Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be diving back into The Legend of Vox Machina, and seeing how our ragtag heroes are faring in the wake of their battle with an active volcano. Keyleth’s literal trial by fire proved an excellent vehicle for improving her confidence, with the distinctions in form between this task and the Briarwoods arc demonstrating the importance of tailoring your conflicts to the players they’re prioritizing.
Percy’s trial spanned a full arc, involved a massive amount of active roleplaying, and resolved in more of an emotional victory than a tangible, mechanical one: an ambitious demand for any player, and thus a challenge that could only be set before a particularly confident one. In contrast, Keyleth’s victory was more sidequest than main arc, its challenges mostly involved performing well in combat, and its conclusion was marked by the super-tangible awarding of fire mastery, all choices better-suited to a player who needs some encouragement, and perhaps doesn’t want to be put on the spot for big speeches. You can theoretically apply a generic adventure to any party, but the best adventures involve meeting your players where they’re most comfortable, and giving them the tools needed to shine in their own way.
Well, that’s the theory, anyway. I’ve been doing my best to apply that logic to my own campaign: my lore-focused player has been deeply integrated into the political tides of the region, my mechanics-focused player has been given lots of flexible combat abilities to express himself with, and my shy player has been afforded more skill-based abilities so they don’t have to roleplay as much. My only real problem at the moment is the player who thinks DnD is a comedy improv hour, and we’re, uh, working on that. But enough about me, let’s get back to Vox Machina!
Episode 6
We open on a scene of Grog and his Craven Edge slicing the heck out of dudes in a vast arena, cheered on by a stadium’s worth of other goliaths. Man, I wish my players could constrain themselves to classes as book-adjacent as goliaths – after the disastrous off-book complexity of my first campaign as player, I was determined to stick to the fundamentals for my own campaign, and instead ended up with a lobster man and a spider centaur
Grog’s fantasy ends with the rest of Vox Machina dead by his blade, and another goliath named Kevdak saying “you’ve made the herd proud,” before he wakes from his nightmare. Like with the flashback framing device last episode, I assume this is a show-original moment designed to make the introduction of Grog’s backstory feel less abrupt, and also more closely tether that backstory to the Craven Edge narrative
You sort of have to expect a certain degree of “and then this entirely new conflict emerges” episodic storytelling in tabletop DnD, as the DM and party are collectively building the story one action at a time, as opposed to following a predetermined script. But scripted drama demands a sense of consequence and inevitability to avoid feeling like random shit happening, and implanting these flashbacks or visions is a tidy way to create that sense of consequence without entirely rewriting the narrative
Smart of them to frame the threat of the Craven Edge in terms of how it might bring harm to Pike. Grog is largely a chaotic, comedy-focused presence, but his relationship with Pike is a sturdy piece of earnest drama
Lots of nice Grog expressions as he argues with his sword. Full DnD sessions can tease out nuances of characterization across long conversations, but no show could afford that pacing, so expressive faces are crucial to make up for missing dialogue
“You notice Grog acting strange?” “I mean, he’s real dumb. It’s kinda hard to tell.”
We get a variety of relational check-in beats as the crew marches – first Pike chastising Scanlan for never taking things seriously, then Keyleth attempting to cheer Vax up regarding his new armor. These kind of inter-party dynamics are presumably easier to sculpt when you’ve got a pool of professional actors – I should probably work on designing more challenges that require explicit cooperation between character specialties to accomplish, as it feels a little strange for the party members to only develop bonds with NPCs, rather than each other
We arrive at Rimecleft, a mountain that, true to its name, appears to have been cleaved in two. Once again, a geographic setpiece with a clear, defining visual feature
Extremely good charmed Keyleth expression in the back as Percy awkwardly gives Vex his coat
The party comes across an ominous monolith covered in ancient runes, giving Percy a chance to flex that fancy education of his
DnD is an imperfect language for expressing physical action and personal expertise, but those “imperfections” are also what facilitate comfortable, easy-to-understand gamified player responses. It’s certainly been a learning process for me, coming to better realize top-down design concepts through DnD’s language in order to make it easy for the players to find ways to express themselves. I’m not sure I’ll ever be fluent enough in DnD mechanical language to stop thinking “okay, here’s my narrative idea, now how do I translate it into DnD,” but I’m trying!
Percy’s translation gives Vex an idea, leading her to find the temple’s hidden door. Yep, here’s exactly that sort of natural mechanical collaboration I should be striving for
Vax’s bond with the Matron of Ravens informs him that this temple precedes the Divergence, the war between gods and men. You might think it’s more work to create your own religious background and pantheon like Mercer did here, but I frankly found that far more workable than attempting to reach any sort of fluency in DnD’s own infinitely nested lore. Far easier to make the gods of your world resonate with the specific story you’re telling, as with this artifacts of divergence quest
They find the sphinx, Kamaljiori, who unsurprisingly has a challenge for them
He’s kind enough to offer them a choice: defeat the 70 Death Gorgons, complete the Labyrinth of Agony, or wound him. Man, I know you’re supposed to go with the third option, but I just would not be able to resist that Labyrinth of Agony. I love a good labyrinth!
Funny how in terms of DnD, “don’t threaten me with a good time” is actually an important lesson
For once we actually get a bit of the party discussing their options, rather than proceeding with decidedly un-DnD-like confidence
“Each of you will have an attempt to wound me in a one-on-one battle.” Forcing your party to take turns and simply spectate like this is inherently risky, but here it seems fine because it’s not actually that different from a regular battle, with every player taking their “turn” and then retreating
Lots of nice effects animation for this Sphinx’s laser eyes. And the twins are swiftly dispatched!
Grog follows, with the sphinx repeating that “you don’t know where your strength comes from” line from his last arena duel. Mercer’s guiding Grog along a neat narrative breadcrumb trail
Keyleth suggests they attack together, but Scanlan wonders if there’s another way. However, at this point, Scanlan has basically lost all credibility with the group. This is an interesting conflict – I wonder how much of this “Scanlan not taking things seriously” pushback was intentional narrative crafting versus table etiquette pushback. It feels like these sphinxes were to some extent designed specifically to draw Scanlan closer to the intended overall group tone
Scanlan solves the riddle: he emotionally wounds Kamaljiori, offering a sphinxy love ballad
Genuinely adorable heart-to-heart between Scanlan and Kamaljiori, as Scanlan admits he’s actually quite lonely. This also serves as a fantastic one-two punch for Scanlan’s involvement in the party: an earnest and intelligent mechanical accomplishment, followed by a sincere moment of emotional vulnerability. Seems like this was precisely the kick in the pants he needed
The party gains Mythcarver, a sword vestige tied to all myths, and thus all other vestiges
Wielding the Mythcarver, Scanlan gains a vision leading them towards the next vestige, a bow somewhere in the Fae Realm. Seems like these vestiges are indeed serving the same purpose as my own campaign’s character-specific signature items: not only are they upgrades, they are guidelines, steering each party member along their individual arc. Vax needs to accept the inevitability of death, while Scanlan needs to keep his eyes on the journey ahead of him
Scanlan also sees that Westruun has been invaded by goliaths, one bearing a vestige gauntlet. Presumably that gauntlet will replace the Craven Edge once Grog is forced to abandon it
But then that damn acid dragon busts in! Fuckin’ dragons!
This is one hell of a fight! The two central figures being CG allows for lots of energetic camera pans, peppered in with Vox Machina themselves dashing across the frame
Kamaljiori sacrifices himself so his tiny friend may live!
And at last, we reach that fated moment of Grog skewering Pike with the Craven Edge. I gotta admit, bloodlust-blinded Grog was actually doing surprisingly well against this acid dragon
With no time to direct her portal spell, Keyleth ends up separating the party in half. Onwards to the Fae Realm!
And Done
These dang sphinxes sure don’t make things easy for the party, huh? But it did indeed seem like that was a necessary humbling for Scanlan, who was nearing the point of parodying the adventure rather than participating in it. It’s a tricky balance to strike – most parties aren’t going to be seeking ever-serious high fantasy, but you have to find a point where your riffs on fantasy convention feel like complimentary breaks in the tension, rather than meaningful disruptions to the ongoing narrative. The Craven Edge has given Grog a whole heap of narrative-related drama this season, and even though Scanlan’s cool new sword got stolen, I imagine this is a turning point for his character as well – particularly since he’s now the only one who can save Pike. Good luck, you little gremlin.
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