Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am ridiculously impatient to get back to Vox Machina, and see what our ramshackle adventuring party is up to. I doubt it’s been all that long on your end since our last Vox installment, but for me, I’ve been waiting three damn months to check in with this crew. Vox Machina is just too interesting of a concept, and so I got a little over-enthusiastic with my initial rampage of writeups, meaning it’s taken me months to justify throwing more Vox pieces on my buffer pile.

As it turns out though, this interminable wait has led to my return lining up with a particularly auspicious real-world counterpoint. Today is the day I’ll be starting my own D&D campaign, and finally taking over the DM reigns for something longer than a one-off adventure. At last, I’ll be able to shift from the theoretical criticism of “I’m pretty sure this is something our DM messed up” to the clarity of “this is something I definitely messed up,” and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve spent the last few weeks pounding out thousands of words of backstory and worldbuilding, have developed roughly half a dozen quest lines for my players to enjoy, and have no doubt they will disregard all this work in favor of hanging out with a drunk gnoll named Sparky who I made up on the spot. That’s the fun of DMing, I am told, and I wouldn’t have it any other way – crafting a campaign for a group of unruly players is like trying to plot a novel while people throw dodgeballs at your head, and what activity isn’t improved by the threat of physical violence?

Anyway, my own collaborative adventures aside, I’m eager to see how Vox Machina are faring as well. I can’t imagine Percy is taking the apparent death of his sister gracefully, and presume we’re in for a fit of rage that even Grog might consider a little much. Let’s get to it!

Episode 8

We open by checking back in with Pike, who’s still off praying to that dang Everlight for guidance. I imagine even non-D&D-savvy audiences had to have realized there was something a little off about this whole divergence; no force of narrative necessity drove Pike here, just a conflict that was invented the moment Pike needed some time off. It can be easy to overlook the importance of narrative continuity and consequence in stories that already embody those virtues – but when a story like this is forced to disregard them, the friction of their absence is abundantly clear

There are a variety of ways to fix this sense of narrative disjointedness, but few of them are applicable to an ongoing narrative where the past is set in stone – ie, any sort of ongoing, staggered-release work of fiction. If this were a novel, the fix would likely be applied prior to this whole situation, with Pike’s growing distance from the Everlight seeded over a series of prior encounters. Another solution would be to isolate Pike in a way that has more relevance to the ongoing narrative – like her being captured by the current enemy, or struck down by some magical curse that the party must now banish. But D&D is a tricky vehicle to patch up, as you need to apply any revisions while the story is still continuing on its course

While attempting to connect with the Everlight, Pike is nearly consumed by some tar-like black energy

And post-OP, Cass continues to be dying, as Keyleth desperately works to stop the bleeding

In narrative terms, this serves as a further crucible for Keyleth, continuing her trial-by-fire process of growing into a proper replacement healer for the team. In gameplay terms, this is a pretty clever way to turn the theoretically passive job of team healer into an active challenge with clear dramatic stakes – “save a key character from dying under a time limit” is a neat test of their mechanical abilities

Percy chases Anders into another chamber. The inherently Percy-focused nature of this arc presumably created some mechanical challenges. Alex Mercer seems unusually willing to let his characters tackle solo challenges (like Scanlan’s adventure last time), which feels like a concession the overall playgroup made to the preeminence of coherent storytelling over equal participation. Not surprising, considering they’re playing for an audience and not just their own enjoyment

I do like how Mercer’s making an extended, obstruction-heavy battlefield of this whole manor. With such a large party of characters, splitting battles into subsections makes a lot of sense, giving everyone more of a significant role in their own sub-battle

Some nice digital effects for Keyleth’s spell drawing energy from around her. The fight animation is also quite strong this episode; the composite’s always a little iffy, but the choreography is excellent

I say “the composite’s iffy,” but to be honest the composite is generally this good or worse for basically any piece of modern western animation. The field simply isn’t built in the same way anime is, with its tightly knit core teams of animation directors and key animators, and its increasing exploration of how to recreate cinematic cohesion through digital means

I do appreciate this show’s approximation of hand-cam unsteadiness for moments of great panic, though

Anders has licked his lips more than enough times for me to guess where this episode’s “The Silver Tongue” title comes from, he can stop doing it now

Apparently that tongue allows him to charm folks, and now Grog is hell-bent on killing the team

Ooh damn, some gorgeous compositions as a great sun erupts over Pike’s sea of tar

A crisis of faith is a classic conflict for a priest or paladin, but it requires a specific type of player. I imagine Grog or Scanlan’s players wouldn’t be particularly invested in this questline – both of them hover somewhere above total immersion in the fiction of the text, expressing themselves more through quips than character acting. Pike’s player seems significantly more invested in the fiction here, so a “conflict” that’s essentially just a discussion between her and the DM about lore questions actually suits her style of engagement. In the abstract, I’d be worried about demanding players care about a bunch of lore nonsense I made up, and thus let their cues guide how significant a role such things play

Keyleth attempts to reason with Grog, utterly failing to understand how the Charm spell works

Though to be honest, if a player party is determined to make “the voices of his friends can break the spell” work, I’d be inclined to agree with them. Mechanics are important, but as long as they’re not requesting anything balance-breaking, intuitive player reasoning should generally take precedence

A nice character development beat here, with Keyleth and Vex working together on a combo attack. Vex will learn to trust Keyleth yet!

Also some excellent voice acting from Vax, as he bemoans the classic frustration of a monster that only seems interested in chasing you specifically

Welp, now the whole party except Percy has been mind controlled. Taking away player agency this dramatically is an incredibly risky proposition, so I imagine this will just take a moment

Yep! Percy pulls off an incredible trick shot, and shoots that lying tongue right out of Anders’ mouth. I’d hate to imagine how this scene would have ended if he hadn’t rolled a natural twenty there – it’s a tricky thing to create convincing “we escaped by a hair’s breadth” situations in D&D, as a bad roll could always mean you don’t leap free before the dynamite explodes. I’m still trying to sort out how to engineer convincing versions of that situation myself

Anders is down, and Cass is alive! A very deliberate cut of Percy dropping his mask and gun as he rushes to Cass’ side, underlining how his love of his sister is the human core that can dispel whatever demons now ride within him

The Briarwoods apparently have some plan for the solstice five days hence

“I’ve always wanted to try this.” Both Keyleth and Keyleth’s player are seeming more confident by the minute, with the character’s arc of growing into a key member of the party echoing her player’s increasing willingness to take center stage. A very neat trick!

“Kind of terrified, kind of impressed.” And another welcome beat of Vex acknowledging Keyleth’s competency

Meanwhile, the Briarwoods are up to some bad business involving a dead steward and blood magic. Ah, they’re summoning a zombie horde, of course

And Pike is at last getting honest, admitting her fears that having bawdy fun with the party have made her unworthy of the Everlight’s grace. The Everlight promptly responds that That’s stupid, and you should learn to live a little

And Done

Aw shit, we’ve got zombies. Well, zombies are frankly nothing new, but that episode did provide us with all manner of welcome developments across the party. I appreciate the subtle work Vex’s player is doing to progress her character’s relationship with Keyleth – the twins have felt like two of the party’s most confident players from the start, and it’s delightful to see that confidence applied to sculpting richer relationships with the other player characters. I’m also eager to see our newly reinvigorated Pike rejoin the team, as her relationship with Scanlan feels like a fascinating bridge between the party’s more earnest and irreverent players. And in non-structural-commentary news, that episode was also just fun as hell, full of exciting fights and rewarding character moments. With the party seeming more unified by the moment, I’m eager to see how the de Rolo saga ends!

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