Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I come to you one dungeon mastering session older and hopefully wiser, having tackled my campaign’s second session, and the first including our entire four member party. The dynamic was significantly more chaotic with four players, mainly because that fourth player is the embodiment of chaos itself, but I think I did pretty okay. Bounties were pursued, festivals were attended, and the whole gang found themselves embroiled in some kind of folk horror forest ritual situation. With me being me, I’m sure it’s no surprise that my first setpiece is drawing heavily from The Wicker Man and its spooky compatriots.

Our second session also provided plenty of trial-by-fire lessons for me, ranging from the diverse nature of player investment to the setting of expectations regarding player agency. Successful DMing requires paying close attention to player desires, and often coming to understand what they want better than they themselves do. In our last campaign, our DM attempted to ameliorate Captain Chaos with more mechanical tools, which only slowed down gameplay – in our campaign, I’ve instead been giving him greater range of creative self-expression, which has resulted in player satisfaction with no added complexity. On the other hand, my initial use of a heist quest to debut the game has set some perhaps untenable expectations regarding players’ ability to pre-scope any combat encounter, which may result in some inescapable friction down the line.

It’s all an impossibly complex network of mechanical, creative, and personal concerns, all of which only makes me more impressed by Mercer and crew’s ability to navigate this conceptual labyrinth. Last episode saw Percy assuming his destined mantle of Savior of Whitestone, only to immediately about-face back into his Dark Avenger persona. Such deliberately anti-party-unity behavior makes for great drama, but difficult campaign writing, making me further suspect that Mercer and Percy’s player essentially co-wrote this whole arc. The dungeon master’s guide suggests DMs create separate results for success, partial success, and failure in any event, but with all respect to the dungeon master’s guide, that’s fucking stupid and not at all the way stories work. Complex narratives require some degree of player predictability, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on how Mercer fixes the scales as we continue our journey. Let’s get back to Vox Machina!

Episode 10

Percy’s gun helpfully informs us that this woman is Dr. Ripley, a key conspirator in the fall of Percy’s family who literally plunged the knife into his mother’s neck. So, some hard feeling there

She was also the Blackbriar’s go-to torturer, inflicting horrific wounds on Percy and his sister in an effort to unlock the secrets of Whitestone. I mean, yeah, this woman should probably be executed? Not seeing a Disney redemption in her future

Cassandra diverts his shot, but for an understandable reason: Ripley likely has information they can use

She pushes his shot aside a second time, asking that he instead consider interrogation. Between this episode and the last one, it actually seems pretty clear how Mercer is guiding this narrative: Cassandra is his player avatar, pushing Percy’s player towards the most dramatically satisfying outcomes. Percy’s tendency towards more dramatic acts of character agency is actually a great asset to this overall player party, but it needs to be guided in order to avoid resulting in narrative dead ends. A character like Cassandra, whom Percy has airtight in-universe reasons to respect and obey, is the perfect tool for ensuring this narrative resolves in a dramatically coherent fashion

Of course, a tool like Cassandra must be employed with care. If a non-player character ends up guiding all your party’s actions, the party will stop feeling like they have any control or input in their own adventure. But given Cassandra is Percy’s sister, Mercer is here essentially offering one form of creativity in place of another, giving Percy’s player the opportunity to expand on his roleplaying of his relationship with Cass. For another player, this wouldn’t necessarily feel like a proper “payoff,” because they’re not particularly invested in the fiction of their character – but given Percy’s player clearly loves roleplaying, it’s a perfect choice here

Gosh these systems are complicated. That’s something I’ll need to consider more in my own game – what specific dramatic or mechanical tools I can employ that can express meaningful leverage on each of my specific players

Scanlan tells Percy that “we gotta deal with this smoke thing, you’re legit fucked up.” One of the tools Scanlan’s attitude can provide: he cuts through roleplay like a hatchet through brush, plainly stating “what the fuck is up with your character right now”

Pike gives Percy a quick magical cat scan, divining that some dark spirit is clouding his soul. Presumably this spirit will take hold of him during the faceoff with the Briarwoods

“Their concerns lie with the ziggurat.” Man, it’s always some goddamn ziggurat. Never met a ziggurat I could trust

“The ziggurat is not up, but down.” Worse and worse! Underground ziggurats are pretty much universally some form of callback to At the Mountains of Madness and similar works of cosmic horror, promising terrifying friezes of unspeakable creatures and maddening non-Euclidean geometries

Up on the surface, the villagers are beginning their assault on the castle. It’s generally good D&D form to send the player party on special missions that separate them from any larger military forces; having the DM control fifty characters in some grand melee slows things down tremendously, and also diminishes the players’ sense of importance and agency. Better to just have all that stuff happen off-screen

Getting some nice background art as we approach the ziggurat, though this production continues to be a bit awkwardly dark on the whole

“The party follows the tunnel for some time” provides a tidy chance for some character arc check-ins, with Grog and Pike reaffirming their friendship while Vax sulks about being rejected to his sister. For a party as roleplay-heavy as this, I suppose it makes sense to provide moments of party reflection in the midst of such an externally focused arc

Of course, you gotta keep up a steady stream of action too, thus necessitating a quick stop by the de Rolos’ recently reanimated family tomb

Grog and Vax get a nice moment where Grog insists Vax comment on his burly muscles. A little bit of a character like Grog can go a long way, but he’s used sparingly enough here that it’s always welcome to see him interacting with someone other than Pike

“Dumb suggestion, Keyleth.” “Yeah, I’m really disappointed in you, Keyleth.” Grog is also very good at picking up the ball when it comes to other characters’ silly jokes. He and Scanlan have great natural chemistry

Aw shit, Cassandra betrayed them! Certainly a dramatic trick, but one that must be used sparingly, lest the players stop investing in any NPCs you present them with. Your players should never feel like they’re being punished for engaging with your world

Cassandra’s eyes gleam with a green light as she turns away, emphasizing she is in some way under the Briarwoods’ control. This helps lessen the sting of Cass’ flip – Mercer seeded this power ages ago, all the way back when the Briarwoods visited the capital

And thus the party finds themselves stuck in a goddamn acid trap

With Vax gone, Vex takes over leadership, attempting to rally the team into shape. This is a good natural turn for her character – she’s used to trusting only in her brother, but this arc is forcing her to believe in and even serve as the rallying point for her other teammates

The acid trap provides another fine opportunity for each party member to provide a unique role in overcoming a larger challenge. Environmental puzzles like this seem tricky to balance, but very satisfying to execute for the party

And Done

Excellent work, team! The player party really outdid themselves this time, making the most of a relative lull in the external drama to attend to all of their various inter-party relationships. For as much as any DM will try to arrange events in order to construct a satisfying narrative and player experience, it’s always ultimately the players that will decide the tenor of a campaign, and Vox Machina have collectively established a robust and charming group dynamic. Meanwhile, Mercer’s skillful use of characters like Archibald, Ripley, and Cassandra is giving me all sorts of ideas regarding the successful implementation and application of non-player characters. I’ll learn to guide my own unruly players yet!

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