So my campaign ended after four years and I came back to report. Thanks for all the advice. It all went pretty well. An important city was put in peril (as well as various returning npcs), a giant landmark was destroyed. The fights escalated in difficulty. Beloved NPCs from all throughout the campaign came back heroically to help out the heroes. My rogue died and had to accept a (previously offered) pact with a Betrayer god to rise back up but be indentured into his service. Minis gallore, several interesting maps, new mechanics and real evil villains. Heroes saved the world. Also, pizza was had. On the other hand, it ran way too long. I was aiming for around 5-6 hours. Went up to 9. Got ambitious but my players pulled through. Had a nice epilogue where the characters went their separate ways into new adventures and I finished the campaign with a big thank you to the players for all their effort and trust. But what really hurt was that none thanked me. 😕 That stung tbh. I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were probably too tired, or I don’t know… I won’t be playing d&d with them in the future, that’s for sure. So thank your GMs, people. It’s doesn’t cost you a thing but means everything to us.
Lol, I definitely relate to the 5 evolving in to 9. That all sounds great for a big climax session!!! RE: thanking you, I definitely understand, especially when it was such a long running campaign. I do come from overly-polite Kansas, so I'm pretty sure my players thanked me after every session 😅 but I can imagine the feeling. If they were otherwise good players and/or friends, I'd try not to be too hard on them, there's a lot of feelings towards the end, but if there were already red flags I could see this being the final straw. Either way, feel proud of your accomplishment :) 4 years is a horizon the vast majority of campaigns will never crest. No matter what, everyone being involved through it is a testament to the campaign and your DMing!
Regarding the topic of LOVM reactions/videos... I'm definitely in the camp of a more reaction style video... Compared to like a review after watching style video. Mainly because I just really really love to see people's real-time reactions to the show. Especially if it's someone who has watched the campaign and therefore knows when the crew has made changes. Those changes are meant to be, and sometimes are, very surprising. And so talking about being surprised about those changes after the fact ...doesn't hit as hard as actually watching someone be surprised, ya know? So in a perfect world I would be totally fine with a review style video but WITH interjections of your live reaction to clips of the show, if that's possible. You wouldn't even necessarily have to show footage of the show on screen. But just to see your real time reactions would be cool. I know a couple of CZcamsrs who do that in their reviews. And I've always appreciated it compared to strictly just a review/recap video. You kind of get the best of both worlds, IMO. It's not strictly a review video but it's also not strictly a reaction video... And you can avoid copyright because you don't have to show footage of the scene it might just be the audio of the scene.... But yeah I definitely agree with you and everyone in chat that a critical eyes style format wouldnt work great... You would most likely HAVE to have some sort of overlay over top of the footage (like some reaction videos do anyways) if you were to do it in a critical eyes format. But I mean most people who watch reaction videos are pretty used to the techniques that people use to avoid copyright like using a visual overlay or distorting the audio or keeping the audio really low. So like technically you could do it like you do critical eyes. You would just have to alter the sound or the visuals of the video that your watching... And that is something that is easier to do in post than it is to do live... Which is why the majority of reaction videos are not live in this way... But yeah I've seen people do it. I think there was like one guy who was watching LOVM in a twitch stream like format. So like it technically CAN be done but some alterations need to be made to avoid copyright. 🤷♀️ It's doable it's just a little bit of a pain in the ass. And so there might be format styles that are easier than attempting to do it in a strictly critical eyes format.
Honestly, part of me still hopes that Twitch brings back watch parties. That would, to an extent, solve a lot of the legal challenges. We'll see in terms of my actual motivation for the format. I have to balance my interest a lot with these sorts of things. Critical Eyes keeps me hooked because I'm interested in talking about CR both from a story and gameplay perspective, so if either is lacking in certain spots I'm still able to keep a solid stream of consciousness going with the other. I have been playing around with the idea of what you mentioned with pre-recording the react content. My thoughts were leading in the direction of sort of in the same style as Jenny Nicholson's videos where she's read through scripts or books, but she obviously doesn't show them on screen or include the entire reading. Even though I wouldn't get the chat interaction, I would still have a nice improv-sense to things. We could even watch the video on stream or something for further discussion. I think I'm going to test this format with some critical role bonus content or potentially another actual play at some point in the future to see how in to it I am, because if it turns out to be viable for me it could potentially also apply to other things like book club.
The RAW evaluation of the broom is interesting, but ultimately I almost never care about RAW when it gets this complicated. I find it much better to just use gut feeling of fairness. Riding the broom for its full speed, then jumping off and using your full movement is not logical. I'd never allow that. Dashing on the broom DOES make sense, logically, and I would allow it. (In-universe, dashing is going faster by ignoring anything BUT running, which is why it takes all your actions for the round. Why can't you focus on pushing the broom and ignore your surroundings?)
One thing I have noticed is that Matt pays way more attention than I do to the level of spell his players use. He said "your *checks book* 4th level stone shape can affect..." There are also times his players want a spell to do a thing and he says, exaperatedly, "but it's a cantrip!" He is far more cognizant of it than I am, and uses that heavily when deciding how powerful a spell can be in a situation.
VOD watcher here, really appreciate the time stamps you've been adding after the streams. Keep up to the good work 👍
I'm so here for your various theories and predictions
So my campaign ended after four years and I came back to report.
Thanks for all the advice. It all went pretty well. An important city was put in peril (as well as various returning npcs), a giant landmark was destroyed. The fights escalated in difficulty. Beloved NPCs from all throughout the campaign came back heroically to help out the heroes. My rogue died and had to accept a (previously offered) pact with a Betrayer god to rise back up but be indentured into his service. Minis gallore, several interesting maps, new mechanics and real evil villains. Heroes saved the world.
Also, pizza was had.
On the other hand, it ran way too long. I was aiming for around 5-6 hours. Went up to 9. Got ambitious but my players pulled through.
Had a nice epilogue where the characters went their separate ways into new adventures and I finished the campaign with a big thank you to the players for all their effort and trust.
But what really hurt was that none thanked me. 😕 That stung tbh. I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were probably too tired, or I don’t know…
I won’t be playing d&d with them in the future, that’s for sure.
So thank your GMs, people. It’s doesn’t cost you a thing but means everything to us.
Lol, I definitely relate to the 5 evolving in to 9.
That all sounds great for a big climax session!!!
RE: thanking you, I definitely understand, especially when it was such a long running campaign. I do come from overly-polite Kansas, so I'm pretty sure my players thanked me after every session 😅 but I can imagine the feeling. If they were otherwise good players and/or friends, I'd try not to be too hard on them, there's a lot of feelings towards the end, but if there were already red flags I could see this being the final straw.
Either way, feel proud of your accomplishment :) 4 years is a horizon the vast majority of campaigns will never crest. No matter what, everyone being involved through it is a testament to the campaign and your DMing!
@@MegaphoneMan0 thank you! :)
Regarding the topic of LOVM reactions/videos... I'm definitely in the camp of a more reaction style video... Compared to like a review after watching style video. Mainly because I just really really love to see people's real-time reactions to the show. Especially if it's someone who has watched the campaign and therefore knows when the crew has made changes. Those changes are meant to be, and sometimes are, very surprising. And so talking about being surprised about those changes after the fact ...doesn't hit as hard as actually watching someone be surprised, ya know? So in a perfect world I would be totally fine with a review style video but WITH interjections of your live reaction to clips of the show, if that's possible. You wouldn't even necessarily have to show footage of the show on screen. But just to see your real time reactions would be cool. I know a couple of CZcamsrs who do that in their reviews. And I've always appreciated it compared to strictly just a review/recap video. You kind of get the best of both worlds, IMO. It's not strictly a review video but it's also not strictly a reaction video... And you can avoid copyright because you don't have to show footage of the scene it might just be the audio of the scene.... But yeah I definitely agree with you and everyone in chat that a critical eyes style format wouldnt work great... You would most likely HAVE to have some sort of overlay over top of the footage (like some reaction videos do anyways) if you were to do it in a critical eyes format. But I mean most people who watch reaction videos are pretty used to the techniques that people use to avoid copyright like using a visual overlay or distorting the audio or keeping the audio really low. So like technically you could do it like you do critical eyes. You would just have to alter the sound or the visuals of the video that your watching... And that is something that is easier to do in post than it is to do live... Which is why the majority of reaction videos are not live in this way... But yeah I've seen people do it. I think there was like one guy who was watching LOVM in a twitch stream like format. So like it technically CAN be done but some alterations need to be made to avoid copyright. 🤷♀️ It's doable it's just a little bit of a pain in the ass. And so there might be format styles that are easier than attempting to do it in a strictly critical eyes format.
Honestly, part of me still hopes that Twitch brings back watch parties. That would, to an extent, solve a lot of the legal challenges. We'll see in terms of my actual motivation for the format. I have to balance my interest a lot with these sorts of things. Critical Eyes keeps me hooked because I'm interested in talking about CR both from a story and gameplay perspective, so if either is lacking in certain spots I'm still able to keep a solid stream of consciousness going with the other.
I have been playing around with the idea of what you mentioned with pre-recording the react content. My thoughts were leading in the direction of sort of in the same style as Jenny Nicholson's videos where she's read through scripts or books, but she obviously doesn't show them on screen or include the entire reading. Even though I wouldn't get the chat interaction, I would still have a nice improv-sense to things. We could even watch the video on stream or something for further discussion.
I think I'm going to test this format with some critical role bonus content or potentially another actual play at some point in the future to see how in to it I am, because if it turns out to be viable for me it could potentially also apply to other things like book club.
The RAW evaluation of the broom is interesting, but ultimately I almost never care about RAW when it gets this complicated. I find it much better to just use gut feeling of fairness. Riding the broom for its full speed, then jumping off and using your full movement is not logical. I'd never allow that. Dashing on the broom DOES make sense, logically, and I would allow it. (In-universe, dashing is going faster by ignoring anything BUT running, which is why it takes all your actions for the round. Why can't you focus on pushing the broom and ignore your surroundings?)
DM's should ignore RAW in #dnd
One thing I have noticed is that Matt pays way more attention than I do to the level of spell his players use. He said "your *checks book* 4th level stone shape can affect..." There are also times his players want a spell to do a thing and he says, exaperatedly, "but it's a cantrip!" He is far more cognizant of it than I am, and uses that heavily when deciding how powerful a spell can be in a situation.