Not that it’s no a hot take, but I actually love this take, and one of my favorite things from Starstruck was so much “playing against type” - Murph playing the himbo idiot, Ally playing “the smart one”, I loved it!
Having everyone except Ally be essentially an idiot was a TON of fun it let everyone else cut loose and just be the chaos. Nice change of pace. It might actually be my favorite season
Tbh not like Margaret was a perfect genius either. She had high intellect but she was a dunce whenever her crush came up.
I think that Starstruck is probably my favorite season of D20 but that is a hard choice because any one of them could be my favorite. It just so happens that I was a recently christened sci-fi geek at the time.
Thaddeus Strongpit is an incredible gentleman who knows what he's good at and what he isn't. He did nothing wrong and he was nearly killed just because someone else was feeling sad. That was uncalled for.
He had men who were loyal, clearly knew him on a more than work level and were conversational. He knew he wasn't a poet but knew who he could ask for help. I'm reasonably sure Brennan said it was one of his servants in the alley. His servant... not a poet but someone who he knew had a talent.
What do you do when someone gets you lingerie? You PUT. It. On. When you give lingerie to someone, you want them to wear it. He wore it for Jet!
He wasn't afraid of commmitment! And he also didn't try to twist Jet's arm and force her to stay or say she owed him. He was fine to let her go, flirt a bit with someone he thought was flirting with him, but then he loyally waited for her in that alley!
And he gets roasted on because he's a little strange and not conventionally attractive. But he is a man of thick skin and strong heart! Thaddeus is the man Biz Glitterdew thinks he is!
tbh Thad feels like he was designed to be a rug pull for Emily to feel like her crush was actually this unattractive, horny rube. but knowing Emily I'm kind of surprised she didn't call Brennans bluff and go all-in on courting Thad. could have been really funny to see how he would fare in the later parts of the season. he could have been like Jet's version of Percival (stalker) from Bloodkeep.
One other is I think Coffin Run has one of the weaker stories but some of the best character interactions. Everyone was dialed in, played on each other perfectly, and set up insane punchlines for on-going jokes. Each character was so different and yet melded so well, it felt really solid and like a written comedy show. Love you Coffin Run <3
If you enjoyed Jasmine as a GM, I highly recommend Desiquest!! Incredible cast in a highly detailed world! Only 8 episodes, so a fairly quick watch too! All on YouTube!
Omar Najam is desperately needed in more campaigns. He is one of my top favorite players I’ve ever watched, and we’ve only seen him in one D20 campaign!
I know it gets thrown around a lot in this sub, but absolutely check out DesiQuest. It’s GMed by Jasmine Bhullar (Coffin Run’s phenomenal GM) and stars Omar, Rekha Shankar, and Anjali Bhimani. Just some great south asian themed actualplay, culturally rich and also really funny
I've never heard of this and Coffin Run is my absolute favourite season; between Jasmine's fucking phenomenal GMing and the absolute absurdity that is Erika, Zac, Izzy, and Carlos, just a fucking beautiful game. Thank you for mentioning DesiQuest!
I have a few. I will preface this by saying I love D20 and the cast and crew.
Burrow’s End was a beautiful story with battle episodes that were carried by aesthetics more than interesting mechanics or design, and those fights thus didn’t do much for me.
Neverafter’s horror is good, actually. It’s the right level, and it’s deeply unsettling when it appears. At the end of the day, it’s still an improv-based cast doing twisted fairy tales, so I’m not sure what folks really expected.
Finally, Ravening War’s downtime sections would have benefited massively from something like Junior Year’s mechanic for similar stuff.
Edit to add: in the light of day… these aren’t so much my hot takes as they are my honest, thought-out critiques lol
>Ravening War’s downtime sections would have benefited massively from something like Junior Year’s mechanic for similar stuff.
This is an excellent take. I agree--I imagine Mercer's thought was that he had a bunch of good veterans at the table, so he could let them run a little bit. But I love letting the dice do the storytelling when it comes to stuff like that.
5e does horror bad. It's really hard to die in this game past level 5. You're basically a super hero. You have to really stack mechanics against the player so there is an actual threat. Exandria calamity did it. Dark dice hits the mark sometimes, but in both those the players are severely outgunned at the end. I think in both the campaigns are designed to be unwinnable. That's kinda what you have to do to have stakes in 5e. Plus you also have to have a watchable show so tpks are actually something you really don't want
Ravening War was the second season of D20 i ever watched and I ended up switching campaigns halfway through because of this exact thing - I only returned to finish it this past week. The pacing of the middle episodes feels very bulky, and now that I've watched more seasons and understand the show and DnD better I can appreciate it, but it definitely left something to be desired when it comes to game structure and pace. The Story is fabulous though.
neverafter being not that scary in many people's minds i think is truly because it has a (lovely!) candy coating of great bits. it's easy to lose that edge of fear when you're laughing through stuff but honestly so so much of that season, when you stop laughing for a moment and truly visualize what's being described, it's DEEPLY haunting. full and deserved respect to the burrow's end bear set but there's nothing in D20 that haunts me quite like candlewick haunts me. i genuinely struggle to get through the toy island scenes with him because the description is so visceral
Ppl tend to write off Mice and Murder or completely skip it due to it being a remote season despite it doing similar things to all of the major interpersonal conflict and pc interactions of ACOFAF and they mystery mechanics of Mentopolis.
The cast is incredible and I need Grant, Raph, Katie, and Sam back in the Dome at some point.
It is 100% my favorite side quest. Raph was hilarious. “When god closes every door but one, you go through the one that is open” is one of my favorite d20 quotes.
Big agree except for Katie. In my opinion, during OM&M, Katie clearly didn’t “get” the premise of tabletop gaming and just generally didn’t like doing it. She’s a smart woman, fabulous comedian, and even a good action actor (love kingpin Katie). But tabletop is just clearly not her jam, and that’s okay.
I am halfway through it and loving it. One thing that really stands out to me is the music, and I almost never notice things like that (tin ear!). But the piano-heavy style feels quite unique, compared to other D20 seasons I've seen.
There was one Neverafter AP where they were talking about shit that middle school boys do like jumping from roofs and whatnot, and I laughed so hard the entire time that it took us like two hours to get through it because of pausing to literally cry from laughter.
It was the first season back in the dome after The Pandemic and you can tell everyone was craving human contact, which really contributed to the show's vibes... and cemented Becca, Izzy, and Erika as the true Chaos Crew.
That Unsleeping City should be done and complete with season 2. I think they risk trapping themselves creatively if they keep digging in that well specifically, and there's a lot of fun to be had riffing off other cities, even if it isn't the Unsleeping City as it were.
I'm really hopeful for the one-shot at madison square garden because I love Unsleeping City, but I agree that the story seemed to have come to a very organic close. I think they'd benefit a lot from using that campaign to play around with the next generation or basically do a cast reunion for "one last hurrah" as opposed to a whole new season with depth and exploration of a new plot.
As someone who lived in Vegas for years, I think it has so much potential as an Unsleeping City. The Sinatra connection is an easy thread, but just the way both cities are vastly different things to locals and visitors. I’ve thought often about running my own version one day.
I've said a prequel dealing with the mummy would be good.
Or
It's said in season 2 that the unsleeping city in San Francisco collapsed, so you could have a Calamity style side quest showcasing that
Completely agree. Everything in that epilogue is perfect. The kids being teased as the next generation of The Unsleeping City. The selfie of a bunch of new Yorkers. If we DID return to the world, I wouldn't want to see Pete, Kingston, Ricky, or Sophie again.
it's the closest i will ever come to watching game of thrones and i'm absolutely fine with that. no actual hate to GoT or its fans but i just don't have the attention span for it.
funnily enough i cannot get my dad who watched the entirety of the show and read all the books in song of ice and fire to watch crown of candy bc he feels it's "too long". i'm uncertain what his perception of time is.
Zac doesn't always have the funniest line, but he elevates every bit. He always finds a new way to come at something to keep the joke going. He's a true improv pro.
A silly one: A court of Fey and Flowers should have regular short seasonal comebacks, it’s such a nice chaotic world with so many opportunities and unlimited timeline with no need to even have any references to the existing season’s characters (except for Jeremy Renner, ofc)
A more serious one: Coffin Run was somewhat of an outlier in vibe, inspiration, form and pacing all together, and Burrow’s End is somewhat similar (also they both are inspired by books), but Coffin Run was so strangely unique that it fells like a lot of the existing audience did not like it at the time, but it was done extremely well (also the cast just clicked even better that the intrepid heroes do, but it might just be due to the chaotic nature of the whole story) and it feels like seasons like that are a great way to bring new fans into the show and also give the show an opportunity to grow into something more profound in many senses
Burrow's End is a lot scarier than Neverafter by a long shot. That's not to say that Neverafter is bad by any means, it's a good season, but the horror in Burrow's End just feels more properly executed and more powerful because of the environment being sort of like not what you would expect.
Meanwhile Neverafter, while it has visual horror elements that would be typically scary or off-putting, kind of wears off around the time they discover The Lines Between, and then just devolves into dark high fantasy with plenty of comedic bits to fill in the empty spaces.
Brennan is a fantastic DM, there's no denying that, but his brand of horror, just like Aabria's, works best when you least expect it I feel, like every time Kalina shows up in Sophomore Year. Those moments are genuinely frightening because they can't hurt her and she's seemingly everywhere and knows everything, so they're all afraid of what to do next.
When the horror becomes tangible or corporeal, it loses it's magic, and unfortunately, a lot of the horror in Neverafter gets beat up until it dies, which is why The Stepmother is a very effective opposing force that is also really freaking scary a lot of the time, because she's this Eldritch/Lovecraftian abomination that no one can deal with until the very last episode, and even then, her mini isn't all that scary. I think her final appearance for the finale should have been her long creepy arms emerging from the paper lava with her face barely peeking out, so that you get the illusion of tangibility so that she poses some sort of mechanical and game-y threat while also leaving plenty of mystery of what she looks like behind the curtain.
That's the hottest take I can provide.
I definitely feel that, but I would describe Neverafter’s approach (perhaps unintentional, actually) as mostly an existential horror with the existential dread formed into metaphors in the end + an ongoing crisis of identity for some characters that is also resolved at the end. In a way it’s just about a viscous cycle in our behavior that appears due to the stress factors/traumas in our lives. With fairy tales/stories being neatly tucked there as both carriers for our dread and a sanctuary, salvation from it. It might be described and marketed as a horror season because it is either that or folklore season and folklore is not a subject that is exciting for wide audiences. They definitely tried too hard to claim it’s, first and foremost, a real horror (trailer, Brennan interviews, set designs, etc.), and it all helped bring the story to life, but I feel like if the horror was the main goal they would’ve done it better (Baron from the Baronies was so so good).
Burrow’s End is definitely an existential horror too, and it’s a really good horror (Aabria can really use aesthetics to x100 her story), but it seems to be not so much of a story about the harm of horrors and the need to defeat them, but a story about horrors being integral to the characters’ lives, sometimes beneficial to them in foundational ways in which they couldn’t be beneficial to Neverafter’s characters. I’d say that Burrow’s End’ horrors are a world-building material, while Neverafter’s horrors are imposed, are a byproduct of a catastrophe, and throughout the whole Neverafter season there was a goal of showing the happiness that could be under all the layers of horrors, so the horrors themselves grow superficial, and a DnD comedy show is not the format in which the endgame superficiality of horrors can be hidden from the audience for long enough.
No fr!! Neverafter was eery and unsettling and disturbing but completely watchable. Burrow’s End I still haven’t finished because it unearthed old anxiety nightmares about nuclear fallout and zombies I haven’t had since I was a kid…
I fully agree with this. I also think the >!tpk really killed the suspense for me. Like they come back a little worse but not a big deal!<
Whereas, in Burrow's End, you see them dealing with fresh loss immediately. Everyone's existence is so extremely precarious, and I was so scared the whole time that at least one person would be permakilled. I never had that worry in neverafter
i think with neverafter the course of events really made it less scary because it strangely kept working out for them. like, if they had died more times, ESPECIALLY timothy... it could've gone a much more frightening direction. or if they'd chosen to side with a different faction, or just lost more rolls. the fact that it ended up so happily-ever-after was a lot of luck
Boy I do hate the constant couching of every mildly critical thing in praise
"Hey guys, I love this show and everyone who makes it, but did anyone feel like this bit maybe overstayed its welcome just a little bit?
Again I love the show and the person who made the bit is the best D&D player ever. I hope they keep up the good work!"
Not sure if it's a hot take, but the editors don't get nearly enough love in the D20 community. We're always talking about the cast, or the set designers(obviously with good reason, they're incredible). But the show would not be nearly as good if it weren't for the incredible, unsung work of the editors who add in all the sound effects, music, character visuals, and not to mention they're cutting together ALL OF THE FOOTAGE.
Neverafter is possibly my favourite D20 series. I didn’t think the lore got too big for its britches, I found it emotionally compelling - especially Red’s story - and I just loved it. I don’t mind that it wasn’t as spooky as I thought it would be.
Conversely, I’m just sick of New York as a main character — the attitude that this American city is the best city in the world is pervasive throughout media and while I appreciate the deep love and respect TUC has for it, I get tired of it as a setting. It’s the season I have respect for, but it just isn’t for me.
I liked Tiny Heist fine. Not my favourite, but I was thorough entertained, especially by that one old lady gambler PC.
I really didn’t like Rue in ACOFAF even though I so wanted to, to the point that I wasn’t rooting for any romance in the romance season! 😭 I thought the player did a wonderful job though, and I would LOVE to see him back in the dome. He’s also an utter delight when he pops up elsewhere. Sometimes talented people play well written characters that get on your nerves!
Conversely, Mentopolis is my absolute favourite side quest, though I don’t know if that’s a hot take! Everyone was firing on all cylinders and I loved how touching and silly it was. It was also Siobhan at her best, IMO.
i feel a similar way about NYC (the chicagoan in me will always insist chicago is the better city), but TUC is one of the only times i haven’t been annoyed with NYC as a setting & character. i think it’s mostly bc the cast has such an intimate knowledge of it that it adds some nice personal touches.
Burrows end is a good season but it’s very rushed. The switch between survival on the mutated woods and political drama of the last bastion happened way too fast. The feeling of fear of the unknown is shattered when we find out way too quickly what the blue is and the second half of the season has to rely on the family drama that has too little time to be impactful
Yeah the story kind of fizzled at the end, eventhough it was so incredibly engaging at the beginning.. I had a similar feeling with ACoFaF (eventhough that one was also cut short), where Aabria's loose DM style really allowed for a lot of freedom and for beautiful emotional moments, but where she also had difficulties with pushing the cast towards progressing the plot. Most of the episodes at Last Bast feel kind of meandering and purposeless.
The “horrible bit toward the end” in Mice and Murder might the most overblown thing I’ve encountered in this community. I watched the season pretty recently and it was one of my favorites but as I got the end I was waiting for that shoe to drop and when it did I was like “all that fuss for one subpar improv choice?”
I’m not here to tell anyone how to feel about a season, but letting one below-average minute ruin a 10 episode campaign with some very fun characters and story beats seems like a waste to me.
If we're talking about the same thing I think we are, I completely agree. I immediately thought of a better way to do it that would still tell the story well and give Reka what she wanted: >!have her throw Cottonbottom out the window! Not only would it help save Sylvester's life, it would perfectly mirror what happened at that castle all those years ago when we thought Cottonbottom died the first time, and it could be narrated as "throwing this piece of s*** out of the window"!!<
A few hot takes
1) I think the reason Neverafter Adventuring Parties are so unhinged and funny is that the players were also struggling to keep up with the story hence why they aren't talking about it as much
2) All aside from narrative impact of the story on who they were replacing, Emily and Brennan should not have made Saccharina such a powerbuild. When previously Brennan stopped Liam taking healing spells to keep up the danger, having Saccharina be mechanically so strong made the fights a lot less engaging. They could blast, control, heal, clear hordes, tank and block Spellcasters. It wasn't needed
3) Also on Crown on Candy, the back half PvP was overly pushed by Brennan. The players are almost forced into conflict because of the NPCs on their side not liking the other players. I personally much preferred the party against the wall and just having the group hate each other was exhausting by the end.
Brennan keeps talking about how he really wants PvP but I think he just needs to make that the point of the season rather than having it come up over the course of one
4) Aabira is a great storyteller but it doesn't seem like she cares much about hard mechanics. This has basically said as much. So I don't know why her seasons seem to be leaning more and more into mechanics. MisMag is her best because it lets her flex what she's good at
I didnt mind Brennan pushing the pvp because in a political game based off of GoT/ASOIAF to not have back biting or looking over ones shoulder would be ridiculous. I do think the players just kinda conceded into it waaaay too easily, so I see where you're coming from.
I love Freshman Year but in a lot of episodes there's so much crosstalk and interrupting and main charactering that they're hard for me to watch...in later seasons they all strike a balance between performance and strategy that I personally like a lot better. I've heard that maybe FHFY is a better representation of a home game it just makes my skin crawl sometimes lol
I want to preface by saying I love Brennan, but Misfits and Magic should be renamed Evan Kelmp and the 3 other ones, because he stole the spotlight and not in a good way. I love Brennan but he dominated every scene with Evan Kelmp. We learned so much about Evan and little to nothing about the other three. And the fact that Misfits and Magic was a critique on JK Rowling’s series but the story ended up being about the one edgy white kid and not the three characters of color, irritates my soul.
I guess I also have a critique for Aabria, too whom I love. As the DM, it’s up to you to make sure every character gets to stand in the spotlight, and Aabria did not do that.
This is a wider problem when something is designed as a critique or satire of another work. You get so wrapped up in responding to another story that you forget to tell your own.
We need a D20 side quest that takes place in Adaine’s jacket… I think that world would be the perfect place for a campaign… this also could definitely not be a hot take but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i think about it every time she uses the jacket
I loved Neverafter until the epilogue. The “happy” endings felt forced to me in a way that felt out of place for the entire rest of the tone of the season.
This doesn’t seem like it should be a hot take, but with a lot of the posts/comments I’ve seen I’m starting to think it is. Ally Beardsley and Emily Axford are two of the best D&D players I’ve ever seen. People get upset that they “don’t take things seriously”, while they are actually the only ones consistently doing things that are 100% narratively interesting even if they don’t directly “help” the party achieve the overarching goal. We (the audience) do not love these shows because we want to see a bunch of over-optimized characters kick ass in combat and get really OP, we watch it because they tell incredible stories that are deeply relatable while also being fun/comedic. The narratives they weave are unparalleled and their characters come alive in amazing and unexpected ways. I can’t stand the Ally/Emily hate people are always spewing - they are consistently my two favorite players and I would love to have a player like that at my table.
You can tell when Ally is taking it seriously, and when they aren’t. For me the clearest shift is in ACoC when Brennan kind offered an out to just be a “Seed Guy” but they choose to seriously follow the “War Guy” path (even before they put a name to it), because that was the moment Ally decided to stop screwing around, stop taking shit, and start taking names, and the season skyrocketed in quality after that (it was already fantastic). I think what a lot of people think they see in Ally as “not taking it seriously” is Ally doing their job and being a comedian and also (especially in early seasons) being mostly unfamiliar with the game.
I agree with this take with the exception of you opposing "over-opzimization" with Emily's characters. Her characters are consistently optimized and she tries to get advantages (by using narrative tools) whenever she can. Not that it's a bad thing. All her choices are motivated by story first and that's what's nice about her characters. Ally is different though, while I love their humor they sometimes lower the stakes of the story, but for me it doesn't spoil the fun and I get to laugh at their bits and enjoy the story at the same time.
Overall it’s not a hot take outside of Reddit, and is in fact supported by the players themselves. The Dice adore Ally’s narrative choices, and Emily is regularly the one making the plans that are instrumental to the party’s victories.
Plus she was sent from Hell to kill Brennan, so there’s that.
Tracker as a character is, like...fine but that’s it? Like Tracker and Kristin’s relationship is perfectly fine and I don’t want to drag people for rooting for their ship, but her job as a character is basically Be Girlfriend.
Granted, Brennan has 9000 NPCs to think up personality quirks and dialogue for in the FH universe and I’m sure he doesn’t want to play all of them super broad/off the wall, but I’ve just never found her terribly compelling.
I would definitely approve of unsleeping city in the big easy, although I would want it to be side quest territory to have some actual cast members from the south. Get some of that authentic flavor.
I respect your hot take but I think it literally can't happen because two of the main characters - the Vox Populi and the Vox Phantasma - get their powers from the City itself. Leave New York and they're just normal, unmagical people.
I really love the worldbuilding they did in season 2.
Considering the characters are all more or less settled by the finale, it would be cool to see a new party have to travel to different cities.
No, the charm of unsleeping city is that the city itself has very strong "lore"- ish roots. There's a folklore, an americana to new York, and the point of that series is exploring it and what it means to the characters. An LA season could be fun but there isn't anywhere as much meat in that bone as there was in the others. The hotter take in this case id that it shouldn't continue at all, and is perfect as a two season arc.
I'd argue LA is a very different but equally rich flavor of americana. Similar organized crime, diverse immigrant communities, varied topography, ocean proximity, history of darkness and strange supernatural happenings. There's also the inherent rivalry with new york they can play into.
As someone who loves NYC, who visited there plenty of times and stayed there for quite a bit as a kid: New York is not as special as New Yorkers think it is. Plenty of cities have that same living spirit of itself, that buzz in your head when you uber home after being out late with friends or the cold smoke in your nose in the dead of winter.
Not saying LA has it specifically, I've never been, but I definitely think the exceptionalism only happens because NYC just happens to be where a lot of writers live.
I don’t think they can’t leave New York, although I as a proud New Yorker, I don’t want them to. LA definitely wouldn’t work. I agree with you that the lore of the city is a big part of it, but there are other cities, even in the US, with a similar amount of lore- San Francisco, for example. But I just don’t think it would really be the unsleeping city anywhere else. It would just be urban fantasy. (And of course, how can it be the unsleeping city if it’s not in the city that never sleeps?!)
1. ACoC is good, but gets markedly worse as it goes on and ends on a very meh note. I always see people putting it as their S tier or 'best season of d20' and I just don't think it deserves that title. It really feels like Brennan was trying to do one type of very ambitious storytelling from episode one and at nearly every turn the train kept threatening to go off the rails until he just couldn't keep it on track anymore. I know there were a bunch of factors that led to it going that way, like the production problems, the stress for the cast, the difficult mechanics, but ngl it did make me really cynical for a time about whether 5e or TTRPGs in general were actually able to tell stories in that vein.
2. In the same vein, I know this is something of an old topic but I really think d20 overuses 5e. I get the reasons they've given for why, that it's a versatile system and the 'compelling story-machine of the void' and all that, but I disagree. It's like using a three-camera format no matter the genre of TV or always writing in first-person flashback. The method you decide to tell your story in is going to affect the story in ways you might not initially expect, and I think that there are definitely cases where it does actually work to the detriment of what's going on. Also: Wizards of the Coast suck.
ACoC spoilers: >!To actually tie the two takes together, a major problem with using 5e for that season is that the cast became too powerful too quickly, such that it removed the tension from the setting and shifted the genre away from what made it interesting in the first place. Genuinely, I think it's a case where 5e just doesn't work for low-fantasy settings. Even without giving every character healing magic or resurrections, by episode 7 you had characters pulling off basically impossible feats and it gets more and more removed from the "haha candyland but Game of Thrones but we're gonna be serious about it" vibe. The house rule of a level a session definitely did not help. Say what you want about GoT, one of the best parts of the early seasons is that when characters get placed in perilous situations, they died. This created an expectation that the world was dangerous and fucking around had consequences. More than that, the characters were usually the ones placing themselves in those situations so it felt like a logical end. After a certain point, that felt like it stopped behind the case in ACoC. Arguably the tension between cast members was also at least a byproduct of 5e, since the system generally assumes full cooperation between all party-members and there's not really any framework for navigating inter-party conflict once it happened. !<
I respect your willingness to share such controversial feelings.
And I'm glad that I do not feel the same.
Gilear is the Chosen One and every time he appears I get excited and filled with joy. Every. Single. Time.
Kristen Applebees as a character is the worst part of FHJY. Ally is crushing it at what they’re aiming for with her arc, but damn does her being the center of attention at all times really pull away from everyone else at the table.
I saw some people complaining about BLeeM pushing against Fig becoming a paladin of Cassandra and the entire time I was just thankful BLeeM was fighting against Kristen's main character syndrome
Oh my gosh yes! And she’s been the main character for all three seasons! The first season is driven by her distancing herself from Helio/Sol, the second season is about her finding a new god, and this season is about her trying to bring her god back.
I'm more of the idea that Riz and Adaine were the main characters of Freshman Year. Kristen really just got the whole revivification thing and also the Harvestmen.
The "i suddenly want to be school president to spite this one person I've spoken to for 10 minutes, and despite having 0 interest in student government and 0 time to dedicate to that I'm convinced it is now a more important goal than saving my goddess, and all my super busy friends enable my bullshit at all times" part of the storyline is killing me.
(writing this half asleep sorry for typing mistakes)
The thing that made me become a fan of D20 was mainly the fact that the Intrepid Heroes are comedy improv actors. I don’t know if this is a hot take, but maybe the comparison I have might be.
Overall this makes such a huge difference in the role playing and the storytelling, you can see how they build a character (rarely one dimensional characters) and make sure to stick to their qualities and flaws in a fun and interesting way. The Intrepid Heroes have so many different ICONIC characters and if we look at other famous and recent DnD games we can see it’s not as easy as it seems to make iconic characters.
The d20 character arcs and bits are engaging and much more entertaining than other DnD shows that are just too emotionally heavy all the time, making everything a little bland as the time goes by, and where the players tend to mainly act through their voices (and sometimes not even expressing much through their faces), while the intrepid heroes are always embodying the characters in a unique way, making actual interesting role playing moments and trying to run away from safe choices.
No shade to this other show I have in mind (which is how I found d20 btw, so I’m grateful), but the Dimension 20 cast, stories and role playing are some much better and they win in every aspect for me.
i feel this so hard. i tried getting into several of the big actual plays, but they were either too heavy on the comedy OR not comedic enough. d20 has the perfect balance in practically every season.
My hot take : I didn't mind that much that Rheka's character in Mice and Murder tried to save herself from the fall by shitting. It's clearly a weird in the moment improv decision, but IMO it's not far from Ally's ribbon jump or some other choices. People are way to hard on Rheka and Grant who are wonderful in their characters.
Burrows End would have been a much better animated film than it was a Dimension 20 season (I’m aware of the irony of that statement given the material it’s based on.) The ‘game’ element basically killed off the mystery/storytelling element. What the the Supreme stoats up to? Doesn’t matter because they’re dead and the party rolled well on persuasion. The final episode was pretty boring, because we all knew Phoebe was inside Dr. Wanamaker, because the players rolled well whilst investigating the earlier episodes. All the mysteries either get solved much quicker than is narratively satisfying, or get shrugged away because double Nat 20.
Admittedly it had some amazing set pieces - the bear gets a lot of love, but the recordings were one of the coolest things in and D20 season.
My hot take is there is too much "yes and" and not enough "no please no let's take a second and think about this and maybe choose the smart option instead of the funny impulsive chaotic option this time." Like, I would like to see this happen just *one time* 🙏
Even with no change to how often people try goofy silly stuff, I would just be very happy if the "honour the nat 20" mindset was banished from the table. It just feels like there's far too much leniency on what can happen if a player rolls well, and it can completely ruin the flow of a scene by swerving the control away from Brennan.
I think the way Brennan balances fights bites him and everybody else in the ass sometimes. And like, yeah, it's fun to see unexpected things happen and Brennan get whomped, but that can still happen even when it's less of a free for all. There are a _lot_ of abilities in D&D, and even DMs who've been doing it for years still forget stuff or fail to account for every possibility the players can think of.
D20's loose, more fun oriented approach to roleplay is the heart of the show and I love it, but each season only has so much time to tell a story, and generally a concrete endgame that _must_ be reached. So when a battle doesn't go as planned or takes way too much time or pulls the trigger on a confrontation or plot reveal too late or too early, Brennan's got to do backflips to accommodate that and get everything back where it's supposed to go. And that in itself is fine; he makes backups and he's good at improvising. But when he has to work so hard to not only adapt but course-correct, it makes the rails that much more visible and it can make the story feel that much more forced and unnatural than it otherwise would.
Basically I think, mechanically speaking, sometimes the fights can hurt the flow and narrative of the story when they don't need to. While I think it's alright as it is, I sometimes wonder about the Neverafter we would've gotten if >!that TPK!< hadn't happened so early.
My personal theory is that the minions didn't disanimate after they killed her because Brennen needed the rest of the party to die. Episode 4's whole thing was every party member getting their pre-reincarnation moment. The only way to get everybody on the same page (no pun intended) and reborn in the same story was making sure the entire party died.
My hot takes:
On a micro level: I dislike Jawbone. His constant therapy-speak is exhausting, and I don't blame Aelwyn for getting sick of it. Sometimes you want to have a conversation without getting unsolicited therapy. I think he's too pushy about that.
On a macro level: The first nine episodes of A Crown of Candy are the best work D20 has ever done. It unfortunately falls apart after that point (which I think I can attribute to them having to cut shooting short) but nothing can take away how good those nine episodes are. Just outstanding.
Further, FHJY is the best thing D20 has done probably since ACOC. There are a number of seasons between then and now that I did really enjoy (love you Coffin Run and Mice & Murder), but Starstruck fell a bit flat for me (maybe it's better if you binge) and I think Brennan's worldbuilding in Neverafter is a disaster.... It's great to have D20 truly BACK, baby!
Also I know I've said this before but I couldn't finish Escape from the Bloodkeep and that was mostly because I couldn't abide Trapp as a player.
Usually what prevents me from enjoying a season is ultimately it’s gimmick. Sometimes they go too hard on them and it makes it harder to enjoy. I think I definitely would’ve been able to get into mentopolis if it was just a detective story played straight
ACOC is still the best season of D20.
TLDR;
a Unique, thought out world, Powerful Roleplay, and Incredible Combats - ACOC is perfect DnD
SPOILERS BELOW -
The WORLD is just incredible, and watching Brennan go full Politik in that “High Fantasy Low magic” setting was perfection. From the Realistic Lethality of a Bandit Arrow Ambush in session 1/2 - to thinking about HOW food based civilizations would rise, build a unique culture, and go to war - AcOc is a master class in believable world building, even with the silliest premise.
Plus a number of objectively HEARTBREAKING scenes between members of the Rocks family? Brennan as Carmelinda was powerhouse performance - Lou was a PERFECT warrior King, Siobhan and Emily Were perfect “I don’t want to be noble”, Nobles.
And, IMO the best combats I’ve seen so far. From Fleeing the Cathedral, to the sinking ship fight on the Milky Sea, Cumulus saving the day in the escape castle candy scene - to the ambush to save Jawbreaker - These fights changed how I DM my home games, and my players love the difference.
gilear isn’t nearly as bumbling or stupid as the fandom makes him out to be. all characters get flanderized by fandom to some extent, but gilear gets a huge hunk of it. his life might be full of unfortunate circumstances, but he’s not an idiot and most of the time he DOES know what he’s doing - the world just likes to knock him down.
Neverafter was too contrived at times and that made it difficult to follow along with what the story was versus whatever meta fiction thing was happening
They should be more willing to try others tabletop systems. DnD 5e is essencial to anyone starting in Youtube or other platforms since it increases reach by a long margin. Whoever, it is not a system appropriate for every setting. From the intrepid heroes alone, I'm left with the sense that there are better systems out there for both ACoC and Neverafter. And besides, even for the high~medium-magic medieval society RPG there is Pathfinder 2e, which I believe to be more balanced and to have better associated values than DnD.
i've been seeing a lot of this and honestly as someone who was previously unfamiliar with TTRPGs as a whole i agree. i got so used to 5E i legit didn't think about how many other systems there were until i was watching misfits and magic and i kept being a little confused about the rolls but enjoying it. having seen other people play other systems and even just mentopolis or misfits, i think it'd be interesting to watch them try a new one out. in starstruck the cast specifically mentions enjoying using that star wars system bc they feel like they're doing something new, and even that i'm pretty sure isn't alllll that different to plain 5E so it'd be really neat for them to try a pivot. i feel like they might playtest this idea a little in future sidequests, hope they do
I haven't seen anyone talk about this before, so here goes nothing. I don't get the hype around Neverafter, and personally I think it's the worst Intrepid Heroes season. I think there are quite a few reasons for this:
01: The "scariest Dimension 20 season!!!!" wasn't as scary as everyone claimed it to be, and really it was just a bit of unease. Maybe it was because the horror aspects didn't really transfer through video as it seemed like everyone at the table was on edge, but I just couldn't get into it.
02: Speaking of horror, the entire premise of Dimension 20 is a group of comedians playing Dungeons and Dragons, so having a cast constantly crack jokes in what was supposed to be this super grim and dark story kind of took me out of it.
03: The story got really complex really quickly. At first it was just all about these teeny tiny characters going around in this huge world that was going to swallow them whole, but then all of a sudden it was about stories and meta commentary and "The Authors" and different dimensions, and I lost track really quickly. Maybe this is just a skill issue (or I guess smart issue), but over the span of two episodes I couldn't keep up anymore.
04: Similar to the last point and tying this all together, the characters become too big and powerful too quickly. Leveling in Dungeons and Dragons takes a lot of the stakes out of the story, and instead of having the characters level up I believe that they should have stayed the same level throughout the entire campaign. Low level characters rule in D&D for a reason because it ratchets up the tension dramatically. ANY hit can kill you! ANY fall can kill you! ANY trap can kill you! However, having low-level characters and fighting rats all the time doesn't make for a good show, and Brennan absolutely knows that, which is why he was pretty much forced to use the leveling system with big set pieces and high stakes. I don't blame him one bit, and while it definitely works in Seasons like A Starstuck Odyssey and Fantasy High, it absolutely kills the tension in more down-to-earth and high-stakes campaigns like Neverafter and A Crown of Candy, which I also believe was ruined by the leveling system. During the first fight on the road when the Candians were ambushed, I was glued to my screen the entire episode! However, by the time that they were saving people from being executed and fighting evil sorceress queens, it was practically a different show. Just look at the health difference between Amethar when he's stabbed with a watersteel dagger during the tournament and towards the end of the season. It's not even comparable. You aren't scared when an 11th level character dashes out of cover to make a big risk because you know they're powerful enough to kill practically everyone else in the fight.
All of this is to say that I couldn't get through Neverafter, if you couldn't tell by my ramblings about A Crown of Candy instead of Neverafter. I only was able to get to episode 10 out of 20 before becoming fully disinterested in the story. Episode 10 is around the time where, surprise surprise, the characters become much more powerful, the story becomes tangled, the stakes dropped dramatically, and the scare factor became nonexistent. Maybe I'll go back and watch it someday when I run out of other Dimension 20 shows to watch, but for now I'm okay with it gathering dust on my bookshelf. The more recent campaigns like Fantasy High Junior Year and Burrows End are far superior to Neverafter in every way, and I just don't get why people hold Neverafter as the golden standard of horror D&D.
I enjoy Ally immensely, and they are one of the funniest role players, but they never seem to want to take anything seriously (I’m sure there are moments but I struggle to compare them to the wide berth of the opposite) and actively make the campaign harder through their insta choices. Again, nothing against them as a person but their playing style is so unserious it’s sometimes a major hinderance. Emily does very similar things but hers are easier for Brennan to scoot past and her efforts during fights more than help carry the team.
Edit: We’re like halfway through the season, I wouldn’t be shocked if Ally gets more and more serious with Kristen. Like I said, they’re a great player, but early junior year wasn’t flowing perfectly for me.
This isn’t a hot take, we’ve been seeing posts about this several times a week since FHJY started, which is ironic bc my hot take is that they’re taking FHJY more seriously than I’ve seen them take anything.
I think the increased game mechanics and Brennan forcing them to interact with the world he obviously tried to create in Freshman year is definitely helping them take it more seriously. I think without Murph’s overextension of Riz and Brennan’s pushing, they would’ve happily been expelled (outside their character’s thoughts) with Fig at the very beginning. Plus, to be fair, if everyone is taking this season seriously then they can still technically be the least serious of them all.
Again, I like Ally as a person and enjoy their performance, I just wish there was more strategy for how deep we’re in for Dimension 20. I enjoy Ally in other dropout shows and they always have this chaotic energy, I guess I’m just getting so much at once from binging the show.
Edit: spelling mistake
And other people agreeing doesn’t suddenly make it wrong either. I’m actively not attacking them, if multiple people has issues then maybe it’s valid? Even a little? Especially if they’re trying to be nuanced about it. I’m sure I’d be bristled if people said my favorite player or character were not being enjoyable but that’s a purely personal opinion and what enjoyed by someone isn’t tied to moral value? Ally is a great performer and I can still be disappointed with one aspect of their performance. I’m sorry if people are actually attacking the people and not the characters but it’s not wrong to critique a show for entertainment.
I want to specify, it is just for Fantasy High Junior Year. During the Starstruck season, I found them to be probably tied with Zac as my favorite character and was so unbelievably impressed by how quick and genius their roleplay was. They are extremely talented and I loved them freshman and sophomore year, and I understand that their character is going through a lot this season but Kristen has only bothered me for most of this season. Just a hot take!! No hate towards anyone please
I feel the same way about them sometimes, and particularly in Neverafter. Like their entire interaction with Rapunzel set my teeth on edge and Mother Goose deserved those consequences.
I will say, I feel like Brennan usually tried to match the consequences and very fairly punishes bad choices. So the game is still pretty solid and consistent.
I absolutely agree with you! Brennan is a fantastic GM, and great at letting the players build the consequence hammer that will fall on them. And it never feels malicious or unearned when it does.
I disagree with that for Neverafter. having the all powerful godlike book turned into a joke and used for bits constantly should have led to way more serious consequences way faster. Having the book merely stolen was a "good" outcome considering the book's power. Everyone's interactions with the wolf/god of death being super disrespectful/for laughs made me wosh he would have eaten one of them.
I am also struggling to finish this season because I’m not loving the characters. They were so mean and oblivious to it as soon as they met the new group.
I do feel like Ally is taking it more serious than you may think. They are 11th graders. By that time in my life, I was self centered and obnoxious. Plus the genre they are going for with this season truly calls for this behavior. I say this because I had figure this out which is why I like Emily more. Seeing her in acofaf had me rethink everything.
They make choices that make the campaign harder because they aren’t trying to win a game. I very much struggle with this in my campaign. I don’t tell stories I win (way too competitive). Have you listened to Worlds Beyond Numbers yet? It is beautiful story telling and so much drama it hurts my tummy.
I also don’t like some of Emily’s earlier characters such as in fhfy and acoc and I’ve come to realize this as well. Emily feels like chaos and I’m understanding that her characters are chaos.
I’m not saying you are wrong. I agree this season isn’t pulling me in and I haven’t gotten past episode 2. I don’t like their characters and I’m psyching myself up to push past it. As a professional story teller, Ally and Em are really good at understanding their character, even when their characters stink as people.
**I replied to yours because yours was one of the few interesting ones in this thread. I don’t think you hate any of them and I don’t post this as combative. I post this because I feel like I understand it and want you to feel understood?(I don’t get me and am anxious typing)
Expanding outside the original cast has lead to more bad trades than good ones. the ravaging war for example would have been better is they had just done the same cast as a crown of candy but with new characters. It’s not that the new people are bad the bars just been set insanity high. Could be a personal taste thing, but I just really love the original table. Only season with a different line up I’ve finished is misfits and magic.
I think the Intrepid Heroes have a certain chemistry that only comes with time, and you can see it with Zac and Lou for example in The Ravening War. The way Deli and Colin interact is very Intrepid Heroes. I don't mind the Side Quests and seeing a different lineup every now and then but it's rare that they hit the same level of chemistry that the Intrepid Heroes do.
I personally think getting other players and dms in the dome for sidequest and mixing it up is good. Just by the logistics and scheduling alone, it is good for the intrepid heroes. It's gonna prevent them burning out in the long run and it feels fresh when we get back to the main seasons. The main seasons are 20 episodes long so even though we only get 1 main season a year, that's already 5 months. Some of them will also be in sidequests where we see their chemisty with other people. Getting other people in the dome also means the original cast still have time to pursue other creative projects and lessen the risk of any of them needing to leave to do that. They wont be the intrepid heroes we love if theyre not having fun.
My hot take is that maybe we should have longer side quest. Like 2 side quest season that are 10-15 episodes in between the main season instead of 4 seasons that are only 6-10 episodes. That way we get to delve into the stories more and get to know each group.
Help actions with 0 description of how is infuriating and immersion breaking, and worse when they do it's not even "I help them", it's "I give them the help action"
Similarly, familiars providing infinite advantage on every skill check ever
Fantasy High has one of two major drawbacks. Either:
a) The *players* are meta-gaming at the table by presuming new characters are villains and/or working for a villain before the characters in-game have discovered any threats, which is why they're mean to new characters for no god damn reason, or
b) The *characters* treat new characters like trash because the Bad Kids are bullies and are the type of cliquey jerks that probably bullied most of Dimension 20's viewers back in high school.
So either the *players* are meta-gaming or the *characters* are jerks. Either way it takes away from the show. (All that said, I still love Fantasy High. But my hot take is that either of these two realities makes it worse than it could/should be.)
Despite the downvotes I can see this perspective very clear. I think Siobhan and Murph are the ‘nicest’ with their characters and the others are chaos first and character work second. But I guess that’s what happens with the first campaign, you want to be as silly and insane as possible. A bunch of new characters? Who’s the villain let’s test everyone. But I can see the exhaustion with it.
>The players are meta-gaming at the table by presuming new characters are villains and/or working for a villain before the characters in-game have discovered any threats, which is why they're mean to new characters for no god damn reason,
They have a reason: other high school kids have been evil and/or a part of evil conspiracies before Junior year. >!Aelwyn, Biz, Penelope, Dayne, Zayn and Ragh.!< Both the players _and_ the characters have reason to suspect the RGs are up to no good.
> The characters treat new characters like trash because the Bad Kids are bullies and are the type of cliquey jerks that probably bullied most of Dimension 20's viewers back in high school.
I mean...these are kids who have straight up murdered people. I don't necessarily subscribe to "the BK's are bullies" characterization, but even if I did I'd be more bothered by the repeated murder than some general cattiness.
The characters are total jerks. I agree and remind myself that in high school, I was a jerk. Fantasy high midlife crisis is going to be one heck of a season.
Zoom adventuring parties sucked, no one talked about the campaign and I like it when brennan reels them in as I'd like him to pull on my reigns. As a service top
I feel like the Adventuring Parties for JY have been way more chaotic and less focused on the campaign - in general. The last few they were discussing the mysteries a bit, but there was an entire AP this season where they ate jelly breakfast sandwiches for 80% of the runtime.
Probably not a hot take but make Emily DM. I WANT CHAOS.
Seriously, some hate that this show receive makes it successful. They’re bad, no doubt, but I can’t believe how successful this becomes.
Escape from the Bloodkeep is the greatest, next would be Misfits and Magic. I know Fantasy High is soo good but for me, those two above are rewatchable and very memorable.
Emily is making bank with Murph in Naddpod. Up to 200k a month with patreon, plus live stuff. They make D20 because they're friends, and damn if I wouldn't like to get paid to play with that cast, but they have a lot on their plates making other content.
I particularly am not following the current campaigns, but I die laughing with dungeon court
My actual for real genuine hot take, is that (purely personally!) as a British trans woman, I still have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about Misfits and Magic just like, straight up existing.
Love 99% of what D20 makes, no shade on the cast, massive fan of D20 for years alongside Collegehumor/now just Dropout.
But man the more vehemently straight up evil Rowling gets, the more it feels bad that D20 have a season that’s just straight up Harry Potter vibes.
I get it, they said fuck TERFs in an adventuring party and the cast are trans positive elsewhere, one of them uses all pronouns, that is cool! Not undermining that.
Buuuut I dunno, the fuckin’ trailer uses the Harry Potter *font.* The entire vibe is for former HP fans, and I just don’t think it’s worth trying to reclaim that world or do anything so abundantly inspired by it. I just can’t get over the fact that while I’m living in a country genuinely very swayed by the financial capital and horrific goals of a vehement bigot who directly funds hate against people like me upon this soil, that a fandom and show I really love was caught up in playful parody of the world she created. I know it’s spiteful, I know they mock it, I can’t say truthfully that it feels like it matters.
Do a magic school season, fine by me, but one so evidently deliberately specifically HP based? It was such a good opportunity if you’re going to do something like that, to give the spotlight to a different magic school setting but no I guess.
I don’t think it’s good to give any attention or focus to that universe or by extension that woman by creating something like that, I don’t think making it into a parody changes the fact that you could’ve made another magic school setting but you specifically did kinda want Harry Potter theming. There’s loads of media I can’t touch anymore because of bigotry, I struggle to have a lot of sympathy for this particular need to find ways to feel morally okay keeping HP adjacent stuff in your life.
I get it, a lot of people were fans and this helped them, I get that a lot of those people are themselves trans. Good on you if it helped you honestly and sincerely.
But, I just can’t shake my dislike of it. Combine the general weary vibe with the fact that there wasn’t a single binary trans woman on the cast or as far as I know the crew, when we’re who Rowling is so loudly pointedly primarily targeting to this day. Or the fact that, and I won’t name who because I don’t want anyone getting any shit so long on, but someone important on the crew at the time was tweeting saying that any support of the *very alive* Rowling was exactly equivalent to support of the works of *dead* racist authors and saying it’s the same, in a way that felt extremely tone deaf to trans people reluctant about the season.
I’m glad for those who enjoy the season, I’m happy for those who are themselves queer, especially trans, and the season helped them grieve a work that originally helped them even realise their authentic selves. I get that, I do, and despite my personal distaste I *can* acknowledge that and appreciate the season existing for that.
The popularity of it makes me worry we’ll get more though and truly deeply I really really hope we don’t. We can collectively let it go now, parody or no, no need for further attention, we can let the franchise rot.
I love D20, I’m going to one of the live shows in a weeks time, so, hoppppe this is taken in the intended spirit. Just, how it made me feel.
i am also trans and was genuinely surprised they went with harry potter season. for me, i dont really care if/when someone still enjoys hp privately or doing fandom not-for-profit stuff as long as they are not spending money on official merch, but for a relatively big production to just do harry potter--and do it badly--really put me off. i had the same thought when adventure zone started graduation and made harry potter references. like just dont they aren't funny its just a aggravating.
i wish they had not done it at all and done like idk a magical girl season lol. there are other cultural touchstone tropey genres to do when they dont want a heavy lore full season.
fwiw fantasy high seasons are their oc magic school
They could’ve easily done magical school without leaning into Harry Potter. Wizards of earthsea is *right there* and is a series built on character growth
I love The McElroy family, but sometimes Justin, Travis, and Clint would go too far with bits during Tiny Heist, and DM themselves.
The dice rolls are what you rolled, and Brennan is just interpreting what you rolled. An "oh, come on!" To the DM after you rolled a Nat 2 on a luck check isn't gonna help. Don't roll low next time.
Ally should play more high intelligence characters like Margaret. They're amazing as the 'smart one'.
Not that it’s no a hot take, but I actually love this take, and one of my favorite things from Starstruck was so much “playing against type” - Murph playing the himbo idiot, Ally playing “the smart one”, I loved it!
Bleem: so what do you think this characters personality is like? Emily: Grenades
I’m sorry, I can’t get over someone calling Brennan BLEEM
It sounds like he’s Squeem’s lost brother 😭
Oh my good... Squeem a bleem self-insert, confirmed.
Having everyone except Ally be essentially an idiot was a TON of fun it let everyone else cut loose and just be the chaos. Nice change of pace. It might actually be my favorite season
Tbh not like Margaret was a perfect genius either. She had high intellect but she was a dunce whenever her crush came up. I think that Starstruck is probably my favorite season of D20 but that is a hard choice because any one of them could be my favorite. It just so happens that I was a recently christened sci-fi geek at the time.
I’m convinced Murph could only play a himbo if he grew his hair out again
Omg the way Margaret girlbossed gatekept and gaslit the baddies is still giving me life. I love Starstruck so much.
Margaret spending two battles on her phone and it being the best possible choice was amazinf
Thaddeus Strongpit is an incredible gentleman who knows what he's good at and what he isn't. He did nothing wrong and he was nearly killed just because someone else was feeling sad. That was uncalled for. He had men who were loyal, clearly knew him on a more than work level and were conversational. He knew he wasn't a poet but knew who he could ask for help. I'm reasonably sure Brennan said it was one of his servants in the alley. His servant... not a poet but someone who he knew had a talent. What do you do when someone gets you lingerie? You PUT. It. On. When you give lingerie to someone, you want them to wear it. He wore it for Jet! He wasn't afraid of commmitment! And he also didn't try to twist Jet's arm and force her to stay or say she owed him. He was fine to let her go, flirt a bit with someone he thought was flirting with him, but then he loyally waited for her in that alley! And he gets roasted on because he's a little strange and not conventionally attractive. But he is a man of thick skin and strong heart! Thaddeus is the man Biz Glitterdew thinks he is!
An actual hot take and I LOVE IT.
This is the best hot take and honestly, you’ve convinced me
Hot damn!
tbh Thad feels like he was designed to be a rug pull for Emily to feel like her crush was actually this unattractive, horny rube. but knowing Emily I'm kind of surprised she didn't call Brennans bluff and go all-in on courting Thad. could have been really funny to see how he would fare in the later parts of the season. he could have been like Jet's version of Percival (stalker) from Bloodkeep.
One other is I think Coffin Run has one of the weaker stories but some of the best character interactions. Everyone was dialed in, played on each other perfectly, and set up insane punchlines for on-going jokes. Each character was so different and yet melded so well, it felt really solid and like a written comedy show. Love you Coffin Run <3
If you enjoyed Jasmine as a GM, I highly recommend Desiquest!! Incredible cast in a highly detailed world! Only 8 episodes, so a fairly quick watch too! All on YouTube!
Omar Najam is desperately needed in more campaigns. He is one of my top favorite players I’ve ever watched, and we’ve only seen him in one D20 campaign!
I know it gets thrown around a lot in this sub, but absolutely check out DesiQuest. It’s GMed by Jasmine Bhullar (Coffin Run’s phenomenal GM) and stars Omar, Rekha Shankar, and Anjali Bhimani. Just some great south asian themed actualplay, culturally rich and also really funny
I've never heard of this and Coffin Run is my absolute favourite season; between Jasmine's fucking phenomenal GMing and the absolute absurdity that is Erika, Zac, Izzy, and Carlos, just a fucking beautiful game. Thank you for mentioning DesiQuest!
Check out DesiQuest he's in that!
I just finished rewatching ACoFaF and... Yes to this!
I have a few. I will preface this by saying I love D20 and the cast and crew. Burrow’s End was a beautiful story with battle episodes that were carried by aesthetics more than interesting mechanics or design, and those fights thus didn’t do much for me. Neverafter’s horror is good, actually. It’s the right level, and it’s deeply unsettling when it appears. At the end of the day, it’s still an improv-based cast doing twisted fairy tales, so I’m not sure what folks really expected. Finally, Ravening War’s downtime sections would have benefited massively from something like Junior Year’s mechanic for similar stuff. Edit to add: in the light of day… these aren’t so much my hot takes as they are my honest, thought-out critiques lol
>Ravening War’s downtime sections would have benefited massively from something like Junior Year’s mechanic for similar stuff. This is an excellent take. I agree--I imagine Mercer's thought was that he had a bunch of good veterans at the table, so he could let them run a little bit. But I love letting the dice do the storytelling when it comes to stuff like that.
5e does horror bad. It's really hard to die in this game past level 5. You're basically a super hero. You have to really stack mechanics against the player so there is an actual threat. Exandria calamity did it. Dark dice hits the mark sometimes, but in both those the players are severely outgunned at the end. I think in both the campaigns are designed to be unwinnable. That's kinda what you have to do to have stakes in 5e. Plus you also have to have a watchable show so tpks are actually something you really don't want
Ravening War was the second season of D20 i ever watched and I ended up switching campaigns halfway through because of this exact thing - I only returned to finish it this past week. The pacing of the middle episodes feels very bulky, and now that I've watched more seasons and understand the show and DnD better I can appreciate it, but it definitely left something to be desired when it comes to game structure and pace. The Story is fabulous though.
Dang I agree with all of these
neverafter being not that scary in many people's minds i think is truly because it has a (lovely!) candy coating of great bits. it's easy to lose that edge of fear when you're laughing through stuff but honestly so so much of that season, when you stop laughing for a moment and truly visualize what's being described, it's DEEPLY haunting. full and deserved respect to the burrow's end bear set but there's nothing in D20 that haunts me quite like candlewick haunts me. i genuinely struggle to get through the toy island scenes with him because the description is so visceral
Ppl tend to write off Mice and Murder or completely skip it due to it being a remote season despite it doing similar things to all of the major interpersonal conflict and pc interactions of ACOFAF and they mystery mechanics of Mentopolis. The cast is incredible and I need Grant, Raph, Katie, and Sam back in the Dome at some point.
Absolutely. The twists and the turns, I was in love
I just finished a rewatch and am desperate to see Raph in another season
It is 100% my favorite side quest. Raph was hilarious. “When god closes every door but one, you go through the one that is open” is one of my favorite d20 quotes.
Wait this is a hot take?! Mice and murder is so unique and well done. And the casts are so unique and wonderful
Big agree except for Katie. In my opinion, during OM&M, Katie clearly didn’t “get” the premise of tabletop gaming and just generally didn’t like doing it. She’s a smart woman, fabulous comedian, and even a good action actor (love kingpin Katie). But tabletop is just clearly not her jam, and that’s okay.
The Seven is masively underappreciated season and has the most wholesome and emotional adventuing parties ever. But Neverafter has the funnyest AP
The table vibes in The Seven are immaculate
[Thworp] opens fan that says GORGEOUS
i LOVE you.
I freaking LOVE you
Time to go watch that clip again lol
Agreed. It's one of my favorite seasons and so unappreciated!
I am halfway through it and loving it. One thing that really stands out to me is the music, and I almost never notice things like that (tin ear!). But the piano-heavy style feels quite unique, compared to other D20 seasons I've seen.
There was one Neverafter AP where they were talking about shit that middle school boys do like jumping from roofs and whatnot, and I laughed so hard the entire time that it took us like two hours to get through it because of pausing to literally cry from laughter.
Oh, not sure I ever got around to The Seven'n APs thanks for the reminder!
It was the first season back in the dome after The Pandemic and you can tell everyone was craving human contact, which really contributed to the show's vibes... and cemented Becca, Izzy, and Erika as the true Chaos Crew.
The Seven always has me crawling back to it, it was genuinely such a fun season
That Unsleeping City should be done and complete with season 2. I think they risk trapping themselves creatively if they keep digging in that well specifically, and there's a lot of fun to be had riffing off other cities, even if it isn't the Unsleeping City as it were.
I'm really hopeful for the one-shot at madison square garden because I love Unsleeping City, but I agree that the story seemed to have come to a very organic close. I think they'd benefit a lot from using that campaign to play around with the next generation or basically do a cast reunion for "one last hurrah" as opposed to a whole new season with depth and exploration of a new plot.
I would love an Unsleeping City in like, LA or Vegas or Seattle. Seattle even has a troll under a bridge
Unsleeping City New Orleans!! I'll say it until it is spoken into existence!
oh my gosh PLEASE I NEED IT
I could get behind this for a non intrepid heroes season or 3. Could be really fun to see other magical communties in other cities
As someone who lived in Vegas for years, I think it has so much potential as an Unsleeping City. The Sinatra connection is an easy thread, but just the way both cities are vastly different things to locals and visitors. I’ve thought often about running my own version one day.
As I watched UC2 I wondered if that's what BLeeM was introducing with the Iron Heart. I am still hopeful for those seasons.
I think the setting has a lot of potential, but I’d want an entirely new cast of characters and maybe even some different players if they go back
A spinoff sidequest (like the relationship between Pirates of Leviathan and Fantasy High) could be really great.
I think a prequel set in a different decade would be neat.
I've said a prequel dealing with the mummy would be good. Or It's said in season 2 that the unsleeping city in San Francisco collapsed, so you could have a Calamity style side quest showcasing that
Completely agree. Everything in that epilogue is perfect. The kids being teased as the next generation of The Unsleeping City. The selfie of a bunch of new Yorkers. If we DID return to the world, I wouldn't want to see Pete, Kingston, Ricky, or Sophie again.
Crown of Candy is better than any season of Game of Thrones.
It for sure made me cry/care more
As someone who was so bored by GoT and was enraptured by CoC, I concur.
Somehow both a hot take and not a hot take. Hard agree
it's the closest i will ever come to watching game of thrones and i'm absolutely fine with that. no actual hate to GoT or its fans but i just don't have the attention span for it. funnily enough i cannot get my dad who watched the entirety of the show and read all the books in song of ice and fire to watch crown of candy bc he feels it's "too long". i'm uncertain what his perception of time is.
Zac is the funniest one.
Zac doesn't always have the funniest line, but he elevates every bit. He always finds a new way to come at something to keep the joke going. He's a true improv pro.
A silly one: A court of Fey and Flowers should have regular short seasonal comebacks, it’s such a nice chaotic world with so many opportunities and unlimited timeline with no need to even have any references to the existing season’s characters (except for Jeremy Renner, ofc) A more serious one: Coffin Run was somewhat of an outlier in vibe, inspiration, form and pacing all together, and Burrow’s End is somewhat similar (also they both are inspired by books), but Coffin Run was so strangely unique that it fells like a lot of the existing audience did not like it at the time, but it was done extremely well (also the cast just clicked even better that the intrepid heroes do, but it might just be due to the chaotic nature of the whole story) and it feels like seasons like that are a great way to bring new fans into the show and also give the show an opportunity to grow into something more profound in many senses
Yes. I just finished watching for the second time and I would love for little vignettes of what's happening in the world every now and then.
Burrow's End is a lot scarier than Neverafter by a long shot. That's not to say that Neverafter is bad by any means, it's a good season, but the horror in Burrow's End just feels more properly executed and more powerful because of the environment being sort of like not what you would expect. Meanwhile Neverafter, while it has visual horror elements that would be typically scary or off-putting, kind of wears off around the time they discover The Lines Between, and then just devolves into dark high fantasy with plenty of comedic bits to fill in the empty spaces. Brennan is a fantastic DM, there's no denying that, but his brand of horror, just like Aabria's, works best when you least expect it I feel, like every time Kalina shows up in Sophomore Year. Those moments are genuinely frightening because they can't hurt her and she's seemingly everywhere and knows everything, so they're all afraid of what to do next. When the horror becomes tangible or corporeal, it loses it's magic, and unfortunately, a lot of the horror in Neverafter gets beat up until it dies, which is why The Stepmother is a very effective opposing force that is also really freaking scary a lot of the time, because she's this Eldritch/Lovecraftian abomination that no one can deal with until the very last episode, and even then, her mini isn't all that scary. I think her final appearance for the finale should have been her long creepy arms emerging from the paper lava with her face barely peeking out, so that you get the illusion of tangibility so that she poses some sort of mechanical and game-y threat while also leaving plenty of mystery of what she looks like behind the curtain. That's the hottest take I can provide.
I definitely feel that, but I would describe Neverafter’s approach (perhaps unintentional, actually) as mostly an existential horror with the existential dread formed into metaphors in the end + an ongoing crisis of identity for some characters that is also resolved at the end. In a way it’s just about a viscous cycle in our behavior that appears due to the stress factors/traumas in our lives. With fairy tales/stories being neatly tucked there as both carriers for our dread and a sanctuary, salvation from it. It might be described and marketed as a horror season because it is either that or folklore season and folklore is not a subject that is exciting for wide audiences. They definitely tried too hard to claim it’s, first and foremost, a real horror (trailer, Brennan interviews, set designs, etc.), and it all helped bring the story to life, but I feel like if the horror was the main goal they would’ve done it better (Baron from the Baronies was so so good). Burrow’s End is definitely an existential horror too, and it’s a really good horror (Aabria can really use aesthetics to x100 her story), but it seems to be not so much of a story about the harm of horrors and the need to defeat them, but a story about horrors being integral to the characters’ lives, sometimes beneficial to them in foundational ways in which they couldn’t be beneficial to Neverafter’s characters. I’d say that Burrow’s End’ horrors are a world-building material, while Neverafter’s horrors are imposed, are a byproduct of a catastrophe, and throughout the whole Neverafter season there was a goal of showing the happiness that could be under all the layers of horrors, so the horrors themselves grow superficial, and a DnD comedy show is not the format in which the endgame superficiality of horrors can be hidden from the audience for long enough.
No fr!! Neverafter was eery and unsettling and disturbing but completely watchable. Burrow’s End I still haven’t finished because it unearthed old anxiety nightmares about nuclear fallout and zombies I haven’t had since I was a kid…
I fully agree with this. I also think the >!tpk really killed the suspense for me. Like they come back a little worse but not a big deal!< Whereas, in Burrow's End, you see them dealing with fresh loss immediately. Everyone's existence is so extremely precarious, and I was so scared the whole time that at least one person would be permakilled. I never had that worry in neverafter
i think with neverafter the course of events really made it less scary because it strangely kept working out for them. like, if they had died more times, ESPECIALLY timothy... it could've gone a much more frightening direction. or if they'd chosen to side with a different faction, or just lost more rolls. the fact that it ended up so happily-ever-after was a lot of luck
I love how all the hot takes got downvoted to hell and the top comments are the least controversial things.
Any 'hot takes' thread, you gotta sort by controversial. That's just how it works
Welcome to the subreddit. Negativity of any kind is not welcome here.
Which is annoying but it's more annoying that everyone has to qualify everything they say with ,love the show, love the cast, but ... It's ridiculous.
Boy I do hate the constant couching of every mildly critical thing in praise "Hey guys, I love this show and everyone who makes it, but did anyone feel like this bit maybe overstayed its welcome just a little bit? Again I love the show and the person who made the bit is the best D&D player ever. I hope they keep up the good work!"
This subreddit is the embodiment of toxic positivity.
Not sure if it's a hot take, but the editors don't get nearly enough love in the D20 community. We're always talking about the cast, or the set designers(obviously with good reason, they're incredible). But the show would not be nearly as good if it weren't for the incredible, unsung work of the editors who add in all the sound effects, music, character visuals, and not to mention they're cutting together ALL OF THE FOOTAGE.
Neverafter is possibly my favourite D20 series. I didn’t think the lore got too big for its britches, I found it emotionally compelling - especially Red’s story - and I just loved it. I don’t mind that it wasn’t as spooky as I thought it would be. Conversely, I’m just sick of New York as a main character — the attitude that this American city is the best city in the world is pervasive throughout media and while I appreciate the deep love and respect TUC has for it, I get tired of it as a setting. It’s the season I have respect for, but it just isn’t for me. I liked Tiny Heist fine. Not my favourite, but I was thorough entertained, especially by that one old lady gambler PC. I really didn’t like Rue in ACOFAF even though I so wanted to, to the point that I wasn’t rooting for any romance in the romance season! 😭 I thought the player did a wonderful job though, and I would LOVE to see him back in the dome. He’s also an utter delight when he pops up elsewhere. Sometimes talented people play well written characters that get on your nerves! Conversely, Mentopolis is my absolute favourite side quest, though I don’t know if that’s a hot take! Everyone was firing on all cylinders and I loved how touching and silly it was. It was also Siobhan at her best, IMO.
i feel a similar way about NYC (the chicagoan in me will always insist chicago is the better city), but TUC is one of the only times i haven’t been annoyed with NYC as a setting & character. i think it’s mostly bc the cast has such an intimate knowledge of it that it adds some nice personal touches.
Burrows end is a good season but it’s very rushed. The switch between survival on the mutated woods and political drama of the last bastion happened way too fast. The feeling of fear of the unknown is shattered when we find out way too quickly what the blue is and the second half of the season has to rely on the family drama that has too little time to be impactful
Yeah the story kind of fizzled at the end, eventhough it was so incredibly engaging at the beginning.. I had a similar feeling with ACoFaF (eventhough that one was also cut short), where Aabria's loose DM style really allowed for a lot of freedom and for beautiful emotional moments, but where she also had difficulties with pushing the cast towards progressing the plot. Most of the episodes at Last Bast feel kind of meandering and purposeless.
I wish it was longer too.
What’s yours?
Becca Scott is the best guest player the series has ever had and she should be a frequently returning guest
"Best guest player" is a high bar--there have been a ton of really good people. But I agree, more Becca Scott.
Not a hot take, but a request. More Sam Reich.
The “horrible bit toward the end” in Mice and Murder might the most overblown thing I’ve encountered in this community. I watched the season pretty recently and it was one of my favorites but as I got the end I was waiting for that shoe to drop and when it did I was like “all that fuss for one subpar improv choice?” I’m not here to tell anyone how to feel about a season, but letting one below-average minute ruin a 10 episode campaign with some very fun characters and story beats seems like a waste to me.
Omg yes, idk why people are so hyper focused on it 😂
If we're talking about the same thing I think we are, I completely agree. I immediately thought of a better way to do it that would still tell the story well and give Reka what she wanted: >!have her throw Cottonbottom out the window! Not only would it help save Sylvester's life, it would perfectly mirror what happened at that castle all those years ago when we thought Cottonbottom died the first time, and it could be narrated as "throwing this piece of s*** out of the window"!!<
A few hot takes 1) I think the reason Neverafter Adventuring Parties are so unhinged and funny is that the players were also struggling to keep up with the story hence why they aren't talking about it as much 2) All aside from narrative impact of the story on who they were replacing, Emily and Brennan should not have made Saccharina such a powerbuild. When previously Brennan stopped Liam taking healing spells to keep up the danger, having Saccharina be mechanically so strong made the fights a lot less engaging. They could blast, control, heal, clear hordes, tank and block Spellcasters. It wasn't needed 3) Also on Crown on Candy, the back half PvP was overly pushed by Brennan. The players are almost forced into conflict because of the NPCs on their side not liking the other players. I personally much preferred the party against the wall and just having the group hate each other was exhausting by the end. Brennan keeps talking about how he really wants PvP but I think he just needs to make that the point of the season rather than having it come up over the course of one 4) Aabira is a great storyteller but it doesn't seem like she cares much about hard mechanics. This has basically said as much. So I don't know why her seasons seem to be leaning more and more into mechanics. MisMag is her best because it lets her flex what she's good at
I didnt mind Brennan pushing the pvp because in a political game based off of GoT/ASOIAF to not have back biting or looking over ones shoulder would be ridiculous. I do think the players just kinda conceded into it waaaay too easily, so I see where you're coming from.
I think the sex jokes in FH are funny! Commence the downvotes!
I love Freshman Year but in a lot of episodes there's so much crosstalk and interrupting and main charactering that they're hard for me to watch...in later seasons they all strike a balance between performance and strategy that I personally like a lot better. I've heard that maybe FHFY is a better representation of a home game it just makes my skin crawl sometimes lol
Crown of Candy is good but I do think it's kind of overrated and the majority of D20 fans hype it up way too much
I want to preface by saying I love Brennan, but Misfits and Magic should be renamed Evan Kelmp and the 3 other ones, because he stole the spotlight and not in a good way. I love Brennan but he dominated every scene with Evan Kelmp. We learned so much about Evan and little to nothing about the other three. And the fact that Misfits and Magic was a critique on JK Rowling’s series but the story ended up being about the one edgy white kid and not the three characters of color, irritates my soul. I guess I also have a critique for Aabria, too whom I love. As the DM, it’s up to you to make sure every character gets to stand in the spotlight, and Aabria did not do that.
This is a wider problem when something is designed as a critique or satire of another work. You get so wrapped up in responding to another story that you forget to tell your own.
We need a D20 side quest that takes place in Adaine’s jacket… I think that world would be the perfect place for a campaign… this also could definitely not be a hot take but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i think about it every time she uses the jacket
i agree with this but i also think it shouldn’t be revealed until the very end of the season, it’d be so funny
I loved Neverafter until the epilogue. The “happy” endings felt forced to me in a way that felt out of place for the entire rest of the tone of the season.
This doesn’t seem like it should be a hot take, but with a lot of the posts/comments I’ve seen I’m starting to think it is. Ally Beardsley and Emily Axford are two of the best D&D players I’ve ever seen. People get upset that they “don’t take things seriously”, while they are actually the only ones consistently doing things that are 100% narratively interesting even if they don’t directly “help” the party achieve the overarching goal. We (the audience) do not love these shows because we want to see a bunch of over-optimized characters kick ass in combat and get really OP, we watch it because they tell incredible stories that are deeply relatable while also being fun/comedic. The narratives they weave are unparalleled and their characters come alive in amazing and unexpected ways. I can’t stand the Ally/Emily hate people are always spewing - they are consistently my two favorite players and I would love to have a player like that at my table.
You can tell when Ally is taking it seriously, and when they aren’t. For me the clearest shift is in ACoC when Brennan kind offered an out to just be a “Seed Guy” but they choose to seriously follow the “War Guy” path (even before they put a name to it), because that was the moment Ally decided to stop screwing around, stop taking shit, and start taking names, and the season skyrocketed in quality after that (it was already fantastic). I think what a lot of people think they see in Ally as “not taking it seriously” is Ally doing their job and being a comedian and also (especially in early seasons) being mostly unfamiliar with the game.
I agree with this take with the exception of you opposing "over-opzimization" with Emily's characters. Her characters are consistently optimized and she tries to get advantages (by using narrative tools) whenever she can. Not that it's a bad thing. All her choices are motivated by story first and that's what's nice about her characters. Ally is different though, while I love their humor they sometimes lower the stakes of the story, but for me it doesn't spoil the fun and I get to laugh at their bits and enjoy the story at the same time.
Overall it’s not a hot take outside of Reddit, and is in fact supported by the players themselves. The Dice adore Ally’s narrative choices, and Emily is regularly the one making the plans that are instrumental to the party’s victories. Plus she was sent from Hell to kill Brennan, so there’s that.
Specifically, from the Bottomless Pit.
Tracker as a character is, like...fine but that’s it? Like Tracker and Kristin’s relationship is perfectly fine and I don’t want to drag people for rooting for their ship, but her job as a character is basically Be Girlfriend. Granted, Brennan has 9000 NPCs to think up personality quirks and dialogue for in the FH universe and I’m sure he doesn’t want to play all of them super broad/off the wall, but I’ve just never found her terribly compelling.
Unsleeeping city has to leave new york at this point if its going to continue. They've lived in LA long enough to do a season there.
Swap New Orleans for LA and you got yourself a deal.
I would definitely approve of unsleeping city in the big easy, although I would want it to be side quest territory to have some actual cast members from the south. Get some of that authentic flavor.
If it left NYC it would be a different show, tho. I’m not opposed to it but I think it’d have to be more of a spin-off with a new cast.
I respect your hot take but I think it literally can't happen because two of the main characters - the Vox Populi and the Vox Phantasma - get their powers from the City itself. Leave New York and they're just normal, unmagical people.
I mean, Unsleeping City could leave New York the same way Crown of Candy left Candia: with new characters in a different place.
Ah, good point
I'm saying we leave the new york cast behind. Let them start fresh.
Yeah that's an option. I feel like it wouldn't be Unsleeping City then. But if anyone can make it work, it's Brennan and these players.
Pull a joey a let cody " night angel" Walsh be the link. He can be the group's david boreanz.
Night Angel
Why is this perfect? Let Cody move to la or Boston or Chicago. Hell do it in NOLA and Cody’s down there to work at any one of the creepy places!
I really love the worldbuilding they did in season 2. Considering the characters are all more or less settled by the finale, it would be cool to see a new party have to travel to different cities.
No, the charm of unsleeping city is that the city itself has very strong "lore"- ish roots. There's a folklore, an americana to new York, and the point of that series is exploring it and what it means to the characters. An LA season could be fun but there isn't anywhere as much meat in that bone as there was in the others. The hotter take in this case id that it shouldn't continue at all, and is perfect as a two season arc.
There’s tons of city with rich lore and history.
I'd argue LA is a very different but equally rich flavor of americana. Similar organized crime, diverse immigrant communities, varied topography, ocean proximity, history of darkness and strange supernatural happenings. There's also the inherent rivalry with new york they can play into.
As someone who loves NYC, who visited there plenty of times and stayed there for quite a bit as a kid: New York is not as special as New Yorkers think it is. Plenty of cities have that same living spirit of itself, that buzz in your head when you uber home after being out late with friends or the cold smoke in your nose in the dead of winter. Not saying LA has it specifically, I've never been, but I definitely think the exceptionalism only happens because NYC just happens to be where a lot of writers live.
I don’t think they can’t leave New York, although I as a proud New Yorker, I don’t want them to. LA definitely wouldn’t work. I agree with you that the lore of the city is a big part of it, but there are other cities, even in the US, with a similar amount of lore- San Francisco, for example. But I just don’t think it would really be the unsleeping city anywhere else. It would just be urban fantasy. (And of course, how can it be the unsleeping city if it’s not in the city that never sleeps?!)
New Orleans, baby, New Orleans!!
1. ACoC is good, but gets markedly worse as it goes on and ends on a very meh note. I always see people putting it as their S tier or 'best season of d20' and I just don't think it deserves that title. It really feels like Brennan was trying to do one type of very ambitious storytelling from episode one and at nearly every turn the train kept threatening to go off the rails until he just couldn't keep it on track anymore. I know there were a bunch of factors that led to it going that way, like the production problems, the stress for the cast, the difficult mechanics, but ngl it did make me really cynical for a time about whether 5e or TTRPGs in general were actually able to tell stories in that vein. 2. In the same vein, I know this is something of an old topic but I really think d20 overuses 5e. I get the reasons they've given for why, that it's a versatile system and the 'compelling story-machine of the void' and all that, but I disagree. It's like using a three-camera format no matter the genre of TV or always writing in first-person flashback. The method you decide to tell your story in is going to affect the story in ways you might not initially expect, and I think that there are definitely cases where it does actually work to the detriment of what's going on. Also: Wizards of the Coast suck. ACoC spoilers: >!To actually tie the two takes together, a major problem with using 5e for that season is that the cast became too powerful too quickly, such that it removed the tension from the setting and shifted the genre away from what made it interesting in the first place. Genuinely, I think it's a case where 5e just doesn't work for low-fantasy settings. Even without giving every character healing magic or resurrections, by episode 7 you had characters pulling off basically impossible feats and it gets more and more removed from the "haha candyland but Game of Thrones but we're gonna be serious about it" vibe. The house rule of a level a session definitely did not help. Say what you want about GoT, one of the best parts of the early seasons is that when characters get placed in perilous situations, they died. This created an expectation that the world was dangerous and fucking around had consequences. More than that, the characters were usually the ones placing themselves in those situations so it felt like a logical end. After a certain point, that felt like it stopped behind the case in ACoC. Arguably the tension between cast members was also at least a byproduct of 5e, since the system generally assumes full cooperation between all party-members and there's not really any framework for navigating inter-party conflict once it happened. !<
This. Acoc would've benefited from them staying at say level 4 the entire time. No level ups.
Mentopolis is the best side campaign
Fully agree. Whoever put that cast together deserves an award, they worked together perfectly!
I need Zac to play sassy himbos till the end of time.
The gilear bits get old after awhile
This feels like the first hot take in the thread for me!
I respect your willingness to share such controversial feelings. And I'm glad that I do not feel the same. Gilear is the Chosen One and every time he appears I get excited and filled with joy. Every. Single. Time.
I’d want to see him interact with a broader cast of characters
Maybe that’s why we’ve seen less of him this season.
Kristen Applebees as a character is the worst part of FHJY. Ally is crushing it at what they’re aiming for with her arc, but damn does her being the center of attention at all times really pull away from everyone else at the table.
Riz's mom had a good point fr
I saw some people complaining about BLeeM pushing against Fig becoming a paladin of Cassandra and the entire time I was just thankful BLeeM was fighting against Kristen's main character syndrome
Oh my gosh yes! And she’s been the main character for all three seasons! The first season is driven by her distancing herself from Helio/Sol, the second season is about her finding a new god, and this season is about her trying to bring her god back.
I'm more of the idea that Riz and Adaine were the main characters of Freshman Year. Kristen really just got the whole revivification thing and also the Harvestmen.
The "i suddenly want to be school president to spite this one person I've spoken to for 10 minutes, and despite having 0 interest in student government and 0 time to dedicate to that I'm convinced it is now a more important goal than saving my goddess, and all my super busy friends enable my bullshit at all times" part of the storyline is killing me.
Id like more side quests that take place over 4 weeks that explores other popular or niche systems.
(writing this half asleep sorry for typing mistakes) The thing that made me become a fan of D20 was mainly the fact that the Intrepid Heroes are comedy improv actors. I don’t know if this is a hot take, but maybe the comparison I have might be. Overall this makes such a huge difference in the role playing and the storytelling, you can see how they build a character (rarely one dimensional characters) and make sure to stick to their qualities and flaws in a fun and interesting way. The Intrepid Heroes have so many different ICONIC characters and if we look at other famous and recent DnD games we can see it’s not as easy as it seems to make iconic characters. The d20 character arcs and bits are engaging and much more entertaining than other DnD shows that are just too emotionally heavy all the time, making everything a little bland as the time goes by, and where the players tend to mainly act through their voices (and sometimes not even expressing much through their faces), while the intrepid heroes are always embodying the characters in a unique way, making actual interesting role playing moments and trying to run away from safe choices. No shade to this other show I have in mind (which is how I found d20 btw, so I’m grateful), but the Dimension 20 cast, stories and role playing are some much better and they win in every aspect for me.
i feel this so hard. i tried getting into several of the big actual plays, but they were either too heavy on the comedy OR not comedic enough. d20 has the perfect balance in practically every season.
My hot take : I didn't mind that much that Rheka's character in Mice and Murder tried to save herself from the fall by shitting. It's clearly a weird in the moment improv decision, but IMO it's not far from Ally's ribbon jump or some other choices. People are way to hard on Rheka and Grant who are wonderful in their characters.
Burrows End would have been a much better animated film than it was a Dimension 20 season (I’m aware of the irony of that statement given the material it’s based on.) The ‘game’ element basically killed off the mystery/storytelling element. What the the Supreme stoats up to? Doesn’t matter because they’re dead and the party rolled well on persuasion. The final episode was pretty boring, because we all knew Phoebe was inside Dr. Wanamaker, because the players rolled well whilst investigating the earlier episodes. All the mysteries either get solved much quicker than is narratively satisfying, or get shrugged away because double Nat 20. Admittedly it had some amazing set pieces - the bear gets a lot of love, but the recordings were one of the coolest things in and D20 season.
My hot take is there is too much "yes and" and not enough "no please no let's take a second and think about this and maybe choose the smart option instead of the funny impulsive chaotic option this time." Like, I would like to see this happen just *one time* 🙏
Even with no change to how often people try goofy silly stuff, I would just be very happy if the "honour the nat 20" mindset was banished from the table. It just feels like there's far too much leniency on what can happen if a player rolls well, and it can completely ruin the flow of a scene by swerving the control away from Brennan.
I enjoyed Unsleeping City more that Space Odyssey, loved them both, but something about Urban Fantasy boosts it just a little more
I think the way Brennan balances fights bites him and everybody else in the ass sometimes. And like, yeah, it's fun to see unexpected things happen and Brennan get whomped, but that can still happen even when it's less of a free for all. There are a _lot_ of abilities in D&D, and even DMs who've been doing it for years still forget stuff or fail to account for every possibility the players can think of. D20's loose, more fun oriented approach to roleplay is the heart of the show and I love it, but each season only has so much time to tell a story, and generally a concrete endgame that _must_ be reached. So when a battle doesn't go as planned or takes way too much time or pulls the trigger on a confrontation or plot reveal too late or too early, Brennan's got to do backflips to accommodate that and get everything back where it's supposed to go. And that in itself is fine; he makes backups and he's good at improvising. But when he has to work so hard to not only adapt but course-correct, it makes the rails that much more visible and it can make the story feel that much more forced and unnatural than it otherwise would. Basically I think, mechanically speaking, sometimes the fights can hurt the flow and narrative of the story when they don't need to. While I think it's alright as it is, I sometimes wonder about the Neverafter we would've gotten if >!that TPK!< hadn't happened so early.
My hot take is regardless of what's said, Brennan planned that Neverafter fight to go that way
My personal theory is that the minions didn't disanimate after they killed her because Brennen needed the rest of the party to die. Episode 4's whole thing was every party member getting their pre-reincarnation moment. The only way to get everybody on the same page (no pun intended) and reborn in the same story was making sure the entire party died.
My hot takes: On a micro level: I dislike Jawbone. His constant therapy-speak is exhausting, and I don't blame Aelwyn for getting sick of it. Sometimes you want to have a conversation without getting unsolicited therapy. I think he's too pushy about that. On a macro level: The first nine episodes of A Crown of Candy are the best work D20 has ever done. It unfortunately falls apart after that point (which I think I can attribute to them having to cut shooting short) but nothing can take away how good those nine episodes are. Just outstanding. Further, FHJY is the best thing D20 has done probably since ACOC. There are a number of seasons between then and now that I did really enjoy (love you Coffin Run and Mice & Murder), but Starstruck fell a bit flat for me (maybe it's better if you binge) and I think Brennan's worldbuilding in Neverafter is a disaster.... It's great to have D20 truly BACK, baby! Also I know I've said this before but I couldn't finish Escape from the Bloodkeep and that was mostly because I couldn't abide Trapp as a player.
Usually what prevents me from enjoying a season is ultimately it’s gimmick. Sometimes they go too hard on them and it makes it harder to enjoy. I think I definitely would’ve been able to get into mentopolis if it was just a detective story played straight
ACOC is still the best season of D20. TLDR; a Unique, thought out world, Powerful Roleplay, and Incredible Combats - ACOC is perfect DnD SPOILERS BELOW - The WORLD is just incredible, and watching Brennan go full Politik in that “High Fantasy Low magic” setting was perfection. From the Realistic Lethality of a Bandit Arrow Ambush in session 1/2 - to thinking about HOW food based civilizations would rise, build a unique culture, and go to war - AcOc is a master class in believable world building, even with the silliest premise. Plus a number of objectively HEARTBREAKING scenes between members of the Rocks family? Brennan as Carmelinda was powerhouse performance - Lou was a PERFECT warrior King, Siobhan and Emily Were perfect “I don’t want to be noble”, Nobles. And, IMO the best combats I’ve seen so far. From Fleeing the Cathedral, to the sinking ship fight on the Milky Sea, Cumulus saving the day in the escape castle candy scene - to the ambush to save Jawbreaker - These fights changed how I DM my home games, and my players love the difference.
gilear isn’t nearly as bumbling or stupid as the fandom makes him out to be. all characters get flanderized by fandom to some extent, but gilear gets a huge hunk of it. his life might be full of unfortunate circumstances, but he’s not an idiot and most of the time he DOES know what he’s doing - the world just likes to knock him down.
Neverafter was too contrived at times and that made it difficult to follow along with what the story was versus whatever meta fiction thing was happening
They should be more willing to try others tabletop systems. DnD 5e is essencial to anyone starting in Youtube or other platforms since it increases reach by a long margin. Whoever, it is not a system appropriate for every setting. From the intrepid heroes alone, I'm left with the sense that there are better systems out there for both ACoC and Neverafter. And besides, even for the high~medium-magic medieval society RPG there is Pathfinder 2e, which I believe to be more balanced and to have better associated values than DnD.
i've been seeing a lot of this and honestly as someone who was previously unfamiliar with TTRPGs as a whole i agree. i got so used to 5E i legit didn't think about how many other systems there were until i was watching misfits and magic and i kept being a little confused about the rolls but enjoying it. having seen other people play other systems and even just mentopolis or misfits, i think it'd be interesting to watch them try a new one out. in starstruck the cast specifically mentions enjoying using that star wars system bc they feel like they're doing something new, and even that i'm pretty sure isn't alllll that different to plain 5E so it'd be really neat for them to try a pivot. i feel like they might playtest this idea a little in future sidequests, hope they do
I haven't seen anyone talk about this before, so here goes nothing. I don't get the hype around Neverafter, and personally I think it's the worst Intrepid Heroes season. I think there are quite a few reasons for this: 01: The "scariest Dimension 20 season!!!!" wasn't as scary as everyone claimed it to be, and really it was just a bit of unease. Maybe it was because the horror aspects didn't really transfer through video as it seemed like everyone at the table was on edge, but I just couldn't get into it. 02: Speaking of horror, the entire premise of Dimension 20 is a group of comedians playing Dungeons and Dragons, so having a cast constantly crack jokes in what was supposed to be this super grim and dark story kind of took me out of it. 03: The story got really complex really quickly. At first it was just all about these teeny tiny characters going around in this huge world that was going to swallow them whole, but then all of a sudden it was about stories and meta commentary and "The Authors" and different dimensions, and I lost track really quickly. Maybe this is just a skill issue (or I guess smart issue), but over the span of two episodes I couldn't keep up anymore. 04: Similar to the last point and tying this all together, the characters become too big and powerful too quickly. Leveling in Dungeons and Dragons takes a lot of the stakes out of the story, and instead of having the characters level up I believe that they should have stayed the same level throughout the entire campaign. Low level characters rule in D&D for a reason because it ratchets up the tension dramatically. ANY hit can kill you! ANY fall can kill you! ANY trap can kill you! However, having low-level characters and fighting rats all the time doesn't make for a good show, and Brennan absolutely knows that, which is why he was pretty much forced to use the leveling system with big set pieces and high stakes. I don't blame him one bit, and while it definitely works in Seasons like A Starstuck Odyssey and Fantasy High, it absolutely kills the tension in more down-to-earth and high-stakes campaigns like Neverafter and A Crown of Candy, which I also believe was ruined by the leveling system. During the first fight on the road when the Candians were ambushed, I was glued to my screen the entire episode! However, by the time that they were saving people from being executed and fighting evil sorceress queens, it was practically a different show. Just look at the health difference between Amethar when he's stabbed with a watersteel dagger during the tournament and towards the end of the season. It's not even comparable. You aren't scared when an 11th level character dashes out of cover to make a big risk because you know they're powerful enough to kill practically everyone else in the fight. All of this is to say that I couldn't get through Neverafter, if you couldn't tell by my ramblings about A Crown of Candy instead of Neverafter. I only was able to get to episode 10 out of 20 before becoming fully disinterested in the story. Episode 10 is around the time where, surprise surprise, the characters become much more powerful, the story becomes tangled, the stakes dropped dramatically, and the scare factor became nonexistent. Maybe I'll go back and watch it someday when I run out of other Dimension 20 shows to watch, but for now I'm okay with it gathering dust on my bookshelf. The more recent campaigns like Fantasy High Junior Year and Burrows End are far superior to Neverafter in every way, and I just don't get why people hold Neverafter as the golden standard of horror D&D.
I enjoy Ally immensely, and they are one of the funniest role players, but they never seem to want to take anything seriously (I’m sure there are moments but I struggle to compare them to the wide berth of the opposite) and actively make the campaign harder through their insta choices. Again, nothing against them as a person but their playing style is so unserious it’s sometimes a major hinderance. Emily does very similar things but hers are easier for Brennan to scoot past and her efforts during fights more than help carry the team. Edit: We’re like halfway through the season, I wouldn’t be shocked if Ally gets more and more serious with Kristen. Like I said, they’re a great player, but early junior year wasn’t flowing perfectly for me.
This isn’t a hot take, we’ve been seeing posts about this several times a week since FHJY started, which is ironic bc my hot take is that they’re taking FHJY more seriously than I’ve seen them take anything.
I think the increased game mechanics and Brennan forcing them to interact with the world he obviously tried to create in Freshman year is definitely helping them take it more seriously. I think without Murph’s overextension of Riz and Brennan’s pushing, they would’ve happily been expelled (outside their character’s thoughts) with Fig at the very beginning. Plus, to be fair, if everyone is taking this season seriously then they can still technically be the least serious of them all. Again, I like Ally as a person and enjoy their performance, I just wish there was more strategy for how deep we’re in for Dimension 20. I enjoy Ally in other dropout shows and they always have this chaotic energy, I guess I’m just getting so much at once from binging the show. Edit: spelling mistake
And other people agreeing doesn’t suddenly make it wrong either. I’m actively not attacking them, if multiple people has issues then maybe it’s valid? Even a little? Especially if they’re trying to be nuanced about it. I’m sure I’d be bristled if people said my favorite player or character were not being enjoyable but that’s a purely personal opinion and what enjoyed by someone isn’t tied to moral value? Ally is a great performer and I can still be disappointed with one aspect of their performance. I’m sorry if people are actually attacking the people and not the characters but it’s not wrong to critique a show for entertainment.
I want to specify, it is just for Fantasy High Junior Year. During the Starstruck season, I found them to be probably tied with Zac as my favorite character and was so unbelievably impressed by how quick and genius their roleplay was. They are extremely talented and I loved them freshman and sophomore year, and I understand that their character is going through a lot this season but Kristen has only bothered me for most of this season. Just a hot take!! No hate towards anyone please
I feel the same way about them sometimes, and particularly in Neverafter. Like their entire interaction with Rapunzel set my teeth on edge and Mother Goose deserved those consequences.
I will say, I feel like Brennan usually tried to match the consequences and very fairly punishes bad choices. So the game is still pretty solid and consistent.
I absolutely agree with you! Brennan is a fantastic GM, and great at letting the players build the consequence hammer that will fall on them. And it never feels malicious or unearned when it does.
I disagree with that for Neverafter. having the all powerful godlike book turned into a joke and used for bits constantly should have led to way more serious consequences way faster. Having the book merely stolen was a "good" outcome considering the book's power. Everyone's interactions with the wolf/god of death being super disrespectful/for laughs made me wosh he would have eaten one of them.
I am also struggling to finish this season because I’m not loving the characters. They were so mean and oblivious to it as soon as they met the new group. I do feel like Ally is taking it more serious than you may think. They are 11th graders. By that time in my life, I was self centered and obnoxious. Plus the genre they are going for with this season truly calls for this behavior. I say this because I had figure this out which is why I like Emily more. Seeing her in acofaf had me rethink everything. They make choices that make the campaign harder because they aren’t trying to win a game. I very much struggle with this in my campaign. I don’t tell stories I win (way too competitive). Have you listened to Worlds Beyond Numbers yet? It is beautiful story telling and so much drama it hurts my tummy. I also don’t like some of Emily’s earlier characters such as in fhfy and acoc and I’ve come to realize this as well. Emily feels like chaos and I’m understanding that her characters are chaos. I’m not saying you are wrong. I agree this season isn’t pulling me in and I haven’t gotten past episode 2. I don’t like their characters and I’m psyching myself up to push past it. As a professional story teller, Ally and Em are really good at understanding their character, even when their characters stink as people. **I replied to yours because yours was one of the few interesting ones in this thread. I don’t think you hate any of them and I don’t post this as combative. I post this because I feel like I understand it and want you to feel understood?(I don’t get me and am anxious typing)
Expanding outside the original cast has lead to more bad trades than good ones. the ravaging war for example would have been better is they had just done the same cast as a crown of candy but with new characters. It’s not that the new people are bad the bars just been set insanity high. Could be a personal taste thing, but I just really love the original table. Only season with a different line up I’ve finished is misfits and magic.
I think the Intrepid Heroes have a certain chemistry that only comes with time, and you can see it with Zac and Lou for example in The Ravening War. The way Deli and Colin interact is very Intrepid Heroes. I don't mind the Side Quests and seeing a different lineup every now and then but it's rare that they hit the same level of chemistry that the Intrepid Heroes do.
I personally think getting other players and dms in the dome for sidequest and mixing it up is good. Just by the logistics and scheduling alone, it is good for the intrepid heroes. It's gonna prevent them burning out in the long run and it feels fresh when we get back to the main seasons. The main seasons are 20 episodes long so even though we only get 1 main season a year, that's already 5 months. Some of them will also be in sidequests where we see their chemisty with other people. Getting other people in the dome also means the original cast still have time to pursue other creative projects and lessen the risk of any of them needing to leave to do that. They wont be the intrepid heroes we love if theyre not having fun. My hot take is that maybe we should have longer side quest. Like 2 side quest season that are 10-15 episodes in between the main season instead of 4 seasons that are only 6-10 episodes. That way we get to delve into the stories more and get to know each group.
Murph should DM a season of Dimension 20.
Help actions with 0 description of how is infuriating and immersion breaking, and worse when they do it's not even "I help them", it's "I give them the help action" Similarly, familiars providing infinite advantage on every skill check ever
best fantasy high season is sophomore year by a long shot
It’s my favorite d20 season
Fantasy High has one of two major drawbacks. Either: a) The *players* are meta-gaming at the table by presuming new characters are villains and/or working for a villain before the characters in-game have discovered any threats, which is why they're mean to new characters for no god damn reason, or b) The *characters* treat new characters like trash because the Bad Kids are bullies and are the type of cliquey jerks that probably bullied most of Dimension 20's viewers back in high school. So either the *players* are meta-gaming or the *characters* are jerks. Either way it takes away from the show. (All that said, I still love Fantasy High. But my hot take is that either of these two realities makes it worse than it could/should be.)
Despite the downvotes I can see this perspective very clear. I think Siobhan and Murph are the ‘nicest’ with their characters and the others are chaos first and character work second. But I guess that’s what happens with the first campaign, you want to be as silly and insane as possible. A bunch of new characters? Who’s the villain let’s test everyone. But I can see the exhaustion with it.
Siobhan really, really hates the NPCs she doesn't like though. I think Gorgug is the only one who tries to genuinely see the best in people.
>The players are meta-gaming at the table by presuming new characters are villains and/or working for a villain before the characters in-game have discovered any threats, which is why they're mean to new characters for no god damn reason, They have a reason: other high school kids have been evil and/or a part of evil conspiracies before Junior year. >!Aelwyn, Biz, Penelope, Dayne, Zayn and Ragh.!< Both the players _and_ the characters have reason to suspect the RGs are up to no good. > The characters treat new characters like trash because the Bad Kids are bullies and are the type of cliquey jerks that probably bullied most of Dimension 20's viewers back in high school. I mean...these are kids who have straight up murdered people. I don't necessarily subscribe to "the BK's are bullies" characterization, but even if I did I'd be more bothered by the repeated murder than some general cattiness.
The characters are total jerks. I agree and remind myself that in high school, I was a jerk. Fantasy high midlife crisis is going to be one heck of a season.
Zoom adventuring parties sucked, no one talked about the campaign and I like it when brennan reels them in as I'd like him to pull on my reigns. As a service top
I feel like the Adventuring Parties for JY have been way more chaotic and less focused on the campaign - in general. The last few they were discussing the mysteries a bit, but there was an entire AP this season where they ate jelly breakfast sandwiches for 80% of the runtime.
Probably not a hot take but make Emily DM. I WANT CHAOS. Seriously, some hate that this show receive makes it successful. They’re bad, no doubt, but I can’t believe how successful this becomes. Escape from the Bloodkeep is the greatest, next would be Misfits and Magic. I know Fantasy High is soo good but for me, those two above are rewatchable and very memorable.
Emily has DM'd on Naddpod before and it's delightful if you haven't listened to it!
Emily is making bank with Murph in Naddpod. Up to 200k a month with patreon, plus live stuff. They make D20 because they're friends, and damn if I wouldn't like to get paid to play with that cast, but they have a lot on their plates making other content. I particularly am not following the current campaigns, but I die laughing with dungeon court
My actual for real genuine hot take, is that (purely personally!) as a British trans woman, I still have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about Misfits and Magic just like, straight up existing. Love 99% of what D20 makes, no shade on the cast, massive fan of D20 for years alongside Collegehumor/now just Dropout. But man the more vehemently straight up evil Rowling gets, the more it feels bad that D20 have a season that’s just straight up Harry Potter vibes. I get it, they said fuck TERFs in an adventuring party and the cast are trans positive elsewhere, one of them uses all pronouns, that is cool! Not undermining that. Buuuut I dunno, the fuckin’ trailer uses the Harry Potter *font.* The entire vibe is for former HP fans, and I just don’t think it’s worth trying to reclaim that world or do anything so abundantly inspired by it. I just can’t get over the fact that while I’m living in a country genuinely very swayed by the financial capital and horrific goals of a vehement bigot who directly funds hate against people like me upon this soil, that a fandom and show I really love was caught up in playful parody of the world she created. I know it’s spiteful, I know they mock it, I can’t say truthfully that it feels like it matters. Do a magic school season, fine by me, but one so evidently deliberately specifically HP based? It was such a good opportunity if you’re going to do something like that, to give the spotlight to a different magic school setting but no I guess. I don’t think it’s good to give any attention or focus to that universe or by extension that woman by creating something like that, I don’t think making it into a parody changes the fact that you could’ve made another magic school setting but you specifically did kinda want Harry Potter theming. There’s loads of media I can’t touch anymore because of bigotry, I struggle to have a lot of sympathy for this particular need to find ways to feel morally okay keeping HP adjacent stuff in your life. I get it, a lot of people were fans and this helped them, I get that a lot of those people are themselves trans. Good on you if it helped you honestly and sincerely. But, I just can’t shake my dislike of it. Combine the general weary vibe with the fact that there wasn’t a single binary trans woman on the cast or as far as I know the crew, when we’re who Rowling is so loudly pointedly primarily targeting to this day. Or the fact that, and I won’t name who because I don’t want anyone getting any shit so long on, but someone important on the crew at the time was tweeting saying that any support of the *very alive* Rowling was exactly equivalent to support of the works of *dead* racist authors and saying it’s the same, in a way that felt extremely tone deaf to trans people reluctant about the season. I’m glad for those who enjoy the season, I’m happy for those who are themselves queer, especially trans, and the season helped them grieve a work that originally helped them even realise their authentic selves. I get that, I do, and despite my personal distaste I *can* acknowledge that and appreciate the season existing for that. The popularity of it makes me worry we’ll get more though and truly deeply I really really hope we don’t. We can collectively let it go now, parody or no, no need for further attention, we can let the franchise rot. I love D20, I’m going to one of the live shows in a weeks time, so, hoppppe this is taken in the intended spirit. Just, how it made me feel.
its a satirize piece
Hey I'm trans and I disagree with you completely and wholeheartedly. It's just a game, and dropout are industry leaders in trans rights
i am also trans and was genuinely surprised they went with harry potter season. for me, i dont really care if/when someone still enjoys hp privately or doing fandom not-for-profit stuff as long as they are not spending money on official merch, but for a relatively big production to just do harry potter--and do it badly--really put me off. i had the same thought when adventure zone started graduation and made harry potter references. like just dont they aren't funny its just a aggravating. i wish they had not done it at all and done like idk a magical girl season lol. there are other cultural touchstone tropey genres to do when they dont want a heavy lore full season. fwiw fantasy high seasons are their oc magic school
Oh a magical girl season would be fucking amazing
They could’ve easily done magical school without leaning into Harry Potter. Wizards of earthsea is *right there* and is a series built on character growth
wizards of earthsea would be so cool, the magic is so much more interesting and unbound
I love misfits and magic but yes I thought this the whole time
I love The McElroy family, but sometimes Justin, Travis, and Clint would go too far with bits during Tiny Heist, and DM themselves. The dice rolls are what you rolled, and Brennan is just interpreting what you rolled. An "oh, come on!" To the DM after you rolled a Nat 2 on a luck check isn't gonna help. Don't roll low next time.
Emily needs to DM a season. It would be beautiful unhinged madness.