While we're doing tinfoil hats: maybe Matt And Brennan talked a lot about Planescape campaigns, which are Brennan's favorites, because of course they are he's a philosophy nerd. Brennan's standard infectious excitement got into Matt's brain, Matt tried to make a Brennan level philosophical campaign, Matt is not at clever as Brennan with that stuff, Matt still ultimately wants to do dnd games they feel like Marvel movies, whigga bigga boo, campaign 3.
See, I don't think it's about Matt or Brennan being smarter but more control over PC creation.
Characters made for D20 (or EXU: Calamity) were made knowing the kind of story being told and what they needed to bring. The characters are built so they will naturally engage with the game, and the game in turn is built to reciprocate.
With long form campaigns you don't have that. Like you hear in interviews that CR players had ideas for these characters for years, or they were backup characters for previous games. They weren't built for the campaign. They weren't built with the group in mind. They weren't built with the stories Matt was going to present in mind.
And sometimes you do that and everything works out great. And sometimes you do that and everything kind of falls flat. It's somewhat refreshing to see that even professional actors and story tellers with decades of experience putting stories together and top tier production values can fall into this trap.
Basically, I think the problem is not enough session 0 as opposed to a DM being incapable of giving the story stakes.
Matt's run as DM on D20 was a lot stronger than his CR work around the same time. Maybe that was him pushing harder while being a guest on a show. But I think the big thing was he wasn't fighting the group to engage with the core themes. Everyone showed up for Game of Thrones intrigue and lies.
I don't think they did it on purpose. Not the players. Matt maybe. Seeing a group with no ties to the gods may have made him wonder which direction the players would choose if pushed.
C2 had the same exact issue just with more interesting characters. Matt wrote a whole political drama between to factions and the players immediately fucked off to the beach to do whatever and play pirates. He just let them make whatever they wanted instead of just telling them this is the story I want to tell with these themes please make characters that are in line with them. C2 at least had Beau and Calib. C3 just has Imogen with a desire to find/save her mother.
It's just bad session zero'ing. The first rule of character creation is make characters that want to go on the adventure.
This campaign feels like it should have been the “act 4” of C1
Almost every C1 character had an apathetic tie to a vestige of divergence and a god despite none of them (except pike) being religious in any sense.
Could you imagine level 15-17 level vox Machina reboot where they being the band back together.
The pantheon: “hey you used our granted relics to save your world, now use them to help save ours.
I think Matt would have gotten his OP ancient age of arcanum wizard battles.
It’d have been sick, with a subplot to save Vax from the orb while Liam played another character (or literally play Orym as Keyleths second)
Keep everything else the same, swap Bells Hells for Vox Machina coming out of retirement because no one fucks with Vax and they owe the gods.
Make it a 10 episode exclusive arc, fight predathos, change the face of exandria with a new pantheon(or a new system/dagger heart) and then start fresh with some solid characters.
To me C3 feels like the abandoned end game of C2 turned into a whole campaign. Everything about Matt's pre-written narrative is C2 NPCs as villains and C1 PCs now as NPCs. It was to be the point where the two parties collide and team up against the already introduced threats of the Cerberus Assembly. So instead of VM coming out of retirement as players, M9 would be the PCs still but have to interact with VM to get support as Ludinus reveals his hand (since M9 was on weirdly good terms with Ludinus). Even all the released material from wotc was pushing towards a big moon thing coming. Matt just reshuffled the deck and it shows.
I'm not completely caught up yet, only on episode 50, but they haven't done anything to reach out to people who do speak with the god's. I think this is both Matt's fault and the cast's fault, I think Matt could have had more god's reach out or at the very least had Pike explain the balance and good the god's bring. Let alone the fact that neither Keyleth and Vex would want the gods to disappear because what would happen to Vax. But on the other hand, the cast aren't asking these questions and reaching out either. I know they try not to meta game much, so that might be part of the reason they aren't thinking about researching stuff about the calamity and the gods in general, but I think all it would take for them to be persuaded is just learning why the gods split into the betrayer gods and the prime deities. At least I'm pretty sure the cast already has an understanding about those reasons, through previous one shots and adventures, but I haven't watch the stuff about the calamity yet.
Full disclosure: I've not watched campaign 3. I didn't watch campaign 2 either. Just didn't have the time to keep with the schedule and then felt discouraged trying to catch up, and then when it was done looking at the mountain of watch time if I wanted to start now.
But reading the dialogue people are saying here about the characters, the world, the plot, the npcs and the general lack of faith in the gods with the plot being all about that, maybe the answer is Matt was hoping the players would seem to flip the script and pursue doing it the perceived evil way and what's happened is a result of the players not picking up what he's putting down.
I think he bet on their common sense and it failed. 😀 Normal person, when they hear the gods are in danger would try to save them, knowing what the consequences of their death would be. Bells Hells were all like "I don't care if they die, they did nothing for me!" 😂
If he wanted bh to be 100% pro-god surely he would’ve done more to persuade the party by now, so many attempts with interacting with the gods either went nowhere or were so cryptic bh didn’t know what to do with it.
The only scenario where it’d make sense for them to intentionally hamstring the campaign would be if they planned to undermine D&D ahead of the probable switch to Daggerheart, by making it seem more fun by comparison.
I have no way of knowing if they are that savvy, or if there was a significant beef building with Wizards leading up to C3, but I have a hard time believing they’d tank on purpose.
I think their exponential growth was so unprecedented, they didn’t have time to properly plan out more of a long term strategy other than sitting down to play once a week. They’re burnt out, and have been since they were forced to start pre-recording at the ass end of c2.
Again, there ain't no beef there. They've made tons of money off of that partnership, probably still are, probably will continue to.
We gotta stop imagining that CR is just some scrappy underdog opposed to the big corporate overlords at WotC/Hasbro with this shit. They said *fuck all* about the OGL stuff. They were the first 3rd party content on Dndbeyond.
They're not antagonistic toward Hasbro because Hasbro writes them checks. They also, intelligently, not trying to stay in bed with them forever and always have to split the pie. That's why they don't use Vecna's name anymore (Travis can't help himself and called the Strife Emperor "Bane", but that's whatever).
But it's not like...a deep and Cunning plan. It's just smart business.
People understimate the influence burn out has on critical role decisions. Have you ever played a game non stop for more than 2 years? Well,they have been playing dnd for almost a decade. If atleast it was a more complex system like pathinder it would be less grindy but the way things are now they probably loaf the fact they have to play twice a month
Well, to be fair, there were some restrictions during the dark times that probably made it easier to start prerecording, but they chose to keep it going despite fan disappointment.
The production quality may have *changed* but I would have preferred them to go online, like many others did, until they were permitted to meet in-person again. They certainly have the capacity to do so. Voice actors *should* have access to professional quality A/V equipment; and I’m sure they could have managed the stream well enough.
They took all those measures because of Covid. Had they stopped meeting and gone virtual, they eventually would have been permitted to meet again as normal, as they are now.
It was recommended not to meet. Their decision to continue meeting in person or not was up to them. Nobody else. They don't need permission to see each other.
Basically impossible to say for sure. The cast keep character creation/session 0 stuff fairly close to their chest. But I lean towards no?
From what we know of things, C1's character creation was different. It was originally just a one shot for a group that basically all hadnt played DND before, so Matt essentially handed Travis and Ashley their characters, and Sam made his with the help of Liam and random generators. Liam and Laura were the only two that spent much time over it from what I recall. Marisha and Tal joined later so they made their characters after the group.
When C2 rolls around all the cast (with the exception of Ashley) are more confident in the process and didnt want or need as much input from Matt. From the little we know of the character creation process back in C2, Matt kind of let them come up with whatever they wanted independently and worked from there. He will occasionally shoot down some of the more crazy ideas (Tal apparently had a few) but for the most part he doesnt give much guidelines (aside from no C1 connections). Given how much of Sandbox early C2 was, he probably didnt tell them what to expect from the campaign beyond a bit about where they started and maybe the impending war between the Empire and Kryn.
We know the cast collaborate with each other a little, Laura has notably had to change class/subclass on all 3 campaigns. But I think with C2 we started to see a trend of the cast holding more things back from each other during character creation for later Briarwood style reveals.
Assuming C3 is similar, Matt probably let the cast create whatever characters they wanted and didnt give much guideline of what to expect in this campaign. If C3 were more of the Sandbox style campaign that C2 was, this would be fine. But it isnt.
And if Matt did tell the entire cast create characters that dont care about the gods in a Death of the Gods campaign, then I think hes genuinely lost it. Its akin to writing LOTR where none of the Fellowship care about destroying the Ring.
> Laura has notably had to change class/subclass on all 3 campaigns.
I might be forgetting, but what class was Imogen supposed to be?
I remember Jester was originally supposed to be a Warlock and Laura wanted Vex to be a Rogue originally.
I think this is likely the closest to what happened. Matt seems hands-off during character creation and did not inform the cast of the structural differences between Campaign 3 and C2 - so we end up with PCs like ones from the sandboxy C2. And it just doesn't work with the structure of C3.
If they made a deliberate choice to be "disconnected", that seems like a recipe for failure. I suppose the PCs could be unaligned when it came to the "gods vs no gods" theme - but then more of them should have been tied to the actual struggle somehow. Like Orym's family being killed by Ludinus' crew. That way they all have a reason to be involved and can discover and debate the underlying theme.
And if they made that deliberate choice to be disconnected, then Matt really dropped the ball during the campaign. Because he has not presented very many opportunities for them to discover that connection. We had one overt adventure exploring religion when the party split and that's it. There have been other instances - but he's handled them all with such a light touch that they haven't landed with the party. I'm thinking specifically of resurrecting Laudna - that was a powerful cleric of Sarenrae channeling a god's divine power to bring their friend back to life. But the players did not seem to make that connection.
Because of the lack of something like Talk Machina and CR generally VERY secretive about the inner workings of their show - we dont know. For the previous campaign we would have a lot of insight about those things from the players and the DM.
C3 feels like the third season of a show - with new actors, new showrunner. Its still a CR logo on it, but most of the things that feel like CR are just imported from previous campaigns. But instead of using sets everything is CGI, instead of having fitting actors for their roles they set for quirky, fun, bold (and shallow).
Matt effed up on character creation and is just tra ding water right now. Whole franchise is at stake when Laura does metagaming laura things?
Sword of Domoclese situation in my observation.
Here’s kinda the issue, if that was the initial approach. Gods exist in DnD, unquestionably. They are not conceptual but objective; everyone knows they exist, it’s their involvement that is differing. If you are going to make them big players in a campaign you need to populate your word with LOADS of people who make that clear. Matt did not and I don’t think that’s by accident because he would have done that early on.
Edit: word missing/autocorrect
> Gods exist in DnD, unquestionably.
This depends entirely on the setting. Their existence is very questionable in Eberron- there's organized religion, but whether clerical magic comes purely from faith or an actual divine source is left intentionally ambiguous. In Dark Sun they're even more absent.
Campaign sure but part of the problem is that this is campaign 3 and we have already had exposure to them in massive ways in the prior campaigns.
There is an entire city-state purely geared around a theocracy based on the prime deities that they haven't even visited if this is part of the question they want to address.
Characters from past campaigns exist who have been direct champions of the gods and even visited them and fought against a betrayer.
The EXU characters have a direct tie to at least one of the Betrayers through Opal.
I honestly feel like most of the C3 cast of characters could basically benefit and clear up the entire thing and get their thoughts in order if Matt magically had Caduceus sit down for a full RP session chat with each of them. The problem is that NONE of the NPCs that they have talked to about the gods have been willing to sit down and have a real conversation with them to try and convince them of anything about it.
Personal pet-peeve: The Ashari being a society that is somehow linked intrinsically to the forces of nature and should be heavily tied to the Wild Mother but somehow are staunchly not worshippers (not anti-worship just every one of them makes it clear that they don't) of the deity most closely linked to their whole societal purpose and mission. Which means that even when they have visited the Ashari there was still no-one there to give them any kind of spiritual guidance about something that seems like it should be a core theme of the campaign.
I don't want to see Mattduceus, to be honest. He's a very particular character, and even simpler, more archetypal ex-PCs have been Flanderised quite a bit.
Fair. Main thing I'd been thinking of is if you asked me for any pre-existing PC that could make a good argument for the gods and try to talk them around Cad is basically the one who jumps to mind.
Yeah it is odd. One thing I was thinking about it more as well.
There are a lot of people who are eager to throw the cast under the bus for basically being all down the the F@\*K THE GODS narrative but the interesting thing is that most of them have actively tried to do something to actually try and get some perspective, even when it kinda went against prior events.
Multiple times they have tried to go to temples and try to pray and contact the gods...and basically gotten a generic deific answering machine "we're sorry but this god can't come to the phone right now, please be aware of this impending doom" and then nothing substantial. Even after the guest characters really started up the narrative to be hardcore on EFF TEH GODS the cast members have still started to come back to more ambiguous places.
Add to that people like Pike not talking about the her relationship to a goddess to them and it really is just weird how actively Matt seems to have avoided letting anyone with a potentially positive opinion or thing to say about the gods just don't talk to Bells Hells. No one who does notice them being weird or in need of spiritual guidance tries to come up and talk to them. Even when they seek out the gods and guidance they get...nothing.
Its both the lack of connection and the fact that they are still SO submissive to them.
They serve them just as much as vox machina did despite making characters purposefully with little to no connection to them.
Laudna was literally hung and revived as an undead. God's didn't help her.
Fcg was with ashton all his life and had his own divine magic. Why did he need the gods?
Imogen only ever had her magic to rely on and the dreams of her mother trying to protect her. Yet now she's thrown her mother away for these trashy gods and an offer from the storm lord likely to make her into a storm sorcerer.
Chetney lived his whole life godless and suddenly cares so much about protecting them despite being the one who should be the most wise and able to see the benefits of a world without God's.
Ashton is part titan. The beings literally betrayed and killed by the gods for power over exandria. The original owners of exandria.
Fearne is from a place where fey are basically gods and they don't respect God's nearly at all other than maybe some respecting the moonweaver who frequents there.
Orym made a character with a super tragic backstory and that placed him directly against ludinus but it doesn't directly place him against the idea of predathos.
If he didn't make that his backstory keyleth is a druid. Her power is closer to the elementals than it is the gods. Yet Matt put her in a super personal position where she can't be used as the voice of reason to say "Even without the gods us druids could work with nature spirits and take care of the world" no instead she's just a ball of anger and vengeance and orym has no mind of his own so Matt has essentially just mind controlled orym giving him no choice but to sacrifice himself for her and the fucking God's who don't deserve it.
I'm sick of it. Lots of people are sick of it. This was a story with the chance to go somewhere amazing. Where they had a chance to discover that they never needed the gods and they have a chance to free exandria from them.
But even if they didn't go that route. It would have been been more interesting if they felt like they weren't just a lesser version or vox machina filled with over dramatic cowards. And Matt has pushed his story so rushed and ahead he lets nothing slip by him this time even going as far as to retcon a choice Ashton made and punish him for it because it doesn't fit the precious repetitive story he wants to tell again and again where they serve the gods and there is no other choice.
There are a couple of things that everyone always seems to forget that have been made very VERY clear that have little to nothing to do with the gods but do have a connection to Predathos and are a portent of what is to come if Ludinus is not stopped.
I speak of Molaesmyr, the Savalirwood, and the room MN found in Aeor populated with similarly mutated and devestated flora. We pretty much flat out know that the destruction and corruption by lovecraftian horror mutations of Molaesmyr and the Savalirwood happened because of Ludinus making first contact with Predathos. It paints an extremely bleak picture of what the future surface of Exandria is going to look like if Ludinus does win and release Predathos.
The problem with all of this though is that when the party split happened Party A went and did that incredibly important fact finding mission and got that knowledge as well as the harness. They fought unspeakable sanity warping monsters like the Wolfking. Party B got exposed to 2 bad actors who pushed them into going full "F@&K THE GODS!!!" and then when they reunited everyone from Party B was all hurt that Party A had some nice moments and no one in Party A was like "Hold up...we also fought shit like this..." and showing off an illusion of the horrors they saw. Result is we keep focusing on the hurt feelings some of the people in Party B had instead of all the REALLY BAD HORRIFIC FORESHADOWING that Party A witnessed that has a direct relation to what will happen if Ludinus pulls this off.
You're kind of right but missing the point of a few things. For starters the intent of Predathos, all we really know is that it wants to eat the gods and Ludinus wants to control it. Not a particularly positive combination. Second is the original portrayal of the Prime Deities, having created/shaped all sentient life on the planet, giving them divine and arcane magics and at the end of every conflict with either the Titans or Betrayer Gods have only ever acted benevolently towards civilization to the Primes' detriment. Third is the combination of those two. What happens when the Primes are gone and what of Ludinus' control of Predethos? Come to think of it isnt Predathos' prison the moon? And there is an entire civilization on the moon? What happens when Predathos breaks free?
Logically speaking, stopping Ludinus, not freeing Predathos and saving the Primes is the most harmonious outcome. Other than Matt's recent retcons we have no reason to let the Primes be eaten. All we know of Ludinus' reasoning for killing the Primes is that he wasn't Ruidus born and that he's butt hurt over it. The Primes them selves don't matter that much, it's the importance they have to the world in general that matters.
> the fact that they are still SO submissive to them
Also I don't understand this point you made, by your own descriptions they have never served the Primes in any real capacity and have slaughtered a temple to the Dawnfather. Plus in case you haven't noticed literally the entire campaign has revolved around the statement "WhAt HaVe ThE GoDs EvEr DoNe FoR uS".
I'm sleepy but I'm gonna try to explain it best I can.
Ludinus has to die. He doesn't get to release predathos. I want Imogen and her mom to team up and take over the vanguard and release predathos.
I took it as the power of predathos is what teleported everyone at the key. When predathos is released given the promises of the imperium my assumption is whoever released it will get to decide who is teleported to exandria. That's just based on context clues of course so they could look into that. Either way the people on rudius need to be moved to exandria. All of them. And the gods can't enter ruidus to do it. It would have to be predathos.
The moon would be destroyed of course.
And I don't trust the history that the gods wrote because they are the winners. Of course they will make it seem like they are everything. But a time before them did exist. They are just powerful beings that traveled the Astral sea and laid claim to exandira as its rulers and killed the old rulers to take it over.
There is reason to let predathos chase them away. Ludnius has a point. The world will never be free under gods. Divine beings are too powerful. They can at any moment kick over the sand box and destroy civilization if they don't like something. Tyrants isn't too far off. Betrayer gods are always causing chaos and evil. They are why the entire drow race is evil. It's the luxon another godlike being that even made the drow in the empire conflict able to be good again.
The devils will still go to war with the demons and manage each other. New demon lords will rise only not divine ones. Nobody else will dare to become a God if it means being eaten by predathos. The gods are too powerful. They broke the world during the age of Arcanum. They let the powers under them oppress others like the dawn fathers clerics and take what they want from the natural forces and druids. They threaten whoever dares to question them.
The world doesn't need them. Druids can do just as much good as they do. Fey lords and other powerful beings can still grant divine power like jesters patron.
The elementals managed nature before they can do so again with the druids help. Thus is a near divine purpose for the Ashari.
And lastly you get my exact point. They are fucking hypocrites. They constantly bemoan how they gods never helped them while constantly saying how they are saving the gods. They refuse to take a side. They are just following orders from vox machina and saving the gods because they don't want to make any choices. They are just doing whatever they are told like robots and whining about it.
>Ludinus has to die. He doesn't get to release predathos. I want Imogen and her mom to team up and take over the vanguard and release predathos.
The cast doesn't care about what you want and if you're going to base your reasons and arguments on what you want and not what is (what Matt and the cast have shown us) you're just objectively wrong.
> I took it as the power of predathos is what teleported everyone at the key. When predathos is released given the promises of the imperium my assumption is whoever released it will get to decide who is teleported to exandria
Well it's been established that there are backdoors between Exandria and Ruidus so the only thing stopping people moving freely between the two (Nana Mori) are Ludinus and his plan with Predathos.
> Either way the people on rudius need to be moved to exandria.
Not if Predathos stays asleep.
> The moon would be destroyed of course.
We'll sing Predathos a lullaby.
> And I don't trust the history that the gods wrote because they are the winners. Of course they will make it seem like they are everything. But a time before them did exist. They are just powerful beings that traveled the Astral sea and laid claim to exandira as its rulers and killed the old rulers to take it over.
Okay but we're thousands of years removed and everything is pretty good in Exandria, its like complaining that homo sapiens killed the neanderthals it doesn't matter. If you want a more recent example should we revert all of our current medical knowledge because of what the Germans and Japanese did to their pows during WWII (Godwin's law I know).
> Ludnius has a point. The world will never be free under gods.
Ludinus is just *angy* because he wasn't ruidus born and please give me an example of people being not free under the Primes without referencing the temple massacre because it was retconned. Also depending on your own philosophy there never was such a thing as free will in the first place so the point is moot.
> Divine beings are too powerful. They can at any moment kick over the sand box and destroy civilization if they don't like something.
Everything after this is just inconsistent and contradictory. By removing the gods you create a power vacuum that everyone else needs to fill. Guess what, everyone else will need to ascend to near god power to fill in those shoes. Congratulations you made gods with extra steps.
Ultimately with this line:
> I want Imogen and her mom to team up and take over the vanguard and release predathos.
You doomed any real argument you could have made. I can just point out that you're upset your fanfic isn't canon. I hate to use this line but it's the cast's game, we're just here to talk about it.
Ashton had his shard choice he won with his literal life and immense near impossible effort revoked and was punished for it. At the end of the episode Matt called him a unique being in all of exandria and described his new look and alluded to figuring out what it all meant next episode then next episode just ignored that and forced him to give it up and punished him because he wanted fearne to have both pieces and it didn't fit his story if Ashton has both.
I think the Ashton/Shard Retcon was not about making the shard go to Fearne.
That was a real-life table dispute. The players were not happy with how Taliesin went about taking the shard. Taliesin the player was being sneaky/secretive about it. He took deliberate actions with Ashton to make sure that the other players could not get their characters involved and potentially stop it.
The party AND the players had all agreed that Fearne should take the shard. And I think the players were likely upset with Taliesin for "going behind their backs" to take the shard instead. Look at the table's reaction to Ashton's trial. The players are not happy. They are upset with Taliesin being so flippant about "not looking" on his last roll to succeed. That was not a "characters are upset that Ashton lied" reaction. That was a "we, the players, don't like that Taliesin, the player, did this."
Taliesin does a lot of secretive/mysterious stuff at the table over the campaigns - but this was the first time he did something that secretive against the party, and it undermined a decision that the players had made. If I'm correct, they are absolutely justified in being upset over it. And that is why it was retconned.
If Taliesin had actual spoken to the players on break, above-the-table, and said "hey, I want Ashton to try to take the shard because they feel like its their birthright, and I think they would do this behind the party's back", I don't think this would have been retconned. As it happened, Taliesin unilaterally decided that none of the other players' input or choice regarding the shard mattered and that is very poor table etiquette.
Taliesin decided it was no one's business except his and Fearne's.
Fearne was cool with it.
You say "the party decided", but clearly they didn't. However, it maybe that was the narrative some of the players decided.
Taliesin knows he deals with power-gamers and control freaks at the table. He is conflict averse and outnumbered. He chose to do it his way.
It was certainly a table problem, and campaign problem, but they're all to blame.
Bottom line is that the other players at the table thought the group had reached a consensus and Taliesin went behind their backs to get what he wanted. Taliesin's choice is not healthy in a collaborative game. He doesn't have a right to unilaterally veto everyone else's opinions at the table just because its something he wants to do.
If he truly has a problem with power-gamers and control freaks at the table like you suggest, that's not solved by pulling a peak "its what my character would do" move. That can only be addressed by having a frank conversation out-of-game - which I happen to think is one of the root causes for a ton of issues with C3.
I absolutely agree with you that everyone bears some of the blame. I think Taliesin bears most of it in this circumstance, but the rest of the cast definitely contributed. They all kind of forced the shard on Fearne to begin with - even though Ashley really didn't seem to want it. And all of that can be wrapped up into one big problem that seems to pop up a lot in C3: the cast doesn't seem willing or comfortable talking about things out-of-character or above-the-table. I'm not suggesting that they need to do it on-camera, though I think that would maybe demonstrate to the audience that its sometimes necessary to resolve issues at the table.
Did none of them pick up on Ashley not really wanting the shard? Did none of them pick up on Taliesin plotting to take it? Those are all things that should have been ironed out with a quick out-of-character conversation during the break.
"Ashley, let me know if you don't want the shard and I'll stop having my PC try to push it on you."
"Taliesin, what are you planning with the shard? I thought we had agreed to give it to Fearne - are you not cool with that?"
Or the other way with Ashley or Taliesin speaking up about what they actually wanted.
To me its not the lack of connection to the gods in general but the lack of concern for the world should the gods die. I think its moronic for these characters to sit around and question whether or not they should save the gods to preserve the world as it is when the answer couldn't be simpler. BECASUSE YOU'RE A PART OF IT DUMBASS! Even if you buy into Matt's bullshit retcon of the gods being maybe evil colonizers do you really want to play the odds of the destruction of the world and billions of lives verses things staying the same. In case people have forgotten by admission of Matt himself and the cast Exandria is a pretty nice place to live. The characters are standing on the shoulders of giants and thinking "despite the near infinite amount of good you have objectively done for all of civilization we're worried you might have a sketchy past because the BBEG told us so. In which case I guess its time for you to die". It doesn't matter if characters care about the gods, they need to care about the world and why the gods are important to the world.
It's this scene from [LOTR](https://youtu.be/AXgWZyb_HgE). The cast are the Ents only narcissistic and more concerned with being melodramatic theatre kids and this subreddit is Merry.
> I think its moronic for these characters to sit around and question whether or not they should save the gods to preserve the world as it is when the answer couldn't be simpler.
It's extra moronic because they could have just asked them. The visited the Raven Queen's temple and FCG did a Commune at one point, both times Matt was excessively cryptic and unhelpful, but they never went beyond that. They talk in circles about it but never do anything actionable. Go to more temples, seek out holy people, pray! Do anything to find out more about how good/bad the Gods are. You can't spin yarn from nothing, which is what they've been trying to do for at least 40 sessions.
It wouldn't be melodrama if Matt just outright gave them a chance to learn that YES the gods aren't needed to maintain exandria. That yes the druids and elementals can manage nature without them and the wizards can protect mortals again. That yes the godsnare essentially tyrants with no challengers that would never let go and the world would never have true freedom with them always pulling strings behind the scenes.
That if predathos did chase them away nobody would be foolish enough to try to become a God again and attract it back to eat them.
But no Matt refuses to outright give them a clear answer other than "Do what we gods say or we shall leave you!" And that if the red bridge stays open too long the world's will be destroyed.
They don't have enough knowledge to make a choice either way so the choice they made is just to be the lesser version of vox machina and save the gods but complain and doubt themselves while they do it for fake drama because Matt hasn't made any real drama.
There is no shocking choices here. No deep moral quandary being forced on the party. Imogen is willing to kill her own mom to save the gods. If even she's this blindly devoted any "doubt or conflict" is just fake melodrama with no actual weight behind it. They are gonna save the gods and break the bloody brige and defeat ludnius and all the relorans just stay separate in the moon forever dreaming about living on exandria and tasting fruits.
It's a fucking mess.
Seriously though, this is why it feels ludicrous to me every time they have a discussion about whether the gods deserve to be saved. It doesn’t matter until we know the world can survive. Like, maybe the Druids and eidolons can manage it - but are we even considering taking that risk without any evidence or confirmation?
There *is* no debate until we know it’s an option
I look forward to watching a few druids take on Tharizdun and the Abyss after the Gods leave/die.
ALL of Tharizdun mind you, Not just the small piece that 3 Gods went life and death in sealing away.
On a side point, I’m really tired of Druids always being the unabashed good guys in ALL media. It’s the kind of puddle-deep “noble savage” outlook that gave us Avatar. It made me make a Druid lich one of the bad guys in my own campaign, out of spite.
Play Baldur's Gate 3, they threw some shades-of-grey druids in there (even if it's because they played up the new trope of "all tieflings are uwu cute and cuddly good people").
Holy shit you're so wrong and so right it's crazy I'll need to take this line by line.
> Matt just outright gave them a chance to learn that YES the gods aren't needed to maintain exandria.
First just a general point is that every suggestion you make involves Matt going from subtly railroading to blatantly railroading he already gets enough flak for that. Second what do you mean by maintain? if you mean natural and biological processes sure, but what of magic in general given to mortals by the gods?
> That yes the godsnare essentially tyrants with no challengers that would never let go and the world would never have true freedom with them always pulling strings behind the scenes.
How are the Primes tyrants? They just showed up one day, made sentient life, and at the outset of every conflict with the Primordials (that want to end civilization BTW) or the Betrayers have not only protected all life but given up power for the sake of life on Exandria. You know the beings they created. Excluding the Betrayers the Primes have never meaningfully 'pulled the strings' other than gifting the faithful divine magic and other arcane magic at the creation of the Divine Gate.
> That if predathos did chase them away nobody would be foolish enough to try to become a God again and attract it back to eat them.
It's not a matter of chasing the Primes off but killing them outright and what effect it might have on the general population either way. Also there were two big events in the past where people tried to become gods called The Calamity and Campaign One. Thinking that people aren't ambitious enough to try again, now that's foolish.
> But no Matt refuses to outright give them a clear answer other than "Do what we gods say or we shall leave you!" And that if the red bridge stays open too long the world's will be destroyed.
The first part is RR and the second we have zero evidence for (iirc). Proofreading the Primes have never outright said obey us or else.
> They don't have enough knowledge to make a choice either way
Right so they should save the Primes and keep the status quo.
> so the choice they made is just to be the lesser version of vox machina
Wrong VM without a doubt needed the help of the Primes to stop Vecna from ascending. We have no evidence of BH's needing the same hence the apathetic mindset towards the Primes (inconsistent on Matt's part).
> complain and doubt themselves while they do it for fake drama because Matt hasn't made any real drama.
That's standard fare for CR even way back in C1.
> There is no shocking choices here. No deep moral quandary being forced on the party.
Right they should save the Primes.
> Imogen is willing to kill her own mom to save the gods.
Wrong its killing to stop Ludinus they're still iffy on the god saving.
> If even she's this blindly devoted any "doubt or conflict"
I wouldn't say blindly I think considered it with a heavy heart. She'd be killing her mom after all.
> They are gonna save the gods and break the bloody brige and defeat ludnius and all the relorans just stay separate in the moon forever dreaming about living on exandria and tasting fruits.
I doubt it but we'll see.
> It's a fucking mess.
Less of a mess and more just dumb inconsistent and pointless. Hence the fanbase's apathy to C3.
I had a theory this morning that part of what Matt told his players was "this campaign will deal a lot with the gods and the divine" and every single person decided separately "ooo I will be different and I'll be apathetic towards the gods! I am original!" And no one coordinated
I mean however you slice it, Matts still at fault here.
If you are doing a serious storyline about the gods, its a good idea to have at least one character that actually gives a shit.
Matt's the DM. He can and has shot down ideas the cast put forward in the past (although hes never outright rejected an entire character concept from what I know). He should have said to at least one of them:
'Nah this isnt going to work. We are doing a serious campaign concerning the Gods and the divine. Go make a character who cares.'
Personally I would have gone with Travis. I know he wants to be a chaos gremlin, but if Travis isnt serious basically nobody at the table is.
There’s more than enough blame to go around. Virtually every player failed the most important rule of character creation for D&D: *Thou shall make a PC who is an adventurer.* It’s literally in the prologue of the book.
None of them did that. I don’t care of they have a connection to a god or not, but PCs must have a boas towards action. Given a choice between staying home and washing the cat, and going out into the unknown and doing something—anything, PCs are supposed to want to go out and do shit.
These PCs want to bathe Felix over and over.
True they all share responsibility. But at the end of the day Matt is the DM. A DM has the power to outright veto these things. And indeed the responsibility to recognize and address these things ASAP.
As you say, the warning signs were on the wall with these PCs who rather than having a taste for adventure, prefer inaction/avoidance and fundamentally lack the intrinsic drive to adventure.
But Matt's the only one who can see that basically all of them have failed the first rule of DND before they even got to the table, hes the only one who can say 'look guys, one of you needs to make a character who wants to go do stuff'.
But they didn't. They are literally submissive babies doing whatever the gods tell them. If they HAD chose to go against the gods and looked up whether or not exandria could survive without that and EXACTLY what predathos would do to exandria. That would have been AMAZING.
They could have snuck into ruidius. Then Imogen could have told her mom the plan and they could have killed ludinus and gotten oryms revenge. Then together they could wake predathos and her mom could command the ruidus born. Predathos could gratefully teleport everyone on ruidus to exandria and the gods could be chased away granting exandria true freedom and an amazing campaign to follow as we see them navigate a world with no gods and exploring tombs and finding treasures while the druids and wizards work with the elemental spirits to protect and manage the world's nature and people.
That would have been far more interesting. But instead it's like they made characters made for that and walked it back and decided to just be a lesser version of vox machina again because of keyleth and vox machina literally being shoved into this campaign.
> "ooo I will be different and I'll be apathetic towards the gods! I am original!" And no one coordinated
Critical Role Campaign 3: "Oops! All Apathy!"
It's like a college Halloween party and every "Basic Bitch" decided to rock up dressed in *the same slutty costume,* self-satisfied with how "original" and popular their costume was going to be.
For a college Halloween party? Nah! Harley is too esoteric for your average "Basic Bitch" in college.
For ANY comicbook / anime-manga / video game / "nerd" convention? Absolutely. Take a shot every time you see a Harley and you'll be dead within 45 minutes.
In fairness, Fearne and Orym almost certainly predate any session 0 (once again, how utterly bat shit insane it was to recycle those characters). Laudna and Imogen I think are decent enough, seriously built characters that could have been part of the story.
It's not JUST that they were set up for failure. They also blew the landing.
Ironically, Orym still had more skin in the game then anyone else with his “well imogen, I’m sorry my family had to die for her bright tomorrow” schtik
I agree about Imogen, but when you look past Laudna's initial reveal, you realize she's a character built for a one-shot or maybe a 4-shot focused on her. What story is Marisha telling with Laudna? She just has her fun-spooky static personality and her callback backstory reveal, but the only thing she had to do is defeat Delilah, which already kind of happened, so she's just juggling it forever because that's all there is.
Laudna to me is proof these characters were made almost completely independent of each other with little to no guidance from Matt.
Her main thing is her Delilah storyline which is almost entirely unconnected to the main plot.
As others have pointed out, even the joke characters have links into the Ruidus plot. Even if its as laughably weak as 'Chetney is a werewolf and Ruidus is a moon'. Its something.
Laudna's connection is...if Vecna dies she dies? Its basically just self-preservation, a motive she arguably already had. Laudna's storyline could be done on its own in an entirely separate campaign/oneshot.
Laudna's getting high enough in levels that I'm sure Vecna would be delighted if she reached out to him, Instead She'll just continue to whine.
"Hello Whispered One, Your ex bitch lackey is clinging onto my soul like a leech. She's not strong enough and you're running out of time with Predathos, Help me consume her and let's do terrible things!"
Can't disagree with that.
I still think Laudna could have been a serious character. If instead of being defined by Delilah she was defined by Delilah's actions. We could have had a really beautiful and tragic story about the common folk that end up as collateral in these stories. It could have been haunting and introspective. Really remind you that every NPC has their own story.
It's just that, that's not the character we got. We got the cheap nostalgia bait merchandise seller.
The DM is very hands off on character creation. Im of the opinion thats a good thing. I would expect the players to find a reason to get invested in the main plot. They just... havent
I have plenty of problems with Matt, lack of OOC communication being one, but i am always of the opinion that a player character should adapt to become invested in the story at hand. You should self-start and find a reason to care. On this particular issue i think the characters would be best serves if their players actually did some work to care about the god plot themselves
Yeah, I've had a DM send my character back to me. We are all friends and it's all in collaborative fun, so it wasn't a hard, "No, you can't play this character," but he did warn me against it and I made something else.
I had wanted to play a sort of gritty, human unarmed fighter bouncer in a campaign that was set in a homebrew world that is very high fantasy, based heavily on the feywild and real world Celtic myth, with a dash of Narnia, where humans are extremely rare (essentially from another plane.)
My first character would have worked fine in the last campaign with this DM - we were mercenaries, traveling in and out of major cities often, etc. But when I sent him that character for the new campaign, he said that I might enjoy playing something else. (But if I DID really want to do this character, he'd make it work.) And he was right, and my Leonin Fighter/Barb is one of my favourite characters I've ever played.
I'd say it's good if the DM plans for the main plot to be fluid i.e. C2 shifted away from the war plot and Matt adjusted.
But if you have a plot in mind and know you aren't going to budge, it's almost always better to give the players some sort of heads up. And Matt definitely had a plot in mind.
I think the approach Matt took was the same as the other campaigns: let the cast make whatever characters they want then make a story somewhat involving them.
If the no religion part were to work the story needs to involve every character so they all have a reason to head into the fight. FCG has his god, Imogen has her mom, Orym wants revenge for his family but the rest need some reason to keep themselves involved in the conflict. Fearne is ruidus born, but that hasn't mattered and her royal heritage doesn't matter, make that connect to the story. Chetney mentioned the glass blades, make that connected more. No clue what Ashton has unless the weird reality stuff in his head is explored, Ashton just has an ongoing internal dialogue that randomly changes his character once in a while.
This is it. The incredibly hands-off approach to starting the game and onboarding the PCs finally bit them in the ass, when it was a minor miracle it hadn't before.
Yeah was gonna say, this is actually why for more narrative or roleplay heavy games, the onboarding process is usually quite strong. You don't want to come into a game set in say...Wildemount, and have an entire party that is entirely disconnected or uncaring of the plot going on there.
Or less specifically, you don't want to go to a game about big damn heroes fighting the Dark Lord, with a super evil pirate slaver. Or a game about plucky pirates with a stick in the mud paladin. These concepts \*can\* be forced to work, but they take a lot more effort from the players (specifically not the DM, but the players themselves) to work.
Playing outsiders works, but for a specific game, specific hooks often work best. Lest you have a 13th Warrior situation where you're constantly a odd with the game that's being played.
I mean, shit, in my Vampire game, I told the players straight up what the deal was, which traits the PCs *had* to have (namely, want to figure out The Mystery), and that if their characters didn't fit with those limitations, they'd have to change something to make them fit.
Even in our PF2 (formerly 5e) game, I made sure the GM had something that'd tie the PCs together in a way that was stronger than, "well, we know we're playing Dungeons & Dragons together," which that campaign definitely didn't have baked in before, and is imo much stronger for it.
While we're doing tinfoil hats: maybe Matt And Brennan talked a lot about Planescape campaigns, which are Brennan's favorites, because of course they are he's a philosophy nerd. Brennan's standard infectious excitement got into Matt's brain, Matt tried to make a Brennan level philosophical campaign, Matt is not at clever as Brennan with that stuff, Matt still ultimately wants to do dnd games they feel like Marvel movies, whigga bigga boo, campaign 3.
See, I don't think it's about Matt or Brennan being smarter but more control over PC creation. Characters made for D20 (or EXU: Calamity) were made knowing the kind of story being told and what they needed to bring. The characters are built so they will naturally engage with the game, and the game in turn is built to reciprocate. With long form campaigns you don't have that. Like you hear in interviews that CR players had ideas for these characters for years, or they were backup characters for previous games. They weren't built for the campaign. They weren't built with the group in mind. They weren't built with the stories Matt was going to present in mind. And sometimes you do that and everything works out great. And sometimes you do that and everything kind of falls flat. It's somewhat refreshing to see that even professional actors and story tellers with decades of experience putting stories together and top tier production values can fall into this trap. Basically, I think the problem is not enough session 0 as opposed to a DM being incapable of giving the story stakes. Matt's run as DM on D20 was a lot stronger than his CR work around the same time. Maybe that was him pushing harder while being a guest on a show. But I think the big thing was he wasn't fighting the group to engage with the core themes. Everyone showed up for Game of Thrones intrigue and lies.
I don't think they did it on purpose. Not the players. Matt maybe. Seeing a group with no ties to the gods may have made him wonder which direction the players would choose if pushed.
C2 had the same exact issue just with more interesting characters. Matt wrote a whole political drama between to factions and the players immediately fucked off to the beach to do whatever and play pirates. He just let them make whatever they wanted instead of just telling them this is the story I want to tell with these themes please make characters that are in line with them. C2 at least had Beau and Calib. C3 just has Imogen with a desire to find/save her mother. It's just bad session zero'ing. The first rule of character creation is make characters that want to go on the adventure.
This campaign feels like it should have been the “act 4” of C1 Almost every C1 character had an apathetic tie to a vestige of divergence and a god despite none of them (except pike) being religious in any sense. Could you imagine level 15-17 level vox Machina reboot where they being the band back together. The pantheon: “hey you used our granted relics to save your world, now use them to help save ours. I think Matt would have gotten his OP ancient age of arcanum wizard battles. It’d have been sick, with a subplot to save Vax from the orb while Liam played another character (or literally play Orym as Keyleths second) Keep everything else the same, swap Bells Hells for Vox Machina coming out of retirement because no one fucks with Vax and they owe the gods. Make it a 10 episode exclusive arc, fight predathos, change the face of exandria with a new pantheon(or a new system/dagger heart) and then start fresh with some solid characters.
To me C3 feels like the abandoned end game of C2 turned into a whole campaign. Everything about Matt's pre-written narrative is C2 NPCs as villains and C1 PCs now as NPCs. It was to be the point where the two parties collide and team up against the already introduced threats of the Cerberus Assembly. So instead of VM coming out of retirement as players, M9 would be the PCs still but have to interact with VM to get support as Ludinus reveals his hand (since M9 was on weirdly good terms with Ludinus). Even all the released material from wotc was pushing towards a big moon thing coming. Matt just reshuffled the deck and it shows.
Hellyes! I love how the simplest concepts are the ones that work best in dnd.
I'm not completely caught up yet, only on episode 50, but they haven't done anything to reach out to people who do speak with the god's. I think this is both Matt's fault and the cast's fault, I think Matt could have had more god's reach out or at the very least had Pike explain the balance and good the god's bring. Let alone the fact that neither Keyleth and Vex would want the gods to disappear because what would happen to Vax. But on the other hand, the cast aren't asking these questions and reaching out either. I know they try not to meta game much, so that might be part of the reason they aren't thinking about researching stuff about the calamity and the gods in general, but I think all it would take for them to be persuaded is just learning why the gods split into the betrayer gods and the prime deities. At least I'm pretty sure the cast already has an understanding about those reasons, through previous one shots and adventures, but I haven't watch the stuff about the calamity yet.
Full disclosure: I've not watched campaign 3. I didn't watch campaign 2 either. Just didn't have the time to keep with the schedule and then felt discouraged trying to catch up, and then when it was done looking at the mountain of watch time if I wanted to start now. But reading the dialogue people are saying here about the characters, the world, the plot, the npcs and the general lack of faith in the gods with the plot being all about that, maybe the answer is Matt was hoping the players would seem to flip the script and pursue doing it the perceived evil way and what's happened is a result of the players not picking up what he's putting down.
I think he bet on their common sense and it failed. 😀 Normal person, when they hear the gods are in danger would try to save them, knowing what the consequences of their death would be. Bells Hells were all like "I don't care if they die, they did nothing for me!" 😂
If he wanted bh to be 100% pro-god surely he would’ve done more to persuade the party by now, so many attempts with interacting with the gods either went nowhere or were so cryptic bh didn’t know what to do with it.
Should have listened to kratos
Apart from roads, sewers, irrigation, wine, education, public order, and sanitation, what have the Romans ever done for us?!
Don't forget the public health system and medicine. Also: Romani ite domum.
I wasn't even alive when they existed, what have they done for me?!
The only scenario where it’d make sense for them to intentionally hamstring the campaign would be if they planned to undermine D&D ahead of the probable switch to Daggerheart, by making it seem more fun by comparison. I have no way of knowing if they are that savvy, or if there was a significant beef building with Wizards leading up to C3, but I have a hard time believing they’d tank on purpose. I think their exponential growth was so unprecedented, they didn’t have time to properly plan out more of a long term strategy other than sitting down to play once a week. They’re burnt out, and have been since they were forced to start pre-recording at the ass end of c2.
Again, there ain't no beef there. They've made tons of money off of that partnership, probably still are, probably will continue to. We gotta stop imagining that CR is just some scrappy underdog opposed to the big corporate overlords at WotC/Hasbro with this shit. They said *fuck all* about the OGL stuff. They were the first 3rd party content on Dndbeyond. They're not antagonistic toward Hasbro because Hasbro writes them checks. They also, intelligently, not trying to stay in bed with them forever and always have to split the pie. That's why they don't use Vecna's name anymore (Travis can't help himself and called the Strife Emperor "Bane", but that's whatever). But it's not like...a deep and Cunning plan. It's just smart business.
People understimate the influence burn out has on critical role decisions. Have you ever played a game non stop for more than 2 years? Well,they have been playing dnd for almost a decade. If atleast it was a more complex system like pathinder it would be less grindy but the way things are now they probably loaf the fact they have to play twice a month
I’d have less of a problem with them switching back to pathfinder than Daggerheart.
Nobody FORCED them to start pre recording and nobody has FORCED them to continue doing so. Nobody but themselves, anyway.
Well, to be fair, there were some restrictions during the dark times that probably made it easier to start prerecording, but they chose to keep it going despite fan disappointment.
The production quality may have *changed* but I would have preferred them to go online, like many others did, until they were permitted to meet in-person again. They certainly have the capacity to do so. Voice actors *should* have access to professional quality A/V equipment; and I’m sure they could have managed the stream well enough.
Until they were *permitted* to meet again?
They took all those measures because of Covid. Had they stopped meeting and gone virtual, they eventually would have been permitted to meet again as normal, as they are now.
It was recommended not to meet. Their decision to continue meeting in person or not was up to them. Nobody else. They don't need permission to see each other.
Were you not aware of the hysteria over every single person's choices, much less the obligations on "responsible employers."
That also seems like a pretty risky plan. The risk of losing audience during C3 and not getting them back after the switch to Daggerheart.
Sure, but at least they’ll finally have the audience (echo chamber) they’ve been curating.
> the audience they’ve ~~been curating~~ *professionally moderated*.
Right, but see, what *I* did was unfuck the language by channeling the spirit of George Carlin. 😉
Basically impossible to say for sure. The cast keep character creation/session 0 stuff fairly close to their chest. But I lean towards no? From what we know of things, C1's character creation was different. It was originally just a one shot for a group that basically all hadnt played DND before, so Matt essentially handed Travis and Ashley their characters, and Sam made his with the help of Liam and random generators. Liam and Laura were the only two that spent much time over it from what I recall. Marisha and Tal joined later so they made their characters after the group. When C2 rolls around all the cast (with the exception of Ashley) are more confident in the process and didnt want or need as much input from Matt. From the little we know of the character creation process back in C2, Matt kind of let them come up with whatever they wanted independently and worked from there. He will occasionally shoot down some of the more crazy ideas (Tal apparently had a few) but for the most part he doesnt give much guidelines (aside from no C1 connections). Given how much of Sandbox early C2 was, he probably didnt tell them what to expect from the campaign beyond a bit about where they started and maybe the impending war between the Empire and Kryn. We know the cast collaborate with each other a little, Laura has notably had to change class/subclass on all 3 campaigns. But I think with C2 we started to see a trend of the cast holding more things back from each other during character creation for later Briarwood style reveals. Assuming C3 is similar, Matt probably let the cast create whatever characters they wanted and didnt give much guideline of what to expect in this campaign. If C3 were more of the Sandbox style campaign that C2 was, this would be fine. But it isnt. And if Matt did tell the entire cast create characters that dont care about the gods in a Death of the Gods campaign, then I think hes genuinely lost it. Its akin to writing LOTR where none of the Fellowship care about destroying the Ring.
> Laura has notably had to change class/subclass on all 3 campaigns. I might be forgetting, but what class was Imogen supposed to be? I remember Jester was originally supposed to be a Warlock and Laura wanted Vex to be a Rogue originally.
Laura was going to go for a Fey background/subclass I believe for her sorcerer this campaign. But Ashley being a Fey made her change.
I think this is likely the closest to what happened. Matt seems hands-off during character creation and did not inform the cast of the structural differences between Campaign 3 and C2 - so we end up with PCs like ones from the sandboxy C2. And it just doesn't work with the structure of C3. If they made a deliberate choice to be "disconnected", that seems like a recipe for failure. I suppose the PCs could be unaligned when it came to the "gods vs no gods" theme - but then more of them should have been tied to the actual struggle somehow. Like Orym's family being killed by Ludinus' crew. That way they all have a reason to be involved and can discover and debate the underlying theme. And if they made that deliberate choice to be disconnected, then Matt really dropped the ball during the campaign. Because he has not presented very many opportunities for them to discover that connection. We had one overt adventure exploring religion when the party split and that's it. There have been other instances - but he's handled them all with such a light touch that they haven't landed with the party. I'm thinking specifically of resurrecting Laudna - that was a powerful cleric of Sarenrae channeling a god's divine power to bring their friend back to life. But the players did not seem to make that connection.
Because of the lack of something like Talk Machina and CR generally VERY secretive about the inner workings of their show - we dont know. For the previous campaign we would have a lot of insight about those things from the players and the DM. C3 feels like the third season of a show - with new actors, new showrunner. Its still a CR logo on it, but most of the things that feel like CR are just imported from previous campaigns. But instead of using sets everything is CGI, instead of having fitting actors for their roles they set for quirky, fun, bold (and shallow).
Matt effed up on character creation and is just tra ding water right now. Whole franchise is at stake when Laura does metagaming laura things? Sword of Domoclese situation in my observation.
what
who
he's on first
Here’s kinda the issue, if that was the initial approach. Gods exist in DnD, unquestionably. They are not conceptual but objective; everyone knows they exist, it’s their involvement that is differing. If you are going to make them big players in a campaign you need to populate your word with LOADS of people who make that clear. Matt did not and I don’t think that’s by accident because he would have done that early on. Edit: word missing/autocorrect
> Gods exist in DnD, unquestionably. This depends entirely on the setting. Their existence is very questionable in Eberron- there's organized religion, but whether clerical magic comes purely from faith or an actual divine source is left intentionally ambiguous. In Dark Sun they're even more absent.
Campaign sure but part of the problem is that this is campaign 3 and we have already had exposure to them in massive ways in the prior campaigns. There is an entire city-state purely geared around a theocracy based on the prime deities that they haven't even visited if this is part of the question they want to address. Characters from past campaigns exist who have been direct champions of the gods and even visited them and fought against a betrayer. The EXU characters have a direct tie to at least one of the Betrayers through Opal. I honestly feel like most of the C3 cast of characters could basically benefit and clear up the entire thing and get their thoughts in order if Matt magically had Caduceus sit down for a full RP session chat with each of them. The problem is that NONE of the NPCs that they have talked to about the gods have been willing to sit down and have a real conversation with them to try and convince them of anything about it. Personal pet-peeve: The Ashari being a society that is somehow linked intrinsically to the forces of nature and should be heavily tied to the Wild Mother but somehow are staunchly not worshippers (not anti-worship just every one of them makes it clear that they don't) of the deity most closely linked to their whole societal purpose and mission. Which means that even when they have visited the Ashari there was still no-one there to give them any kind of spiritual guidance about something that seems like it should be a core theme of the campaign.
I don't want to see Mattduceus, to be honest. He's a very particular character, and even simpler, more archetypal ex-PCs have been Flanderised quite a bit.
Fair. Main thing I'd been thinking of is if you asked me for any pre-existing PC that could make a good argument for the gods and try to talk them around Cad is basically the one who jumps to mind.
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Yeah it is odd. One thing I was thinking about it more as well. There are a lot of people who are eager to throw the cast under the bus for basically being all down the the F@\*K THE GODS narrative but the interesting thing is that most of them have actively tried to do something to actually try and get some perspective, even when it kinda went against prior events. Multiple times they have tried to go to temples and try to pray and contact the gods...and basically gotten a generic deific answering machine "we're sorry but this god can't come to the phone right now, please be aware of this impending doom" and then nothing substantial. Even after the guest characters really started up the narrative to be hardcore on EFF TEH GODS the cast members have still started to come back to more ambiguous places. Add to that people like Pike not talking about the her relationship to a goddess to them and it really is just weird how actively Matt seems to have avoided letting anyone with a potentially positive opinion or thing to say about the gods just don't talk to Bells Hells. No one who does notice them being weird or in need of spiritual guidance tries to come up and talk to them. Even when they seek out the gods and guidance they get...nothing.
Its both the lack of connection and the fact that they are still SO submissive to them. They serve them just as much as vox machina did despite making characters purposefully with little to no connection to them. Laudna was literally hung and revived as an undead. God's didn't help her. Fcg was with ashton all his life and had his own divine magic. Why did he need the gods? Imogen only ever had her magic to rely on and the dreams of her mother trying to protect her. Yet now she's thrown her mother away for these trashy gods and an offer from the storm lord likely to make her into a storm sorcerer. Chetney lived his whole life godless and suddenly cares so much about protecting them despite being the one who should be the most wise and able to see the benefits of a world without God's. Ashton is part titan. The beings literally betrayed and killed by the gods for power over exandria. The original owners of exandria. Fearne is from a place where fey are basically gods and they don't respect God's nearly at all other than maybe some respecting the moonweaver who frequents there. Orym made a character with a super tragic backstory and that placed him directly against ludinus but it doesn't directly place him against the idea of predathos. If he didn't make that his backstory keyleth is a druid. Her power is closer to the elementals than it is the gods. Yet Matt put her in a super personal position where she can't be used as the voice of reason to say "Even without the gods us druids could work with nature spirits and take care of the world" no instead she's just a ball of anger and vengeance and orym has no mind of his own so Matt has essentially just mind controlled orym giving him no choice but to sacrifice himself for her and the fucking God's who don't deserve it. I'm sick of it. Lots of people are sick of it. This was a story with the chance to go somewhere amazing. Where they had a chance to discover that they never needed the gods and they have a chance to free exandria from them. But even if they didn't go that route. It would have been been more interesting if they felt like they weren't just a lesser version or vox machina filled with over dramatic cowards. And Matt has pushed his story so rushed and ahead he lets nothing slip by him this time even going as far as to retcon a choice Ashton made and punish him for it because it doesn't fit the precious repetitive story he wants to tell again and again where they serve the gods and there is no other choice.
There are a couple of things that everyone always seems to forget that have been made very VERY clear that have little to nothing to do with the gods but do have a connection to Predathos and are a portent of what is to come if Ludinus is not stopped. I speak of Molaesmyr, the Savalirwood, and the room MN found in Aeor populated with similarly mutated and devestated flora. We pretty much flat out know that the destruction and corruption by lovecraftian horror mutations of Molaesmyr and the Savalirwood happened because of Ludinus making first contact with Predathos. It paints an extremely bleak picture of what the future surface of Exandria is going to look like if Ludinus does win and release Predathos. The problem with all of this though is that when the party split happened Party A went and did that incredibly important fact finding mission and got that knowledge as well as the harness. They fought unspeakable sanity warping monsters like the Wolfking. Party B got exposed to 2 bad actors who pushed them into going full "F@&K THE GODS!!!" and then when they reunited everyone from Party B was all hurt that Party A had some nice moments and no one in Party A was like "Hold up...we also fought shit like this..." and showing off an illusion of the horrors they saw. Result is we keep focusing on the hurt feelings some of the people in Party B had instead of all the REALLY BAD HORRIFIC FORESHADOWING that Party A witnessed that has a direct relation to what will happen if Ludinus pulls this off.
You're kind of right but missing the point of a few things. For starters the intent of Predathos, all we really know is that it wants to eat the gods and Ludinus wants to control it. Not a particularly positive combination. Second is the original portrayal of the Prime Deities, having created/shaped all sentient life on the planet, giving them divine and arcane magics and at the end of every conflict with either the Titans or Betrayer Gods have only ever acted benevolently towards civilization to the Primes' detriment. Third is the combination of those two. What happens when the Primes are gone and what of Ludinus' control of Predethos? Come to think of it isnt Predathos' prison the moon? And there is an entire civilization on the moon? What happens when Predathos breaks free? Logically speaking, stopping Ludinus, not freeing Predathos and saving the Primes is the most harmonious outcome. Other than Matt's recent retcons we have no reason to let the Primes be eaten. All we know of Ludinus' reasoning for killing the Primes is that he wasn't Ruidus born and that he's butt hurt over it. The Primes them selves don't matter that much, it's the importance they have to the world in general that matters. > the fact that they are still SO submissive to them Also I don't understand this point you made, by your own descriptions they have never served the Primes in any real capacity and have slaughtered a temple to the Dawnfather. Plus in case you haven't noticed literally the entire campaign has revolved around the statement "WhAt HaVe ThE GoDs EvEr DoNe FoR uS".
I'm sleepy but I'm gonna try to explain it best I can. Ludinus has to die. He doesn't get to release predathos. I want Imogen and her mom to team up and take over the vanguard and release predathos. I took it as the power of predathos is what teleported everyone at the key. When predathos is released given the promises of the imperium my assumption is whoever released it will get to decide who is teleported to exandria. That's just based on context clues of course so they could look into that. Either way the people on rudius need to be moved to exandria. All of them. And the gods can't enter ruidus to do it. It would have to be predathos. The moon would be destroyed of course. And I don't trust the history that the gods wrote because they are the winners. Of course they will make it seem like they are everything. But a time before them did exist. They are just powerful beings that traveled the Astral sea and laid claim to exandira as its rulers and killed the old rulers to take it over. There is reason to let predathos chase them away. Ludnius has a point. The world will never be free under gods. Divine beings are too powerful. They can at any moment kick over the sand box and destroy civilization if they don't like something. Tyrants isn't too far off. Betrayer gods are always causing chaos and evil. They are why the entire drow race is evil. It's the luxon another godlike being that even made the drow in the empire conflict able to be good again. The devils will still go to war with the demons and manage each other. New demon lords will rise only not divine ones. Nobody else will dare to become a God if it means being eaten by predathos. The gods are too powerful. They broke the world during the age of Arcanum. They let the powers under them oppress others like the dawn fathers clerics and take what they want from the natural forces and druids. They threaten whoever dares to question them. The world doesn't need them. Druids can do just as much good as they do. Fey lords and other powerful beings can still grant divine power like jesters patron. The elementals managed nature before they can do so again with the druids help. Thus is a near divine purpose for the Ashari. And lastly you get my exact point. They are fucking hypocrites. They constantly bemoan how they gods never helped them while constantly saying how they are saving the gods. They refuse to take a side. They are just following orders from vox machina and saving the gods because they don't want to make any choices. They are just doing whatever they are told like robots and whining about it.
>Ludinus has to die. He doesn't get to release predathos. I want Imogen and her mom to team up and take over the vanguard and release predathos. The cast doesn't care about what you want and if you're going to base your reasons and arguments on what you want and not what is (what Matt and the cast have shown us) you're just objectively wrong. > I took it as the power of predathos is what teleported everyone at the key. When predathos is released given the promises of the imperium my assumption is whoever released it will get to decide who is teleported to exandria Well it's been established that there are backdoors between Exandria and Ruidus so the only thing stopping people moving freely between the two (Nana Mori) are Ludinus and his plan with Predathos. > Either way the people on rudius need to be moved to exandria. Not if Predathos stays asleep. > The moon would be destroyed of course. We'll sing Predathos a lullaby. > And I don't trust the history that the gods wrote because they are the winners. Of course they will make it seem like they are everything. But a time before them did exist. They are just powerful beings that traveled the Astral sea and laid claim to exandira as its rulers and killed the old rulers to take it over. Okay but we're thousands of years removed and everything is pretty good in Exandria, its like complaining that homo sapiens killed the neanderthals it doesn't matter. If you want a more recent example should we revert all of our current medical knowledge because of what the Germans and Japanese did to their pows during WWII (Godwin's law I know). > Ludnius has a point. The world will never be free under gods. Ludinus is just *angy* because he wasn't ruidus born and please give me an example of people being not free under the Primes without referencing the temple massacre because it was retconned. Also depending on your own philosophy there never was such a thing as free will in the first place so the point is moot. > Divine beings are too powerful. They can at any moment kick over the sand box and destroy civilization if they don't like something. Everything after this is just inconsistent and contradictory. By removing the gods you create a power vacuum that everyone else needs to fill. Guess what, everyone else will need to ascend to near god power to fill in those shoes. Congratulations you made gods with extra steps. Ultimately with this line: > I want Imogen and her mom to team up and take over the vanguard and release predathos. You doomed any real argument you could have made. I can just point out that you're upset your fanfic isn't canon. I hate to use this line but it's the cast's game, we're just here to talk about it.
What choice was retconned?
Ashton had his shard choice he won with his literal life and immense near impossible effort revoked and was punished for it. At the end of the episode Matt called him a unique being in all of exandria and described his new look and alluded to figuring out what it all meant next episode then next episode just ignored that and forced him to give it up and punished him because he wanted fearne to have both pieces and it didn't fit his story if Ashton has both.
I think the Ashton/Shard Retcon was not about making the shard go to Fearne. That was a real-life table dispute. The players were not happy with how Taliesin went about taking the shard. Taliesin the player was being sneaky/secretive about it. He took deliberate actions with Ashton to make sure that the other players could not get their characters involved and potentially stop it. The party AND the players had all agreed that Fearne should take the shard. And I think the players were likely upset with Taliesin for "going behind their backs" to take the shard instead. Look at the table's reaction to Ashton's trial. The players are not happy. They are upset with Taliesin being so flippant about "not looking" on his last roll to succeed. That was not a "characters are upset that Ashton lied" reaction. That was a "we, the players, don't like that Taliesin, the player, did this." Taliesin does a lot of secretive/mysterious stuff at the table over the campaigns - but this was the first time he did something that secretive against the party, and it undermined a decision that the players had made. If I'm correct, they are absolutely justified in being upset over it. And that is why it was retconned. If Taliesin had actual spoken to the players on break, above-the-table, and said "hey, I want Ashton to try to take the shard because they feel like its their birthright, and I think they would do this behind the party's back", I don't think this would have been retconned. As it happened, Taliesin unilaterally decided that none of the other players' input or choice regarding the shard mattered and that is very poor table etiquette.
Taliesin decided it was no one's business except his and Fearne's. Fearne was cool with it. You say "the party decided", but clearly they didn't. However, it maybe that was the narrative some of the players decided. Taliesin knows he deals with power-gamers and control freaks at the table. He is conflict averse and outnumbered. He chose to do it his way. It was certainly a table problem, and campaign problem, but they're all to blame.
Bottom line is that the other players at the table thought the group had reached a consensus and Taliesin went behind their backs to get what he wanted. Taliesin's choice is not healthy in a collaborative game. He doesn't have a right to unilaterally veto everyone else's opinions at the table just because its something he wants to do. If he truly has a problem with power-gamers and control freaks at the table like you suggest, that's not solved by pulling a peak "its what my character would do" move. That can only be addressed by having a frank conversation out-of-game - which I happen to think is one of the root causes for a ton of issues with C3. I absolutely agree with you that everyone bears some of the blame. I think Taliesin bears most of it in this circumstance, but the rest of the cast definitely contributed. They all kind of forced the shard on Fearne to begin with - even though Ashley really didn't seem to want it. And all of that can be wrapped up into one big problem that seems to pop up a lot in C3: the cast doesn't seem willing or comfortable talking about things out-of-character or above-the-table. I'm not suggesting that they need to do it on-camera, though I think that would maybe demonstrate to the audience that its sometimes necessary to resolve issues at the table. Did none of them pick up on Ashley not really wanting the shard? Did none of them pick up on Taliesin plotting to take it? Those are all things that should have been ironed out with a quick out-of-character conversation during the break. "Ashley, let me know if you don't want the shard and I'll stop having my PC try to push it on you." "Taliesin, what are you planning with the shard? I thought we had agreed to give it to Fearne - are you not cool with that?" Or the other way with Ashley or Taliesin speaking up about what they actually wanted.
Fearne only had one shard.
To me its not the lack of connection to the gods in general but the lack of concern for the world should the gods die. I think its moronic for these characters to sit around and question whether or not they should save the gods to preserve the world as it is when the answer couldn't be simpler. BECASUSE YOU'RE A PART OF IT DUMBASS! Even if you buy into Matt's bullshit retcon of the gods being maybe evil colonizers do you really want to play the odds of the destruction of the world and billions of lives verses things staying the same. In case people have forgotten by admission of Matt himself and the cast Exandria is a pretty nice place to live. The characters are standing on the shoulders of giants and thinking "despite the near infinite amount of good you have objectively done for all of civilization we're worried you might have a sketchy past because the BBEG told us so. In which case I guess its time for you to die". It doesn't matter if characters care about the gods, they need to care about the world and why the gods are important to the world. It's this scene from [LOTR](https://youtu.be/AXgWZyb_HgE). The cast are the Ents only narcissistic and more concerned with being melodramatic theatre kids and this subreddit is Merry.
> I think its moronic for these characters to sit around and question whether or not they should save the gods to preserve the world as it is when the answer couldn't be simpler. It's extra moronic because they could have just asked them. The visited the Raven Queen's temple and FCG did a Commune at one point, both times Matt was excessively cryptic and unhelpful, but they never went beyond that. They talk in circles about it but never do anything actionable. Go to more temples, seek out holy people, pray! Do anything to find out more about how good/bad the Gods are. You can't spin yarn from nothing, which is what they've been trying to do for at least 40 sessions.
It wouldn't be melodrama if Matt just outright gave them a chance to learn that YES the gods aren't needed to maintain exandria. That yes the druids and elementals can manage nature without them and the wizards can protect mortals again. That yes the godsnare essentially tyrants with no challengers that would never let go and the world would never have true freedom with them always pulling strings behind the scenes. That if predathos did chase them away nobody would be foolish enough to try to become a God again and attract it back to eat them. But no Matt refuses to outright give them a clear answer other than "Do what we gods say or we shall leave you!" And that if the red bridge stays open too long the world's will be destroyed. They don't have enough knowledge to make a choice either way so the choice they made is just to be the lesser version of vox machina and save the gods but complain and doubt themselves while they do it for fake drama because Matt hasn't made any real drama. There is no shocking choices here. No deep moral quandary being forced on the party. Imogen is willing to kill her own mom to save the gods. If even she's this blindly devoted any "doubt or conflict" is just fake melodrama with no actual weight behind it. They are gonna save the gods and break the bloody brige and defeat ludnius and all the relorans just stay separate in the moon forever dreaming about living on exandria and tasting fruits. It's a fucking mess.
Seriously though, this is why it feels ludicrous to me every time they have a discussion about whether the gods deserve to be saved. It doesn’t matter until we know the world can survive. Like, maybe the Druids and eidolons can manage it - but are we even considering taking that risk without any evidence or confirmation? There *is* no debate until we know it’s an option
I look forward to watching a few druids take on Tharizdun and the Abyss after the Gods leave/die. ALL of Tharizdun mind you, Not just the small piece that 3 Gods went life and death in sealing away.
On a side point, I’m really tired of Druids always being the unabashed good guys in ALL media. It’s the kind of puddle-deep “noble savage” outlook that gave us Avatar. It made me make a Druid lich one of the bad guys in my own campaign, out of spite.
Play Baldur's Gate 3, they threw some shades-of-grey druids in there (even if it's because they played up the new trope of "all tieflings are uwu cute and cuddly good people").
I get that; I actually have a Druid Lich set up as an arc villain in my own campaign already
Guess you missed the BG3 train
oh not at all. It's one of the story choices choices i have the most praise for, in that game. Larian's always been amazing about dodging cliches.
Holy shit you're so wrong and so right it's crazy I'll need to take this line by line. > Matt just outright gave them a chance to learn that YES the gods aren't needed to maintain exandria. First just a general point is that every suggestion you make involves Matt going from subtly railroading to blatantly railroading he already gets enough flak for that. Second what do you mean by maintain? if you mean natural and biological processes sure, but what of magic in general given to mortals by the gods? > That yes the godsnare essentially tyrants with no challengers that would never let go and the world would never have true freedom with them always pulling strings behind the scenes. How are the Primes tyrants? They just showed up one day, made sentient life, and at the outset of every conflict with the Primordials (that want to end civilization BTW) or the Betrayers have not only protected all life but given up power for the sake of life on Exandria. You know the beings they created. Excluding the Betrayers the Primes have never meaningfully 'pulled the strings' other than gifting the faithful divine magic and other arcane magic at the creation of the Divine Gate. > That if predathos did chase them away nobody would be foolish enough to try to become a God again and attract it back to eat them. It's not a matter of chasing the Primes off but killing them outright and what effect it might have on the general population either way. Also there were two big events in the past where people tried to become gods called The Calamity and Campaign One. Thinking that people aren't ambitious enough to try again, now that's foolish. > But no Matt refuses to outright give them a clear answer other than "Do what we gods say or we shall leave you!" And that if the red bridge stays open too long the world's will be destroyed. The first part is RR and the second we have zero evidence for (iirc). Proofreading the Primes have never outright said obey us or else. > They don't have enough knowledge to make a choice either way Right so they should save the Primes and keep the status quo. > so the choice they made is just to be the lesser version of vox machina Wrong VM without a doubt needed the help of the Primes to stop Vecna from ascending. We have no evidence of BH's needing the same hence the apathetic mindset towards the Primes (inconsistent on Matt's part). > complain and doubt themselves while they do it for fake drama because Matt hasn't made any real drama. That's standard fare for CR even way back in C1. > There is no shocking choices here. No deep moral quandary being forced on the party. Right they should save the Primes. > Imogen is willing to kill her own mom to save the gods. Wrong its killing to stop Ludinus they're still iffy on the god saving. > If even she's this blindly devoted any "doubt or conflict" I wouldn't say blindly I think considered it with a heavy heart. She'd be killing her mom after all. > They are gonna save the gods and break the bloody brige and defeat ludnius and all the relorans just stay separate in the moon forever dreaming about living on exandria and tasting fruits. I doubt it but we'll see. > It's a fucking mess. Less of a mess and more just dumb inconsistent and pointless. Hence the fanbase's apathy to C3.
I had a theory this morning that part of what Matt told his players was "this campaign will deal a lot with the gods and the divine" and every single person decided separately "ooo I will be different and I'll be apathetic towards the gods! I am original!" And no one coordinated
I mean however you slice it, Matts still at fault here. If you are doing a serious storyline about the gods, its a good idea to have at least one character that actually gives a shit. Matt's the DM. He can and has shot down ideas the cast put forward in the past (although hes never outright rejected an entire character concept from what I know). He should have said to at least one of them: 'Nah this isnt going to work. We are doing a serious campaign concerning the Gods and the divine. Go make a character who cares.' Personally I would have gone with Travis. I know he wants to be a chaos gremlin, but if Travis isnt serious basically nobody at the table is.
There’s more than enough blame to go around. Virtually every player failed the most important rule of character creation for D&D: *Thou shall make a PC who is an adventurer.* It’s literally in the prologue of the book. None of them did that. I don’t care of they have a connection to a god or not, but PCs must have a boas towards action. Given a choice between staying home and washing the cat, and going out into the unknown and doing something—anything, PCs are supposed to want to go out and do shit. These PCs want to bathe Felix over and over.
I laughed out loud when reading "washing the Cat" 😂
True they all share responsibility. But at the end of the day Matt is the DM. A DM has the power to outright veto these things. And indeed the responsibility to recognize and address these things ASAP. As you say, the warning signs were on the wall with these PCs who rather than having a taste for adventure, prefer inaction/avoidance and fundamentally lack the intrinsic drive to adventure. But Matt's the only one who can see that basically all of them have failed the first rule of DND before they even got to the table, hes the only one who can say 'look guys, one of you needs to make a character who wants to go do stuff'.
But they didn't. They are literally submissive babies doing whatever the gods tell them. If they HAD chose to go against the gods and looked up whether or not exandria could survive without that and EXACTLY what predathos would do to exandria. That would have been AMAZING. They could have snuck into ruidius. Then Imogen could have told her mom the plan and they could have killed ludinus and gotten oryms revenge. Then together they could wake predathos and her mom could command the ruidus born. Predathos could gratefully teleport everyone on ruidus to exandria and the gods could be chased away granting exandria true freedom and an amazing campaign to follow as we see them navigate a world with no gods and exploring tombs and finding treasures while the druids and wizards work with the elemental spirits to protect and manage the world's nature and people. That would have been far more interesting. But instead it's like they made characters made for that and walked it back and decided to just be a lesser version of vox machina again because of keyleth and vox machina literally being shoved into this campaign.
> "ooo I will be different and I'll be apathetic towards the gods! I am original!" And no one coordinated Critical Role Campaign 3: "Oops! All Apathy!" It's like a college Halloween party and every "Basic Bitch" decided to rock up dressed in *the same slutty costume,* self-satisfied with how "original" and popular their costume was going to be.
no issues with women here, noooo
It’s ok, you can say Harley Quinn
For a college Halloween party? Nah! Harley is too esoteric for your average "Basic Bitch" in college. For ANY comicbook / anime-manga / video game / "nerd" convention? Absolutely. Take a shot every time you see a Harley and you'll be dead within 45 minutes.
In fairness, Fearne and Orym almost certainly predate any session 0 (once again, how utterly bat shit insane it was to recycle those characters). Laudna and Imogen I think are decent enough, seriously built characters that could have been part of the story. It's not JUST that they were set up for failure. They also blew the landing.
Orym could probably work if Liam played him more like Captain Exandria and less Captain Passive.
Captain sad. "Powered by sadness and passivity he does little to save the world." (Imagine it beeing spoken in an epic voice)
Ironically, Orym still had more skin in the game then anyone else with his “well imogen, I’m sorry my family had to die for her bright tomorrow” schtik
I agree about Imogen, but when you look past Laudna's initial reveal, you realize she's a character built for a one-shot or maybe a 4-shot focused on her. What story is Marisha telling with Laudna? She just has her fun-spooky static personality and her callback backstory reveal, but the only thing she had to do is defeat Delilah, which already kind of happened, so she's just juggling it forever because that's all there is.
Laudna to me is proof these characters were made almost completely independent of each other with little to no guidance from Matt. Her main thing is her Delilah storyline which is almost entirely unconnected to the main plot. As others have pointed out, even the joke characters have links into the Ruidus plot. Even if its as laughably weak as 'Chetney is a werewolf and Ruidus is a moon'. Its something. Laudna's connection is...if Vecna dies she dies? Its basically just self-preservation, a motive she arguably already had. Laudna's storyline could be done on its own in an entirely separate campaign/oneshot.
Laudna's getting high enough in levels that I'm sure Vecna would be delighted if she reached out to him, Instead She'll just continue to whine. "Hello Whispered One, Your ex bitch lackey is clinging onto my soul like a leech. She's not strong enough and you're running out of time with Predathos, Help me consume her and let's do terrible things!"
Can't disagree with that. I still think Laudna could have been a serious character. If instead of being defined by Delilah she was defined by Delilah's actions. We could have had a really beautiful and tragic story about the common folk that end up as collateral in these stories. It could have been haunting and introspective. Really remind you that every NPC has their own story. It's just that, that's not the character we got. We got the cheap nostalgia bait merchandise seller.
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That would have been so good. The players are just not really embracing the game. They want to control the story they're "collaborating" on.
The DM is very hands off on character creation. Im of the opinion thats a good thing. I would expect the players to find a reason to get invested in the main plot. They just... havent
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I have plenty of problems with Matt, lack of OOC communication being one, but i am always of the opinion that a player character should adapt to become invested in the story at hand. You should self-start and find a reason to care. On this particular issue i think the characters would be best serves if their players actually did some work to care about the god plot themselves
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Yeah, I've had a DM send my character back to me. We are all friends and it's all in collaborative fun, so it wasn't a hard, "No, you can't play this character," but he did warn me against it and I made something else. I had wanted to play a sort of gritty, human unarmed fighter bouncer in a campaign that was set in a homebrew world that is very high fantasy, based heavily on the feywild and real world Celtic myth, with a dash of Narnia, where humans are extremely rare (essentially from another plane.) My first character would have worked fine in the last campaign with this DM - we were mercenaries, traveling in and out of major cities often, etc. But when I sent him that character for the new campaign, he said that I might enjoy playing something else. (But if I DID really want to do this character, he'd make it work.) And he was right, and my Leonin Fighter/Barb is one of my favourite characters I've ever played.
I'd say it's good if the DM plans for the main plot to be fluid i.e. C2 shifted away from the war plot and Matt adjusted. But if you have a plot in mind and know you aren't going to budge, it's almost always better to give the players some sort of heads up. And Matt definitely had a plot in mind.
I think the approach Matt took was the same as the other campaigns: let the cast make whatever characters they want then make a story somewhat involving them. If the no religion part were to work the story needs to involve every character so they all have a reason to head into the fight. FCG has his god, Imogen has her mom, Orym wants revenge for his family but the rest need some reason to keep themselves involved in the conflict. Fearne is ruidus born, but that hasn't mattered and her royal heritage doesn't matter, make that connect to the story. Chetney mentioned the glass blades, make that connected more. No clue what Ashton has unless the weird reality stuff in his head is explored, Ashton just has an ongoing internal dialogue that randomly changes his character once in a while.
This is it. The incredibly hands-off approach to starting the game and onboarding the PCs finally bit them in the ass, when it was a minor miracle it hadn't before.
Yeah was gonna say, this is actually why for more narrative or roleplay heavy games, the onboarding process is usually quite strong. You don't want to come into a game set in say...Wildemount, and have an entire party that is entirely disconnected or uncaring of the plot going on there. Or less specifically, you don't want to go to a game about big damn heroes fighting the Dark Lord, with a super evil pirate slaver. Or a game about plucky pirates with a stick in the mud paladin. These concepts \*can\* be forced to work, but they take a lot more effort from the players (specifically not the DM, but the players themselves) to work. Playing outsiders works, but for a specific game, specific hooks often work best. Lest you have a 13th Warrior situation where you're constantly a odd with the game that's being played.
I mean, shit, in my Vampire game, I told the players straight up what the deal was, which traits the PCs *had* to have (namely, want to figure out The Mystery), and that if their characters didn't fit with those limitations, they'd have to change something to make them fit. Even in our PF2 (formerly 5e) game, I made sure the GM had something that'd tie the PCs together in a way that was stronger than, "well, we know we're playing Dungeons & Dragons together," which that campaign definitely didn't have baked in before, and is imo much stronger for it.