Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am just pleased as punch to be returning to The Legend of Vox Machina, and continuing alongside the DnD-derived adventures of our intrepid heroes. The first season proved to be a delightful experience on the whole, with the party’s confidence as a unit seeming to echo its players’ growing confidence in guiding them, all leading up to a dynamite fusion of resolving player arcs and murder-rich visual theater.
That season also offered me plenty of food for thought regarding my own nascent dungeon mastering, though I’ve of course still got a long, long way to go. Humility established, I’m also quite proud to have completed the first act of my own campaign, having guided my players from unknown adventurers to local heroes of the realm, with a continent on the brink of war now stretched out before them. Having spent much of December and January plotting out upcoming quests, I’m eager to see how my players confound my expectations and muck up my best-laid efforts. We literally just conducted the first session of act two last week, so this seems like the perfect time to hop back into Vox Machina, and see how Mercer and his crew grapple with the peculiarities of this collaborative medium. Let’s get to it!
Episode 1
We return right where we left, with the King of Emon praising Vox Machina and ceding control to the Tal’Dorei council. It’s frankly not too surprising to me that a fleet of dragons attacks directly following this announcement; city councils sound nice, but it’s a real hassle making them feel like a coherent group of personalities without undercutting the primacy of the player group, and tend to necessitate lots of those unfortunate moments where the dungeon master is holding a conversation with themself. My own campaign’s second act opened with a meeting of the city’s top leaders in the wake of a major attack, and it was exceedingly tricky to push the conversation forward while ensuring the players felt like key participants. Whether it pertains to authority figures or temporary party companions, consolidating groups of non-player characters into single characters generally makes for more DnD-amenable storytelling
Additionally, Mercer might just not want to boost these characters straight from noble scoundrels to heroes of the realm. If the realm you saved goes under five minutes after you saved it, the party maintains their outsider status – though of course, giving the players a gift and then taking it away is always a risky proposition. I learned from my first campaign as a player how dangerous it can be to overshoot with what you provide the party, necessitating eventual patches that feel like the dungeon master stealing from the players
The dragon fleet attacks! Smart use of the blinding sunlight here; it makes obvious tactical sense for the dragons to attack from this blind spot, but the glare of the sun serves a neat second purpose in obscuring the rough edges of these CG dragons
Equally clever use of this CG model of the main castle, which never dominates the frame, but effectively establishes the perspective for this ambitious panning cut of a dragon sweeping around it
And of course, plenty of Vox Machina’s reliable post-processing effects, like motion blur and dust filters
“Emon shall fall!” shouts one dragon, before blasting the king with poison breath. The table has been cleared!
It’s a reliable, elegant trick: use the necessary clearing of a prior adventure’s variables to set up the menace of the next threat
The council is swiftly obliterated, and Vax briefly notices a dark humanoid figure in the wreckage. Between that and the ringing in Vex’s head that precipitated this attack, it seems like we’re gearing up for a twins-focused adventure
Man, this city is getting crushed. That does sound like a fun quest concept – I ended my first act with a desperate city defense, but simply fleeing a doomed city might offer even more deliciously apocalyptic challenges
“Raishan enjoys the taste of fear.” Half the crew runs into another dragon, and swiftly realizes they are completely outgunned. This is a scenario I’m still a little hesitant to run in my own campaign: a moment where the party realizes they can’t win, and thus flees instead. It’s a common narrative trick, but it requires the party realizing and accepting they’ve been presented with a challenge they’re not actually capable of overcoming, which is a dicey bending of the dungeon master’s unspoken promise to the players. Beats like “the enemy’s so strong that Grog’s ax shatters upon them” are common in fantasy, but a little more questionable when the Grog in question has spent hours investing in that ax. It’s quite likely that I’ve actually been leaning too far in the other direction, and thus undercutting the players’ sense of threat and consequence, but I’m hesitant to abuse my players’ trust in the challenges I set before them, and likely need to establish a precedent of “sometimes it’s best to run away” in a less consequential context than a scene like this
The head dragon introduces himself as Thordak, The Cinder King. The show does an excellent job of conveying his menace through this ominous backlighting, which basically presents him as a shadow surrounded by flames (and not-so-incidentally helps smooth the transition between CG and drawn backgrounds)
I suppose this whole sequence is essentially providing that “you can’t win this now” precedent on a grander narrative level. Having seen what’s happening to this city, there presumably won’t be any question of Vox Machina attempting to march up and fight the Cinder King anytime soon
Welp, the city’s a molten ruin. Man, and we just saved this city!
Thordak further states the survivors are now under the rule of the Chroma Conclave. DnD dragons are generally characterized as a solitary lot, but storyteller invention should never cede to on-book convention; the books are there to provide a scaffolding if you desire one, not to limit the scope of your fantasies
The group reconvene at Gilmore’s, which is now a smoking wreck
Gilmore’s ruined shop provides an interesting method of offering loot for the prior adventure: with the building destroyed, the party are given permission to take whatever they can carry. It’s a strained union of action and consequence (this is essentially the loot reward for saving Whitestone, a town Gilmore has never been to), but players rarely complain while they’re being offered fabulous riches
The party is warped back to their estate in the nick of time. It seems the estate is far enough away from the city to have avoided the dragon attack, which answers my concern regarding Mercer potentially blowing up the party’s first major quest reward
Gilmore points out the clearly malevolent nature of the sword Grog found by the ziggurat. Just keeping that evil sword on a low simmer, ready to cause some mischief whenever it’s dramatically appropriate
Keyleth raises the reasonable question of whether this is revenge for them killing Brimscythe. Good character-reflective contribution, echoing both her link with animals and her generally apologetic nature. I’ll be interested to see how Keyleth’s general roleplaying develops in the wake of her side arc from last season; playing the role a quest requires is one thing, but consistently performing the confidence that quest allegedly instilled is quite another
A knock on the gates reveals a line of refugees, giving this tragedy a human face right before the ice dragon flies in to kill everyone. Well, there goes the party’s estate, too! It’s certainly a way of establishing consequences, but boy am I ever hesitant to accomplish that by stealing the party’s nice things. Our fighter’s magic sword got broken in our first campaign, and that act basically broke trust in the campaign as well
I’m really curious as to how Mercer conceptualized this battle as Keyleth attempts to open a portal to Whitestone. Obviously the party can’t beat this dragon, so I assume there was a turn clock the party had to survive through, offering distractions or deftly avoiding attacks until Keyleth finished her work
The party retreats to Whitestone. We’re certainly avoiding much narrative bloat this way; I could probably use a lesson or two myself in avoiding character creep, but it’s just so fun to make new characters!
Keyleth once again serves as the conscience of the group, saying their status as Protectors of the Realm means they’re obligated to help out
The party is pointed towards Vasselheim, “the oldest and most defensible city in the world”
Scanlan has no confidence the group can fight these dragons. His player’s always been one of the most eager to roleplay, and it’s fun to see that instinct applied in a dramatically impactful direction like this, as he plays out the classic internal conflict of coming to believe he is capable of greatness
Dawn breaking over Whitestone provides just the argument Scanlan needed, as the group gaze out over the city and people that they undeniably saved
And so the party sets forth for Vasselheim!
And Done
God damn it is good to be back! Apparently my time away has only filled me with even more rambling dungeon-related opinions, and it was a delight to apply my continuing efforts to this ever-charming adventure. The essence of DnD is community, and with me being me, I can’t help but want to draw that sense of community backstage, and collectively share in the fascination of exploring the craft of the medium. These articles are thus a unique privilege for me, and I’m happy to see season two opening with the biggest narrative fireworks display imaginable. The kingdom is in ruins, dragons stalk the skies, and I couldn’t be happier. Ride on, Vox Machina!
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