#especially with how COOL they are in cr3?

[caitmayart]

🎶It's Been a Whiiiile!🎵

Got nostalgic today and realized I haven't drawn these nerds in literal YEARS, so had a bunch of fun drawing them all being silly ♥

Love these Shits.

[burr-ell]

different anon, but your answer to the last ask made me wonder on this thing i just can't seem to wrap my head around: what do you think matt/the cast even had in mind with the whole "pulpier and deadlier" bit??? i always found it kind of... lame even back when the camp was just starting, it felt like they had made such a big deal of it (also the "throw all expectations out the window") and to this day i don't understand at all what part of the campaign they were even referring to that was supposed to absolutely blow our minds or whatever. it doesn't feel like it was the whole thing with the gods since that wasn't brought up until so much later... i was curious if you had any thoughts on this, especially as a CR1 fan (since a lot of the time i see praise for something Cool and New with CR3 i go "wait... that's been a thing since CR1)

So when people snark about "pulpier and deadlier", this is what they're referring to, from this part of the Q&A panel at SDCC 2024:

LAURA: No, but seriously, how much does he—did we get from Matt before we actually start a campaign? TRAVIS: Nothin'! LAURA: Is that what you're asking? Yeah. TRAVIS: We get nothin'! Except for Mighty—well, the second campaign, we got a little primer because the continents were new and the structure was new. LAURA: And with like Campaign 3, we knew how far after Mighty Nein it was going to be. And then I think you said it was going to be more, oh, God, what was the term you kept—you said it when we were deciding our characters. You said— MATT: I said it was going to start more pulpy. LAURA: Pulpy. That's what it was. Like, you know, orange juice. Yeah. MARISHA: That was with Bell's Hells, is that what you're talking about? Well, he said it's going to be more pulpy and also way more deadly, is what he said. And then that was about it. ASHLEY: Yeah. That's what we got.

So "pulpy" refers to a specific kind of fiction. The name comes from the wood pulp paper used to print fiction magazines from roughly the first half of the 20th century, and is usually understood to mean lowbrow or sensationalist stories. (The Shadow, John Carter of Mars, Zorro, and Tarzan all featured in pulp magazines.) The general vibe of pulp is larger-than-life heroes, strange locales, and mysterious villains, and a lot of action-adventure stories are viewed as effectively spiritual successors to those pulp stories if not having been directly inspired by them. This is likely why C3's very first intro was a sendup to Indiana Jones and The Mummy—both of those film series were direct homages to old pulp stories from the 30s.*

*Unfortunately, what the cast appeared not to realize was how steeped those films are in colonial imagery. While many people, including those from the SWANA region, freely admit to being able to set that aside because they find the movies fun, it's not entirely surprising that some of those same people found that first intro to be in poor taste.

Based on all of that, my best guess is that what Matt meant by "pulpy" was effectively the premise that was fully laid out in episode 51: a high-stakes adventure story about a moon conspiracy involving a mysterious wizard trying to kill the gods. The players took "pulpy" to have various meanings—a young woman with mysterious psychic powers and ominous dreams; a flirtatious fey trying to find her parents; an elderly werewolf who once made toys for Fantasy Santa; an orphan forcibly given strange powers; a robot from an ancient destroyed city with no memory of their past; an undead woman who made a pact with her killer; and a widower who throws himself into the action to protect his people.

These are not bad premises in broad strokes, but they run headlong into the reality that Dungeons & Dragons is not a pulp novel. Collaborative art of any kind requires everyone to be on the same page, and once you get into the specifics, there are a lot of disconnects that made it a lot more difficult for this story to work. In a world where these characters had had the same initiative, planning, and investment in their own settings as characters in your average pulp story? The campaign might have worked. But the story Matt planned did not accommodate for the idea that the PCs might need to have those traits developed over time, or that they might not have the skills necessary to keep the plot moving. So instead, what we got was a cast of characters that wasted time arguing in circles repeating the same points over and over and accomplishing nothing, who constantly looked to someone else to make a decision for them or tell them what fetch quest to go on, who lacked both the skill and the inclination to investigate the plot on their own.

As for "more deadly"...I have to imagine Otohan, the anti-resurrection poison, and the anti-divine magic properties of Ruidian fighters were developed with that in mind. The problem is that is undercut when the characters watch a friend die in the first act...and then immediately call up a level 20 archdruid to give them a ride to ask a level 20 cleric for help in a city governed by a level 20 fighter and a level 20 ranger/rogue who are both sympathetic and richer than god. It's definitely undercut when it's episode 91, they're facing Otohan again, Chetney falls, and...he's immediately revivified. (So I guess this anti-resurrection poison that's been haunting the campaign since we learned about all these mysterious deaths is no match for the power of a 3rd-level spell?) It's additionally undercut when Otohan is effectively an outlier, and the only character who is comparable in deadliness (Ozo Cruth) is handled by a completely different party.

So whatever Matt meant by "more pulpy and also way more deadly", and whatever the cast understood he meant by it, the campaign failed to accomplish either of those things. I think it's pretty telling that even after being told this campaign was in fact meant to be deadlier, one of the players explicitly refused to roll a new character until she knew for sure if her current one could be resurrected or not—a resurrection that was ultimately of little consequence, like everything else in the campaign.

[chaosgenasi]

We came to a young world. We came to a world of raw, elemental wonder. Of chaos and exultant passion. Of energy vaster, and more potent than anything we beheld in the cosmos... It doesn’t seem like it’s random or chaos. It just seemed like potential.

[zeephyre]

CR3 EPISODE 59 RANT

Okay so I've finally watched episode 59 and... it was so good. utkarsh as a fresh player is such a good addition to the table, i ADORE the way he plays because it's the lack of experience of the player really making the lack of experience of bor'dor that much more delightful.

aimee is always a joy to see and im so thrilled she brought deni$e into the fray because that's such an hilarious gag character. reminds me of travis making chutney his PC and it actually becoming a very good character. (miss you already pock o'pea 💏).

AND EMILY!!!! im more into cr than d20 but i fucking loved a court of fey and flowers so much and emily was an absolute fucking gem in that, and she was an absolute genius in neverafter. i've seen clips of her brilliance but getting TWO crits back to back almost immediately was fucking crazy, matt I'm praying for you fr. love prism, she's so funky and cool, and so autism coded. (just like bor'dor)

--

on to the three hellians we're following this go around. taliesin and marisha are trying to ruin my life, im absolutely fucking convinced. marisha already knows how to pull on those imogen heart strings, just like Laura. and taliesin plays ashton as completely wired and absolutely determined to not fall apart even though they lost their shit pretty fucking immediately after they teleported.

ashton saying they'll do whatever it takes to find their people again, fuck saving the world, was just absolute gold. ashton and laudna's motivations have never struck me as particularly martyr like so their single-minded focus on making sure the band is back together was so refreshing i love them so much, i can't wait for more rp moments between them.

LIAM O'BRIEN. YOU ARE INSANE SIR.

i need ashton and laudna to give orym ten thousand hugs and never let my little guy go holy shit he is at his wit's end. all those little moments of trauma flashbacks just running through his head was just *chefs kiss* thank you liam. i know orym said he doesn't have anyone but that pause... that pause was both heart breaking and also gives me room to hope that liam is cooking up a slow burn for the ages. (peep taliesin's face the entire time orym was talking to deni$e -- ashrym nation RISE UP)

i do really hope that orym and ashton have more moments together, especially considering the conversation they had on the skyship about orym not always being able to be "the good one". i hope orym reaches out, and hell, if not then i am BEGGING ashton to reach out cause i really think this group in particular has one of the most best subtle emotional connections for ashton and i just djsjdkdkdl I LOVE THEM AND I WANT MORE ANGST.

[c-kiddo]

(this is a string-of-thought infodump. .. maybe it doesnt make sense but i just felt like writing something about it. . just out my brains. do not yell at me i mean this entirely in a special interest thinking way and not as an argument)

i feel like people get touchy about this but i do think its rly interesting to see, especially in this fandom, sometimes the unwillingness to accept death, i guess? like, thats the one great inevitability.. but people make au’s where caleb is turned to an elf so he wont die before essek, when really him dying within his human lifespan is a just as worthwhile lifetime than one lasting centuries. they can still love each other and care for each other in that time. like, this goes for all characters and relationships in anything really - a short life is a worthwhile life. oh man and especially (ik i’ve talked about this before but i got the ‘tisms im going to repeat it) with molly’s story.. right, like his whole ethos was living as much as possible in what time he had (because he knew, to some extent, that he was in a borrowed body. it wasn’t really his) so he left his mark and got tattooed and had sex and drank and everything else. and then he did die and the cycle continued, the original soul, and then a new soul, in the body. (and THEN taliesin made a character who’s entire purpose in life was carrying people gently from life to death, a gravedigger and priest. are you kidding me thats so cool... and i just want to say how much i love the moment when caduceus reaches down into the earth of molly’s grave and casts decompose... its such a lovely passing of the baton, a definite moving on and a goodbye... i made the earth remember him.. .. waugh.) and then i guess theres discourse now surrounding cr3, which, is odd since clearly Bells Hells are trying very hard to make this not a perma-death. so i just kinda want to see what happens, if marisha wants a new character or not.. (i do very much like laudna tho..) ... ok enough death rambles.. and please note that i dont even mean this as a judgement and maybe its that morbid autism trait people sometimes talk about.. its just very interesting to me. i love thinking about it. i love waiting to see what happens

[romeoandjulietyouwish]

okay so im thinking about your 🏠 imodna au and i feel like they couldn’t meet ALL the bells hells as roommates at once (because that’d be a lot of roommates to get at once lol) so if you don’t mind here’s some other ways they could meet people i’d love to hear your thoughts on because your writing mind is genius

i feel like chet does actually have to be the roommate (or the first, i do agree they all end up moving in eventually) but like. he sees the ad for another roommate and he answers it. and they end up with this curmudgeonly old guy. and i feel like imogen especially keeps telling laudna she’s gonna kick him out (on days when chet is being especially frustrating) and laudna is just like, darling. first of all no you won’t, but second of all, what if he left and just died of old age? how would you feel then? and so imogen puts up with him (until she finally realizes that ofc she does like him, beneath it all)

imogen and laudna have great minds for design and what they want to do. what they don’t have? strength! so that’s where ashton comes in for sure. he’s not technically a construction worker, sure, but they’ll take any job you offer them and he’s a whole lot cheaper too (and shit they’re good at it? and actually beneath their tough demeanor they’re really cool and nice too)

i feel like FCG always has to come along with ashton so i guess they’re just a friend who maybe just tags along one day? maybe ashton mentions that they think FCG would like their new clients?

imogen is at a flea market one day (with laudna of course, laudna keeps her from getting too anxious in crowds) to get barter for some cheap decor and she sees fearne steal something. she wouldn’t care except she was just about to buy it—she chases fearne down and tries to convince fearne to give it to her or she’ll turn fearne in (once fearne realizes that imogen is not really a do-gooder/snitch type and in fact just really wants whatever she just stole, fearne instantly adores her. she does not give imogen the item, but helps her look around the flea market and get good deals on similar things (and sometimes steals things for imogen although imogen doesn’t encourage this))

maybe when they have a second bedroom open, orym is the next to take it? it’s been very interesting watching cr3 versus the fanon version of him because im so used to fanon that im like “oh yeah he moves into town all sad and lonely because of will’s death (and/or not being with Dorian anymore)” but im behind in cr3 and im at the point where they’re talking about the fact he’s actually the most normal/stable of them all and tbh that’s true (although he obviously is hiding all his shit) but for those reasons idk what fits for a good way to get orym into this au

so yeah some of these ideas make more sense than others in my brain so I’d love to hear your thoughts

I hope it’s okay that I decided to tweak your idea, im just avoiding homework and really love all your aus but am especially excited about this new one so my brain was like “ahh them all becoming roommates at once would be awesome but also a little chaotic, how could they all slowly be incorporated to the au over time?”

It's absolutely okay!

I actually think that Chetney is someone they hire to help them, ya know because he's good at working with wood and there's a shit ton of waterlogged floorboard in the house. And over time, you're so right, the two of them do grow begrudgingly fond of him to the point that when construction is almost over, they offer him the extra attic room.

Oh my god I love the idea of Ashton being a construction worker and FCG being their best friend that just goes everywhere that they do (I love the idea of modern au FCG being in a wheelchair and maybe Ashton learned construction and shit to help build ramps and lifts for them). And the same thing happens, construction is almost done and Imogen offers the two of them a room.

Orym is probably the only one who responds to the roommate ad. He doesn't know much about construction, but he needs a cheap place to live. And he's the connection between the witches and Fearne, when they find out that Orym and Fearne are friends, she moves in too. So everyone but Chetney is doubled up in rooms.

[iamdeltas]

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I tagged 17,501 of my posts in 2022

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#honestly i thought it was just a me thing cuz i just normally don't vibe with characters who are portrayed as stupid for the point of comed

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Luz 100% will stumble across Camila's old Cosmic Frontiers fanfic one day. I am willing it into being, because it would be hilarious.

64 notes - Posted October 17, 2022

#4

I haven't done any posts about general episode thoughts in a long time but I figure I ought to bring it back for Kamala's MCU debut, what with my icon being her right now and also what with her being my favorite Marvel character and my introduction to the comics.

I really think they captured Kamala's character well here and Iman Vellani is a delight playing her! It is interesting that they changed Kamala from being a fanfic writer to being a YouTuber discussing the Avengers, but it makes sense. I'll miss the fanfic angle but since fanfic of the Avengers in-universe is basically RPF, that probably gets into weird territory.

Now I'm not of Pakistani descent but I am Indian-American, and I'm Muslim, so I think I can speak to the accuracy of the cultural stuff. Honestly, I think it was dead on. The Bollywood music was a really nice touch, and I loved the scattered Urdu phrases throughout. And the aunty gossip is too real. I remember when a family friend was getting engaged to a white girl, the gossip was raging! (They all still came to the wedding though.) Also the Halal Guys shout out had me laughing, especially since I was considering getting lunch from there earlier today!

The family dynamic is very compelling and there was a lot that rang true for me. Honestly my parents would have reacted the exact same way if I'd asked to attend any cons. It was a bit amusing that the dialogue there seemed to be lifted from the comics since in the comics Kamala was actually asking to go to a party but it still worked because desi parents do overexaggerate things! That being said, I am kind of wary of how they've firmly slotted Muneeba as the "strict" parent and Yusuf as the "nice" parent when they were both equally strict in the comics. I don't know that I like that change. Anyway I'm also liking her sibling dynamic with Aamir and I'm looking forward to when we see his fiancee since she was really cool in the comics.

Kamala's and Bruno's dynamic is really fun. I did catch those ship teasing, which is... fine, they did that in the comics too. Anyway, they bounce off each other well! I enjoyed what little we saw of Nakia too and I hope we see more of her.

As expected, since I'm ornery like that, I still don't like the changes to her powers. I do appreciate the comic references though, like when she rescued Zoe in a similar way. And the end credits sequence with the art from the comics was VERY cool!

I am cautiously optimistic about the rest of this series!

72 notes - Posted June 8, 2022

#3

I see that "they," Netflix After School. 👀

207 notes - Posted July 1, 2022

#2

I absolutely love that Phoenix Parks has an actual goddamn dungeon. I can 100% believe Pauline would be extra enough to have one built. Wonder who else she's thrown in there.

237 notes - Posted June 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Me: *looking at the cast list for Dead End: Paranormal Park* What do you MEAN the demon guy is voiced by Lily from Hannah Montana?

409 notes - Posted June 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

hi ! aasimar for the cr ask game ?

Oh, an ask ! How exciting ! Hi !

aasimar: what is your favorite location in exandria (or out of it)

Generally speaking, the Fey Realm. It is so weird, and monstrous and strange, and evokes a "it will fuck you up but you will come back for more" type of feeling (mmmh maybe that's not healthy). I was a little sad about that in season 2 of The Legend of Vox Machina, because we didn't spend as much time there as I would've hoped, but... at least we were there also in cr3 !

Other favorite locations of mine : Rumblecusp (because this island had everything and especially DINOSAURS !), Rexxentrum (... yeah, I know, kinda gross, but political things and exciting stuff are happening there !), and the current skyship (just because it's such a cool home/means of travel).

[zeephyre]

CR3: EPISODE 62 RANT

Spoilers Below, duh.

All in all this episode was really fun. I really enjoy episodes that include a journey towards a destination and I love when each player has to roll for an outcome.

I liked the quiet moments between all of the characters as we're getting further into our time together and are becoming somewhat friends.

prism I think is the most likely to stay with the group (if that will ever even work out, like marisha said idk how they're gonna pull that off but i really hope we get a huge ass table full of players). bor'dor, who i am still incredibly suspicious of, seems genuinely distressed by his brother not being there and i think they brushed off the possibility that he got yeeted too quickly because it's honestly more than likely that it did happen. or he doesn't exist and bor'dor is a dog (I don't even like that theory it's just funny). denise seems like she just wants to find dariax, kick his ass and then get married and run off where ludinus can't touch them. i don't think she thinks that's possible but i really don't want her near the fray. dariax and the crown keepers seem like they're in the shit though.

orym didn't react to ashton bringing up the ashari (and i don't know if taliesin meant to say hishari but whatever) and (idk if i just forgot) but im pretty sure they still haven't talked about that since laudna encouraged ashton to speak with orym about it. i kinda remember orym not knowing about it but i could be misremembering though. either way, i think this particular episode ashton is... really desperate to figure themself out.

between asking orym to help him meditate on rocks (which was a really cute scene) to his interest in the skeleton embedded in the stone (plus the cool new shiny ring they got out of it) and the crystals at that creepy ass cavern -- i really hope he gets some answers soon. i have a feeling this might be the place to get it though, idk.

bor'dor seems to have the impression that the hellians think they're strong enough to stop the god eater but they don't even think they're strong enough to stop ludinus. they couldn't even beat otohan thull. they're not fighting because they think they can win, they're fighting because not fighting is no longer an option. there's nothing to do BUT fight. they know too much, and they have too much at stake to leave the battle.

imogen and orym especially. and there's no way in hell any of the bells hells will try to pretend to be okay with anything ludinus has done or will do. they know what he and his cult are capable of. I'm glad they got to express a bit of that though.

laudna called Imogen her sister but i lived through a time where dean winchester called the angel who is in love with him his brother so i didn't even flinch.

ashton got a massage from orym. it was appropriately sweet and hilarious. i think... orym might be one of the only people who consistently has touched ashton. i can't remember anyone asking explicit permission to touch him. i am so jazzed that they ENCOURAGED orym to touch them.

i think ashton has some of the best moments in their ability to create moments where between PCs where rp is at its finest. we haven't gotten another round of "what the fuck is up with that?" yet but that pipe was inspired. i love the little moments between him and prism. whenever ashton does something incredibly thoughtful they act like it's uncommon or a fluke and it's such bullshit cause he's SO consistent with his empathy. he's not a fucking public speaker by any means, but he has an energy around him that is unironically great to be around.

on a lighter note, my favourite moment (aside from the ashrym massage) from this episode is either orym praying to the wild mother or orym fucking hang gliding a eagle sized raven down a ravene. he's such a cutie.

i can't wait for the next episode. team issylra seems to think abadina betrayed them but i think the dude they're supposed to meet has been murked by whatever is in entombed. maybe it was set free by the same sort of dispelling magic shit that hit uthodurn and unpetrified the bull. if that's the case, hopefully this ends with the power of friendship prevailing as well.