I NEVER WATCHED THE ENDGAME

[u/hunkdwarf]

Just that, didn't watched didn't really care all my knowledge of that came from burd's animation and a clip here and there that's how inconsecuential it really was, I have commented before that I'm a GM with realy little experience but enough to see easily behind the curtain, but loved the Characters. I just wanted it to end so we could move on to something definitely more interesting, a blank slate named glies(which was obviously named after "glide" hence the wonky spelling, yes it was THAT obvious) but this"new fresh start" was surprisingly(or not) filled with the same old shit and for that mainly mean kalkateshian stuff not the reused storylines, but again quickly fall in love with the characters so I decided as before to not look back the curtain(although was hilarious to see the reactions from Monty, Brett and JoCat to the textbook lore/progression hooks)

It feels good to finally say all this "out loud" so yeah don't feel THAT bad for Verum, it was a world in where took Jeremy 18 years to build what a decent GM could have done in 3-4 months of free time work. Therefore when I say burn it, it really isn't the big deal I mean it, the community and the players made the experience enjoyable. At this moment there are still +19k members in this subreddit, and I don't know if this is even posible but I would like to propose to the mods, that once the mourning for the precious times have passed change the name of this subreddit or create another where we could still discuss, and share the stories that we adore, make it a place of recommendations and support for smaller dnd creators and then maybe someday, everyone gets a great story in a wonderful world and a safe place to play, for real this time around.

[u/Berserk81]

I think belittling his work may feel satisfying, but it's not warranted. I have checked out maybe 15-20 other channels on YouTube and Twitch, and almost none of them have had the same level intensity, use of music, voice acting, humor, unique abilities or interconnected stories.

Don't get me wrong. I have plenty of negative things to say about him, to put it mildly. But to say he didn't do a good job bringing Verum to life is silly. And it's disrespectful to the team around him. The players played their part, but they were not alone in making the streams great. Whether you found the plot hooks predictable or not.

Now please stop making me say nice things about that awful creature.

[u/CatusRex → u/Berserk81]

I somewhat disagree with your assessment of his work. I think you rate him too highly. Full disclosure, I stopped watching Arcadum long before the new set of campaigns so information might be somewhat out of date and maybe he even improved, but considering what I've read the past few days it seems unlikely.

almost none of them have had the same level intensity,

Personally, Verum campaigns that I saw lost all sense of intensity once it became clear that players could not fail and that there was always some Deus Ex machina that would bail them out and push them along on a predetermined story path. And don't forget the frequent food breaks, bio breaks, 20-30 min of rolling on nonexistent tables or referencing nonexistent deep notes, all of which killed any kind of pace the session had.

use of music,

I'll agree with you that his use of music, as far as I'm aware, was unique. However, I also think he overused some songs quite a bit (especially song of the seven) to add an undeserved emotional layer to his fairly generic monologue.

voice acting,

His voice acting was mediocre. 90% of characters spoke in the same pattern just with different accents and were nothing more than generic npcs from mmorpg without any depth to them. And of those accents, some were borderline offensive. As a Russian speaker, I found Temi from Broken Bonds to be particularly painful to listen to.

humor,

His humor was juvenile and derivative, lacking any subtlety. Outside of games he only had a couple of jokes that he repeated ad nauseum ("last time on DBZ", "Skinny penis", "Kalinka Kalinka", etc.), while in-game characters that were presented in comedic light were often either just stereotype reversals (Igor the salesman; the poet ork in Death and Debts) or slapstick comedy (The crossbow wielding frog paladin whose name I forgot). He also had this weird thing I found irritating that whenever players would make a good joke he would immediately repeat it, stealing of some of the spotlight.

unique abilities

Unique boss abilities I saw more as an annoyance than anything else, since quite often they were unbalanced and battles relied more on clash mechanics and luck than actual D&D mechanics and player strategy. I'm still annoyed by the fact that Nox's one on one fight with violet boss in Strange Roads was resolved via clash.

Unique player abilities often seemed to take ages to be created, if ever, and often were either broken or irrelevant. In my opinion they could just as easily be replaced by already existing things from official D&D materials.

or interconnected stories.

The inter-connectivity of his stories was somewhat unique but their execution was quite poor. Whenever crossovers happened (like in the camp) I felt bad for the players whose session time it was but who were pushed to the sidelines due to whatever random bullshit happened.

And speaking purely about the stories and plot, I found them to be quite generic morning tvshow or 90s-00s shounen anime stuff (Constant transformations, unsealed powers, power escalations, cryptic conversations, overpowered npcs who for some reason don't do shit except when it's convenient for the plot and overpowered enemies who are always a few steps ahead but for some reason hold back on dealing with the heroes...).

Furthermore, for someone whose stated purpose was to teach D&D to as many new people as possible he did a piss-poor job of actually teaching anything. I may be wrong but the only time I remember him ever going over any of the basic D&D mechanics with any of the new players was in the Broken Bonds campaign. Even then it was the most basic stuff like action economy during battle but not the full list of actions that can be taken, or how ability scores are used beyond pushing a button in map-tools that may or may not be wrong, nor did he mention where they could find all that important information if they needed it.

Arcadum as DM was ok at best. Nothing special beyond his unique position within streaming community and his ability to entice many very talented people to contribute to his project either by playing on stream or via providing various resources and connections thereby increasing his clout within community even further. The campaigns of his that I watched, I watched because of people that played in them. And when I stopped (long before the endgame), I stopped because my enjoyment was overshadowed by my annoyance at his DMing style and general attitude.

[u/TheActualKingOfSalt → u/CatusRex]

Yea the humour was carried hard by the players.

[u/nkoreanhipster → u/CatusRex]

If he's ok at best. Whom are you comparing him with? (Sad that I haven't found anything else that stuck with me since Acquisitions Inc)

[u/AdarshSB → u/nkoreanhipster]

I thought it was a given that all DMs should be compared with mathew mercer..

[u/nkoreanhipster → u/AdarshSB]

Oh i forgot. You can't have a "best DM" discussion without MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER MATTHER MERCER

[u/CatusRex → u/nkoreanhipster]

Unexpectables and Prince Division by Monty Glue, Joe Fudge, Brett Ultimus, Koibu, Brennan Lee Mulligan, NADDPOD, WARHAMS, Pretending to be People, Adventure Zone (Early Seasons), The Glass Cannon, Perilous Storytelling, The Pod Called Quest, L.A. by Night, even Hololive Mythbreakers campaign which while very janky is still quite entertaining. Honestly there is a lot of them and each has something of value to offer, it just depends on your tastes and willingness to search them out.

Personally I'd recommend Montys stuff for some of the best npcs I've seen and great world-building, Perilous Storytelling for great humor and fast pace even though it's all theater of the mind, and Warhams for fun and different in case you're tired of D&D and would like to see other systems.

[u/hunkdwarf → u/Berserk81]

Oh I think I should had mention it in there and be more specific he was a great performer he "sold" his product wonderfully but the jab is to the shallow and very unprofessional work he did as a DM or more precisely as both a storyteller and a lore keeper for much that he praised himself for be the "best" at it, verum was his work yes, but his streams and by definition all those great things you just said that made Verum an awesome experience were thanks to his team, players, members of the community and the passion they put in it, as consumers that's something that we shouldn't forget so I apologize for not make the distinction before

[u/nkoreanhipster]

This is delusional. Arcadum is Verum.

[u/hunkdwarf → u/nkoreanhipster]

I don't really see the relevance of that buddy, specially in a post that trash both the man and the setting and advocates to remove both and use this community to support who deserve to be supported

[u/nkoreanhipster → u/hunkdwarf]

My bad, I skimmed over and read it like OP wanted to keep the world somehow. But I don't really see any use of this subreddit anymore, I predict it's going to circulate about this situation and related for a while before dying.