Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to grab my dice and roll back into The Legend of Vox Machina, wherein our party are currently facing potential tragedy in the Tomb of Purvan. Having established both our seasonal character conflict (Vax’s overprotective feelings towards his sister, and her resultant frustration), as well as the fact that we’re exploring a monument to the Goddess of Death, we concluded the last episode by entwining those two threads. Vax got fussy, Vex got angry, and one hasty tomb check later, it appears our half-elven heroine has gotten herself killed. Maybe your brother had a bit of a point, Vex?

All in all, Vox Machina’s new adventure is proceeding swimmingly. Beyond that, I’m happy to report my own house campaign is also going well, and we’ve run through three successful sessions since I last checked in. With the party traveling through a particularly post-apocalyptic territory, I ran through first a Seven Samurai-style base defense, then a good old-fashioned battledome, and finally a riverboat gambling scenario, wherein my party had to dispose of a hijacker and ford a river brimming with flesh-eating manatees (“maneaties”). All of these adventures served as experiments in encounter design – first an encounter that’s being fought on two fronts, then an encounter with limited sightlines, and finally an encounter comprising both a normal battle map and a larger ship to be navigated. All three experiments were a success, and I’m eager to apply all this new technology to future quests, but that’ll be a story for next time. For now, let’s check in with Vox Machina, and see what can be done for Vex!

Episode 4

We unsurprisingly open on another flashback featuring the twins, back when Vax saved his sister from what appears to be a group of bandits. The two hide in a cage as a bandit passes, and end up mercy-killing a terribly wounded bear, then discovering it has a child. I’d assume that makes this Trinket’s origin story

“Sometimes you have to embrace what’s in front of you, not fight it.” Vex’s words speak to one of the clearest points of separation between these twins. Vax is pretty much always in fight-or-flight mode, more concerned with keeping his existing family safe than interacting with the external world. Vex wants more from life than that, and thus she’s constantly pushing back against Vax’s defensive attitude, even when his caution is actually warranted. That’s elegant stuff – their distinct perspectives offer both natural points of conflict for the pair, as well as obvious potential characters arcs: Vax learning to open up to the world more, and Vex learning that caution is sometimes appropriate, and you can’t handle everything yourself

I’ll never get over Percy’s Ebata Walk in the opening. Studio Grackle knew exactly what they were doing

Ooh, nice composition leading us back into the main narrative. I appreciate how the thick fog to the rear of this scene silhouettes the characters in the foreground, creating visual contrast and preventing that muddled, too-dark look that sometimes obscures the composition

“We could try resurrecting her.” “A revival rite?” “Yeah, but it’s hard as hell, so we gotta do it while the body’s still warm.” Another intriguing and fantasy-appropriate challenge that I’d personally struggle to articulate as satisfying mechanical drama. I’m hesitant to have an entire character journey hang on whether or not someone rolls decently in a single situation – I want my players’ journey to be guided by the players themselves (or at least my actual narrative intent), not just “well, I rolled a seven, so I guess you’re dead forever.” I’m sure Mercer has implemented several failsafes to ensure Vex doesn’t actually die here (the fact that NPC Kash suggested this means we’re already being heavily steered by Mercer), but I consistently struggle with the inherent fault lines of attempting to construct coherent narrative drama while respecting the consequences of unreliable dice rolls

Vax spies what appears to be the Matron of Ravens herself ensuring that Kash’s spell fails. I see, so we truly are on a rollercoaster at this moment – the players are free to respond to this however they wish, but the ride’s only going in one direction. Fortunately, directing by authorial fiat like this works reasonably okay when your players mostly just want to express their character personalities

Vax begs the Matron to take him instead. In response, she cuts the golden string connecting the twins, but appears to grant mercy to Vex, and even grants Vax her vestige armor. It appears you’ve been accepted as a champion of the Goddess of Death, Vax! That’s certainly one way of tying his personal fear of loss in with the developing external drama

That also makes more sense of the mechanical wishy-washiness of this whole encounter. Deals with gods, particularly if those gods are woven into the ongoing drama of your narrative, rarely fit cleanly within DnD’s fight-explore-negotiate paradigm

Man, Mercer must like ravens, huh? That’s our second monstrous raven deity in two seasons!

As the party prepare to exit, Vax spies a wall carving depicting “the Calamity,” and receives a vision of terrible, towering beings residing over a field of slaughter

Alongside some delightful eldritch designs, Vax also receives a couple clues regarding their current quest. Prophecy is a neat trick in DnD; you generally want the characters to follow a specific narrative without feeling like they’re being led by the nose, and prophecy essentially lets the DM make a puzzle of following their orders. By setting a certain prophecy, the players will pursue your clues willingly in order to fulfill it

Zahra has decided she’s done fucking around, and summons some awful creature to kill the party

It’s got one giant eye and too many tentacles, and immediately sends the party diving for cover. Nice multiplanar panning cut as Percy strafes while firing at it – they’re doing a very good job of maintaining a sense of physical space within this chamber

And that sense of space is immediately put to dramatic use, as we see Grog’s attempted leap at this creature interrupted halfway across the room. Spatial dynamics are a key element of DnD combat, and I’m impressed to see that transferring over to this conflict

Vax slips into another fantasy, this time fighting the Matron of Ravens’ champion Purvan. It appears he has to earn his new status by beating her old guardian

And a nice chaotic flurry of attacks, as the room is briefly scorched, frozen, smashed, and Scanlan’s Handed, all to zero effect. An effective dramatic presentation of a full turn cycle of wasted strikes

Kash decides he’s had enough of tormenting the party, and jumps into help, followed by Zahra. She predictably has a bit of trouble returning her captured beasty to its cage, and ends up being the next fighter to be petrified

Are we getting some smears for Vax’s duel? They really are upping the ante visually this season

It seems like this is Mercer’s version of that “battle on two fronts” concept I mentioned in the intro. Here, the fact that Vax is stuck in a one-on-one duel in an open plane means his fight needs no physical layout, and can be conducted purely through an exchange of words, in sharp contrast with the spatially defined battle against this tentacle beast. The one-on-one dual also simplifies combat order – I assume Purvan was just slotted in directly before or after Vax, keeping their exchanges simple, and avoiding continuous jumping between the two fronts

As the fight continues, it seems clear this is an event the party is destined to fail, only to be saved by Vax’s awakening to his new powers. Another trick I’m generally wary of exploiting, as it once again takes agency out of the players’ hands, and furthermore frames all of their choices in the preceding battle as meaningless. Obviously fine with a party that mostly just cares about the narrative, but I’ve played too many games where I bashed my head against some boss I was “supposed” to lose to, and I know my player party well enough to understand I can’t pull a trick like that without them losing some investment

Vex’s shade gives Vax some key words of advice: “Whatever happens, it’s out of our control.” Only by accepting the inevitability of death is Vax able to complete this challenge, and assume his mantle as the new champion

Certainly makes sense for a rogue to be the goddess of death’s champion. And as he returns to the main fight, we see he’s been granted a power that’s perfect both for a rogue generally and for this battle specifically: some sort of high-powered mobility option, that allows him to dance through this monster’s area control

Designing and bequeathing these sorts of boons has been a fun aspect of my own campaign design. Rather than just give people powerful but generic loot, I’ve been trying to sculpt and improve signature tools that reflect the preferences and personal stories of all my players’ characters. Our last campaign ran into some awkward “tyranny of choice” issues where we had too many tools to choose from, so I’ve been trying to steer towards fewer but more impactful pieces of loot

Vax kicks an immense amount of ass, truly a “this will obliterate the game balance going forward” amount of ass, but it’s acceptable here because he’s literally standing in the temple of his goddess. I actually quite like that – allowing characters to be situationally overpowered, depending on their resonance with some particular area or its deities. I’ll have to steal that one!

As apology for attempting to kill them with a giant tentacle monster, Zahra gives Vex her pocket dimension doohickey. All is forgiven!

This gift also solves a more practical problem: their constant need to leave the bear outside when they visit no-bears-allowed locations. I granted my half-spider player a similar “look like someone who’s not a half-spider” boon

And as the twins reflect on these new developments, a mysterious figure watches through a crystal ball!

And Done

Oof, that was an action-packed episode! And where the first season’s action tended to be pretty conservative animation-wise, this one was positively brimming with ambitious cuts, realizing every phase of that tentacle beast battle with fluid movement and dynamic storyboarding. There was also plenty to sink my teeth in mechanically-speaking; Mercer necessarily placed his hand on the wheel in order to establish Vax’s new arc, and I appreciated the various ways he worked to disguise the inevitability of this new turn. Plus that trick of briefly empowering Vax due to his resonance with the temple… I’m happy there’s still plenty worth poaching in these rambling escapades. Onward to the next sphinx!

This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.