#all the other characters are great though I must say. I do a great Volo. it's just the goblins. they do my head in

[cheetour]

when I was writing the goblin chapter, I was like, 'This is really a struggle, I can barely get the words out. Is my interest in writing this book dying?', but now having posted the goblin chapter and moved on I am 100% back in the groove I was before it started. it was just the goblins. I wasn't able for Dror Ragzlin

[leggerefiore]

How would Poke villains react to their s/o asking if they'd kill for them? Just as a hypothetical, but I imagine some of them would take it seriously haha

cw: consideration of murder(?)

characters: Lysandre, Maxie, Archie, Cyrus, Guzma, Volo

The moment the words leave your mouth during what would have otherwise been a quiet evening in, he turned to look at you. His face was clearly twisted in minor confusion, which prompted you to repeat the statement. "Would you kill for me?" It almost sounded partly like a tease. What could have brought up such a statement? He thought on it for a moment...

🔥Lysandre🍷

☕️ Lysandre becomes stuck between it being a joke and you truly having someone you must want dead. The Flare Boss understands. He understands very well. His connections could easily see most people dead, should that truly be what you desired. Though, it likely would be easier to simply wait until after he completed his plans. Though, of course, you could just as easily be joking. He blinked a few times. You never spoke a name, however.

☕️ “Perhaps,” Lysandre eventually replied, “Though, I doubt you have anyone in particular you wish dead, do you?” You let out a laugh and shook your head. He joined you in laughing, fully able to play along. Of course not. You were much too kind. That was a trait in you that he deeply admired. He leaned down to press a kiss to your temple. “All you would need to do is ask, however,” he whispered quietly, “I would do anything to make you happy, my love.” Though, whether you realised how honest his words were would remain unknown. Either way, it was just pleasant to have his reassurance.

☀️Maxie🌋

🪨 He freezes for a moment. Kill for you? His glasses almost fall off his face from how he angles his head. What? The Magma Leader was quite a few things, but a killer he was not. Most of the time, he refused to even resort to violence. Your words almost made him recoil before he recalled that exaggeration was quite common these days. Yes. You must have meant that as a question of how deep and strong his love for you was. Not as an actual request. If you had, his answer would have been a firm “no.” Maxie was no killer.

🪨 “Figuratively, yes,” he agreed with a nod, “Literally? No. I'd be happy to help you find other options, however.” You sighed. That was the expected answer from Maxie. He seemed to catch on to your mild disappointment and leaned forward to peck your cheek. “Dear, I'm not going to lie and say I will do something like that,” he felt his cheeks grow warm as he looked away nervously, “I do love you greatly despite that.” You laughed and hugged him tightly. Then, you teased him by saying the Great Maxie is a pacifist. He just grumbled.

🌧Archie🌊

💧 Archie blinked a few times. Kill? Would he kill for you? Objective situations entered his head of what might warrant such a reaction, but none of them seemed like places you would be. Especially not with him nearby. Archie then remembered Shelly's complaint that he was killing her with work and chuckled. Ah, you must have meant like that. An exaggeration of love. A guffaw left him as he pulled you close to him. The Aqua Leader would do a lot for you, but killing, sadly, would not be one of them. He would throw down with someone for you, though.

💧 “Nah,” he said simply, then spoke again, “Well maybe. Depends. But I'm gonna say no.” You rolled your eyes. Archie seemed a bit scattered on his reply. He pressed a sudden sweet kiss to your cheek. “Now, I might fight a guy for ya, Luvdisc,” he grinned, “Like that time I chased off that Gorebyss that was after you.” You laughed. Well, that was about what you had expected from Archie. He was not exactly the violent sort. You tugged his bandana lightly to make him look up at you. He got the hint and kissed you again. Well, the pirate man was good at expressing his love in other ways, at least.

🌌Cyrus🛰

☄️ Cyrus blinked. Kill? As in murder? He almost scrunched up his face at your words. Naturally, he knew you were not serious. There was no one reasonably that you would want dead, nor would he seem like a reasonable candidate to get rid of someone. Well… He believed that anyway. The tablet was turned off as he moved to face you. What was going through your head? Why say such a thing? The Galactic Boss was aware that he was being far too analytical for such a basic statement. He supposed he had heard Mars tease that she would kill someone for him. (At least, he hoped it was spoken in exaggeration, but…)

☄️ “Beloved, I would rather simply make you a world where that feeling needn't exist,” he replied, “There is no need for such grizzly actions to be taken.” His hand came to cup your cheek unconsciously as he gazed into your eyes. You blinked, unsure of his words. “I dream of a world where such vile emotions don't cause these kinds of situations,” he continued, “I only wish to bring you and I to some kind of peace.” Cyrus's lips lightly pressed against your temple got a moment before he pulled away to return to what work he was doing on his tablet. You blinked again. What was that? It felt more intense than if he had just said yes and proceeded to describe a form of murder. Well, you certainly felt assured in his love towards you, at least.

💀Guzma🕶

□ Not even missing a beat, he laughed. Kill? Well, maybe. Probably not ever, but why not? Guzma was more than ready to throw hands for you usually, so why not just lie and say he would kill, too. Granted, he most likely would not ever, no. Killing seemed far too intense. He got what you meant, though. Some situations did cross his mind that might warrant it. Very few seemed even partially likely to ever happen. Alola was simply too peaceful for any of that shit.

□ “Sure,” he said plainly, “Why not.” His arm pulled you closer to him as he grinned at you. The hypothetical was pretty common, he thought. No different from being asked if he would still love you if you were a bug. (In which you had asked him a few times. Him of all people. Like he would ever say no.) You leaned closer to him and laughed lightly. “I mean, I love you,” Guzma continued, “Now, would you kill for me?” You thought on it for a moment. He nearly jumped out of his skin at your reply. A deadpan, yes.

💫Volo📜

⭐️ The merchant was stricken by your words. Kill? Him? Well… He was not going to pretend that he was some upstanding moral type, but he was not exactly the type to handle things directly. Even when it came to his plans, he figured actually killing someone would be a do-or-die situation. Though he supposed that as a merchant, he was quite ready to defend himself should the situation arise. He did have a knife on him, just for a situation in which bandits dared threaten his life. For you… He closed his eyes. Well, certainly, he would not say no.

⭐️ “If the situation called for it,” Volo spoke with a playful tone despite his words, “You never know what may be required in the wilds of Hisui.” You smiled at him so sweetly. He could not help but lean over and press a kiss to your head. “Though, I do expect the same from you,” his voice seemed to take on a different cadence, “Should I ever be in danger, I hope you would act to protect me as well?” His hand held yours delicately as you went quiet. It was all too easy to assume these were just common requests for the time period. You nodded in reply, and Volo's grin seemed a bit more intense than usual.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Well about the perception of Volo vs Kamado thing, and why more people don’t hate Volo, I have my own reflections (pretty privilege is absolutely a factor tho let’s be real 😂)

Everyone growing up has at least one story of an adult being super unfair to you, even though you were doing everything right. Their own biases and experiences could be understood later once you were older and calmer reflecting back on the incident, like a teacher who snapped at you maybe had a super long day of wrangling hundreds of children. But we never forget how it feels in that moment to have those who should be guiding us be unfair and seemingly unreasonable. So naturally that’s gonna hurt when you get kamado being paranoid.

Volo on the other hand is just absolutely delightful I’m sorry maybe if Kamado put on a silly outfit and hair for his boss battle instead of plate mail he’d have more art. Like you said Volos betrayal is one and done really, he acts like a theater kid and then dips. You have to keep seeing kamado being in charge in the game after his blunders for a while which can rub people the wrong way. (Also this is maybe just me but I never trusted Volo just like I never trusted Cynthia as a kid, and finding out he was evil was a great moment of vindication I CANT be the only one who experienced this)

TLDR we see unfairness way more than we see someone betray us while making their hair like a god horse

well, you heard them, kamado. time to go get the jester outfit. cmon chop chop it's to redeem your image

yeah, the point abt getting burned by adults in authority is also very fair. most of us were not scarred for life by theater kid antics lol. the other thing abt it is that often those same adults never really face any consequences. you were always just expected to move on, suck it up etc. cause that's life as a kid right. sometimes ppl will use their power over you just to flex their limited authority, or to vent whatever's going on in their home life, and this doesn't really stop when you grow up it's just that when you're a kid basically every adult has that authority position. so it's just expected that there's nothing you can do. i mean unless you decide to be the karmic force of justice in your own life by being the most stubborn bitch of a child to walk the earth. not that i would know anything about that cough

uh anyway. the thing is the thing btwn you and kamado isn't about about child vs adult. you're more or less considered an adult yourself by jubilife, albeit a rather young and more importantly low ranking one. like we've said (a million times already lol) kamado's not doing it just to grasp at a sense of control, he's reacting to what he perceives as a very real threat to his village (and also because the writers clocked him in the face with the idiot ball for plot advancement reasons lbr).

and the thing is kamado DOES, kind of, face consequences and own up to his mistakes by the end of the game. also after the red sky event he's like, REALLY nice to you lol. not just briefly either! imo you can tell that he sincerely respects you and regrets his actions in the red sky. go look at his late game quotes-

"Perhaps you are a divine being yourself, sent to bring us gifts from above... "I know I've no right to say this... But we are truly fortunate to have been able to count you among the Survey Corps' ranks. If you had not joined us, we would have fallen on Mount Coronet. We would have lost our home. We would have lost our future." "I'm grateful to you for showing me what a heartening presence Pokémon can be. We must spar again sometime!" "<player>, forgive me for taking so much of your time [telling you about the Galaxy name.] Please accept this as a sort of apology."

like he's trying to make up for the way they were treated earlier and give them the proper treatment they're owed for all their help.

idk i don't have a good way to conclude this i guess. i just think he's a cool character

[micropoe10]

Dumb Ways to Die... BG3 edition! PART: 1

Long post EXTREMELY LONG POST...okay maybe, probably not that long?? DEFINITELY LONG and Possible spoilers?!? I'm not sure read at your own peril! IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT THOUGH🤣

I've been playing BG3 for a collective of well over 250 hours now. I CAN'T express how much I absolutely LOVE this game! I adore my OG character she is perfect (as Astarion loves to tell me)! I will ALWAYS choose ASTARION to romance and too fall in love with repeatedly! ⬇️⬇️❤️❤️⬇️⬇️

That has not changed in the other 2 characters I have made so far alongside my OG campaign. I have save scummed SO hard. (Listen...I want to watch THOSE scenes with my OG character over and over again whenever I want lmao😂 I also love watching the wholesome fluff scenes too) ❤️That being said this is not that kind of post.. this post is my, lets call it....DUMB WAYS TO DIE .....To the story.....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE STORY: The Goblin Horde

I would like to stress the importance of what I'm going to say next!

☠️☠️ALWAYS GROUP YOUR PARTY MEMBERS!!!!☠️☠️

So there I was playing on an ALT campaign that I made because I wanted to see what Dark Urge was all about. (I should clarify that I have NOT finished the story yet...no, not even on my OG campaign, im enjoying the game at my own pace and I have a lot of IRL responsibilities too.) So.. there I was, Astarion is madly in love with me ❤️ I just saved Halsin from the Goblins 🐻 everything is going so well, and he wants me to kill the BIG THREE leaders of the Goblin Camp. 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

I got this....or so I thought...*(rolls a NAT 1 on Confidence)*

In my party I have Astarion, Shadowheart and Wyll. I also have a summoned wolf but for the sake of this story we're gonna leave them out of it. On my OG character I have already gone through the Goblin camp so on my Dark Urge alt I was feeling pretty good about my survival chances this time around...I start by picking off small groups of Goblins, the ones that are secluded, around corners, away from the big packs so it doesnt alert all of them. I close doors to keep them hidden...you know...

⬆️⬆️YEA THAT⬆️⬆️

I destroy EVERY SINGLE war drum cause obvious reasons⬆️ I DONT want to alert everybody! I even saved Volo because...I have a soft spot for his annoying humor, and quite litterally I'm pretty sure he is the NPC equivalent of the games damsel in distress but *spoilers* lol. When I've picked off the stragglers all that is left is the BIG THREE and their packs of mobs around them. I figure my best bet is kill off Grannie Gut first so I remember that there are some spiders in the makeshift cages below and if you're like me well...🕷️☠️

☠️🕷️Same Ron, Same🕷️☠️

But I ➡️ UNGROUP Wyll⬅️..remember this.. I ungroup only Wyll, because he is the only one in my party who can speak too animals and I was determined to Dr. Dolittle Bullshit my way through a convo with these spiders to make them do my biding! Even if it killed me, and if the RNG/DICE gods were displeased with me it could, would and probably should have. (Also this would be a good time to mention that yes I know there are potions, and scrolls for speak to animals...but I am a complete and utter MONEY GREMLIN sooo it all gets sold). So, I sweet talk my way through that convo while also trying not to stare directly at my screen cause. 🕷️=☠️.

The spiders tell me you need to open the door for us and im like that is simple enough. I walk over, I try to unlock the doors and the guards on the other side (nice chaps, great convo) say noooo the gates must stay closed spiders are dangerous, they are not trained. (I KNOW, kinda the point here). So if I couldnt open the doors I was just going to do what I've done best so far and KILL THEM.

As wyll is shooting at these two "innocent" guards they are trying to spam unlock the door and all I'm seeing is:

.....Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked,Locked......

At this point I have Astarion jump down and help me kill these goblins, but not before another "innocent bystanding" goblin joins the fight. At this point Shadowheart, and my ALT are trying to kill this extra goblin. Astarion is trying to unlock the door, the spiders are saying FREE us. And Wyll is just standing there living his best life, When Grannie Gut gets involved...

Stay tuned PART: 2 will be up shortly!

[pixelgrotto]

Ladies and lords of Waterdeep

From April of 2019 to June of 2020, I ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for levels 1-5, for two groups - a party of three gals and a party of six guys. This was a tricky undertaking - mostly because as written, Dragon Heist is kind of a mess (more on that in a sec) - but also because I had to balance an adventure for two very different audiences that really only shared the commonality of being filled with D&D newbies. It was a worthwhile endeavor, though, and looking back on the experience reveals some interesting food for thought on how to remix an adventure, as well as how some ladies and gents experience roleplaying games differently. 

First, let me briefly discuss the adventure itself. Dragon Heist is meant to be an urban outing set in the Forgotten Realms metropolis of Waterdeep, which I described to my New York-dwelling players as “pretty much a fantasy version of NYC.” Over the course of five levels, players inherit and possibly renovate an old tavern, catch wind of an ancient heap of gold beneath the city and run into a bunch of important figures from Forgotten Realms history, ranging from Laeral Silverhand to Volothamp Geddarm. All of that’s epic, and the only issue is that the adventure’s laid out in a pretty shoddy way. 

There are four chapters in Dragon Heist, and the first is the only one that can be run with a minimum of hacking on the part of the Dungeon Master. The other three present a so-called “toolbox” of vague ideas for missions with Waterdeep’s various adventuring factions, as well as middling advice for scenes like a rooftop chase and a battle with a chain devil in a crypt, but it’s all highly disorganized with a minimum of connective tissue, requiring heavy lifting on the DM’s part to stitch together. The book is also rife with excessive red herrings for players to stumble upon as they search for the treasure trove, way too many characters with overly long names, and last but not least, there’s a lack of an actual “heist” in the grand finale, which is more scavenger hunt than Ocean’s Eleven. 

With all these criticisms, why did I choose to run this book for not one, but two different groups at the same time? It was largely because I’d just finished playing through Dragon Heist with my own character - a mask-wearing teenage street urchin who fancied herself a swashbuckler. I’d had a more-enjoyable-than-not time with the folks I played with, but the guy who DMed had a habit of sending us on the aforementioned red herrings for multiple sessions at a time, with nary an interesting combat encounter or social challenge in sight. I don’t really blame him for this - especially seeing at how poorly the book was laid out afterwards - but immediately after finishing, I was approached by two friend groups who wanted to try their hand at D&D, and this gave me the excuse to see if I could do a better job. 

Since I already had a clear example of which pitfalls to avoid, the version of Dragon Heist that I ran heavily remixed all of the elements in the book, with an emphasis on streamlining whenever possible and always making it feel like my players were accomplishing something. This is usually my underlying philosophy whenever I run a game, but it’s an essential strategy for newbies who might be driven off of roleplaying games altogether by bad pacing. For instance, as written, there’s an annoying series of fetch quests near the end of the story where players have to find a number of keys in order to open the hidden treasure vault. These keys are random as heck, ranging from semi-sensible McGuffins like a bronze dragon scale to bonkers junk like a ballad played by two dwarven bards and a friggin’ unicorn. This whole exercise in randomness reminded me of the worst of video game filler, and I cut it out entirely by having the son of the man who hid the treasure accompany the characters, with a drop of his blood activating the magic needed to open the vault’s doors. (This also led to an amusing situation where the guys were stuck as they ruminated on how to open the vault...until the dude playing the goliath suddenly shouted, “I GRAB RENAER’S HAND, CUT IT AND SMEAR THE BLOOD ALL OVER THE DOOR!” and I was like, “Okay. It...opens!”)

Because my players were nearly all D&D virgins, I also wanted them to get their money’s worth by encountering all four of Dragon Heist’s villains - Xanathar the beholder, the devil-worshipping Cassalanter nobles, Manshoon the cloned wizard and Jarlaxle the drow rogue. As written, Dragon Heist touts itself as highly replayable, since DMs are only supposed to choose one villain for their players to go up against. The problem is that all of the bad guys are teased on the cover, and the beginning chapters dangle most of them into the narrative with the players caught in the middle. This created a lot of confusion when I was a player, as my companions and I kept hearing about Xanathar and Manshoon...only for them to suddenly disappear halfway through as Jarlaxle took center stage as the big bad. And so, in order to circumvent this confusion and make both the boys and the girls feel like they were getting a quintessential experience with a minimum of loose ends, I threw in all the baddies. (I wasn’t the only one to do this - tabletop RPG designer Justin Alexander also recommends this approach on his blog The Alexandrian, where he offers an impressive revision of Dragon Heist that I probably would’ve used if I hadn’t discovered it too late.) 

So, when it came down to actually rolling dice, how’d my two groups interact with the material? I think it’s safe to say that both the girls and the boys hit the same major story beats and had a grand time doing so, but the nuances of their experiences were fascinatingly different. The girls, for instance, dove into the art of roleplaying and devising histories for their characters, and one of them decided to play as an elf from a seafaring clan and gave me a whole backstory involving the ocean that inspired my “final boss” for Dragon Heist, an evil, decaying dragon from the Elemental Plane of Water that isn’t in the book. (Hey, it’s called Dungeons & Dragons, the story’s named Dragon Heist, and since I wasn’t sure if all of my players would stick around for future campaigns, I figured I’d better stick a notable battle with a big scaly lizard in there somewhere.) 

The girls also got way more into some of the social justice subplots that permeated my version of Dragon Heist, pushing hard for Waterdeep to remove the anti-dragon magic bubble that surrounded the city and excluded an entire species from its borders. Their interactions with non-player characters - often progressing along the lines of “well, if you feel like you want us to do this quest for you, then we certainly can” - reflected this sort of empathy, and even though this sounds incredibly stereotypical, by the time the final session wrapped up, all three of the gals had either shipped or flirted with NPCs that they’d encountered during their journey. One of ‘em even ended up hitched with a baby!

The boys, by contrast, were much less likely to devise in-depth character histories beyond “I’M IN THIS CITY TO GET MY MONEY,” and their NPC conversations also frequently waded into “GIMME MY GOLD” territory. I don’t want to make it sound like their characters were just two dimensional mercenaries, though, because definite, organic progression occurred over the course of the campaign - the goliath who couldn’t read gradually worked his way through Volo’s Guide to Monsters and became fluent in Celestial after joining the Order of the Gauntlet, for instance.

Where the boys clearly felt more at home than the girls was in combat, probably because 1) there were six of them as opposed to the three ladies, and 2) they collectively had lots of video game knowledge, and D&D’s influence has kinda trickled down to every video game ever made. It didn’t take long for some of the dudes to begin subconsciously min/maxing their characters, and while there were two major deaths in unpredictable boss fights, the boys did go through a long period where they were just steamrolling everything to come their way and yelling, “LET’S FUCKIN’ GOOOO” as they did so. In contrast, DMing for the girls during combat sequences was occasionally a nail-biting experience where I didn’t know who was going to survive, and since some of this was due to my own slapdash encounter design where I underestimated the abilities of the monsters they were up against, I made sure to give them lots of friendly NPCs who could potentially offer a helping hand, or even resurrection spells if needed. 

Both groups were aware of the other’s existence, and I’d sometimes playfully pit them against one another. (Example: The guys often forgot who was who, and one time one of ‘em looked down at his character sheet and was like, “MY NOTES ARE SUCH SHIT” which made me respond, “Well, y’know the girls take really good notes...”) But at the end of the campaign, when my players asked me which party was more fun to DM for, my answer was that both groups were great. The girls were bursting with imaginative roleplay, and they gave me real moments of glee as they responded to story twists with the legitimate surprise and wonder that comes from people who aren’t already overexposed to fantasy tropes and gaming culture. The boys gave me that feeling of what some fans affectionately call “beer & pretzels D&D,” where you’re shooting the breeze with your buddies, playfully teasing each other and going for broke in combat encounters. 

I want to stress that the ladies I DMed for were absolutely not representative of how all women might approach D&D, and the exact same thing must be said for the fellas. This was no planned sociology or gender studies experiment that I conducted, in other words - it was merely a thing that I did with two friend groups, and the resulting experiences were two opposite yet totally valid sides of the same RPG coin. And while I doubt that I’ll run the same campaign in the future for two different groups at once (let alone a campaign as wonky as Dragon Heist), I like to think that as someone who tries to advocate for how roleplaying games can be fun, welcoming experiences for all, I played a small role (hah) in bringing swords, sorcery and storytelling to the lives of people who might not have experienced such imaginative forays otherwise. 

Already, both the gals and the guys are whipping up ideas for future characters and checking out stuff like Critical Role...which means that my work here, at least for the moment, is done. 

[miraculousmidnightreviews]

War Storm Book Review

By Victoria Aveyard

3.5/5 stars

Spoilers for Red Queen, Glass Sword, and King’s Cage

Summary: Mare has endured the worst of betrayals. But as Maven’s obsession with her grows, Mare, along with Montfort and the Scarlet Guard, must put her tentative trust in Cal and his silvers. It is the only way to win the war. While both sides prepare for an inevitable conclusion, Cal and Mare struggle to establish a world in which reds and silvers can coexist peacefully. In the process, they learn the means by which they accomplish this are just as important as ending years of prejudice and hate.

The Romance (minor spoilers)

I have a feeling this entire review is going to be full of minor spoilers. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way to express my feelings.

First of all, Mare and Cal. Love them. Ship them. So. Hard. This book was torture to get through because Mare and Cal are now little stubborn shitheads who both want basically the same thing but believe in majorly different ways of getting there. I was not okay with the King’s Cage ending, alright? It ruined me. I had hope for War Storm but now...well, read it, and you’ll see what I mean.

On the bright side, I am totally here for the banter between Mare and Cal, especially while they’re at odds. It relieves tension among chapters of suspense and the foreboding sense that someone will soon die.

Cal = Mare’s giant teddy bear.

Evangeline, my love

Yes, Evangeline totally deserves her own section in this review.

I think we can all agree that no one really liked Evangeline until she received her own chapters in King’s Cage. If I’m being honest, I didn’t truly jump on the I-love-Evangeline-Samos bandwagon until this book. Maybe, it’s because spilling Mare’s blood isn’t a priority for her anymore. Probably. Definitely.

I truly enjoyed the relationship (friendship?) that developed between Mare and Evangeline during War Storm. It really showed the growth of these two characters nicely. Plus, I’m a real sucker for that enemies to friends trope.

Also, Evangeline and Elane are really cute together.

   Point of Views (minor spoilers)

As you know from the previous Red Queen books, Aveyard has written from the point of view of other characters in addition to Mare. I’m always wary of series in which authors switch to or include POVs other than the main character’s. What if I don’t like these characters? In the end, it’s a 50/50 chance as to whether or not I’ll enjoy a new perspective. Sometimes, I grow to admire a character I once despised, and other times, I end up favoring one POV over another. (Let’s face it. The latter happens 100% of the time.)

In War Storm, Aveyard once again switches up the POVs. I won’t spoil the surprise as to who gets their own chapters since this is the non-spoiler section, but I will say that, of course, Mare still remains the main throughout the book. Speaking of POVs, I wasn’t too pleased with one of them. For me, it ruined the pacing of the book. I would get bored with that chapter, and then I would have to put the book down in favor of doing something else. Those chapters just wrecked my reading flow. Right when I got to an exciting part, racing from page to page, I turned to the next chapter and there it was. My reading block. Ugh.

Thanks for reading! We hoped you enjoyed our non-spoilery review! Come back later for the spoilery stuff, or keep reading at your own risk! Check out our other reviews here.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Pacing & POVs but with spoilers

Continuing with the POV thing: Who the fuck is Iris and why should I care? I am not a fan of the different POVs. Just when I was getting used to Cameron in King’s Cage, BAM! She’s gone! And in her place is this girl, Iris. Not a fan, bro. (Yes, I do understand dramatic irony, but I did not think it was necessary for this book.)

But kudos to Victoria Aveyard. After reading, I now know who Iris really is inside, and I do care. A little bit. Not enough for her to get her own chapters, though.

Mare, Cal, and Evangeline keep their POVs in this novel, and I’m cool with that. Actually, I was surprised at how cool I was with that while reading.

Another thing: the pacing. My god, it’s a little bit of torture. First, let me be honest: I really wanted to like this book and give it a better rating than I did. It’s a part of one of my favorite series, and I love the author. Now don’t get me wrong. I still enjoyed it, but not as much as any of the other books in the series. It’s just the pacing. There were really intriguing parts, like Evangeline’s meddling, and Mare secretly planning to take Cal’s throne, but then there would be parts, like anything Iris-related, that bored me a lot.

When War Storm was good it was real good, but when it was bad, it was real boring.

Farley AHHH

I love Farley so freaking much. I’m not one for children, usually, but Clara and Farley are adorable.

Okay, the one thing I really love about this book is the friendship between Farley and Mare. Honestly, it’s more like they’re sisters. Aveyard did such a great job at showing how much they’ve developed as people and how far they’ve come, despite setbacks. Really, Farley stepping into a role as Mare’s big sister is what I live for.

Also, the way she doesn’t judge Mare’s feelings for Cal while simultaneously wanting to flay him alive is just perfection.

Mare & Cal & Maven & Everyone Else

Ever since Maven betrayed Mare, I dropped him hard. I’ve always been a Cal fan (even when he’s a dumbass). I know there are people in the fandom who love Maven for reasons I cannot understand, and I’m not here to judge you or come for you or whatever. But I do think Maven needed to die and he did. The end.

Is it terrible for me to say Ptolemus grew on me? I loved Shade as much as anyone, but I think his death was circumstantial. I’m giving Ptolemus a second chance. I hope he has a short story whenever those come out.

I’m a little disappointed in Evangeline. Yes, it’s in character of her to escape in that way, but I really wanted her to have a badass showdown, helping Mare and Cal. Oh well, I can’t wait for her short story with Elane.

Montfort

Ah, Montfort. Good ole Montfort. I don’t have much to say about this new terrain our characters venture across, but I feel like I should? I liked the way Aveyard described its government. She did a nice job introducing the world to her readers. Yay, democracy!

THAT ENDING WHAT

Alrighty, bitches. Maven Calore is fucking dead like he deserves (by Mare’s hand no less), and it was kind of underwhelming. I liked the way Aveyard wrote it, but no one else died in that battle, really? Like, not even Granny Calore? I just wish she had killed more people, that’s all. It would have been more realistic in a war setting, and also, it would have taken care of some problematic asshats. (Side note: I fucking support Volo’s death. That was good.)

I get it, though. It’s hard to kill off characters. It’s a balancing act; you can’t go all Game of Thrones on this shit, but you can’t let everyone have a happily ever after either. It’s complicated.

Seriously, though, what the fuck? Why are Mare and Cal not together like I dreamt they would be? Come on, Aveyard, why? I’m not cool with this ending. I NEED MORE FROM THEM. WHEN ARE THESE FREAKING SHORT STORIES COMING OUT?!

Thanks for reading! We hoped you enjoyed both our non-spoilery and spoilery reviews! Check out our other reviews here!

—Alexa

[simul16]

The Illusion of a New Edition

So, I've spent a few days thinking about that controversial gaming video on YouTube and have a few thoughts.

No, I'm not talking about the video where Cody from Taking20 says he's quitting Pathfinder 2 because of what he calls the 'illusion of choice'. When I first saw that video, I basically nodded in agreement, because Pathfinder, both 1 and 2, are designed for a particular kind of player who appreciates optimal play and 'builds'. Because a game gets the kind of players it designs for, that lends itself toward a playstyle where you as the DM see your players doing the same thing over and over again simply because it's the most efficient way to get through combat, even when that thing stops being 'fun'.

(I could have a few things to say about the cavalcade of response videos that came out after Cody's video, ranging from 'we've got to stick together as Pathfinder Youtubers' to 'D&D 5E has the same rules, why are you complaining?', but ultimately all of those videos boiled down to either inadvertently or deliberately missing the point in order to maintain a pre-determined opinion: that the style of play the video-maker likes is the best style of play, and since Pathfinder is designed for that style of play it must be by default the best game. Mostly it boils down to my standard screed on how optimization is a bad play style that drives out other play styles, though, so it wouldn't be especially fresh or new as a take.)

No, the video I watched that got me thinking was Treantmonk's "Winter is coming for D&D 5E", where he talks about the likelihood that sometime in the near future -- not the immediate future, but not that far off, either -- D&D will retire 5th Edition and bring out 6th Edition, or at least a revised version of 5E. I have a lot of problems with his analysis, and a good number of the individual points Treantmonk tries to make directly undermine the overall point he wants to make, but let me lead off by saying that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there is someone at Wizards of the Coast, possibly even Jeremy Crawford, one of the lead designers of D&D Fifth Edition, who spends some amount of his workday thinking about what a 6th Edition would look like and what the circumstances are that would necessitate the release of a new D&D edition. "Failing to plan is planning to fail" and all that. But it's a far cry from saying that someone is actively considering what a 6th Edition would look like to claiming that 6th Edition is right around the corner, and there are good reasons to think that 6th Edition, whatever it looks like, isn't just right around the corner but probably isn't coming along for quite some time. In other words, I believe that the 'gap' between 5th and 6th Editions will likely be larger than the gap for nearly every other set of editions of D&D, with perhaps only the gap between AD&D (2nd) and 3rd Edition D&D being greater.

How can I be so certain of this? Some of it is from data provided by Treantmonk himself. For instance, Treantmonk points out that the D&D 5E 'core books' (the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) still show up as Amazon 'best sellers' (though it took me awhile to find the actual category in which they are best sellers -- 'Puzzle & Game Reference'). This is maybe a bit misleading, as the Pathfinder 2E core books aren't ranked by Amazon in the same category, and even the Player's Handbook's ranking is a bit confusing -- #1 in Puzzle & Game Reference, but #2 in Dungeons & Dragons Game (behind Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which isn't listed in the Puzzle & Game Reference category), but the best apples-to-apples comparison I can find based on the Amazon data suggests that D&D is still far outselling Pathfinder, even though Pathfinder 2E is a newer edition: the 5E Player's Handbook is still in the top 100 bestsellers among all books on Amazon (#1 as I write this is "Promised Land", Barack Obama's autobiography) despite having been published in the late summer of 2014, while the equivalent Pathfinder 2E book, the Core Rulebook, is just barely in the top 11,400 best-selling books on Amazon despite being less than 18 months old. This argues against a 6th Edition partly because at least part of the accepted wisdom for the reason 5th Edition was released was to try to regain the top-selling RPG slot from Pathfinder, which had eclipsed D&D Fourth Edition in sales. If Pathfinder 2E had stormed out of the gate and performed well enough to re-create the original Pathfinder's ascendency over D&D, there would be a more obvious reason for Wizards of the Coast to consider coming up with a new D&D edition to fight for that RPG crown. But with 5E not only regaining the RPG crown from Pathfinder, but also seemingly easily fending off a challenge from a new, improved Pathfinder in Pathfinder 2E, that pressure is effectively non-existent: why mess with success? (And if anything, Cody's video lends further credence to the idea that there's no reason to replace D&D 5E, as Cody explicitly points out that the game he's most likely leaving Pathfinder 2E for, and the game with fewer of the problems he has with Pathfinder 2E, *is* D&D 5E.) Treantmonk continues, though, with an analysis that boils down to 'here are the reasons I wish I was right' instead of the reasons he's actually accurate in his prediction.

His first major point is in discussing the difference between 'fluff' and 'crunch' in RPG books, and making the blanket assertion that "crunch sells better than fluff". You can argue that he's correct in a very limited sense -- consider a book with 100% crunch, an RPG expansion book full of new race, class, and other mechanics, versus a book with 100% fluff, a book which is just background, story, and other narrative items wholly divorced from mechanics. It seems pretty clear that players would certainly look through the crunch book looking for interesting things for their current characters or ideas for new characters, and would likely buy the book if they found them -- that's a pretty clear market for a 'crunch' book. Whereas, for a wholly fluff-based book, players would likely only consider buying the book if they're playing in a setting where they really enjoy the setting, want to know more about it without bothering their DM, and are convinced that the setting details as expressed in the fluff book are the same as those used by their DM. There's still a market there, but particularly if you are a mechanically-focused player, and you game with others who are mechanically focused, you'd easily see much less excitement for such a book than for the strictly crunchy mechanics book.

So although our thought experiment above suggests that a 100% crunch book would likely have a larger audience and thus larger sales than a 100% fluff book, you might expect to see that books Wizards of the Coast has already published that don't contain mechanical game content do appear to not sell quite as well as books that do contain mechanical game content -- but you'd be wrong about that. As an example, while "Heroes' Feast: the Official D&D Cookbook" isn't selling as well as the Player's Handbook (the latter, as discussed, is in the top 100 best-selling books, while the former is 'just' at #160 on that list), it's selling better than the Dungeon Master's Guide (#192), the Monster Manual (#232), and even Xanathar's Guide to Everything (#284), the last 'big crunch' book released for D&D 5E. "Heroes' Feast" is currently selling far better than any Pathfinder crunch book, and as I write this, the book is oddly the #1 bestseller in the category of 'Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Television' and #2 in 'Party Cooking' (with the #1 book being Snoop Dogg's cookbook). I don't think anyone at Wizards of the Coast is regretting their decision to publish a cookbook with no races, classes, or feats in it.

And therein lies the rub: no book is 100% crunch or 100% fluff, and fluff does appeal to some consumers. As a proportion of fluff to crunch, D&D 5E books generally fall higher on the fluff side of that balance scale than Pathfinder books do, but this hasn't caused them to be poor sellers. And while one could argue whether Tasha's Cauldron of Everything is selling better now because it's new versus whether it has a higher proportion of crunch to fluff than earlier books like Volo's Guide to Monsters or the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, the truth is that Wizards of the Coast can successfully sell high-fluff books to their audience, at least in part because they've cultivated an audience that can appreciate books with a higher fluff content. Now if Paizo tried publishing a Pathfinder cookbook and the book sold horribly, Treantmonk would likely point to the failure of that book as proof of his thesis that fluff doesn't sell as well as crunch, but really, all he's doing is showing that his thesis primarly holds for an audience that looks for crunch over fluff, which the Pathfinder audience clearly does -- Pathfinder is the game that makes breaking campaigns fun, and the audience they have, which is the audience they've designed to attract, is that proportion of gamers who look for some practical way to break their game rather than some entertaining way to impart practical information of no use to the game proper but which might be a great thematic addition to a special gaming event.

(Hold onto this concept of perspective-blindness -- that Treantmonk is writing things he thinks are true in general but are mainly true from his limited perspective -- because it's a common thread in the points he makes, and thus in my critique of them.)

Treantmonk then moves on to say that increasing crunch in a game leads to 'bloat', where greater and greater rules complexity (as expressed by having more rules available to choose from) results in players who have access to all the rules options developing characters that are always going to be 'better' than the characters developed by new players who only have access to the core options in the Player's Handbook. There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll simply point out that in both cases where Treantmonk tries to illustrate his 'tons of rules and options' point with a video image, he uses an image consisting of a large number of rulebooks...from D&D Third Edition. That all by itself should be a red flag for his general argument here.

There is one good point Treantmonk makes here, though -- he points out that, in order for an edition to have long-term success, it must successfully attract new players throughout its lifespan, and that traditionally, game systems like D&D (prior to 5th edition, at least) and Pathfinder (in their first edition) did in fact develop greater and greater rules complexity and 'bloat' which was identified as a reason why new players were turned off of the game. The flaw in Treantmonk's argument, though, is again in assuming that D&D 5th edition works in this same way. He does point out that D&D 5e has deliberately slowed the pace of high-crunch books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, but immedately loses whatever rhetorical points he earned by making this observation by insisting "this hasn't been the best model for short-term sales" (umm, did we miss that Tasha's is currently the top-selling D&D book, period, which means it's selling better than any Pathfinder book and probably every RPG book currently in print, at least on Amazon?), as well as insisting that even this slow pace of releases is causing a reduction in uptake of new players by forcing new players to have to exist with the sub-optimal choices in the core books rather than the 'obviously superior' options in the new books.

Does Treantmonk not watch his own videos? His 'quick and dirty' guide to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (posted a week after the release of the book) suggested that he didn't think Tasha's was as 'good' as Xanathar's Guide, which jibes with the reactions of other optimizers posting online who seemed disappointed that some of the clearly breakable mechanics that existed in these subclasses in their playtest forms (available via the Unearthed Arcana feature on WotC's website) got 'nerfed' for publication.

To begin with, the simple strategy of putting out a 'big crunch' book only once every three years or so rather than multiple times per year immediately reduces the rate of 'bloat' in the system as Treantmonk defines it -- if you don't publish rules as quickly, it takes longer to get to the point where you can't deal with the overwhelming number of options you have in deciding what to do with your characters. Plus, by taking longer to publish and submitting the ideas to effective public playtest via Unearthed Arcana, the developers can ensure that they don't accidentally push the power envelope farther than they intend by releasing something clearly not ready for play, and thus keep 'core' options competitive with the newer options available in these crunchy books. Both of these strategies are part-and-parcel of an overall desire to continue to maintain the existing edition for as long as it remains viable, which clearly is still the case, given what sales information we have access to. However, a bigger point is simply that new players aren't just introduced to D&D by people who are long-established players any more: in many cases, a new player wants to try out D&D after having seen it played online on a show like Critical Role or Dice, Camera, Action!, or has heard a reference to it in a news article or some viral content, or even by encountering it through some of those zero-crunch works like Heroes' Feast. These players aren't as likely to immediately go out and try to find an established group and join that group -- they may decide to put together their own group based on what they saw online, or go to a convention where they might play D&D Adventurers League games with other new players, and while the existence of new rules sources like Tasha's might occur to them (especially in the dealer room of said convention), the characters they're playing may just be pregenerated characters using the tried-and-true mechanics in the Player's Handbook, or even just using stuff from the freely available Player's Basic Rules -- there's nobody to suggest that they're playing the game the wrong way if they're not using the latest and greatest rule book, which either Treantmonk or his players likely would be doing if those players were playing at his table. Again, this is a case where Treantmonk is mistaking his personal experience of RPGs for the universal one, which truly isn't the case, and certainly isn't the case for D&D 5E.

Treantmonk's conclusion is a masterclass of projecting your own needs into your argument and all but ignoring the stated justification you've made for proposing your argument. He accepts that Critical Role and similar online shows have enticed people into trying out D&D, but insists that WotC has to 'do more' to convert those curious observers into new players. However, his means of doing this is to suggest that WotC either release a revised Fifth Edition Player's Handbook to give experienced players something to be excited about, which has very little to do with bringing new players into the game, or release an entirely new Sixth Edition ruleset which effectively does the same thing (but at least pays lip service to the idea that 'it should be easy for new players'). This shouldn't be surprising -- as I've previously stated, optimizers are more than happy to make bad-faith, self-serving arguments in favor of an outcome they want, and Treantmonk's video essay comes across as just more of the same here, ignoring the many ways in which the D&D game has itself changed and in turn has changed the hobby of RPGs in new and interesting ways, but also in ways that threaten to leave older players who still view the game as an exercise in optimization behind.

There is one other thing from Cody's videos I want to highlight, specifically in his follow-up video where he explains how Pathfinder 2E embodies the thing he calls 'illusion of choice': he points out that the problem where Pathfinder players are incentivized to do the same optimal tasks over and over again in every combat doesn't come from being a 'munchkin' or having some kind of 'rules mastery'; it simply comes from having an idea for a character (like a ranger who shoots a bow) and taking the options that appear to best support that idea. Doing so makes them extremely effective at doing the one task they've set themselves up to do, while seriously hampering their effectiveness in most other situations, and in many cases the game refuses to throw up tactical roadblocks that would make the choices they've chosen less optimal than they 'should be'. Pathfinder 2E thus plays like 'baby's first optimization challenge', and leads to players who either embrace that playstyle, or grow bored with doing the same optimal tasks over and over in every combat, and preferring combat to every other means of resolving conflict in the game because it's best supported in the rules, and decide to either stop playing Pathfinder (as Cody seemingly has) or stop playing RPGs altogether. *This* is the real roadblock preventing curious people from becoming new and regular players of RPGs: that the game won't support the kinds of characters and the kinds of play experiences they want, but will rather try to train them into thinking that the kind of characters and the kind of play experiences the game is designed to deliver are the optimal ones, the ones the player should want.

I have myself occasionally bemoaned the idea that some D&D 5E DMs allow patently outlandish things to happen at the gaming table, even things that are, on their face, violations of the existing game rules. But having taken some time to experience play with less experienced players, I've come to realize that this option -- the option to do something interesting that the rules don't explicitly support but that the player finds satisfying -- *is* the core of turning curious people into regular players. I may not find it very satisfying when I sit down at a table with three other players who are playing:

Themselves with a sword and shield


A character with the most ridiculous accent I've ever heard, and


Deadpool

but I have to agree that, for those players, they each find something worth doing in the characters they've created and the game that results from their play. Not only isn't it my place to tell them how to find the fun in the game we're playing together, I find that if I relax my own preconceptions and let the game play out, that we still end up having a good time and telling an interesting story.

So no, D&D doesn't need a Sixth Edition or even a Fifth Revised Edition any time soon. D&D is going a fine job of meeting players where they want to interact with the game, instead of following the approach of other game systems which presume that there's one best way to play and requiring you to play that way to find any fun in the game at all, if you even can.

[darling-gypsum]

D&D PC: Kriya, Who Races Storms Firbolg Druid, Circle of the Land (neutral good)

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, AND DO NOT CROP THE SOURCE IMAGES FROM THE CENTRAL "FINAL PRODUCT". I want to make sure that all artists get their due credit, and that I don't appear to be trying to pass off their original art as my own. ANY ARTIST MAY REACH OUT TO ME TO REQUEST THIS BE TAKEN DOWN. See bottom of post for credits and explanation of my process.

A gentle giant from the grasslands who uses the Shilleliegh and Magic Stone cantrips with her roughly-hewn druidic staff and her sling, but primarily her druidic magics aim at crowd and environment control spells. 

There was only one image of a female firbolg online that I could find, so I decided to design my own. I loved coming up with the idea of this character! Kriya, Who Races Storms, is a name that I came up with while riffing off the idea from Volo's Guide to Monsters entry that says

Firbolg adopt elven names when they must deal with outsiders, although the concept of names strikes them as strange. They know the animals and plants of the forest without formal names, and instead identify the forest’s children by their deeds, habits, and other actions. 

So her ‘second name’ which is more of a description, is how her kin would refer to her. Ex, “my child who races storms’ or ‘our storm runner’ or something to that effect.  referencing what some of her people know her as. An anecdote from her past (improvised from the Outlander background) that once, when she was a mere seedling (less than 30, not of age yet) she ran 25 miles without stopping through a thunderstorm to warn her tribe of an impending orc horde, saving her people. She's renowned for that act of valor, and known by it to this day. (she's just over 100 now)

In a party setting, I imagined that Kriya would refer to her party members by their deeds as they got to know eachother: ex, “Friend who slew the giant”, “Friend who holds dominion over the sky”, or her druid mother she’d introduce as “My kin who I am born from, who makes the rocks shudder beneath her step.”

I continued brainstorming this idea and decided that the way the firbolg would refer to each other would be malleable, encompassing however they thought about others in that moment. You could do more good deeds for the tribe, or your status could change. Instead of the abstraction of a name, a single word that points at a person, they address each other in a manner that allow you to know a person more descriptively from the moment you meet. I also figured they’d adopt a common descriptive phrase when introducing themselves to other firbolgs. So Kriya would say to a firbolg stranger, “I am known as one who races storms.”

Or something like that. I really love making up firbolg culture!

As an outlander, she has proficiency in an instrument, and I decided that she plays the tsuur, a mongololian flute instrument that sort of mimics throat/overtone singing. You buzz the low note from one side of your mouth and and the flute plays a lovely whistle tone through your front teeth. It really put me in the headspace for her people, who reside in a nomadic group in a grassland biome. It just makes me think of this tribal group like the firbolg, isolation and meditation, and the sound of the wind through the grasses.

BEHIND THE SCENES

As a serial photoshopper from back in the day, who is obsessed with having visuals for my writing and rpg play, I have a large collection of concept art for my personal use in games. I'm so proud of so much of it that I wanted to share it with you guys, but I wanted to make sure that there was a heavy disclaimer that though I did put a lot of effort into these, and there is quite a bit of custom manipulation and 'art' of my own put into each piece, that these are, at the end of the day, a collage of existing original pieces by some fabulous artists.

I hope it's okay that I posted this, with enthusiastic credit given to every artist who's work I fiddled with.

CREDIT TO ARTISTS USED IN THIS CONCEPT ART:

firbolg base form official WotC firbolg art, from Volo’s guide to Monsters & Tyril Tallguy, from Force Gray Giant Killers https://twitter.com/wizards_dnd/status/804466343751938048?lang=en

base hair, eyes, cheekbone detail Tova, by kiikiibee http://kiikiibee.tumblr.com/post/138211900002/there-was-talk-about-continuing-the-dd-campaign

hair accessory BW Guy by Marina Krivenko https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bw-guy

hair sections, hairline, scalp braids Mardred Tokrak, Dwarf Druid by Marcela Medeiros https://www.artstation.com/artwork/BneWz

jawline Female troll, by Víctor Manuel Leza (Shadowrun)

face shape, eyebrows Revena, Halfing Rogue, by Karen Neil http://krneil.tumblr.com/post/121436876858/revena-halfing-rogue-character-for-an-up-coming

mouth Karla, adventuring thief by Simon D Nyhus http://powersimon.tumblr.com/post/108673575031/i-wanted-to-make-an-original-fantasy-character-for

fur shoulder piece Daisy, by Lin (https://twitter.com/rlinarts) http://mindlesslyred.tumblr.com/post/140772060763/found-some-daisy-stuff-in-the-scrap-folder

feathers Lark, by kimsokol http://kimsokol.deviantart.com/art/Lark-476516551

leather armor The Great Hunt - 2 by dleoblack http://dleoblack.deviantart.com/art/The-Great-Hunt-2-560035206