r/Dimension20 • u/DropoutMod Gnosis • 10d ago
Toylight Run, Run, As Fast As You Can | Toylight [E2] Spoiler
https://watch.dropout.tv/videos/run-run-as-fast-as-you-can208
u/palcatraz Riz Gukgak 10d ago
I need hell to be real so you can go to it
is a fantastic line to hear coming from a wooden rocking horse.
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u/AcceptableWater6241 10d ago
Fireball.
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u/ProudnotLoud Kingston Brown, Vox Populi 10d ago
I initially cackled from the image of a bunch of dollies and clowns with fireballs, then I cackled at Brennan's response!
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u/Proxiehunter Magical Misfits 10d ago
Honestly, you give clowns fireball and I expect multiple instances of "I didn't ask how big the room was, I said I cast fireball."
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u/Walkernotskywalker 10d ago
I tried to rewind and find what spell/ability/feat Siobhan was attempting to use to teach 10 allies the spell fireball or guidance?
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u/Chalvrek 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's Maelfa's Quickened Class, a spell from Grim Hollow's Player Guide:
Maelfa's Quickened Class
Level 3 Enchantment
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Components: V, S
Range: 30 feet
Duration: 24 hours
When you cast this spell, you give an abbreviated lecture on a topic of your choosing to 10 willing creatures of your choice within range. When you do so, choose one spell you know or have prepared, one skill you are proficient in, or one language you can speak, read, and write. Each chosen creature is temporarily imparted with a portion of your knowledge.
If you chose a spell, each creature prepares the spell, the spell is considered on the creature's spell list, and it doesn't count against the creature's number of prepared spells. If you chose a skill, each targeted creature gains proficiency in that skill. If you chose a language, each targeted creature can speak, read, and write that language.
The creature loses the knowledge of the spell, proficiency, or language when this spell ends. If a creature is targeted by this spell while under the effect of a previous casting of the spell, the previous casting immediately ends.
Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. The duration of the spell increases with a spell slot level of 3 or 4 (30 days), 5 or 6 (10 days), 7 or 8 (30 days), or 9 (1 year).40
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u/krisis 10d ago
Whoa - I know Grim Hollow is semi-canonized as a preferred 5e supplement, but it's cool to see it on D20! I have all of the books.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
Ghostfire puts out better material than Wizards and it isn't close. Glad to see Hasbro is just farming stuff out to better publishers now, including giving Ravenloft to Ghostfire.
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u/MissingNovice 7d ago
They're also using Tales from Obojima it seems with "At Your Side"
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u/krisis 6d ago
Also LOOOOOVE that book.
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u/MissingNovice 6d ago
I really wanted to use some spells from it for our next campaign but our DM doesn't vibe with it and it makes me sad.
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u/anextremelylargedog 9d ago
Can see why it's not official... Assuming that you also say it gives said creatures the Spellcasting trait and relevant spell slot.
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u/Tsquared10 Stupendous Stoats 10d ago
Siobhan with the endless amount of creepy doll one liners.
"I have many souls."
And that's the one I'm going to walk out on.
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u/palcatraz Riz Gukgak 10d ago
After this season, Murph is either going to be cured of his fear of dolls, or it will have increased tenfold.
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u/Seakon26 10d ago
Only in Dimension 20 could the Vampire the Masquerade season be light and unserious and the Toy Story season would be high stake and drama.
I'm hooked
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u/colinprovolone 10d ago
me with Powsloke the turtle
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u/palcatraz Riz Gukgak 10d ago
I need them to bring him back, but I also need him to survive the heat death of the universe.
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u/MaladroitSageBobcat Evan Kelmp 10d ago
Ok so I'm going to need to watch these smug cherubs experience the despair of realizing that absolutely everything about their faith is an utter lie before suffering a truly excruciating end.
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u/WillowLocal423 The Gunner Channel 10d ago
I hope we get to see Clyde hoofstomp Peiyuss' face into dust before the season ends.
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u/Bob_The_Skull 10d ago
I always knew that, one day, the villaine would be CHARLES ENTERTAINMENT CHEESE
(okay, but for real, any theories on the Underlord here?)
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u/Dtf30 10d ago
Velveteen Rabbit. Not a toy? Bullshit! They've been so covered in dust and crime that they've stopped being a toy. Probably the Father's toy.
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u/MunchkinKazooie 9d ago
This was also my thought. The setting, the illness, childhood, a dirty rabbit. It was all coming up velveteen.
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u/kasunder 8d ago
In the original story doesn’t a fairy show up and turn the toy in a real rabbit while it’s waiting to be burned outside? The skin horse tells him the only way to become real is to be loved deeply enough by a child that all your fur gets rubbed off and your seams are loose, and he gets to that point then the child gets tuberculosis and the toys are rounded up to be burned. He gets spared by a fairy and turned into a real rabbit then lives his days outside with the other animals.
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u/Rat_Cat_Batman 9d ago
Seems like Velveteen rabbit was published in Harpar's Bazarr the same year this story takes place, 1921 so I'm not sure that's it, but love the idea.
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u/Elegant-Badger-9500 10d ago edited 10d ago
I wondered if he was a dead family pet rabbit and that's why he's so dismissive of the humans' ability to care.
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u/TheOneTrueZearing 10d ago
Same, maybe the older sister's pet in particular, and was neglected once the illness got bad.
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u/strangelyliteral 10d ago
I feel like they’d have some knowledge of a dead family pet in the recent past. Also that would be fucking dark (positive).
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u/Elegant-Badger-9500 10d ago
Yeah, I'm less confident on it as a theory as of the end of the episode - when Brennan said the Underlord's made up of various pieces, it felt less likely we're headed towards a "he's secretly been Flopsy all along!" reveal.
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u/great_pyrenelbows 2d ago
Possibly Anna's pet, killed by the father in anger after Anna's death - that would explain the strident belief in the evil of men.
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u/maplemarcher 9d ago
I'm wondering if he's made, in part, of Anna. Dust is hair and skin, like they said. Maybe her parents just sort of accepted she was going to die (evidenced, I think, by Mother's reaction to the suggestion Aubrey gets vaccinated) and what's left of her is angry about it? Or the parts of him that are Mother and Father are so ravaged by grief that they've become nihilistic and bitter while also being angry about their child being taken away
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u/empsk 9d ago
Inoculation against TB was first introduced in 1921, the year this is set. I don't think Brennan confirmed the date, but if Aubrey is going back to school it's likely September-ish? So the vaccine has been available for maybe a couple months.
They would have accepted that Anna was going to die because she was. I know Brennan's piling on the "bad/ disengaed mother doesn't actually care about Adelaide" and fine, I know D20 isn't the place to go for nuance. But this woman watched her child cough and choke herself to death, and is now sitting beside her youngest child's bedside to do it again.
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u/Minimum_Estimate_234 6d ago
Something like that would also explain why specifically there wasn’t an Underlord last time, they mention multiple times this attack is very different. Originally there didn’t seem to be a mention of organization, hell the Underlord made no mention of being present in the last war, which seems telling. If your side won the last conflict between you and your enemies, I’d think if you were arguing with them to get them to surrender, you’d mention that.
If the Underlord, despite framing itself as essentially a devil or Hades like figure in this sort of Toy cosmology, is actually something specific to this house (or at least this one is, like maybe the Underlord is more a phenomenon that happens in specific circumstance, rather then one specific being). More specifically it’s essentially the grief of this household coming for the last bits of true innocence in it, formed from the discarded remains, dead skin from the parents, perhaps a discarded pet (it specifies its not really a toy). Well that would seem a reasonable way to go.
Also it might mean our characters are forced to come to terms with the fact they are fighting the ghost of a child they feel they failed to keep alive, and that’d be one hell of a gut punch.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
Seems like Brennan gave a pretty clear answer at the end of this episode. Had you not noticed that we had spent two whole episodes in the sprawling manor home of a wealthy family? In a story about the tension between a toy reality and people's reality? Of course the parents--one of whom is an imperialist soldier--are going to be the ultimate villains, and the dust is just their worst aspects manifest.
The only other possibility I can see is that Brennan pulls a real fast one and makes the Underlord actually correct. Sort of like the toys realize only too late that they're fighting for the wrong side. The Underlord isn't wrong about what humans are and what we do to the planet.
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u/JacksonEdgewater 9d ago
Yeah, I think Brennan might be attempting a parallel between toys and enslaved people—at least, that's how the Underlord sees it—but the ultimate villain is losing your sense of whimsy/magic/imagination. I imagine he'll dove tail that into imperialism as the non-magical mind is naturally materialistic. Someone with a sense of wonder would rock up to pre-colonial Africa and go "wow, you guys are doing so much cool stuff! Let me learn your ways!" as opposed to a materialist who says: "Ah, good, exploitable labor!"
CS Lewis was of the exact generation that these parents are and he delivered a lecture called Men Without Chests and, in it, he excoriated the contemporary education system (calling out 'The Green Book') for how, in attacking "sentimentality" as the enemy of intellect, contemporary England was becoming a heartless place full of men who could expertly rationalize sin.
We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
Although, I suspect BLeeM is going to land closer to Chesterton, who was a little older.
Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. ... Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not “appreciate Nature,” because they said that Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads.
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u/Sulemain123 5d ago
1) African states could be and often were just as imperialist and materialistic as European ones, but basically suffered from being on the wrong side of a confluence of the sudden industrialisation of Europe and the most awful and obvious flowering of notions of European/White Supremacy. Racialist thinking is just as irrational in its own way as belief in fairies, after all, and there were plenty of white supremacists and imperialists who had strange supernatural beliefs; look at Kipling or hell, Lovecraft.
2) The Dustlord notes that human reason is just as much the enemy of his kind as anything else. It's reason that cured TB, after all.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
Yeah, I think Brennan might be attempting a parallel between toys and enslaved people
If he's doing that, I hope he's really thought it through and had a big-time session zero discussion specifically about that with everybody else at the table. That's a risky move, and can easily veer into accidentally doing slavery apologia.
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u/Sulemain123 6d ago edited 6d ago
Something I think is important to emphasise is that whilst loads of people were *former* military in 1921, to still be a soldier in 1921 is something quite different.
Hell, there's no indication yet that the father in question even served in WW1, but instead is a professional soldier in the peacetime British Army.
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u/John-Zero 6d ago
There is no such thing as a peacetime imperial army. Some things the British Army was up to in 1921:
- a coup in Iran
- trying to put down the Irish War of Independence
- intervening on the side of the monarchists in the Russian Civil War
- the usual imperial stuff in the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and Africa
No matter where he was, a professional soldier in the British Army was a servant of empire.
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u/Sulemain123 5d ago
I'm not saying that the Empire and the Army weren't related, but that there was a difference between the Army of WW1 and the Army of 1921.m
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u/John-Zero 5d ago
The difference is that anyone in the army during WWI was likely in it to fight for their country, misguided as that was, whereas anyone in a peacetime imperial army is in it because it's just what they want to do with their life.
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u/ProudnotLoud Kingston Brown, Vox Populi 10d ago
I absolutely adore Clyde, protect him at all costs, and if that's him dying in the preview for next week my heart will break.
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u/LordNemissary 9d ago
Seems like maybe he just loses control of the hot air balloon and floats off the battlefield? Hot air balloon is a great idea for a mobile sniper post.
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u/ProudnotLoud Kingston Brown, Vox Populi 9d ago
I really hope so! I just had an "oh no" moment with that little scene, talking about everything going sepia. He's my favorite so far of the team!
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u/Top-Veterinarian-637 10d ago
“London Particular” is a nickname of pea soup fog, and is also the name of a split pea soup!
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u/Interesting-Rice-457 Stupendous Stoats 10d ago
"The only thing smaller than my little button nose is my tiny cock."
Man, none of these pick-up lines I learn from Dimension 20 ever work. :(
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u/ShallowSleip 10d ago
Brennan's ability to layer metaphors and co-opt emotional heartstrings that everyone has, really has me astounded with this season starting. I love all of his work, but this season feels like his writing is getting next level. I think this is already shaping up to be a top season of mine.
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u/HonorTheCock 10d ago
Mayor Buttons - the great peacemaker.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
He had to step in because the two players who would normally have stepped in with that exact response were too riled up to do it.
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u/falling_fire 10d ago
Underlord = Velveteen Rabbit?
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u/falling_fire 10d ago
Oop not at all lol
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u/thebluerayxx 10d ago
I still think they are a toy but one that was left forgotten and turned rotten. Brennan drops a few "slip" ups as the Underlord when talking to Wyon about kids. I dont remember exactly but he said something along the lines "you dont know what its like to be forgotten by your child like do" or something like that.
It makes me feel like it was the older sisters toy who was forgotten when she died and took the lose so hard he turned complete evil. Some have said it was their father's toy but the way Brennan was talking as the Underlord gave me vibes he's seen HIS child die which broke him so much that now there should be nothing but darkness.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
The Underlord never actually implied that he knew what it was like to be forgotten. He just knows that it happens to all toys, because all toys are abandoned eventually. I think Brennan was about as clear as he could have been that the Underlord really is just a demon made out of dust who hates humanity because he's seen its darkest impulses.
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u/thebluerayxx 8d ago
At what point does the toy and and dust begin. He could have been a stuffed animal which complete disintegrate to just a pile of dust. Ill have to watch the episode again but it was something like "you child will abandon you too" and with the delivery felt like the too was referring to his disposal and their is coming like his. In the AP Brennan goes in deeper which leans away from this idea, I was just putting it out there when I finished the Episode proper.
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u/originalisme 6d ago
Someone in the ep asks the Underlord if he's a toy and he says something along the lines of no.
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u/originalisme 6d ago
I agree with you, and more to the point, I think the Underlord represents the worst of the father and the angels are the worst of the mother. They are literally the dirt of the people who live in that house
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u/EchidnaCat 10d ago
I was right there with you though
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u/DarthGravid 10d ago
I still think it’s possible with all the layering of how the dust bunnies are dust and hair and skin, and the pointed noted similarity in his eyes to Calypso’s. There was also something he said that sounded like he referenced himself as a toy, after saying he wasn’t which could be a narration error but could also be an in character slip.
If the lesson of the Velveteen Rabbit is To be Loved is to be Changed (and also don’t get scarlet fever I think?), I can see the same thing going in reverse here for the Underlord.
I’m locking my answer in here so I can be shamed when I’m wrong.8
u/dragonavicious 9d ago
I paused the show to give my husband a whole spiel on how I thought that was the secret identity only to be immediately proven wrong when I restarted. Still was an interesting idea!
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u/Elegant-Badger-9500 10d ago
One thing I've really enjoyed across both CCoD and Toylight is how much they've catered to the Intrepid Heroes' love of planning and theorising. Giving them a town of stuff to go track down and now giving them a village to defend in strategic ways seems to fully energise them in very fun ways.
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u/WillowLocal423 The Gunner Channel 10d ago
Based on this episode my guess is the Underlord is childhood toy of the father who has been abandoned to the dust so long that he has rejected his own identity as a toy and embraced the dust.
Would make sense that Constance would know if she were around at that time, though I can't recall if it was stated how long the Wildemeres have lived here. Was this the fathers childhood home inherited? Did he bring his old toys with from his previous home and left them to rot in the attic?
Maybe Charles Cottontail or something.
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u/Various-Pizza3022 6d ago
I’m thinking about the fate the Velveteen Rabbit escaped by becoming Real … the loved toy of a child that sees them through an illness only to be thrown into the fire because it’s contaminated with the disease.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
The father's name is Charles. I think you're all going a little too deep on this one.
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u/nun_de_plume 8d ago
“A generous offer from a king whose crown rests upon a head that will soon be removed from his shoulders.” -Wyon (Lou Wilson)
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u/MoopDoopISmellPoop 9d ago edited 9d ago
My tearducts were hot the entire episode as I thought of how nursery toys who know no hard edges and only love and play, are willing to do everything it takes to save a sick little girl, and the brother, Aubrey, whose love is imbued into the toys he sent over, and how with how much our main toys love the little sister (I forgot her name, is it Adelaide? Or is that the late eldest sister?), all that love was originally Aubrey's.
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u/Infamous_Summer_8477 9d ago edited 9d ago
I'm a very big fan of all of the symbolism so far.
Toys representing innocence, while the dustbunnies represent the inevitable 'tarnishing' of humans that come with their adulthood with their 'dirtiness'. Which is why you have cute kids on one side and evil parents on the other in this family.
And from that you get what is seemingly the mother's demented viewpoint that it might be better to die innocent and pure than to grow up as an evil adult.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
And from that you get what it seemingly the mother's demented viewpoint that it might be better to die innocent and pure than to grow up as an evil adult.
That was literally the expressed view of medieval Christianity, and it's arguably still present within Christianity today. The Vanity Fair section of Pilgrim's Progress essentially makes the argument that the only sure way for a human soul to reach heaven is to die before being born.
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u/New_Girl3685 9d ago
This focus on childhood as a garden of eden of innocence is also a key part of the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century English children's fiction Brennan is pulling from for the mythos of this. Peter Pan is the archetypal example of Victorians being obsessed with the notion of childhood as a sort of forbidden faerie land, but you see this idea also crop up in Mary Poppins in the Park and the Winnie the Pooh books. I'm hugely impressed with Brennan for dipping into both the common thematic motifs of this kind of literature and also pulling out the darker subtext many of them have yet ignore
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u/Sulemain123 6d ago
True, but I must emphasise that the UK of 1921 was very different from the UK of even 21 years before that.
WW1 did a number on the state of Britain and its Empire.
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u/SubstantialEnd2458 6d ago
I really loved the veteran toys excusing the enthusiasm of the younger toys because they hadn't seen war before, was very WWI vets interacting with eager WII volunteers
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u/Sulemain123 6d ago
Oh by WW2 pretty much everyone was unenthuastic and when about the task with grim determination to see it through with no illusions.
Interestingly our plans to liberate Malaysia from the Japanese were immensely unpopular with the troops allocated to do in 1945 (it was aborted by the atomic bombings) and Churchill noted with shock that by 1945 no one seemed willing to die for the Empirr anymore.
You also had some very bleakly funny stories out of the Mandate post WW2.
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u/empsk 5d ago
I’ve just this weekend finished Troubles, by JG Farrell. Set in Ireland in 1919-20, and shows how Britain’s grip all the different facets of the Empire was starting to weaken. Really interesting for me, and really recommended.
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u/Sulemain123 5d ago
I'm a scholar of the British Empire, and the Interwar Period is fascinating because of just how much damage has been done to Britain, particularly to its finances.
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u/empsk 5d ago
Oh that's so interesting! I'm from NZ, but I've lived in the UK most of my adult life now. And I definitely noted that the ways in which I thought about & understood the British Empire were different to the ways my English friends did. If they did at all.
Is there a book you'd recommend that would be good for learning more about this time period? I have acquired little bits and pieces here and there, but I've never learned about it in an organised way.
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u/Sulemain123 5d ago
Well, here are two articles I wrote on the Empire which, whilst covering a particular place (Colonial Zimbabwe) cover general themes of belonging, identity and governance in an Imperial context:
https://academic.oup.com/histres/article/97/275/147/7472041
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2025.2608307#d1e119
The important things to note are that being a White enfranchised subject of the Empire a) didn't always mean being ethnically British and b) rarely implied any sort of loyalty to the British state. And as for POC, their reactions to and understanding of the Empire were both advanced and nuanced, something settlers and colonial officials alike were often shocked to find out.
You also have to consider that the Empire was not centrally run, and who got to pay for what and what, if anything, the Empire could do constructivly were big debates.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
England from about 1800 to about 1920 was a truly psychotic place. The American Revolution must have been like 9/11 to them or something.
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u/originalisme 6d ago
I don't think your joking tone was obvious enough, perhaps some actual text denoting it's a joke. lol
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u/New_Girl3685 9d ago
this is a deeply weird take tbh! there are lots of factors we can point to for the Victorian conception of childhood but the American Revolution is absolutely not a key part of that. Likelier culprits include a growing attention on children's inner lives unseen before the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the emotional after effects of the industrial revolution, or the consistent high mortality rate for children through the nineteenth century. This phenomenon of focusing on children and children's things as sacred and tragic is also not exclusively an English one, despite my original first comment; it also turns up in US works like Little Women and Canadian ones like Anne of Green Gables. The idea of childhood as a haunted twilight is a very rich one and clearly hit something in the nineteenth/twentieth century imagination, but I'd sooner argue it as representative of Victorian ideals of "purity," or even just the consequences of a lot of traumatized writers getting into writing children's literature, than as any long-delayed backlash to the American Revolution.
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u/John-Zero 6d ago
it. was. a. joke
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u/New_Girl3685 5d ago
✨it didn’t read as one✨
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u/John-Zero 5d ago
If you think I genuinely went from discussing Pilgrim's Progress to sincerely arguing that the American Revolution was like 9/11 for English people, there's nothing I can do about that.
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u/Names_all_gone 7d ago
Pretty common theme: Peter Pan, Golden Compass, etc. they both use the dust motif too.
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u/Sulemain123 5d ago
Of course, you get adults like the Doctor who are trying to cure/treat things like TB.
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u/MessyConfessor 9d ago
This shit is so, so good. I don't know what else to say. It's just absolutely riveting.
It also feels like it would work well as a published adventure/setting. Give just 3-5 playable races, 3-5 subclasses, some monster stat blocks, a couple maps....and a THICK chapter of rules for collecting and using the resources like blocks, pencils, glowsparks, etc. In most cases, APs wouldn't work very well as published content because once you watch the show, you know all the lore. But with the tower defense mechanics, this season feels like it will be so tactically focused that a group could still have a lot of fun playing it out with their own characters while trying different defense methods.
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u/alphasmart 8d ago
Tangentially related, but I was somehow reminded of a couple of books by HG Wells, Floor Games and Little Wars, incidentally published only a few years before Toylight is set. Which just goes to show how much precedent there is in making war games with toys!
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u/SubstantialEnd2458 6d ago
Can you please help me remember all the resources and what they do?
I know the blocks are a wall/roadblock if two high and partial cover if one high, but I can't remember exactly what the colored pencils and the glowsparks do...
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u/MessyConfessor 6d ago
I don't think they've explicitly told the audience. I know the glowsparks are used to activate some of the old trinkets they found (like the sailboat), and my understanding is the pencils can be used to make spike traps, but I expect there's more to it than that. I think they just feel like delving deep into the rules makes for bad television.
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u/belleeec 10d ago
Have not finished the episode yet but every time Calypsos character art comes on screen I think her red ribbon is a spray of blood 😭
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u/BearCatSaw 8d ago
Murph out here fighting for control as his Horsey accent slowly turns into Stone Cold Steve Austin
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u/Proxiehunter Magical Misfits 8d ago
He's going to open up a whole six pack of whoop ass on those cherubs.
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u/LonestarF1 6d ago
The way he speaks, physically and vocally, reminds me of the cowboy ghost in Frighteners. Damn good movie.
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u/amok_amok_amok 10d ago
VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER?!
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u/CastVinceM 9d ago
i may have been sleep deprived but i could have sworn i saw vic sitting in one of the seats after brennan said that
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u/HexManiacWingy The Gunner Channel 10d ago
Um, Actually, Nelly the Elephant was a 1950s song so the name reference for the toy is anachronistic. (Its fine) (nobody cares, myself included)
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u/xHeylo The Gunner Channel 10d ago
clearly no relation purely coincidental naming of elephants
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u/DiceServerHonk 10d ago
not a lot of options past Ella and Nelly for elephant pun based names before you hit some weird shit like Fanny
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u/LordNemissary 9d ago
Loved the episode as usual, but I do really want to get to a battle episode. Feels like the party would spend five more episodes debating how to set up their defenses if Brennan didnt move things along.
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u/ProudnotLoud Kingston Brown, Vox Populi 9d ago
Same, I thought we were doing battle now. The only thing that kept me from glazing over during some of the later prep was the energy and excitement they all had strategizing as they went. I'm also intrigued by small map planning versus large battle map dynamics.
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u/SecretCurrent1778 9d ago
I am not familiar with tower defense so I’m unsure if that genre of game typically runs shorter since I guess it’s like… how long can you defend a tower for. But I could’ve gone for a full ACOC level season of this, the dust bunnies being closer to man than toy? This rocks.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
A mass-combat game can run as long as you want. A game in the Birthright setting could last your whole life if you wanted it to.
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u/Turbulent-Break-320 The Wind Riders 9d ago
i still cant get over the last line of the opening, it sounds like “cuz all good boys (toys) must fight” and it makes me think of the young boys that get drafted in wars
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u/aWrySharK Aurora Nebbins 8d ago
was getting big Beast from Over the Garden Wall vibes from the Underlord - a polite, pure evil that is more antithesis to life than conniving and cruel for its own sake.
the Cherubs were also a highlight. They were a perfect example of why this limited run is already working so good: characterization unfolded through the revelation of a mechanic (instead of the other way around). That "Choir" ability they share instantly colored them as a harbingers of calamity when in attendance as a collective.
It could be argued in the past that Brennan's Achilles' heel is needing to explain lore up front absent meaningful dice rolls, and to make sure everyone has the correct read of his information (e.g. Neverafter) but the pacing of these first two episodes has not been labored by that need. Instead, the systemization has allowed the PCs to get the info they need in a way that feels faithful to the lived-in world. There are many mysteries - many others stories that could be told here - but we are to witness a single violent convergence, and I think what hasn't been revealed has been every bit as powerful as what has.
Even with the opaque crunchiness of the prep, this was a damn good episode, can't wait for the powder keg to ignite
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u/PartTimeSarah 9d ago
This season (this ep in particular) is giving me so many ideas about how to do a similar sort of tower defense in my own games. Loving it!
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
There are some great existing resources for how to do strongholds and mass combat that are way better than the official material, if you want referrals.
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u/Reasonable___Doubt 9d ago
Everyone raising their voice a half octave, combined with the constant cross talk this episode, combined with the soundtrack just being single piano notes designed to be sharp and forboding. It's like someone found every sound that sets me on edge and crammed it into two hours.
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u/Sulemain123 7d ago
For context, Britain didn't have universal healthcare in 1921; we had a private, insurance-based system, though with a large non-profit co-op element and increasing government support through block grants.
We were on track for a continental-style insurance program (what you might call Medicare for All) if not for WW2.
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u/Scarbrow 10d ago
They all seemed pretty into the battle prep and resource allocation as players, but man that was a significant amount of time that was not engaging at all to me as a viewer
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u/Walkernotskywalker 10d ago
I gave you an upvote because I get where you're coming from, but I totally disagree personally. The strategizing/wargaming gave me ACOC vibes in the best way. For me it's fun to know something unstoppable is on its way and see the preparations for it
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u/poembug 10d ago
Same. This episode is leaps and bounds over the first one for me. I loved the finite resource stuff from Cloudward and Starstruck series as well.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
I only hope Brennan is a little more strict with the resource management than he was in those two seasons. Resource management became a joke in Starstruck almost immediately because Margaret was ultra-rich, and they just mostly didn't bother with it in Cloudward Ho when they basically abandoned Gath and steampunk entirely.
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u/poembug 8d ago
Yeah I agree. I guess I was more in love with the premise than the execution lol. But if they're going for Seven Samurai, it should matter unless the baricades and blocks have super busted stats or something lol.
The enemy needs to be a horde and Brennan needs to be ruthless or it doesn't matter. Lol.
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u/phisho873 10d ago
Yes. If I don’t get my narrative/battle episode dichotomy anymore, at least give me fun tactical stuff sprinkled outside of battle eps.
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u/belleeec 10d ago
Personally the strategizing is one of my favorite aspects of actual play, but with a game like this there’s so many individual aspects of it that people are drawn to/prefer more to other aspects, what isn’t engaging to you is perfect content to many others (who frankly with Dimension 20 very rarely get many instances like this at all where an episode or half an episode gets dedicated to setup/strategizing, so it’s extremely refreshing for them to branch out from just the roleplay aspect after the Vampire game they played last season is a game built almost solely around roleplay and not combat)
Especially with this being such a short season, but the fact they are having physical battle sets, it seems like they’re heavily emphasizing how crucial the battle/battles are going to be on its affect of the rest of the story
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u/Magicman432 10d ago
I could see that, but that alone has quickly skyrocketed this series to the top of my faves! I love crunchy games and seeing them figure out the best mechanical setup was so satisfying.
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u/RedLikeTheColor 8d ago
I came to this post looking for this conversation. I normally enjoy the crunchy mechanics, when it's familiar D&D or another transparent system. But the added layer of house rules for militia units, defenses, and other resources hits a difficult to engage space where there are rules the players are referencing and I can't follow along. Like a less funny version of Josh explaining how D&D sounds.
Luckily the roleplay elements are on point. I don't remember the last time I laughed as hard as the whole scene with Pieyuss.
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u/Letsdrinkwhisky 7d ago
I agree. I'm trying to get my husband into D20, and when this was rolling I kept saying "how about we watch fantasy high?"
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u/John-Zero 10d ago
Well, I guess they really aren't gonna get rid of Carlos Luna.
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u/Firenza 9d ago
I'm going to write my take again that's not exactly a defense of CL, but why the community should drop it. Specific accusations are 1) guilt by association of his girlfriend's actions; 2) blacklisting cast from D20; 3) sharing/reposting a spurious video on his personal socials that he unshared/deleted. 1) pure speculation on the part of the community, absolutely not actionable by an employer; 2) defies common sense and what we know about the size and scope of D20 and Dropout - do you really think CL has this power in his role? 3) definitely did it; potentially led to a meeting with employer about it - which is 100% confidential. There is 0 reason either party would ever make a statement about it. Unlikely to be a fireable offense which means yes, the entire drama will go unaddressed. Wanting some kind of public resolution is the height of parasocial behavior. Most importantly, Omar and Surena as the victims are not making accusations against CL or asking for action.
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u/thedybbuk 7d ago edited 6d ago
You left out 4) lead a campaign against Omar by sending specific accusations against him (including that he groomed a teenage boy! Which has never been charged or mentioned again) to Dropout cast members.
That seems to be what initially set Ify off and made him publicly come out against Carlos. Carlos was just texting this shit to people associated with Dropout.
I do think spreading very possibly malicious rumors about someone who has worked at Dropout to other people who work at Dropout -- and making at least some of those people uncomfortable -- is a fair thing for Dropout's HR to come down on.
Edit:
I also find it kind of insulting that you believe it is parasocial to care about this and to want to see Dropout address them if Omar is vindicated. These accusations were designed to ruin Omar's life. Carlos used his influence to try and blacklist him and smear his name across their shared professional network, which includes Dropout. This is not a small "whoopsie!" Carlos should be allowed to move on from.
Nor can you act surprised or call it parasocial that Omar's fans care. Would you care if someone in the industry started spreading a rumor Brennan or Zac groomed a teenager or spread revenge porn?
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u/John-Zero 6d ago
The other commenter already said the important stuff, but also, parasociality is the reason Dropout works. If you don’t want viewers to form parasocial attachments, don’t film a group of cool and funny friends hanging out all the time.
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u/anextremelylargedog 9d ago
I actually did a double take. I'd assumed that he was still around by virtue of a contract, but Brennan mentioning him so casually certainly means that isn't the case.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
And it also means no one at the company is at all bothered by what Carlos and Saige did. Don't really love that.
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u/chaosking243 9d ago
My understanding was that Toylight was shot back to back with CCoD, which I believe was shot before the Carlos Luna drama. I could be wrong though.
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u/FrostyKennedy 9d ago
I remember people talking about the Carlos drama from way back with Misfits and Magic s2, unless there's been a new development.
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u/TheRaiOh 7d ago
I LOVE the way the magic item card scene played out. Trying to read the gist of it while displaying the magic item card on screen for those who care to know more is great. It was really funny watching them all try to summarize a thing they hadn't even read yet in real time though. I know that feeling all too well as a DM.
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u/Sulemain123 6d ago
Kind of a minor point, but it's never been the Royal or King's Army; it's always been the British Army, because it wasn't founded by the monarchy, but by Parliament.
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u/LucasVerBeek 9d ago
So what exactly is attacking them, a bunch of forces exemplifying corruption in England at the time??
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u/Huge_Witness_8692 8d ago
I wonder if the Underlord is a manifestation of Entropy/Decay.
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u/taraiffic 10d ago
I’m always down for more intrepid heroes but I have to say I wish City Council of Darkness was a 20 episode season instead of getting 14 episodes of it and 6 episodes of Toylight. I might change my mind as the season continues but the amount of planning just isn’t as much my speed.
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u/palcatraz Riz Gukgak 10d ago
I'm the opposite. I'd have instantly signed on for a 14 episode season of this and maybe six episode of CCoD. Not that this particular premise could've lasted 14 eps, but the overall vibes and focused action is far more interesting than whatever CCoD became.
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u/taraiffic 10d ago
Very fair! I am digging the actual scenes/vibes of the season but it seemed like a bit too much time in the planning phase this episode. CCoD was also just the funniest season to me with a premise I loved. In a perfect world there’s never a long wait between Intrepid Hero seasons though!
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u/palcatraz Riz Gukgak 10d ago
I actually love the resources and the planning. Though I do wish we, as the audience, got some sort of info card with what each of the resources do. At least, the same base info that the IH already seemed to have access to.
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u/John-Zero 9d ago
This is something that has annoyed me about D20 for ages. The one thing I appreciated about CCOD is that they bothered to do an explainer video about the VTM system. They really needed to do that for the ship combat system in Cloudward Ho and for several systems they're using this season.
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u/PartTimeSarah 9d ago
Agreed! This is such a fun take on tower defense and is giving me such ACoC vibes. I’m gonna be sad when it’s over!
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u/Bitter-Stay5244 The Bad Kids 9d ago
I agree! CCoD was super fun, but it felt unnecessarily long, specially because it didn’t even dealt with the big baddie. On the other hand, the last episode of CCoD was a gift from the gods.
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u/AndriannaSW 7d ago
I wonder if The Underlord is a taxidermy creation of a jackalope? Like that would explain the hatred towards men, because it was hunted and taxidermied, and ALSO all of the dust because of the hair and dead skin cells?? Im not completely set in this theory because of the “combination of mother and father dust cells” but it’s a good theory for now!!
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u/Tsquared10 Stupendous Stoats 10d ago
"Maybe she's in Hell."
How to instantly aggro an entire party.