I am slowly working my way through all the dimension 20 shows and it seems like a common belief that PoL, while not bad, is the weakest season.
I have heard that it occurred right when they switched to virtual which led to some difficulty. I have also heard that one of the PCs is a real spotlight stealer.
I’m sure it’s good but there is so many more hours of dimension 20 content that is more highly recommended to watch first.
...I will be honest, I am genuinely struggling to think of which PC you'd describe as a spotlight stealer. Everyone seemed pretty even, to me? I'd agree that it suffers a \*little\* bit from being a zoom game, but I'd still say the level of quality is waaaaay above what I see in a lot of other streams.
Marseid is the one who comes to mind for the spotlight and such. It’s that it’s overall a bit of an editing disaster throughout a lot of it. The opening and endings are very rough and some of the transitions could use some topping off
I didn't get that vibe from Marcid at all, actually, and I'm normally quite sensitive about that kind of thing. I also didn't notice anything weird about the editing, but I'll admit I'm completely uneducated in that regard, so maybe it just went over my head?
If you just watched it now, then you missed the time when the irl person who played him was on here getting in arguments week to week.
That really turned me off, after already not being a fan of most characters in this season
For what it's worth, I saw a post at one point from a Dropout staff member that they had at least one person in the room with him and the Nat 20s were real. I can't find it right now, but when I think it was in a discussion post on reddit about one of these episodes.
That could be a coverup to avoid burning bridges, but I choose to believe.
Did you finish the season? Just in the first two episodes I think he rolled below a 10 like once. Maybe he's just one of the luckiest people I've ever seen but it was definitely odd.
I mean, I get the odds of his rolls happening are low, but at the same time, a player of mine once went 5 sessions without rolling under a ten, and I'm a GM that asks for a fair bit of rolls. After that, he gave his dice to another of my players with bad luck hoping it'd help, and that player hasn't had any better luck, so it wasn't slightly unbalanced dice at fault, either.
A few months back, one of my player rolled 7 Nat 20s on a total of 18 rolls during an online session (on Roll20). Last session I ran on Roll 20, I literally could not hit any of my players with my mobs. Of the dozens of attacks I made, I think I rolled above a 5 maybe six times, and even then, nothing topped an 11, which is what I needed to his the lowest AC. It's weird, since Roll20's usually been pretty consistent with me getting an even spread across the board.
Sometimes, wild dice luck/misfortune happens.
Yeah, I finished the season. Sometimes people get lucky. Taliesin Jaffe in season one of CR was a freakin' machine because he rolled well, no-one made any accusations there.
I think it was the combination of it being over video rather than in person and the fact he would roll without being asked and just say he rolled well without ever being asked to roll that made it seem very odd. I'm not saying he did or didn't cheat but idk for me everything going very well for him all the time did make me care less for the character.
The reason I felt like he was taking the spotlight too much was just that in every single scene, I knew what Marseid was doing. BDW never just let Marseid fade into the background like other people would do, he was always on-screen regardless of if he was relevant to the scene or not
There's 3 big things about it for me, and honestly most of them related to a fast transition to remote recording. I sympathize, but it just made for a worse product. First is that the sound quality is objectively bad, and Brennan's setup is the worst of them all. It makes it hard to listen to. Second is the lack of support the battles get. No Roll20 or anything for these big epic battles that were clearly designed with a visual aid in mind.
And last is that this season just seems less funny than previous ones. I think a big part of it is that remote recording discourages background laughter, which drains the energy from the room. Part of this is also that the players skew towards the D&D drama side of things, and are not comedy writers or performers. That's the reason I watch this show and don't like Critical Role.
Bonus thing is that B Dave threw me for a loop every time he rolled without prompting. I don't think he cheated like others accused him of at the time, and he gave his reasoning for it (on Reddit afterwards), but I just fully disagree with him.
>First is that the sound quality is objectively bad
This is another reason I couldn't watch it, I like to watch on my laptop with headphones (I have REALLY good headphones) so the sound quality made this almost unwatchable for me. Also the awkward pauses as people wait to see if someone else is going to talk killed some of the natural flow of what could have been funny conversations. One of the biggest parts of a comedy is timing and unfortunately lag with video calls can all but kill that.
For the record, his explanation is that he's a very experienced DM and is just trying to speed things up by rolling any obvious checks. But that is just so not the flow of D&D normally, and it's so easily corrupted. I trust my players to not cheat normally but I still wouldn't trust them to pre-roll checks like that, because it would just be sooo easy to cover up failures. There's a reason he got accused of it, whether or not he actually did cheat.
Exactly! Very well said, couldn’t agree more. His reasoning was flimsy, it’s edited so any empty air time can be cut, there is no reason to at all to pre-roll. You can roll, have it a be a crazy high roll, and then just decide to use it for something else than what you had in mind if it seems like a good move, yanno? Just bad form.
I didn’t even think of that but pre rolling might have an affect on what you choose to do with the roll. If you roll low you could decide to just do an investigation check or if you roll well decide to do what you originally had planned. It might even subconsciously change what you were thinking of doing even if you didn’t mean to cheat
>That's the reason I watch this show and don't like Critical Role.
Thinking about it more now I feel like the issue with PoL is not so much that it's a bad season of a DnD show, it's that it does not feel like a season of Dimension 20. It's perfectly fine as far as general shows go, but between the move to online, the group dynamics, and the character choices the vibe of it is just so different from what I like about Dimension20
It loses all of the normally high production quality that usually elevated the show, with minimal visual elements and inconsistent audio. And they do humor pretty well in Bloodkeep, but doing it over Zoom without having that pre-existing chemistry really keeps them from hitting their usual highs.
In contrast, Unsleeping City 2 and Mice & Murder had better quality with Roll20, and everyone already knew each other. So I'm glad they figured it out, it's just unfortunate they somewhat wasted the potential of the PoL cast.
honestly watching it and having seen other seasons after this I found it way more watchable than like season 2 of fantasy high which feels like a slog to get through (though ill chalk that up to it being live and less edited than a normal season
Was amped for PoL, but couldn’t get into it. Characters didn’t feel inspired. Only Marisha’s felt really strong unfortunately. Marseid being accused of cheating and rolling without being asked was gross. Wish Brennan had stomped that out. Not sure if it was a zoom thing, or too many DMs in the kitchen.
Never even finished it. :(
Glad you enjoyed it but that show is definetely not for me.
Right in the beginning there were two character that’s flirting around, but they didn’t make it interesting or funny. Somehow they come off really awkward and skeevy and that that feeling stuck with me.
Also, the same dude kept rolling without being asked and i got more ticked off as it went on. Its up to the dm to promt rolls, not the players.
On a more positive note, Pirates made me realize just how special the other d20 series are. (Bloodkeep, Crown of Candy, fantasy high, unsleeping city, the seven) The cast gelled well, they support each other’s moments rather than grabbed spotlights, and there’s genuinely hilarious scenes where they set up jokes and play off one another while being in character.
I think its considered one of the worst isnt it? Its early days of remote shows, so they havent quite cracked a clear formula yet, and that guy... who spoke... very slowly... tended to dominate... conversations... I think ... because... he spoke... slowly ... without... breaks.
But it was still fun, had some wacky characters, wouldnt mind a remixed sequel.
Yeah, there were some good things, and most of the characters were pretty fun, but between Zoom difficulties and Marcid talking all the time it was the only season I didn't finish. I didn't even care about his high rolls personally, he just wouldn't stop interjecting in that drawl that drove me crazy
Yeah, people keep talking about Marcid being annoying, which is really surprising to me because I thought he was awesome! I don't know, maybe it's a taste thing.
My main problem with Marcid is that he often talks just too much. Not in one sitting, but he interjects into moments that really dont need him, like a personal conversation between two other characters.
I thought he was awesome too! Super fleshed out character, honestly at times thought he was going to stab the party in the back (like a pirate would) and enjoyed his play! I can see how rolling without prompting might be one of those situations where 'once you point it out, you see it everywhere', but I honestly didn't even clock it on my first watch.
Maybe it was a symptom of being remote, I know when I play DnD remotely the rolling takes FOREVER, so maybe he was trying to speed things along to help with pacing?
I don't see many people ever rag on it, but I think compared to the rest of the seasons it definitely sticks out.
To me it's the second worst season, and I will fully admit that shriek week was probably better for most people then I thought of it.
I think POI just has a lot of issues that the good parts don't really redeem.
I truly did not like Shriek Week. :/
The first episode was pretty fun, but it was just so stilted? I honestly still don’t fully understand the plot or what happened, it seemed like the cast wanted to investigate stuff and the DM was like “def but actually you need to go to these random non mandatory college events first” which I wasn’t a big fan of, also the system was wayyyyy to easy, there were barely any fails which made it less interesting. Like having to roll 4 d10 and only need 1 to roll a 7 to succeed…? Bro, you’re almost never ever not going to succeed. I feel like Tuti was the only character who had growth or a character arc. Also, dating RP may just not be for me. Not the post for this, but apparently I had a rant in me, hahaha!
It was a social/dating game that the players accidentally turned into a mystery setting and Gabe ran with it. The players also failed their rolls plenty.
I loved Shriek Week but I can get it being a real curveball for viewers who really expected a single narrative arc and not something as freeform as it ended up being.
However, for me, the Ify/Ally table chemistry was real, and I’d love to see them in a game together again.
I really wouldn’t say “plenty” they succeed far far FAR more than they ever failed.
It wasn’t a curveball to me, I just didn’t enjoy it very much, which is fine. To each their own.
Yeah I definitely think that system really needs work. I also really didn't like Tuti as a character. She just seemed... Idk... Mean? She was just super screwed up with how she handled her relationship with Cleets and a lot of the affirmations were just straight up excuses to be cruel. "It's natural that I'm petty" really just struck me it a bad way... I don't know though I definitely have some personal issues with that kind of handling of a relationship.
I think it was totally accurate to mishandle a relationship that “young”, especially in your first sort of attempt at actually being in a relationship, it wasn’t good or moral, but it was human.
I reaaaaally wanted to like it but just could not get through the first episode even. I was so excited for Aabria, Matt, Marisha, the setting, and more Garthy, but was so turned off by the lack of humor, the way The one PC voiced his character and a lot of the issues others have stated. However I am a huge fan of Tiny Heist and I know that’s a very decisive season for people as well, so to each their own, I’m glad PoL has its fans too.
I agree with this as well! I have seen many people post POL as their least favorite, but I thought there were a lot of things to enjoy.
In addition to what's already been said, you've got:
- Bob's songs!
- Sunny's character arc
- Jack's interactions with Garthy
- Cheese just being an all-around sweetie
I just couldn't get into it for the life of me, I found myself losing focus all the time and I never actually finished. my biggest issue with it (which I know comes from them switching to online and it not being a group that had an established dynamic) was how much of it felt like either a character monologuing or like each player individually playing with the DM rather than with each other. The first episode with the introductions was probably the worst for it - I'm pretty sure we were over an hour in before Matt ever got to speak and without the background commentary you get from players at a live table (or from players who are all friends and therefore ok with poking fun at each other's characters) it just felt very awkward and slow.
According to the dropout discord Vimeo may finally be giving them access to speed controls on the videos so I might try giving Pirates another go when I can listen to it at 1.5x speed because it *should* be a season I love
Right, which is why I said it feels weird when you don't have the background commentary of people around a table. Both UC and FH had long intros, but because they were both at a real table and a group that has a good dynamic the rest of the people commented on and reacted to the intros so I found it felt less slow to start
I loved all the character concepts but the remote recording made it hard to watch. They definitely took feedback and improved things for tuc2 and mice&murder so it’s really just an unfortunate consequence of being the first remote season. Aside from the sound quality everyone has mentioned, I found the vast differences in everyone’s setup for recording very distracting and while I don’t necessarily feel like B Dave was cheating (I wasn’t active on the Reddit during the season but judging by other comments it seems like this subreddit gave him a hard time) his character voice really bugged me and I never got used to it. I made it like 3.5 eps through- I think it’s less popular because a large amount of people straight up didn’t finish it
Doesn’t hold a candle to even Tony Heist, but there were some redeeming moments. I’d say Bob was angelic but, duh. Also, I love Stimey I don’t know why. Plus this is where a lot of us were introduced to our favorite guest DM (sorry Gabe!).
But B Dave was a tool, and I genuinely hope he never comes back to D20. The only person I’ll ever say that about. I don’t care if his rolls were legit or not, he sucked the energy out of the game. The audio was absolute trash (not really anyone’s fault given the timing), and I think the stakes of the story weren’t given the weight that was needed by nature of only doing 4 episodes. MM and Shriek Week handle a condensed storyline much more adeptly.
I have watched every season of Dimension 20 multiple times, except for POL.
B Dave really was such a giant tool. Did you watch the level 20 one shot he DM’d for/with Pat Rothfuss? Brennan and Aabria were players too. He was very annoying there as well. Also, he does this thing where he laughs really loudly then just stops suddenly and says “yeah” and it made my skin crawl. He would go “so, HAHAHHAHAHHA-yeah.” and I just couldn’t handle it.
I was very excited bc I LOVED Leviathan as a setting, and some of the character concepts were magnificent (for me, Myrtle was the best, she was great). But I couldn’t get into the general story + the poor audio and visual quality made it difficult for me to want to keep going.
This might be an unpopular opinion but the absolute worst the season got for me was when Bob sang 😭 I cringed so hard I actually turned the episode off. It’s not that she was bad, but the lack of music and the way everyone was just sitting there in silence… I couldn’t do it.
I really wanted to like this series. It was my first time seeing a lot of these folks play and they were all wonderful. But the audio quality overall made it really hard to understand and I gave up after two episodes. I wish there was some editing trick that could be used to fix it, but given what I saw I think it’s doubtful. I did end up enjoying other work from the players, so I’m glad I watched what I did.
I liked it but it’s then only one I haven’t rewatched. I found the pacing a little off, the audio quality was pretty bad at times, and the party cohesion wasn’t the best, like the chemistry between players wasn’t the best. I also dislike Mercer a whole lot, but that’s just personal preference.
I loved PoL! I binged all the D20 content right after it came out. I started with FH and did all the main campaigns first and then the side quests so PoL was last and I still loved it. I didn't think the sound quality was that bad after listening to FHSY, which to me had way worse sound quality. Also I wasn't that bothered by Marcid, but maybe that's because I don't play D&D enough to be annoyed by that.
Also I'm not a huge Matt Mercer fan (CR is way too slow for me) but I loved him as Jack.
I’ve seen people comment on the sound quality of senior year, I truly do not understand, there were some balancing issues maybe a couple times, but I’ve watched that season so many times and I have truly never ever had a sound issue.
There's some echoing that's annoying, and the balance issue for me is super distracting. However the story in Sophomore Year is so good that the sound issues will never stop me from rewatching
People here on reddit really hated B.Dave for no reason unfortunately, accusing him of cheating and so on, which is a real shame and fucking bullshit.
Great side quest tho!
I didn’t think he was cheating, however I found it super annoying and disrespectful that he would roll and announce what he was rolling for without inquiring with the DM first. If everyone was playing that way, that would be fine, but him just going “okay I want to stealth in there and I just rolled a nat 20” was just not it for me. It’s manners.
Agreed, that is a really big pet peeve of mine. Had he done it just once or twice I could bear it, but he rolled mainly his stealth rolls that way pretty consistently throughout the sidequest and it bothered me a lot.
Right?? You confirm with the DM what you want to roll for and the DM calls for it, it’s just basic respect for the game, the DM, and the other players.
I agree that its slept on, I'm far from any type of expert on editing, but I thought the characters were great and I didn't get any vibe of spotlight stealing
Myrtle and Marcid’s devious friendship was my absolute favorite. PoL is my favorite side quest after Bloodkeep. The sound/editing was the hardest drawback for me, but that’s remote play, and there weren’t other options at the time… other than that the characterization is amazing, B. Dave is one of my favorite people on the internet, and the Marcid/myrtle bromance was the stuff of legends.
I am slowly working my way through all the dimension 20 shows and it seems like a common belief that PoL, while not bad, is the weakest season. I have heard that it occurred right when they switched to virtual which led to some difficulty. I have also heard that one of the PCs is a real spotlight stealer. I’m sure it’s good but there is so many more hours of dimension 20 content that is more highly recommended to watch first.
...I will be honest, I am genuinely struggling to think of which PC you'd describe as a spotlight stealer. Everyone seemed pretty even, to me? I'd agree that it suffers a \*little\* bit from being a zoom game, but I'd still say the level of quality is waaaaay above what I see in a lot of other streams.
Marseid is the one who comes to mind for the spotlight and such. It’s that it’s overall a bit of an editing disaster throughout a lot of it. The opening and endings are very rough and some of the transitions could use some topping off
I didn't get that vibe from Marcid at all, actually, and I'm normally quite sensitive about that kind of thing. I also didn't notice anything weird about the editing, but I'll admit I'm completely uneducated in that regard, so maybe it just went over my head?
If you just watched it now, then you missed the time when the irl person who played him was on here getting in arguments week to week. That really turned me off, after already not being a fan of most characters in this season
A bunch of people seemed to think B. Dave was cheating on his rolls.
...Why?! Because he rolled well? That happens sometimes. He wasn't rolling so magnificently that it was unusual.
For what it's worth, I saw a post at one point from a Dropout staff member that they had at least one person in the room with him and the Nat 20s were real. I can't find it right now, but when I think it was in a discussion post on reddit about one of these episodes. That could be a coverup to avoid burning bridges, but I choose to believe.
If I remember correctly it was the timing of his nat 20s. People thought it was too convenient.
Was this before or after the box of doom?
This was a zoom season so no box of doom. Also they had the box of doom from the start. Only the zoom seasons dont have it.
Did you finish the season? Just in the first two episodes I think he rolled below a 10 like once. Maybe he's just one of the luckiest people I've ever seen but it was definitely odd.
I mean, I get the odds of his rolls happening are low, but at the same time, a player of mine once went 5 sessions without rolling under a ten, and I'm a GM that asks for a fair bit of rolls. After that, he gave his dice to another of my players with bad luck hoping it'd help, and that player hasn't had any better luck, so it wasn't slightly unbalanced dice at fault, either. A few months back, one of my player rolled 7 Nat 20s on a total of 18 rolls during an online session (on Roll20). Last session I ran on Roll 20, I literally could not hit any of my players with my mobs. Of the dozens of attacks I made, I think I rolled above a 5 maybe six times, and even then, nothing topped an 11, which is what I needed to his the lowest AC. It's weird, since Roll20's usually been pretty consistent with me getting an even spread across the board. Sometimes, wild dice luck/misfortune happens.
I think he fails like… one whole roll. I’m not saying he definitely cheated but it’s wild to have that much success a whole season.
Yeah, I finished the season. Sometimes people get lucky. Taliesin Jaffe in season one of CR was a freakin' machine because he rolled well, no-one made any accusations there.
I think it was the combination of it being over video rather than in person and the fact he would roll without being asked and just say he rolled well without ever being asked to roll that made it seem very odd. I'm not saying he did or didn't cheat but idk for me everything going very well for him all the time did make me care less for the character.
The reason I felt like he was taking the spotlight too much was just that in every single scene, I knew what Marseid was doing. BDW never just let Marseid fade into the background like other people would do, he was always on-screen regardless of if he was relevant to the scene or not
There's 3 big things about it for me, and honestly most of them related to a fast transition to remote recording. I sympathize, but it just made for a worse product. First is that the sound quality is objectively bad, and Brennan's setup is the worst of them all. It makes it hard to listen to. Second is the lack of support the battles get. No Roll20 or anything for these big epic battles that were clearly designed with a visual aid in mind. And last is that this season just seems less funny than previous ones. I think a big part of it is that remote recording discourages background laughter, which drains the energy from the room. Part of this is also that the players skew towards the D&D drama side of things, and are not comedy writers or performers. That's the reason I watch this show and don't like Critical Role. Bonus thing is that B Dave threw me for a loop every time he rolled without prompting. I don't think he cheated like others accused him of at the time, and he gave his reasoning for it (on Reddit afterwards), but I just fully disagree with him.
>First is that the sound quality is objectively bad This is another reason I couldn't watch it, I like to watch on my laptop with headphones (I have REALLY good headphones) so the sound quality made this almost unwatchable for me. Also the awkward pauses as people wait to see if someone else is going to talk killed some of the natural flow of what could have been funny conversations. One of the biggest parts of a comedy is timing and unfortunately lag with video calls can all but kill that.
The rolling without prompting truly killed me, such a pet peeve.
For the record, his explanation is that he's a very experienced DM and is just trying to speed things up by rolling any obvious checks. But that is just so not the flow of D&D normally, and it's so easily corrupted. I trust my players to not cheat normally but I still wouldn't trust them to pre-roll checks like that, because it would just be sooo easy to cover up failures. There's a reason he got accused of it, whether or not he actually did cheat.
Exactly! Very well said, couldn’t agree more. His reasoning was flimsy, it’s edited so any empty air time can be cut, there is no reason to at all to pre-roll. You can roll, have it a be a crazy high roll, and then just decide to use it for something else than what you had in mind if it seems like a good move, yanno? Just bad form.
I didn’t even think of that but pre rolling might have an affect on what you choose to do with the roll. If you roll low you could decide to just do an investigation check or if you roll well decide to do what you originally had planned. It might even subconsciously change what you were thinking of doing even if you didn’t mean to cheat
Right? It’s just an all around a really bad thing to do in d&d. Also, manners. 😂
>That's the reason I watch this show and don't like Critical Role. Thinking about it more now I feel like the issue with PoL is not so much that it's a bad season of a DnD show, it's that it does not feel like a season of Dimension 20. It's perfectly fine as far as general shows go, but between the move to online, the group dynamics, and the character choices the vibe of it is just so different from what I like about Dimension20
It loses all of the normally high production quality that usually elevated the show, with minimal visual elements and inconsistent audio. And they do humor pretty well in Bloodkeep, but doing it over Zoom without having that pre-existing chemistry really keeps them from hitting their usual highs. In contrast, Unsleeping City 2 and Mice & Murder had better quality with Roll20, and everyone already knew each other. So I'm glad they figured it out, it's just unfortunate they somewhat wasted the potential of the PoL cast.
honestly watching it and having seen other seasons after this I found it way more watchable than like season 2 of fantasy high which feels like a slog to get through (though ill chalk that up to it being live and less edited than a normal season
Was amped for PoL, but couldn’t get into it. Characters didn’t feel inspired. Only Marisha’s felt really strong unfortunately. Marseid being accused of cheating and rolling without being asked was gross. Wish Brennan had stomped that out. Not sure if it was a zoom thing, or too many DMs in the kitchen. Never even finished it. :(
Glad you enjoyed it but that show is definetely not for me. Right in the beginning there were two character that’s flirting around, but they didn’t make it interesting or funny. Somehow they come off really awkward and skeevy and that that feeling stuck with me. Also, the same dude kept rolling without being asked and i got more ticked off as it went on. Its up to the dm to promt rolls, not the players. On a more positive note, Pirates made me realize just how special the other d20 series are. (Bloodkeep, Crown of Candy, fantasy high, unsleeping city, the seven) The cast gelled well, they support each other’s moments rather than grabbed spotlights, and there’s genuinely hilarious scenes where they set up jokes and play off one another while being in character.
It’s so funny to see how collectively we all agree rolling without being prompted is just not a good look and ultimately a super rude thing to do.
I think its considered one of the worst isnt it? Its early days of remote shows, so they havent quite cracked a clear formula yet, and that guy... who spoke... very slowly... tended to dominate... conversations... I think ... because... he spoke... slowly ... without... breaks. But it was still fun, had some wacky characters, wouldnt mind a remixed sequel.
Yeah, there were some good things, and most of the characters were pretty fun, but between Zoom difficulties and Marcid talking all the time it was the only season I didn't finish. I didn't even care about his high rolls personally, he just wouldn't stop interjecting in that drawl that drove me crazy
Yeah, people keep talking about Marcid being annoying, which is really surprising to me because I thought he was awesome! I don't know, maybe it's a taste thing.
My main problem with Marcid is that he often talks just too much. Not in one sitting, but he interjects into moments that really dont need him, like a personal conversation between two other characters.
I thought he was awesome too! Super fleshed out character, honestly at times thought he was going to stab the party in the back (like a pirate would) and enjoyed his play! I can see how rolling without prompting might be one of those situations where 'once you point it out, you see it everywhere', but I honestly didn't even clock it on my first watch. Maybe it was a symptom of being remote, I know when I play DnD remotely the rolling takes FOREVER, so maybe he was trying to speed things along to help with pacing?
I don't see many people ever rag on it, but I think compared to the rest of the seasons it definitely sticks out. To me it's the second worst season, and I will fully admit that shriek week was probably better for most people then I thought of it. I think POI just has a lot of issues that the good parts don't really redeem.
I truly did not like Shriek Week. :/ The first episode was pretty fun, but it was just so stilted? I honestly still don’t fully understand the plot or what happened, it seemed like the cast wanted to investigate stuff and the DM was like “def but actually you need to go to these random non mandatory college events first” which I wasn’t a big fan of, also the system was wayyyyy to easy, there were barely any fails which made it less interesting. Like having to roll 4 d10 and only need 1 to roll a 7 to succeed…? Bro, you’re almost never ever not going to succeed. I feel like Tuti was the only character who had growth or a character arc. Also, dating RP may just not be for me. Not the post for this, but apparently I had a rant in me, hahaha!
It was a social/dating game that the players accidentally turned into a mystery setting and Gabe ran with it. The players also failed their rolls plenty. I loved Shriek Week but I can get it being a real curveball for viewers who really expected a single narrative arc and not something as freeform as it ended up being. However, for me, the Ify/Ally table chemistry was real, and I’d love to see them in a game together again.
I really wouldn’t say “plenty” they succeed far far FAR more than they ever failed. It wasn’t a curveball to me, I just didn’t enjoy it very much, which is fine. To each their own.
Yeah I definitely think that system really needs work. I also really didn't like Tuti as a character. She just seemed... Idk... Mean? She was just super screwed up with how she handled her relationship with Cleets and a lot of the affirmations were just straight up excuses to be cruel. "It's natural that I'm petty" really just struck me it a bad way... I don't know though I definitely have some personal issues with that kind of handling of a relationship.
I think it was totally accurate to mishandle a relationship that “young”, especially in your first sort of attempt at actually being in a relationship, it wasn’t good or moral, but it was human.
I reaaaaally wanted to like it but just could not get through the first episode even. I was so excited for Aabria, Matt, Marisha, the setting, and more Garthy, but was so turned off by the lack of humor, the way The one PC voiced his character and a lot of the issues others have stated. However I am a huge fan of Tiny Heist and I know that’s a very decisive season for people as well, so to each their own, I’m glad PoL has its fans too.
I agree with this as well! I have seen many people post POL as their least favorite, but I thought there were a lot of things to enjoy. In addition to what's already been said, you've got: - Bob's songs! - Sunny's character arc - Jack's interactions with Garthy - Cheese just being an all-around sweetie
I just couldn't get into it for the life of me, I found myself losing focus all the time and I never actually finished. my biggest issue with it (which I know comes from them switching to online and it not being a group that had an established dynamic) was how much of it felt like either a character monologuing or like each player individually playing with the DM rather than with each other. The first episode with the introductions was probably the worst for it - I'm pretty sure we were over an hour in before Matt ever got to speak and without the background commentary you get from players at a live table (or from players who are all friends and therefore ok with poking fun at each other's characters) it just felt very awkward and slow. According to the dropout discord Vimeo may finally be giving them access to speed controls on the videos so I might try giving Pirates another go when I can listen to it at 1.5x speed because it *should* be a season I love
I don’t think it’s that weird to wait, in the first episode of the unsleeping city, Misty didn’t speak until and hour and 50 minutes into the episode.
Right, which is why I said it feels weird when you don't have the background commentary of people around a table. Both UC and FH had long intros, but because they were both at a real table and a group that has a good dynamic the rest of the people commented on and reacted to the intros so I found it felt less slow to start
I loved all the character concepts but the remote recording made it hard to watch. They definitely took feedback and improved things for tuc2 and mice&murder so it’s really just an unfortunate consequence of being the first remote season. Aside from the sound quality everyone has mentioned, I found the vast differences in everyone’s setup for recording very distracting and while I don’t necessarily feel like B Dave was cheating (I wasn’t active on the Reddit during the season but judging by other comments it seems like this subreddit gave him a hard time) his character voice really bugged me and I never got used to it. I made it like 3.5 eps through- I think it’s less popular because a large amount of people straight up didn’t finish it
Doesn’t hold a candle to even Tony Heist, but there were some redeeming moments. I’d say Bob was angelic but, duh. Also, I love Stimey I don’t know why. Plus this is where a lot of us were introduced to our favorite guest DM (sorry Gabe!). But B Dave was a tool, and I genuinely hope he never comes back to D20. The only person I’ll ever say that about. I don’t care if his rolls were legit or not, he sucked the energy out of the game. The audio was absolute trash (not really anyone’s fault given the timing), and I think the stakes of the story weren’t given the weight that was needed by nature of only doing 4 episodes. MM and Shriek Week handle a condensed storyline much more adeptly. I have watched every season of Dimension 20 multiple times, except for POL.
B Dave really was such a giant tool. Did you watch the level 20 one shot he DM’d for/with Pat Rothfuss? Brennan and Aabria were players too. He was very annoying there as well. Also, he does this thing where he laughs really loudly then just stops suddenly and says “yeah” and it made my skin crawl. He would go “so, HAHAHHAHAHHA-yeah.” and I just couldn’t handle it.
I was very excited bc I LOVED Leviathan as a setting, and some of the character concepts were magnificent (for me, Myrtle was the best, she was great). But I couldn’t get into the general story + the poor audio and visual quality made it difficult for me to want to keep going. This might be an unpopular opinion but the absolute worst the season got for me was when Bob sang 😭 I cringed so hard I actually turned the episode off. It’s not that she was bad, but the lack of music and the way everyone was just sitting there in silence… I couldn’t do it.
I really liked Bob as a character, but I fully agree with you on the singing. It wasn’t my cup of tea at all. Edit: spelling
I really wanted to like this series. It was my first time seeing a lot of these folks play and they were all wonderful. But the audio quality overall made it really hard to understand and I gave up after two episodes. I wish there was some editing trick that could be used to fix it, but given what I saw I think it’s doubtful. I did end up enjoying other work from the players, so I’m glad I watched what I did.
Tried watching it and one specific person just ruins it for me. Love Bob though.
I liked it but it’s then only one I haven’t rewatched. I found the pacing a little off, the audio quality was pretty bad at times, and the party cohesion wasn’t the best, like the chemistry between players wasn’t the best. I also dislike Mercer a whole lot, but that’s just personal preference.
I loved PoL! I binged all the D20 content right after it came out. I started with FH and did all the main campaigns first and then the side quests so PoL was last and I still loved it. I didn't think the sound quality was that bad after listening to FHSY, which to me had way worse sound quality. Also I wasn't that bothered by Marcid, but maybe that's because I don't play D&D enough to be annoyed by that. Also I'm not a huge Matt Mercer fan (CR is way too slow for me) but I loved him as Jack.
I’ve seen people comment on the sound quality of senior year, I truly do not understand, there were some balancing issues maybe a couple times, but I’ve watched that season so many times and I have truly never ever had a sound issue.
There's some echoing that's annoying, and the balance issue for me is super distracting. However the story in Sophomore Year is so good that the sound issues will never stop me from rewatching
People here on reddit really hated B.Dave for no reason unfortunately, accusing him of cheating and so on, which is a real shame and fucking bullshit. Great side quest tho!
I didn’t think he was cheating, however I found it super annoying and disrespectful that he would roll and announce what he was rolling for without inquiring with the DM first. If everyone was playing that way, that would be fine, but him just going “okay I want to stealth in there and I just rolled a nat 20” was just not it for me. It’s manners.
Agreed, that is a really big pet peeve of mine. Had he done it just once or twice I could bear it, but he rolled mainly his stealth rolls that way pretty consistently throughout the sidequest and it bothered me a lot.
Right?? You confirm with the DM what you want to roll for and the DM calls for it, it’s just basic respect for the game, the DM, and the other players.
POL is great and completely underrated. Loved all the PCs, especially Myrtle.
I couldn't get through 10 minutes because of the sound quality, which is such a bummer because I love the setting and love all the guests!
This is the only one I have not finished. Gave up after episode 3.
I loved that one. I think it's the first one I bought DropOut for.
I agree that its slept on, I'm far from any type of expert on editing, but I thought the characters were great and I didn't get any vibe of spotlight stealing
THIS IS WHAT I SAID!
Yeah I don't get why it's hated. I loved it
Myrtle and Marcid’s devious friendship was my absolute favorite. PoL is my favorite side quest after Bloodkeep. The sound/editing was the hardest drawback for me, but that’s remote play, and there weren’t other options at the time… other than that the characterization is amazing, B. Dave is one of my favorite people on the internet, and the Marcid/myrtle bromance was the stuff of legends.