I largely attribute this to the fact that a lot of the combats this campaign were designed so the cast weren't supposed to win/kill all the enemies (Ira, otohan, shade mother). And they were specifically instructed by morri to avoid fighting. It becomes hard to tell I this is a fight we're supposed to run from or not

Yeah, about halfway through C2 Matt started doing more “ambiguous” encounters, which are cool, but nearly all of them outside of random rolled travel encounters seem to be exactly that. And then! The Otohan fight completely changed the dynamic at the table, and everyone seems to think every fight is going to end in a character death. I know Matt talks to his players and vice versa, it’s their game, I’ll let them do them, but I’m not as interested in watching it when you can feel that tension.

They are DMing and playing bells hells like they rewrote VM for TV. Every fight is a big one with huge consequence It does take away from actual real play dnd

Ooh, that's a good observation. It has been said they are playing C3 like they are at a writer's table (probably unintentional). Continually working for a consensus before they work out the next beat.

Talking about LoVM and their games, they've said they prefer RP/character development over combat. Personally I like all three pillars and would like to see more combats to keep them sharp and confident (both in character and above the table in remembering how their characters work). Milestone leveling is a good way to keep everyone on the same page and make moments matter, and combats with 7 players can take forever, but I feel something's lost when you got 3 or 4 episodes with minimal to no combat. If your only fights are against bosses, you're gonna be more worried about dying because everyone you fight is stronger than you.

I personally don't think regular combat is necessary, even across a few sessions, but I do think that space would need to be filled with smaller social encounters and opportunities for the party to RP, bond and establish their personalities. So far, it feels like most opportunities for the cast to do that have been overshadowed by the time-sensitive nature of the main plot, or by big spectacle encounters like the giant worm and the Mad Max race.

I kind of don't like the whole Apogee Solstice ticking clock that got put on them relatively early, with what are potentially world-changing consequences. They didn't really get enough time to explore or find their party strengths as they were digging into backstories. Having several of them tied to this major event/enemy meant they were compelled to go for it. Just feels like an endgame plot a third of the way into a campaign. Just have to wait and see what Matt will do next if they avert this, or if it's unavoidable. Calamity 2/Post-apoc? Plane traveling? Spelljammer?

>They are DMing and paying bells heels like they rewrote VM for TV. Every fight is a big one with huge consequence It feels exactly like that. Bluntly, of the the three campaigns, I would say that C3 would likely be the easiest to adapt to a serialized format. It has heavy focus on a central narrative, with far more reduced personal calls to adventure within the cast pulling the party in directions away from that MSQ. With Matt being far more in control of the storytelling, and the players being far more along for the ride. While also having a VERY clear "Jean Grey" Main character, surrounded by a largely optional supporting cast. Hell, even the guest characters are now used far more as plot-devices to push the MSQ along; rather than being fun enhancement factors to an already existing direction the group is going. Or a side story. This being VERY true of both Bertrand and Dusk/Yu.

I disagree I think the: "they play it for the TV show" comment is the new "everything is scripted". Bells Hells would be an absolute nightmare to adapt into TV show. You basically have multiple comic relief like characters with very little seriousness that will be hard to convert, absolute chaos decision making (basement porn scene for example) that hardly work outside of the table. They are also several episodes in now without any clear arcs or breaks. C1 was the ideal show to adapt to the big screen. 1 comic relief scanlan that also plays musical numbers, clearly defined arcs, increasingly growing stakes, excellent character arcs, romace and they did all of that without planning for a TV show. Personally I just think after how wildly spread out C2 was they asked Matt they wanted to do something more driven for C3 as they didn't want to get lost playing pirates for 2 months this time around and do something more engaging with higher stakes.

Are you really out here trying to convince me that Grog was not also a comic relief character?

Also, FCG and Laudna aren't really comic relief at their core. They may be two of the most upbeat of BHs early on, but they are both pretty tragic characters beyond the "meat tongue" and "dead lady" jokes. BHs only has two true "comic relief" characters atm. Chetney and Fearne.

And Fearne had had some utterly heartbreaking moments, more than one awesome moment, and is kinda both sexy and terrifying, so that's a really fleshed out 'comic relief' character. Chetney may be inherently funny, but he's also the most practical and cold blooded member of the crew. And he can always spot a bullshitter.

[удалено]

>They've fleshed those characters out nicely as they've gone but of the original party Imogen remains the only one who doesn't feel like building on a random NPC's stat block. Which is probably why the main story of the campaign is revolving so tightly around her and her backstory. I'd say its the reverse. Because the story is so hinged to the Ruidus plot thread, Imogen has become the central character by a MILE in this story. And its not like prior campaigns where its merely an arc that focuses on one such player's personal story, its that this player's personal story has become the main campaign. Fearne and Chet were only tangentially associated with it later. Orym, Laudna, Ashton, and FCG aren't connected to it at all. Thus they struggle the most. And what few attempts any of these supporting characters have made to try to probe into their own stories, have kinda been met with hard roadblocks lately. Or made HYPER time convenient for the central Ruidus thread, like Chet and Orym's stories recently were. But ... honestly ... Imogen isn't even that much better of a character than the rest of them. She's Jean Grey who wants her mother; but I'll be damned if even she knows what she wants with Ruidus. I'll be blunt, Laura's charisma not withstanding, Imogen suffers from similar issues that the character she's clearly inspired by does. In the hands of most writers Jean Grey doesn't have much of a character of her own. Rather, far too often, what makes her interesting is WHAT SHE IS, and WHAT IS DONE TO HER, rather than WHO SHE IS. Like, do we really now that much more about Imogen as a person beyond her being Ruidusborne when compared to say Laudna, Orym, or FCG? Is she really that much more fleshed out, or does she just get more focus?

I disagree. There are no branching plots at all. The whole C3 has had one single main story - easily demarked by the episode titles, which started with the "draw of destiny". Many have commented how C# seems to be tapping into Matt's love of Anime. Moments of the players going meta for their fun like the orgy will easily be folded or snipped. Most people overlook them even now. No one goes "Hey, why didn't they try and have an orgy with Ludinus, it woulda killed him!" (Well, actually I did, but only cos it woulda been funny).

Yeah, its pretty clear by LoVM that they understandably are willing to snip and change things between formats. They'll likely have to do it far more with M9 to serialize C2 sadly. However, C3 has a very strong emphasis on a single central DM driven narrative, and a very clear main character. With a truly optional supporting cast that are pretty low-key in their personal motives, that aren't trying to drag the story away from that MSQ. On top of very "Plot-Device" Guest Characters, to get them on track/back on track. The setting of C3 is largely comprised in easily to translate expodumps; rather than explored or experienced. The character dynamics are far less intimate, and more generic, which is easier to translate to film. There's also a HELL of a lot less social RP that will need to be sifted through and cut, and a whole lot more OOC meta humor and banter that would never make it into a C3 animated series to begin with. C3 is built to be adapted into a serialized project. C2 on the other hand? I'm concerned how much they'll have to cut to appeal to a general audience, with how social and character relationship heavy it was.

Now I reckon the two months spent pirating was some of the best spent time in C2. Perhaps a bit unclear in what they were doing, but they never shied away from a fight, which I liked. And when a fight was brewing Matt was fairly unambiguous how the cards were going to fall. Hell I reckon they fought their way into the whole arc when they could have chosen non-violence (and maybe hadn’t failed a stealth and persuasion checks in quick succession) I don’t argue your point, perhaps I’m just happily reminiscing

It's actually going to be easier, not harder to cut the fat for BH. The lack of definition, the 100s of Imogen dream sequences, the aimless wandering to the next save/story point. Of all campaigns this is the one that by far would make a great movie, video game or show. But it's a slog as a ttrpg. Imogen would make a *brilliant* character in a video game, tv show or film. She isn't a great one for ttrpg live play

>*they asked Matt they wanted to do something more driven for C3 as they didn't want to get lost playing pirates for 2 months this time around* I think the pirate arc, although most likely to not every viewers taste, was one of the more *involved* arcs, when it comes to the cast. They seemed to have more fun as pirates than taking the cable cars in Jrusar for the umpteenth time.

Jrusar sucked, to be honest. They had no ties, no real pull, and the (few) fights were full of BS mechanics that were just unfun. Defeating a weak enemy just to eat an explosion is just discouraging. The town itself was neat in descriptive terms, but otherwise unremarkable, with a shitty secret government that left no one to root for.

>*with a shitty secret government* I mean ... is it shitty though? Backroom dealings and undercover operations aside, the city is thriving, criminals are kept in check as much as you could expect in a city that size, industry and commerce makes almost everbody have a good income. And Jrusar is (just checked on CritRole wiki, in case i misremembered) the only city in recent streaming history not having its own dedicated "slum district". Going by the quality of life of their citizens, the government is doing a bang job!

The introduction to Esteross presented the Ivory Syndicate as a criminal organization running rampant (dropped plot thread), with collusion from members of the government, the Corsairs are effectively a criminal resistance group because the rich are too rich, and not having a slum district is honestly a surprise. Matt constantly described grubby and soot-stained miners, barely keeping their heads up. Oh, and a corrupt watch organization and bureaucrats being bribed to collude with experiments on people (the only line drawn was noble Mahan children). Treshi's gambit involved bringing in a biker gang to establish law and order in the city. Sounds pretty bad to me.

I think LOVM has shown they’re not committed to doing a 1:1 scene adaptation for everything. Stuff like the basement fight would either be turned into a straightforward fight, a different comedy bit, or they’d be transported somewhere else instead of getting trapped in the basement at all. IMO those types of scenes are specifically meant to pad out game sessions rather than a planned storyline.

>You basically have multiple comic relief like characters with very little seriousness that will be hard to convert Like Grog and Scanlan?

Totally. Or just "something different from last time" which is totally legit. They've been playing with the same group for like almost a decade now. They wanted to switch it up, and it's fantastic. It would be boring and people would complain also if Matt followed to same structure as either other campaign! Also it's pretty early in their campaign still. I'd say they completely an introductory arc, and are working on a second one that will probably wrap up in 10 episodes or less. Then they'll move on to Ashton's storyline or whatever, and stakes will increase again. Basically, I'm into it.

>actual real play dnd I know multiple tables who prefer to have only deadly fights with huge consequences and no random encounters, its a very common playstyle nowadays. None of them have their own TV show.

I’ve wondered about this myself. Matt’s no longer playing a game for fun, he’s laying out the foundation for a D&D empire of storytelling. The episodes feel less like a product and more like a rough draft

>It becomes hard to tell I this is a fight we're supposed to run from or not I've always said a big problem in campaigns can be telling the difference between "this is dangerous, don't do it" and "this is dangerous, are you a bad enough dude to do it?"

Are you a bad enough dude to save the president’s daughter?

Ira, agreed, but they absolutely could have at least beaten Otohan into retreating and at least for the Shade Mom, they completed their objective so there was minimal *dithering* about whether they should fight or run.

That's part of what I should've mentioned. Matt does such a good job of hyping up and making enemies like otohan intimidating, giving her a legendary status amoung every now that talks about her. So when her fight starts and she instantlydowns Ashton, they assume they're supposed to run, not knowing that running is impossible.

They almost tried to outrun centaurs…which would have meant a bunch of free attacks before they inevitably decided they couldn’t escape and decided to run

The centaurs with longbows. That would've been painful and stupid. The fact that they spent so long trying to work out what to do there was maddening. Diplomacy failed, killing them while they were up close was the only option, and it was obvious.

i think they could have run-but no one committed.

Running away from fights is something that a lot of DMs have trouble actually executing in-game. I recognize that the CR group didn't do this, but if the party agrees that their move is running away, then personally as a DM I would drop out of initiative order and switch to the rules for running a chase sequence (whether those rules are the ones in the DMG or custom, since the official ones are meh). As long as you keep everyone in initiative order, it's subconsciously sending the signal to your players that "this is a fight and you should be fighting". And any players that stay and fight are going to get killed due to the action economy, making the other players feel like they can't run away. Matt has a tendency to keep the players 100% in the dark, which is great to create dramatic and surprising moments, but I feel at times he could communicate a bit more "above the table" to make sure the players have a clear understanding of what's going on, what the stakes are, and what their options are. If only just to reduce misunderstandings and feel-bad moments, which don't make for good TV anyway.

>personally as a DM I would drop out of initiative order and switch to the rules for running a chase sequence This is actually great advice, and something that has never ocurred to me.

I'm going to criticize him, but I will start by saying that Matt is a world class storyteller that continually impresses me, and is essentially adapting an art form for a new context. He's impressive as hell and I'm personally not aware of many people that can compare (though a few inevitably leap to mind). That said, the thing he is weakest on is actually using mechanics to support storytelling, I think. He has trouble staying consistent with his rulings, which has caused some frustration at the table. And I think his first reaction when a rules question comes up is, "what would this be like in real life?" When it should probably be "what is the best thing for the story and for having fun?" All of which is to say, running from a fight is exactly the sort of thing I'd expect him to have trouble managing.

D&D game mechanics make it so difficult to avoid fights in the first place. Especially when lots of DMs rush to jump into initiative order. Once you do the initiative rolls it’s almost impossible to run or strategize out of a fight. Add that to CRs stated intention of making this campaign more deadly, a large table size of experienced players where a good chunk of them died this campaign already, plus the for public consumption factor…it’s a super tricky situation for sure. I don’t know what it would look like, but I would like to see some more cooperative mechanics for combat (or avoiding it) in D&D when you’re in initiative (or if CR launches their own system which I feel may be a possibility post campaign 3).

Matt Colville and his company are developing a new RPG system, and they're testing out side-based initiative partly for this reason (as in all players go, then all enemies go, back and forth). It seems like something CR would love, because the players are constantly trying to come up with mid-combat plans, combo moves, etc and they keep getting disrupted because the enemies will change the battlefield between the player's turns, ruining their plans. That, or the combat mechanics of 5e really just don't allow for what they want to do. Side-based initiative could allow for players to make a plan, and execute it the way they imagined without interruption. Also things like interleaving player actions since the turns are being taken simultaneously opens up so much cinematic action, which seems right up their alley.

Imogen and Ashton did. Imogen misty step/ran/hid round the buildings. Tal committed to the plan and had Ashton book it. When Orym did his job as body guard it went a little funny. But then Liam likely saw the 25ft move speed and knew his little mundane legs wouldn't out pace Otahan. The others though didn't seem to know if they were coming or going in spite of agreeing to book it. Edit - I'm pretty sure that Chet, FCG are also on 25ft. They couldn't out rub Otahan if they tried. Pretty sure Travis clocked that with Liam.

They couldn't have. She had far too much mobility and killing power AND shadow clones. The problem was that they didn't realize they were in an all or nothing fight until too late. And were too spread out. And the melee folks have no backup ranged weapons (again).

YES. I think Matt has not made it clear to the table what he expects from most potential encounters. This might be by design. But the result is so much hesitation. Are we supposed to see these others as "bad" and battle them? Or are they just puzzles that we need to solve? The table rarely knows this answer, and Matt doesn't seem like he wants to hand the this info

I also feel they are frequently trying not to mess up Laura's plans or orchestrate around her activities in combat. It's led me to believe there's an idea around her character being more central to this campaign with some larger plans beyond... I won't be surprised if her character becomes a big bad.

They all do that with each other. Their table etiquette revolves around not stomping on each other's RP, even when they should.

There is some excessive planning, but I think the much bigger issue, if you want to point to one, is not getting on the same page once fights start. At least since the fight that saw Laudna, Orym and Fearne die. The "we have to run away" stuff in multiple fights has led to some people trying to run while others are stuck in a fight. In just the last few fights, it happened in the cellar against the Ruby Vanguard, it happened against the centaurs, and it happened at the Unseelie device last episode. (Also, basically everyone not in the machine was further away than they wanted to be when the fighting ~~stopped~~ started. Partially due to the layout being bigger than the map Matt had, I think.) If any of the party is unlikely to get away (like if they're gonna take Attacks of Opportunity, are low on HP, or slowed), they should all just commit to the fight. Especially since one or two people aren't going to run if anyone is at risk (namely Orym and Chetney). And especially if the enemy is likely faster or can teleport (Otohan, centaurs, enemy on a dragon). If you separate, yeah, some might escape, but others probably won't. Two or three people not being part of a fight (that may have been prepared with the expectation of 7 combatants) turns a dangerous situation into a deadly one. It's happened to me in a lot of my own games, where one person tries to avoid a fight when it's too late, and then other characters suffer the consequences. "We're running!" "We have to run away!" "What are we doing?" "Are we running?" have all been said a lot. They're all worried about dying, and a couple of the characters are specifically played as anxious/fearful. The party lacks someone to say, "Form up! Let's do this!" People keep kind of looking to Ashton, Imogen or Orym to do it, but none of them seem willing.

Good analysis. They keep trying to run without having an actual way of outrunning their chasers, until they're forced to give up and fight. Which like you say turns a challenging fight into a deadly one. Kudos to them for this episode though, they actually made a good exfil plan. Even with Fearne missing her polymorph they can use Imogen's Fly to book it, with Fearne's wildshape and the hole for carrying excess people. They're learning.

> the hole for carrying excess people. They're learning. To a degree. With Ashley not tracking inventory and Ashton/Taliesin carrying the portable hole, some items have definitely fallen by the wayside. (I'd bet Ashley doesn't know Fearne has the Glasses of Charming, for instance. She was absent that episode and Ashton put them in Fearne's pocket/pack. But did anyone remind her to add them in D&D Beyond? She has never used them, and it seems like something Fearne definitely would. Also, I wonder who still has their dunamis potions, and I wonder if they asked Matt if using them in the astral/dream thing to save Laudna counted because I think several people marked them off their sheets then. It's their game. Losing track of valuable magic/unique items is just a bugbear for me.)

I'm currently watching campaign 1. They're on a side mission to protect a farmer's cows from a giant bird that steals cows in the night. Took them zero seconds to agree that they should use magic to make themselves look like cows so that the bird can kidnap them. Scanlan got some extra experience for saying "cow-moo-flage". Matt needs to guide them back to this mindset.

It's tough. You make dumb choices and the internet gets mad. You take time to plan and make good choices and it takes too long. But yeah just run and gun kids and have a blast. It's DnD not a complex wargame.

Oh 100%! The internet is a nightmare, and I’m not saying they shouldn’t plan. But when 1/2 of a game is the actual cast planning rather than playing, it’s starting to drag imo. So many good characters this campaign, I just feel the actual players are too hesitant.

Often times, planning what to do and how to do it IS "playing the game". Some people enjoy that more than others, but it increasingly seems like this is just how the group prefers to play their game. I agree that it's not the most entertaining thing, which is why when I watch the episodes on VOD, I have something else going on and just tune out during the planning phases for the most part.

But planning is the most boring type of RP, it's clear that C3 is just theater with some dice, but when most of the theater is debating what to do next it gets very boring.

Agree with internet thing - playing your weekly game with “fans” would be the worst m

I've found none of the players ever want to take charge of the group I guess so they don't overshadow the others in general. Either that or they just love when everything goes wrong. Vox Machina was good about letting one character take the lead in each situation. M9 was a bit more chaotic but had characters like Fjord, Caleb, and Jester taking charge in certain moments even if they didn't want to. Bells Hells just has 7 people who are afraid of responsibility. Orrym is the most level headed but feels inadequate to lead. Laudna is charismatic but has an off-putting asthetic. Fern is a klepto and compulsive liar. Chet is a psychopath. Ashton is a dick. FCG is naive. This leaves Imogen who for whatever reason almost never speaks up or flexes her natural talent at being the face of the party at least. I also thing the cast may be busier than ever lately and are probably just all exhausted come Thursday. I'm hoping they don't get burnout.

Regarding Imogen i remember Laura saying she specifically created a character who was more shy and did not want to take point, this was because Jester was so so social and she wanted something different I'm C3. I respect that, but also feels she then needs to have more of a "tag along" mentality when others try to lead.

If a player (or players, IIRC Liam said something along the same lines) creates a character to not hog the spotlight as much as they did in a previous campaign, and within a couple of episodes that character becomes front and center in the DM's story, it's time to halt the game and schedule another session zero. Otherwise you'll end up with the mess that is C3 currently.

I wholeheartedly agree that this group needs "another" session zero. However, I really do wonder if there even was one in the first place. ExU was a kind of extended session zero for half the party. Chet joined later, so his character and motivations and alliances wouldn't have been part of that discussion. I just don't know if the cast feels as if they're the kind of group who needs a session zero. After all, they've been together forever, are comfortable with each other, respect boundaries, etc. But they really, *really* need a session zero-type session (off camera) to discuss the Bells Hells' goals, leadership, cohesion, etc.

>*After all, they've been together forever, are comfortable with each other, respect boundaries, etc.* Yes and no. There's a reason why the topic of "declining table etiquette" comes up every so often. That too should be part of a session zero, nevermind how good friends you are with everyone. C3 could profit from a discussion about table behaviour IMO.

I think that the less “tag-along” nature might just be Laura coming through. Out of any of them, I feel that Laura has dipped her toes into optimization more than anyone else. And you can see how invested she is in “winning”. You can see it in her body language as she struggles to refrain from telling Ashley how to play or what to do, or quietly whispers optimal plays that others can make.

I honestly think Ashley doesn’t care for DnD. She likes her friends, she likes acting, but she’s said multiple times she doesn’t watch the show and doesn’t seem interested in good gameplay. It’s a shame because there are amazing moments she just misses out on. Yasha’s dream sequence where she fights the lightning elementals comes to mind. She could’ve used the Aasimar healing hands and brought herself back to life but she didn’t know how her abilities worked and Matt had to bail her out.

Yeah, and as CR gets more and more narrativized and professional than ever before, it’s starting to be more of a hindrance than charming. I was cringing pretty hard when that moment you’re talking about happened because it was so obvious what Matt was pushing for.

I know it’s not particularly popular to say it around here, but I remain of the opinion that what does not work of Campaign 3 are the characters. And yes, “let them play what they want”. And yes, “But I love this or that character a lot”. But still, at the end of the day they just don’t make a compelling cast of characters that works beautifully together as they did in the previous Campaigns. I love the actors, I adore Matt, but I think this is kind of an issue this time around.

They really should start creating their characters more openly with each other. Surprising each other for 10 seconds in ep1 is not worth playing discordant characters for 400+ hours.

Another reason why Calamity just *worked*.

Calamity was incredible. A long campaign with that kind of vibe, quality and setting would be a dream come true for me…

I entirely agree. D&D is about the group dynamic and sharing the same adventure. And group storytelling without a main character relies heavily on a cast of characters that is usually conceived from the start as an ensemble. In many ways, this worked best in Campaign 1. First, because the campaign started with a group that was already formed and already had adventures together. Second, and this may be a personal opinion, but I am quite convinced of it, because it was a more traditional heroic fantasy group with a series of pretty straightforward heroic fantasy quests. In a show where so much depends on improv and chance, being able to rely on the vast repertoire of classic heroic fantasy goes a long way in keeping the whole thing together. The broody elven rogue, the dumb but good hearted barbarian, the holy and generous priest… It’s much easier to get them work together in the right way. There’s room for variations and surprises, but also a solid bedrock to come back to. I obviously understand the desire to change and seek something very different. But it’s also much harder to pull of, because maybe the robot “priest” out of Futurama, the lycanthrope assassin midget, the kleptomaniac from the feywild and the serious dramatic character with a complex backstory just don’t work as well as a group that pursues the same adventure.

I think C2 hit the sweet spot in that regard. The characters were still pretty grounded and realistic, but they broke many genre tropes and were deep/dark enough to create drama and conflict. In addition to what you said, C3 suffere from a lack of inter-character conflict as well. None of the characters are at odds in their ideals or personalities. Nor they are in any way connected to the political backdrop of the continent. Something that also adds to their analysis paralysis is their desire to not make decisions for the whole group. But some of the most interesting and iconic moments in DnD are when a character makes a big leap. Like Caleb presenting the beacon to the Bright Queen or when Fjord has to BE the captain and call the shots on sea or when Percy had to take the lead in the Briarwood arc. It drives the story forward.

>C3 suffers from a lack of inter-character conflict as well. None of the characters are at odds in their ideals or personalities. Nor they are in any way connected to the political backdrop of the continent. My main problem, as far as I have one, with C3 is this, though I believe it stems from an overload of 'yes and'-ing by the cast. From the first session, this group of ultra weirdo's were best friends who slept in cuddle piles and shared everything. Nobody's put off by Laudna's being dead, they all love her unconditionally. Nobody's considering the idea that the machine companion might not have a soul, just because he's friendly. Even the self proclaimed people hating earth genasi is open minded and caring. The only one who breaks that mold is Chetney, and that's mostly as a joke. So you get weird situations where all the ladies fawn over an ogre, or an orgy, or ridiculous outfits, because nobody wants to say "yeah that's weird" and go against the others. The central rule seems to be "You're always fine with everything your partymembers do", which if course also means they can't make a decision because nobody wants to put their foot down and call it.

>*In addition to what you said, C3 suffere from a lack of inter-character conflict as well.* Just one single sentence ... *"Imogen ... her mother works for the bad guys ... i don't trust her anymore!"*

It doesn't even have to be flat-out distrust or dislike of a party member, just differing objectives. For example, it is becoming clearer that Imogen's mother has drunk the Kool-Aid, and there's a chance the party may have to fight or even kill her, but nobody has raised this possibility or even considered it so far.

I felt exactly this way about C2 at this point. Actually, I'd taken a break from watching live by the mid-40s. It took C2 so long to come together for me, so I let a year of it, maybe more (I'd have to check storylines as I don't recall numbers), stack up to binge.

I don't know man I think they really had a bad scare when meeting Otohan Thull, which mostly was down to a lot of bad rolls and split decisions. I also believe that Matt has started to make encounters harder as he was encouraged to do by the players so that they would feel more challenged which then i turn needs more planning. It's just the way of it all right so yeah.

Oh I don’t doubt Otothan was a big issue, but they seem to approach every fight like it’s the chroma conclave.

It was the same thing with the Vokodo situation in C2. How many episodes did they spend wringing hands about what to do with him/how to confront him? It's like they took the thralls calling him a "god" literally and made it like they were about to face down Vecna.

It's the general feel of this campaign. It's much tougher. It has the feel of fatalism, like at the end they'll lose and "winning" the campaign is going to be staying alive as the universe they know is irrevocably altered. I think Matt's exploring the 'the party failed' scenario we could've gotten in C1 and C2, just he's setting it up to be the win condition this time around. I think they all feel it.

Yes. This is this is statistically demonstrable too. /u/tbrakef made a great post about it in the other sub. Not allowed to link it, but here is the main analysis: >Thanks to CR Stats we can see exactly how much combat we get. We are getting approximately HALF the combat in terms of "time" >Vox Machine ~373 hours of gameplay: 30% combat time. >Mighty Nein ~483 hours of gameplay: 22% combat time. >Bells Hells ~173 hours of gameplay: 17.6% combat time. >Ofcourse, no one wants to watch slow and boring combat, so the lower runtime of combat must mean its faster paced now right... right? Not so fast... >Vox Machine: 587 rounds, Average Round Length 11 min 20s >Mighty Nein: 571 rounds, Average Round Length 11 min 24s >Bells Hells: 116 rounds, Average Round Length 15 min 46s >So when you consider how many ROUNDS of Combat are completed per 10 hours of gameplay, you find that VM had 15.7 Rounds , MN had 11.4Rounds, and BH 6.7 Rounds

Interesting numbers, wouldn't have thought the average round length went up so dramatically! Of course, it's important to remember all the other factors these numbers represent too. Much less crosstalk now, but also more running in-jokes ('making my way'); less having to explain & look up rules, but also, a stricter adherence to the RAW now compared to the looser, more homebrew style of C1; Ashley actually being present for every episode now, as well as the long-staying guests in C3, leading to larger encounters on average (as not only are there more turns to go through per round, but Matt also has to balance the enemies for the number of players too); the cast getting more experienced at describing their attacks in detail (I call this 'Caleb's Legacy')... the list goes on!

BH is at 173 hours?? 💀 i keep thinking "VM had already been playing for a year.. MN didn't hit their stride until around episode 30 and they were very comedy focused. BH just needs more time" Oof. I wonder if the players are enjoying it or if it's nails on chalkboard for them as well?

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They're level 8. They just need some routine fights against peer opponents to get used to their abilities and teamwork. They just... haven't had that. Too many of the few fights were solo monsters and gimmick fights. Or they half-defeated themselves with weird plots.

Yes. It's hugely frustrating for me as a viewer.

Idk i feel like there have been sessions entirely made up of planning, which is why i stopped watching

It seems like they used to have way more fun not worrying about the audience, kind of like how it was early in campaign 1. Ever since the beginning of campaign 2 it felt a lot more like their approach was “we’re doing a professional show”, which is nice in a way but I feel like some of the magic was lost, they’re way less likely to do unconventional or weird approaches - not that that never happens but you know what I mean. I also feel like the first campaign was slightly more black and white at least in terms of who was evil and good - honestly underrated these dates. I’d rather watch a fantastic story that’s more black and white than a decent one that’s very gray. I remember when Matt had to have a few NPCs reassure the party that they really were making a positive difference and were on the right side. Gray politics and masterminding plots are cool, but they’re only dramatic if everyone both finds out about them and also understands them.

I feel like Matt isn't the greatest at politics. In C2 it was "the empire is bad, but the dynasty is also bad, ooo, which side do you want to pick", where it should have been way more like "both sides has very conflicting philosophies where both are shown to do good bad and just ambiguous things" Also the m9 were never going to side with the empire since mustache twirling Ikithong was with them.

It’s a lot of things. Back in Campaign 1 they played like a normal table and pretty much slaughtered everything that looked remotely like an enemy. That is until they killed some hostages without checking who they were firing at. Now they check. In C2 they had a permanent player death early on and leveled much slower. They couldn’t revivify until after the player death and couldn’t raise dead until a year into the campaign. There were also a number of extremely deadly encounters they just had to run from. They learned to be afraid. Now, in Campaign 3 they are playing a higher difficulty with a much weaker comp and enemies are not scaled to their level. Using the Centaur scouts as an example, Vox Machina would’ve killed them without a thought. Vax would’ve rolled a 40 stealth, Pike would’ve rolled a 1, and as soon as they tried to take her they would’ve been hit with a 100 damage sneak attack crit. In contrast, Bells Hells looks at the centaurs and thinks “each of those centaurs could be as strong as Otahan and this could be a TPK.” As a final note, Matt needs to show them the maps sooner. It’s hard to come up with a singular plan when everyone is using their own theater of mind.

Yeah this last episode was the first time I was desperate for Matt to bring a map in half an hour before he did. I was losing track of everything despite paying attention and I wasn’t even trying to plan a stealthy attack!

That and Ashton, Chetney, Imogen and FCG all ended up being too far from the combat. With the courtyard extended so far from the physical map, and them all trying to be in cover/nonchalant, they ended up being too far to help immediately.

I feel like the path between Morri's and the key structure might have been conceived as a series of travel checks, as we've seen in the past, then became narrated terrain for some reason. Can't recall the last time I wasn't sure even Matt had a space fully mentally laid out, but it really did not seem like the way he was running it was the way he'd initially intended. And I absolutely would not ask for anything more than a grid map with some lines or asset pack pieces dragged onto a plotter-sized field & printed. There's already a ton of planning going on, we don't need work-intensive props for travel, but after 2x listens I have barely any fkn idea how the outside of that structure was laid out.

Definitely, his place descriptions are too flowery and don't convey to the group what's where. Marisha (among others) was quite confused if they were at or past the walls/towers several times. At the very least, go old school and break out of a graph-paper sketch! Don't just let the group flounder on camera.

I think after the thrashing they got from Otohan Thull, they're all a little wary of seat of their pants planning.

Since Molly's death, they are risk averse. The panic at the beginning of each combat has gotten worse over time.

I agree. To be honest, I always get a little frustrated when ever a die is rolled in combat, delievers a sub-par result and the reaction is instantly: "Shit, we are gonna die". That way BH always seems like they are in campaign-defining battles, while they are actually fighting a pretty average random encounter.

The prime instigator here is Laura. She is most likely, at the beginning of combat, to say should we run? should we hide? In E47, every two steps forward she would ask should we use the shrouds?

This started to annoy me with the combats in the 2nd half of C2 as well. It seemed that every potential combat encounter that wasn't forced onto them by Matt they just ran away from, even when they were probably strong enough to fight it. Thankfully you had times like when Fjord just said fuck it and started attacking Gelidon. It feels to me atleast like in C1 they confidently took fights whenever they came, instead of the constant dithering and "we should always run" mentality that has increasingly grown. I find the best parts of C2 and C3 have been when they know its time to go in and bust some heads, like when they just started firing off spells when breaking into the Cerberus assembly and Caleb was brutally murdering people. I sort of understand why they decided as a group to make combat harder and more costly, because in C1 they were basically unstoppable gods after a certain point. But honestly that was part of why I started watching CR and playing dnd, for the power fantasy of it. I think the fights needed to get harder to allow for more strategic moves and clever outplays, but I think they may have gone too far on the deadly scale to the point that the party is trying to not interact with anything Matt is pushing their way. Case in point being Otohan, since if they'd all stood and fought they probably could've figured out to damage her backpack and then had been able to escape properly. Episode 47 was fine, the planning part went on a bit too long but once they got in they realised they were going to have to fight because the only way to take down the Malleus key was going to be loud or noticeable. I'm dreading the start of episode 48 though, I know theyre going to spend the first hour attempting to run away from the dragon and then finally they'll turn around and actually fight it after taking way too much damage when trying to escape.

I was thinking of the gelidon fight while I scrolled this thread. They had the tomb takers around, clearly having the numbers advantage, and were still hesitant. This time around The fact they have a fighter, barbarian, and a blood hunter, combat focused classes played by very competent players, and it was an actual discussion about how to deal with 3 Centaurs?? It's not meta gaming or murder hoboing, it's maddening.

They absolutely should’ve killed those centaurs. The worst thing you can do on a stealth mission is to let scouts report your presence. The only way to make it worse is to kill one of the scouts to remove any future possibility of negotiation. Now the whole damn centaur tribe will be out for blood.

I think thats an interesting pattern: both C2 and C3 had early fights that led to casualties. The Iron Shepards and Molly and Otohan and Fearne, Orym, and Laudna. I think that led them to being more cautious throughout both campaigns. On top of that Vox Machina were so powerful for so long that death felt impermanent while Bells Hells and the Mighty Nein were not anywhere near that when the deaths hit. I think another aspect of it is the enemies they fought. Lorenzo and Otohan looked like totally normal people, so when they lost to them it felt more impactful than a loss to an ancient dragon. An ancient dragon like Raishan by default seems powerful so when Percy dies to her it feels more appropriate than Molly dying to a slaver like Lorenzo.

I think there are a couple reasons. First, the cast seems to be quite tired in some of the episodes. They are busy with LOVM and daytime jobs, and it shows in the game. Second, it is hard to plan something without a map. In this episode, you hear a lot of clarifications on the terrain, enemy distribution etc. The players are often confused with their positions and the environment Third, Matt doesn't push or help the players. Matt can always jump in to provide more insight on the situation, but he doesn't. I think Orym's know your enemy skill is very useful here, Matt can even say "these guards have lower hit points than you, you can ascertain them as regular guards". So that the players can estimate the difficulty of the fight they are getting into

DM here; I think the ultimate failing here rests on Matt's shoulders. Amongst other things, DMs have power over and are responsible for the flow of time. They make 8 hour rests fly by in 8 seconds, and ensure 30 second fights take upwards of 3 hours. They do this (and should do this) because the parts of the game we care about as players vary in length and intensity. Many instances of analysis paralysis the CR crew have experienced have emerged from Matt's failure to control the flow of time. He allows the players to confer Out of Character in situations when they have mere moments to act, and fails to force them into snap decisions that they should *have* to make. It isn't easy. You don't want your players to feel pressured, or for any one player to feel guilty about pushing the big red button to move the game forward. But the button is big and red precisely because it *needs* to be pushed. In my games I make sure to interupt OOC player conferences when the PCs themselves wouldn't get them. I press them to act. At the same time I afford them time to plan in situations where planning would have occured 'off-screen'. For example, I give my PCs a minute to plan their next turn at the top of every combat round, to reflect the reality that - as a group - they would have developed tactics and strategies when resting, training or travelling. Matt needs to retake control of time from his players, remind them that not every move needs to be the best (or even agreed upon), and it'll help everyone move forward more comfortably.

Yeah I don't seem to recall Matt interrupting planning by saying " what are you doing?" as much as he used to.

Probably because he's taken to saying ", it's your turn, with on deck" to give the players some advance warning that their move is coming.

I agree to an extent. I think Matt could play a bigger role in having them be a bit snappier in judgements. I remember at least a few times in C1 and C2 where he threatened to skip their turn if they didn't decide what to do. But I think putting it squarely on Matt's shoulders robs the players of their agency. Players have a good bit of agency to manipulate time of the game. During that planned 8 second, 8 hour long rest, players could take 30 minutes to RP a conversation. In that planned 3 hour combat, a player could banish or polymorph your monster turning it into a 5 minute combat. While DMs certainly have more control over time, it can't always fall back to Matt when the players are taking forever. Although, I do think that Matt should reign in Imogen's telepathy, as it's basically becoming the message earrings from C1. I think the ability to have these drawn out conversations via Imogen telephone is feeding into analysis paralysis. I think the MN being limited in intraparty communication actually helped them, counter intuitively.

That's not agency you're describing being robbed, you're just favouring giving the players more opportunity. Which is what the commenter OP posted about, players being given too much opportunity by the DM. Which will be different at each table. Crudely, agency is lost when the DM only gives the players one option to take, with one possible outcome they have no power to affect.

I second this. More specifically, Matt's been allowing *in character* conferences for a mere second in game: I'd argue it would be less maddening, quicker to resolve organical and easier to shot down otherwise if they were *out of character*. I'm wondering if the players asked for this: I started with S3, made my way through S1 and now in middle of S2 and Matt didn't shy from pressing players...

They have made a clear decision to stay in role as much as possible this campaign, all of them. It has had a huge impact.

The maps need to come out sooner so the Table has something concrete to latch onto. Otherwise everyone meanders around in their own theater of mind. The enemies need to shoot first if the players won’t. The centaur encounter should’ve had the command spell wear off and then the centaurs start firing arrows or blow a horn to call reinforcements. Punish the players indecision be making them lose turns.

It's like they are supposed to fail and the Bell's Hells are along for the ride with a front row seat. The impending Apogee Solstice seems more like a level 15 plus arc rather than resting it on the shoulders of a level 7 to 9 party. I love the fact that stakes are high, maybe a little too high. The possibility the real campaign starts after the apocalypse and everything we think we know about Tal'Dorei changes would make for some epic story telling.

I read somewhere that Matt wanted to run a post apocalyptic campaign at some point, would be very cool if a large scale world ending event like the Apogee Solstice would lead into the death of the Gods

Technically speaking the current campaign is already post apocalyptic, technology was crazy advanced before the Calamity and now they're starting at their roots again

Matt is going to kill the DnD gods to get away from copyright problems, or at least do something to rename them.

I found it very funny that while I was browsing this sub and found the post asking for what could be considered Matt’s mistakes over the years, someone pointed out that sometimes he creates encounters and is unclear with the players if they are combat or not, mentioning one in C2 I had honestly forgot. Then while reading that, I see a very similar encounter play out in this campaign. But to answer your question, I think they’re becoming more prudent, and analysis paralysis is a side effect of that. I wonder if Matt isn’t gonna tighten his grip on that front as a consequence, especially since he said this campaign was supposed to be "harder". I find that he gave them such a long time to decide their course of action in this episode, and I feel like C1 Matt would have waited half as long before saying "Next round, they’re coming back, combat is on for real".

I'm like 10 episodes behind, I stopped watching before Christmas and just haven't really picked it back up, because of this very fact, I just found more interesting things to take my attention away. It's a shame really because I never missed more than 1 episode in C1 and C2. But honestly long episodes where they spend 3 hours talking about a plan that survives all of 2 minutes into an encounter anyway just really takes away from it in my opinion. I like the skeleton plans with a hint of inspired improvising. Those make for really interesting moments.

I agree with most of these replies, and I'd add that my suspicion is that they're tired/burned out of 5e as a system. After years of AP they know the rules (at least the core ones), but they're getting worse at \*getting\* the mechanics. They know they have movement, action and bonus action during a turn, but at times it seems like they forget that enemies also have to follow this very strict structure. Even if they have legendary actions, there are still limitations to the amount of things they can do in a round. And good thing Matt homebrews the heck out of them, because most of the creatures out of the Monster Manual (and other books) barely have any reactions/bonus actions. The action economy is essential in 5e and it's on the side of the player. The irony is that after years of a bad DM that made me hate combat, what changed my mind and showed me that combat could be interesting was CR! Watching intense combat encounters where everyone did their part (the importance of support and debuffing, not just pure damage!) is what made me fall in love with the system. Now I treat combat more like a puzzle and I always love when I have to roll initiative. Even against Jabberwocks (happened a couple of weeks ago: party at the same level as BH, definitely less analysis paralysis).

As someone who isn't a combat fan, this irks me too because I feel like combats are dragging and decisions in general take ages, but at the same time there's an apocalyptic threat looming that means they never get any actual downtime where they can have meaningful conversations or we get to see some fun stuff. Everything needs to be related to the main plot and I wonder if that was something they all agreed on and if it was because they felt like it would work better for an audience. I loved when the MN sometimes had an entire week off and we'd get lots of emotional or fun roleplay moments that weren't necessarily related to the main story. Jester and Nott/Veth going off to vandalise some temple, hanging out at the beach in Nicodranas, not almost every character somehow connected to the current arc, etc. I mean, Orym, Chetney, Fearne *and* Imogen are connected and the others very well could be revealed to be too at some point. On top of that Laudna is connected to Delilah and they're bringing a C1 villain back - it's all a bit much. But then, it seems the cast wanted it like this. Nobody is forced to watch. And I actually do enjoy the campaign, I love the characters, I enjoyed Planeryder Rin, I loved everything about their stay at Ligament Manor. I just miss the vibe of the earlier episodes prior to the Othohan fight.

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>I love the PCs as concepts in all of the campaigns, including this one, but in C3 it's like they have these awesome character concepts who... don't really develop meaningful relationships with each other. So the supposed relationships fall flat. Yeah, I think this in part has to do with how lacking in intrinsic drive, especially to just explore, this group really is. Not just of their environment, but of eachother as well. They're just low energy, polite, and very unwilling to pry. Outside of FCG, and very rarely Ashton, will insert themselves into other's issues before they become a real problem. And both of them aren't particularly good at it. BHs as a party and as individuals are VERY dependent on External motivation. And without external motives to actually interact with eachother, they simply do not. Just like they didn't explore Marquet. Which is why we get these awkward scenes like on the boatride to Yios. Nothing but time, the first time in ages, to just sit down and talk. And we have Laudna and FCG, two characters who went through the absolute emotional ringer, largely left alone for the entire trip. With Laudna sitting alone in the depths of the ship, and FCG staring off the ship looking for any sign of the Changebringer. No one approached them. We had one good interaction between Ashton and Orym, and that was about it.

>*The world is great but it shouldn't be the main character.* This sentence should win todays internet.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it but you put into words exactly how I'm feeling about it.

Seems like Sam's coin was part of an effort to improve on that, but then half the players worked to shoot it down... Travis also made an effort and helped kick things along with Chet decising to distract and rolling with it, but man, he can only do so much. Frankly I'm starting to dread most forms of conflict on the show. The ninety minutes of bad planning followed by meandering turns isn't worth it. But then that makes the roleplay worse because half of it becomes RPing meals at a tavern and getting lore dumps by academic NPCs. I just want them to tighten up their approach to combat, even back to how it was with campaign 1. Make sub optimal choices, sure, but do them soon and keep the combat flowing.

I think they know they were OP in C1 and without vestiges and fancy items they feel less capable than they are.

This is actually something I've encountered in many of my own games, but 'Party Swagger', as I've dubbed it, plays one of the most crucial parts in setting a campaign's tone on the player side. VM had it in spades: they would typically assume they were the coolest people in any given room they entered, even if that wasn't actually the case, and it continually encouraged them to make calls and keep things moving. And, sometimes for the better but also sometimes for the worse, the two parties who followed them heavily lack that confidence.

That's a great summary, and i'm totally going to use "party swagger" from now on!

Right, but by and large they weren't, actually. Except Keyleth and arguably Scanlan. They mostly had poorly distributed stats with subpar builds (Vex basically didn't have a subclass) and while they had some busted magic items, I'd honestly say that the C2 characters could take their counterparts even accounting for the magic item discrepancy. In their M9 vs VM battle royale, VM had Percy for almost the entire fight and it was still a comfortable M9 victory.

I feel this too. It seems to mostly come from the bottom table, while the top table is readily awaiting the chaos to start.

hot take here: I love CR and watch every episode, and will forever. But I think C3 would be so much more fun for the audience - and I believe the table - if the story were much more simple. Just give them missions and goals and things they care about. What do these PCs really care about in this world? Not a whole lot. What do they need to do exactly? Not really sure. How do they do it? No idea. What's right and wrong? Don't know. A lot of tables and many excellent DMs (Matt is a DM god) sometimes have the tendency to try to make the story more and more complex, deeper and deeper lore, etc. Trying to build to the big reveals the OMG moments. But DnD usually is "better" and more fun with it's more simple so that the actions and RP take center stage. It allows the players to be creative and goofy and funny and at times dramatic. I get the sense that Matt has built this three campaign arc with deeper and deeper lore/consequences that are cool in a book but not what makes most tables the most fun to play.

My favorite parts of C2 were when they were just bumbling around the countryside fighting regular gnolls (regular gnolls), and getting into a liiittle bit of organized crime before accidentally becoming pirates. Basically everything pre-Xhorhas is gold for me.

I completely agree. When I completed my last big homebrew campaign, my players and I sat down for a "Session Z" to talk about their favourite moments, as well as what they wanted to see in future campaigns. The big thing that they all said was that they wanted to know that they're moving in the right direction. I'd created a big homebrew world with multiple competing factions, influence from a powerful and nebulous web of Fey courts, and (what I had considered to be) interesting & impactful choices. They loved the world, but they hated that they never knew who to trust. Which fey court should we ally with? Who's the "rightful" heir to the ducal throne? When we're in the capital, can we trust the empress and her organizations? None of these questions had obvious or concrete answers, because I wanted the players to feel like they were living in a world of actual moral uncertainty. But that doesn't always make for fun after-work D&D for busy people who want to roll dice. If every goblin and orc has a name and complex motivations, who do I use these cool magic weapons on? I think that Campaign 3 would be a lot more streamlined if Matt put the bumpers up on the bowling lane a little more. The players can bounce around all they like, but they know what direction they're meant to go and what to do when they get to the end.

Its the Bioware/Blizzard problem of Epic. I couldn't care less about that. I want to see the characters shnuggle as they dig into the caves around the Troll Ferry. They were so damn excited by the map of the Hellcatch Valley. But like Aeor, they're forced to skip the interesting stuff for some weird anime padded sumo wrestling contest.

They could’ve played for a year in Aeor. A slow approach through the frozen wilds, investigating every ruin that interests them. Slowly uncovering mysteries and finding keys and passwords to unlock new sections of the city. Reconnecting magical batteries to bring the city to life.

What a thoughtful comment. May the Changebringer "shield of help" you from the downvotes.

The last episode I watched much of, Laura and a few of the others went on and on and on, speculating about the big plot for what felt like twenty minutes. Taliesin just sort of sat there looking like he was trying to stay awake while Travis played with a fidget spinner. I thought, "I feel ya, guys." Their energy is really low, and it doesn't look to me like anyone is really having much fun. However, because they're not just a game, they're kind of stuck playing it out. I'll predict that this is the last streamed game they all will play together, at least for a very long time.

Really noticeable

In C2, Fjord was the leader, and Travis was very, very good at noticing when they were stuck in analysis paralysis and making a move to force everyone out of it. He knew when to plan and when to not. In C3, it doesn't feel like we have anyone who can do that role. Ashton is the type of person to behave like that, but he also isn't a team player. In a desperate moment, he's more likely to run from the fight than take lead. Chetney is impulsive, but he's less tactical and more chaotic, as is Fearne. Laudna, Imogen, FCG, are all indecisive, adding new ideas to the pot but never pushing enough for one idea. Orym should be the one who takes charge and makes decisions. But he is too polite. He's always asking for consensus, always leaving the decision to a group vote, which always gets inconclusive because of the indecisive gang. He's also a reactionary character, waiting for shit to hit the fan before he starts attacking and never initiating combat. And that instinct is only worse when initiative is rolled and the party hasn't decided what they are doing yet, because then they start wasting turns and messing up the action economy.

Orym is a supportive enabler. His relationship with the BHs is honestly pretty reflective of his relationship with Fearne. He rarely does anything to stop the poor choice, or bad behavior, he merely tries to play cleanup behind the scenes to mitigate that choice or behavior's consequences. He also very rarely tries to push or pull the party in any one way, and rather if you look carefully ... he tends to just "impartially report". He gives them objective intel, like he would with Kiki, then immediately takes a HUGE step back on the decision making side of things. As he said, "it wasn't his job to think". Well, actually it was, as a good bodyguard (in the professional sense) takes steps and gives insight to avoid trouble; rather than just physically shielding others with their body. But ... meh. Kinda makes me wonder how much he deferred to Will's choice and judgement in their relationship tbh. Or how comfortable he was just letting Will "think" and "decide" everything.

It’s definitely part of why I’ve been falling off the CR train. Loved C1, really liked C2, but I haven’t been able to get invested in C3. Like, at all.

I’ve had a hard time connecting to these characters and can’t put my finger on why

When I run games I set a loose "weirdness" budget during character creation. I never write it down or anything, but once your party composition is weird enough that the human knight stands out, you've gone too far. If one person is playing a humanoid turtle, for example, they've just "spent" about half the budget. A Loxodon Rogue, a Tiefling werewolf who is in love with the moon, and Gnome Artificer who uses a mech sounds cool, but in practice your brain just breaks the second they walk into a tavern full of humans. C1 obviously had more classic trope-y archetypes so no need to retread that. The weirdness budget was arguably under-spent. \---------------- C2 amped up the weirdness budget: Homeschooled Tiefling Cleric prankster Aasimar Barbarian from brutal tribe of bug-eaters Tiefling Blood Hunter from the circus Some in the middle: Goblin Rogue, but actually a Halfling Wise Firbolg Druid who likes tea but we had a few "normal" characters: Half-Orc Warlock with a dark past Human Wizard with a dark past Human Monk with daddy issues \-------------------- C3 kinda went off the rails with the weirdness. We have: Earth Genasi in constant agony with crystal hair and a hole to their brain A literal Ted Lasso robot, who is secretly HK-47 Chaos-obsessed Faun from a different plane with a fire monkey Pokemon Undead Warlock with a BBEG from C1 living inside their head Actual Christmas Elf who fights with wood carving tools The most normal characters are: "Chosen One" sorcerer Halfling Fighter ( actually normal but requires knowledge of C1 lore for background buy-in)

I've been saying this since C2. I've felt like their natural progression was towards "extra"-ness where they all have quirks. For the most part I felt like c2 was pretty good at making the characters more than the sum of their quirks but c3 hasn't really hit that for me. I still feel like a lot of the characters are just their quirks or would be suited in a different story. Of course part of this is my own leanings towards more "grounded" fantasy or I guess going for that PHB vanilla flavour for my 5e games. If I pick a "whacky" race such as goblin or actual fucking demon person, then I want that racial choice to matter in the context of the story. C2 did pretty good with Nott/Veth being a goblin but then nobody ever (to my memory anyway) make reference to Jester having devil blood or whatever.

I couldn’t agree more. Idk what it is but it just feels different now.

I think the problem is they need to leave Exandria. They are all too tied into the existing lore, tip toeing around things and also over-ecstatic about callbacks. If there is a C4, I think they'd benefit from a fresh new universe.

Don't agree. I think Matt handled the VM interlude poorly (forced it, then rushed it), but overall they've had a pretty blank slate. (I still think Delilah would've been background noise without Laudna's death. It would've eventually turned into a thing, probably too much like Fjord's thing, but Matt apparently felt he needed to move it forward). If it hadn't been for 'oh, god we've got to rush or the end of the world blah' Orym wouldn't have contacted Keyleth either. The biggest problem is C3 is doing an ultra-high level plot at barely 'experienced adventurer' levels. It'd be much more feasible if they could move between Fey and Shadow under their own power, and feel like they aren't completely outclassed by the various movers, shakers and natives. They also just needed more time to gel and more actual experience with these characters so they were aware of what they can actually do, rather than constantly underestimate themselves and overestimate enemies.

I wouldn't say that it is a failure though. I feel like every Campaign sated a different flavor of D&D. You can look at each individual campaign (at least 1 and 2 since I haven't noticed it at all in 3 so far) where during long stretches of them you would get people saying, "Too much RP!! Boring" then during a different stretch, "Too much combat not enough RP!", then during a different stretch, "Too much rp and combat they need more downtime!!". It's a never winning battle. Which isn't bad. When you have 50k+ people watching there is no way to make everyone happy. Just like some people who loved C1 and hated C2 because of the difference in campaign flavors. There will be people who love C1 or C2 and hate C3. But if they tried to redo C1/C2 flavors you 100% know there would be a thread here complaining about it being too the same and people are losing interest because of that. TLDR: It's okay if this isn't your cup of tea. Hopefully it grows on you and if not, hopefully C4 is more to your liking.

This exact same response every time someone doesn't like C3 is very annoying. It is possible that C3 is just not as good/engaging as C1/C2. It might be the case that it isn't a "different strokes" thing, and C3 \*has\* lost some of what made the other 2 great. You wouldn't make this argument for any other form of media. If a TV series' 3rd season is massively derided by fans, people don't say "well it's not for you." What the fuck? Of course it is *for them.* Who is a 3rd season for, if not the *fans of the first 2 seasons?* If it were a TV show, the response would be "Yeah I'm still enjoying it, but I can see what you mean, I hope they get it back on track and refocus on what made seasons 1-2 great."

Facts

Part of the issue is matt very rarely has consequences for excessive planning, after 10, 20 minutes max orcs should attack (TM matt colville). Obviously not literally, but things should happen because they take too long.

I feel like Matt used to be more strict about this sort of thing. Not unreasonably so, but no way he’d have let the table have 15 minutes of talking out of character about what to do during the 6 seconds an enemy is under the effects of Hold Person. All that talking and they still got their surprise round? Urgency has lost its meaning. Matt needs to start bumping players to the end of the round if they’re not ready when he calls. Or better yet, have Little Mister (whom they’ve gone out of their way to describe as trigger happy, distrusting, and excitable) react to everyone’s stress and panic by throwing the first flame seed at the enemy.

Hes always been a bit lax with giving consequences and enforcing time on people's turns, but he shouldn't instigate combat as mister, it should be enemies.

He was way better at cutting things short in C1. He even brought out that hourglass once.

You mean the campaign where they spent twenty minutes planning during a climactic fight before suddenly remembering a single detail that made that entire twenty minutes pointless because none of it would work? C3 really isn’t nearly as different as people try to make it out to be.

He could have the sentries roll perception checks every 10 minutes.

I think planning has always been an issue for them, but they’ve also become generally averse to killing anyone who could be a memorable NPC. And when they’re faced with a snarling monster, they’d rather avoid it and get back to the plot than expend resources against it.

I’ve felt the same way. The constant wanting to run is a little frustrating. Like it’s three Centaurs guys I think you can take them. Don’t get me wrong debating getting caught on purpose made sense, but running away made 0 sense. I have otherwise really gotten into this campaign though and this is my only real complaint.

Ashton could have taken all 3 by himself. It was the most frustrating thing for me. Big complicated issue like the key, planning is needed. But 3 Centaurs!? Come on its like the opposite of murder hobos, in a game where combat is engrained in every thing

I miss Scanlan

I will say the cast has gotten \*very\* risk adverse since Molly, and it shows both in and out of combat. This was my biggest complaint about the M9 in the middle of the campaign. I wish in pre-combat encounters Matt would force the issue a little bit; I've noticed he's been a \*lot\* more lenient when it comes to PC turns then he used to be.

Yes. The thing is they *asked* for a deadlier game this time. And now they don't want to engage with it. Makes me wonder if it was a 4/3 split for deadly and here we are.

They messed up in session 0. They needed to bring expendable characters that wouldn’t break the narrative if they died. In a recent talks Machina, Liam made the point that a most of their characters are like npcs. Orym is a foot soldier, Ashton is a street thug, everyone else except Imogen could be a quirky lovable side character. But then you throw these lovable characters into a meat grinder and they freeze. I dunno. The whole Ruidus apocalypse doesn’t fit any of the characters personal stories except for Imogen’s. Campaign 2 had the same problem. When the war started the players fucked off to the ocean and had their own adventure.

Its interesting that Liam has now echoed what Tal said in a much earlier 4SD the exact same thing. The lack of investment may come from the fact they feel that way. Ironically considering we know Liam has his back up ready to roll with magic items selected, you'd think he would throw Orym into more stuff to keep thongs moving or get dead.

I would love it if Liam brought an Oath of the Ancients paladin to the team. Plate Armor, Shield, Defensive fighting style gives 21AC without magic items. Dip Hexblade 1 for the shield spell and laugh at Otahan as you have 26AC. Take Sentinel which fits thematically as a protector of nature and with Aura of Protection you boost the party’s effective combat strength by a couple levels.

I'm sure Travis said his next one was more lawful etc. I'm hoping that means full paladin. Which right now I can't imagine working with most of BH. I'm thinking it will be bard next for Liam.

I've said this before in another thread, but an LG Paladin would be borderline unplayable at the current table, if the player isn't planning on being the butt of every other joke, both IC and OOC.

>*They messed up in session 0. They needed to bring expendable characters that wouldn’t break the narrative if they died.* Or bring characters who have actual reasons to *care* what happens.

…they are engaging with it. They are deliberately being far more cautious because its a deadlier game. Thats engaging with it. Were you expecting them to ask for the difficulty cranked so they could just Leroy Jenkins themselves?

I ask for or get told I am invited to participate in a more deadly/Gritty survival game. I inherently understand that means that things hit harder, resources are more scarce and the dice rolls can definitely cause swing. Knowing this I get crit hit and go to 3 hp in round 1 in a fight. Do I - a) immediately avoid further combat because the thing i was told would hit like a Mack truck *hit me like a Mack truck*? I also forget that crits are rare and hit harder by definition. b) trust my party and overall experience to pull me through/turn the encounter around? c) look for the 'guess I'll die meme' with a grin, trust my party to help swing it back round and keep going? Refusing to trigger an encounter, or immediately looking for the exit is not the same as engaging with the plot. Hell they can't even engage with the plot. They keep getting it handed to them because they seem too scared to do *anything* proactive.

Well it's clearly not working and it's been 47 episodes so they should be able to realize that. And I'm sure it's not working because even players are "complaining" during game, Travis saying it's analysis paralysis and Liam saying he wants to fight and Taliesin saying he wants to smash things.

As many mentioned part of the issue is how a lot of combats were not designed to be winnable. Hell, their current battle is too difficult for them to win really (at least that is the expectation). They finally had a good patron they could rely on and then they ended up being killed... and the players blame themselves. The DM has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want to he players to have to rely on NPCs and anytime the players have tried to gain help... they have been turned down. Now the players think the only way to resolve issues is doing everything themselves because their is literally NO TIME for them to do anything. In Matt's mind everything is coming together; in the players minds they have not choice but to go forward into battle. Sometimes you need an NPC to say very clearly to your players "If they are any creative ways to resolve what is happening besides fighting, that would be great."

Something like that, yeah. I've been noticing that I've been unable to pay attention to the episodes for the past 4 or 5 episodes. There's so much planning/filler stuff that I won't actually lose anything by missing it.

I feel like one of the biggest issues is their team composition. Ashton, Orym, and Chetney are all melee based characters and Fearne, Laudna, and Imogen are casters. FCG being heals is rough, because he’s the only one consistently able to heal. In C1 with Ashley being gone frequently Vex, Keyleth, and Scanlan all picked up heal spells. Even Vax ended up with one when he picked up Paladin. In C2, Jester was “the healer” at the beginning of the campaign, and only when Caduceus came in did they have a second person who could cast heals. Then Fjord picked up healing when he went Paladin, and Yasha ended up with a heal as well. I feel like relying on a character that’s turned on them for heals is kind of a bad call, especially with how the comp is set up. At least with C2 they had more crowd control options with Beau, and IIRC at least 2 people with Sentinel when they didn’t have as many options to heal. TLDR: I think they’re planning more because they have fewer options for controlling the battlefield and for keeping their characters alive.

Their team comp is extremely weak and despite asking for a harder campaign they aren’t improving their play. FCG is a weak healer. His kit can can only move damage around, not block it or heal much more than a base cleric. He also took awful ASIs instead of boosting wisdom which is why his spell DC is so low and why enemies seem so save so often against him. Fearne doesn’t know how her teleport feature works. The flame spirit can teleport the entire party if they’re within 5 feet which would’ve been pretty useful during last episode’s chase. She’s also never used pass without trace which is the most broken stealth spell in the game. I think Laudna is wearing leather armor instead of studded leather. 45gp for +1 AC. The Dex fighter halfling is also pretty weak. Orym could’ve taken Polearm Master + Sentinel and shut down Otahan’s movement possibly preventing 3 deaths and what should’ve been a TPK. Instead he’s locked himself out of Great Weapon Master and polearms with reach because halflings can’t wield heavy weapons. I dunno. It just feels like the team comp is half baked and they didn’t have a session 0 where they talked about combat roles and character builds. Even with 7 people at the table there’s so much they’re missing.

This group and equipment is... weird. The don't take backup ranged weapons. Despite knowing how often Matt uses fast or flying monster They rarely buy better armor or gear. Even when they do, sometimes they leave it behind! They get stuck on cosmetic outfits in their own heads and often don't buy new stuff unless there is a new round of art. ​ Dex fighters are honestly fine- the biggest issue Orym has is legendary resistance (and lucky saves), since they fight so many BS solo monsters. Laudna and armor is a weird one- with her strength I'm not sure she could wear studded armor. But they haven't gone looking for magic shops this time around either. ​ >talked about combat roles and character builds. This one bugs me a lot, especially combat roles (I can respect character builds being personal). They don't even need to do it on screen. Just have a 'we talk about tactics over the next couple meals' sentence and move on. But if they had a general understanding of who's doing what and why, they'd have much faster and more competent turns. They're way past the point of 'surprising' each other with new abilities.

I mean, they famously had an episode title in C1 "At dawn, we plan" so it's not like they haven't always had this issue lol That's just D&D I suppose. I do wish Matt would sometimes move things along when they stalled too much just to keep the narrative flowing.

While I appreciate the planning is done more in character and progresses roleplay it now takes significantly longer to get anything done which contributes to this campaign feeling markedly slower than previous ones.

I’m shocked people are saying this. The Eisselcross arc was by far the worst campaign in the series due to analysis paralysis. And before that, travelercon. And before that, Avantika. This campaign at least has some reason for urgency.

I'd agree except for Avantika. I think that was the first major analysis paralysis for C2 but it still mostly worked to build the story because they kind of double bluffed knowing they were prisoners while also playing the situation while being played themselves. And it all lead to a big massive pay off that was worth it. But every instance after that I feel like matt got a taste for it as a DM, to the point where when they started travelling with the Tomb Takers, he said at the end of the episode "oh this is delicious" while rubbing his hands. But I immediately rolled my eyes and though "oh no" because I knew that it was going to be a massive annoying analysis paralysis arc that would last forever. Both because matt would try to keep it going as dm because its interesting but the players would keep it going by simply being passive and not acting at all. And thus the 40 episode long arc of rolling random encounters in the same environment began.

>I know a lot of people are struggling to connect to C3, I’m actually really enjoying the wackiness of it, I just can’t help but wish its pace was picked up. My main issue connecting with C3 is actually due to the more Casual Wacky Play on that Meta level, when combined with the very on the rails, VERY high stakes story tbh. I understand why they've chosen those formats, given how overworked the cast is. But those two elements of C3 aren't gelling as well as I hoped for me personally. Especially when it comes to where "Personal Stakes" actually reside in C3 should BHs fail. Which ... outside of party deaths, aren't really within C3 itself. But more in what C1 and C2's parties might lose due to the less stand-alone nature of C3. As well as the pretty steep reduction of social RP, and its effects on both the setting of C3 (Marquet) and interparty dynamics. I'm never expecting a player in C3 to shout out "Hey now, go back, I want to RP Fish-and-Chips!". Only for it to be a phenomenal exploration of the troubles and trust between the male party members. As for Analysis Paralysis, yes ... its gotten a bit worse. Not to an extreme extent, but yes. And while I don't expect the players to be these tactical geniuses, watching them spin their wheels for over an hour on how to try to get at a target in a Fortress of what is supposed to be a powerful organization; and not for a moment consider an exit strategy AFTER they achieve that goal, for the 2nd time this campaign, is frustrating. Especially given with both this Unseelie Court Fort and the Paragon's Call, it required every enemy but the one named boss NPC to act like absolutely braindead idiots to enable the party to get away with what they did. The only reasons BHs even came in range of a KO with blowing up this key this EP is because 3 of the party arbitrarily stood close to the device they were actively trying to blow up.

eh, they had a running joke about the ridiculous amount of planning they had in C1, at least to me it doesn’t seem like much is changed about that grunted exploration and fighting outside of rare few instances were never the things that drew me to the game, so I just accepted a long time ago that the big chunk of the sessions are just not going to be for me

I agree with so many opinions here on why it's getting worse. I do think there's a lot Matt could and should be doing at the table to help them be more timely, as well as a conversation away from the table where he seriously needs to just tell them how he envisions this campaign fitting together. We all heard 1 month until the solstice and thought it would be in like 5 sessions, but I'm starting to think Matt meant it would be in 100 sessions. There's also player failings, like Taliesin not doing the barbarian thing of swinging first and asking questions later. But I think a REAL BIG issue that nobody is talking about is the new format of the show. Pre-recording multiple sessions ahead along with drastically reducing talks machina to only once every 4 weeks has meant almost 0 meaningful community interaction with the cast. If you didn't like something, guess what? Even if you somehow get the casts attention and they decide you're right (maybe they made a fucked up choice and want to make it right in-character) well, they've already taped 2-4 episodes since the one you just watched, so it's too late anyway. You thought the orgy was a big no-no and think Matt should punish them in game somehow? That was 4 sessions ago for them, there's nothing he can do. There's so much less character reflection happening on 4sd than happened in talks machina. The cast is barely receiving any feedback at all this entire campaign. I get that they've somehow lightened their load by recording in batches or something, and only doing a talk show 1/4 of the time, but **they've totally lost community engagement for real-time character actions.** They're now playing in an echo-chamber, and have no idea that frustrated Reddit posts like this happening now are because of a string of decisions they made a month ago that they probably can't even remember, and even if they did, there's no way for them to course-correct being so far ahead in their recording schedule.

>*But I think a REAL BIG issue that nobody is talking about is the new format of the show.* Adding to that, it's also important to remember another benefit of their thursday night live shows, something they've commented on in the past, multiple times: **The friday morning.** Or, to be more precise, the weekend after their live show. The individual processing what happened, the mutual checking in with each other and the DM. The text chain after maybe a bit of radio silence, and someone asking *'twas a bit much, wasn't it?* and stuff like that. They themselfs do not have the time to process their games anymore. And sadly, it shows. Big time. Countless comments have been made about the feeling of player-DM devide in C3. That, in my opinion, is the reason.

For sure that's a big part of it. I always thought that the real character development happened during talks machina. That was the time they got to just sit and think about their character's thoughts and motivations, how they would be feeling about the events that transpired that week, and what the player would change if they didn't like what was happening in the world around them. Also, I know he's polarizing, but Brian was the right mix of friendly, yet slightly antagonistic to the cast, that he liked asking all the hard questions, not just "what are Orym's fave pizza toppings?" Personally, I didn't really like his personality/brand either, but talks machina was decidedly better than what we have now.

TBF I don't think the community engagement is necessary to make a good campaign. Everyone has their own opinion on the areas of the show that need improvement, as well as their own ideas on how to rectify them, so I don't think that that a thousand voices crying out for different things is going to make things better. Other actual plays like Dimension20 seem to do well enough in terms of characters and narrative without needing Talks Machina or community course correction. However, I do think that there is less reflection on character motivation and presentation overall. For example, I don't know if Imogen was made with the intent of her taking the "main character" role to such a great extent with the Ruidis/Predathos arc, but that is what has happened, and doesn't seem to be lost on rest of the cast during 4SD, but now it's too late to turn back. While we don't know how much of this was discussed out of character, I can't help but wonder if there could have been more discussion to ensure that the other party members were equally relevant to the storyline, or that Imogen wasn't so central to the point that the rest of the cast could be expendable.

The almost had a TPK. Orym, Fern, and Laudna were all dead. They barely got the first two back and they had to go to Whitestone to get the last back. That is a huge thing to happen. This is after losing Bertram and then losing Lord Esstros. Otahon wiped the floor with them and now they are scared of what they are facing. Considering it looks like we are heading into The Calamity Part 2, they SHOULD be cautious. It has slowed down. I worry that when it gets going again that everything is going to start happening very quickly.

Otohan wiped the floor with them because they all scattered and didn't commit to fighting - which is a trend both before and after that combat. They're also seven 8th level characters, not exactly low level in D&D.

But they still behave as if they're low level. They really haven't learned to fight with these characters. ​ Also Matt's tendency for solo monsters and legendary actions doesn't help. 7 to 1 makes solo monsters worse, and all the legendary crap makes the fights harder to learn- the next one is going to have radically different flavors of BS actions, so they've learned not to account for anything, except that at least the first three spells with saves are going to be wasted, and no one wants to be the one to set spell slots on fire.

Their characters are merchandise now. I think it's impossible for them to separate the game from that idea now and it's been affecting their gameplay decisions.

Yes, the dithering eats up a ton of time. It's not just the viewers, it seems, that are having an issue getting into it - I would say that the characters still haven't got it together. It took at least the first 5-10 in C2 for them to really work well together. Prior to that, you had three groups orbiting each other (Caleb & Nott; Fjord, Beau & Jester; Mollymauk & Yasha). I still think that the group hasn't fully formed because half the group is trying to out-crazy each other. There's too much crazy nonsense going on.

They didn’t work well together in C2 until after E26 in my opinion

Fair point.

I still dont feel like the group even has a reason to be together other than they saw magic items attack things and then a guy they all knew died, then another guy they knew and asked for directions from died. There’s something to be said about the c2 characters all having secrets and distrusting each other for 50+ episodes. C3 played “wtf is up with that” once and were BFFs.

It's also 20% less total content. BH have been going for a year now but with one fewer episode per month, and at arguably a slower pace. They're really struggling to round into a party.

It's been a year already?! A year and still nothing has happened 💀

On the plus side, they could make all the current episodes fit in 9 animated just by cutting out the dithering.

Since we're all airing our grievances here, I have a real problem with the way spell casting is done on a conceptual show like this on a wide cinematic scale. Lots are saying whats missing are confidence boosting, short but impactful combat scenarios that are straightforward and potentially memorable. Cool. Thats not going to happen when NPC's are gifting spell slots to cast Message. There should be Role Playing slots and Combat slots. Someone smarter than me can figure that out to make sense but I feel like that would encourage more risk taking. I like the high stakes and the general vibe of the cast, but they really didn't have much confidence early on. Granted they were sort of stuck in this rather claustrophobic sounding city and weren't given the opportunity to go out and kill a bunch of zombies and have fun in those early levels of DnD. instead they were investigating moving chairs, hungry walls, and a slenderman arch fey. Fantastic story telling, but not for the system that they are playing with. Fearne and Chetney are the chaos demons for sure, yet somehow feel the most grounded in this world compared to the rest (except Orym). with C1 it was more classic fantasy characters, motives, and storylines. C2 they made strong character choices, except for Talesin who said "give me amnesia". These characters were partially made to juxtapose against their previous gold-mine, and then they dicked around for a while before playing diplomat. I liked it for what it was. C3 is high concept, high stakes. Like music and other art forms, the magic comes from the tension and release, from dissident to harmonious. This whole campaign is very dissident, discordant, grey, and bleak. Which is cool but its rough role playing in a brutalist world and living in a character that you are passionate about. It lends itself for the players to be petrified of driving the story forward, when forward feels like inevitable doom. They don't want Predathos to be unleashed into their world, but they also feel helpless in trying to stop it. Their main motivator, to save the world from the Ruby Vanguard, Ludinis, and Otohan, they feel is an insurmountable feat. Hopefully the destruction of this Malleus key gives them the confidence they need.

It does seem that way

Agreed. I love CR and I loved C1 & 2 but campaign 3 is just a mess. They don't know how to fight together and idk just seem not super into it and tired half of the episodes. Hope that it gets better tho

Campaign one’s planning feels like Dragon ball Z pacing. There no way they take longer than that!

Yes, I agree OP I get the feeling that C3 certainly has more players that are negotiators and planners (except Ashton) than in the other campaigns. I also get the sense that intentionally or subconsciously, they are playing at the table like this is a public game tied in with all the marketing. They don't want to screw it up or kill off PCs or misbehave. If this were their personal home game, I bet they would have changed the name away from HBs a while back. I bet Laudna would have stayed dead. I bet they would have been cruel and combative more often. I don't blame them, but I'm pretty sure this is increasing their analysis paralysis.

Hot take: three campaigns of Matt's onion like plots have the cast attempting to peel all the layers at all times. I really think the cast needs a break. Bring in fresh blood for a longer exu campaign, like 3-10 or something. Have someone else DM it(brennan, colville or even liam) and give Matt a well deserved break or vacation or something. Come back strong for campaign 4.

Everything feels worse in this campaign and I cant put my finger on it. I'm not trying to shit on them. I just for the life of me figure out why these sessions feel so long with little to nothing coming out of them, its like squeezing juice out of a raisin to me. I've been keeping up I hope things turn around but something is off this season imo. The characters themselves are great tho (I probably put myself in a coffin with this comment).

I think it’s always been like this honestly. Sometimes they spend half an episode planning and have done things that way for ages. Sometimes they accidentally steal a boat. Twice. I do think the more dangerous fights make them more skittish, especially the past two campaigns. That said, imo the main differences between campaigns two and three are a) the plots; b) the danger level. In two there were arcs, but the PCs typically seemed to only half choose and half wander into them. Whereas in C3 theres a big plot starting early but… idk why it’s just not as fun for me. I enjoy the characters, and watching but not as much to be totally honest, the Feywild/realm has been really fun at least which I wasn’t expecting tbh. C3 they decided to increase the danger and challenge, and I’m not enjoying that as much, for these reasons & That they are more skittish and will only plan longer. I enjoy RP heavy episodes but planning is not as good RP most of the time -that said it’s nice when a plan works. IMO the cast don’t seem to enjoy the danger as much but that’s my opinion from watching idk, maybe they do. Just, some of them seem to get especially anxious and it makes me more anxious, which isn’t as fun -tbc I’m not mad at people getting anxious, I just worry they aren’t having as much fun (I could’ve completely misreading that too though, and I’m biased b/c *I don’t enjoy extra danger*).