out-there-on-the-maroon:

vohalika:

dathen:

Everyone enjoys stories differently, but all the posts I see insisting this is a perfect narrative beat and the players shouldn’t be given a chance to fix it because “it teaches the characters their mortality” confuse me a lot in the context of this group

These characters are VERY aware of their own mortality, except for probably Beau and Jester.  Especially compared to campaign 1, they’re cautious and almost timid, and “is this something we’re willing to literally die for” often comes up whenever they are asked for help.  The arc here isn’t that they’re these brazen, feckless heroes who need to be taken down a notch or two–they’re selfish people who are slowly teaching each other to be less selfish, and their growth is shown in how they’re slowly becoming more and more willing to risk themselves for other people.  Episode 26 was a milestone of this growth, as this group that began as barely finding excuses to stick around each other push themselves to exhaustion running straight towards extreme danger because they’ve grown to care so much how did this happen how did these people become family

That growth isn’t something that needs to be punished.  This doesn’t need to be Game of Thrones.  Lorenzo may have wanted to make an example out of Mollymauk, but that doesn’t mean that Matt Mercer does.

Caleb had a goddamn Shakespearean monologue about this concept. Just this very episode. You can’t be any more literal in explaining the character motivations and themes than that. And yet, watching comprehension is apparently a rare skill indeed.

Yeah I’m not at all a fan of the people sneering “this will teach them a lesson!” … what kind of lesson is that? Don’t try and save your friends, don’t care about your fellow teammates, don’t be heroes? Wait, and let them be tortured and fearful and alone for days and days? Risk them being “broken” by an especially sadistic band of slavers and sold off? That’s not a good lesson, nor one I think Matt would teach in his game. 

This is the first episode where someone called the team a “family.” Where a bunch of pretty selfish people, self-admitted “assholes” pushed themselves to exhaustion, twice, to catch up to their kidnapped friends. 2 weeks ago they’d never have done that for these people (except Molly would have for Yasha but they were longtime friends already.) This is behavior that should be encouraged, not sneered at and crushed. 

“Feelings are stupid, minmix everything and never get attached to a character” ain’t the kind of D&D this is. That’s never been the kind of D&D this is. I’m baffled that a lot of people still think that’s the kind of D&D this is.

I’m baffled some people will watch 141 3+ hour episodes of something and still rage about Marisha’s general existence, but here we go again every other week. People are weird.