discount. The Chroma Conclave’s most relentless bulldog, and the destroyer of the social gathering’s personal pleasant chateau, now lies buried among the many frigid wastes of Tal’Dorei. It’s beginning to seem to be our crew may truly pull this off!

Provided that, I think about Mercer has some horrible reckoning awaiting our heroes. DnD campaigns clearly shouldn’t really feel hopeless, however additionally they shouldn’t really feel easy – ideally, the social gathering ought to really feel like they’ve the burden of the world on their shoulders, however that their finest efforts may simply come to some triumphant finish. In follow, this tends to imply DnD drama follows a kind of curler coaster construction, constructing the social gathering up simply to ship them plummeting down, typically at moments aligned with some kind of narrative act change. My very own prior marketing campaign built-in such plummets on the conclusion of its first and second acts, letting every act finale serve a number of roles: providing an enormous motion payoff, reaffirming the social gathering’s bonds with the world and characters, and placing the general forces of fine on the backfoot with a view to give the social gathering room to rise once more.

Up to now, Vox Machina’s solely such reckoning has been the arrival of the Chroma Conclave. Given their latest successes, I think about we’re due for some method of impolite awakening, one thing to guarantee each social gathering and viewers that Thordak nonetheless has the higher hand. Mechanical and narrative design are in settlement on this one: challenges should really feel difficult, drama should really feel heart-pounding, and events which are doing too properly have to be correctly chastened. Let’s drop that different shoe, Mercer!

Episode 6

Ah proper, we have been final on the verge of exploring Scanlan’s magical bachelor pad, which is presumably his model of the Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion spell. Spells like that go away a ton of wiggle room for outlining how they really resolve, which means they’re a spot the place mechanics and creativity entwine, permitting the participant to specific their character’s character by the size and decor of their ideally suited fantasy dwelling. Scanlan’s participant appears largely detached to excessive fantasy drama or fight, however that is the kind of place the place he shines, going above and past in bringing his personal magical villa to life

Past broad player-interest archetypes like gamers who’re into mechanics versus these into roleplay, there are many smaller pleasures in DnD whose prominence ought to usually be dictated by a given social gathering’s relative curiosity. My marketing campaign has commerce and a basic economic system as a result of certainly one of my gamers likes nothing greater than to handle his enterprise holdings; in the event you’re DMing correctly, your world ought to develop or contract to match the form of your gamers’ passions

Oh no, I hear that hi-hat constructing. Scanlan’s obtained a tune coming

Yeah, this place has obtained the whole lot. No shock Scanlan demanded a scorching tub

Seeing the social gathering’s allies arrayed on this OP makes me marvel how a lot this adaptation has condensed their firm. I in all probability went overboard in my first marketing campaign; I needed to do a grand wrestle between nations, so we ended up with round two dozen important gamers, and a beneficiant scattering of smaller figures. I like writing characters!

Vax visits Percy for a heart-to-heart within the pool, which given Percy’s response presumably means Vex simply ducked underneath the water or one thing

Yep, so it goes. Good to see these two actively addressing their emotional baggage, although. With a sufficiently assured group of gamers, inner social gathering drama can present the vast majority of a marketing campaign’s emotional battle, and in addition furnish every exterior victory with the satisfaction of constructing off your hard-won mutual belief. New gamers will doubtless act extra like a collective peanut gallery, their eyes at all times in the direction of the DM – after you acquire sufficient confidence to take the highlight in-character, you usually begin to acknowledge all of the alternatives inherent in your characterization being straight contrasted in opposition to that of your fellow gamers. With our present marketing campaign in Strahd, that’s offering virtually all of the emotional drama, because the on-book stuff isn’t significantly participating. We’ve obtained a younger son of the Aristocracy taking our journey as a private affront, a jaded pirate who’s glad to needle mentioned noble, and my kind-hearted cleric within the center, placing her foot in her mouth at the same time as she simply tries to make everybody get alongside

In the meantime, Grog and Pike are busy wrecking the place, keen to check out Pike’s new armor. Some character dynamics are fairly easy

Urged on by Percy’s phrases, Vax tries to patch issues up with Keyleth. They’re doing a wonderful job of condensing what I assume was much more will they-won’t they into a fairly concise romantic arc

Percy and Vax make for a pleasant parallel – Percy’s studying to actively search and construct a sustainable future, fairly than destroy himself looking for revenge, whereas Vax’s bargains and visions are main him to desert something however the current second

Then again, I assume Scanlan’s regrets concerning his daughter have been given a bit extra focus by way of this adaptation. That thread is commonly carried just by Scanlan watching his daughter’s image every so often, which I doubt was one thing Scanlan’s participant was persistently asserting to the desk. DnD isn’t a fantastic format for exploring character interiority; all of its drama is outlined by interplay with different characters and the exterior world, and having gamers announce their characters’ secret emotions could be clumsy regardless. This truth truly took some adjustment on my half, given my love of interiority-first tales like Evangelion and Monogatari

“We can’t keep chasing vestiges all over the map. How many are enough – three, five?” Vax raises a query so sharp it appears tinged with an fringe of real participant frustration. For those who’re going to ask your social gathering to go acquire dragon balls, you should at least inform them what number of dragon balls are on the market, lest you danger them assuming you’re simply dragging out their trials with increasingly more busywork. Dragon ball hunts are inherently busywork, so the whole lot you are able to do to offer such a hunt a way of real construction is welcome

Scanlan then explodes on the desk, nonetheless choked up with guilt concerning his daughter

“You’re not horrible, you’re just caring for someone else for the first time, and it’s freaking you out.” Ouch, Pike. It is a large a part of the conversational dynamic of my present cleric – apparently “killing them with blunt kindness” is a fairly pure cleric affectation

Pike helps Scanlan examine on Kaylie, and so they study she continues to be hoping for his reappearance. Welp, it’s been enjoyable, Scanlan

I’m wondering how a lot of this drama was the participant’s meant path, and the way a lot was the participant simply sorta getting sick of enjoying Scanlan. There’s no disgrace in an honorable discharge in the event you really feel your character has outlasted their position within the story, and Scanlan’s at all times been averse to truly participating with excessive fantasy drama

Thus Scanlan steps again from their teleportation circle, and resolves to reunite together with his daughter

In the meantime, the remainder return dwelling to see Whitestone burning. Yep, right here’s that reckoning I used to be speaking about

The social gathering breaks into quite a lot of teams to concurrently defend the tree, fortress, and other people of Whitestone. I’m exceedingly curious as to how this was dealt with in-session; it might have been simple sufficient to leap between lively teams, however I’ve additionally carried out a good quantity of experimenting with bigger battlefields containing a number of fronts, the place totally different members of the social gathering are pursuing their very own targets on the whole fight flip order. I’ve discovered this works very properly for Seven Samurai-style holdout missions, with totally different parts of the social gathering defending totally different weak factors of a city’s defenses

“We’ll deal with this, Percy. Go find your sister.” As I mentioned within the intro, one of many large potential payoffs of those reckonings is their affirmation of the social gathering’s work up to now, and the trusted allies they’ve acquired throughout their journey. Nothing just like the social gathering and their hard-earned pals collaborating in defeating some grand evil to remind the gamers of how far they’ve come, and the way a lot they’ve achieved

They’re additionally a fairly helpful “false clock,” providing an implication of urgency within the social gathering’s mission with out truly binding them to a timer. You would theoretically bind the social gathering to a actual clock, however I’m fairly certain the one results of that may be participant nervousness and frustration, so why would you? Design house present isn’t by itself a convincing motive to use it; you could first uncover whether or not that design house results in productive, compelling participant experiences

Cassandra is busy holding off a dragon with a fencing rapier, an inherent nod to the frequent absurdity of DnD’s fight mechanics

Now that I’m truly enjoying a cleric, I can extra totally recognize the primacy of the protect in Pike’s combating type. Having your defining device for fight interplay be a defensive instrument naturally encourages distinct methods of approaching fight, each in mindset and mechanics

And right here’s our stark visible illustration of how badly our heroes have been crushed: the fortress of Whitestone, seat of their energy and icon of Percy’s hopes for the longer term, is now collapsing. I truly had my very own social gathering’s capital metropolis get practically destroyed twice, with the second try accompanying a country-wide infernal invasion that had them teleporting between three totally different battlefronts

I suppose Mercer pulled mainly the identical factor, with Whitestone demanding each a liberation and a protection mission. It’s good to have locations the characters care about!

Keyleth claims this assault was Raishan’s doing, and Raishan promptly exhibits as much as defend herself

Raishan makes some fairly legitimate factors concerning Ripley’s culpability on this assault, simply barely forestalling an enormous ol’ dragon battle. Sadly, that’s not sufficient to maintain them from severing their alliance

And Executed

See, heroes? You are taking only one second to loosen up and exult in your earlier successes, and look what it will get you – a scorched metropolis, a brand new nemesis, and a number of child dragons flying round fucking up everybody’s enterprise. Nicely, we hit exactly the dramatic swerves I anticipated this episode, which says much less about my prognosticative capabilities than the widely dependable nature of narrative construction. After so many unqualified successes, the social gathering wanted to really feel like they have been on the backfoot once more, and scorching Whitestone was completely probably the most dependable strategy to obtain it. There’s a nice satisfaction in watching your gamers develop some real anger in the direction of your antagonists, a frustration that may solely come up from first having come to spend money on and care concerning the folks of your world. With their dwelling in ruins, I’m desperate to see Vox Machina make some exceedingly reckless selections!

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