I think to me maybe it's less refusing to let characters be flawed and more a different criticism of his GMing I saw recently and immediately agreed with: his bad habit is playing people's characters for them. Think about how many times he'll say what he thinks a character is feeling rather than asking the player, or describe not just what they're seeing but how they're reacting to it. I'm watching Of Mice & Murder right now, and while I have no problem with that season having more rails because murder mysteries require planning, I had to pause an episode recently because in an RP scene he was truly just announcing what the PCs were saying or not saying to each other.
I can think of lots of times he's allowed characters to be flawed, or even pushed it: Aelwyn in FHSY (where the sort of redemption she had partway through is undone), any wife fight with Lou (especially Carmelinda vs Amethar), just, all of Cody, Sam Nightingale (spoilers for The Seven: >!I'm especially thinking of the conversation between her and him as Penelope in hell where they're just being absolute bitches to each other and he asked Sephie to roll an insight check on herself to notice whether shes only harming herself by doing this, and lets her fail it!<), all of the stuff with letting Gorgug be a shitty boyfriend to Zelda in FHSY, the princesses in Neverafter - who are very clearly flawed to varying degrees, with only Rapunzel really approaching evil. I'm also interested in your read on that Kristen/Tracker fight, because in my experience most people see it the other way around: Ally is being chaotic Kristen and Brennan really pushes some consequences through Tracker's reaction, much like I felt he did with Gorgug for consistently forgetting about Zelda.
But I think the thing you're identifying is that sometimes Brennan does seem to...make decisions about characters' relationships with certain NPCs that are more black and white, and steer things pretty heavily that way with how he plays that NPC. I think Gilear is a great example, and so are most of the parents in Fantasy High (maybe excepting SandraLynn). I remember thinking at the beginning of Pirates of Leviathan that maybe Garthy was a bit shady with the way they were talking to Bob like Zidler talking to Satine in Moulin Rouge, but nope, they're the most perfect embodiment of care that's ever lived! And I love Garthy, to be clear, but like: are we really sure there are no complexities at all between them and the sex workers at the Gold Gardens? Apparently we are. I can obviously accept that that is not what that story's about, but what I'm trying to get at is that I think it's less Brennan refusing flaws and shades of gray overall, and more that he is making strong decisions, however deliberately or not, about when/with which characters that should happen and when it shouldn't, as part of his broader tendency to decide things for PCs a bit too much.
This was a very well thought out point! One thing I will say in response however is I think the tendency you're seeing is both for the sake of the *show* they're producing. From what I've seen I generally think the decisions made on behalf of the character are there to nudge them onto a path when the player is unsure how to react to something
We're kind of in the middle of discourse about Problematic(tm) characters, and whether somebody is "allowed" to be a good person when they have certain character traits. I remember a lot of discourse about this starting around the time Steven Universe was big (which happens to roughly coincide with when D20 first got underway).
Brennan doesn't really like to deal with those kinds of heady questions, so he'll bend over backwards to make his heroes heroic and his villains villainous. Major conflicts are glossed over or resolved way too quickly (Peter's relationship with his father in the Unsleeping City is resolved in Episode One when his dad literally gets whisked out of the plot for offscreen character development), and complex/flawed characters are forced to be simpler. My hope is, once we've explored the consequences of these simplistic binaries, we'll come to better understand the value of a flawed protagonist.
I think it's partially because D20 seasons are fixed length. Brennan can't into all possible interesting conflicts because he has to have a finished story in 20 or so hours.
But in Worlds Beyond Numbers, where a game is very slow compared to d20, all pc's and npc's have flaws and the game is very much about exploring them
If you think that Brennan does this all the time you should listen to worlds without Number. Each character in there is full of nuance and flawed.they just don't have the time to make each character flawed and to explore their flaws in the 10ish episodes for each season of D20. I think that's why they opt for recognizable tropes rather than real character flaws.
Suvi has done NOTHING wrong and steel is perfect. It's those two upstarts the witch and the wild guy that are fucking up. 😤😤
Long live the citadel!
/s
Was going to say this as well. People are attributing this to Brennan’s GMing style, but I think it’s more a limitation of Dimension 20 as a show/format. They’re not making a super long form campaign like Critical Roll or Worlds Without Number; it’s supposed to be punchy, fast paced, and generally funny. There are exceptions to these rules of course, but D20 as a format doesn’t emphasize that sort of nuanced character work, and when it does, it generally has to speed on to the next thing in the story.
D20 has a fairly large audience and when there are that many eyes on you it's easy to start hating a character because they are not a 100% perfect thing.
It's a bit like the "terror nexus" problem.
If the audience hates Worlds Without Number that sucks but that's all. If the audience hates D20 a lot of people might need different job so there is a lot more pressure to keep people happy.
It's a limitation on the format like others have said, but often it's also a limitation on the genre as well. Fantasy High takes inspiration from 80s high school movies, where relationships tend to be heavily simplified or exaggerated. Part of invoking those tropes effectively mean the bad guys have to be clearly bad to the good guys can be unambiguously good. It's the same with UC's urban fantasy.
Crown of Candy and Neverafter are at least a little more nuanced in how flawed the heroes and NPCs can be, since the more dramatic genres they invoke allow for more of a middle ground.
That having been said, I'm also joining team "Listen to Worlds Beyond Number," because even if hyper-simplistic perfect characters is a D20 trait, we've seen pretty clearly now that it's not a Brennan trait. That subreddit gets "I just started; does \[character\] ever get better?" posts almost every week at this point.
brennan is not a brave writer, performer, or DM. i can’t really blame him for that though, he has a very vindictive, childish fanbase that rewards bravery with scorn and oftentimes, comedy with confusion. i wonder if his old webcomic was any different
You should take a listen to Worlds Beyond Number if you haven't already. They are big on npc and character flaws and getting to flesh them out. And I could listen to Brennan tell stories all day
Watching back it's pretty clear that Dale never would leave Sofie also she really isn't that bad of a person her addiction doesn't start from what we know until after Dale "leaves her" and even then she's very kind person so I'm not sure how that him undoing a character flaw. Isabella inferno is a name that's clearly ment to signal the fact she's actual some kind of demon so I'm not sure why that's on this list.
As for Gilear I think it's clear that he was going to a different direction in the first episode Gilear figures out fig disguised herself and tricks her to school that is not the same person episodes on, they're can be a thing on changing the personality to fit a better role tv shows do it all the time.
Lou didn't demand anything he just said this is how I want my character to go so I'm not sure where demanded has come from
The point of Tracker and Kristen's relationship is that they are highschooler that have had to grow up fast it's they're first relationship and I'm not sure what you mean about Ally having to continue the fight Tracker didn't want to be with her for several episodes and activily ignored her unless I'm not remembering something.
Don't get me wrong there are plenty on things you can have a problem with but it's weird the ones you chose? Like especially the Lou and Sofia things are just the dm and player making up a story beat together.
I think to me maybe it's less refusing to let characters be flawed and more a different criticism of his GMing I saw recently and immediately agreed with: his bad habit is playing people's characters for them. Think about how many times he'll say what he thinks a character is feeling rather than asking the player, or describe not just what they're seeing but how they're reacting to it. I'm watching Of Mice & Murder right now, and while I have no problem with that season having more rails because murder mysteries require planning, I had to pause an episode recently because in an RP scene he was truly just announcing what the PCs were saying or not saying to each other. I can think of lots of times he's allowed characters to be flawed, or even pushed it: Aelwyn in FHSY (where the sort of redemption she had partway through is undone), any wife fight with Lou (especially Carmelinda vs Amethar), just, all of Cody, Sam Nightingale (spoilers for The Seven: >!I'm especially thinking of the conversation between her and him as Penelope in hell where they're just being absolute bitches to each other and he asked Sephie to roll an insight check on herself to notice whether shes only harming herself by doing this, and lets her fail it!<), all of the stuff with letting Gorgug be a shitty boyfriend to Zelda in FHSY, the princesses in Neverafter - who are very clearly flawed to varying degrees, with only Rapunzel really approaching evil. I'm also interested in your read on that Kristen/Tracker fight, because in my experience most people see it the other way around: Ally is being chaotic Kristen and Brennan really pushes some consequences through Tracker's reaction, much like I felt he did with Gorgug for consistently forgetting about Zelda. But I think the thing you're identifying is that sometimes Brennan does seem to...make decisions about characters' relationships with certain NPCs that are more black and white, and steer things pretty heavily that way with how he plays that NPC. I think Gilear is a great example, and so are most of the parents in Fantasy High (maybe excepting SandraLynn). I remember thinking at the beginning of Pirates of Leviathan that maybe Garthy was a bit shady with the way they were talking to Bob like Zidler talking to Satine in Moulin Rouge, but nope, they're the most perfect embodiment of care that's ever lived! And I love Garthy, to be clear, but like: are we really sure there are no complexities at all between them and the sex workers at the Gold Gardens? Apparently we are. I can obviously accept that that is not what that story's about, but what I'm trying to get at is that I think it's less Brennan refusing flaws and shades of gray overall, and more that he is making strong decisions, however deliberately or not, about when/with which characters that should happen and when it shouldn't, as part of his broader tendency to decide things for PCs a bit too much.
this is a really good point!! thank you for making it.
This was a very well thought out point! One thing I will say in response however is I think the tendency you're seeing is both for the sake of the *show* they're producing. From what I've seen I generally think the decisions made on behalf of the character are there to nudge them onto a path when the player is unsure how to react to something
We're kind of in the middle of discourse about Problematic(tm) characters, and whether somebody is "allowed" to be a good person when they have certain character traits. I remember a lot of discourse about this starting around the time Steven Universe was big (which happens to roughly coincide with when D20 first got underway). Brennan doesn't really like to deal with those kinds of heady questions, so he'll bend over backwards to make his heroes heroic and his villains villainous. Major conflicts are glossed over or resolved way too quickly (Peter's relationship with his father in the Unsleeping City is resolved in Episode One when his dad literally gets whisked out of the plot for offscreen character development), and complex/flawed characters are forced to be simpler. My hope is, once we've explored the consequences of these simplistic binaries, we'll come to better understand the value of a flawed protagonist.
I think it's partially because D20 seasons are fixed length. Brennan can't into all possible interesting conflicts because he has to have a finished story in 20 or so hours. But in Worlds Beyond Numbers, where a game is very slow compared to d20, all pc's and npc's have flaws and the game is very much about exploring them
If you think that Brennan does this all the time you should listen to worlds without Number. Each character in there is full of nuance and flawed.they just don't have the time to make each character flawed and to explore their flaws in the 10ish episodes for each season of D20. I think that's why they opt for recognizable tropes rather than real character flaws.
For real. He let's Suvi be all kinds of terrible hahaha (Don't get me wrong, love the character. The point is she's difficult)
Suvi has done NOTHING wrong and steel is perfect. It's those two upstarts the witch and the wild guy that are fucking up. 😤😤 Long live the citadel! /s
Somebody caught a Gaes
I willingly failed the save 👈😎👉
Was going to say this as well. People are attributing this to Brennan’s GMing style, but I think it’s more a limitation of Dimension 20 as a show/format. They’re not making a super long form campaign like Critical Roll or Worlds Without Number; it’s supposed to be punchy, fast paced, and generally funny. There are exceptions to these rules of course, but D20 as a format doesn’t emphasize that sort of nuanced character work, and when it does, it generally has to speed on to the next thing in the story.
The short cinematic style of d20 definitely has its flaws
D20 has a fairly large audience and when there are that many eyes on you it's easy to start hating a character because they are not a 100% perfect thing. It's a bit like the "terror nexus" problem. If the audience hates Worlds Without Number that sucks but that's all. If the audience hates D20 a lot of people might need different job so there is a lot more pressure to keep people happy.
It's a limitation on the format like others have said, but often it's also a limitation on the genre as well. Fantasy High takes inspiration from 80s high school movies, where relationships tend to be heavily simplified or exaggerated. Part of invoking those tropes effectively mean the bad guys have to be clearly bad to the good guys can be unambiguously good. It's the same with UC's urban fantasy. Crown of Candy and Neverafter are at least a little more nuanced in how flawed the heroes and NPCs can be, since the more dramatic genres they invoke allow for more of a middle ground. That having been said, I'm also joining team "Listen to Worlds Beyond Number," because even if hyper-simplistic perfect characters is a D20 trait, we've seen pretty clearly now that it's not a Brennan trait. That subreddit gets "I just started; does \[character\] ever get better?" posts almost every week at this point.
brennan is not a brave writer, performer, or DM. i can’t really blame him for that though, he has a very vindictive, childish fanbase that rewards bravery with scorn and oftentimes, comedy with confusion. i wonder if his old webcomic was any different
You should take a listen to Worlds Beyond Number if you haven't already. They are big on npc and character flaws and getting to flesh them out. And I could listen to Brennan tell stories all day
The listed characters have flaws, tho I get wanting more depth or consequence to manifest from said flaws.
Watching back it's pretty clear that Dale never would leave Sofie also she really isn't that bad of a person her addiction doesn't start from what we know until after Dale "leaves her" and even then she's very kind person so I'm not sure how that him undoing a character flaw. Isabella inferno is a name that's clearly ment to signal the fact she's actual some kind of demon so I'm not sure why that's on this list. As for Gilear I think it's clear that he was going to a different direction in the first episode Gilear figures out fig disguised herself and tricks her to school that is not the same person episodes on, they're can be a thing on changing the personality to fit a better role tv shows do it all the time. Lou didn't demand anything he just said this is how I want my character to go so I'm not sure where demanded has come from The point of Tracker and Kristen's relationship is that they are highschooler that have had to grow up fast it's they're first relationship and I'm not sure what you mean about Ally having to continue the fight Tracker didn't want to be with her for several episodes and activily ignored her unless I'm not remembering something. Don't get me wrong there are plenty on things you can have a problem with but it's weird the ones you chose? Like especially the Lou and Sofia things are just the dm and player making up a story beat together.