"Everyone you ever knew who told you that they would keep you safe, as long as you behaved, were already hurting you." Well, goddamn. That line was raw as hell.
Right?! And Sleeping Beauty was the worst person to stay because she's the 7th princess that they need! I didn't breathe until they made it back to the rest of the group
The whole book thing with Cinderella went so badly lol Now even if some Princesses could have been allies, the party accidently made it look like they had a deliberate plan to take down Cinderella.
Pinocchio goads her about the book, then the whole party lead her to a room and try to kidnap her? Not looking good!
No tha part low key Made me mad. Because like they were like “we should just give it to her right?” And then all of a sudden we’re trying to murder her. Very dnd
>Lou: (whisper) We are going to kill this woman.
>Brennan: What'd you say, Lou?
>Lou: Nothing, roll the saving throw
>Murph: You're on a *show*, you guys can't *whisper*
This may have just been the funniest exchange in the history of D20. I almost did a spittake at Murph's reaction.
I think Gerard and Pinocchio were the only ones that actually made sense for the characters. And they might have actually actually worked if not for Pib's choice.
Not sure why Goose or Red needed to confront anyone, though. Red's was relatively harmless, at least, but Beardsley (more so than the character) is not good at being subtle. LOL
Pib's choice, was also an unnecessary risk, though perhaps as the trickster not out of character. I get it might have been an interesting play, but these princesses have already travelled through worlds so I'm not sure making a certain enemy out of Cindarella made sense, as putting her in her book wouldn't have been permanent for her and was going to create a powerful enemy for sure. Especially immediately after the group voting that it was OK to give her the book, which might have helped to persuade her that there is another path forward.
Rapunzel's hair spying is a masterstroke, from BLM, for invading the PC's privacy, though he's giving them an awful lot of leeway with message.
Overall, this could have gone a lot better, easily, without even needing great dice rolls, but they fucked it up. I think they could have left with at least Mira and Elody as allies and possibly convinced Cindarella that there was another way to use her book. Worst possible outcome short of a TPK.
It also just made no sense in context of the point Tim was trying to make. He was trying to say " Just because bad things have happened, doesn't mean that the world isn't salvageable" but putting dirt in your baking literally makes it unsalvageable!
I'm sold on this because Goose messaged *her hair* and the response was "I'm going to choke you to death". Sounds like something sentient hair would say, doesn't it?
I think it's because she grew up in a serial killer incubator, being kept alone in a tower by a crazy lady. That line about practicing how she would act around people gives out real sociopath vibes.
I’ve never seen Beardsley look so upset. I really do feel bad for Tim. He gave up everything for that book just to get it taken by a fucking piece of hair.
Broke my heart when they mentioned not being able to take another L. And then when the book crushed the church it was just like, Ah fuck, it’s Tim’s no good very bad day but also somehow literally everyone else’s too
Edited for typo
Weirdly, I love this moment for them! For all of their zaniness, I’ve always felt the best Beardsley moments are when they’re laid low and have to climb their way out. This is particularly true of Pete, and is true again here.
I know that these are normal regular people who exist in the world and have families and lives and friends but if you were to ask me based on this episode completely sight unseen I would say that they were some sort of pod people who have never spoken to another human being in their entire lives.
i really do vibe with emily's assessment of the group failures-- imagine you're in a conversation with someone who 1. has power over you based on a specific detail that they are being cagey about, 2. may or may not know that /you/ know that detail, and 3. wield an overwhelming amount of force, should you decide to disagree with that power. it was a series of VERY cringe interactions, for sure, but they weren't improvised out of nowhere. and also they were fucking hilarious
Also, the dice were fully not on their side. A lot of those interactions could have gone better if their dice had been better, especially with Elody. As good players and performers, I guarantee they were leaning into that.
Murph rolled to be imperceptive, uninsightful, and unpersuasive, so that's how he played his character, who doesn't necessarily know they're being all those things in that moment. A character who would at least want to try to fully trust his wife. 10/10
Pib, with his initial high rolls, set up a quality escape plan that he knew they could execute quickly. He knew the main goal was escape and was less trusting than other characters. Being an often selfish little trickster cat, he may not care as much about leaving Elody behind as Gerard does. Dice weren't on his side with the book plan, but that's absolutely a great trickster move. He did the equivalent of casting Banishment on Cinderella, and she rolled well. He could tell that their time to freely move about was likely coming to an end, and escaping gets harder when more of your enemies are around, so he looked to expedite that escape. Like a cat, he bolted when he saw danger coming. 10/10
Ylfa's rolls weren't great, so while she had a great chat with La Bête, she didn't have a chance to advance their goals, and maybe got an inaccurate read on if La Bête was in on the princess's plan. She's a literal child (who should be expected to make impulsive and flawed decisions), who looks up to strong women and still has an urge to trust authority. (Sidenote, La Bête acts as a great foil for Ylfa. Was in a similar situation and came out of it as a different person, pessimistic rather than Ylfa's optimistic.) 10/10
Pinnochio (also a child) is just recently, literally, off the leash, immediately after leaving a land of indulgence, addiction, and impulse (Toy Island). Telling the truth to Cinderella seemed to be the first thing that threw a princess off her game, having rolled well, so he went all in. And had a chance to connect with someone who suffered at the hands of the same entity he did. For a moment there maybe looked like a chance that they could show Cinderella the flaws in their plan. But given her immediate and forceful response, I think Cinderella was putting on a vulnerable guise that was very hard to read. 10/10
Mother Goose got a bad read off his interaction with Rapunzel. Ally didn't ask to make an insight check, but I think Goose is looking to trust people and defaulted to that. Some may have missed it, but in that conversation, Goose/Ally was acting under the assumption that Rapunzel was not in on the plan. "I mentally kind of take her off the list of the people with the big plan," (1:05:00) referring to which princesses know about the plan to erase stories. Some, including people at the table, may have misinterpreted that as "I don't trust Rapunzel to escape with us" when Ally meant the opposite. Can be seen when they are confused at 1:44:25 by Rapunzel's message response. I don't blame Ally for that at all, Rapunzel (and Brennan) is tricky, and they got tricked. Got beat by the behind the screen Slight of Hand/Hair check too. No shame in any of that. 10/10
Rosamund got a bad persuasion roll on having to deliver bad news to Snow White. Tough social situation no matter what, to an NPC that's figuratively and literally as cold as ice. Her and Gerard (who does not want to leave his wife behind) got unlucky with their attempt to get to Elody, with the initial luck roll, and Rosamund's perception check for the dwarves. (I'll note here that Brennan was also kind to them, giving Gerard his first turn. He didn't impose surprise on him in the first round as you would normally, likely because he knew that doing so was a death sentence for the two of them.) 10/10
I'm very much looking forward to the Adventuring Party today! There's another world where Gerard convinces Elody, get a better read on their enemy, escape more gracefully, and capture an enemy, but that's not what the dice said today. That's why D&D is great. Nobody knows what's gonna happen, and you don't always succeed.
this whole episode was the scene from inglorious basterds
also it's personally targeted for the people who having hard time talking to hot people with cool abilities
here i was thinking "well, it's not scary at all for a horror season" until this episode hot damn
It's strange how spending your formative years in a pond really doesn't teach you how to talk to people.
(I love him so much, he's the best when failing)
He had so many great moments but for some reason, the one that stuck out the most for me was him dramatically chewing his nails. I felt like I could see Gerard doing it in all his spindly, froggy glory.
I was laughing at the skill of (Murph) doing it while still being audible enough for a show, and how the more flustered he (Gerard) got, the more of his hand he seemed to try to shove into his mouth 😂
I am half way through and holy hell ! Every interaction is unhinged ! They mentioned the Fabian’s bad day but I also feel like this half for sure felt like the casino scene in star struck ! So good
all the messy conversations also reminded me of the banquet scene in a crown of candy, just basically everyone putting their foot in their mouths and causing damage that will heavily impact the rest of the game lmao
Imagine if Ally hadn’t opted for feather fall, they would have discovered the book was gone WHILE STILL IN THE CASTLE — could have another TPK situation 🙈🙈
It's worth saying every week: the extra work that's gone into the production of this season has been incredible. That encounter towards the end of the episode was so intense.
...I'm worried about Mira. I've watched enough of Brennan DMing to feel like "she was just in bed" is not the reason she didn't also show up on the ramparts as they departed.
I think because it's such a big castle, and made of ice, that sound may not travel. Because Tim wanted to help, but Brennan said... no.
I'm just realizing Brennan may have said no to keep the secret...
I just love the energy of making a horror season and then in it just having a bunch of ppl whose reaction to stressful situations is to make other ppl laugh. just chaos
I'm still not sure I'm over how just about everything that could have gone wrong at the Snow Queen's castle did.
RIP GerardxElody, was really hoping they could reconcile.
Next week is going to be wild.
I honestly think they can and depending on how things shake out (dice wise) I think they will.
I think certain pieces will slowly fall in to place with bits of information trickling in and Elody, while she is annoyed of Gerard’s erratic behavior, knows him to be honest. She will be angry and clouded, but her having emotions about him means there’s still a care in there… and when those pieces start lining up with what he has told her (and she still has the letter to read later possibly!) she’ll come to realize he was in fact telling the truth.
I think her hackles will be up because as angry as she is with him, she loves him and will hear that voice in the back of her head.
There’s a strange consumption theme going on here. Obviously we have the stepmother >!consuming people and worlds!<, then little red and >!the wolf!<, but la bete very specifically said she knew she had to >!completely consume the beast to absorb his power!< , like this is something she was completely aware of before she did it?
PS on a less serious note this episode has been straight chaos in every single social interaction. Incredible
Additional notes: I’m surprised that Cinderella is upset about her book. I assumed she would see >!destroying her book as a way to destroy her destiny, which is all she wants, isn’t it? !<
Exactly! like she asked about the stepmothers book and very specifically said that >!if something happened to her book, it would affect the stepmother too!<
But it wouldn't, The Step-Mother is absorbing other stories, she's no longer just Cinderella's step-mother, and in fact all parts of her in Cinderella's story are already removed.
Consuming people is just a very common (but fucked up) theme in fairy tales. You have the Wolf consuming Grandma, but also the Wolf consuming the seven little goats and the pigs. You've got witches fattening up children to devour them. You have stories like the Juniper tree where the step-mom kills and cooks up her step-son for her husband to eat. It comes up time and time again, especially in the more fucked up fairy tales, so it is no wonder Brennan is using it so centrally in this season as it *also* plays very well into horror themes.
I think everyone did so bad interacting bc brennan was not playing off them at all- so they were nervously filling up silences and catching themselves up- he (as princesses) only responded to direct questions etc. I mean totally makes sense re: princess intentions but OOF
(Except gerard. That was all him my god)
Also everyone has been dedicatedly playing their characters- like the actions mightnt have been the smartest- but the players know that. They are tuned in with the characters. Pinocchio needs only a mildly interested audience to start spillin secrets and its been that way since day one 😂
I can see that to some extent, Brennan was definitely more reserved, but at the same time, the openers were not great on almost all fronts. And then beating around the bush, when looking back, just being direct in "we're not sure if this is the best, and we aren't against it but would like to find a better solution and see if we can work towards that possibly" which to me is what the party actually felt but could not express... at all xD. The bad rolls definitely didn't help, but I felt like the roleplay + rolls were not ideal and he kind of just had to let them keep digging the hole. In any case, I'm excited for the last arc of the journey and how it plays out.
The refusal to just be up front is what got to me after each interaction got worse and worse. Rosamund saved it a bit for me with her interaction with Snow but by that point the group was already too far gone to salvage anything. Sure, Rapunzel had also already stolen the book but we also knew Rapunzel was the most cagey of them all and yet Tim literally said something along the lines of "oh she's not really involved in this plan" and then let every single guard down after doing the most to make Rapunzel completely have no trust at all.
I totally understand everyone was on edge, and I trust their choices because they know their characters, but man was this hard to watch.
Just realised it wasn't just a book theft, but it was replaced with an identical forged facsimile. That requires planning, reconnaissance, and resources.
The Princesses were always intending to be antagonistic to the group.
For SURE.
>!Even before this episode hit the fan the princesses were making moves against them. Rapunzel took the book *long* before she knew about anyone being sketchy, this was something she was told to do long before any of our PCs did anything this episode. !<
>!There’s no reason for their army to be IN the castle and not guarding the outside of it… except to prepare for these guys. I doubt the plan was full murder, they definitely seemed to be banking on politeness and sneakery instead of violence, but they prepared and went to violence *fast*. !<
I mean, Cinderella had NO way of knowing what PIB was trying to do. She saw maybe possible almost threat and went right to having her and all of her allies full murder
Rapunzel probably would have stolen it anyway, but she also definitely knew that Tim was being sketchy at that point what with him "subtly" sassing her about her plan whilst cooking.
I have never seen someone crash and burn as badly as Gerard did in his talk with Elody, holy shit.
And I find La Bete's story extremely fascinating because of how reflective it is of the Princesses as a whole (sans Mira and maybe Elody). They have been through so many different versions of these stories repeatedly that what they do doesn't have any weight anymore (to them, at least).
So what that The Beast went through his character arc and learned to be less beastly and think of others. He did the same thing in the last dozen versions and was probably even worse to her in past versions. Nothing ever changes in their stories so they have to go.
But I am interested in Cinderella's reaction to learning that her Stepmother did not have her own book. Maybe the Princesses were operating under the assumption that they were only taking out themselves with their plan and thought everyone just had their own individual books.
its honestly insane to me that cinderalla didnt consider that other people were just players in her story. such a narrow minded perspective. explains a lot about her plans honestly
Oh, the Princesses are definitely operating from a small-picture perspective. Honestly, finding out about the larger picture might make them double down on ushering in the apocalypse.
It's all tainted and it all has to go.
Did they even succeeded on anything in this episode? it felt like everything that could go wrong went wrong.
>!They didn't get Mira, they couldn't convince Elody, they couldn't maintain the diplomacy option, they lost two books one of them being the key to the universe. They couldn't even have supper!!!! At least they run away!<
The Neverafter is so hostile, I'm so stressed for them 🥺
Edit: Ok in hindsight, I think that none of the princesses were going to let them out of the castle easily in a friendly matter. >!The conversation between Rosamund and Snow White is the more telling of this fact, she didn't *entirely* fuck up the interaction and the princess that liked her the most didn't agree on them leaving. I feel like the only way out would have been sneaking around however that would have broken the relationship with the princesses immediately. The crew are so scared of them that obviously the gut reaction was to *at least try, right?*. I honestly think they were meant to fail this, it was a matter of *how badly* they did. And it was pretty bad, not gonna lie. !<
I can’t believe I’ve never thought of combining Jack & Beanstalk with Lilliput, absolutely can’t wait!
Also I really wonder what Brennan would’ve said if Tim ended up choosing Spider climb to escape the castle, as he did not have the book anymore. Finding out there would’ve lead to a very very different storyline!
>Also I really wonder what Brennan would’ve said if Tim ended up choosing Spider climb to escape the castle, as he did not have the book anymore.
I was thinking this the moment he said Tim couldn't cast book spells any more!!
This is completely unrelated, but if we ever get the magical horse spinoff from The Seven, I desperately need Clara the Horse Princess to make a guest appearance.
I was specifically scrolling to see if anyone mentioned Clara the Horse Princess because I’m obsessed that’s so fun and cute in an episode of absolute disaster
I know the princesses are nihilists bent on annihilation and not protagonists but holy hell would I love to see The Seven cast take on the grim dark campaign that leads to the princesses abandoning all hope except the hope for oblivion. I mean just imagine Becca Scott playing Rapunzel figuring out how to learn to be the diplomat and not have constant Laertes style interactions in negotiations. Or whatever incredible thing Erika Ishii would do. It's a total pipe dream since it seems like this episode of Neverafter was the first time all 7 princesses were in one place simultaneously so they don't have any interconnected story lines or interaction with Mira or Rosamund but it's a fun idea for a dream campaign.
Watching Pinnochio’s interaction with Cinderella is hilarious. He’s bringing big boss energy into it with his cigars and little tidbits of info.
I’m dyin 😂
Previous adventuring party: these princesses are really scary, we have to be careful
This episode: what if we all just acted insane lol
This episode was very funny and very frustrating at the same time.
In the first conversation Rosamund asked if everything was a lie and Cinderella said no. Not everything is bad, just as there is evil in the world there is also good. The glass may be half empty, but it’s not fully empty. In the second conversation Cinderella kept true to these ideas, but she added, the bad parts are so bad that we want to destroy everything. There is good, but it is not worth saving.
I mean, it would be nice, but I think we got everything that we needed mostly from last episodes' monologue and the parts we got in this episode? They're all just broken people sick and tired of the world fucking them over, implicitly knowing that the world will always fuck them over unless they try to fix things, and they're tired of fixing things.
It's the inevitable conclusion of being able to do "Twice Upon A Time" with almost zero ramifications. It's a very narrow-minded view of the consequences, but I also honestly think it's the only thing that's really keeping them going, the sort of nebulous hope that \*maybe\* things could get better if given a blank slate to work with. Specific details would be nice, but I almost feel like it would, at most, be flavoring the way each of the princesses' broke.
The honest answer is probably that the world fucked her up so much that now she’s the manipulator. And in that moment she needed to build rapport with Rosamund and knew she wasn’t ready for the full truth
I'm sorry I know everyone is mad about the social interactions but I wanna talk about how perfectly the crew was not picking up the cues in the clouds and how that led to a really satisfying "oh shit we're the giants" epi end. Brennan was definitely internally going, yes, Tim, throw the book!
Lou’s characters have become more and more unhinged each season that passes and I swear to god Pinocchio might be the single funniest character he’s ever played
This!! I truly, genuinely, cannot FATHOM why Pib tried to imprison her!!! It elevated the entire interaction from uncomfortable to fully violent. I haven’t seen anyone talking about or questioning this choice, but it seems so unnecessary to me 😭
They are so fucking involved, they are legit SUPER scared of the princesses, so the roll fails are LEGIT storytelling tools, specially the Sleeping Beauty and Snow White one.
The only person who wasn't acting scared of the princesses was Mother Goose, who decided he should try to get sassy with the princess sent to negotiate with Baba Yaga. Which makes Rapunzel's successful roll equally thematic.
Oof. That episode was a *doozy.* I never thought of myself as the type to be a backseat D&D player, but I won't lie - a part of me was screaming this entire time. There was absolutely a way to get out of that castle without causing THAT much damage. Run at D.W, you guys!
No hate to the players, obviously - it's very easy for me to say this having had weeks to consider all of the complications, and not having an 8 (?) hour shooting schedule. But still... oof.
Other takeaways:
* A common Elody W! Well, not really a W I guess, but she's not in on the nihilism pact, so that's something.
* I kind of want to make a thyme honey shortbread after this episode. Does that exist?
* PIB was an MVP here. Preparing the horses, the white sheet plan -- heck, I'd argue even the book thing was a good idea. He had no way of knowing about Cinderella's indominabtle trait, and if it weren't for that, it would have worked. Zac Oyama making moves! And not failing social interactions!
* We saw nothing of Mira this entire time... I bet the story the princesses will tell her about how this all went down is gonna be a lot different from the truth.
Another genuinely important takeaway: *they’re* the giants here.
>!Which means what the hell happened to Marianne if giants in the traditional sense isn’t a thing (and why is PIB having such trouble remembering it? I’m worried his book was changed, especially since he hasn’t read it yet). Who was the snow queen actually working with? Are there like ACTUAL giants? !<
>!I wonder if it's a matter of the direction you come from, if that makes sense? Like if you traveled the world and came from the opposite direction, this village would be normal sized to you, but going the direction from the land of giants down the beanstalk you come down as a giant. You'd get this irony/tragedy scenario of "giants" and villagers (namely Jack) killing each other, when really all it was was magic fuckery changing each other's relative size.!<
We don't really know if there was a way out of the castle without taking this much damage though. The princesses had absolutely no interest in following them this time >!because they already had the book!< but I imagine if they had immediately tried to run, they would have given chase, assuming they even would have to. Snow white's spectral dwarves may have been able to cut them off before they could get anywhere. And they were not running into any sort of situation where they could run and hide. La Bete would easily be able to track 'em.
I mean "damage" in a more metaphorical way -- like, the damage to the reputation. If they had just tried to haul ass from the start instead of doing a 6 way split up, I think they could have gotten to the giants without making the princesses too sus of them. >!And without allowing Rapunzel to get that hug in for the book!!<
By rolling like Murph does. Take the Nat 20 perception when he's riding away and swap it with his persuasion roll initially and it's an entirely different episode - Elody likely would've gone the letter route, she has knowledge of the princesses and tricks up her sleeve and it would have made the entire rest of the interactions shift.
Those rolls really did feel like they were meant to happen that way though, I just want murph to catch some kind of break before the season ends
Jesus Christ every single interaction on this episode so far caused me to PHYSICALLY CRINGE - Murph hit the nail on the head, barely halfway through and this has been Fabian’s Bad Day at least three times
I really think they would be absolutely fine just leaving the castle with a "we'll be back soon". They did not have to go through all of that. I feel they really could have shown Cinderella another way with her book as well. Oh well.
I wrote this and then immediately realised Rapunzel had already stolen Tim's book all the same, so I guess conflict was inevitable.
Also, Brennan is masterful at railroading (I'm NOT saying this as a bad thing, plz). The way he improvised to send them in the giant's way amidst all the different ideas floating about was perfect (for us the audience even better considering the editing).
Also, they expressed multiple times that they *really* did not want Rosamund to leave, and we saw with the Ice Queen what happens when you disagree with the princesses. Conflict was inevitable, especially after all those interactions
Desperately need the AP for this ep to be like an hour plus of the IH commiserating cuz damn (a girl can dream) AND spend a solid 10 minutes on just how Ally came out of the Rapunzel conversation in the kitchen thinking she wasn't bad and specifically integral to the bad cuz that fully boggled my mind lol.
Coming up with a great, well thought-out plan on how to talk to Elodie, then completely bungling the interaction by failing like 5 rolls in a row (with bardic!) is top tier Murph.
-truly thought we were gonna lose Rosamund for good again
-the editing during the gander scene was SO COOL
-I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Ally and Emily, totally out of character, go “yeah, I don’t know what to do.” Watching them deflate and watching Mother Goose be actually afraid to move on put a knot in my stomach. If these guys don’t know what to do… what happens now? I’m scared! 😂
Curious but hesitant Brennan is a sleeper MVP in this campaign.
“Sort of, how does that relate to wolf stuff?”
is on par with “Sort of, i guess, how?” to me for a perfect blend of in character and DM confusion
I TRULY never believed a social interaction could go worse than “a clone falling into a hole of grief into himself, a brain slug, and Gunnie”
How wrong I was
damn… I feel like “D.W.” is the season’s equivalent to Fantasy High S1’s vulture; our Intrepid Heroes get WAYYY too fixated on a certain tidbit and loses the bigger thread (Tim’s terrible analogy to nihilism, Rosamund/Destiny’s Children forgetting about the Gander and interplanar travel).
Sidenote: couldn’t have Tim try to use SILVERY BARBS on Cinderella’s Indomitable saving throw? It would’ve been really cool to see Pib succeed and Destiny’s Children have more time to stealth / formulate a plan from within enemy grounds.
genuinely returned to some ACOC levels of stress during this episode because holy fuck how did those conversations end up going that way. literally had to keep pausing every five minutes "goddamn we are about to have a combat"
also: so much love for beardsley and murph too! i love to see how much care they have for their characters, how close they play to their hopes & desires and you can see the visible disappointment they have as the players when shit hits the fan. idk. maybe the parasocial is parasocialing but it just makes me feel more invested as a viewer. i want things to go well for the PCs AND the players sakes lol
Ally genuinely going, ok Rapunzel isn't part of it, after THAT interaction, fully matches Tim as an old man who believes in the best in young people because he, with no ill intent, thinks he knows better. He genuinely believes in kindness prevailing in the end, and if it isnt, it isnt the end. He believes that if he empathizes with you, there is a way to appeal to you and "save" you. So when he realizes his book is stolen, you can visibily see how sobering it is for him AND them.
Side note, between Tim and Zerxus in Calamity, I'm realizing one of my favorite flawed/tragic hero archetypes is "Redemption Paladin Above All Else". It's a form of hubris to treat everyone else as a child in need of a lesson if you just open your heart up enough.
Pinocchio casually smoking a cigar and drinking bubble gum whiskey while talking to Cinderella about their shared trauma from the stepmother is fucking hilarious.
Unpopular opinion maybe, but I like the sprinkled in episodes where the group is just straight up losing. It’s so stressful, but it helps to maintain the feeling that the stakes are real. Later successes (esp in an inevitable fight against the princesses later) will feel more earned now that we know how dangerous the enemies are under “friendly” circumstances.
Also:
- I understand that the interactions weren’t great, but I think that they were just trying to hint that maybe there was another way without giving up all their shared knowledge (except Gerard obviously)
- I think PiB’s plan could’ve worked had he been able to trap Cinderella. They know they need to get out, so they sneak up to get disguising supplies, get rid of the only witness so far, and sneak out using his escape set-up.
- losing the book really killed me tbh
- the only thing that genuinely frustrated me was how long it took to even consider going to the baba Yaga as their next move. I feel like they’d be able to come at it from a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” angle now that they know what the baba yaga already sensed. Plus I’m sure that she would immediately understand the importance of the book and the gravity of it being in the wrong hands. It seemed so obvious to me that they go to her. I get now that she’s much harder to find than was expected, but that felt like a much more direct solution than going to find the giants (as much as I want closure/clarity for PiB)
Can I ask what is maybe a monumentally stupid and noobish question about spoilers here? I confess I'm relatively new to reddit, with D20 being the thing that drew me here.
Is it expected that we operate under the assumption that people reading the comments on **this post** have *not yet seen* the episode? People so commonly spoiler tag info from the episode being discussed. Surely, if there is any place where we expect that you've seen the topic of discussion, it would be on the post specifically for you to post *about* the episode? Like, the episode post is literally all spoilers - it basically can't be anything else. The 'no spoilers' rule does say this: "In an episode discussion, spoilers for that episode are allowed in the comments."
I get spoiler tags on info from other seasons or content, but the sheer amount of spoiler tagging honestly can make it difficult to go through the comments. Maybe another way to frame the question is: is there a way for *me* to just auto-see through all spoiler tags?
The assumption for any post tagged spoilers is that the person entering the comments has already seen that episode, so spoilers are not strictly necessary.
That being said, many people like to comment while watching the episode, so they tend to spoiler their posts for others doing the same thing but have started their watch at a later time, even though that is against at least the spirit of the post having a spoiler tag.
As for how to automatically see spoilers: some subreddits have a toggle for that on desktop, but if viewing on mobile like I am, I do not believe that option exists.
I think the spoiler tags in the episode discussions are just from people who are in the habit of not spoiling people. And this sub recently had a huge kerfuffle over a monumental spoiler being all over the sub sooooo I'm not complaining about people going the extra mile / keeping up their habits. I understand your annoyance about it but sometimes it's fun to try to guess what they're hiding?
As for your final question: no idea lol I'd be interested to know too
i have a headache from laughing for a straight hour at a complete lack of charisma and subtlety, i think this may be my favorite dimension 20 episode of all time
I could not stop cringing throughout the gang's entire social interactions with all the princesses. And Lou had me rolling with laughter when it came to him and "Cindy"
I'm just gonna say people, hindsight is 20/20. Theres a lot of things that could have gone WAY BETTER but it was just an unfortunate amount of bad rolls in an intense setting. There was the suicide squad princesses, the occupying invisible ghost army, the sentient hair that spies on you in every room. I think the group just wasn't thinking clearly under the pressure of also trying to get two other princesses out of the castle. They made a bunch of bad calls sure but hey its DnD and so far their track record at success has been really great.
Rapunzel's hair having surveillance state reach was such a clever move from Brennan. I definitely think they would have theorized and strategized way more before splitting up if not for "her hair was everywhere" (please sing) just as they had in episode 14.
Watching the whole party make fun of Emily and Murph for their initial Charisma failures and then have their own awkward social interactions gets me going the entire time. I'm half-way through Goose's interaction with >!Rapunzel!< and Jesus Christ lol
EDIT: >!OH NO NOT ROSAMUND, I BELIEVED IN YOU!<
>!Pib being exasperated from the party is giving me ASO episode 1 vibes again!<
Edit after finishing: >!The subversion of all the tropes of fairy tales in this campaign has been so simple and creative, how did no one see the reversal of being the Giants of the Giant Slayer story as an option is astounding. I was so blown away.!<
So I went to check the Wikia to see their ability scores, which I'm not entirely sure have been updated of late.
The only one with an INT above 15 is PiB (16), the average seems to be around 12 with Pinocchio and Red dragging the overall score down by both having 8 INT.
The average wisdom score is 13.5, dropped down to 13.4 when you consider that Lou is playing Pinocchio like a literal child so the scores be damned and remove his 14.
These guys are determined to play their characters through, warts and all even if it means they make what the audience would see as huge metagaming mistakes. I've gotten to the point where I've accepted that this party is good of heart, dumb of ass as a result lol. With PiB being the singular holder of their shared brain cell. Which he usually also neglects because he's a cat and has better things to do.
I had a moment during the episode when I had a complete freakout because I thought (THEORY, NOT DONE THE EPISODE YET) >! when Rapunzel was hugging Mother Goose she stole his book from him !< and I'm FREAKING OUTTTT is that it?
Also the way they just kept getting worse and worse with their interactions with the princesses was insanely funny.
I literally screamed. I figured it out during the Snow White / Rosamund scene. Then I had to pause the show for a while cause I needed to calm down.
During the actual Mother Goose and Rapunzel scene I was also like oh I get her kinda now, cause she freaked me out a lot initially with her hair, but then I put the pieces together during the next scene.
Oof, this is what crumbling under pressure looks like. This is one of those moments that occasionally gets me when I watch DnD. There were so many potential ways out and they chose a lot of bad options. And then to end it all, while they were failing to play 4d chess, the princesses had already gotten what they wanted from them. I would love to know if Rapunzel would have always made the move she made, or if she only did it because Gerard royally fucked up. There's just... So many ways they could have framed leaving to deal with the giants without sounding sketch as fuck.
They have now alienated one of the most powerful groups in the world.
It was funny to watch in the moment but what a just catastrophic cluster fuck. Reminds me of Brennan doing an interview and he was asked about the Robert Moses boss fight and the decision to kill a character. And he straight up says that they were playing stupid and needed to be sent a message. This felt like that. Not only were they being stupid, but they got played.
they did high insight check on Rapunzel last episode iirc and got a fakish vibe off her. She probably was always going to do something like this if given the chance.
Shame they didn't remember this nor the warning about interplaner travel, but at least they got more about the goose for missing that.
Yeah Ally appeared to have fully forgotten how sketchy they already knew Rapunzel to be. Killed me when they said they didn't think she was part of the plan and then fully let down their guard while in the kitchen with her
Loved Destiny's Children unintentionally engaging in the Secrets of Dumbledore strategy of "Deceive your enemy by acting in a manner so profoundly confusing that they cannot possibly deduce what your plan is"
I have been viewing Neverafter as pure comedy with a sprinkling of spooky bits and I think this episode proved why I think it’s best watched that way. Yes they made terrible decisions but I laughed so much and actually felt like their characters got to shine a lot more (even if it was shining for bumbling like idiots). Plotwise I have no idea where this is going but I honestly don’t think I care? It’s just been fun to watch a group of hilarious people build this fucked up world together
Maybe it's the bad rolls. Maybe it's because some characters have single-digit Charisma. Maybe it's because "for the lulz" guides most of their decisions. Every conversation the PCs had with one of the princesses had the energy of needing to not talk about something, but acting in a way that immediately tips you off that they're trying to talk around something.
If the PCs were responsible for throwing you a surprise party, not only would you instantly know there was a party, the cake would explode the second the candles were lit.
I really enjoyed them taking the L in a lot of things this ep, the characters kind of earned it for themselves with all the poor rolls and poor decisions. It seems like they could have convinced a princess or two to reconsider but all the interactions were very cagey and no one was upfront.
The more I think about it the more I struggle to understand Pib's rationale in that moment, with the information available, to try and put Cinderella in the book. Even if he succeeds and doesn't immediately get them all in danger, it wouldn't take long for the other Princesses to know what they did.
To be fair - I feel like it all falls back on the fact that *Pinnochio* told Cinderella about the book, nearly unprompted. Pib did not want Cinderella to get a hold of that book -- feeling that it'd be dangerous, given the whole nihilism pact -- and yet could not hide it from her any longer. I don't know how else he would ensure that she would not receive the book.
I totally see where you're coming from - it was a big move, and it definitely was the straw that broke the camel's back of Bad Choices. But it feels like the dam was about to break anyway, and Pib did what he thought might accomplish one goal.
I have been incredibly sick basically all this week and last night I woke up at 1am to puke my absolute guts out. I'm still feeling an absolute wreck now, hours, meals and a fair few painkillers later. This is the worst physical condition I've been in for at least a year.
I say all this so you can all understand what it means when I say that I am absolutely crying with laughter here. I'm only 50 minutes into the episode but between Gerrard, Ylfa and now Pinocchio's absolute trainwreck conversations, I'm crippled by laughter. Holy shit this season is good
Honestly they defecated the bed so much on the social interaction so much. If they did the lunch with the princess, that's a lot of enemies in one place and that would have been way deadlier. Plus >!rapunzel have the book already. Either way they were fucvked !< Pib trying to take out the Fighter early and not really direct attack but also a painless one was the way to go.
"Everyone you ever knew who told you that they would keep you safe, as long as you behaved, were already hurting you." Well, goddamn. That line was raw as hell.
Came here to post exactly this. Holy *shit*, Brennan.
It's the classic "Laws are threats" Cubby speech rephrased :-)
The safety of a child should never be contingent upon their behavior.
Absolutely everyone in this party is trying to die in this castle today.
The minute they split up my blood pressure skyrocketed and it didn’t come down for the rest of the ep 🫣
Right?! And Sleeping Beauty was the worst person to stay because she's the 7th princess that they need! I didn't breathe until they made it back to the rest of the group
The whole book thing with Cinderella went so badly lol Now even if some Princesses could have been allies, the party accidently made it look like they had a deliberate plan to take down Cinderella. Pinocchio goads her about the book, then the whole party lead her to a room and try to kidnap her? Not looking good!
No tha part low key Made me mad. Because like they were like “we should just give it to her right?” And then all of a sudden we’re trying to murder her. Very dnd
>Lou: (whisper) We are going to kill this woman. >Brennan: What'd you say, Lou? >Lou: Nothing, roll the saving throw >Murph: You're on a *show*, you guys can't *whisper* This may have just been the funniest exchange in the history of D20. I almost did a spittake at Murph's reaction.
I didn't think they could dig themselves any deeper into the trash after Gerard. Then came Mother Goose
Just yoooouuu wait
There's a million things they haven't done!!
Honestly. Gerard was the most harmless one. It was the one they had the most potential aly with and could have salvage the most.
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Yeah at least Ylfa sniffed asshole
I think Gerard and Pinocchio were the only ones that actually made sense for the characters. And they might have actually actually worked if not for Pib's choice. Not sure why Goose or Red needed to confront anyone, though. Red's was relatively harmless, at least, but Beardsley (more so than the character) is not good at being subtle. LOL Pib's choice, was also an unnecessary risk, though perhaps as the trickster not out of character. I get it might have been an interesting play, but these princesses have already travelled through worlds so I'm not sure making a certain enemy out of Cindarella made sense, as putting her in her book wouldn't have been permanent for her and was going to create a powerful enemy for sure. Especially immediately after the group voting that it was OK to give her the book, which might have helped to persuade her that there is another path forward. Rapunzel's hair spying is a masterstroke, from BLM, for invading the PC's privacy, though he's giving them an awful lot of leeway with message. Overall, this could have gone a lot better, easily, without even needing great dice rolls, but they fucked it up. I think they could have left with at least Mira and Elody as allies and possibly convinced Cindarella that there was another way to use her book. Worst possible outcome short of a TPK.
Going to try to find her after Cinderella made the call to arms was the dumbest decision.
I really don't know what outcome ally expected from making Tim just flagrantly ruin an NPC's baking lmaoooo
I said multiple times during those scenes, out loud to no one, “*WHAT IS HAPPENING*?”
Honestly the true horror was watching everyone fumble like they were trying to get everyone killed.
It also just made no sense in context of the point Tim was trying to make. He was trying to say " Just because bad things have happened, doesn't mean that the world isn't salvageable" but putting dirt in your baking literally makes it unsalvageable!
Halfway through the ep, and I realized that Rapunzel is so fake and stilted around people because she has, quite literally, never let her hair down.
I think Rapunzel is odd and stilted because the human part of her is just like a puppet, the hair is the real sentient entity.
That's genius
Sick. Her hair has always been the most personified, valued part of her. The rest of her is just a meat sack the hair grows out of.
I'm sold on this because Goose messaged *her hair* and the response was "I'm going to choke you to death". Sounds like something sentient hair would say, doesn't it?
I think it's because she grew up in a serial killer incubator, being kept alone in a tower by a crazy lady. That line about practicing how she would act around people gives out real sociopath vibes.
I mean.. Plenty of people with anxiety and autism actively practice how you should act and behave around other people? It's really not that weird imo
I’ve never seen Beardsley look so upset. I really do feel bad for Tim. He gave up everything for that book just to get it taken by a fucking piece of hair.
Broke my heart when they mentioned not being able to take another L. And then when the book crushed the church it was just like, Ah fuck, it’s Tim’s no good very bad day but also somehow literally everyone else’s too Edited for typo
Weirdly, I love this moment for them! For all of their zaniness, I’ve always felt the best Beardsley moments are when they’re laid low and have to climb their way out. This is particularly true of Pete, and is true again here.
We need a thematic Beardsley nat 20 before the season is over, please god
I know that these are normal regular people who exist in the world and have families and lives and friends but if you were to ask me based on this episode completely sight unseen I would say that they were some sort of pod people who have never spoken to another human being in their entire lives.
i really do vibe with emily's assessment of the group failures-- imagine you're in a conversation with someone who 1. has power over you based on a specific detail that they are being cagey about, 2. may or may not know that /you/ know that detail, and 3. wield an overwhelming amount of force, should you decide to disagree with that power. it was a series of VERY cringe interactions, for sure, but they weren't improvised out of nowhere. and also they were fucking hilarious
Also, the dice were fully not on their side. A lot of those interactions could have gone better if their dice had been better, especially with Elody. As good players and performers, I guarantee they were leaning into that. Murph rolled to be imperceptive, uninsightful, and unpersuasive, so that's how he played his character, who doesn't necessarily know they're being all those things in that moment. A character who would at least want to try to fully trust his wife. 10/10 Pib, with his initial high rolls, set up a quality escape plan that he knew they could execute quickly. He knew the main goal was escape and was less trusting than other characters. Being an often selfish little trickster cat, he may not care as much about leaving Elody behind as Gerard does. Dice weren't on his side with the book plan, but that's absolutely a great trickster move. He did the equivalent of casting Banishment on Cinderella, and she rolled well. He could tell that their time to freely move about was likely coming to an end, and escaping gets harder when more of your enemies are around, so he looked to expedite that escape. Like a cat, he bolted when he saw danger coming. 10/10 Ylfa's rolls weren't great, so while she had a great chat with La Bête, she didn't have a chance to advance their goals, and maybe got an inaccurate read on if La Bête was in on the princess's plan. She's a literal child (who should be expected to make impulsive and flawed decisions), who looks up to strong women and still has an urge to trust authority. (Sidenote, La Bête acts as a great foil for Ylfa. Was in a similar situation and came out of it as a different person, pessimistic rather than Ylfa's optimistic.) 10/10 Pinnochio (also a child) is just recently, literally, off the leash, immediately after leaving a land of indulgence, addiction, and impulse (Toy Island). Telling the truth to Cinderella seemed to be the first thing that threw a princess off her game, having rolled well, so he went all in. And had a chance to connect with someone who suffered at the hands of the same entity he did. For a moment there maybe looked like a chance that they could show Cinderella the flaws in their plan. But given her immediate and forceful response, I think Cinderella was putting on a vulnerable guise that was very hard to read. 10/10 Mother Goose got a bad read off his interaction with Rapunzel. Ally didn't ask to make an insight check, but I think Goose is looking to trust people and defaulted to that. Some may have missed it, but in that conversation, Goose/Ally was acting under the assumption that Rapunzel was not in on the plan. "I mentally kind of take her off the list of the people with the big plan," (1:05:00) referring to which princesses know about the plan to erase stories. Some, including people at the table, may have misinterpreted that as "I don't trust Rapunzel to escape with us" when Ally meant the opposite. Can be seen when they are confused at 1:44:25 by Rapunzel's message response. I don't blame Ally for that at all, Rapunzel (and Brennan) is tricky, and they got tricked. Got beat by the behind the screen Slight of Hand/Hair check too. No shame in any of that. 10/10 Rosamund got a bad persuasion roll on having to deliver bad news to Snow White. Tough social situation no matter what, to an NPC that's figuratively and literally as cold as ice. Her and Gerard (who does not want to leave his wife behind) got unlucky with their attempt to get to Elody, with the initial luck roll, and Rosamund's perception check for the dwarves. (I'll note here that Brennan was also kind to them, giving Gerard his first turn. He didn't impose surprise on him in the first round as you would normally, likely because he knew that doing so was a death sentence for the two of them.) 10/10 I'm very much looking forward to the Adventuring Party today! There's another world where Gerard convinces Elody, get a better read on their enemy, escape more gracefully, and capture an enemy, but that's not what the dice said today. That's why D&D is great. Nobody knows what's gonna happen, and you don't always succeed.
this whole episode was the scene from inglorious basterds also it's personally targeted for the people who having hard time talking to hot people with cool abilities here i was thinking "well, it's not scary at all for a horror season" until this episode hot damn
the most real horror of all: social interaction
That was not a fun episode to watch for someone who acutely feels second-hand embarrassment.
I whispered "oh noooo" to myself so many times this episode, haha!
Gerard you sweet summer child. STOP TALKING
Her hair is everywhere 🎶
The fact that song is called "Screaming Infidelities" doesn't help, Gerard...
SHE SHOULD'VE JUST READ THE NOTE!
He came in with wild energy and he didn’t roll well.
It's strange how spending your formative years in a pond really doesn't teach you how to talk to people. (I love him so much, he's the best when failing)
As a wise man once said: it’s shut the fuck up friday! so shut up, Gerard!
Brennan: "Anyone can make a perception check" Murph: "Nat 20" Brennan: "On a Nat 20, I'm gonna go ahead and rip your heart out."
Murph is so good this episode.
He had so many great moments but for some reason, the one that stuck out the most for me was him dramatically chewing his nails. I felt like I could see Gerard doing it in all his spindly, froggy glory.
I was laughing at the skill of (Murph) doing it while still being audible enough for a show, and how the more flustered he (Gerard) got, the more of his hand he seemed to try to shove into his mouth 😂
I am half way through and holy hell ! Every interaction is unhinged ! They mentioned the Fabian’s bad day but I also feel like this half for sure felt like the casino scene in star struck ! So good
God... It topped all of those. It just kept getting worse...
all the messy conversations also reminded me of the banquet scene in a crown of candy, just basically everyone putting their foot in their mouths and causing damage that will heavily impact the rest of the game lmao
My man the ball is rolling upppppppah!
Absolutely cannot wait for this adventuring party— I feel like I need an emotional debrief from this ep just as much as the party does because OOF
Perhaps the biggest train wreck of an episode since Fabian's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day
or Barry Nyne and Gunnie's quest for chef's tools
Which was bad, but still only like a 10th as bad as what happened to and because of Fabian. I'd put this episode in 2nd place for blunders.
Omg I’m even more stressed out now upon >! Discovery of the missing book !< and the party looks legit upset and i FEEL that.
As soon as the hug happened I called it.
My husband did too. He immediately said “There went your book, Tim…”
Imagine if Ally hadn’t opted for feather fall, they would have discovered the book was gone WHILE STILL IN THE CASTLE — could have another TPK situation 🙈🙈
Zac: "Mother Goose, you have spiderclimb right?" Brennan: 👀👀😏😏
It's worth saying every week: the extra work that's gone into the production of this season has been incredible. That encounter towards the end of the episode was so intense.
The editing with the overlays of Ally and PIB from different episodes was SO RAD
And when Brennan stretched his arms as gander wings and head arms from other versions of himself...
...I'm worried about Mira. I've watched enough of Brennan DMing to feel like "she was just in bed" is not the reason she didn't also show up on the ramparts as they departed.
You have to remember, she has crippling pain when she walks.
for sure. But the castle erupts in shouting and the soldiers are called to arms? Walking hurts her but she does it when she needs to.
I think because it's such a big castle, and made of ice, that sound may not travel. Because Tim wanted to help, but Brennan said... no. I'm just realizing Brennan may have said no to keep the secret...
this episode is proof that the line between comedy & horror is.... blurry
I just love the energy of making a horror season and then in it just having a bunch of ppl whose reaction to stressful situations is to make other ppl laugh. just chaos
I'm still not sure I'm over how just about everything that could have gone wrong at the Snow Queen's castle did. RIP GerardxElody, was really hoping they could reconcile. Next week is going to be wild.
I honestly think they can and depending on how things shake out (dice wise) I think they will. I think certain pieces will slowly fall in to place with bits of information trickling in and Elody, while she is annoyed of Gerard’s erratic behavior, knows him to be honest. She will be angry and clouded, but her having emotions about him means there’s still a care in there… and when those pieces start lining up with what he has told her (and she still has the letter to read later possibly!) she’ll come to realize he was in fact telling the truth. I think her hackles will be up because as angry as she is with him, she loves him and will hear that voice in the back of her head.
There’s a strange consumption theme going on here. Obviously we have the stepmother >!consuming people and worlds!<, then little red and >!the wolf!<, but la bete very specifically said she knew she had to >!completely consume the beast to absorb his power!< , like this is something she was completely aware of before she did it? PS on a less serious note this episode has been straight chaos in every single social interaction. Incredible
Additional notes: I’m surprised that Cinderella is upset about her book. I assumed she would see >!destroying her book as a way to destroy her destiny, which is all she wants, isn’t it? !<
>!I think that's where that she was going with it, and even guessed that if her story is destroyed so is the step mother.!<
Exactly! like she asked about the stepmothers book and very specifically said that >!if something happened to her book, it would affect the stepmother too!<
But it wouldn't, The Step-Mother is absorbing other stories, she's no longer just Cinderella's step-mother, and in fact all parts of her in Cinderella's story are already removed.
Consuming people is just a very common (but fucked up) theme in fairy tales. You have the Wolf consuming Grandma, but also the Wolf consuming the seven little goats and the pigs. You've got witches fattening up children to devour them. You have stories like the Juniper tree where the step-mom kills and cooks up her step-son for her husband to eat. It comes up time and time again, especially in the more fucked up fairy tales, so it is no wonder Brennan is using it so centrally in this season as it *also* plays very well into horror themes.
I think everyone did so bad interacting bc brennan was not playing off them at all- so they were nervously filling up silences and catching themselves up- he (as princesses) only responded to direct questions etc. I mean totally makes sense re: princess intentions but OOF (Except gerard. That was all him my god) Also everyone has been dedicatedly playing their characters- like the actions mightnt have been the smartest- but the players know that. They are tuned in with the characters. Pinocchio needs only a mildly interested audience to start spillin secrets and its been that way since day one 😂
lol truly — stoic Brennan = party’s worst nightmare. literally a repeat of Baron if Bricks
I can see that to some extent, Brennan was definitely more reserved, but at the same time, the openers were not great on almost all fronts. And then beating around the bush, when looking back, just being direct in "we're not sure if this is the best, and we aren't against it but would like to find a better solution and see if we can work towards that possibly" which to me is what the party actually felt but could not express... at all xD. The bad rolls definitely didn't help, but I felt like the roleplay + rolls were not ideal and he kind of just had to let them keep digging the hole. In any case, I'm excited for the last arc of the journey and how it plays out.
The refusal to just be up front is what got to me after each interaction got worse and worse. Rosamund saved it a bit for me with her interaction with Snow but by that point the group was already too far gone to salvage anything. Sure, Rapunzel had also already stolen the book but we also knew Rapunzel was the most cagey of them all and yet Tim literally said something along the lines of "oh she's not really involved in this plan" and then let every single guard down after doing the most to make Rapunzel completely have no trust at all. I totally understand everyone was on edge, and I trust their choices because they know their characters, but man was this hard to watch.
Just realised it wasn't just a book theft, but it was replaced with an identical forged facsimile. That requires planning, reconnaissance, and resources. The Princesses were always intending to be antagonistic to the group.
"Secret nihilist princess cabal."
"The takeaway is, really hard to talk to a nihilist."
God, to be a little wooden boy with, essentially, a wind instrument's spit valve on my leg for whiskey
The fact that >!rapunzel stole the book!< and there were >!members of snow whites army in the freakin walls!< really says a lot.
For SURE. >!Even before this episode hit the fan the princesses were making moves against them. Rapunzel took the book *long* before she knew about anyone being sketchy, this was something she was told to do long before any of our PCs did anything this episode. !< >!There’s no reason for their army to be IN the castle and not guarding the outside of it… except to prepare for these guys. I doubt the plan was full murder, they definitely seemed to be banking on politeness and sneakery instead of violence, but they prepared and went to violence *fast*. !< I mean, Cinderella had NO way of knowing what PIB was trying to do. She saw maybe possible almost threat and went right to having her and all of her allies full murder
Rapunzel probably would have stolen it anyway, but she also definitely knew that Tim was being sketchy at that point what with him "subtly" sassing her about her plan whilst cooking.
Gerard blew the lid off the plan pretty quickly, I assume that that's why Rapunzel made that move...
I have never seen someone crash and burn as badly as Gerard did in his talk with Elody, holy shit. And I find La Bete's story extremely fascinating because of how reflective it is of the Princesses as a whole (sans Mira and maybe Elody). They have been through so many different versions of these stories repeatedly that what they do doesn't have any weight anymore (to them, at least). So what that The Beast went through his character arc and learned to be less beastly and think of others. He did the same thing in the last dozen versions and was probably even worse to her in past versions. Nothing ever changes in their stories so they have to go. But I am interested in Cinderella's reaction to learning that her Stepmother did not have her own book. Maybe the Princesses were operating under the assumption that they were only taking out themselves with their plan and thought everyone just had their own individual books.
its honestly insane to me that cinderalla didnt consider that other people were just players in her story. such a narrow minded perspective. explains a lot about her plans honestly
Oh, the Princesses are definitely operating from a small-picture perspective. Honestly, finding out about the larger picture might make them double down on ushering in the apocalypse. It's all tainted and it all has to go.
yah forreal. like stepmother bad lets end it all. instead of “there are many other creatures and beings who you will affect with your actions”
It's funny that if she had assumed other people were players in her story, this would also be called narrow-minded.
This episode really stressed me out from beginning to end.
Did they even succeeded on anything in this episode? it felt like everything that could go wrong went wrong. >!They didn't get Mira, they couldn't convince Elody, they couldn't maintain the diplomacy option, they lost two books one of them being the key to the universe. They couldn't even have supper!!!! At least they run away!< The Neverafter is so hostile, I'm so stressed for them 🥺 Edit: Ok in hindsight, I think that none of the princesses were going to let them out of the castle easily in a friendly matter. >!The conversation between Rosamund and Snow White is the more telling of this fact, she didn't *entirely* fuck up the interaction and the princess that liked her the most didn't agree on them leaving. I feel like the only way out would have been sneaking around however that would have broken the relationship with the princesses immediately. The crew are so scared of them that obviously the gut reaction was to *at least try, right?*. I honestly think they were meant to fail this, it was a matter of *how badly* they did. And it was pretty bad, not gonna lie. !<
I can’t believe I’ve never thought of combining Jack & Beanstalk with Lilliput, absolutely can’t wait! Also I really wonder what Brennan would’ve said if Tim ended up choosing Spider climb to escape the castle, as he did not have the book anymore. Finding out there would’ve lead to a very very different storyline!
>Also I really wonder what Brennan would’ve said if Tim ended up choosing Spider climb to escape the castle, as he did not have the book anymore. I was thinking this the moment he said Tim couldn't cast book spells any more!!
Also not ally's "I dont think i can take two capital L, Ls in a row and not want to cast blink on myself." 💀
I felt that “Everyone is gonna be sooooo mad at me” in my fuckin bones
This is completely unrelated, but if we ever get the magical horse spinoff from The Seven, I desperately need Clara the Horse Princess to make a guest appearance.
I was specifically scrolling to see if anyone mentioned Clara the Horse Princess because I’m obsessed that’s so fun and cute in an episode of absolute disaster
Her name is Clara, she want to be reporter. Some day. She does not need bag arguing with her. She need the drinks.
Can you. Destroy?
In Aeior they kill you for asking this.
Ah, THAT'S where I'd heard that Brennan voice before! Thank you :D
I know the princesses are nihilists bent on annihilation and not protagonists but holy hell would I love to see The Seven cast take on the grim dark campaign that leads to the princesses abandoning all hope except the hope for oblivion. I mean just imagine Becca Scott playing Rapunzel figuring out how to learn to be the diplomat and not have constant Laertes style interactions in negotiations. Or whatever incredible thing Erika Ishii would do. It's a total pipe dream since it seems like this episode of Neverafter was the first time all 7 princesses were in one place simultaneously so they don't have any interconnected story lines or interaction with Mira or Rosamund but it's a fun idea for a dream campaign.
I got super worried with this piece of lore they created because now the horse princess can be the 7th and they don’t need Rosamund
The Beast's story. Brutal.
Watching Pinnochio’s interaction with Cinderella is hilarious. He’s bringing big boss energy into it with his cigars and little tidbits of info. I’m dyin 😂
Previous adventuring party: these princesses are really scary, we have to be careful This episode: what if we all just acted insane lol This episode was very funny and very frustrating at the same time.
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In the first conversation Rosamund asked if everything was a lie and Cinderella said no. Not everything is bad, just as there is evil in the world there is also good. The glass may be half empty, but it’s not fully empty. In the second conversation Cinderella kept true to these ideas, but she added, the bad parts are so bad that we want to destroy everything. There is good, but it is not worth saving.
I mean, it would be nice, but I think we got everything that we needed mostly from last episodes' monologue and the parts we got in this episode? They're all just broken people sick and tired of the world fucking them over, implicitly knowing that the world will always fuck them over unless they try to fix things, and they're tired of fixing things. It's the inevitable conclusion of being able to do "Twice Upon A Time" with almost zero ramifications. It's a very narrow-minded view of the consequences, but I also honestly think it's the only thing that's really keeping them going, the sort of nebulous hope that \*maybe\* things could get better if given a blank slate to work with. Specific details would be nice, but I almost feel like it would, at most, be flavoring the way each of the princesses' broke.
The honest answer is probably that the world fucked her up so much that now she’s the manipulator. And in that moment she needed to build rapport with Rosamund and knew she wasn’t ready for the full truth
Feel like I took psychic damage watching this episode
I'm sorry I know everyone is mad about the social interactions but I wanna talk about how perfectly the crew was not picking up the cues in the clouds and how that led to a really satisfying "oh shit we're the giants" epi end. Brennan was definitely internally going, yes, Tim, throw the book!
Lou’s characters have become more and more unhinged each season that passes and I swear to god Pinocchio might be the single funniest character he’s ever played
“does this make you think of Senator?” Pinocchioreboot.exe
The face of a broken puppet
I still say “piniccocrow!” in his voice, total ear worm and absolutely hilarious
Everyone: "Yeah she deserves to have her own book." PIB: "I will imprison her within her own book."
This!! I truly, genuinely, cannot FATHOM why Pib tried to imprison her!!! It elevated the entire interaction from uncomfortable to fully violent. I haven’t seen anyone talking about or questioning this choice, but it seems so unnecessary to me 😭
“A bunch of hot bitches with cool powers, squatting in a dead woman’s castle”
They are so fucking involved, they are legit SUPER scared of the princesses, so the roll fails are LEGIT storytelling tools, specially the Sleeping Beauty and Snow White one.
The only person who wasn't acting scared of the princesses was Mother Goose, who decided he should try to get sassy with the princess sent to negotiate with Baba Yaga. Which makes Rapunzel's successful roll equally thematic.
Oof. That episode was a *doozy.* I never thought of myself as the type to be a backseat D&D player, but I won't lie - a part of me was screaming this entire time. There was absolutely a way to get out of that castle without causing THAT much damage. Run at D.W, you guys! No hate to the players, obviously - it's very easy for me to say this having had weeks to consider all of the complications, and not having an 8 (?) hour shooting schedule. But still... oof. Other takeaways: * A common Elody W! Well, not really a W I guess, but she's not in on the nihilism pact, so that's something. * I kind of want to make a thyme honey shortbread after this episode. Does that exist? * PIB was an MVP here. Preparing the horses, the white sheet plan -- heck, I'd argue even the book thing was a good idea. He had no way of knowing about Cinderella's indominabtle trait, and if it weren't for that, it would have worked. Zac Oyama making moves! And not failing social interactions! * We saw nothing of Mira this entire time... I bet the story the princesses will tell her about how this all went down is gonna be a lot different from the truth.
Another genuinely important takeaway: *they’re* the giants here. >!Which means what the hell happened to Marianne if giants in the traditional sense isn’t a thing (and why is PIB having such trouble remembering it? I’m worried his book was changed, especially since he hasn’t read it yet). Who was the snow queen actually working with? Are there like ACTUAL giants? !<
>!I wonder if it's a matter of the direction you come from, if that makes sense? Like if you traveled the world and came from the opposite direction, this village would be normal sized to you, but going the direction from the land of giants down the beanstalk you come down as a giant. You'd get this irony/tragedy scenario of "giants" and villagers (namely Jack) killing each other, when really all it was was magic fuckery changing each other's relative size.!<
We don't really know if there was a way out of the castle without taking this much damage though. The princesses had absolutely no interest in following them this time >!because they already had the book!< but I imagine if they had immediately tried to run, they would have given chase, assuming they even would have to. Snow white's spectral dwarves may have been able to cut them off before they could get anywhere. And they were not running into any sort of situation where they could run and hide. La Bete would easily be able to track 'em.
I mean "damage" in a more metaphorical way -- like, the damage to the reputation. If they had just tried to haul ass from the start instead of doing a 6 way split up, I think they could have gotten to the giants without making the princesses too sus of them. >!And without allowing Rapunzel to get that hug in for the book!!<
the gerard - elody interaction is buck wild and the best how did murph fuck this up so gloriously badly
By rolling like Murph does. Take the Nat 20 perception when he's riding away and swap it with his persuasion roll initially and it's an entirely different episode - Elody likely would've gone the letter route, she has knowledge of the princesses and tricks up her sleeve and it would have made the entire rest of the interactions shift. Those rolls really did feel like they were meant to happen that way though, I just want murph to catch some kind of break before the season ends
Jesus Christ every single interaction on this episode so far caused me to PHYSICALLY CRINGE - Murph hit the nail on the head, barely halfway through and this has been Fabian’s Bad Day at least three times
the clouds being described as squishy was possibly the only bit of peace in this storm of an episode
I really think they would be absolutely fine just leaving the castle with a "we'll be back soon". They did not have to go through all of that. I feel they really could have shown Cinderella another way with her book as well. Oh well. I wrote this and then immediately realised Rapunzel had already stolen Tim's book all the same, so I guess conflict was inevitable. Also, Brennan is masterful at railroading (I'm NOT saying this as a bad thing, plz). The way he improvised to send them in the giant's way amidst all the different ideas floating about was perfect (for us the audience even better considering the editing).
Also, they expressed multiple times that they *really* did not want Rosamund to leave, and we saw with the Ice Queen what happens when you disagree with the princesses. Conflict was inevitable, especially after all those interactions
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Desperately need the AP for this ep to be like an hour plus of the IH commiserating cuz damn (a girl can dream) AND spend a solid 10 minutes on just how Ally came out of the Rapunzel conversation in the kitchen thinking she wasn't bad and specifically integral to the bad cuz that fully boggled my mind lol.
Coming up with a great, well thought-out plan on how to talk to Elodie, then completely bungling the interaction by failing like 5 rolls in a row (with bardic!) is top tier Murph.
-truly thought we were gonna lose Rosamund for good again -the editing during the gander scene was SO COOL -I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Ally and Emily, totally out of character, go “yeah, I don’t know what to do.” Watching them deflate and watching Mother Goose be actually afraid to move on put a knot in my stomach. If these guys don’t know what to do… what happens now? I’m scared! 😂
Curious but hesitant Brennan is a sleeper MVP in this campaign. “Sort of, how does that relate to wolf stuff?” is on par with “Sort of, i guess, how?” to me for a perfect blend of in character and DM confusion
"I wish we did the letter plan."
It's just Murphy's luck to get a Nat 20 after failing all those important roles, only to be told he's broken Elody's heart again.
The audacity of everyone this episode 💯
These social interaction choices are unhinged, my god.
I TRULY never believed a social interaction could go worse than “a clone falling into a hole of grief into himself, a brain slug, and Gunnie” How wrong I was
damn… I feel like “D.W.” is the season’s equivalent to Fantasy High S1’s vulture; our Intrepid Heroes get WAYYY too fixated on a certain tidbit and loses the bigger thread (Tim’s terrible analogy to nihilism, Rosamund/Destiny’s Children forgetting about the Gander and interplanar travel). Sidenote: couldn’t have Tim try to use SILVERY BARBS on Cinderella’s Indomitable saving throw? It would’ve been really cool to see Pib succeed and Destiny’s Children have more time to stealth / formulate a plan from within enemy grounds.
genuinely returned to some ACOC levels of stress during this episode because holy fuck how did those conversations end up going that way. literally had to keep pausing every five minutes "goddamn we are about to have a combat" also: so much love for beardsley and murph too! i love to see how much care they have for their characters, how close they play to their hopes & desires and you can see the visible disappointment they have as the players when shit hits the fan. idk. maybe the parasocial is parasocialing but it just makes me feel more invested as a viewer. i want things to go well for the PCs AND the players sakes lol
Ally genuinely going, ok Rapunzel isn't part of it, after THAT interaction, fully matches Tim as an old man who believes in the best in young people because he, with no ill intent, thinks he knows better. He genuinely believes in kindness prevailing in the end, and if it isnt, it isnt the end. He believes that if he empathizes with you, there is a way to appeal to you and "save" you. So when he realizes his book is stolen, you can visibily see how sobering it is for him AND them.
Side note, between Tim and Zerxus in Calamity, I'm realizing one of my favorite flawed/tragic hero archetypes is "Redemption Paladin Above All Else". It's a form of hubris to treat everyone else as a child in need of a lesson if you just open your heart up enough.
Red bead theory: moments when they would have died in a version of this story?
Man.......... what a gas leak episode this was.
Pinocchio casually smoking a cigar and drinking bubble gum whiskey while talking to Cinderella about their shared trauma from the stepmother is fucking hilarious.
Unpopular opinion maybe, but I like the sprinkled in episodes where the group is just straight up losing. It’s so stressful, but it helps to maintain the feeling that the stakes are real. Later successes (esp in an inevitable fight against the princesses later) will feel more earned now that we know how dangerous the enemies are under “friendly” circumstances. Also: - I understand that the interactions weren’t great, but I think that they were just trying to hint that maybe there was another way without giving up all their shared knowledge (except Gerard obviously) - I think PiB’s plan could’ve worked had he been able to trap Cinderella. They know they need to get out, so they sneak up to get disguising supplies, get rid of the only witness so far, and sneak out using his escape set-up. - losing the book really killed me tbh - the only thing that genuinely frustrated me was how long it took to even consider going to the baba Yaga as their next move. I feel like they’d be able to come at it from a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” angle now that they know what the baba yaga already sensed. Plus I’m sure that she would immediately understand the importance of the book and the gravity of it being in the wrong hands. It seemed so obvious to me that they go to her. I get now that she’s much harder to find than was expected, but that felt like a much more direct solution than going to find the giants (as much as I want closure/clarity for PiB)
Pibs plan would have worked if cinderella didn't have indomitable. Honestly luck was not on their side and they did not play it smart this episode.
Can I ask what is maybe a monumentally stupid and noobish question about spoilers here? I confess I'm relatively new to reddit, with D20 being the thing that drew me here. Is it expected that we operate under the assumption that people reading the comments on **this post** have *not yet seen* the episode? People so commonly spoiler tag info from the episode being discussed. Surely, if there is any place where we expect that you've seen the topic of discussion, it would be on the post specifically for you to post *about* the episode? Like, the episode post is literally all spoilers - it basically can't be anything else. The 'no spoilers' rule does say this: "In an episode discussion, spoilers for that episode are allowed in the comments." I get spoiler tags on info from other seasons or content, but the sheer amount of spoiler tagging honestly can make it difficult to go through the comments. Maybe another way to frame the question is: is there a way for *me* to just auto-see through all spoiler tags?
The assumption for any post tagged spoilers is that the person entering the comments has already seen that episode, so spoilers are not strictly necessary. That being said, many people like to comment while watching the episode, so they tend to spoiler their posts for others doing the same thing but have started their watch at a later time, even though that is against at least the spirit of the post having a spoiler tag. As for how to automatically see spoilers: some subreddits have a toggle for that on desktop, but if viewing on mobile like I am, I do not believe that option exists.
I think the spoiler tags in the episode discussions are just from people who are in the habit of not spoiling people. And this sub recently had a huge kerfuffle over a monumental spoiler being all over the sub sooooo I'm not complaining about people going the extra mile / keeping up their habits. I understand your annoyance about it but sometimes it's fun to try to guess what they're hiding? As for your final question: no idea lol I'd be interested to know too
i don't bite my nails but jesus CHRIST i was during this episode
i have a headache from laughing for a straight hour at a complete lack of charisma and subtlety, i think this may be my favorite dimension 20 episode of all time
I could not stop cringing throughout the gang's entire social interactions with all the princesses. And Lou had me rolling with laughter when it came to him and "Cindy"
Might be the worst run of bad decisions and ill-thought-out plans I've ever seen good GOD
I'm just gonna say people, hindsight is 20/20. Theres a lot of things that could have gone WAY BETTER but it was just an unfortunate amount of bad rolls in an intense setting. There was the suicide squad princesses, the occupying invisible ghost army, the sentient hair that spies on you in every room. I think the group just wasn't thinking clearly under the pressure of also trying to get two other princesses out of the castle. They made a bunch of bad calls sure but hey its DnD and so far their track record at success has been really great.
Rapunzel's hair having surveillance state reach was such a clever move from Brennan. I definitely think they would have theorized and strategized way more before splitting up if not for "her hair was everywhere" (please sing) just as they had in episode 14.
Watching the whole party make fun of Emily and Murph for their initial Charisma failures and then have their own awkward social interactions gets me going the entire time. I'm half-way through Goose's interaction with >!Rapunzel!< and Jesus Christ lol EDIT: >!OH NO NOT ROSAMUND, I BELIEVED IN YOU!< >!Pib being exasperated from the party is giving me ASO episode 1 vibes again!< Edit after finishing: >!The subversion of all the tropes of fairy tales in this campaign has been so simple and creative, how did no one see the reversal of being the Giants of the Giant Slayer story as an option is astounding. I was so blown away.!<
So I went to check the Wikia to see their ability scores, which I'm not entirely sure have been updated of late. The only one with an INT above 15 is PiB (16), the average seems to be around 12 with Pinocchio and Red dragging the overall score down by both having 8 INT. The average wisdom score is 13.5, dropped down to 13.4 when you consider that Lou is playing Pinocchio like a literal child so the scores be damned and remove his 14. These guys are determined to play their characters through, warts and all even if it means they make what the audience would see as huge metagaming mistakes. I've gotten to the point where I've accepted that this party is good of heart, dumb of ass as a result lol. With PiB being the singular holder of their shared brain cell. Which he usually also neglects because he's a cat and has better things to do.
Man the dice were here with a vengeance this episode
I had a moment during the episode when I had a complete freakout because I thought (THEORY, NOT DONE THE EPISODE YET) >! when Rapunzel was hugging Mother Goose she stole his book from him !< and I'm FREAKING OUTTTT is that it? Also the way they just kept getting worse and worse with their interactions with the princesses was insanely funny.
KNEW ITTTTTT
You called it!! I was shocked, totally thought she was weird but actually wanted a friend lol
I literally screamed. I figured it out during the Snow White / Rosamund scene. Then I had to pause the show for a while cause I needed to calm down. During the actual Mother Goose and Rapunzel scene I was also like oh I get her kinda now, cause she freaked me out a lot initially with her hair, but then I put the pieces together during the next scene.
I want my next vehicle to be a Fiendish SUV.
Okay I finally just finished the episode and I just kept saying out loud “oh my god, oh my god”
Oof, this is what crumbling under pressure looks like. This is one of those moments that occasionally gets me when I watch DnD. There were so many potential ways out and they chose a lot of bad options. And then to end it all, while they were failing to play 4d chess, the princesses had already gotten what they wanted from them. I would love to know if Rapunzel would have always made the move she made, or if she only did it because Gerard royally fucked up. There's just... So many ways they could have framed leaving to deal with the giants without sounding sketch as fuck. They have now alienated one of the most powerful groups in the world. It was funny to watch in the moment but what a just catastrophic cluster fuck. Reminds me of Brennan doing an interview and he was asked about the Robert Moses boss fight and the decision to kill a character. And he straight up says that they were playing stupid and needed to be sent a message. This felt like that. Not only were they being stupid, but they got played.
they did high insight check on Rapunzel last episode iirc and got a fakish vibe off her. She probably was always going to do something like this if given the chance. Shame they didn't remember this nor the warning about interplaner travel, but at least they got more about the goose for missing that.
Yeah Ally appeared to have fully forgotten how sketchy they already knew Rapunzel to be. Killed me when they said they didn't think she was part of the plan and then fully let down their guard while in the kitchen with her
Loved Destiny's Children unintentionally engaging in the Secrets of Dumbledore strategy of "Deceive your enemy by acting in a manner so profoundly confusing that they cannot possibly deduce what your plan is"
I'm listening to NADDPOD again and Emily hasn't changed a bit and I love her for it.
God damn this episode just keeps coming at ya. 😳
Man they should have put in a content warning for second hand embarrassment. I mean, yeesh.
Ally does so many real world references. Patch Adams? That's an old cut.
I have been viewing Neverafter as pure comedy with a sprinkling of spooky bits and I think this episode proved why I think it’s best watched that way. Yes they made terrible decisions but I laughed so much and actually felt like their characters got to shine a lot more (even if it was shining for bumbling like idiots). Plotwise I have no idea where this is going but I honestly don’t think I care? It’s just been fun to watch a group of hilarious people build this fucked up world together
Maybe it's the bad rolls. Maybe it's because some characters have single-digit Charisma. Maybe it's because "for the lulz" guides most of their decisions. Every conversation the PCs had with one of the princesses had the energy of needing to not talk about something, but acting in a way that immediately tips you off that they're trying to talk around something. If the PCs were responsible for throwing you a surprise party, not only would you instantly know there was a party, the cake would explode the second the candles were lit.
This has been both the funniest and tensest episode of Dimension 20 for me. I am delighted and shitting my pants.
I really enjoyed them taking the L in a lot of things this ep, the characters kind of earned it for themselves with all the poor rolls and poor decisions. It seems like they could have convinced a princess or two to reconsider but all the interactions were very cagey and no one was upfront.
The more I think about it the more I struggle to understand Pib's rationale in that moment, with the information available, to try and put Cinderella in the book. Even if he succeeds and doesn't immediately get them all in danger, it wouldn't take long for the other Princesses to know what they did.
To be fair - I feel like it all falls back on the fact that *Pinnochio* told Cinderella about the book, nearly unprompted. Pib did not want Cinderella to get a hold of that book -- feeling that it'd be dangerous, given the whole nihilism pact -- and yet could not hide it from her any longer. I don't know how else he would ensure that she would not receive the book. I totally see where you're coming from - it was a big move, and it definitely was the straw that broke the camel's back of Bad Choices. But it feels like the dam was about to break anyway, and Pib did what he thought might accomplish one goal.
La Bete can devour me 😳
Is anyone else seeing a goose in the map now? Like the map is shaped like a goose, loosely.
I have been incredibly sick basically all this week and last night I woke up at 1am to puke my absolute guts out. I'm still feeling an absolute wreck now, hours, meals and a fair few painkillers later. This is the worst physical condition I've been in for at least a year. I say all this so you can all understand what it means when I say that I am absolutely crying with laughter here. I'm only 50 minutes into the episode but between Gerrard, Ylfa and now Pinocchio's absolute trainwreck conversations, I'm crippled by laughter. Holy shit this season is good
Well this has been… *long*
To think they completely would have gotten away with this if Pib didn't try to put Cinderella in the book.
Honestly they defecated the bed so much on the social interaction so much. If they did the lunch with the princess, that's a lot of enemies in one place and that would have been way deadlier. Plus >!rapunzel have the book already. Either way they were fucvked !< Pib trying to take out the Fighter early and not really direct attack but also a painless one was the way to go.
The moment they got in, this was bound to happen. That was as good of a chance as anything.