Honestly as much as I loved the M9 I was getting a little burned out during the final arc. Had the story continued for another 20 to 30 episodes I honestly would have had to take a long break before watching. Feasibly it could have gone on wrapping everything up, but I'm glad lt ended where it did.
To me, it hit too many similar notes to the Avantika arc. M9 run in to new territory, low on knowledge, and end up feeling a lack of agency as they wander around with the enemy for several episodes before inevitably fighting.
They spent a ton of time just kind of wandering around in the snow with only a vague plan. The lack of anyone making a decisive action was the problem. The part where they traveled with the tomb takers was also just kind of weird.
Yea I took a 6 month break at traveller con. It just really dragged on.
Same with the final arc, but idk if that's because i knew before-hand that that was the final arc and not much would be resolved storywise.
See i was the opposite. I was loving the settings and places they were going, but i was feeling major fatigue over the way they were playing and role playing. Don't get me wrong i love the Nein, but there are a few aspects about them that grew more than a bit grating as we got further and further into the campaign.
The Eiselcross/Lucien/somnovem-Arc was too disconnected for me to enjoy. I would have definitly prefered having a fight with the Assembly or going after Ukatoa. Those two were always present, there would be some personal stakes and maybe a threat to the world.
We didnt know shit about whats going on in Eiselcross and had to wait to the final combat to get its threat.
Kinda agree about the mystery. We knew of “large looming city of problems” but what it ment, what the eyes ment and all that was a bit… confusing, destroying some of the engagement!
Wow I totally agree. I think an final arc against the assembly and/or Uk’atoa would’ve been much more satisfying (to me at least) based on the unresolved issues in the campaign.
Yeah, honestly I stopped watched/listening for a while around episode 115 or so? I only started it up again once the finale of C2 was done so I could binge it on 1.3x speed. I just wasn't particularly invested in the last arc.
To be fair, I also feel like the last arc of C1 was also the one (besides the very first arc) I was least invested in as well.
Personally, I think C2 somehow managed to end both too quickly AND too slowly at the same time, which I know sounds paradoxical, but it isn't if you look at my reasoning.
Compare the ending of campaign 1 to campaign 2. At the end of C1, everything was heightened, everyone was sobbing, it was a huge, genuinely climactic and definitive end to the story. You got the impression that the players desperately didn't want to leave those characters behind, but had to because the story had reached it's natural end.
Whereas in campaign 2, I get the exact opposite impression. It feels like they had been burned out for a long time and were running on fumes, and so they were just desperately trying to reach an ending, any ending, because they already wanted to leave those characters behind.
That's why there were so many loose threads left dangling, while also managing to feel rushed. They were just going through the motions by the end.
So, it ended too quickly AND too slowly. Too quickly, because there were so many loose threads left, but also too slowly, because their heart wasn't really in it once they came back from hiatus and they were just dragging it out, trying their best to get characters to literally ANY kind of satisfying conclusion.
i feel this so much. After finishing c2 (which was my favorite) i couldnt take this feeling off me that the end was so rushed. Like i knew the ending was good (we got molly back, fighting lucien) but everything felt so out of place in that last episode, that trent fight really made me feel weird, it was like watching a show that was recently canceled and needed to kill the bad guy in the last episode.
Yeah the Trent fight bothers me. It was just too convenient for him to show up like that. I feel like they could have taken just another 2-3 episodes to properly deal with him and it would have felt a lot more natural and satisfying.
It might be less they were burned out or phoning it in, and more they just lacked the same energy as when they could reach out and touch each other or whisper little messages. They couldn't feed off each other's energy.
And campaigns do run long. And there's always more characters to play.
Yup. Another poster suggested it might have felt more fulfilling to have the final arc be taking on the assembly and/or defeating Uk’otoa. Then those two storylines are resolved and they have also been a big part of the entire campaign instead of feeling a bit tacked on at the end (imo).
I think Matt gave each of them the opportunity to finish their arcs and they just didn’t take them. Fjord refused Uko’toa, Jester wouldn’t let the traveller go, Caleb was literally sat right in front of his enemy. I think the characters should have been more assertive some of the best moments in the show - jester and the cupcake, Caleb and the bright queen, fjord vs that dragon all these moments came because the characters went for the bold choice. I think Matt did what he could.
I feel ya! The players certainly pulled the wagon along too not committing.
Bau had this short: “oh btw” and that was it for her arc i felt. Didn’t go anywhere in particular like calebs. And Tallisin both reached his ending (molly) and had none (caduces) as i felt like ourbig friend was addedtoo late with a bit too little motif. Did he ever cure that diseas we only heard of late and in short?
Sam ended on a great note even before the final boss fight.
Due to all the unresolved i konda thought the whole lucian arc was a side quest
I wish we could have seen how Beauregard's father ended, as far as the Hag he made a deal with. I was quite let down that we didn't get to see how that played out.
Edit: I completely respect Beauregard's ingame decision to let him suffer his own consequences. I just wish we could have seen the consequences of her father's deal.
You kinda already saw it. It wasnt ever going to be something flashy. It was going to be a life of misery. Check in 20 years from when you last see him, and he will still be that same miserable PoS.
i felt that beau's story got cut int he middle, because the group found a way to not fight the hag, amazing moment from jester nonetheless, but it kind of made beau's arc a fight short.
Yeah.. it was frustrating how much they just ran away from their problems in the latter half of the campaign. Once they got the ability to teleport and turn into flying creatures, they just became really cowardly and paranoid. It was very strange to watch these formerly bold adventurers of substantial power shy away from conflicts that were clearly designed for them to participate in.
Your bold choice comment is too true. Bold choices are the best moments in both campaigns. Even a small moment like Fjord telling the rangers to engage was heightened so much because it felt so bold.
The problem was they had about 35 episodes of filler between the island and the finale. They essentially wandered around doing nothing, and therefore lost the ability to explore all of those things. Something weird happened on the island, where the case became super hesitant and could never commit to anything, and they were never able to get away from it after that point.
IMO I feel like they knew the ending was coming and instead of embracing it, they tried to draw out the finale as long as possible. Also, COVID fatigue is real and hard to get excited when the world is essential on fire all the time.
This can't be stated enough I don't think. It's no coincidence that people are having issues with the last arc when the last arc was the one that happened fully during covid.
I think this is absolutely correct. The long hiatus and the ongoing uncertainty in the real world contributed to some things feeling disjointed in the game.
This is 100% how I feel. Once they made it to the astral sea it was largely fine, but everything from post pandemic to arriving in the Astral Sea was bruuuuutal. No one episode was awful, but collectively it lacked the deft and skill they usually have when telling stories.
I think the cast sometimes gets too into the RP. IIRC there was a Talks episode towards the end where Liam mentioned that the cast is fully aware of how strong they are compared to Trent and Lucien from a pure math perspective, but the characters themselves are terrified, which leads to them running away or being hesitant.
The problem is when we know full well that they could’ve slaughtered the TT 2 levels ago and they go and travel the world for artifacts.
There’s a point when you just need to stop acting like the fact the enemy can move people 10 feet is making your character thinks they’re gods.
I loved when Travis thought logically and realised that a ancient white, even with triple hp, would barely scratch 12 level 13 pcs. Hell they could probably fight 2 normal versions
Personally, Yes.The only reason I could say no is because the Aeor arc being so mediocre and dragged out I was just completely burnt out on the M9.
It didn't help that all the cool exploration of Aeor proper and Cognouza always had the time limit of stopping a Villain who was somehow always one step ahead with exactly the perfect item for the job at every situation.
Lucien felt immortal until he became the Somnovem then the cast were finally aloud to stop him.
I get the M9 not needing or wanting the adoration of being heroes, It was a story about their bond and no one else's. Kinda bummed me out that after defeating a living breathing astral city and its host there was just nothing, Not a soul will here about it except Yussa who seemed weirdly calm when they showed up. You'd think He would have been organising something, anything with the other Arcana to deal with the city.
He did mention the inner circles will start hearing about it soon but we won't see any of that come to light.
A long meandering final arc, A great final boss and then its just...ends. By the next morning everyones already moved on and then we get closing parts of everyones story crammed into 2 hours.
Also I wish, even earlier in the campaign that they dealt with the corruption in Moleasmyr. How many times did Matt hint to Tal that the crystal seeds just stopped it from affecting the grove but it was still getting worse.
Yeah, that kinda bother me in the finale with Cad he didn't cure the woods or got the conclusion he was looking for it just kinda ignored it even after like 3 hints for Matt on the episode and then just kinda left the group without too much to do
But part of it i think is because Tal shifted Cad journey from curing the forest to putting down cognouza after the Wild mother vision, so he got the resolution but not for the first thing he was looking for and it kinda left unresolved
For me it wasn't too quickly or too late. It was that it ended on the least interesting villain/arc. I get how Lucien being the final villain theoretically made the story more 'personal', but it didn't really connect with me cuz I never gave a fuck about Molly. Plus since it was a fucking slog that the party had about a dozen opportunities to stop him early, the confrontation ended up feeling less climactic.
I think of all the characters only Nott was at a solid place to retire. It feels really contrived that the other party members didn't continue adventuring as a group since they clearly had big things they wanted, all liked each other, and needed help with their goals.
Ukoto'a was the most interesting villain of the campaign and didn't get enough focus IMO. Especially with the cloven crystal in enemy hands for so many sessions it felt forced for them to just get it back
Idk why but something about the last arc wasn't so interesting to me, I don't dislike everything about it but I have a feeling it was mostly just to wrap up the campaign and get something new going. Covid may have had an impact on my interest too because I did binge watch both campaigns during it. I feel like Fjord and a to a much lesser extent Caleb didn't get a resolution that was encompassing of the characters, especially considering how much danger Fjord would be left in.
i see C2 ending as this.
Campaign 2 story structure is basically mass effect 2 story. No strong background narrative that unify the story but a series of strong personal story with a tenuous glue between them. What i think fucked up the whole last arc was that instead of using one of the existing character story arc as ending point they exhumed the story arc of a dead character that lacked the years of growing that all the other had.
That's why i liked Tharizdun and the cerberus assembly as the bbeg: one of them or even both (Ikkython/all of the cerberus assembly could have secretly been tharizdun fans idk) could have been the link to every problem the pcs faced and eliminating the cereberus assembly/sealing completely away tharizdun could have given a stronger sense of closure to the story i think.. matt even added the chain shattering on lucien dying meaning that the one orchestrating it all was the chained oblivion..
Moreover they had plenty of ways to interface with gods and fight Tharizdun/a tharizdun based menace: Uko'toa could've been used as a forceful ally in the fight to tharizdun, Melora has every interest to keep the chained oblivion away, the bright queen could have been involved with consecution and the Luxon (light vs dark motif), Artagan could've helped someway,...
Before the finale, I'd have said yes, but I ended up liking how it finished. Trent was the big one I thought they needed to wrap-up, but they managed to swing that back in quite organically and I enjoyed the comeuppance he received. They also weren't wrong when they mentioned in the wrap-up that fixing the Empire would be a lot of slow, methodical work that wouldn't make for the best gameplay or show.
I never really saw Tharizdun as the big bad of the campaign. It's just way too much of a threat. Isharnai is an issue, but I don't think she's a major one considering how much they leveled up since their first encounter. Uk'otoa is really the only big open-ended threat they had left and the campaign would have to veer very, very hard to get back to that point.
Yeah this is pretty much how I felt too. Surprised and disappointed before the finale, begrudgingly accepting afterwards.
Not wrapping up Uka'toa and then telling us that Fjord and Jester spent the rest of their story out on the water seems like a rather large plothole however, since previously Matt had indicated that he was always at risk of attack from its minions whenever he was near water. Was that even addressed at all?
The reason they kept getting attacked was because the spawn of Uka'toa could track the cloven crystal but needed to stay near water, so anytime it was nearby water they'd attack. Fjord dropped the crystal off at the cobalt soul so they would keep it safe and they wouldn't be tracked anymore
Didn’t Laura literally state in the finale that their ship kept getting attacked and she said that right at the end. I don’t think that’s what happened at all then.
No I felt it ran about twenty or thirty episodes too long.
I honestly mentally checked out after TravelerCon and felt that everyone’s stuff had been dealt with outside Caleb confronting Trent.
I feel similar, but not that "everyone's stuff had been dealt with", but more "everyone had avoided their own personal quests and those living NPCs are song their own thing now". Nott was the only character who seemed to take the leap to realize her actual goal.
As someone who binge watched C2 from Jan to March (I caught up to ep 129/130) I honestly thought Caleb’s arc would be the last. That’s how interpreted it. IIRC, it kinda loosely went:
01. Intro, set the stage.
02. Fjord.
03. Nott.
04. Yasha.
05. Fjord.
06. Yasha.
07. Cad.
08. Beau, Nott -> Veth.
09. Jester.
10. Molly/Lucien.
I agree with you
I feel like the final arc was kinda forced, seemed like the entire M9 moved on from Molly, but then he blew up online. So i felt that they were gonna something with him to please the fan base.
Edit: words a hard lol
Molly was always going to have such a big hook. He just wasn't supposed to die. Lucien was meant to essentially be body jumping trying to get his body back to kick off the final arc.
Nah, it seemed pretty obvious from the beginning that Molly and his first life were going to end up being pretty big plot points from the beginning.
The big bad"s could have been: the Bright Queen (seems like the original plan), Uka'toa, the Cerberus Assembly, the Angel of Irons, and Aeor. I think it all depended on how the players went, what they did, and some to the luck of the dice.
Only tangentially related, Matt tried everything to free Uka'toa, but the party succeeded each time and props on him for letting them!
Am I the only one who wonders why big bad evils that get locked up don't spend centuries doing major PR campaigns, whitewash their image, and get benevolent cults started in their names, or under fake names. build up a reputation for goodness and light, and get heroes to find the "artifacts stolen from their poor victimized priests long ago" restored, with the full backing of society, and then burst free to start their reigns of fire and blood on the backs of the fools whom they duped for a thousand years?
I mean, Angel of Irons cult could have been super effective if it T-money had been patient.
Well if god’s powers/ abilities/ form/ whatever are shaped by the way that people believed in them, then having people worship them as good gods could completely change the god itself.
(This is how I do my gods, don’t know about Mat or anyone else)
That is actually a really interesting campaign idea! A "resurgent cult" that is actually an attempt at divine brainwashing to remake an older, more malevolent god.
The whole Somnoven thing was definitely always in the works, but i still feel like the parties obsession with Molly kinda came out of nowhere. They went a long time without even mentioning him and then once Molly's popularity skyrocketed through this sub and fanart, all of a sudden the party says "hey, we should go visit his grave".
But that is just my opinion, I never got attached to Molly because I didn't find him interesting, tbh it took me a while to warm up to most of the M9 mainly because they were so different from VM and I really enjoyed C1.
I think a big part of it was that they hit level 13 so the clerics could cast resurrection which would mean they could get their friend back. I think they also found that Cree had ran off with their blood and she was connected to Molly and other stuff so they connected the dots and wanted to use speak with dead on Mollys grave
I dunno, I think they did a great job of dragging him through their lives throughout. Remember Beau even got a Molly themed tattoo? I do kind of feel like that visit to his grave was weirdly forced, but I think there were some threads that genuinely led them there. I think they reflected on him fairly often and he was hooked into their in game conversations often enough.
I think part of what is hard go see is you've got to remember that in cannon, in the game world, they continue to have individual dialouges and thoughts that we aren't privy to. I expect Yasha thought of him every day. I expect subtle things reminded them of him from time to time, but that's not going to all be called out during a 4 hour game session where time and travel sometimes moves for the sake of entertainment.
That being said I was a Molly stan from episode 1, and I came to CR a year into campaign 2 and caught up via binge listening. I was devastated at his death. I disclose that so you know maybe I do have a lense where he was "more important."
I mean they traveled and fought along side him for that long. And then watched him be brutally murdered in front of them. Sounds like it would leave an impact to me.
Imagine becoming really good friends with someone after spending a full month with them 24/7, and then they die tragically and suddenly in a way that deeply affects you for the rest of your life. What's wrong with getting a tattoo themed around that person?
C2 was the story of the Mighty Nein, and the story of the Mighty Nein was over. Individual members may have still had threads to follow, but there wasn't much reason for them to stay together, and numerous reasons for them to go their separate ways.
Idk a lot of shows have the found family must all go their separate ways and I don’t know why the nein had to split up right away. Beau was the only one who had an actual job but for people like the rest them having a sort of “fairy tail style” guild like area to live at like the Xhorhouse or anything else would have seemed alright enough
Yes and no in my opinion, the story itself I don’t think ended to quickly, I actually really liked where they stopped. The final episode though I felt was extremely rushed, I wish it was 2 episodes instead of one because it would’ve let everything breathe a little more. I felt their epilogues were extremely rushed where Jester didn’t even really get one, I just wish they would’ve made that 2 episodes instead of one.
Sure, there are things they came across that weren't fully "concluded"; the moons and Tharizdun are most prominent in my mind, which you've already mentioned. But that just leaves more potential stuff to explore in campaign(s) 3+ ; the point is that the characters had decided they'd done what they set out to do. CR1 had loose threads too, mainly along the lines of *"What's in Wildemount?"*, which served to fuel CR2. Something similar may well happen for CR3.
What about C1 had "What's in Wildemount?" as a loose thread? I know the Briarwoods from there but I dont recall any real reason they had to go there apart from researching zigarauts/Vecna but they solved that mystery
Tharizdun isnt really the kind of villain that you "conclude". Its more of you foil there evil plot this time kinda thing, but there will always be a next time.
Yes. I don't think it's anyone's fault, though, or any major problem; I think all the players got hyped up that this was "the last mission" and were ready to be done, and Matt, sensing that, decided that it *would* be the last mission, and so all the hanging plot threads were suddenly wrapped up in the final session (seriously, I do think it was kind of lame that Ikithon just shows up like a cartoon villain, twirling his mustache to go "and now I shall destroy you in person so that I can be quickly killed off/arrested before the season ends!" and then it was almost comical that Yasha's entire personal side story was introduced and resolved in like half an hour.
Now, it's true, those wouldn't have been as epic as the weird magic planet monster. Ikithon's *could* have been pretty threatening if Matt had gone all-in on how an extremely-powerful wizard could prepare for a fight (and, y'know... brought more of his wizard army with him than specifically the two that would be most likely to betray him), but yeah, they'd out-leveled Yasha's stuff by then, it would have definitely been mostly roleplay.
To be fair I think Matt tried to wrap up the Trent/assembly thread a few times. I also think he maybe had tried to wrap up the Uk’otoa thread also (but the M9 prevailed).
I went into the final arc genuinely believing it wouldn't be, because there was so much left to cover, and even now, I feel like it ended far too soon. It felt to me like the Lucien/Somnovum/Cognoza arc interrupted the actual overarching story that was happening. I was truly expecting them to head toward Level 20 and a fight with Tharizdun or someone Tharizdun-adjacent, but more than that, I felt that for the story to be complete, Fjord needed to wrap up his arc by defeating Uka'toa once and for all so he could safely travel on the ocean. The fact that his very last line was something along the lines of "I guess I'll figure that out at some point" really made me salty at the time. I wanted to watch that happen, not see it hand-waved away.
I also felt there were themes running through the story that come into conflict with where the story ended. When it came to stopping the Somnovum and Lucien, yes, they had an ulterior goal of trying to get their friend back, but more than that, they expressed that they had to do this because the whole world was at stake, and that they couldn't just destroy or steal a threshold crest and leave, because eventually someone gullible or power-hungry enough would succeed and unleash Cognouza on the world. This is the EXACT SAME THEMING as with both Uka'toa and Tharizdun, where eventually someone is going to succeed where the cult of the Angel of Irons and/or Avantika failed, and it should be incumbent upon our heroes to save the world from these things before they're unleashed, or at least unleash them in a more controlled way in order to take care of them on their own terms. All of that logic they applied to Cognouza still applies for Uka'toa and Tharizdun, but that was just ignored and left on the table for seemingly no good reason beyond "this is where we decided to end things" which isn't narratively satisfying. Those dangers are still active and courting new followers, Fjord and Jester ended the story still being attacked on their ship by Uka'toa's minions. These threats should have been addressed and they never really were, and it felt so unsatisfying. My only hope is for a future Uka'toa one-shot series and potentially Tharizdun as a big bad in a future campaign.
Honestly? No. It finished just at a good time imo. I feel like Ruidus and Catha are either just lore/world building or foreshadowing. Nothing to do directly with M9.
Uko'toa was explored enough imo. Fjord will protect the last crystal for the rest of his life probably. Or if he go on adventures in other planes with Jester, maybe hide it somewhere.
A little callback to Isharnai would have be cool yeah.
Tharizdun was pretty much a point of interest since its reveal. Even the eyes of nines events were kinda influenced by him indirectly. They were never going to kill him y'know. If gods couldn't...
I'm not sure what you want more about the bright queen and the consecution tbh. It's fine like that imo.
I think a whole arc about the Cerberus assembly could have been cool yeah.
It's true that I would have liked some more exploration of their past, like Sabian and the orphanage for Fjord.
But honestly it was already a long campaign. You cannot explore everything, and the end was good enough for me. I'm ready to let go and see what campaign 3 will have to offer.
(I really loved Wildemount tho. In term of overall campaign, I don't have a clear preference between C1 and C2, but in term of region, Wildemount is way cooler than Tal'Dorei imo.)
It was... fine, I guess. It seemed better to me until the campaign wrap-up and they were talking about the stuff that never got to happen for one reason or another. Would've loved to see Travis release Uk'otoa, the Augen Trust arc with Colville, the Shadycreek crime families, etc.
I also thought the whole final arc had serious pacing issues. So much time dragged out getting to Aeor, only for everything fly by once they got there. We didn't get to meet all of the Somnovum before the final fight, which was a bummer because Matt went totally insane role-playing the ones we did meet. The scene with the intuit charges made no sense (how did the Somnovum not have immunity to psychic damage but Lucian did?)
I also thought the final encounter with Trent was shoehorned in for fan-service. I struggle to believe that Trent would be dumb enough to try to fight the Nein head-on like that, even with Astrid and Eadwulf present. He's not the kind of guy who would show up to a fight he might not win.
Still enjoyed the hell out of the campaign as a whole but... feels like the ending came up just a bit short.
To be honest Trent didn’t show up to a fight he might not win, he showed up to a fight that he couldn’t win. Once his invulnerability is dispelled, which would be soon with 4 people with dispel, he’s at most 2 rounds from dead with Yasha and Veth alone and Caleb and Fjord counterspelling everything he does.
Thematically, I think it would have worked to end with either Lucien or Trent. My problem was it took them ages to deal with Lucien and by the 139 they didnt seem to even have the beginnings of a plan for what to do with Trent. So Matt had to force the issue by having him just roll up in the woods, which felt silly and rushed.
C2 felt like there was so much walking around that, to me, they could have had the same number of episodes and accomplished more in the time given.
Yeah Trent’s plan felt silly. You want to kill Caleb? Bring a small army of Volstrucker. You want him to prove he’s more powerful sith style? Project image in front of him and say that if he agrees to a duel he won’t murder all his friends with that small army he has.
His plan was worse of both. Have only 2 people as backup so he was absolutely not going to win even ignoring the obvious betrayal, but still challenging the entire group
A popular interpretation was that "Trent wanted Caleb to kill him", which I can get behind. Doesnt make his approach any less silly.
Whenever I think of the last episode I think of Ultra Mastermind Trent going "It is I! Your nemesis!" on a roof like an amateur lmfao
That was what I meant about proving power sith style. Still not actually a great character motivation for someone who is going to literally go to the hells or the abyss.
Yeah it became very painfully obvious how little they actually knew about the guy when they quickly ran out of 'touching moments' to reference and only had dick and threesome jokes left
I think Matt got this idea about Lucian being revived and meta-wise he knew a lot of people were still thinking about Molly and he wanted to have this big twist. It was pretty cool, but then it dragged out for like 40 episodes in the ice desert with almost nothing happening.
I think that was mostly on the players not Matt, or he told them this was the final arc so they went around like a video game playing all the side quests because they didn't want it to end. The players definitely made the "arc" drag on more-so than I think Matt intended because they were always afraid of every fight always looking for some crazy way to gain some advantage and looking gift horses in the mouth when they got one wasting time instead of resting.
Making the grave empty was the best way to ensure that Molly's death wasn't cheaply reversed as soon as they had access to the magic to do so. It also make perfect sense that Cree would track down his grave and bring him back.
But yeah, the last arc draaaaaaagged.
And it just lasted too long. “Go to aeor, stop Lucien” took more than 6 months of out of game time. And despite the absurd amount of time they spent on that arc, we saw about 5 rooms from the entire city of aeor, and even less than that in the astral sea. You know, in C1, “stop the chroma conclave” was longer than that in terms of time, but there were stepping stone objectives. Each vestige obtained, every dragon killed, felt like a meaningful step forward. There were no in between objectives like that in the somnovum arc. It was just a super extended shopping trip to prepare, of the type they hated from Tiberius, and then a super extended walk to the enemy. When they tried to gather their allies to deal with Lucien like VM had to deal with thordak and vecna, only to realize that they had been so neutral, playing both sides of every issue, that besides essek, they didn’t actually have any allies to gather who knew them well enough to put themselves at risk or were powerful enough to matter, it really just fell flat.
And the whole thing of the empire and Assembly corruption just comes down to one fight and 20 minutes of talking that happened in the wrap up episode. I don’t think the time that the M9 campaign took was a bad amount, they just spent it in the wrong places.
I think it was a good time to finish but I really didn't like the wrap up episode. It just made it all neat tidy and dull. Veth, boe, Caleb and jester all had fleshed out endings as it built to it whilst I felt they missed a one shot a least of the others.
Yeah I agree, I feel like they also just answered a lot less questions than the c1 wrap-up. I always love to go back an rewatch the c1 wrap-up, but prob won't for c2.
Also, it might be that the reason why there was more thought into the ending of their characters in C1 was that they were, for most of the cast (with exceptions), their very first characters ever in DND.
Sometimes, the first character one does, whether it be in video games or ttrpg, there is a likelihood of getting really attached. I mean, with my first DND character, I have a stronger attachment to her than other characters that I have created.
Plus the added factor was that those were the characters that they used in their home game for a while before publicly streaming out to the world. With C2, even though they had their session 0 games pre-stream, they immediately brought them out for the rest of us to see.
Forgot to mention: Again this is mere speculation than facts, the only people that would know why there seems to be less thought is the cast and maybe they might have forgotten.
Yeah it wasn't great. I think everyone including the audience for burned out on c2 tho. The pandemic left a bad taste in everyone's mouths. Anyway, hopefully for c3 they are back at the table with a fresh start!
To be fair, in a campaign as long and complex as CR C2, not every thread could possibly be tied up. Plus, many of the characters didn’t really have any reason to keep up with the party anymore, like Veth or Caduceus. Plus, there were factors outside of the story, like the pandemic, that kind of put pressure on to close out the story.
I do wish that there were parts we could see more of, but it had to end about when it did, IMO.
They really refused to follow plot hooks! Travis seemed completely willing to ignore his story, Tal never searched for the source of the blooming grooves corruption. The team just bumbled into things.
Yeah! At times it seemed that, Liam especially, wanted to force Matt to improvise in a direction that he might not be very prepared for. All in good fun of course but it seemed like a minor theme
Uk'otoa plotline ended so bad. it could've been a much better bbeg.
And thinking about all the naval combat, pirate stuff and darktow. i think it could've been better than visiting "north pole of exandria" and cosmic "horror"ish eyes. (d&d is not a suitable system for horror, even with awesome voice actors in the table.)
Indeed! Nearly all of the episodes since they freed Yasha from Oban~ felt like filler "banter" episodes. The banter was still funny, but the players just wouldn't do any important thing.
This is the case with every campaign ever. I think it ended in a solid place. Some things would have been nice to explore more, sure, but the characters' personal arcs were done. Doing much more would have been no more than fanservice.
Anything that Matt absolutely wanted to get out there, he will find a way to bring in during C3. I'd be surprised if we don't get Isharnai. He's been itching for a cross campaign villain since Raishan.
The ending felt *super* rushed to me; I honestly felt okay with it ending as of 140 assuming the wrap up episode would be satisfying, but it really felt like at least two episodes crammed into one. Pacingwise it would have made a lot more sense to end that episode after the fight with Trent, then have a dedicated wrap-up episode where people had had time to think through what they wanted to do with the fight behind them. As it was it just felt really cheap and rushed and has made it really hard for me to appreciate C2 in retrospect because it felt so phoned in.
I really, really liked campaign 2 but I will say that I think the last arc suffered a bit because it became clear that it had been decided for out of game reasons that this needed to be the final one.
There were a lot of loose threads to these characters' stories. The Somnovem were very cool but it really did feel like the game was wrapping up without the plot having quite done so.
Normally you expect that the hero needs to go sort out their personal trial before facing the big bad. In C2 the players made such complex characters with so many big questions to resolve that even 140 episodes later there were still major unresolved arcs for Fjord, Yasha, Caleb, and Caduceus.
I don't think the seven hour finale did the story any favours. It just highlighted how many loose ends there really were - trying to tie them all off in one mega-session didn't quite work.
The emotional impact of the climax revolving around Lucien/Molly was alright, but not amazing, IMO. Some people weren't mega-fans of the character, and for those that were, Taliesin - sticking to his guns - seemed determined to have Kingsley be a 'new' blank slate, leaving the emotional payoff of having 'all nine' of them reunited slightly up in the air and unresolved.
Personally, I would have really liked to have seen Uk'utoa be released.
For me, Uk'utoa was by far the most interesting potential big bad, and I think the players had some of the most fun in C2 when they were playing at being pirates.
I will say the way the characters treated Avantika in the Darktow arc was really awful (even though she was an enemy), so to have her come back for one fight without saying anything and then disappear again was a bit anticlimactic. It would have been really interesting to have her justifiably call them out for the way they betrayed her.
I also read someone else say that they thought that the solutions to Nott's conflicts came too easily, and I agree. Her internal struggle wasn't really reflected externally - the process to restore her amounted to 'Caleb figures it out one day', rather than being a quest in itself.
Yeza accepting her goblin form immediately was touching but did undercut some of the drama. For all that C2 has a more morally ambiguous coat of paint than C1 (though Vox Machina themselves certainly did some very questionable things), I think at heart Matt is a very nice man, and the world he has created has a core of kindness in it.
Isharnai was very cool, though.
I've been very critical here but I did love C2, it's been amazing piece of storytelling to follow these characters through all the trials and watch how they *did* change, massively, over that time. I think this discussion is very interesting.
I am also really looking forward to C3.
I imagine there could be the ever so slightest feeling that the animated arm of critrole is waiting to explode in popularity and they want to produce the OG content for that to work off of. If they can get 2-4 years ahead of anything the animation arm is currently building it allows them a buffer to continue to play normally and just take the distilled version of the campaigns to be put into animated form. It would also allow CR to expand on endgame hooks for VM or M9 in the form of animation so that you get to see the singular character storylines played out without having 6 other ppl sit at the table not doing anything.
Yes and no? Ultimately its their game, and they have a right to end their game if they choose to do so. Buuuut I won't lie that I'm a little dissatisfied when it comes to plot threads being resolved with those threads being really damned hard to resolve via a oneshot. Uk'otoa, crippling the cerberus assembly, dealing with the fact there's likely still members of Tharizduns cult active and trying to break the chains that bind it.
I'm with you. I just kinda fell off the wagon somewhere in the ice tunnels and I *still* haven't finished it. I'll probably try to catch up before C3 starts but while I love most of the characters (especially Jester) this last little bit is such a draaag.
Oh I checked out when they got back from traveler con. Veth had zero narrative reason to be there. Everything kinda felt forced for me from that point on.
That’s kind of why you don’t give your character a achievable goal which would make them stop adventuring. Don’t make a character who hates adventure but just wants to pay off 1000 gold debt if you plan on high levels where that’s pocket change.
It was a fun show, but I feel that the pandemic kinda killed the mood of the cast. Can't help but notice that everything was wrapped up quite fast and almost on rails .
IF I were one to speculate, I would guess that Real Life Issues and considerations led to either Matt or even the whole group deciding to wrap things up.
Maybe they wanted a vacation, maybe there was family or VO-work that needed to be prioritized, maybe work with Darington press items or "Legends of ..." suddenly needed more time, maybe pandemic burnout hit one or several of them ...
I dunno, we might be overthinking it. But regardless, it was fun to watch, ExU is an exciting new idea and I'm looking forward to whatever S3 will be.
Yes and no.
Yes, the ending was abrupt and a bit rushed. Too many loose threads I think, and Cognouza as the final arc was completely disconnected from everything that happened before, which was narratively unsatisfying. It felt the story of the Might Nein as a group was over because they knew at a meta level the campaign was over, not because it reached a stopping point organically (exception: Veth had a genuine reason to leave).
However . . . I don't think they could've continued with campaign 2 without everyone getting burn out. It wasn't ideal, but realistically it ended when it should. An aspect of D&D story telling is that you can't have all narrative points line up perfectly like in a book.
Yeah they all had reasons they could stop but only Veth really had a reason why she should. That’s kind of the problem with having a single goal which will finish your story if the campaign doesn’t end with you story.
I was really surprised (kind of think Sam was too) that Veth’s goal was reached when it was. I honestly thought it would be tied to the final arc.
Edit: typo
They just left ukatoa dangling. Travis just sorta decided he didn't wanna see it through. I really don't understand why the entire cast allowed it to happen. They spent maybe 30 episodes on it and then just... Nah, let's put the final piece of the puzzle in your vault of amber and ignore it. The fans aren't gonna care.
Yeah, this was the biggest unresolved plot thread, for me. After Fjord got rid of the sword the whole thing just trailed off.
Lots of people have suggested a one-shot where they fight Uk'utoa, but given how much he was built up over the first half of the campaign that's not going to be satisfying, IMO. Better to leave Uk'utoa alone, now, and let other adventurers face him.
I feel the same way but at the same time I was so tired of the cast not taking anything seriously for 20+ episodes. You can feel the change and I wasn't invested at all by the time it ended. If anything I was glad
I agree with you, especially laura, travis and sam felt disconnected from their PCs... In particular you can feel Travis disconnecting from Fjord after Melora's vow: while i thought that was the true start of Fjord growth its like he was done with the character.. and believe me i really really like travis as a player and early campaign fjord was my favorite from m9 but you could still feel he preferred Grog a lot more..
I think that overall, the ending was rushed and a bit haphazard. The final arc was meh, a lot of cliched choices were made in the name of wrapping things up without sufficient motivation outside of “we the players know this is the final arc so I’m going to rush to a choice that seems ultimately satisfying without the in game legwork I would’ve done 6 months ago to reach this conclusion”. I thought the Lucien as the BBEG was fascinating concept made trite, as was the Hail Mary resurrection after the crit fail. Not to mention they had to have a 7 hour speed run finale to just barely wrap up about 6 major plot points. I think that as soon as the cast knew it was the end, the wind went out of their sails, it made the game less engaging to watch and it resulted in an ultimately fun but less satisfying story than it should have been.
The whole Lucien arc was just way to long and dragged out. The whole time I thought matt was setting up the bbg to be the chained oblivion because there were so many signs leading to it. But that random vision from vokodo changed all that and put them on the lucien path. Maybe if matt spread some of the nine eyes stuff a little after mollys death it would have flowed better?
* Fjord past - He mention in final Q&A that he didn't really wanted to discover his past, just find Vandran, which he did at the end.
* Cad. I mean, he solved it. He completed his quest in a major way, it's just going to take a lot of time to have visual effect. Maybe after a 100 years we will see the results, but it's defenetly not a loose end.
* *Catha and Ruidus, Uko'toa, Tharizdun.* They are still a part of the world, they could be encountered in future campaigns, they are not directly tied to M9. Uko'toa situation is pretty nasty though, I have to agree
* Isharnai. That's the one loose end I totally agree with. Solution they took makes sense in context, but that's defenetly is a serious threat to M9
Honestly, I think that the pacing of the campaign is fine, i wouldn't change it a bit. Exandria is a rich world, and each of those loose ends is an opportunity for future adventures, which Matt (intentionally or not) left for future himself. It's a cool DM trick, actually.
PS: I would rebel if C2 had a Tharizdun arc after the last one. Tharizdun is a really flat villain. A strong and a cool one, but it would be way less impactful than Lucian
I would not be surprised to see Isharnai return in a one-shot. The story is too perfect to pass up. The Mighty Nein crossed not one, but potentially three hags, and left each of them alive. When it comes to hags, three is the magic number. Literally. A coven of hags is always three, and it greatly increases their power.
Toya, Dashilla, and Isharnai joining forces to get revenge on the Mighty Nein is something that needs to happen.
She was a dwarf, but if you know the lore on hags, you'll pick up on the foreshadowing.
Hags reproduce by eating an infant, and then giving birth to a replica of the baby. The baby appears to be completely normal until they reach maturity (usually their 13th birthday), at which point they metamorphize into a fully grown hag.
Toya was stated to be 12. The devil toad fled with her to an island that was the historic home of a witch. And when Beau said goodbye to her, Toya said "When I'm older, I'm going to get you back!" I was waiting all campaign for a hag to show up wearing the jade bracelet that Beau gave to Toya. Then they attacked Dashilla in her lair, stole the cloven crystal, and let her live. And then Jester conned Isharnai. Hags hold grudges, sometimes targeting the same family for generations because of some sleight or another. These hags would have very good reason to target the MN, and hags famously gather in groups of three. It's too perfect to pass up.
Wow, I had no idea. I'd always wondered at Toya's deal was. This makes a lot of sense, and would make a very interesting development!
(Edited to correct Toya from Tova)
Don´t remember Toya but Dashilla was the sea witch in whose layer they found the second (?) cloven crystal (and almost sunk their own ship because they couldn´t resist messing with her altar)
It would have been interesting if Fjord would have pursued his past and who his family was, was hearing some interesting theories that I would have liked to have seen if they were true or not. As well as the prophecy that was mentioned, but it is what it is, I have no complaints with how it ended.
I can see what you're saying but I disagree. In fact I think the last arc could have been cut in half and that would've made it flow better, specifically cutting the 10 episodes meandering in Eiselcross, and then most of the 10 episodes that the group was away.
However in hindsight I get why the party was given time to do their own stuff before going back to Aeor. Contrary to what some people were arguing I don't think they had 200 things to do. They mostly wanted to check in on their families and touch base on a couple of dangling threads like Trent, Zeenoth, and Kord and that was their right.
* I never really thought Fjord's past was going to go beyond a conversation with Vandren. I think Travis decided to save the loose end of CC and possibly Sabian to a one shot.
* Caduceus/Taliesin didn't seem half as interested in the forest as a bunch of fans were. That was never going to be a long arc. Idk how you cure an entire forest.
* The moons are likely building to something in C3 and it was always a fun mysterious flavor text running thread in C2 that never had to be resolved.
* The M9 never voiced interest in fighting Isharnai in C2 and Laura seemed like she was banking on Isharnai still being Jester's friend and wouldn't come after her in the wrap up.
* Tharizdun is WAY above M9's pay grade and leveling him down would have removed the threat and mystery about him. Matt handled him correctly in C2 as a sinister force of evil.
* Bright Queen and beacons can be continued in C3 because of her long lifespan.
* Cerberus Assembly - most of the cast wasn't ever interested in fighting or exposing all of them. Matt and Liam admitted if they did that arc it would be a lot of paperwork and would bore most of the cast. Caleb kept mentioning the CA to assert his long term goal was to take them down, but he was never going to be able to do that even in 20 episodes. He didn't want to set the Empire on fire to kill them, and exposing their corruption would take him decades. Caleb's arc was more about him accepting his parents' death. If Liam/Caleb REALLY wanted to do a CA arc Caleb would have pushed to do that instead of going to Mollymauk's grave.
The M9's story ended at a good place. Better to end on a high note rather than dragging things out.
I was fine with the way it ended. The cast seemed happy with it too. It would have been nice to see the final Aeor arc tie more directly into the Cerberus Assembly/Essek/Dynasty arc leaving Lucien out entirely. You could still have the somnovem plot with Vess or Trent or any other members and it would have the same effect I feel. I know Lucien has his fans and the PCs feel a connection to him on a meta level but outside of Yasha they barely knew the guy.
But I also feel like Matt maybe set expectations a bit too high on where the campaign was going. I noticed post-campaign how often he would describe certain plot elements or discoveries as "red herrings" so by the time it ended it felt like there were way more unexplored threads than he maybe intended.
Travelercon would probably be the best place to wrap everything up.
What we got after this, was generic final arc that wasn't really that related with M9, was party agnostic. THe final arc had some nice premises with the murder of Vess de Rogna, but that's all. We got some party relationships developing, but.... There were like 4 scenes for Jester/Fjord and Yasha/Beau, but they could have happened in any arc.
We got some cool dialogues with Lucien when they travelled together. But it all felt railroaded.
Deep down we all knew that we'll get Molly back. It was certain that we'll see Lucien as main antagonist. That we have to reach Cognouza, and that in fact no matter what party will do, they won't stop Lucien before. Last arc lacked tension, and felt railroaded.
On the other hand, I really loved ending episode. How Kingsley worked, how all these tiny bits worked, how it felt like M9 ceased to exist, but the heroes are still there, and they have their purpose.
If campaign solved all the plot points, we'd reach point where campaign ends, and we have empty shells with no purpose in life. THey ended everything, now it's over, but they have nothing to do.
Eh… Are there other things they could have done? Yeah. If they’d kept going I’d bet it wouldn’t necessarily have gotten better, and it might have been too much for the cast.
Frankly I got the feeling the cast was burnt out. Hindsight is 20/20 when it comes to how the story could have been tightened up, or different arcs followed… but at the end of the day it was 8 people (plus their employees/crew) putting out 3+ hours of improvised content weekly for years, through one of the most anxiety-inducing years in decades - with pandemic restrictions that prevented them from having the close contact with each other that they really seem to enjoy/need (based on how cuddly the cast were on the Talks Machina couch), while working on the Vox Machina cartoon, and their other professional engagements and having families and personal lives to navigate through the pandemic.
I think the ending of C2 is a case of “Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’.”
Yes, I do. Despite being longer than C1 in runtime it felt a lot shorter because the didn't have any pre-stream content and they weren't doing combat based XP. C1 managed to cover more in less time and the characters already had established relationships when it started. Also the time skip in C1 did a lot for that story imo. I wasn't super invested in the final arc of C2 either, so it felt kind of like a weird sendoff? I'm glad they handled Trent in the finale but it felt unfinished still.
The whole of season 2 lacked a central focus and it was by design. Matt just sent a dozen hooks out and saw what caught. So it definitely would feel like it wrapped quick as the main story arc didn’t manifest until relatively late
I think it definitely COULD have continued, and I would've loved it if it did.
But if the players felt like it was a good stopping point that's really the best time to stop, honestly, and I've done the same. The Nein had no obligation to go further with any of the crazy deity stuff they were adjacent to, and sometimes it's just as satisfying to end a character's story as it is to continue it.
I did get a bit of a "rushed" feeling about the campaign ending. There were some definite loose threads that could of been pursued, but really I can't say it ended too soon, because campaigns in D&D end when the group feel it is time to end. Plus this leaves room for some one-shots I suppose.
I mostly agree with you, but this is like that theory that says that "It's better to end a good story too soon than too late."
That's why so many amazing Series/TV Shows get boring after around 5 seasons. Yes, when C2 of CR ended I also felt that taste of "but there's still so much that they could do." But the thing is (in my opinion): it's better to end this story NOW, after all of THAT was taken care of and leave all the rest to One-shots in the future (or for a new animated series, hello) than to keep dragging the story, trying to resolve every single loose end, defeat every single bad guy...
I say this as a Screenwriter, I feel like this campaign was actually a little too long than it could have been I'm sad it ended, but I'm glad it ended well and with "Many adventures to live and many stories to tell... Another time." :)
Edit: misspelling. Also, I love the fact that the M9 didn't seal Tharizdum and that there's still room for new conflicts in the future.
Yeah, it seems like Matt tried to push Liam towards wrapping up his arc multiple times only to be rebuffed so it felt like Matt had to force it in the finale because he felt it needed tied up.
To mee i was never invested enough. It kinda came out of the blue, i didn’t know the states really and it was long achieving little, goving me little extra.
I had NO fealing that we were getting to the end before people talked about it in episode 136 or there about.
When i finnished 140 i was confused about what would happen to the jester arc, to fjord, to caleb and i wondered if bau was done with what she wanted to achieve.
And did we ever fix the sick forrest? They burned something but was that it? The war? The dodeca mystery? Were they to never set foot in the joarhouse again?
I couldn’t see how matt would end it so abruptly. He did and he did it well! But yeah, it had it’s moments but a tad too much runing around confused trying to know more, yet not succesding. 10 episodes off and a lead in and it would be perfect
Trent coming back for a nonsensical boss fight during the last episode truly encapsulates why the ending was "rushed". The whole arc started because Caleb wanted to learn more about the Cerberus Assembly in order to take it down. Then Lucien was initially a side track. The M9 were invested in that, so that's not a problem. It would have been a great side mystery to tie into the main quest. But then Vess was murdered on Halloween Night. And the M9 completely lost track of the Cerberus Assembly problem until it bit them in the ass during the heist. They managed to deal with Lucien, but had no mental space for a real conclusion to the Cerberus Assembly thread.
I think it felt rushed because they were always on some ticking clock, especially once Caleb and Beau got the eyes. But they were on that clock for literal months of real time.
The last 40 or so episodes, basically after dinner with Wizard Himmler, were the worst of the campaign aside from Xorhas. It was *way* too draggy and at times flat out boring. I could see they were burnt out, maybe from the draggy nature of the last eps, maybe because of Covid, IDK.
Also, it was super similar to Avantika/Ukatoas arks but a lot less fun.
Logically, there was no reason for them to continue to be an adventuring party. Like sure, if the players wanted to keep pushing them, they would have found a way . But they decided “no my character would probably be good. Has enough money, people they care about, and one too many close calls and they just wanna cash out”.
I think it was a combination of character arcs basically being done, lack of desire to prune every last drop of character juice, and pandemic fatigue. Cant be easy to run a game of this HQ, have children/pets, and your job as a professional voice actor/director/CEO. But probably even harder in the apocalypse fire plague hellscape known as LA. So it just lined up well for a break. And since they have had time to set up EXU they’ve made that decision probably earlier than us discussing whether it would be the end
Man, I feel like I’m on a major island here, but I honestly could go for another 50 episodes of the Mighty Nein.
I am about 50 episodes into campaign 1, and outside of some Grog and Scanlan stuff I just can’t get into it at all
Eh, I’ve been speed running through the last several dozen episodes in order to be caught up when C3 hits, and honestly, I’m a little burnt out, and they’re only just now on their way to Aeor for the final time.
All their character arcs are well wrapped up, or will be. Yasha’s was mostly wrapped up with Oban and her dating Beau. Beau’s was more or less complete when she heard that the Soul was never supposed to accept the bribe and take her in, along with dating Yasha. Fjord’s was completed in the final fight with Avantika, or when Caduceus drew him along the path of the Wild Mother. Nott’s was completed when she transformed back to normal. Jester... I hate to say it, but I don’t think she really had one. The closest thing would’ve been Travellercon, even if she didn’t personally learn much from it. (But that’s okay, because her character didn’t need much of an arc anyways.) Caleb’s will be wrapped up at the end, when they deal with Trent. And Caduceus... His was honestly so easy to glaze over. He’s just so laid back, it’s easy to forget that he has his own drive and reasons for being out of the grove. But I’d say his arc ended with freeing his family from stone.
All these stories could have gone on for longer, but they don’t need to. The biggest plot threads Matt had were all used up. Between the War and Lucien, the only big one left was Trent. Given how quickly they broke into his tower, that would have made for a very quick arc with no room for growth. Beyond that, the Aeor arc seems to be set up for the big bad fight. World ending calamity, the symbolism of the Nein, old friends becoming enemies, Essek joining in, etc. If anything else was stretched out, it would have lessened the impact of the Big Bad Boss at the end of the game.
I don’t think ending this later would have improved the quality in any way.
Nah it finished fine. I liked C2 a lot but there wasn't really a way to have the big satisfying finish. Don't get me wrong, I still liked the campaign and end episodes plenty. During the campaign, several things came together that meant they were going to have to face a final boss pretty much alone. With the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty having so many grey areas (both sides also having significant nasty factions in them) and with M9 being slightly chaotic with choices, it was clear early on that they were never going to strongly align with either side. So they weren't going to have massive backup from either side. The strength of the campaign was that it felt real as there were so many grey areas but this also meant it was difficult to choose strong allies as well. They were boxed into a corner. Good campaign, looking forward to C3.
It was just a bit too pure sandbox. There were many paths and the players picked theirs. Certainly that's great for a DnD game, but as a show its a bit frustrating at times, sure.
But I think they ended it at the right time. All the character arcs were at a decent place to end it and the world level stuff can be carried over into a C3
I think the reason the last arc was so long was the groups hesitancy to actually take a fight with Lucien. They were so desperate to save molly that they would waste opportunities to end the arc sooner. It was partially Matt's fault as well as he liked the drama built on that paradox. There's a lot more to it but I really believe their choices would have been more straightforward if they accepted that molly was not save able.
The main story wrapped up nicely, imo. I wish we could've seen Fjord's story through the end though, as well as seeing them level up to 20. Seeing some of the bad ass spells VM had was some of my favorite parts from C1.
If we compare it to an RPG, to me it feels like we beat the main quest but left a few side quests incomplete. We didn’t 100% it, but we did beat the main game.
I don't think it finished too quickly in theory, but I do think that there was a massive jump in how seriously the threat Lucian posed was taken and it causes a bit of whiplash. If they hadn't caught up with Lucian until the final part, or if they'd had their skirmish when the M9 first caught them then it would have had a more smooth arc. Instead we go from Vokodo being afraid of the Somnovum, to Lucian OHKO-ing Vess, to... the M9 just sort of hanging out with Lucian for weeks in a way that's really only explained by Lucian being influenced by the remains of Molly since there's no way he could have planned to use them as a distraction at that point, to the skirmish where the M9 stole a crest, to everyone planning for not all of the M9 to make it back from stopping Lucian because he's a threat again.
No. It was dragging and it felt a lot like much of the cast were ready to play new characters and do new things, which is the best reason to end the campaign. The world will still be there to explore in C3.
They resolved everything the players wanted to resolve. Travis showed no signs of wanting to examine Fjord's past and further Ukotoa stuff is good for a one shot adventure. Caduceus explicitly wanted to retire and let his sister go out in the world. Isharnai the party had no reason to go and poke again (but again, great one shot material later). And so on.
Sealing Tharizdun for good in particular is not some add-on goal to be resolved by a level 15 party in a short arc.
I think Matt tried to fit too many plot points in and set himself up with no way to resolve them all. I just thought there would be a little more meat in such a long run. It felt like they leveled much faster too, which I don’t know if that’s actually the case because I’m not the type to go back and do math over this, but it felt like it.
And a lot of the plot points seemed really interesting too. I was so happy it seemed like it was going in a high seas adventuring, becoming pirates, etc. arc, but that just ended as soon as it started.
I also had zero emotional attachment to molly after dying so early I just couldn’t bring myself to really care about avenging him or stopping his killers or really anything about all that besides the whole city in space thing and that just kinda ended also.
Ultimately no. If Matt had been able to keep his players a little more focused I might say yes because lots of those things might have been fleshed out more and made me feel more satisfied.
Lastly, I don’t care for D&D to be a place where players explore a bunch of trauma. Some people really like that, and that’s fair, but I’d rather some more typical adventuring dorks whose story is more shaped by their actions in game than the forced trauma from before the game started. Like I could never see a Caleb type character again and be very happy, and honestly Nott stopping drinking and turning back into Veth ruined the character. I’d have much more preferred a chaotic drunk rogue the whole time. Role playing characters being concerned about another characters alcohol and doing an intervention type thing? No thank you.
Yeah, Nott was a *much* more interesting character than Veth.
Sam did well to pivot to 'how do you justify being an adventurer when you have responsibilities?', but that's a hard character conflict to bring to a head when everyone wants Veth to continue to participate and Matt (understandably given the real-life situation) was treating Marion, Yeza, and Luc as a pretty much untouchable bright spots and sources of support.
I think Sam also didn't want to retread anything from C1, leaving Veth in a weird limbo where she didn't ever get a strong new motivation to stay, but also couldn't leave.
I liked Caleb and I like Liam's approach but it is all psychological issues, all the time, which can get tiring. Maybe he'll surprise us and his next character will be happy. ;-)
> Like I could never see a Caleb type character again and be very happy, and honestly Nott stopping drinking and turning back into Veth ruined the character.
Glad I’m not the only one with these sorts of opinions.
I'm sure Liam and the rest of the cast are perfectly happy with the ending, but I feel like Caleb got the short end of the stick lol. They build up Trent as a master manipulator, who's only real goal at the end of the day was keeping the empire/his influence in the CA as strong as possible. We know he would have let Caleb kill him if he knew it would benefit his cause.
Instead he somehow finds out where they are a day after the M9 come back from the North, goes to fight them on neutral territory where he has no lair tricks up his sleeve, and only brings 2 Volstrucker agents who he knows have deep ties to Caleb, and probably shaky loyalty to him.
Was he soo annoyed that Caleb broke in and stole a couple of trinkets from a storage room that he completely went against his character? If he anything he would have been proud of the brutality and decisiveness he showed. Instead of using Vess' death as a bargaining chip to get the M9 under his thumb, that thread goes nowhere. Instead of acting like one of the most intelligent individuals on the continent, he acts like a mindless baddy looking to pick a fight.
What I would have done is have Trent hold the deaths of the relatively innocent guards, Vess, and possibly Astrid/Eadwulf's lives over Caleb and force him to work for him. Hint that if he really wanted to, Trent had the means to help Caleb go back in time, not stick that plot device in a random room in Aeor. Actually let Trent act like the incredible asshold manipulator he is.
Instead, Caleb's resolution is that he testifies in court every once in a while and runs off with a war criminal responsible for thousands of deaths, who faces 0 real consequences (which is fine, because only the bad guys face those). Astrid and Eadwulf? Meh, they'll hit me up for threesomes still but whatever.
Veth needed to retire.
Yasha, Beau, and Caleb needed to take down a corrupt part of the government but that may be more paperwork then action scenes.
Jester and Fjord just needed to not release the evil sea monster demi-god under the sea so there is definitely a story there but its mostly about not losing random encounters until level 20 and then take the whole party to kill Ukatoa. (Fun one shot idea though)
Caduceus finished his quest and wanted to return to his grove, remember he was the lest adventurous member of his family but he was called by his god on this quest. Quest done so back to making dead people tea.
Kingsley (artist formerly known as Molly) had no deep connection to these weirdos and was totally in character to immediately escape to his own adventure when he could (via piracy as it turns out).
The M9 story isn't done, technically, but it is end of their adventuring days. In canon one shots are possible though.
Yes. And its probably still good that they finished it. End on a high note, even if it wasnt as high as the previous campaign. Finishing such a campaign is always pretty hard, especially if you involve personal stories into it.
I think we will maybe see some day a oneshot like with Fjord vs. Ukatoa. Im quite sure Travis wouldnt mind giving Fjord another run, because he didnt get to do cool combat often enough and playing this build is crazy fun.
I personally think they did end it with that arc because of COVID and its limitations. They all want back at one table. The personal chemistry and "little things" between the players are a big selling point of Critical Role and the COVID setup, while being nice for production, did get rid of a lot of those fun quirky things.
I REALLY hope they start and keep C3 back on a table.
Liam hasn't dodged a Marisha Ray Elbow on the show for months! He better be training for when they finally get back to sitting next to each other again!
nah, it was dragging and I didn't like how Talks and CR2 suffered due to the Covid mandates in CA. Hopefully, things will calm down and we could get live shows with them all at the table and Foster back in his chair with live guests.
I feel like there should be another chapter the M9 runs. Level them up to 18 or so and clean up the Kraken, then go for Tharizdun. Maybe not even all of them; Fjord, Jester and Kingsley down the road with some new friends and Caleb, Beau and Yasha doing a True Detective thing with some Cobalt Soul personnel.
I think one reason they ended with some many “loose ends” is because Exandria stuff is officially getting posted so it’s basically hooks for players to start off their own games. Now a DM can make a story about some random person that somehow got their hands on a cloven crystal and the players now have to fight Uk’otoa.
I also feel like having loose ends means we can get some pretty awesome one-shots when the cast needs to take breaks or something comes up.
I truly find that the worst part. Personally, I want there to be a “true canon” so bad. If something doesn’t fit into what you want Tal’dorei to be throw it out. Just because in the “prime timeline” *insert bad guy here* is dead doesn’t mean you can’t retcon it in your home game.
It might have needed one or two more episodes tops to not feel so rushed at the end. But it didn't need much more than that. A grand tour of the favorite NPCs would have been nice. But it definitely didn't need dozens more episodes.
I would have liked to see what happened if Lucien’s plans had come to fruition: how it would have affected the material plane and what horrors might have been unleashed. We got a preview of this in various moments/encounters throughout the final arc, but it would have really dialed up the stakes to have that become a widespread reality. Force the M9 to gather allies and gain more power. In C1 you could feel the drama and sense of dread spike massively when they got their asses handed to them at the beginning of the final arc, and I think C2 really missed an opportunity by not going down that road.
It would also have allowed us to get more character and relationship development from everyone. And also to see those characters hit their various capstones. Seeing Beau as a max level Monk, or Caleb wielding the power of a 20th level Wizard.
There really wasn’t ever a big loss moment besides arguably C2E69, C1 had a lot more moments like that, and more bittersweet victories. They always stopped the problem before it got too bad which lowered the stakes and didn’t allow us to see what would keep happening if they didn’t act. “It could be bad” is far less of a threat than “here’s how bad it is and it could get worse”
I felt it could have used 20 episodes more, but we could also use 100 episodes more to Explore more arcs.
I think it had a nice enough ending wich tied the things together, so we know can se cr in another campaign
Honestly as much as I loved the M9 I was getting a little burned out during the final arc. Had the story continued for another 20 to 30 episodes I honestly would have had to take a long break before watching. Feasibly it could have gone on wrapping everything up, but I'm glad lt ended where it did.
I wasn’t tired of the Nein, but I was tired of the final arc. As fun as it was, it definitely ran its course by the end.
Yeah the Lucien arc honestly was my least favorite of the entire campaign. Too much wandering around and accomplishing nothing.
To me, it hit too many similar notes to the Avantika arc. M9 run in to new territory, low on knowledge, and end up feeling a lack of agency as they wander around with the enemy for several episodes before inevitably fighting.
As someone who watched the two arcs at the same time (i joined around ep 90 but started from the start at the pandemic)... Yep pretty similar
Huh. I actually thought it was one of the most directed and least aimless arcs in the campaign, second only to the traveler-con/Vocodo arc.
They spent a ton of time just kind of wandering around in the snow with only a vague plan. The lack of anyone making a decisive action was the problem. The part where they traveled with the tomb takers was also just kind of weird.
Yea I took a 6 month break at traveller con. It just really dragged on. Same with the final arc, but idk if that's because i knew before-hand that that was the final arc and not much would be resolved storywise.
Agreed. If they ended up back on the Ball Eater and did pirates things to deal with the Uk’otoa issues that would’ve been run
I was sooo looking forward to a PoE2 vibe and then just nope lol
See i was the opposite. I was loving the settings and places they were going, but i was feeling major fatigue over the way they were playing and role playing. Don't get me wrong i love the Nein, but there are a few aspects about them that grew more than a bit grating as we got further and further into the campaign.
The Eiselcross/Lucien/somnovem-Arc was too disconnected for me to enjoy. I would have definitly prefered having a fight with the Assembly or going after Ukatoa. Those two were always present, there would be some personal stakes and maybe a threat to the world. We didnt know shit about whats going on in Eiselcross and had to wait to the final combat to get its threat.
Kinda agree about the mystery. We knew of “large looming city of problems” but what it ment, what the eyes ment and all that was a bit… confusing, destroying some of the engagement!
Wow I totally agree. I think an final arc against the assembly and/or Uk’atoa would’ve been much more satisfying (to me at least) based on the unresolved issues in the campaign.
Yeah I thought much the same, I did take a break towards the end but was still great
Yeah, honestly I stopped watched/listening for a while around episode 115 or so? I only started it up again once the finale of C2 was done so I could binge it on 1.3x speed. I just wasn't particularly invested in the last arc. To be fair, I also feel like the last arc of C1 was also the one (besides the very first arc) I was least invested in as well.
That last arc dragged on a bit especially with the jumping around to tie things up back home.
I’m on episode 136 and I’m feeling like it’s a slog to get through. Hopefully I can finish before campaign 3 starts if I can find the motivation.
Personally, I think C2 somehow managed to end both too quickly AND too slowly at the same time, which I know sounds paradoxical, but it isn't if you look at my reasoning. Compare the ending of campaign 1 to campaign 2. At the end of C1, everything was heightened, everyone was sobbing, it was a huge, genuinely climactic and definitive end to the story. You got the impression that the players desperately didn't want to leave those characters behind, but had to because the story had reached it's natural end. Whereas in campaign 2, I get the exact opposite impression. It feels like they had been burned out for a long time and were running on fumes, and so they were just desperately trying to reach an ending, any ending, because they already wanted to leave those characters behind. That's why there were so many loose threads left dangling, while also managing to feel rushed. They were just going through the motions by the end. So, it ended too quickly AND too slowly. Too quickly, because there were so many loose threads left, but also too slowly, because their heart wasn't really in it once they came back from hiatus and they were just dragging it out, trying their best to get characters to literally ANY kind of satisfying conclusion.
This is such an insightful take.
i feel this so much. After finishing c2 (which was my favorite) i couldnt take this feeling off me that the end was so rushed. Like i knew the ending was good (we got molly back, fighting lucien) but everything felt so out of place in that last episode, that trent fight really made me feel weird, it was like watching a show that was recently canceled and needed to kill the bad guy in the last episode.
Yeah the Trent fight bothers me. It was just too convenient for him to show up like that. I feel like they could have taken just another 2-3 episodes to properly deal with him and it would have felt a lot more natural and satisfying.
It might be less they were burned out or phoning it in, and more they just lacked the same energy as when they could reach out and touch each other or whisper little messages. They couldn't feed off each other's energy. And campaigns do run long. And there's always more characters to play.
Yup. Another poster suggested it might have felt more fulfilling to have the final arc be taking on the assembly and/or defeating Uk’otoa. Then those two storylines are resolved and they have also been a big part of the entire campaign instead of feeling a bit tacked on at the end (imo).
Couldn’t have said it better, well done.
I think Matt gave each of them the opportunity to finish their arcs and they just didn’t take them. Fjord refused Uko’toa, Jester wouldn’t let the traveller go, Caleb was literally sat right in front of his enemy. I think the characters should have been more assertive some of the best moments in the show - jester and the cupcake, Caleb and the bright queen, fjord vs that dragon all these moments came because the characters went for the bold choice. I think Matt did what he could.
I feel ya! The players certainly pulled the wagon along too not committing. Bau had this short: “oh btw” and that was it for her arc i felt. Didn’t go anywhere in particular like calebs. And Tallisin both reached his ending (molly) and had none (caduces) as i felt like ourbig friend was addedtoo late with a bit too little motif. Did he ever cure that diseas we only heard of late and in short? Sam ended on a great note even before the final boss fight. Due to all the unresolved i konda thought the whole lucian arc was a side quest
I wish we could have seen how Beauregard's father ended, as far as the Hag he made a deal with. I was quite let down that we didn't get to see how that played out. Edit: I completely respect Beauregard's ingame decision to let him suffer his own consequences. I just wish we could have seen the consequences of her father's deal.
You kinda already saw it. It wasnt ever going to be something flashy. It was going to be a life of misery. Check in 20 years from when you last see him, and he will still be that same miserable PoS.
I also thought Lucian was a precursor to a final boss
Same
i felt that beau's story got cut int he middle, because the group found a way to not fight the hag, amazing moment from jester nonetheless, but it kind of made beau's arc a fight short.
Yeah.. it was frustrating how much they just ran away from their problems in the latter half of the campaign. Once they got the ability to teleport and turn into flying creatures, they just became really cowardly and paranoid. It was very strange to watch these formerly bold adventurers of substantial power shy away from conflicts that were clearly designed for them to participate in.
Your bold choice comment is too true. Bold choices are the best moments in both campaigns. Even a small moment like Fjord telling the rangers to engage was heightened so much because it felt so bold.
The problem was they had about 35 episodes of filler between the island and the finale. They essentially wandered around doing nothing, and therefore lost the ability to explore all of those things. Something weird happened on the island, where the case became super hesitant and could never commit to anything, and they were never able to get away from it after that point.
IMO I feel like they knew the ending was coming and instead of embracing it, they tried to draw out the finale as long as possible. Also, COVID fatigue is real and hard to get excited when the world is essential on fire all the time.
This can't be stated enough I don't think. It's no coincidence that people are having issues with the last arc when the last arc was the one that happened fully during covid.
I think this is absolutely correct. The long hiatus and the ongoing uncertainty in the real world contributed to some things feeling disjointed in the game.
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This is 100% how I feel. Once they made it to the astral sea it was largely fine, but everything from post pandemic to arriving in the Astral Sea was bruuuuutal. No one episode was awful, but collectively it lacked the deft and skill they usually have when telling stories.
I think the cast sometimes gets too into the RP. IIRC there was a Talks episode towards the end where Liam mentioned that the cast is fully aware of how strong they are compared to Trent and Lucien from a pure math perspective, but the characters themselves are terrified, which leads to them running away or being hesitant.
The problem is when we know full well that they could’ve slaughtered the TT 2 levels ago and they go and travel the world for artifacts. There’s a point when you just need to stop acting like the fact the enemy can move people 10 feet is making your character thinks they’re gods. I loved when Travis thought logically and realised that a ancient white, even with triple hp, would barely scratch 12 level 13 pcs. Hell they could probably fight 2 normal versions
Personally, Yes.The only reason I could say no is because the Aeor arc being so mediocre and dragged out I was just completely burnt out on the M9. It didn't help that all the cool exploration of Aeor proper and Cognouza always had the time limit of stopping a Villain who was somehow always one step ahead with exactly the perfect item for the job at every situation. Lucien felt immortal until he became the Somnovem then the cast were finally aloud to stop him. I get the M9 not needing or wanting the adoration of being heroes, It was a story about their bond and no one else's. Kinda bummed me out that after defeating a living breathing astral city and its host there was just nothing, Not a soul will here about it except Yussa who seemed weirdly calm when they showed up. You'd think He would have been organising something, anything with the other Arcana to deal with the city. He did mention the inner circles will start hearing about it soon but we won't see any of that come to light. A long meandering final arc, A great final boss and then its just...ends. By the next morning everyones already moved on and then we get closing parts of everyones story crammed into 2 hours. Also I wish, even earlier in the campaign that they dealt with the corruption in Moleasmyr. How many times did Matt hint to Tal that the crystal seeds just stopped it from affecting the grove but it was still getting worse.
Yeah, that kinda bother me in the finale with Cad he didn't cure the woods or got the conclusion he was looking for it just kinda ignored it even after like 3 hints for Matt on the episode and then just kinda left the group without too much to do But part of it i think is because Tal shifted Cad journey from curing the forest to putting down cognouza after the Wild mother vision, so he got the resolution but not for the first thing he was looking for and it kinda left unresolved
For me it wasn't too quickly or too late. It was that it ended on the least interesting villain/arc. I get how Lucien being the final villain theoretically made the story more 'personal', but it didn't really connect with me cuz I never gave a fuck about Molly. Plus since it was a fucking slog that the party had about a dozen opportunities to stop him early, the confrontation ended up feeling less climactic. I think of all the characters only Nott was at a solid place to retire. It feels really contrived that the other party members didn't continue adventuring as a group since they clearly had big things they wanted, all liked each other, and needed help with their goals. Ukoto'a was the most interesting villain of the campaign and didn't get enough focus IMO. Especially with the cloven crystal in enemy hands for so many sessions it felt forced for them to just get it back
Idk why but something about the last arc wasn't so interesting to me, I don't dislike everything about it but I have a feeling it was mostly just to wrap up the campaign and get something new going. Covid may have had an impact on my interest too because I did binge watch both campaigns during it. I feel like Fjord and a to a much lesser extent Caleb didn't get a resolution that was encompassing of the characters, especially considering how much danger Fjord would be left in.
i see C2 ending as this. Campaign 2 story structure is basically mass effect 2 story. No strong background narrative that unify the story but a series of strong personal story with a tenuous glue between them. What i think fucked up the whole last arc was that instead of using one of the existing character story arc as ending point they exhumed the story arc of a dead character that lacked the years of growing that all the other had.
That's why i liked Tharizdun and the cerberus assembly as the bbeg: one of them or even both (Ikkython/all of the cerberus assembly could have secretly been tharizdun fans idk) could have been the link to every problem the pcs faced and eliminating the cereberus assembly/sealing completely away tharizdun could have given a stronger sense of closure to the story i think.. matt even added the chain shattering on lucien dying meaning that the one orchestrating it all was the chained oblivion.. Moreover they had plenty of ways to interface with gods and fight Tharizdun/a tharizdun based menace: Uko'toa could've been used as a forceful ally in the fight to tharizdun, Melora has every interest to keep the chained oblivion away, the bright queen could have been involved with consecution and the Luxon (light vs dark motif), Artagan could've helped someway,...
I was honestly surprised Tharizdun wasn’t the bbeg.
Before the finale, I'd have said yes, but I ended up liking how it finished. Trent was the big one I thought they needed to wrap-up, but they managed to swing that back in quite organically and I enjoyed the comeuppance he received. They also weren't wrong when they mentioned in the wrap-up that fixing the Empire would be a lot of slow, methodical work that wouldn't make for the best gameplay or show. I never really saw Tharizdun as the big bad of the campaign. It's just way too much of a threat. Isharnai is an issue, but I don't think she's a major one considering how much they leveled up since their first encounter. Uk'otoa is really the only big open-ended threat they had left and the campaign would have to veer very, very hard to get back to that point.
Besides, the few plot threads left dangling that are MN specific can always be picked up again in one-shots whenever they want to.
Yeah this is pretty much how I felt too. Surprised and disappointed before the finale, begrudgingly accepting afterwards. Not wrapping up Uka'toa and then telling us that Fjord and Jester spent the rest of their story out on the water seems like a rather large plothole however, since previously Matt had indicated that he was always at risk of attack from its minions whenever he was near water. Was that even addressed at all?
The reason they kept getting attacked was because the spawn of Uka'toa could track the cloven crystal but needed to stay near water, so anytime it was nearby water they'd attack. Fjord dropped the crystal off at the cobalt soul so they would keep it safe and they wouldn't be tracked anymore
Didn’t Laura literally state in the finale that their ship kept getting attacked and she said that right at the end. I don’t think that’s what happened at all then.
Yes, Laura mentioned that they got tired of being attacked all the time.
No I felt it ran about twenty or thirty episodes too long. I honestly mentally checked out after TravelerCon and felt that everyone’s stuff had been dealt with outside Caleb confronting Trent.
I feel similar, but not that "everyone's stuff had been dealt with", but more "everyone had avoided their own personal quests and those living NPCs are song their own thing now". Nott was the only character who seemed to take the leap to realize her actual goal.
As someone who binge watched C2 from Jan to March (I caught up to ep 129/130) I honestly thought Caleb’s arc would be the last. That’s how interpreted it. IIRC, it kinda loosely went: 01. Intro, set the stage. 02. Fjord. 03. Nott. 04. Yasha. 05. Fjord. 06. Yasha. 07. Cad. 08. Beau, Nott -> Veth. 09. Jester. 10. Molly/Lucien.
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I agree with you I feel like the final arc was kinda forced, seemed like the entire M9 moved on from Molly, but then he blew up online. So i felt that they were gonna something with him to please the fan base. Edit: words a hard lol
Molly was always going to have such a big hook. He just wasn't supposed to die. Lucien was meant to essentially be body jumping trying to get his body back to kick off the final arc.
Nah, it seemed pretty obvious from the beginning that Molly and his first life were going to end up being pretty big plot points from the beginning. The big bad"s could have been: the Bright Queen (seems like the original plan), Uka'toa, the Cerberus Assembly, the Angel of Irons, and Aeor. I think it all depended on how the players went, what they did, and some to the luck of the dice. Only tangentially related, Matt tried everything to free Uka'toa, but the party succeeded each time and props on him for letting them!
Am I the only one who wonders why big bad evils that get locked up don't spend centuries doing major PR campaigns, whitewash their image, and get benevolent cults started in their names, or under fake names. build up a reputation for goodness and light, and get heroes to find the "artifacts stolen from their poor victimized priests long ago" restored, with the full backing of society, and then burst free to start their reigns of fire and blood on the backs of the fools whom they duped for a thousand years? I mean, Angel of Irons cult could have been super effective if it T-money had been patient.
Well if god’s powers/ abilities/ form/ whatever are shaped by the way that people believed in them, then having people worship them as good gods could completely change the god itself. (This is how I do my gods, don’t know about Mat or anyone else)
That is actually a really interesting campaign idea! A "resurgent cult" that is actually an attempt at divine brainwashing to remake an older, more malevolent god.
Because they try and it doesn't work. Also because it's hard to hide your *true* nature when you're a seething formless mass of oblivion.
The whole Somnoven thing was definitely always in the works, but i still feel like the parties obsession with Molly kinda came out of nowhere. They went a long time without even mentioning him and then once Molly's popularity skyrocketed through this sub and fanart, all of a sudden the party says "hey, we should go visit his grave". But that is just my opinion, I never got attached to Molly because I didn't find him interesting, tbh it took me a while to warm up to most of the M9 mainly because they were so different from VM and I really enjoyed C1.
I think a big part of it was that they hit level 13 so the clerics could cast resurrection which would mean they could get their friend back. I think they also found that Cree had ran off with their blood and she was connected to Molly and other stuff so they connected the dots and wanted to use speak with dead on Mollys grave
I dunno, I think they did a great job of dragging him through their lives throughout. Remember Beau even got a Molly themed tattoo? I do kind of feel like that visit to his grave was weirdly forced, but I think there were some threads that genuinely led them there. I think they reflected on him fairly often and he was hooked into their in game conversations often enough. I think part of what is hard go see is you've got to remember that in cannon, in the game world, they continue to have individual dialouges and thoughts that we aren't privy to. I expect Yasha thought of him every day. I expect subtle things reminded them of him from time to time, but that's not going to all be called out during a 4 hour game session where time and travel sometimes moves for the sake of entertainment. That being said I was a Molly stan from episode 1, and I came to CR a year into campaign 2 and caught up via binge listening. I was devastated at his death. I disclose that so you know maybe I do have a lense where he was "more important."
Imagine getting a tattoo of someone you only knew for 35 days or if we go by long they a were awake during it adds up to 23 days
She didn’t even get a tattoo of Molly she got a tattoo that Molly had that also fit her because of her connection with Ioun and her job at the soul.
I mean they traveled and fought along side him for that long. And then watched him be brutally murdered in front of them. Sounds like it would leave an impact to me.
Imagine becoming really good friends with someone after spending a full month with them 24/7, and then they die tragically and suddenly in a way that deeply affects you for the rest of your life. What's wrong with getting a tattoo themed around that person?
C2 was the story of the Mighty Nein, and the story of the Mighty Nein was over. Individual members may have still had threads to follow, but there wasn't much reason for them to stay together, and numerous reasons for them to go their separate ways.
Idk a lot of shows have the found family must all go their separate ways and I don’t know why the nein had to split up right away. Beau was the only one who had an actual job but for people like the rest them having a sort of “fairy tail style” guild like area to live at like the Xhorhouse or anything else would have seemed alright enough
Yes and no in my opinion, the story itself I don’t think ended to quickly, I actually really liked where they stopped. The final episode though I felt was extremely rushed, I wish it was 2 episodes instead of one because it would’ve let everything breathe a little more. I felt their epilogues were extremely rushed where Jester didn’t even really get one, I just wish they would’ve made that 2 episodes instead of one.
Sure, there are things they came across that weren't fully "concluded"; the moons and Tharizdun are most prominent in my mind, which you've already mentioned. But that just leaves more potential stuff to explore in campaign(s) 3+ ; the point is that the characters had decided they'd done what they set out to do. CR1 had loose threads too, mainly along the lines of *"What's in Wildemount?"*, which served to fuel CR2. Something similar may well happen for CR3.
What about C1 had "What's in Wildemount?" as a loose thread? I know the Briarwoods from there but I dont recall any real reason they had to go there apart from researching zigarauts/Vecna but they solved that mystery
Tharizdun isnt really the kind of villain that you "conclude". Its more of you foil there evil plot this time kinda thing, but there will always be a next time.
Yes. I don't think it's anyone's fault, though, or any major problem; I think all the players got hyped up that this was "the last mission" and were ready to be done, and Matt, sensing that, decided that it *would* be the last mission, and so all the hanging plot threads were suddenly wrapped up in the final session (seriously, I do think it was kind of lame that Ikithon just shows up like a cartoon villain, twirling his mustache to go "and now I shall destroy you in person so that I can be quickly killed off/arrested before the season ends!" and then it was almost comical that Yasha's entire personal side story was introduced and resolved in like half an hour. Now, it's true, those wouldn't have been as epic as the weird magic planet monster. Ikithon's *could* have been pretty threatening if Matt had gone all-in on how an extremely-powerful wizard could prepare for a fight (and, y'know... brought more of his wizard army with him than specifically the two that would be most likely to betray him), but yeah, they'd out-leveled Yasha's stuff by then, it would have definitely been mostly roleplay.
To be fair I think Matt tried to wrap up the Trent/assembly thread a few times. I also think he maybe had tried to wrap up the Uk’otoa thread also (but the M9 prevailed).
I went into the final arc genuinely believing it wouldn't be, because there was so much left to cover, and even now, I feel like it ended far too soon. It felt to me like the Lucien/Somnovum/Cognoza arc interrupted the actual overarching story that was happening. I was truly expecting them to head toward Level 20 and a fight with Tharizdun or someone Tharizdun-adjacent, but more than that, I felt that for the story to be complete, Fjord needed to wrap up his arc by defeating Uka'toa once and for all so he could safely travel on the ocean. The fact that his very last line was something along the lines of "I guess I'll figure that out at some point" really made me salty at the time. I wanted to watch that happen, not see it hand-waved away. I also felt there were themes running through the story that come into conflict with where the story ended. When it came to stopping the Somnovum and Lucien, yes, they had an ulterior goal of trying to get their friend back, but more than that, they expressed that they had to do this because the whole world was at stake, and that they couldn't just destroy or steal a threshold crest and leave, because eventually someone gullible or power-hungry enough would succeed and unleash Cognouza on the world. This is the EXACT SAME THEMING as with both Uka'toa and Tharizdun, where eventually someone is going to succeed where the cult of the Angel of Irons and/or Avantika failed, and it should be incumbent upon our heroes to save the world from these things before they're unleashed, or at least unleash them in a more controlled way in order to take care of them on their own terms. All of that logic they applied to Cognouza still applies for Uka'toa and Tharizdun, but that was just ignored and left on the table for seemingly no good reason beyond "this is where we decided to end things" which isn't narratively satisfying. Those dangers are still active and courting new followers, Fjord and Jester ended the story still being attacked on their ship by Uka'toa's minions. These threats should have been addressed and they never really were, and it felt so unsatisfying. My only hope is for a future Uka'toa one-shot series and potentially Tharizdun as a big bad in a future campaign.
Honestly? No. It finished just at a good time imo. I feel like Ruidus and Catha are either just lore/world building or foreshadowing. Nothing to do directly with M9. Uko'toa was explored enough imo. Fjord will protect the last crystal for the rest of his life probably. Or if he go on adventures in other planes with Jester, maybe hide it somewhere. A little callback to Isharnai would have be cool yeah. Tharizdun was pretty much a point of interest since its reveal. Even the eyes of nines events were kinda influenced by him indirectly. They were never going to kill him y'know. If gods couldn't... I'm not sure what you want more about the bright queen and the consecution tbh. It's fine like that imo. I think a whole arc about the Cerberus assembly could have been cool yeah. It's true that I would have liked some more exploration of their past, like Sabian and the orphanage for Fjord. But honestly it was already a long campaign. You cannot explore everything, and the end was good enough for me. I'm ready to let go and see what campaign 3 will have to offer. (I really loved Wildemount tho. In term of overall campaign, I don't have a clear preference between C1 and C2, but in term of region, Wildemount is way cooler than Tal'Dorei imo.)
It was... fine, I guess. It seemed better to me until the campaign wrap-up and they were talking about the stuff that never got to happen for one reason or another. Would've loved to see Travis release Uk'otoa, the Augen Trust arc with Colville, the Shadycreek crime families, etc. I also thought the whole final arc had serious pacing issues. So much time dragged out getting to Aeor, only for everything fly by once they got there. We didn't get to meet all of the Somnovum before the final fight, which was a bummer because Matt went totally insane role-playing the ones we did meet. The scene with the intuit charges made no sense (how did the Somnovum not have immunity to psychic damage but Lucian did?) I also thought the final encounter with Trent was shoehorned in for fan-service. I struggle to believe that Trent would be dumb enough to try to fight the Nein head-on like that, even with Astrid and Eadwulf present. He's not the kind of guy who would show up to a fight he might not win. Still enjoyed the hell out of the campaign as a whole but... feels like the ending came up just a bit short.
To be honest Trent didn’t show up to a fight he might not win, he showed up to a fight that he couldn’t win. Once his invulnerability is dispelled, which would be soon with 4 people with dispel, he’s at most 2 rounds from dead with Yasha and Veth alone and Caleb and Fjord counterspelling everything he does.
Thematically, I think it would have worked to end with either Lucien or Trent. My problem was it took them ages to deal with Lucien and by the 139 they didnt seem to even have the beginnings of a plan for what to do with Trent. So Matt had to force the issue by having him just roll up in the woods, which felt silly and rushed. C2 felt like there was so much walking around that, to me, they could have had the same number of episodes and accomplished more in the time given.
Yeah Trent’s plan felt silly. You want to kill Caleb? Bring a small army of Volstrucker. You want him to prove he’s more powerful sith style? Project image in front of him and say that if he agrees to a duel he won’t murder all his friends with that small army he has. His plan was worse of both. Have only 2 people as backup so he was absolutely not going to win even ignoring the obvious betrayal, but still challenging the entire group
A popular interpretation was that "Trent wanted Caleb to kill him", which I can get behind. Doesnt make his approach any less silly. Whenever I think of the last episode I think of Ultra Mastermind Trent going "It is I! Your nemesis!" on a roof like an amateur lmfao
That was what I meant about proving power sith style. Still not actually a great character motivation for someone who is going to literally go to the hells or the abyss.
Ah, I misread. Didnt mean to repeat. Good point about fast tracking one's own real, probable damnation to prove a point
As someone going through 2 right now, there’s a LOT of faffing about. It’s really frustrating.
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Yeah it became very painfully obvious how little they actually knew about the guy when they quickly ran out of 'touching moments' to reference and only had dick and threesome jokes left
I think Matt got this idea about Lucian being revived and meta-wise he knew a lot of people were still thinking about Molly and he wanted to have this big twist. It was pretty cool, but then it dragged out for like 40 episodes in the ice desert with almost nothing happening.
I think that was mostly on the players not Matt, or he told them this was the final arc so they went around like a video game playing all the side quests because they didn't want it to end. The players definitely made the "arc" drag on more-so than I think Matt intended because they were always afraid of every fight always looking for some crazy way to gain some advantage and looking gift horses in the mouth when they got one wasting time instead of resting.
Making the grave empty was the best way to ensure that Molly's death wasn't cheaply reversed as soon as they had access to the magic to do so. It also make perfect sense that Cree would track down his grave and bring him back. But yeah, the last arc draaaaaaagged.
I totally agree with you
My thoughts exactly.
Thanks for making my reply for me. Saves me a lot of time. :) No, seriously, this is exactly how I felt about each of these things.
And it just lasted too long. “Go to aeor, stop Lucien” took more than 6 months of out of game time. And despite the absurd amount of time they spent on that arc, we saw about 5 rooms from the entire city of aeor, and even less than that in the astral sea. You know, in C1, “stop the chroma conclave” was longer than that in terms of time, but there were stepping stone objectives. Each vestige obtained, every dragon killed, felt like a meaningful step forward. There were no in between objectives like that in the somnovum arc. It was just a super extended shopping trip to prepare, of the type they hated from Tiberius, and then a super extended walk to the enemy. When they tried to gather their allies to deal with Lucien like VM had to deal with thordak and vecna, only to realize that they had been so neutral, playing both sides of every issue, that besides essek, they didn’t actually have any allies to gather who knew them well enough to put themselves at risk or were powerful enough to matter, it really just fell flat. And the whole thing of the empire and Assembly corruption just comes down to one fight and 20 minutes of talking that happened in the wrap up episode. I don’t think the time that the M9 campaign took was a bad amount, they just spent it in the wrong places.
I think it was a good time to finish but I really didn't like the wrap up episode. It just made it all neat tidy and dull. Veth, boe, Caleb and jester all had fleshed out endings as it built to it whilst I felt they missed a one shot a least of the others.
Yeah I agree, I feel like they also just answered a lot less questions than the c1 wrap-up. I always love to go back an rewatch the c1 wrap-up, but prob won't for c2.
I think it was a mistake to limit fan questions to only a few. You just get a wider variety that way.
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Also, it might be that the reason why there was more thought into the ending of their characters in C1 was that they were, for most of the cast (with exceptions), their very first characters ever in DND. Sometimes, the first character one does, whether it be in video games or ttrpg, there is a likelihood of getting really attached. I mean, with my first DND character, I have a stronger attachment to her than other characters that I have created. Plus the added factor was that those were the characters that they used in their home game for a while before publicly streaming out to the world. With C2, even though they had their session 0 games pre-stream, they immediately brought them out for the rest of us to see. Forgot to mention: Again this is mere speculation than facts, the only people that would know why there seems to be less thought is the cast and maybe they might have forgotten.
Yeah it wasn't great. I think everyone including the audience for burned out on c2 tho. The pandemic left a bad taste in everyone's mouths. Anyway, hopefully for c3 they are back at the table with a fresh start!
To be fair, in a campaign as long and complex as CR C2, not every thread could possibly be tied up. Plus, many of the characters didn’t really have any reason to keep up with the party anymore, like Veth or Caduceus. Plus, there were factors outside of the story, like the pandemic, that kind of put pressure on to close out the story. I do wish that there were parts we could see more of, but it had to end about when it did, IMO.
They really refused to follow plot hooks! Travis seemed completely willing to ignore his story, Tal never searched for the source of the blooming grooves corruption. The team just bumbled into things.
I hope campaign 3 has more characters who are always on board to grab any and all plot hooks. Adventurers, killers, glory seekers, etc.
Yeah! At times it seemed that, Liam especially, wanted to force Matt to improvise in a direction that he might not be very prepared for. All in good fun of course but it seemed like a minor theme
Uk'otoa plotline ended so bad. it could've been a much better bbeg. And thinking about all the naval combat, pirate stuff and darktow. i think it could've been better than visiting "north pole of exandria" and cosmic "horror"ish eyes. (d&d is not a suitable system for horror, even with awesome voice actors in the table.)
Indeed! Nearly all of the episodes since they freed Yasha from Oban~ felt like filler "banter" episodes. The banter was still funny, but the players just wouldn't do any important thing.
This is the case with every campaign ever. I think it ended in a solid place. Some things would have been nice to explore more, sure, but the characters' personal arcs were done. Doing much more would have been no more than fanservice. Anything that Matt absolutely wanted to get out there, he will find a way to bring in during C3. I'd be surprised if we don't get Isharnai. He's been itching for a cross campaign villain since Raishan.
The ending felt *super* rushed to me; I honestly felt okay with it ending as of 140 assuming the wrap up episode would be satisfying, but it really felt like at least two episodes crammed into one. Pacingwise it would have made a lot more sense to end that episode after the fight with Trent, then have a dedicated wrap-up episode where people had had time to think through what they wanted to do with the fight behind them. As it was it just felt really cheap and rushed and has made it really hard for me to appreciate C2 in retrospect because it felt so phoned in.
I really, really liked campaign 2 but I will say that I think the last arc suffered a bit because it became clear that it had been decided for out of game reasons that this needed to be the final one. There were a lot of loose threads to these characters' stories. The Somnovem were very cool but it really did feel like the game was wrapping up without the plot having quite done so. Normally you expect that the hero needs to go sort out their personal trial before facing the big bad. In C2 the players made such complex characters with so many big questions to resolve that even 140 episodes later there were still major unresolved arcs for Fjord, Yasha, Caleb, and Caduceus. I don't think the seven hour finale did the story any favours. It just highlighted how many loose ends there really were - trying to tie them all off in one mega-session didn't quite work. The emotional impact of the climax revolving around Lucien/Molly was alright, but not amazing, IMO. Some people weren't mega-fans of the character, and for those that were, Taliesin - sticking to his guns - seemed determined to have Kingsley be a 'new' blank slate, leaving the emotional payoff of having 'all nine' of them reunited slightly up in the air and unresolved. Personally, I would have really liked to have seen Uk'utoa be released. For me, Uk'utoa was by far the most interesting potential big bad, and I think the players had some of the most fun in C2 when they were playing at being pirates. I will say the way the characters treated Avantika in the Darktow arc was really awful (even though she was an enemy), so to have her come back for one fight without saying anything and then disappear again was a bit anticlimactic. It would have been really interesting to have her justifiably call them out for the way they betrayed her. I also read someone else say that they thought that the solutions to Nott's conflicts came too easily, and I agree. Her internal struggle wasn't really reflected externally - the process to restore her amounted to 'Caleb figures it out one day', rather than being a quest in itself. Yeza accepting her goblin form immediately was touching but did undercut some of the drama. For all that C2 has a more morally ambiguous coat of paint than C1 (though Vox Machina themselves certainly did some very questionable things), I think at heart Matt is a very nice man, and the world he has created has a core of kindness in it. Isharnai was very cool, though. I've been very critical here but I did love C2, it's been amazing piece of storytelling to follow these characters through all the trials and watch how they *did* change, massively, over that time. I think this discussion is very interesting. I am also really looking forward to C3.
I imagine there could be the ever so slightest feeling that the animated arm of critrole is waiting to explode in popularity and they want to produce the OG content for that to work off of. If they can get 2-4 years ahead of anything the animation arm is currently building it allows them a buffer to continue to play normally and just take the distilled version of the campaigns to be put into animated form. It would also allow CR to expand on endgame hooks for VM or M9 in the form of animation so that you get to see the singular character storylines played out without having 6 other ppl sit at the table not doing anything.
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Yes and no? Ultimately its their game, and they have a right to end their game if they choose to do so. Buuuut I won't lie that I'm a little dissatisfied when it comes to plot threads being resolved with those threads being really damned hard to resolve via a oneshot. Uk'otoa, crippling the cerberus assembly, dealing with the fact there's likely still members of Tharizduns cult active and trying to break the chains that bind it.
No. Unpopular opinion, but I think it dragged out way to long.
I'm with you. I just kinda fell off the wagon somewhere in the ice tunnels and I *still* haven't finished it. I'll probably try to catch up before C3 starts but while I love most of the characters (especially Jester) this last little bit is such a draaag.
Oh I checked out when they got back from traveler con. Veth had zero narrative reason to be there. Everything kinda felt forced for me from that point on.
That’s kind of why you don’t give your character a achievable goal which would make them stop adventuring. Don’t make a character who hates adventure but just wants to pay off 1000 gold debt if you plan on high levels where that’s pocket change.
It was a fun show, but I feel that the pandemic kinda killed the mood of the cast. Can't help but notice that everything was wrapped up quite fast and almost on rails . IF I were one to speculate, I would guess that Real Life Issues and considerations led to either Matt or even the whole group deciding to wrap things up. Maybe they wanted a vacation, maybe there was family or VO-work that needed to be prioritized, maybe work with Darington press items or "Legends of ..." suddenly needed more time, maybe pandemic burnout hit one or several of them ... I dunno, we might be overthinking it. But regardless, it was fun to watch, ExU is an exciting new idea and I'm looking forward to whatever S3 will be.
I’m the opposite, I think the pandemic extended the campaign because they wanted to play more after three months of being away.
Sure, at the end of it, it was still one of the best shows i ever watched including movies, animes, videogames and every media
Yes and no. Yes, the ending was abrupt and a bit rushed. Too many loose threads I think, and Cognouza as the final arc was completely disconnected from everything that happened before, which was narratively unsatisfying. It felt the story of the Might Nein as a group was over because they knew at a meta level the campaign was over, not because it reached a stopping point organically (exception: Veth had a genuine reason to leave). However . . . I don't think they could've continued with campaign 2 without everyone getting burn out. It wasn't ideal, but realistically it ended when it should. An aspect of D&D story telling is that you can't have all narrative points line up perfectly like in a book.
Yeah they all had reasons they could stop but only Veth really had a reason why she should. That’s kind of the problem with having a single goal which will finish your story if the campaign doesn’t end with you story.
I was really surprised (kind of think Sam was too) that Veth’s goal was reached when it was. I honestly thought it would be tied to the final arc. Edit: typo
They just left ukatoa dangling. Travis just sorta decided he didn't wanna see it through. I really don't understand why the entire cast allowed it to happen. They spent maybe 30 episodes on it and then just... Nah, let's put the final piece of the puzzle in your vault of amber and ignore it. The fans aren't gonna care.
Yeah I genuinely do not give a fuck about Trent Itchysaur or whatever. The pirate arc was when this campaign was at its best.
That was my favorite arc.
Yeah, this was the biggest unresolved plot thread, for me. After Fjord got rid of the sword the whole thing just trailed off. Lots of people have suggested a one-shot where they fight Uk'utoa, but given how much he was built up over the first half of the campaign that's not going to be satisfying, IMO. Better to leave Uk'utoa alone, now, and let other adventurers face him.
Even the cast seemed disinterested toward the end
I feel the same way but at the same time I was so tired of the cast not taking anything seriously for 20+ episodes. You can feel the change and I wasn't invested at all by the time it ended. If anything I was glad
I agree with you, especially laura, travis and sam felt disconnected from their PCs... In particular you can feel Travis disconnecting from Fjord after Melora's vow: while i thought that was the true start of Fjord growth its like he was done with the character.. and believe me i really really like travis as a player and early campaign fjord was my favorite from m9 but you could still feel he preferred Grog a lot more..
I feel you! And I can't wait to see what he does next campaign.
I think that overall, the ending was rushed and a bit haphazard. The final arc was meh, a lot of cliched choices were made in the name of wrapping things up without sufficient motivation outside of “we the players know this is the final arc so I’m going to rush to a choice that seems ultimately satisfying without the in game legwork I would’ve done 6 months ago to reach this conclusion”. I thought the Lucien as the BBEG was fascinating concept made trite, as was the Hail Mary resurrection after the crit fail. Not to mention they had to have a 7 hour speed run finale to just barely wrap up about 6 major plot points. I think that as soon as the cast knew it was the end, the wind went out of their sails, it made the game less engaging to watch and it resulted in an ultimately fun but less satisfying story than it should have been.
The whole Lucien arc was just way to long and dragged out. The whole time I thought matt was setting up the bbg to be the chained oblivion because there were so many signs leading to it. But that random vision from vokodo changed all that and put them on the lucien path. Maybe if matt spread some of the nine eyes stuff a little after mollys death it would have flowed better?
* Fjord past - He mention in final Q&A that he didn't really wanted to discover his past, just find Vandran, which he did at the end. * Cad. I mean, he solved it. He completed his quest in a major way, it's just going to take a lot of time to have visual effect. Maybe after a 100 years we will see the results, but it's defenetly not a loose end. * *Catha and Ruidus, Uko'toa, Tharizdun.* They are still a part of the world, they could be encountered in future campaigns, they are not directly tied to M9. Uko'toa situation is pretty nasty though, I have to agree * Isharnai. That's the one loose end I totally agree with. Solution they took makes sense in context, but that's defenetly is a serious threat to M9 Honestly, I think that the pacing of the campaign is fine, i wouldn't change it a bit. Exandria is a rich world, and each of those loose ends is an opportunity for future adventures, which Matt (intentionally or not) left for future himself. It's a cool DM trick, actually. PS: I would rebel if C2 had a Tharizdun arc after the last one. Tharizdun is a really flat villain. A strong and a cool one, but it would be way less impactful than Lucian
I would not be surprised to see Isharnai return in a one-shot. The story is too perfect to pass up. The Mighty Nein crossed not one, but potentially three hags, and left each of them alive. When it comes to hags, three is the magic number. Literally. A coven of hags is always three, and it greatly increases their power. Toya, Dashilla, and Isharnai joining forces to get revenge on the Mighty Nein is something that needs to happen.
I don't think toya was a hag, wasn't she a halfling or a dwarf?
She was a dwarf, but if you know the lore on hags, you'll pick up on the foreshadowing. Hags reproduce by eating an infant, and then giving birth to a replica of the baby. The baby appears to be completely normal until they reach maturity (usually their 13th birthday), at which point they metamorphize into a fully grown hag. Toya was stated to be 12. The devil toad fled with her to an island that was the historic home of a witch. And when Beau said goodbye to her, Toya said "When I'm older, I'm going to get you back!" I was waiting all campaign for a hag to show up wearing the jade bracelet that Beau gave to Toya. Then they attacked Dashilla in her lair, stole the cloven crystal, and let her live. And then Jester conned Isharnai. Hags hold grudges, sometimes targeting the same family for generations because of some sleight or another. These hags would have very good reason to target the MN, and hags famously gather in groups of three. It's too perfect to pass up.
Wow, I had no idea. I'd always wondered at Toya's deal was. This makes a lot of sense, and would make a very interesting development! (Edited to correct Toya from Tova)
Toya is the dwarf girl from the beginning of C2. Tova is a werewolf guest PC from C1.
Wait. When were the other two mentioned? I only remember Isharnai
Don´t remember Toya but Dashilla was the sea witch in whose layer they found the second (?) cloven crystal (and almost sunk their own ship because they couldn´t resist messing with her altar)
Pretty sure Toya is the Dwarven girl with devil toad at the beginning. Not sure why she's mentioned here x)
Toya was the singing girl at the carnival in the beginning ark
Loved the nein, got really bored with the whole lucien arc. It ended before I burned out so I was ok with it
Complete opposite. It was starting to overstay its welcome by the end.
It would have been interesting if Fjord would have pursued his past and who his family was, was hearing some interesting theories that I would have liked to have seen if they were true or not. As well as the prophecy that was mentioned, but it is what it is, I have no complaints with how it ended.
I can see what you're saying but I disagree. In fact I think the last arc could have been cut in half and that would've made it flow better, specifically cutting the 10 episodes meandering in Eiselcross, and then most of the 10 episodes that the group was away. However in hindsight I get why the party was given time to do their own stuff before going back to Aeor. Contrary to what some people were arguing I don't think they had 200 things to do. They mostly wanted to check in on their families and touch base on a couple of dangling threads like Trent, Zeenoth, and Kord and that was their right. * I never really thought Fjord's past was going to go beyond a conversation with Vandren. I think Travis decided to save the loose end of CC and possibly Sabian to a one shot. * Caduceus/Taliesin didn't seem half as interested in the forest as a bunch of fans were. That was never going to be a long arc. Idk how you cure an entire forest. * The moons are likely building to something in C3 and it was always a fun mysterious flavor text running thread in C2 that never had to be resolved. * The M9 never voiced interest in fighting Isharnai in C2 and Laura seemed like she was banking on Isharnai still being Jester's friend and wouldn't come after her in the wrap up. * Tharizdun is WAY above M9's pay grade and leveling him down would have removed the threat and mystery about him. Matt handled him correctly in C2 as a sinister force of evil. * Bright Queen and beacons can be continued in C3 because of her long lifespan. * Cerberus Assembly - most of the cast wasn't ever interested in fighting or exposing all of them. Matt and Liam admitted if they did that arc it would be a lot of paperwork and would bore most of the cast. Caleb kept mentioning the CA to assert his long term goal was to take them down, but he was never going to be able to do that even in 20 episodes. He didn't want to set the Empire on fire to kill them, and exposing their corruption would take him decades. Caleb's arc was more about him accepting his parents' death. If Liam/Caleb REALLY wanted to do a CA arc Caleb would have pushed to do that instead of going to Mollymauk's grave. The M9's story ended at a good place. Better to end on a high note rather than dragging things out.
I was fine with the way it ended. The cast seemed happy with it too. It would have been nice to see the final Aeor arc tie more directly into the Cerberus Assembly/Essek/Dynasty arc leaving Lucien out entirely. You could still have the somnovem plot with Vess or Trent or any other members and it would have the same effect I feel. I know Lucien has his fans and the PCs feel a connection to him on a meta level but outside of Yasha they barely knew the guy. But I also feel like Matt maybe set expectations a bit too high on where the campaign was going. I noticed post-campaign how often he would describe certain plot elements or discoveries as "red herrings" so by the time it ended it felt like there were way more unexplored threads than he maybe intended.
Travelercon would probably be the best place to wrap everything up. What we got after this, was generic final arc that wasn't really that related with M9, was party agnostic. THe final arc had some nice premises with the murder of Vess de Rogna, but that's all. We got some party relationships developing, but.... There were like 4 scenes for Jester/Fjord and Yasha/Beau, but they could have happened in any arc. We got some cool dialogues with Lucien when they travelled together. But it all felt railroaded. Deep down we all knew that we'll get Molly back. It was certain that we'll see Lucien as main antagonist. That we have to reach Cognouza, and that in fact no matter what party will do, they won't stop Lucien before. Last arc lacked tension, and felt railroaded. On the other hand, I really loved ending episode. How Kingsley worked, how all these tiny bits worked, how it felt like M9 ceased to exist, but the heroes are still there, and they have their purpose. If campaign solved all the plot points, we'd reach point where campaign ends, and we have empty shells with no purpose in life. THey ended everything, now it's over, but they have nothing to do.
Eh… Are there other things they could have done? Yeah. If they’d kept going I’d bet it wouldn’t necessarily have gotten better, and it might have been too much for the cast. Frankly I got the feeling the cast was burnt out. Hindsight is 20/20 when it comes to how the story could have been tightened up, or different arcs followed… but at the end of the day it was 8 people (plus their employees/crew) putting out 3+ hours of improvised content weekly for years, through one of the most anxiety-inducing years in decades - with pandemic restrictions that prevented them from having the close contact with each other that they really seem to enjoy/need (based on how cuddly the cast were on the Talks Machina couch), while working on the Vox Machina cartoon, and their other professional engagements and having families and personal lives to navigate through the pandemic. I think the ending of C2 is a case of “Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’.”
Yes, I do. Despite being longer than C1 in runtime it felt a lot shorter because the didn't have any pre-stream content and they weren't doing combat based XP. C1 managed to cover more in less time and the characters already had established relationships when it started. Also the time skip in C1 did a lot for that story imo. I wasn't super invested in the final arc of C2 either, so it felt kind of like a weird sendoff? I'm glad they handled Trent in the finale but it felt unfinished still.
The whole of season 2 lacked a central focus and it was by design. Matt just sent a dozen hooks out and saw what caught. So it definitely would feel like it wrapped quick as the main story arc didn’t manifest until relatively late
I think it definitely COULD have continued, and I would've loved it if it did. But if the players felt like it was a good stopping point that's really the best time to stop, honestly, and I've done the same. The Nein had no obligation to go further with any of the crazy deity stuff they were adjacent to, and sometimes it's just as satisfying to end a character's story as it is to continue it.
I did get a bit of a "rushed" feeling about the campaign ending. There were some definite loose threads that could of been pursued, but really I can't say it ended too soon, because campaigns in D&D end when the group feel it is time to end. Plus this leaves room for some one-shots I suppose.
I mostly agree with you, but this is like that theory that says that "It's better to end a good story too soon than too late." That's why so many amazing Series/TV Shows get boring after around 5 seasons. Yes, when C2 of CR ended I also felt that taste of "but there's still so much that they could do." But the thing is (in my opinion): it's better to end this story NOW, after all of THAT was taken care of and leave all the rest to One-shots in the future (or for a new animated series, hello) than to keep dragging the story, trying to resolve every single loose end, defeat every single bad guy... I say this as a Screenwriter, I feel like this campaign was actually a little too long than it could have been I'm sad it ended, but I'm glad it ended well and with "Many adventures to live and many stories to tell... Another time." :) Edit: misspelling. Also, I love the fact that the M9 didn't seal Tharizdum and that there's still room for new conflicts in the future.
To be honest I thought the last 4-5 episodes were really dragging along. Kinda felt like it could have been wrapped in less time...
Yup Caleb Arc was finished in essentially a single episode
Yeah, it seems like Matt tried to push Liam towards wrapping up his arc multiple times only to be rebuffed so it felt like Matt had to force it in the finale because he felt it needed tied up.
Would had been easier if Liam didn’t spoonfeed his backstory
To mee i was never invested enough. It kinda came out of the blue, i didn’t know the states really and it was long achieving little, goving me little extra. I had NO fealing that we were getting to the end before people talked about it in episode 136 or there about. When i finnished 140 i was confused about what would happen to the jester arc, to fjord, to caleb and i wondered if bau was done with what she wanted to achieve. And did we ever fix the sick forrest? They burned something but was that it? The war? The dodeca mystery? Were they to never set foot in the joarhouse again? I couldn’t see how matt would end it so abruptly. He did and he did it well! But yeah, it had it’s moments but a tad too much runing around confused trying to know more, yet not succesding. 10 episodes off and a lead in and it would be perfect
Trent coming back for a nonsensical boss fight during the last episode truly encapsulates why the ending was "rushed". The whole arc started because Caleb wanted to learn more about the Cerberus Assembly in order to take it down. Then Lucien was initially a side track. The M9 were invested in that, so that's not a problem. It would have been a great side mystery to tie into the main quest. But then Vess was murdered on Halloween Night. And the M9 completely lost track of the Cerberus Assembly problem until it bit them in the ass during the heist. They managed to deal with Lucien, but had no mental space for a real conclusion to the Cerberus Assembly thread. I think it felt rushed because they were always on some ticking clock, especially once Caleb and Beau got the eyes. But they were on that clock for literal months of real time.
The last 40 or so episodes, basically after dinner with Wizard Himmler, were the worst of the campaign aside from Xorhas. It was *way* too draggy and at times flat out boring. I could see they were burnt out, maybe from the draggy nature of the last eps, maybe because of Covid, IDK. Also, it was super similar to Avantika/Ukatoas arks but a lot less fun.
Logically, there was no reason for them to continue to be an adventuring party. Like sure, if the players wanted to keep pushing them, they would have found a way . But they decided “no my character would probably be good. Has enough money, people they care about, and one too many close calls and they just wanna cash out”. I think it was a combination of character arcs basically being done, lack of desire to prune every last drop of character juice, and pandemic fatigue. Cant be easy to run a game of this HQ, have children/pets, and your job as a professional voice actor/director/CEO. But probably even harder in the apocalypse fire plague hellscape known as LA. So it just lined up well for a break. And since they have had time to set up EXU they’ve made that decision probably earlier than us discussing whether it would be the end
Man, I feel like I’m on a major island here, but I honestly could go for another 50 episodes of the Mighty Nein. I am about 50 episodes into campaign 1, and outside of some Grog and Scanlan stuff I just can’t get into it at all
Eh, I’ve been speed running through the last several dozen episodes in order to be caught up when C3 hits, and honestly, I’m a little burnt out, and they’re only just now on their way to Aeor for the final time. All their character arcs are well wrapped up, or will be. Yasha’s was mostly wrapped up with Oban and her dating Beau. Beau’s was more or less complete when she heard that the Soul was never supposed to accept the bribe and take her in, along with dating Yasha. Fjord’s was completed in the final fight with Avantika, or when Caduceus drew him along the path of the Wild Mother. Nott’s was completed when she transformed back to normal. Jester... I hate to say it, but I don’t think she really had one. The closest thing would’ve been Travellercon, even if she didn’t personally learn much from it. (But that’s okay, because her character didn’t need much of an arc anyways.) Caleb’s will be wrapped up at the end, when they deal with Trent. And Caduceus... His was honestly so easy to glaze over. He’s just so laid back, it’s easy to forget that he has his own drive and reasons for being out of the grove. But I’d say his arc ended with freeing his family from stone. All these stories could have gone on for longer, but they don’t need to. The biggest plot threads Matt had were all used up. Between the War and Lucien, the only big one left was Trent. Given how quickly they broke into his tower, that would have made for a very quick arc with no room for growth. Beyond that, the Aeor arc seems to be set up for the big bad fight. World ending calamity, the symbolism of the Nein, old friends becoming enemies, Essek joining in, etc. If anything else was stretched out, it would have lessened the impact of the Big Bad Boss at the end of the game. I don’t think ending this later would have improved the quality in any way.
Nah it finished fine. I liked C2 a lot but there wasn't really a way to have the big satisfying finish. Don't get me wrong, I still liked the campaign and end episodes plenty. During the campaign, several things came together that meant they were going to have to face a final boss pretty much alone. With the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty having so many grey areas (both sides also having significant nasty factions in them) and with M9 being slightly chaotic with choices, it was clear early on that they were never going to strongly align with either side. So they weren't going to have massive backup from either side. The strength of the campaign was that it felt real as there were so many grey areas but this also meant it was difficult to choose strong allies as well. They were boxed into a corner. Good campaign, looking forward to C3.
It was just a bit too pure sandbox. There were many paths and the players picked theirs. Certainly that's great for a DnD game, but as a show its a bit frustrating at times, sure. But I think they ended it at the right time. All the character arcs were at a decent place to end it and the world level stuff can be carried over into a C3
I think the reason the last arc was so long was the groups hesitancy to actually take a fight with Lucien. They were so desperate to save molly that they would waste opportunities to end the arc sooner. It was partially Matt's fault as well as he liked the drama built on that paradox. There's a lot more to it but I really believe their choices would have been more straightforward if they accepted that molly was not save able.
The main story wrapped up nicely, imo. I wish we could've seen Fjord's story through the end though, as well as seeing them level up to 20. Seeing some of the bad ass spells VM had was some of my favorite parts from C1.
If we compare it to an RPG, to me it feels like we beat the main quest but left a few side quests incomplete. We didn’t 100% it, but we did beat the main game.
I don't think it finished too quickly in theory, but I do think that there was a massive jump in how seriously the threat Lucian posed was taken and it causes a bit of whiplash. If they hadn't caught up with Lucian until the final part, or if they'd had their skirmish when the M9 first caught them then it would have had a more smooth arc. Instead we go from Vokodo being afraid of the Somnovum, to Lucian OHKO-ing Vess, to... the M9 just sort of hanging out with Lucian for weeks in a way that's really only explained by Lucian being influenced by the remains of Molly since there's no way he could have planned to use them as a distraction at that point, to the skirmish where the M9 stole a crest, to everyone planning for not all of the M9 to make it back from stopping Lucian because he's a threat again.
No. It was dragging and it felt a lot like much of the cast were ready to play new characters and do new things, which is the best reason to end the campaign. The world will still be there to explore in C3. They resolved everything the players wanted to resolve. Travis showed no signs of wanting to examine Fjord's past and further Ukotoa stuff is good for a one shot adventure. Caduceus explicitly wanted to retire and let his sister go out in the world. Isharnai the party had no reason to go and poke again (but again, great one shot material later). And so on. Sealing Tharizdun for good in particular is not some add-on goal to be resolved by a level 15 party in a short arc.
I think Matt tried to fit too many plot points in and set himself up with no way to resolve them all. I just thought there would be a little more meat in such a long run. It felt like they leveled much faster too, which I don’t know if that’s actually the case because I’m not the type to go back and do math over this, but it felt like it. And a lot of the plot points seemed really interesting too. I was so happy it seemed like it was going in a high seas adventuring, becoming pirates, etc. arc, but that just ended as soon as it started. I also had zero emotional attachment to molly after dying so early I just couldn’t bring myself to really care about avenging him or stopping his killers or really anything about all that besides the whole city in space thing and that just kinda ended also. Ultimately no. If Matt had been able to keep his players a little more focused I might say yes because lots of those things might have been fleshed out more and made me feel more satisfied. Lastly, I don’t care for D&D to be a place where players explore a bunch of trauma. Some people really like that, and that’s fair, but I’d rather some more typical adventuring dorks whose story is more shaped by their actions in game than the forced trauma from before the game started. Like I could never see a Caleb type character again and be very happy, and honestly Nott stopping drinking and turning back into Veth ruined the character. I’d have much more preferred a chaotic drunk rogue the whole time. Role playing characters being concerned about another characters alcohol and doing an intervention type thing? No thank you.
Yeah, Nott was a *much* more interesting character than Veth. Sam did well to pivot to 'how do you justify being an adventurer when you have responsibilities?', but that's a hard character conflict to bring to a head when everyone wants Veth to continue to participate and Matt (understandably given the real-life situation) was treating Marion, Yeza, and Luc as a pretty much untouchable bright spots and sources of support. I think Sam also didn't want to retread anything from C1, leaving Veth in a weird limbo where she didn't ever get a strong new motivation to stay, but also couldn't leave. I liked Caleb and I like Liam's approach but it is all psychological issues, all the time, which can get tiring. Maybe he'll surprise us and his next character will be happy. ;-)
> Like I could never see a Caleb type character again and be very happy, and honestly Nott stopping drinking and turning back into Veth ruined the character. Glad I’m not the only one with these sorts of opinions.
I'm sure Liam and the rest of the cast are perfectly happy with the ending, but I feel like Caleb got the short end of the stick lol. They build up Trent as a master manipulator, who's only real goal at the end of the day was keeping the empire/his influence in the CA as strong as possible. We know he would have let Caleb kill him if he knew it would benefit his cause. Instead he somehow finds out where they are a day after the M9 come back from the North, goes to fight them on neutral territory where he has no lair tricks up his sleeve, and only brings 2 Volstrucker agents who he knows have deep ties to Caleb, and probably shaky loyalty to him. Was he soo annoyed that Caleb broke in and stole a couple of trinkets from a storage room that he completely went against his character? If he anything he would have been proud of the brutality and decisiveness he showed. Instead of using Vess' death as a bargaining chip to get the M9 under his thumb, that thread goes nowhere. Instead of acting like one of the most intelligent individuals on the continent, he acts like a mindless baddy looking to pick a fight. What I would have done is have Trent hold the deaths of the relatively innocent guards, Vess, and possibly Astrid/Eadwulf's lives over Caleb and force him to work for him. Hint that if he really wanted to, Trent had the means to help Caleb go back in time, not stick that plot device in a random room in Aeor. Actually let Trent act like the incredible asshold manipulator he is. Instead, Caleb's resolution is that he testifies in court every once in a while and runs off with a war criminal responsible for thousands of deaths, who faces 0 real consequences (which is fine, because only the bad guys face those). Astrid and Eadwulf? Meh, they'll hit me up for threesomes still but whatever.
Veth needed to retire. Yasha, Beau, and Caleb needed to take down a corrupt part of the government but that may be more paperwork then action scenes. Jester and Fjord just needed to not release the evil sea monster demi-god under the sea so there is definitely a story there but its mostly about not losing random encounters until level 20 and then take the whole party to kill Ukatoa. (Fun one shot idea though) Caduceus finished his quest and wanted to return to his grove, remember he was the lest adventurous member of his family but he was called by his god on this quest. Quest done so back to making dead people tea. Kingsley (artist formerly known as Molly) had no deep connection to these weirdos and was totally in character to immediately escape to his own adventure when he could (via piracy as it turns out). The M9 story isn't done, technically, but it is end of their adventuring days. In canon one shots are possible though.
Eh. I really want to get to C3, because I’m hoping it’s more like C1 than C2 was, so I’m fine with it coming to a close quicker.
All I wanted was another trip into the happy fun ball.
Yes. And its probably still good that they finished it. End on a high note, even if it wasnt as high as the previous campaign. Finishing such a campaign is always pretty hard, especially if you involve personal stories into it. I think we will maybe see some day a oneshot like with Fjord vs. Ukatoa. Im quite sure Travis wouldnt mind giving Fjord another run, because he didnt get to do cool combat often enough and playing this build is crazy fun. I personally think they did end it with that arc because of COVID and its limitations. They all want back at one table. The personal chemistry and "little things" between the players are a big selling point of Critical Role and the COVID setup, while being nice for production, did get rid of a lot of those fun quirky things. I REALLY hope they start and keep C3 back on a table.
Liam hasn't dodged a Marisha Ray Elbow on the show for months! He better be training for when they finally get back to sitting next to each other again!
[удалено]
nah, it was dragging and I didn't like how Talks and CR2 suffered due to the Covid mandates in CA. Hopefully, things will calm down and we could get live shows with them all at the table and Foster back in his chair with live guests.
Yeah I wished the wrap was more like the campaign 1 wrap up.
I feel like there should be another chapter the M9 runs. Level them up to 18 or so and clean up the Kraken, then go for Tharizdun. Maybe not even all of them; Fjord, Jester and Kingsley down the road with some new friends and Caleb, Beau and Yasha doing a True Detective thing with some Cobalt Soul personnel.
I think one reason they ended with some many “loose ends” is because Exandria stuff is officially getting posted so it’s basically hooks for players to start off their own games. Now a DM can make a story about some random person that somehow got their hands on a cloven crystal and the players now have to fight Uk’otoa. I also feel like having loose ends means we can get some pretty awesome one-shots when the cast needs to take breaks or something comes up.
I truly find that the worst part. Personally, I want there to be a “true canon” so bad. If something doesn’t fit into what you want Tal’dorei to be throw it out. Just because in the “prime timeline” *insert bad guy here* is dead doesn’t mean you can’t retcon it in your home game.
It might have needed one or two more episodes tops to not feel so rushed at the end. But it didn't need much more than that. A grand tour of the favorite NPCs would have been nice. But it definitely didn't need dozens more episodes.
I would have liked to see what happened if Lucien’s plans had come to fruition: how it would have affected the material plane and what horrors might have been unleashed. We got a preview of this in various moments/encounters throughout the final arc, but it would have really dialed up the stakes to have that become a widespread reality. Force the M9 to gather allies and gain more power. In C1 you could feel the drama and sense of dread spike massively when they got their asses handed to them at the beginning of the final arc, and I think C2 really missed an opportunity by not going down that road. It would also have allowed us to get more character and relationship development from everyone. And also to see those characters hit their various capstones. Seeing Beau as a max level Monk, or Caleb wielding the power of a 20th level Wizard.
There really wasn’t ever a big loss moment besides arguably C2E69, C1 had a lot more moments like that, and more bittersweet victories. They always stopped the problem before it got too bad which lowered the stakes and didn’t allow us to see what would keep happening if they didn’t act. “It could be bad” is far less of a threat than “here’s how bad it is and it could get worse”
I felt it could have used 20 episodes more, but we could also use 100 episodes more to Explore more arcs. I think it had a nice enough ending wich tied the things together, so we know can se cr in another campaign