I haven't seen it yet, because I wanted to get some sleep (although I did read some summaries of the session) , but TBH, I thought that it was incredibly rushed for them to announce that C2 was coming to an end and resolve all of those arcs in one super session instead of having a few more sessions to resolve all of them. But that being said, I'm ready for C3, although I do hope that the next campaign is less based on political intrigue and more straightforward fantasy, because it seems like they're better at telling that kind of story, tbh.
I saw a lot of people on twitter were upset that Caleb and Essek never overtly hooked up and blamed it on some degree of homophobia... but I honestly think that Liam just loves drama and likes to stir the pot, so he deliberately didn't push for more to keep the fandom riled up. In the first campaign I don't think he would have ever made Vax and Keyleth's relationship overt if Marisha hadn't pushed for it first.
I saw a lot of people on twitter were upset that Caleb and Essek never overtly hooked up and blamed it on some degree of homophobia... but I honestly think that Liam just loves drama and likes to stir the pot, so he deliberately didn't push for more to keep the fandom riled up. In the first campaign I don't think he would have ever made Vax and Keyleth's relationship overt if Marisha hadn't pushed for it first.
I don't think it's a drama thing. His character is very emotionally damaged and is not yet at a stage where he would want to pursue something further. It took a lot for him to just make friends let alone think about relationships, especially with somebody who is a wanted criminal at multinational level. Liam has talked about that. Caleb actually had feelings for Jester, but did not want to pursue it at all. Plus, with Fjord and Jester and also Beau and Yasha, why push for yet another relationship? And anyone claiming homophobia are nutcases. Caleb is bi (confirmed by Liam - Caleb, Astrid and Eadwulf were in a threeway relationship in their academy days), Beau and Yasha are lesbians, Jester and Veth exhibited bi-curious tendencies, and Mollymauk was overtly bi. Caduceus was asexual. In previous campaign, both Vax and Scanlan were bi.
And as for Keyleth and Vax: Marisha wasn't the one who pushed for it. It was an idea Liam had and discussed with Matt, when Vax made his desire known Marisha was surprised. In the break that followed they discussed it with her and whether she would agree to it. She did, and so that relationship happened.
I completely disagree with the idea this ending was rushed. It doesn't even come as a surprise at all.
Fjord's journey had pretty much ended. He discovered his powers, broke free of Uk'otoa's control, and safeguarded the world from its release. He got over old hangups. Everything was pretty much done. He had the last cloven crystal safe, and we all know he was never going to do anything with it. When he met Vandren it was a nice bit of closure - but it didn't reveal anything we hadn't already known by that point. We already knew he was a hexblade warlock, we already knew he had known Avantika, and all of it. It's closure, but nothing new. Fjord's story was done long before this.
Jester's journey is the simplest because it was never about some big story arc for her. For her it was about going on adventure and maybe finding love and make friends. She did all of that. She met the traveller and who he really was, which wasn't her end goal so that's all just a bonus.
Caleb's story was about becoming a better person and moving on from the tragedy. His desire for revenge became replaced with the desire to make the world better. We saw that change happen quite some time ago. So the run-ins with the assembly, trent and his old friends were the build up to the final stand against Trent, and thus allowing the beginning of taking down the assembly. We knew we weren't going to see the assembly get taken down. It's a major part of the empire's government. That would take years, it would be a campaign on its own. So, we should never expect to see that result. We should only have expected to see that begin - and we did. So, Caleb's story was nicely resolved.
Veth's story was over many sessions ago. Her whole ambition was to become a halfling again and reunite with her family. She did that. So, there's nothing left there. She only stayed with the mighty nein to beat Lucien because it was important and had already told them she was going to stop and go back to her family. So.. Yeah, even if they continued Sam would have made a new character. People didn't really like it when he did something like that with Scanlan, also late-game, and there was no reason to do it again.
Yasha's story was resolved once Oban was defeated. She learned about her missing years, she learned about what she was, she moved on from the death of her wife, and learned to fall in love again, she broke free of her doubt and found loved ones to protect. And that all happened quite a while ago. So by this point there was literally nothing left to explore.
Mollymauk - didn't have any story beyond a mysterious past he didn't want to explore. He died and those mysteries were revealed anyway.
Caduceus - his only purpose in leaving the Grove was to save it from the corruption. It was never about stopping the corruption entirely - which shouldn't be a big surprise, it's a very big major thing, and likely not even something that could be achieved. It's like a scar left over from something big. It would be like trying to resolve the magic-affecting issues around the Aeor ruins. That was never his ambition, not that of any of the Clays. They just wanted to save their home. He did that. He was like Veth: he was basically done, and only stuck around to help with the Lucien/world-threat and if it wasn't for that he'd have gone home and stopped being an adventurer.
Beau - her family story was long since done. She didn't really have a specific story-goal. She learned to be a team-player, she fell in love, and she saw the people who "sold her off" get their comeuppance. She got over her family issues because the Nighty Nein became her family. There was nothing left to explore here.
--
Literally all their stories are done. Most of them have been for quite some time now. We also need to realise Campaign 2 has already been longer than Campaign 1 - Campaign 1 was 115 episodes covering 13 levels, Campaign 2 is 141 episodes covering 16 levels.
We also need to remember - they're still voice actors and voice directors. They still have other work and projects (which will also include the Vox Machina cartoon). They were probably ready for the campaign to finish and take time to focus on other work for a while and they had definitely reached a good end point.
Most people think the campaign wasn't ready because they were expecting the characters to go to 20th level level, but not all campaigns do and stretching it out beyond a very good finish line just for that is going to result in a poor story from then on. They had reached a great final point with every character's story completed. The fact it was 16th level is irrelevant, it was a good place to finish.
Personally, I was very pleased with the ending. The stories are done, it felt complete and left room for one-shots. Very happy with it. Hopefully there will be a Campaign 3 when the cast are ready and if covid has eased up by then, they can sit closer together again (I miss their little interactions with each other - especially Liam dodging Marisha's elbows XD).
I don't doubt that it was Liam who originally pushed for the Vax/Keyleth relationship, I just don't think he would have ever made it overt in any streamed content if left entirely on his own. I think he just enjoys leaving it as subtext. But honestly... he clearly pushes for drama and complicated endings. I think a good example of that is Liam's relationship with Frumpkin... Matt made it fairly clear that Frumpkin was happy to assist Caleb and considered him a friend but Liam really, really wanted the drama of Caleb releasing Frumpkin and Matt played along with it.
Anyway, I'm not bothered by Caleb and Essek never overtly dating. Honestly, it's more interesting... I think most D&D games end with, "Everyone meets their true love, is super successful at anything they want to do, and has a dozen children who will probably be the protagonists of another campaign." It's nice to have something with more nuance and complications. Plus it leaves room to revisit the characters in the future.
Very rushed IMHO. The Trent battle was kinda shoehorned in although the way it ended was cool. This campaign was over 140 episodes and we only got half the amount of time for an ending as the first. I was expecting more but am very happy with what we got. They could have gone farther with Uk'otoa as that thread just was abandoned. Never got the closure with the return of the items lent by Allura and Kima. Would have loved to see a reunion with them along with Keyleth and her mom there to show their gratitude and setup maybe the fight with Uk'otoa. What I wouldn't give to have Beau gift Grog her headband of intellect and get Keyleth to cast awaken on Trinket. Gonna be a neat one shot of the 4x4 death match but it is missing the two highest powered characters in Caleb and Keyleth. Just nitpicking though, both campaigns were just awesome and can't wait for campaign 3!
Part of it is that high level DnD is exhausting to DM and I do not blame Matt if he wanted out of it for a bit...
High level 5e is exhausting to run as most challenges are a handwave for the PCs....even the last fight they had two "deaths" but were revivified pretty easily.
They dealt like 900+ Damage to the thing and it was obvious it had a super high HP pool compared to most threats that high....and even then it was basically one hit kill attacks that provided a challenge.
Overall its just not conducive for long story form especially for a game/show that had small character focus. Most of the problems/issues people wanted to see what personal development while high level DnD pretty much askes you to do reality destroying threats and heavy intrigue to provide challenge.
I think they did an amazing job wrapping it up and I am looking forward to C3 though!
I liked the ending well enough, but I thought the campaign in general ran long enough to become boring. Cyb3rM1nd is correct that pretty much everything was wrapped up months ago.
I liked it, the idea to do these scenes as sort of "ending screens" the way it has been classically done in older cRPGs was good.
This campaign was longer than C1 on air but probably about the same length (if not shorter) in total time considering C1 started when they were higher levels after home game.
I am genuinely excited for new project announcements that were hinted and for C3 :)
Oh and I really, REALLY hope that in that VM vs M9 one shot someone will take away Liam's phone xD
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Let me know what you thought?
A New DM up against the World
I haven't seen it yet, because I wanted to get some sleep (although I did read some summaries of the session) , but TBH, I thought that it was incredibly rushed for them to announce that C2 was coming to an end and resolve all of those arcs in one super session instead of having a few more sessions to resolve all of them. But that being said, I'm ready for C3, although I do hope that the next campaign is less based on political intrigue and more straightforward fantasy, because it seems like they're better at telling that kind of story, tbh.
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
Yes, I found the political intrigue to be the weakest part of Campaign Two and I hope they realize this going into the next one.
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
I saw a lot of people on twitter were upset that Caleb and Essek never overtly hooked up and blamed it on some degree of homophobia... but I honestly think that Liam just loves drama and likes to stir the pot, so he deliberately didn't push for more to keep the fandom riled up. In the first campaign I don't think he would have ever made Vax and Keyleth's relationship overt if Marisha hadn't pushed for it first.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I don't think it's a drama thing. His character is very emotionally damaged and is not yet at a stage where he would want to pursue something further. It took a lot for him to just make friends let alone think about relationships, especially with somebody who is a wanted criminal at multinational level. Liam has talked about that. Caleb actually had feelings for Jester, but did not want to pursue it at all. Plus, with Fjord and Jester and also Beau and Yasha, why push for yet another relationship? And anyone claiming homophobia are nutcases. Caleb is bi (confirmed by Liam - Caleb, Astrid and Eadwulf were in a threeway relationship in their academy days), Beau and Yasha are lesbians, Jester and Veth exhibited bi-curious tendencies, and Mollymauk was overtly bi. Caduceus was asexual. In previous campaign, both Vax and Scanlan were bi.
And as for Keyleth and Vax: Marisha wasn't the one who pushed for it. It was an idea Liam had and discussed with Matt, when Vax made his desire known Marisha was surprised. In the break that followed they discussed it with her and whether she would agree to it. She did, and so that relationship happened.
I completely disagree with the idea this ending was rushed. It doesn't even come as a surprise at all.
Fjord's journey had pretty much ended. He discovered his powers, broke free of Uk'otoa's control, and safeguarded the world from its release. He got over old hangups. Everything was pretty much done. He had the last cloven crystal safe, and we all know he was never going to do anything with it. When he met Vandren it was a nice bit of closure - but it didn't reveal anything we hadn't already known by that point. We already knew he was a hexblade warlock, we already knew he had known Avantika, and all of it. It's closure, but nothing new. Fjord's story was done long before this.
Jester's journey is the simplest because it was never about some big story arc for her. For her it was about going on adventure and maybe finding love and make friends. She did all of that. She met the traveller and who he really was, which wasn't her end goal so that's all just a bonus.
Caleb's story was about becoming a better person and moving on from the tragedy. His desire for revenge became replaced with the desire to make the world better. We saw that change happen quite some time ago. So the run-ins with the assembly, trent and his old friends were the build up to the final stand against Trent, and thus allowing the beginning of taking down the assembly. We knew we weren't going to see the assembly get taken down. It's a major part of the empire's government. That would take years, it would be a campaign on its own. So, we should never expect to see that result. We should only have expected to see that begin - and we did. So, Caleb's story was nicely resolved.
Veth's story was over many sessions ago. Her whole ambition was to become a halfling again and reunite with her family. She did that. So, there's nothing left there. She only stayed with the mighty nein to beat Lucien because it was important and had already told them she was going to stop and go back to her family. So.. Yeah, even if they continued Sam would have made a new character. People didn't really like it when he did something like that with Scanlan, also late-game, and there was no reason to do it again.
Yasha's story was resolved once Oban was defeated. She learned about her missing years, she learned about what she was, she moved on from the death of her wife, and learned to fall in love again, she broke free of her doubt and found loved ones to protect. And that all happened quite a while ago. So by this point there was literally nothing left to explore.
Mollymauk - didn't have any story beyond a mysterious past he didn't want to explore. He died and those mysteries were revealed anyway.
Caduceus - his only purpose in leaving the Grove was to save it from the corruption. It was never about stopping the corruption entirely - which shouldn't be a big surprise, it's a very big major thing, and likely not even something that could be achieved. It's like a scar left over from something big. It would be like trying to resolve the magic-affecting issues around the Aeor ruins. That was never his ambition, not that of any of the Clays. They just wanted to save their home. He did that. He was like Veth: he was basically done, and only stuck around to help with the Lucien/world-threat and if it wasn't for that he'd have gone home and stopped being an adventurer.
Beau - her family story was long since done. She didn't really have a specific story-goal. She learned to be a team-player, she fell in love, and she saw the people who "sold her off" get their comeuppance. She got over her family issues because the Nighty Nein became her family. There was nothing left to explore here.
--
Literally all their stories are done. Most of them have been for quite some time now. We also need to realise Campaign 2 has already been longer than Campaign 1 - Campaign 1 was 115 episodes covering 13 levels, Campaign 2 is 141 episodes covering 16 levels.
We also need to remember - they're still voice actors and voice directors. They still have other work and projects (which will also include the Vox Machina cartoon). They were probably ready for the campaign to finish and take time to focus on other work for a while and they had definitely reached a good end point.
Most people think the campaign wasn't ready because they were expecting the characters to go to 20th level level, but not all campaigns do and stretching it out beyond a very good finish line just for that is going to result in a poor story from then on. They had reached a great final point with every character's story completed. The fact it was 16th level is irrelevant, it was a good place to finish.
Personally, I was very pleased with the ending. The stories are done, it felt complete and left room for one-shots. Very happy with it. Hopefully there will be a Campaign 3 when the cast are ready and if covid has eased up by then, they can sit closer together again (I miss their little interactions with each other - especially Liam dodging Marisha's elbows XD).
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
I don't doubt that it was Liam who originally pushed for the Vax/Keyleth relationship, I just don't think he would have ever made it overt in any streamed content if left entirely on his own. I think he just enjoys leaving it as subtext. But honestly... he clearly pushes for drama and complicated endings. I think a good example of that is Liam's relationship with Frumpkin... Matt made it fairly clear that Frumpkin was happy to assist Caleb and considered him a friend but Liam really, really wanted the drama of Caleb releasing Frumpkin and Matt played along with it.
Anyway, I'm not bothered by Caleb and Essek never overtly dating. Honestly, it's more interesting... I think most D&D games end with, "Everyone meets their true love, is super successful at anything they want to do, and has a dozen children who will probably be the protagonists of another campaign." It's nice to have something with more nuance and complications. Plus it leaves room to revisit the characters in the future.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Honestly my only disappointment from the wrap-up was that none of them mentioned revisiting Kiri.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Liam likes making sadbois, so I'm also not surprised that he'd go for the complex, bittersweet ending.
Xenophon: Topaz Dragonborn Fighter (ixi's Dragon of Icespire Peak)
More
Very rushed IMHO. The Trent battle was kinda shoehorned in although the way it ended was cool. This campaign was over 140 episodes and we only got half the amount of time for an ending as the first. I was expecting more but am very happy with what we got. They could have gone farther with Uk'otoa as that thread just was abandoned. Never got the closure with the return of the items lent by Allura and Kima. Would have loved to see a reunion with them along with Keyleth and her mom there to show their gratitude and setup maybe the fight with Uk'otoa. What I wouldn't give to have Beau gift Grog her headband of intellect and get Keyleth to cast awaken on Trinket. Gonna be a neat one shot of the 4x4 death match but it is missing the two highest powered characters in Caleb and Keyleth. Just nitpicking though, both campaigns were just awesome and can't wait for campaign 3!
Part of it is that high level DnD is exhausting to DM and I do not blame Matt if he wanted out of it for a bit...
High level 5e is exhausting to run as most challenges are a handwave for the PCs....even the last fight they had two "deaths" but were revivified pretty easily.
They dealt like 900+ Damage to the thing and it was obvious it had a super high HP pool compared to most threats that high....and even then it was basically one hit kill attacks that provided a challenge.
Overall its just not conducive for long story form especially for a game/show that had small character focus. Most of the problems/issues people wanted to see what personal development while high level DnD pretty much askes you to do reality destroying threats and heavy intrigue to provide challenge.
I think they did an amazing job wrapping it up and I am looking forward to C3 though!
I liked the ending well enough, but I thought the campaign in general ran long enough to become boring. Cyb3rM1nd is correct that pretty much everything was wrapped up months ago.
She/Her College Student Player and Dungeon Master
I liked it, the idea to do these scenes as sort of "ending screens" the way it has been classically done in older cRPGs was good.
This campaign was longer than C1 on air but probably about the same length (if not shorter) in total time considering C1 started when they were higher levels after home game.
I am genuinely excited for new project announcements that were hinted and for C3 :)
Oh and I really, REALLY hope that in that VM vs M9 one shot someone will take away Liam's phone xD