honestly i'm really disappointed about the latest game changer episode it was really boring. i mean all they did was count rice the whole time. that was literally the entire episode. when people lost they got sent out and so for a while it was just sam being bored by himself on stage for like twenty minutes. i thought there was going to be some kind of twist, but nope, jsut counting rice. honestly sam you can think of better things to do to your players, this is a real disappointment
Okay let’s get this going, here is a large deep dive into the new d20 trailer: Playtime is Over.
Made a cut for length
First things first, what we for sure know
• 6 episodes
• Intrepid heroes
• there is an honest likelihood it’s not Brennan dm cause of critical role. Murph also didn’t dm for naddpod in 2025. ALL IM SAYING. I know he’s said he doesn’t want to dm a visual campaign but pretty please
• I watched back every single other trailer, this is the first to not at least show us the players or the dm so they have to be announcing something? RIGHT???
• Based on Sam’s words in the q&a it is not a side quest to another campaign. So we’re looking at new short story.
• it could be another sandbox style season?
Moving on… the poem
The full poem is by William Butler Yeats in 1889 (through written in 1886)
It’s called “the stolen child” the trailer featured the first verse which I’ll attach below:
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Immediately we can gather it’s about a malevolent faerie convincing a child to leave their home for the faeries kingdom. Looking at the full poem (which I’ll put at the very bottom) this is definitely true. The last verse in the poem actually talks about all the things this child will now never see again from the human world.
Looking into W.B. Yeats he has a lot of love poems, a play about a bishop, a monk, and a woman accused of paganism, etc…
He primarily wrote about Irish folklore and mythology.
William Blake and Oscar Wilde were his two biggest influences.
And finally! He was a fierce opponent of individualism. An elitist who saw democracy as a threat! So…
Okay now the actual video, I went scene by scene and broke it down:
00:00: “Dimension 20” in wooden block, 4 jacks, a d20 on I believe 14, and a board game w/ 3 wooden trees. The words “Toylight Arcade” are on the box/board. The room has wooden flooring and seems like an attic, there is light coming from a window off frame.
00:02: a hand turns the left knob on a radio it then switches to a soldier communicating via telegraph in the trenches. I think this is probably a stock video BUT in case it’s not I looked into it
00:03: both hands turning radio knobs, back to d20 logo, back to trench
00:04: static chirps, we go to black and white and zoom out on the trench. The soldier is wearing an aviator hat/flying helmet. Cote cuir? The flickers between the three scenes.
00:05 very briefly a telegraph key is used. I am almost 100% sure it’s a vail lever correspondent. J-37 or J-38?
00:08: music starts (melancholy) + explosions. A teddy bear for 3 seconds
00:11: a doll w/ bangs and curled hair
00:12: a rocking horse, wooden.
00:13: a toy car traveling a drawn out road
00:15: an Opel Blitz in the woods. I found the exact clip
00:16: flashing between the real and toy car
00:17: another doll, different. 2 plaits in her hair. Porcelain. French? Okay I think she’s a bisque doll from France or Germany.
00:17: a rag doll with sewn button eyes, I found the clip again
00:18: I think a kewpie soldier doll??? Not this but it’s similar
00:19: 8 toy army men in the dirt
00:21: flashes to 3 real soldiers. 1 pointing a gun while smoking a cigarette. 1 pointing gun, 1 watching the side.
00:22: soldier reloading a rifle
00:22: a second rifle? Or a different camera angle
00:23: a single toy army man with a bazooka
00:24: a stuffed ?lion? Falls over
00:26: WW2 field gun being shot (this is my first big confirmation this is a ww2 season. More specifically in London during the blitz.)
00:27: buttons fall. A thimble, string, and scissors in the background
00:28: smoke or water? + a soldier running? Jumping into a trench?
00:29: a stuffed animal falls into the snow
00:30: A Maxim gun (field gun). I think a Russian PM M1910
00:31: shooting the gun/flashing to the toy soldier
00:32: the toy army men on fire
00:33: teddy bear + stuffed rabbit watching fire
00:34: a German air assault over England. The plan is falling and releasing black smoke rapidly. (The blitz)
00:36: explosion in the toy army mens trench
00:37: soldier pointing a gun to the camera
00:38: more modern rocking horse in front of a couch.
00:40: marionette clown doll
00:41: soldiers pushing forward
00:42: toy soldiers
00:43: toy soldiers melting + more fire
00:44: teddy bear falling into rubble
00:45: a dead soldier + a stuffed elephant + a very burnt doll. All 3 scenes flashing
00:46: New teddy bear w/ a patch on its head covering its eyes
00:47: black screen till
00:50: the screen flickers back to color as we go back to the attack. Same wooden flooring from beginning, a candle in the center, and more wooden blocks:
1. Constance - red
2. Tiddlywinks - orange
3. Avery - blue
4. Clyde - green
5. Calypso - yellow
6. Wyon - purple
OKAY! Thats the trailer! Now the names:
Constance: French origin. Means steadiness. Highest popularity during 1940s-1950s
Tiddlywinks: this one confused me lol 😭 is this a name? I’m guessing so (Emily Axford is that you?) anyway tiddlywinks is an old parlour room game from Victorian England. A cup is put on a felt mat and players flick small discs called winks into the cup. They also came out with a series off to war with 2 games in the 1940s.
Avery: British origin. Means ruler of elves. Big popularity in WW2 but only in boys.
Clyde: Scottish origin. Means cleansing. Highest popularity in the 1940s
Calypso: Greek origin. Means hidden, to cover, conceal. No popularity in the 1940s, most popular right now.
Wyon: This one also confused me. This could be the kid??? Wyon is a family name/last name. I can’t find any history of it being used as a first name. It has French origins and the first Wyons can be dated in England in like 1060
Okay looking further I found 1 website about it as a first name. Roots to old English and Welsh tracing back to the medieval period.
WOW OKAY NOW MY ACTUAL THOUGHTS YIPPPEEE
Okay I’m just gonna write my physical notes here first cause I don’t have a lot:
Zimmerman telegram?
WW1? WW2?
Winnie the Pooh? It’s now public domain
Child during war bombings???
Yeah definitely
We’re in WW2.
Some other random notes on the poem:
Keith Donohue’s book The Stolen Child is based on the poem and about a 7 year old trapped in time and an adult trying to remember his childhood
Spoilers for the book just in case anyone cares:
The kid was led away by fae at 7 years old and is trapped there forever while a changeling is turned into the child put in his home and lives his life.
I haven’t read it sorry if any of that is wrong
Okay! Now my full on theories:
(This is gonna be so unorganized just putting down my thoughts)
Narnia, Alice by Heart style story?
A kid being led away by toys or changelings or other folklore during WW2.
What if they pull a the kids been dead the whole time at the end lol?
OKAY if this is the case and one of them is playing a kid while the rest toys I need Siobhan to play the kid.
Also I’m guessing it’s set in London, if it’s the blitz it has to be. Or south England. (It doesn’t have to be, but I’m almost certain it will.)
Possibly a rich kid
Looking at the names I’d guess probably Constance or Wyon if that’s the family name.
Maybe a hospital setting with an orphaned child
Damn only 6 episodes
What if it’s 2 campaigns going on at the same time and the kids a changeling and that not happening BUT LIKE MURPH AND AABRIA DM HEY HEY it’s not happening
I’m trying to take the clips as just aesthetic but like it has to be the blitz I am fully convinced
Anyway I’m probably gonna come back to this and add more. But I’m out 🫡
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
