The Sun Elf, Campaign Diary
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
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If the Chain prevent trouble in the neutral territories it strengthens their claim as knights of the prince and any claim they might make to neutral territory
Prince Boots.
I totally had a Catastrophic Failure moment coming in my campaign, your advice helped me avoid it. Thanks you for that.
Matt looks and sounds well rested! I'm glad that bad week has seems to have passed, can't wait for tonight!
@@tdog4423 7 pm on their twitch, my dude
So if Capital is seven nations in one city, could they be united to field a Seven Nation Army to hold Ajax back?
Ajax approaches within his floating city. In the distance 7 armies sing. "We're gonna fight em all."
The 7 factions of the city are too busy fighting each other to coordinate in a battle vs any enemy.
Each would accuse the others of using their troops as canon fodder, destroying their faction to soften the enemy for the other faction to wipe up the small remaining force f the common enemy, then wipe out the dregs of all of the other factions.
And this would be true because its what every faction would try to do.
In what little time we have had Ajax on the screen, he HAS spent time talking to himself out loud...
F Huber I believe OP’s comment was a reference to the lyrics of “Seven Nation Army”, and not an actual suggestion. Although you are correct.
We gotta unite 'em all -
A seven nation army to hold Ajax back.
The Chain of Acheron -
Taking their time right behind his back.
And I'm talking to myself at night,
Because I can't forget.
Nails and Sweet, a blinding light -
And then that was it.
But the message coming from Red’s eyes,
Said leave it alone.
We’re gonna hear about it.
Every Chronicle’s got a story to tell,
And we all know about it -
We’re Hell troopers with our swords to sell.
And if you say you wanna win the day,
We’re gonna serve it to you!
And that’s just what you want to hear,
But it’s gonna cost you.
We’ll sit you pretty on your throne,
In Farrow it's known!
(I’m really reaching here, somebody take over!)
"...three hours to showtime, I had nothing ready."
Welcome to my life, lol. That's how I usually run my games.
Arthur S. Price my games are written like a skeleton for structure because I know the players are going to go on their own path
I just had a revelation.
“Running The Game” is Matt’s content aimed at new DMs.
The Campaign Diaries are Matt’s content aimed at experienced DMs, who both see ourselves in his struggles and successes, but also can extrapolate the lessons and stealable content from those same videos.
I dont see how this is a revelation :)
Hazah!
Cool, those are the Reversible Game Tiles from Rackham (makers of the wargame Confrontation). They were meant to be used with their Cadwallon RPG. To some extent Cadwallon reminds me a bit of Capital, just on a much smaller scale. After decades this is the first time I see them used properly :-)
Your straight dope is the dopest. I love the campaign diaries as much as I love the stream (although I'm yet to catch it live). And I'm glad you're enjoying it, because if you have fun, then we have fun.
Love the campaign diaries!!! I don't have time to watch the full campaign, but I love staying up to date on the story. So many good DM lessons ❤️
Matt, you constantly inspire me to aspire to be a better GM. Thank you.
Yes, this exactly. I think that's what I'm enjoying most about this content and community. Not only is it making me feel like I want to be a better DM and player, it's making me feel like I absolutely can!
Thank you Mr. Colville for empowering your community with the tools to become better dm. I work out a game store and I all always recommend your channel and stream to new dm or dm who just want new ideas or a fresh prospective.
Matt your transparency in unequaled, even Guy (HTBGGM) doesn't seem to have the same level of straight up clarity
I enjoyed that you openly on twitter and here confirm you didn't prep all the shopping episode content
Bro, I only watch the campaign diaries. I Get the best parts of the game that way: combat outcomes, highlights and shoutouts for the cool parts, plot development, and game theory
that true but sometime you miss some Fun moment that happen at the Stream, but yes, in the most case you get all complie
I'm with ya- campaign diaries sum up the action, but more importantly, they also give me that peak behind the curtain that only Matt Colville provides!
The diaries are great, but if a summary is the best part of the game for you maybe you don't like the game lol
I get what you're saying, but your fun is wrong. D&D isn't about combat outcomes it's about friends playing a game together, and that's the part you miss watching just the diaries
I have limited time to devote to this sort of stuff. We all hike our own hike
I really enjoyed the last session. The angels being "true elves" is fun.
Pretty sure it's just those elves happened to be angels, not all angels being elves. Otherwise it's bizarre to describe them as a type of celestial. If that were the case there would be no need to differentiate.
Derek Skelton yeah, he just decided planetar stats were the best representation of this creature.
I know what the best solution is....We make Slim the Prince
But imagine: A prince named King.
yes! that's got to happen!
Right at the beginning, I think it's fantastic that the Players are invested enough to tell you "we cant Not Play, it's the stream" and how they really wanted to play. It's so easy to get gaming sidetracked and derailed, having the players totally invested is great. And in this case, you got to flex your improv GM muscles and all was well.
Matt Colville, everyone, the hardest working lazy gm ever, haha.
Or I suppose we could get a little cringy and say that the players were keeping Matt on a tight Chain?
I love these.
His voice, cadence, and style has such a surreal bardic storyteller vibe to it.
COLVILLE!!!!!!! I enjoy your product greatly. I can say honestly - despite being a dungeon master for nearly 20 years, nothing has improved my DND game more than your videos and steam from the last couple years. Cheers to you.
I prefer watching D&D to network television at this point. The unpredictability is great, keep up the good work Matt. I plan on stealing some of your ideas to use in the near future for my group. ^_^
I hope people coming into GMing appreciate what you and Dael and other folks talking openly and honestly about our hobby!! When I started, the Internet barely existed and improvement was slow and frustrating. Now I can just steal tools, techniques, and insights from games I take no part in!
My improvement has gone from slow and irregular to fast and steady. It's so great.
I remember something saying recently “When in doubt: Orcs Attack!” ;) :P
This might sound stupid, but anyway. Please, don't stop doing what you're doing! The last five sessions have been ever more engaging, and in general the game of yours is what dragged me into this exciting unfamiliar hobby. Aside from a few memes that seeped through to people outside of the d&d community and some general role playing concepts I never had any idea it could be so fun. Now, I'm taking a small part in a game my friend is running as co-contributor to his notes and I will maybe join his game as a player bit later. Never having had a hobby that wasn't just me tinkering with and creating some things for my own indulgence, but also something to share among friends as a lasting experience - this really means something. To you (all of you, guys) staying an inspiration!
The sun elf reminded me how the coolness of the star elf in Thief blew my mind... good stuff!
I love the campaign diaries mostly because of the plot summery as opposed to the behind the scenes. I don't have time for a 3 hour stream every week and your synopsis means I can experience your game in some way. If you ever run a campaign without the BTS please have some form of summery available.
The Fulcrum with the spy glasses reminded me of the China traders of Hong Kong in the novel Tai-pan watching for the tea clippers inbound from England.
The more of these videos I watch, the more I hear Matt say "I didnt even know what (insert NPC) would do" and also things like "that wasn't me doing this to the players, that was (insert NPC) doing it" - the more I feel as Matt has players in this game not at the table.
Last episode was quite enjoyable. Interesting NPCs and cool monsters. The russet mold was a nice choice.
The players are not any more awkward than normal, I do not think. My Wed knight crew has... gosh maybe over 200 combined years of D&D experience lol Most of us have written content and we still ponder over whether Chromatic Orb or Minute Meteors is the best spell to cast. And we do not have to worry about what thousands of Twitch followers will say if we get it wrong. I think the cast is great and does a great job.
The Chain is about playing D&D, at least from an outsider's POV. Sometimes that means no combat and sometimes it is all combat, because that is D&D. What makes it watchable, speaking for myself, is that there is the right amount of nonsense and banter. The stream is not about the personalities involved, even you the DM. It is about the game. Other perfectly fine streams or podcasts are very much personality driven, which is great. But I don't have the patience for 30 minutes of what the personalities are doing this week or 20 minutes of character introductions. Those productions are not for me or my taste. So when you say mega-dungeon, I am all in. Sounds like a great idea. I am going to show up and watch what these players do in a mega-dungeon. They may hate it lol, but that happens too.
Great video.
Hi Matt. The tiles are from Cadwallan RPG, which you are correct was originally French before it was translated. Cadwallen was the RPG for the Confrontation miniature tabletop game. Awesome miniatures. Cadwallen tended to be run as a complex city campaign which I loved playing and running. Really loving your Capital campaign.
Love hearing about the doubts you have on the game. It's something I think every good DM goes through. The background thoughts you provide are a great insight and help me in my own games. Keep up the Great work!
Your campaign diaries are at this point supremely useful in helping me grow as a GM. The why to your decisions and how you see things going creates a lot of opportunity for either "I have X problem, lets steal from Matt" and "Matt has X problem, wait I think I have a good solution to use". I'm setting up for a campaign right now and your development and characterization of capital and its politics is very helpful.
Dang, man, why is it that your lore is so comfy? I've always run celestials as true elves too, it just seems to make sense in a setting where both exist.
At first, I thought I would maybe stop watching or only watch the campaign diaries, but now, I have gone back and watched every minute and love what I am getting out of both put together. Thank you so much for doing both.
I see that Back to the Future reference! You can not sneak a Back to the Future reference past me Matt Colville!
I hope he has a Lone Pine Mall shirt.
" We learn the rules in a safe environment so that when you leave here you know how to break the rules in a safe way" - Random quote I read online from a teacher a while back.
Your reason to change the evening based on the issues you were facing reminded me of this quote Other than the lack of preperation (life happens, you adapted) your session and refocus was impeccably thought out I felt you handled it admirably. "Side quests" need to be handled with care, especially involving character and players desire/backstory. Keep up the good work!
One of my favourite campaign diaries so far. So many nuggets of useful DMing info. Keep it up Matt!
Several times in videos you mention the players having a different impression of an NPC than you're portraying. It seems good in some sense to have different interpretations, but what would be the downside of just telling the players "Hey, this NPC isn't just making a power play right now, this is them having a moment of humanity." A lot of that stuff--just explicitly explaining why an NPC is doing something in a situation where the PCs would know that--could be helpful not just for the players, but for the audience as well.
Regarding that conversation between Shirome and her Knight, i thought they were having a conversation about King (like, letting him know they were talking about him as he entered).
They’re gonna fight ‘em off.
A seven nation army won’t hold the Chain back.
but could it hold Ajax back?
I love to watch these as I run a complex campaign and I enjoy understanding someones thought process. It's a nice validation to see many of the struggles I have, also expressed by Matt. And, at times he has a different perspective than I do, and thats also great to explore.
Matt, I continue to love watching you guys play! Please keep it up!!!
"Yeah, I'm Copper, I'm best ranger"
Edit: I'd also love to see your actual prep process Matt. I know it's not very likely, but it would be amazing to just see your raw unfiltered process.
lon0011 he did something like this recently, I think? Like an arcs creating session or something? It’s an entire stream uploaded to UA-cam.
@@denolaj Yeah, but that's his general worldbuilding stuff. I would love to see his actual process - like what he does when he sits down at 3pm to prep
Yes!
There's nobody at your table that I don't enjoy watching :)
I had to duck out mid session so extra thankful for this campaign diary since E3 has taken up most of the time I would have had to rewatch the VOD. thanks Matt!
Love these diaries because we get to hear all the detail that didn’t come out during the game.
Matt, you gave me the confidence and inspiration I needed to be a DM. Thank you. Now I've run for several groups and loved every moment. I even used your Delian Tomb (with some tweaks) as the first dungeon of a campaign I'm running for my girlfriend's family. I also got one of my players to watch your videos and they got inspired to DM for some of their friends. So thank you.
Love the campaign diaries. I think they work well and really resonate with what you do with this channel. Seeing you critique yourself helps me critique myself when I DM.
I love me some campaign diaries, since before the stream. Now that the stream has started, the campaign diaries have become my favorite part of Wednesdays (closely followed by the actual stream.)
This is my third time going through the campaign diaries, and each time I find a new nugget of wisdom to borrow.
As you said Mat, the advice is ever green.
Back for round four.
As a relatively new DM, (learned how to run from your video series when it started), these campaign diaries are invaluable! Thanks for bringing them back. I am always inspired by watching them and stealing things for my own campaign. Looking forward to tonight's episode!
I'm sure I've commented about this on another video, but I love the self-critical nature of the Campaign Diaries because it taught me to be self critical about my own sessions in a positive way. If something dragged in one of my games or a combat didn't go well instead of ignoring it, or putting myself down, I think to myself: How can I make the next sessions better, how could I avoid this situation in the future?
I've grown so much as a DM since taking this approach. Thank you.
I love these videos. Keep going strong Mr. Colville. These videos along with the live stream are an aide I have used repeatedly to grow as a DM, and from which i have stolen ideas for my own games. The concept of a learning curve approaching infinity is fantastic, you can always grow... what a great hobby we have.
Expectations: This campaign is about a mercenary company amassing an army and leading it into epic battle.
Reality: Let's do a big dungeon crawl!
I'm loving this campaign though. Please keep up the campaign diaries!
Fascinating. I did not know that about spy-glasses.
I dislike the Jump spell in 5e. I always thought that it should make you jump like a Jedi, but it doesn't seem to do that.
I love that lore about elves.
Is there somewhere where I can watch Matt talk about or read up about Ringwell? It's new to me, I'm fairly new to the community, but definitely interested.
As always, excited for tonight. See you then!
Your discussion of your practice, as well as the critical analysis of your creative effort, is hugely important. Yes, I’m obsessed with D&D and so am an easy-touch, but D&D is in some way immaterial. It’s remarkable that you and your fans created a business around workshopping a hobby (and despite our passions, what is creative writing, painting, acting, etc. for most of us?).
More importantly, perhaps, it helps many of us legitimize our creative (if not professional) interests. If one cares about what one creates, why not interrogate it and foster its growth? To figure out the problems and work to resolve them? Few phenomena in life are as fulfilling.
Matt, thanks so much for these campaign diaries; it’s so illuminating to see what was planned and what wasn’t, as well as your thought process. What you said about having to throw out your ideas of what you “should” do or what would be ideal and just roll with something else reminded me of experiences I’ve had teaching, so that was cool to hear about.
One last piece of anecdata: I LOVE watching all the role-playing, in part because I often feel like I struggle with that as a player.
I love the campaign diaries! Thanks for putting in so much time and effort for them!
Matt I really, really love these campaign diaries. I have ADHD so not being able to sit for the stream has been killing me but I love the diaries, they give me ideas and inspiration, as well as satisfaction. It's a feeling that is different from any and makes me so happy thank you for your contributions.
I'm so glad you were able to push past the initial roadblock of your expectation for the game and change direction in time to still play. You apologized during the game, but I thought it was very interesting, and wouldn't have known it wasn't planned all along. That red fungus carpet was GROSS in the best way. You described it and I said out loud "What in the unholy deep abyss is this now?!?"
As you learn, it has this wonderful side effect of us learning with you. Seeing you "fail" gives identifiers for those of us who have a lot less experience. Thank you wholeheartedly for the content and learning opportunities!
never heard of Twin Pines Mall. Lone Pine Mall, sure
Back to the Future
@@catpeterson4922 that's the joke
Matt, these campaign diaries are weekly affirmations of things I never realized or knew I needed to hear.
Whenever I feel pressured and like I have nothing prepared, it is either one of my absolute best or worst nights at the table. Recognizing and getting over that slump and shifting my focus to just... running the sandbox I've made for the players who have fallen in love with it is important.
Take whatever isn't ready, they're missing out on, fold it into a future session. Have another plot or scenario find its way to the players. I just had one of these sessions where I introduced the finale of my campaign maybe a month or two early: I just had to justify repositioning an NPC that knew the right info into their path, cornered by a henchman of the big bad. 2 fights later, all to save said NPC just... spilling the beans in a fatalistic panic.
And the players ate it up.
It occured to me that all he had to do was paint the prior adventure the players took part in a different light. Give the players enough info for it all to click. Maybe a little more hand holdy than I originally intended, but the deliverer of said info was on death's doorstep when they arrived.
There was an entire 'dungeon' where they could have learned this stuff that I was shepherding them to, but it just wasn't ready.
But the finale encounters WERE ready. And they were occuring close enough that they could fight something hard, a level early, and they already feel like they earned the pre-finale revelations.
I like to keep commenting on these older videos and still talking about how it feels to watch them for the 1st time not knowing what comes in the future.
I want to say when you started talking about what the audience gets out of the sessions and feeling like your understanding the characters made me relise I have to take back some of the things I had written in a comment on a video about Phil being one of your favourite character/players when I couldn't see it at all. I totally didn't understand because I was watching things that you were saying after years Of content being produced when i a watching him try to get the swing of things with the cameras on, you know he doesn't want to waste peoples time he thinks about what he is doing the the time he is using so carefully and I am very glad he is the insanely strong battlemaster.
As I watch the older stuff and come to understand how much fun and how cool the people who are around you are actually. It's like I can watch them grow over time and come to see them like you do. The 1st time I Saw Matt O'Driscoll I was very confused at what kind of person he was and now that hes been on the show he has easily become one of my favourites because I like the ideas he comes up with, he is brilliant, I had to go back and start from the beginning to see things like that!
I'm with Phil on Jump, by the way. I think jumping (in general) is one of the most poorly implemented mechanics in 5e.
It's a spell that invites creativity, but is worded to be almost useless. Especially when outright flight comes into play.
And grappling.
About about your closing statement. For me personalny it is very calming and refreshing to see a different dm, whoom i respect, openly question his choices/actions/methods etc.
I think of myself as pretty decent, but I frequently question myself. And seeing all the other "flawless" dm's who seemingly always know what to do or have IT all figured can make it feel as if I'm making my players a disservice by not being "as good"
Matt! I love your campaign diaries! As a DM who's short on time, I can't tell you how much I really appreciate them. I'll be graduating soon, and I hope I'll have time to watch your campaign streams. Please don't ever stop doing your campaign diaries! :D
I agree with you on Jump by the way. Jump speeds are already such a weird mechanic on their own. Plus they're usually only around 15 feet of movement on their own anyway. Even without the Jump spell, even trying to accurately work out how the doubled jump distance on step of the wind works can be a bit confusing. I think if someone spends their turn cast Jump on someone, the bonus movement is a fair thing to add.
Matt you are quite possibly my favorite person to ever exist. Thank you for all your great content and advice, you make D&D better with every video
I don't actually watch the campaign, just the diaries - so I find this extremely interesting. As always, great content sir, thank you Matt. You help to elevate my game week to week. Rock on!
Such a fun session! Loved the madness of that final chase
Matt!
There has been very little coverage of 'Heroes of Bladurs Gate'.
It was created by the guys who made the original baldur's gate series, and given Baldurs gate3 is now being made, perhaps this source book is worth a look?
it would be interesting to get your view!
best
O
Just my 2 cents, but re: a dungeon crawl being boring combat grind, I think that a real room-to-room dungeon crawl has the potential to be a lot more interesting than a big single battle, because of the variety of different smaller encounters, plus the anxiety being external to combat, trying to manage resources to get through 5 encounters, rather than just rolling dice and going nova.
Or it could suck
Thank you for sharing this with us. Letting us see behind the screen so that we can be better GMs is why I am here.
People who watch D&D streams tend to enjoy a mix of roleplaying and combat, so I hope y'all don't worry too much about that part. I also didn't really care for the first few episodes of the Chain due to the players' inexperience and so on, but now I feel like they are really in the swing, and I'm more on board with what the whole campaign is about, and I find it very entertaining and interesting and I look forward to the episode each week. Thanks Matt & all!
Another awesome campaign diary! The way Haste works is that it doubles your speed and also allows you to then dash as an additional action on your turn so Slim should have been able to easily clear the mold without changing the Jump spell. Just because the Lord of Capital is opposed to Ajax doesn't mean he or she has to be unambiguously good. Looks to be a fantastic story regardless.
The new patron idea reminds me of something from the RP Night's Black Agents (superspies taking on vampire conspiracy). Yes have a heroic mentor figure for the players to trust, who can give them direction. And then take it away(probably by killing them!) to herald in act two.
A tile similar to the ones you used may be a great product for MCDM to produce. I’d buy some.
Not directly relevant to this video but just wanted to say today I finished reading the black company. I needed something to fill the void between streams and that book was perfect. Thanks for the recommendation Matt.
Do you think there will be more chances to take a poll from the chat to decide what a group of people do or something to that effect? Or was that just a "hey let me try this." "Ok that didn't work."
Yeah, I have to admit, I "fast forward" through the combat, but I'm enraptured by the roleplay.
I’m glad I now understand all the Sun Elf fanart I saw on your discord server.
I like the idea that the people in chat are surrogate players. I don't have 3 hours to sit and watch D&D (and yes watching combat is really tedious) so these campaign diaries are really helpful and fun to watch, think about and engage with. Looking forward to running my fist campaign soon
There is always something to learn from Matt and his crew, even if it's what not to do. I love you guys!
I really enjoy the recaps. I can't bring my self to stay for a hole game run. But these I get to know what's going on and learn more things. Getting tool box ready for the next game I run. So ty again and please keep going
I haven't been able to watch live in a few months, but listening while driving for work is riveting and I hope you publish the super dungeon because it sounds amazing!
Yeeeeeessss
More Colville!
I really enjoy these videos.
Thank you,
I think the neatest solution to the jump problem is that the Jump spell will allow you to jump further than your speed, but you might end your turn in mid-air and then your next turn begins with you using some of your movement to finish that jump.
I don't watch the stream, but I followed almost all campaign diaries. I can say I fell really invested nonetheless. The work you do Matt is amazing, and I can only dream of doing something similar one day!
I am very excited for Ringwell. It sounds awesome!
I would say, dont worry so much about the game being watchable. I heard Matt Mercer talk once about all the things geek and sundry wanted to change about critical role, but he held his position that crit role is just their home game. The viewers are just allowed to watch. Thats what we wanna see, we want to live vicariously through you guys when we dont get to play ourselves. As an example, Relics and Rarities is way too watered down. Its edited to hell and split into hour long episodes, to make it "watchable". I didnt watch past the third episode, but Ive watched or at least listened to every single hour of critical role to date. Thats because it feels like real DnD. It FEELS like when Im sitting at the table with my friends, and thats what i love about it.
I'm definitaly like that. I've run many a session where I see my prep, realize how many things I accidentally left out, or messed up, or just felt flat to me, but at the end of the session my players say "Wow that was great!"
Honestly I dont watch the campaign but I love these recaps. Look forwards to them every week. Thanks for making them Matt!
I love these vids. You help me start DMing. The Delean Tomb I ran it. These diaries are a great way to listen to your story and peek into your vast DM brain. Thank you
Matt, this is fantastic stuff. The campaign is amazing. The setting is amazing as well. Love it!
I have so much fun watching this game. And those times that the players get into their characters are my favorites :)
The coolest thing, @MatthewColeville, is that we're learning and growing along with you!
Hey Matt, loving the world of Capitol! I know you want some time off/getting out from behind the dm screen. I thought it would be cool to see more of capitol with a one shot of the junior officers doing like side quests or minor contracts, getting to know the stays and like little lore drops and world building.........which sounds like your work now that I type that....Maybe you play a junior officer?!
I have been enjoying both the campaign and the diaries. Keep up the great work.
@26:13
"Is this the work of an enemy Stand?!"
I was waiting for this video. Quit watching the actual episode to watch this.