Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I fully approve and support the literal burning of the bigger budget that formed the whole first episode!

Also good to see more bear action!

Voss wrote:


No excuses for Scanlan, though. (Eventually that got reined in, but he came across as a creeper for a lot of that campaign. Still the most likely person to break a scene with a bad joke, though)

Scanlan is a bard - they all need shooting, the remains burned and then boiled in acid

 Mr Morden wrote:

Voss wrote:


No excuses for Scanlan, though. (Eventually that got reined in, but he came across as a creeper for a lot of that campaign. Still the most likely person to break a scene with a bad joke, though)

Scanlan is a bard - they all need shooting, the remains burned and then boiled in acid

The only thing bards are good for is using a mound of their corpses to hide behind.

Older editions I'd agree, but 5e bards are stupidly good, one of the few classes that can do all the things, and be customized to do them more.

People sleep on bard a lot in 5e with lazy excuses like jack of all trades master of none.

The Bard is better at many aspects of the game than classes specialized for the role.

EDIT: And as for the show. Meh. Still just kind of decent background TV. the premise and characters remain way to familiar and generic (despite excellent voice talent) and the animation is just adequate. It's okay still.

Some of the character designs are really good (the dragons and Zahra).

But show wise.... its a speed run of the campaign, with great big chunks hacked out. (And everyone in Vasselheim was an absolute prick, for very little reason, with Zahra, Kash and the Take just... radically changed to set up that adversarial relationship). Even with an extra season (third is already greenlight) this is just too big a chunk to handle, so they're zipping.

They did do some foreshadowing that will help stuff later (which largely came out of nowhere in the campaign), but a lot of stuff strikes me as coming over as utterly baffling and unexplained to folks that haven't watched the original campaign.

I think my biggest issue is that, rather ironically. the show is suffering more from the typical D&D 'there _are_ high level characters that could deal with this, but simply won't' than the campaign did. The group was into the teen levels at this stage, well suited for dragon fighting (even before Mercer just started flinging artifacts at them, of which this armor is the first). The show is a bit to concerned about still portraying the party as inexperienced thugs, and that was a long time back.

Well, that and one of the big moments in the campaign was that Percy rather knowingly handed the Black Sword to Grog, rather than Grog just scooping it up on a whim. That's a major character moment that just... vanished. As was Grog just wandering mindlessly into Earthbreaker Groon rather than intentionally seeking him out (and competing to build a reputation), rather than Groon auto-magically knowing everything already. That was just... a complete letdown.

Vasselheim felt very much like "the DM forced us here to set things up" kind of moment. Grog wandering off alone did feel very random and they could have done with a montage of more of the power groups seeing the information and refusing to help as the idea presented was that the city was ruled by a council of all; but they only really approached one temple for help.

So that part did feel weak I agree.

I do agree they could also have played more into the whole "we are isolationist" "we don't actually like the capital that got wasted by dragons" "its not our concern" elements.

The dawn marshals (as I understand it) are from all the temples, they just happened to meet in that one (which caused some consternation among the fan base, because it wasn't the one they used in the campaign. But the temple of the Platinum Dragon would've required explanation to new audiences after 'dragons bad', and probably been too explicitly WotC adjacent, something they've tried to avoid throughout the cartoon- why the fishmen aren't called sahaugin or whatever)

They just didn't explain it very well, because they were hurrying through the setup.

In the campaign it was handled better- the whole group had a prior (and successful) relationship with Slayer's Take, and their focus was going to them for aid (recruiting monster hunters) rather than the temples. Then they got a peek behind the curtain at the sponsor (who was much more friendly, iirc) who sent them out on the Artifact Quest. It was a lot more natural than it came across here. Zahra and Kash were guest PCs from earlier episodes, and friendly, and the temples did send aid for this first quest in the form of Lady Kima, a paladin (the halfling who's just standing around in several council scenes in Emon).

Yeah I get the feeling that they rushed that part to get to the "main quest". Which can be a huge problem with adapting to film media. Heck you see the same thing in the Fellowship of the Ring. What is originally many months of slow planning and careful movements is turned into a wild 1 day dash to the river and beyond.

I think it would have worked if there was just a bit more about Grog's part because that just felt very random. Everything else could be rushed to the meeting of the Sponsor, but the random fight was just "Ok so I wait what?"

Yep. I think the party split originally, and Grog and several others went to the temple of the Stormlord (god of battle) on the theory they could recruit strong fighters to help. They were told they had to earn it, and fight in a competition. That built up to the Grog vs Groon fight, with the same result (and a desire for a rematch), but a lot better in terms of set up.

Credit where credit is due, the last 3 episodes of season 2 are really quite good. In a series that generally suffers IMO from rushing to the good parts because it doesn't have the budget to take more time and thus spoils the good parts a bit in the process, Grog and Scanlan get some nice moments in these episodes. If only because they're at the tail end of the rush to get every character's backstory in order so they got to feel more like their moments had really built up right.

Yeah after a slightly rushed start its settled into a good pace. It was also good to see Scanlin get a bit of background as his was the most lacking so its nice to see him get some development beyond the party joker.


Nothing earth shattering story wise, but 100% good honest fun story telling and adventure and fights.

The heavy metal battle scene was probably the most fun the series has ever been honestly XD

 LordofHats wrote:
The heavy metal battle scene was probably the most fun the series has ever been honestly XD

100% agreed that was such a satisfying fight!

 LordofHats wrote:
The heavy metal battle scene was probably the most fun the series has ever been honestly XD

It started to make me… ::shudder::: like Scanlan.

Scanlan's spent most of the series out of focus with nothing but his stereotypical character to do. The last 3 episodes really gave him some room to be more than just the slutty Bard cliche.

 LordofHats wrote:
The heavy metal battle scene was probably the most fun the series has ever been honestly XD

A bit DBZ for me, but I get why its that way (DBZ was basically Grog's voice actor's entry into the industry (though only with some _really_ bit parts), and how he met his wife), and the extra damsel in distress bits felt a bit... off.


The second half was definitely better than the first. It spent the time to give them development rather than just set up problems to check them off a list, and have the characters be as weak or as strong as the plot demanded 9though they didn't manage to eliminate that entirely).

Splitting them up also helped (though amusingly enough, it got mentioned at the last 'watch party' that was at the request of the animators, who got overwhelmed trying to do the full party all the time)

What made the most difference was the willingness to make changes (and refinements) rather than just try to force the live show through, which gave some real motivations to a lot of side and main characters in the process. The whole thing with Vax made very little sense in the live show, for example.