Hi! I hope you don't mind me asking, but I've been interested in getting into Dimension 20 for a while, but with all the campaigns they did already, I find it a bit hard to understand which one to start with, so I thought I'd ask you, as you seem to know your stuff ! So I was wondering if there was a chronological order to some campaigns, if there was one you advised to start with, and where I could watch it. I hope this doesn't bother you, have a nice day ! ♥
This doesn't bother me at all, I love questions like this! And this is truly one of the worst weeks of my life, so thanks for the distraction <3
Short answer: d20 is divided into short and long seasons, long with the main cast (brennan dm'ing for lou, emily, murph, zac, ally, and siohban) and short sidequest seasons with different players, mostly dm'ed by Brennan but also with guest dms! You need a monthly/yearly subscription to dropout.tv to watch, but it's truly the best subscription service in my life, $6/month or 60/yr, with d20 putting out a 2 hour episode every week plus a half hour talk show in Adventuring Party (in addition to their other stellar comedy shows, Game Changer and Make Some Noise, especially). If you just want to dip your toes in and see if you like it, you can watch the first seasons of Fantasy High or The Unsleeping City for free on youtube
Long answer! Fantasy High is still to this day my favorite d20 property, it's teen adventurers at an adventuring academy in a sort of magical realism world. It's extremely funny and the first season was the first season of d20 so most of them are learning 5e after switching over from 3.5, although a few had no previous dnd experience. The second season is probably my favorite season of any tv show ever, and it's a great introduction to the main cast. Those characters will probably always be the closest to my heart in d20, they're all perfect to me.
The Unsleeping City is an urban fantasy series set in a magical New York that is also very good! There's again two seasons, and they are both well worth watching. The second season is again even better than the first, imo.
If you're getting into it because of Matt's season next month, then his The Ravening War series is a prequel to another main cast season, A Crown of Candy. ACOC is the biggest outlier in d20, which isn't ONLY a comedy show, but comedy is very much at the core of d20, but ACOC is a very, very emotionally heavy show. I loved it, but I have also never rewatched it since it took such a mental toll. It's a very high stakes, inter-party conflict, no resurrection magic world, and the entire cast had backup characters prepared in case of character death. It's very good, but not the best example of what the rest of d20 is like. If you've seen EXU Calamity, it is similar tonewise, just a longer campaign.
Then there's the two most recent main cast campaigns. A Starstruck Odyssey is a screwball scifi series set in a world created by Brennan's mom, Elaine Lee, who wrote the original Starstruck comics/play! It's very much a labor of love from him, and it was the first season the main cast filmed in person post-pandemic and the unhinged energy is truly off the charts. It was extremely good and would be a great starting point, no knowledge of the original Starstruck is necessary.
The most recent campaign is Neverafter, which is horror-inspired, but still very much a comedy. It's fairy tale inspired and I'm very sad it just ended because it was so good, although the ending was perfect.
Then there are the sidequests! My personal favorites of those are Mice and Murder, a murder mystery series set in an animal-populated turn of the century England, where the cast were all collegehumor alum so it was very funny and I love murder mysteries and think Brennan did an excellent job at it, and would frankly love another murder mystery season from him. A Court of Fey and Flowers from Aabria is another favorite, a fey-regency romance mashup that was absolutely perfect. The Seven is an all ladies/nonbinary season (dm'd by Brennan) that's technically a spinoff of Fantasy High so I would recommend watching it first, but also it stands alone if you don't mind spoilers for the main seasons.
So!! That was a very long answer, hopefully it was some help to you. You could really pick any season and be fine, and I hope you end up falling in love with d20! My personal recommendations would be to start with either Fantasy High or Starstruck, since I think they're the best examples of what the show is like overall. Good luck! Feel free to let me know what you think :)
this is going to be a silly question but like. okay. for acofaf, why do people keep putting binx's name in all caps as BINX Choppley. i thought it was a subtitles joke but it's even on the official pins?? i'm so confused.
Anon, I'm as stumped as you are! I kept wondering that, too! I thought maybe at some point it'd get brought up in an adventuring party but I don't remember ever hearing anything about it?? My guesses were it was an abbreviation (although still don't know why it would be in all caps?) or an acronym or something but if they ever addressed it I completely missed it
Do we think Marisha will want to bring Laudna back? Matt said it's always the player's choice if their character dies. Do we think she'll let BH's bring her back?
Oh man. I paused the ep at the break last night to process and gif and I haven't finished the ep yet or been on tumblr to see what anyone else thinks. c1 and c2 spoilers below!
Whatever happens, I think we're gonna be waiting. Vox Machina were high enough level that when people died, they had raise dead or resurrection and most of the time it wasn't a question of whether or not someone would come back as long as the ritual worked. I think just Percy when Tal thought his story could end there, but ultimately decided to bring him back. But with Molly, like now, they were too low level to have access to spells beyond revivify, so they didn't have any way of bringing him back on their own. Same for Laudna. Delilah can't help, they don't have any higher level spells, it would set a bad precedent and remove all stakes to bring Keyleth in... so we're talking at least two levels? I think? before they would have a way to bring her back on their own. Whether or not Marisha would want to trade in her backup character at that point... it feels like there's more story with her to tell. With Delilah still up in the air, with things left unsaid with Imogen... I don't know.
Death is so fucking unfair. I will never be over losing Vax, a character I connected deeply with after losing my own mom to cancer and seeing Liam go through the same thing and how it affected Vax moving forward just... it hit me really hard. I thought for sure if someone stayed dead it would be Orym because he's so desperate to protect everyone around him and ran AT Otohan with his high initiative when everyone else was deciding to use theirs to run away, and losing him to the same assassins that killed his husband... oof. It would have been terrible, and amazing, and hard, and perfect. It's unfair that Laudna's life has been so unendingly tragic. She was used by Delilah, spent decades wandering, scaring people, and up until the last few years with Imogen and now everyone else she was so alone. But man, the last two episodes have been some of my favorites of the campaign. The emotions in- and out of character have been SO HIGH. I really cannot decide what will happen! We know Imogen will want to bring her back, but storywise, by the time they are ABLE to, will that be what's best for the story? I don't know!!! I can't even decide what I want to happen!! The tragedy if, after everything, she stayed dead?? Would be so unfair. She deserves better than for her death to a message for other people, TWICE. Or maybe she'll pull a Tary and decide that once they can pull her back, she will return, because she needs to beat Delilah and she should get a happy ending. Things are SO up in the air with her, it's hard to imagine never seeing her again, but that is what death is so... man. I just don't know.
I'm so on the fence, I think at this point I'm just along for the ride. Whatever happens, the party is going to be deeply affected by this moving forward, and I can't wait to see where it ends up.
spiderman into the spiderverse is a masterpiece of animation and you should definitely watch it
I know everybody loves it but my problem was I already had comic movies burnout by the time it came out, and since I didn't read Ultimates I didn't know Miles at all and I think Bendis was already driving me off the x-books and comics in general by the time they were putting him in 616? So my Bendis bitterness was at an all-time high lol. Also I know Gwen is in it but I wasn't a fan of hers bc it felt like spidergwen replaced the characters I wanted more of, like Anya and Aracely (have they vanished into obscurity by this point???) and Cindy and Jess. I do NOT remember if that was accurate or if it was just my general comics bitterness at the time lmao. But I DO know this movie was incredibly popular and I AM curious to see Jess so I guess I should just watch it lol
tiefling: who is your favorite female player + gnome: who is your favorite male player
Laura and Liam! They are consistently my faves in every campaign. They (and Emily Axford) are just my fave dnd players in general, I love how invested they get in their characters, I love the traits and personalities they portray, I love how much they care about their characters' relationships, they just work on every level for me
halfling: who is your favorite dm
Matt! The way he can keep all characters, backstories, plots straight across so many years… incredible. And how much me cares! Every time he tears up on TLOVM watch parties I am right there with him lol
