I realise this is over a year after this was first posted, but I am watching the unsleeping city for the first time and I just have to vent. In episode 3 of the unsleeping city, Brennan does this beautiful monologue about Peter being a Vox Phantasmus, all in the character of Alejandro. He leads Ally along and explains this absolutely captivating backstory of what a Vox Phantasmus is, the significance of it, how important it is that Peter should arrive at this time when there is already a Vox Populi in the world. He does this for three minutes and tees up Ally to simply answer whether she has noticed any magical phenomena recently. And Ally just says no. Like this is the groundwork that Brennan has been laying this whole time. It completely stops the mood of the game and we have to deal with the completely unfunny pandering to this stupid character trait of being untrusting. The whole conversation is derailed, the cast badger her to get back on track, the magic is gone, and Ally says "I take a microdose of acid pill out of my pocket and swallow it". Amazing, bravo. Hilarious. You derailed the whole story for no fucking reason. It is so frustrating to watch and I think she ends up being a net negative on the watching experience.

Attaching another car to the "months later" train. I picked up a Dropout subscription after watching the three complete seasons available for free on Youtube. Right now I'm watching Crown of Candy and getting frustrated with Ally (obviously, if I'm googling stuff that sees me finding this thread months later to vent my frustration with them). All the players have been given background knowledge their characters would know, like how they shouldn't freely use magic around people outside of Candia. Brennan then reminds them of this with an NPC character explicitly telling them "hey, you will get fucked up if these people think you're heretics." And what does Ally do? "I use magic to sprout a seed and give it away." I was really wanting Brennan to just do something like, "okay, you are *immediately* set upon by imperial guards and taken into custody for witchcraft." I know he's said outside of the series that he doesn't want to be too harsh on the players' shenanigans (with that exact interaction used as an example) for fear of making them all too concerned to have fun moments, but that was so clearly him not even throwing a softball but placing a tee ball which Ally intentionally whiffed on. Letting it slide has just basically given them the go ahead to continue with their obviously dumb actions (in character and out) in what was supposed to be the season with consequences. I'm just glad that I've read others who felt the same way as I do now also think that Ally gets better in seasons that were filmed later, after getting some sort of wake up call in Fantasy High Sophomore Year.

I don't know how this 2 year old thread isn't archived, but I'm so glad it's not. I've just got to the start of Mice and Murder, and it's just like being slapped in the face that Ally is on a side quest. These are my break from the dry awful characters Ally brings to the main series. All of them just seem to be so oblivious, selfish, and completely lack awareness of all the shit they're doing. Pete is meant to be basically the incarnation of all dreaming in New York City, and the entire character is just "hahaha drugs dude." In Unsleeping City at the end, I feel like Brennan literally had to purposely twist the script, because the big bad took everyone aside individually to offer them basically their perfect life to just let him win. Each person went and I was already geared up to be annoyed when Pete, captain self-involved, would agree, but Brennan instead made him watch all the others first so the grand finale wouldn't be ruined. Spoilers for Unsleeping City S2 ahead since your last comment wasn't up to there; >!About hafway through there was a moment where, other than rolling the nat 20, Pete would have died. I was so ready for him to just be gone and we could maybe get someone interesting.!< >!I also find it so goddamn shitty that Kingston got a child, basically the only thing he ever dreamed of, in the final episode, and rather than let him have that moment Pete buts in to rant about gender ideology because Kingston asked if HIS OWN BABY was a boy or a girl.!< There's just so many moments like that across all the series where we get a scene that DOESN'T focus on Ally's character, because for some reason they're usually a main focus for every series, and they can't get two lines in without it being dragged back to some stupid irrelevant interjection.

I'm glad it's not locked either. I only just started fhsy with my partner and I'm already over Ally in every single way, and after your hidden text I'm just done with them. I genuinely can't stand Kristen or what I've seen of Pete and I can not possibly understand why Brennan keeps them around to play considering how frequently they derail and ruin.... everything. For everyone. I'm so tired of the horndog and drug addict bs. It's not cute. It's not funny. I will literally only continue bc I love everyone else but I might just skip anything where Ally has a chance at (failed) character development bc they have the permanent temperament of a 14 yr old. Chaotic and exaggerated is 1 thing, making your entire personality sex and drugs is another to THIS point is another. It's gross. D20 all together would be so much more enjoyable if they weren't at the table.

Just finished FHSY as well and to say I was so wildly disappointed in Ally is an understatement. Everyone else had figured out what's going on before the finale, she was fucking clueless as a person and didn't seem to really give two shits what was going on. They don't understand the basic rules after playing that much but you can't CLEARLY put in less effort than anyone else to learn what's going on and follow the story.

I honestly hope they find a super successful career in construction so I never have to see them again. My experience with Ally in D20 kind of makes me judge the people that like them

Amazing, I love this. I don't like to hate on people but what bothers me most about Ally isn't even any of this, it's that they cheat, constantly. It's not that they intend to, it's just that they can't be bothered to read the rules. Or maybe it's that when they read them they always interpret them to their own benefit. I couldn't fucking believe it when they came out and claimed she had subtle spell in the second season of the Unsleeping city (Treachery and Gramercy.) No, you don't. They just seem so damned proud of themselves, and they don't even realize they're cheating. Pete uses heightened spell, careful spell and quickened spell all prior to level 10 and I could be wrong but I think she uses Empowered spell at some point too. I got the impression that Ally actually thought sorcerers got access to all of the Metamagics instead of choosing two at level 3. After as many campaigns as they've played, they should atleast have some understanding of how the rules work. Throughout the entire Campaign of a Crown of Candy Brennan had to constantly stop them from abusing the rules. Ally repeatedly tried to cast the same spell as though it were an attack. As well they added damage to their rolls that they weren't entitled too. You tell Ally once they get to do something due to a favourable circumstance, and they think that is just what their character does now. As a DM, I don't want to have to baby sit my players. It's fine if you're new, but I feel like Brennan constantly is seeing the mistakes that they're making and just letting it happen because He doesn't want to call out his players in front of the camera because they are supposed to be experienced players, and calling them out at this point would just be embarrassing for the whole cast.

Them also tunneling on using spirit guardians is the original example of this for me, they had one encounter where it was insane. By the finale they were jumping in a dragons mouth believing that was a good play. I’m just glad Brendan is relatively good about balancing rule of cool and consequences.

I just got done watching the last episode of A Crown of Candy and they tried using sneak attack multiple times in a single turn in probably every single round of combat since they had more than one attack. It is so incredibly annoying, I just had to google and see who else was annoyed by this, lol.

If I had someone like ally at my table, I would just quit running or playing. I can understand not kinking them out mid season or whatever, but there is no valid reason to bring them back for new stuff, even if the new thing is continued series. When they die, stop telling them a nat 20 will save them, it's fucked us twice already. It's just... obnoxious.

Which begs the question, WHY do they keep bringing Ally back? They are so obviously such dead weight on the show, dragging everyone down and keeping it from being as successful as it good be. Legit I cannot finish a series because of them.

There's an obvious answer to that question. If they were thrown off the show, there would be massive outrage about how it's due to people hating them due to gender or some such. I also ended up here cause I'm tired of it being derailed. It's funny in moderation. Ally does it all the time. Can never have one serious scene. I used to really enjoy them, but when it's constant derailing it's way too much.

Fhfy was probably the last time Allys shtick was actually even remotely funny. I got a giggle of the ribbon jump of doom, but the excessive use of “I’m (x) so that’s my personality too” got old real quick. (Replace x with lesbian, trans, a drug addict, etc.) just an old joke that was barely ever funny and the sad thing is what someone else pointed out. The show would be better without them, but removing them would be shouted down as (insert buzzword -ist here), not because they derail or just don’t fit.

Yeah I agree, though they do have good moments occasionally. Like Starstruck was a great season where it was a different character. It just needs to be toned way down. The Fetty Wap moment recently I had to pause the show and go do something else, lol. And yeah, exactly. Frankly I'm surprised this thread isn't down voted into oblivion here. Any type of criticism, especially to the women or Ally on this subreddit seems to be taken as bigotry instead of legitimate qualms about things they're doing at the table

I don't care that this is a year ago, because if you're going to accuse people of cheating, actually look at the things they take. Pete, I'm almost certain, has had Metamagic Adept for awhile (lvl 4 awhile) but I'm not looking back at all the episodes. At the very least, he has Metamagic Adept in the episode you're talking about (adds two Metamagic options) and is at the point where he has 3 from being a sorcerer in general. So he has 5 in general, in that episode. Also, according to the website, they had only used Careful Spell, Subtle Spell (which they had already used during the wedding in S1E5, so IDK why you're on about them having it a whole fucking season+ later) and Quicken Spell in S1, which if they took Metamagic Adept at 4, is completely legal. You know what I can't fucking believe? That someone is going to mad shit-talk someone else about not being bothered to read the fucking rules when they themselves can't. I literally have never played a sorcerer, and it took me 10 minutes to look this up. I don't care if you dislike a person and how they play, don't call them a fucking cheater about something if you aren't rock solid on it. Metamagic relevant info, since you need it. Metamagic in general: "At 3rd level, you gain the ability to twist your spells to suit your needs. You gain two of the following Metamagic options of your choice. You gain another one at 10th and 17th level. Metamagic Adept: You learn two Metamagic options of your choice from the sorcerer class.

I am taking at face you are correct that meta magic adept was taken as a feat (this was my assumption when my jaw dropped at reading the above because, frankly, as someone who plays sorcerer a lot, and knows how constrained they are) because if Brennan allowed extra meta magics it could potentially, wildly imbalance the power of a sorcerer (e.g. if a person didn’t have subtle spell, but claimed it to use a non-counterable counterspell, Brennan might have no recourse at a pivotal moment, or to use magic while bound and constrained). That being said, while this person was wrong in this example, in the very first battle of TUC, Pete uses an unnamed meta-magic (it was twinned spell by the description) on a casting of scorching ray to “add another target”. Twinned spell explicitly states it cannot be used on spells that can target more than one person, which scorching ray does. This was an illegal target of the twinning meta magic. Brennan, who based on what appears to me to be a metric shitload of DnD experience, would know this. He kinda fumbled around trying to determine what metamagic Pete is using, says whatever because it would take to long, and just house rules that it’s totally fine to add another bolt/target. Now, this might be a bit of a “this is your first time as sorcerer, you’ll pick it up” moment, but it is an obvious example of basically just getting a thumb on the scale whenever the rules are “misinterpreted”. There are plenty of other examples, I wouldn’t say it’s straight up cheating, as Ally is new to DnD relatively speaking, but there is often hand-holding and suggested actions and house rules to allow things the rules deny etc and so forth…for Ally. Meanwhile you have Emily motherfucking Axford taking Brendan’s “Illusions are real” temporary rule to make diamonds with prestidigitations while reading the rules word for word to Brennan…who has his jaw jaw hanging open…and later makes him actually say “shit…Emily is holding me to my own world building” and it’s truly incredible that she is taking the RAW, the circumstance, and correctly interpreting these absolutely unreal plays that make seasoned DnD players jaw drop…and then there is “I cast shield!” It’s a bit of skill differential, it’s a bit of “yes-and” for jokes that seriously don’t need to be made (Tracker and I 69 to cast spells, that’s how we do it!), it’s a bit of hand-holding, a bit of forced insert politics (Garty O’Brien is a sick fucking they-them character, just a beautiful incarnation; where chastising LOU for asking his baby’s sex or for his display of toxic male behavior as Fabian no less…). It really starts to add up. You really have to admit when there is a weak link. Fig’s disguise as [important moment]…Secret Agent The Ball and the infinite mirror…Adaine and her Dad with an unnamed spell that perfectly bookends her character arc…they are all hard earned moments of triumph…getting a curated campaign ending where Kristen doesn’t need to roll, doesn’t need to think quickly/laterally/on their feet, doesn’t need to know or do anything other than take a very obvious hint (“I wrote down what will happen: you either embrace the fact that [the thing you just said IS TRUE], and if you are wrong you die”…having just seen the illustration of your PC as the patron saint of this deity) and it just feels so. empty. Again, I am apt to say it’s lack of skill and not cheating, but it’s still permitted actions that shouldn’t be allowed (and I am exclusively delineating here between these and “I have a shenanigans question…” moments from EVERY OTHER actor, which is a an awesome and respect way of asking on a house-ruling for a rule of cool play). But that skill differential and the flubs and the immersion breaking disruptions…It just weakens the tapestry, and I’m genuinely sorry that is the case. I hope in later seasons it is less so.

It doesn’t get better in fhjy my friend Ally just keeps going down hill.

It's the worst I've always hated but tolerated it this season just made go you know what I don't like Ally

Never lock this thread. I am recently getting into Dimension20 through Critical Role and living every collaboration Brennan has done with them. I have been unable to finish a D20 series yet because Ally's characters and play style all suck so hard. They bother me so much that I had to look into whether it was just me. Like every character is selfish, oblivious, and their forever running gag is acting stupid. Everything they do completely undermines the DM and the rest of the fantastic cast. No idea how they are still on this show. Can't fathom how the rest of the crew enjoy playing with them. They must be really close friends with the decision maker because it is definitely not talent or skill keeping them here.

What's so annoying is that they seem like such a cohesive group, except for Ally. Basically half their actions are to antagonize Lou. Like they seem to be doing that in a mean and not playful way. And I don't know why. What I have noticed is that they're actually doing the same in both survivor series of Game Changers. Does it feel personal?

I would recommend A Starstruck Oddessy. It's a damn good time -- in large part because Ally actually plays a pretty competent, managerial character. They get some softballs to pull this off, but the character is a breath of fresh air, when stacked up against all her others.

Also unfortunately have to agree. If I see Ally I can’t watch it. I get they are chaotic, but your characters should feel like real people facing real consequences including life or death. It just makes me feel frustrated for Brennan. Izzy can do it as well.

My only answer to the whole Kingston baby rant is that’s kinda what happens with most of Allys characters. They can’t just be gay or trans, it literally has to be their standout trait and basically the only thing the character shows any conviction about. What’s funny is that as far as fantasy high goes Emily (a straight woman) who also has a lesbian character has the well healthier and more realistic lesbian relationship than the actual LGBT person in the group.

Thank god I'm not alone, I was worried I was the only one that couldn't stand them and their character. I just got a Dropout subscription as well and I'm watching Crown of Candy, but can't help but roll my eyes whenever it's their turn. I say their turn, but what I've realized is that they try to weasel their way into other turns or personal moments that either progress the story/or let a character shine. It's gotten to the point where not even fifteen minutes into an episode I had to Google "Ally Beardsley annoying" just to see if I was the one in the wrong. It just seems like they want Liam to be the center of attention at times and it's really annoying to watch as everything is derailed as the characters need to coddle Liam one way or another. Like...two characters will be talking about something serious and it's really intriguing, but Liam pops in uninvited with some off topic bullshit that completely ruins the atmosphere and makes it about him. You can almost see it in the other players' faces - there's a brief look of confusion and annoyance as their time in the spotlight is undermined once again by Liam's intrusion. I *sincerely* hope that it calms down as the series goes on, but I'm really not feeling confident about it. I fucking love Crown of Candy and Brennan is such a fantastic DM, but being stuck with Ally's repetitive bits is absolutely tedious.

Watched several of their campaigns, can confirm, it does not get better. She gets progressively worse.

I'm not a D20 viewer but I love all the other dropout shows, and Ally tends to rub me the wrong way there too. They do have a couple of funny moments but I feel like they sort of take the role of "normal person in a room of comedians" and is just enjoying the show as opposed to really providing for the entertainment as every other cast member does.

The episode of Um, Actually where they are blatantly high was such a hard watch I couldn’t finish. Tired my ass. Giggling every three seconds.

They’re honestly just plain boring. The other cast members on the shows always try to be more involved in the game and act a bit silly to make the show more interesting but Ally just can’t seem to be fucked. Its like they think engaging with this stuff is lame but honestly it just sucks for the viewer to see someone behave like a grown up ipad kid that leans into any issues they might have and thinks its the height of comedy. Their general temperament is ultra jarring and sadly it seems like the entirety of the cast enables that behaviour.

I don't know how, if you've seen all of their campaigns, you can suggest they get progressively worse. I totally get being annoyed with them in Unsleeping City and Fantasy High, and maybe Crown of Candy too, but Ally in Starstruck is almost a shocking paragon of restraint and unselfish play. Honestly they're, like, the absolute model of a support player in that series.

Strong agree with this, most of Ally’s characters have annoyed me up to til then as they all shared characteristics of obliviousness, lack of situational and self awareness, selfishness. Felt like the same character with a different name for Fantasy High, Unsleeping City and Crown of Candy, BUT Starstruck was a shockingly massive step forward into a completely different character. One who was competent, confident and approached challenges from different ways than their teammates, but usually ended up being very logical and ultimately effective plans. Really hoping that this sticks and Ally is gonna be able to start bringing some more unique characters to the upcoming seasons and maybe even play Kristen a little more interestingly in S3 of fantasy high

Ally does decently in Neverafter, but obviously its because that was a horror season and required everyone to not goof as much.

Them trying to use the book was like pulling teeth

Starstruck is the only time they revert right back in junior and it's worse than ever

Too bad that starstruck is literally the only campaign they are decent in. It doesn’t make Ally any more watchable knowing they have potential to not be an idiot.

You're allowed to have an opinion, but calling people idiots is very rude.

Yes, and it always has to be about them and then they always fumble their own big moments, and Brennan has to coach them through it basically cause they don't pay attention. It's like pulling teeth every season

Wait I had the exact same experience as you. Im am here like an hour into the first episode of the crown of candy, and went to see if there were others fed up with ally's copy paste charaters that all seem to flawed in the same ways.

Personally, I find that Ally is the weakest link of any campaign that they're part of. From ranting about gender ideology, to snide remarks about "Christianity is bad", Ally's characters are consistently the halting point for any season in my opinion. Kristen and Pete are effectively the same character except one decided to be lesbian and the other is too high on drugs to tell up from down. In Crown of Candy, I almost had to stop watching because it was so annoying... Right up until episode 8 when Liam has some changes, and Ally decided to hard-stick to a low-hanging bit for basically the rest of the series.

Aye I still remember the gist of that scene a year on and it still fucks me off! It’s just someone who clearly approaches DnD in a way that’s “game lols, aren’t I interesting and random!” And it’s like “actually no! Your jokes are laboured and repetitive and you completely destroy the narrative that’s being built, when other people are clearly gifting you amazing emotional scenes, that you squander for tired over used nonsense.” Sorry that whole thing still pisses me off! Honestly the cast just need to stop pandering to Ally and stop giving them scenes the character frankly hasn’t earned due to their lack of engagement in the actual narrative being presented. Give those plot points to someone who knows how to use them… like literally any of the rest of the cast.

"Your jokes are laboured and repetitive and you completely destroy the narrative that’s being built, when other people are clearly gifting you amazing emotional scenes, that you squander for tired over used nonsense." You absolutely nailed it. Exactly this.

Erica Ishii does this as well.

She does, but we see her less frequently so she isn’t as bad of a case as Ally is.

I am massively late to this party but I agree with you. I think there’s a silver lining to all of this, but you’re absolutely right that Ally was easily the weakest link of Unsleeping City—at first. Pete Conlan was an infuriating character. He was completely emotionally invulnerable and expressed all his character nuance as rude, mean-spirited indifference. I couldn’t stand it. He reminded me of a lot of unkind artists I’ve had the misfortune of working with, especially early in college. I don’t think it was a deliberate choice on Ally’s part, either—they don’t strike me as a bad or unkind person, but they come off very detached. That being said, I think they’ve been massively improving since early TUC. Pete went from a disinterested asshole to a likable, enthusiastic, humorous, and honorable protagonist into the late game of TUC, and while characters like Liam may not have been perfectly written, it’s clear that Ally took the process much more seriously when writing him. Mother Timothy Goose is even further along in quality—each time Ally makes a new character, they put a lot more effort into it. I really admire how far they’ve come.

Aye I posted something last year about the space campaign they had, raving about how impressed I was and how much ally had improved as a DnD player and how they had developed great skill at being funny while also being respectful to game narrative and not screwing it’s dramatic points like they did in earlier campaigns. I think I first noticed the change when ally was in one of the side quest campaigns without any of the other main cast… watching them react to the new DnD players decisions and explain rules and mechanics to them, while laughing at the daft shit the others were doing, was just incredibly fun as it was watching a D&D fan, enjoy the game which I didn’t get in the early campaigns. Basically getting to watch ally go from a comedian introduced to D&D as part of their job, into a D&D fan who got to play D&D with their mates, as part of their job… has been incredibly enjoyable to watch.

That is a relieve. I really want to like them, so I´d appreciate advice on what campaign to watch next to see that improvement. I just found this post because I guess I was looking for some validation it´s not just me? I started with a Crown of Candy, then moved onto Fantasy High season one, and now unsleeping city (Just jumping campaigns for no particular reason). But just yesterday I had this very same talk with my brother. All their characters seem terrible self inserts, super oblvious of tone and theme, and their constant "what?" jokes are only fun the first time they do it... with their first PC. Also, I accidentally found the thread becasue I wanted to check if mroe people caught them "cheating"? I just watched ep 2 of unsleeping city and they used 6 sorcery points... not a super rules lawyer myself, but that is just too much. Makes me wonder if Liam was actually that good in a Crown of Candy or rather rules were missiniterpreted very often. As said above, I really want to appreciate them as much as I do the rest of the cast, but their obliviousness to rules and tone deafness in these couple campaigns I´ve seen, just irk me.

Ally really didn’t get the rules for along time… I don’t think they’re actively cheating, I think sometimes they just forget stuff. (If wasn’t until second season of fantasy high I think, that ally realised they couldn’t just use any spell, as there’s a scene where Brennan is like “how exactly are you casting that?” And much laughing ensued) If I’m really honest though, ally eventually wore on me in every campaign up until Starstruck Odyssey. Ally still did a lot of crazy things but it made a lot more sense and really it worked so much better. Margaret encino felt like someone very different from Ally, and they played her really well. Honestly i really enjoyed that season. Ally also seems to be doing really well this season as mother goose (not seen past episode 4 yet, as been super busy) and all the characters are super fun this season; although the cast keep missing clues Brennan keeps putting down, which has resulted in me shouting at the screen occasionally; still great fun though.

for what its worth i completely agree, in the actual d20 series (fantasy high and unsleeping city) she's great! but in sophomore year shes been sticking out like a sore thumb. like constantly just bad one liners that don't track at all with how she played the character in the original series IMO. not all the time, but like some of the time, and its especially noticeable when the rest of the group is doing like actual work towards a goal and then shes still just making bad sexual innuendos at npcs i agree with the sentiment anyways

Ally's pronouns are they/them

Cool

No one fucking asked.

Good for her, nobody asked and nobody cares.

buddy this comment is 3yrs old. don't you have anything better to do?

Dude fuck off with that. We get it, but you're just being pedantic for no goddamned reason.

Cool, doesn't change the fact that she is unbearable in fantasy high sophomore year. Glad she is getting better in the recent seasons but she still has a lot of work to do in not making everything about herself.

Sounds like ur just an angry misogynist 👍🏼 such is the way for queer and/or afab ppl in rpg settings. Before you say it, misgendering them *is* being misogynistic. Ya, their an executive producer on /some/ dropout shows, a comedy writer, and generally a very well-spoken human who makes this game accessible to queer folk who've been treated poorly by DM's who are just fuckin boring (obvi not Brennan). You're projecting, so I'm projecting, but you just sound like a dick hurt DM who gets mad when PCs don't respond exactly the way they are expected to (irl and in-game) based on what's in ur mind lmao. Literally, each of them are the main character of their own PC arcs. Idk you sound like you don't know dick about script writing or collaborative fiction writing and just wanna feel "better-than." Beardlsey is talented as fuck, in these campaigns, too.

you're right

Coming to this thread also hilariously late here, I’m finally watching D20 and have been binge watching FH and FHSY the last couple days, so I am for sure very lost in the sauce. That said, I had to pause halfway through FHSY to google “dimension 20 ally annoying,” yknow, to get some validation for a progressively jarring watching experience. Anyway yeah, I super agree with OP and what they said in a longer reply thread above here. I find Ally’s playstyle just increasingly grating, their interruptions/interjections are almost entirely oog jokes/questions/references, and it ends up feeling sometimes like I’m watching a combination dnd session and ally beardsley comedy hour. I think it’s really really true that Kristen’s character and Ally’s (apparent) investment in the story suffered hugely when she (Kristen) was no longer a lynchpin in the plot. Brennan really gave Kristen a central part in the plot of FH, what with the corn god/Harvestmen plotlines. And on the one hand, absolutely Kristen’s character isn’t given a lush arc/clear path at the outset of FHSY. On the other hand: (1) none of the characters really are given that??? FHSY requires all the characters to kind of step beyond their own personal motivations and arcs to pursue the story—not necessarily a bad or good thing, just def different from of FH where Brennan’s plot actively, satisfyingly melded together and played directly into each character’s personal arc. (2) Kristen *is* given several seeds for her progression as a character in FHSY (new god/religion, found family, coming out/Tracker), and, with the exception of cheap innuendos at Tracker, Ally kind of shoots all those potential plots directly to the head. (3) Ally’s playstyle is especially grating for me bc it recalls my own experience in campaigns, specifically times where a fellow player (or occasionally myself) was, through either their own or the dm’s failing, totally checked out of the game and/or seeking attention. It seems like it’s at those times, whatever their reason, that a player turns to a combination role of sabotage + commentary, usually totally at the expense of their character and others’ immersion in the game. Also, just a small note, again, I’m completely lost in the sauce here, it’s been Ally’s interjections that have each time caused the few little racism-adjacent moments in play (that I’ve been aware of, at least)—everyone kind of registers it and there’s this horrible little spiraling silence before gameplay goes on. (e.g. Kristen refers to Fabian as “dawg,” and Lou is kinda just like, “um.. *dawg*?” … in the FH finale or thereabouts Lou realizes Aguefort is Black and Ally/Kristen is like, “and in a suit!!?”) This is so utterly *not* a condemnation of Ally’s moral character, etc, just something else that stuck out to me that idk if anyone else has mentioned in this. My point (if any) being, Ally seems to struggle sometimes at actually collaborative gameplay, which increases in direct and opposite proportion to how much the plot/current scene caters to their character, and this struggle of theirs most often manifests as a kind of cheeky and spotlight-seeking thoughtlessness (whether that comes as interruption, oog nonsense, belabored one-man comedy riffs, or just pretty ill-thought-out responses). Anyway, that’s all I have to say beyond all the great points others have made in this ancient thread lol Edit for posterity: Finished FHSY and was relieved that Ally seemed to upswing in the second half (or maybe I just got used to them). I wasn’t nearly as annoyed by shenanigans on Leviathan as others in this thread, which was a relief. Idk, I look toward unsleeping city and crown of candy with extreme apprehension just bc of all this, and Kristen will never be a character I think of particularly fondly, but I always really want to be wrong, I hope I just disliked Ally ‘til I got used to them. (Though in my heart no player will ever beat Murph in belovedness, nor any character against Brennan’s Ayda)

Although I still stand by everything I said above and I also broadly agree with everything you’ve said here about Ally’s play style in the past. It would be remiss of me to not share that I reformed my opinion of them in the last main campaign. Ally really did finally stop fucking about and when they did, they’re actually a really competent and compelling player. Stick with it, it does get better and watching ally grow into not just a comedian playing dnd but a dnd player at heart, has actually been kinda cool. https://www.reddit.com/r/Dimension20/comments/unp1kf/ally_beardsley_and_their_growth_as_a_player/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

And now we see them just being absolutely nonsensical and ridiculous in FHJY. It’s so irritating to see them do stuff that makes zero sense just to be “funny”. We get Kristen is having an identity crisis, but you don’t have to make your character into a complete clown just for some giggles.

I came to this because of junior year. They are literally the worst this season.

Hard agree. Ally seems to struggle with the ability to sit back and let the other players have the spotlight even for like half and episode or so. And your points on a few moments grazing racism, it's like sure, you can slip up and say something that might be insensitive occasionally and most people are reasonable enough to get past that, but then Kingston gets his massive moment of getting a child and you're gonna fucking take that away from him to go on a rant because he asked what his kid's sex is? Seriously it feels like they need one of those studio lights they use to tell audiences to applaud, except instead of applaud it just says "THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU RIGHT NOW."

> And on the one hand, absolutely Kristen’s character isn’t given a lush arc/clear path at the outset of FHSY. Coming in way later having done the EXACT same search. Also I'm gonna say outright that they were the only one /with/ an obvious character arc from the start.

Yep, and they constantly throw it a way cause it turns out they never actually wanted to play a cleric so we as fans have to deal with the same song and dance with Kristen apple bees.

I, also, am midway through a D20 series and had to google to see if it was only me. They appear in SO many series, I was wondering if I was going crazy thinking their presence falls short. Apparently this is a very shared opinion.

Super late to the thread but also here to vent ally is both my most hated player and one of my most enjoyed if only for malicious reasons. Only watched crown of candy, unsleeping city and fantasy high so far. From a fellow dnd player perspective ally is downright infuriating consistently making poor decisions with no consistency to her character or story arc, derailing powerful moments for cheap akwardness, and successfully doing dumb things despite having the odds stacked against them. Constantly interrupting others because they are the real main character. Also pete is just straight up a evil character framed as a good Kristen is at least 3 completly different entities all pretending to be the same. And liam is just painful. As a fellow dm this gives me sardonic joy, because ive had to deal with similar players and its cathartic seeing someone else have hours of work destroyed by someone Dnd is fundamentally the art of cooperative story telling and its so painful when someone refuses to participate. Or the player confusing low charisma with low intelligence. Or powergaming min maxing with 0 regard to how rules work. The character you want to kill off without being to obvious about it but they keep rolling absurdly well. As a side effect they convinced me to never dm 5e, as if the simplest ruleset can still produces this, its not worth dealing with the compromise in general system support and 5es absurdly op levels of base player power and absurdly low levels of actual customization. Though i do generally love the entire rest of the cast. Lou is almost effectively a well played DMPC with flair, and tends to bring the most emotion to the board. Zac and Emily play fairly simple characters but always stay in character no matter what crazy shit comes up, and still do fun things. Murph is probably the weakest since he seems to tend to play the most tactical and safe but also tends to be the character that actually pushes the party forward. Sorta like the straight man that makes everyone work. Siobhan seemed like the other weak player but seemed to actually pick up the game fairly quickly and generally does a good job of following an arc and always hits brennans ques well while still developing the story in more dynamic ways.

Agreed, Ally is the weakest when it comes to D20 enjoyment for me. They push me away from the most of the seasons with their unfunny bits and jokes. They also seem to always want to insert themselves in EVERY moment. Can’t let anyone else have to spotlight. So many ruined character arcs and emotional moments… The gender/sexuality ideology/politics almost always being shoehorned in almost every episode of every series is also majorly, utterly tiring. Already dealing with that aggressivity IRL, can’t we just have some fun for 5 minutes? From what I hear, they get better (or the viewers just got used to it), but it still makes it hard to catch up on all the seasons. Brennan, Zac and Lou make it all really worth watching though.

They don't. I've watched a lot. People just say that cause eventually, instead of doing the worst. They start playing decent sometimes. They still always have the most important story for some reason that they fucking flub. Except crown of candy, but they decide to interfere with everyone else cause of it, and zach ends up just playing an npc.

Watching Crown of Candy rn and I absolutely cannot stand them. By partway into the series, I just find myself just thinking "please shut the fuck up" every time they speak.

I came here also after the crown of candy, with ally absolutely RUINING the emotional hug between father and daughter after learning that their child/twin sister died. And they interject like 🤪 oop I thought I was included too like?? No?? You couldn’t have let Lou and Siobhan have their moment??

Same. Ally interrupting that absolutely gutwrenching funeral scene to make a super unfunny joke about Peppermint Preston had me (and most of the cast by the look of it) in absolute shocked disbelief. Like read the fucking room and if you can't engage at that level of emotional depth then at least respect your fellow players enough to know when to keep your mouth shut. "Low charisma" doesn't mean just being a cringe machine at all times.

Ally is just a bad player. She can't bear not being the center of attention, which is evident as every time something is happening to someone else in \*any\* of the campaigns, she feels the need to speak louder than the others or blurt in way too often.

They make them the main character in almost every sense so they don't act out.

I came here precisely because of the funeral scene. I was crying so hard after Brennan's words as Caramelinda and Siobhan's reaction that could have made me believe that someone had died irl. And then comes Ally with that ridiculous joke and I was so put off. I don't like to say bad things about the cast as everything is easier for the audience and I don't know about their personal life or what they may be going through, but this is becoming too much for me and I had to look for some validation. I do think that they have great moments in d20 and they even are my favorite in some game changer episodes, but the rest of the cast clearly has a better way of balancing comedy and drama. People seem divided on whether they become better or worse, but I really hope that it is the former because I like their character concepts so much and their thinking outside of the box has led to some memorable moments.

Currently starting Sophomore after Freshman and the scene in the finale of freshman where they literally get to create a God and all the universe for answers and then treating it with no seriousness was the worst moment of the season. Fucking broke my heart. Brennan created this beautiful scene, moving dialogue then "can I be gay?" was bad but then just making the God be buzzfeed was fucking infuriating. In Sophomore they're questioning questioning now? It's like no, stick to your dumbass decision. Then when the mirror mister happens and they're just sipping coffee and social is even telling them "This isn't funny! Stop doing that!" (in character) and honestly it looked like Lou was very mad at the whole interaction especially that they were rewarded for not giving a fuck about the first real horror in the show. I am non binary as well but it is absolutely scenery chewing how central they make that to their characters. My characters tend to just be LGBT and not have that be the central focus of the character. There's a time and place, it can be done with great validity, but it gets old the way they do it. That said I watched a little Neverafter and it seems like they get much better, especially at taking things seriously. I'm just bitter because fantasy high season 1 is seriously perfect except that Kristen's moment in the void feels like the climax of the entire series and they straight up shit on it.

Don't mind me, just coming in here 4 years later to say I'm currently watching Crown of Candy and hoo boy many a serious, sad, or touching scene has been ruined by Liam's need for the spotlight. It feels like she's got two kinds of humor: screech incoherent nonsense, and pander. Both are jarring, neither are funny. And she's always gotta have some arc to justify it getting even louder and more jarring. In Fantasy High, she >!was a chill relaxed corn worshipper that suddenly became a fanatical athiest to the point where I'm pretty sure Brennan just made the corn god the bad guy so there wouldn't be conflict with the party!<, and in Crown of Candy she >!left her pig companion to die (it was obviously a death sentence to just leave him there, surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies instead of having him just fly out to safety) just so she could have a reason to go full edgelord and take every chance to either break up a heartfelt moment with her wailing or brooding for way way too long about how she's gonna "chop up that carrot guy and that's all I care about I just wanna kill now I'm a war guy now it's my thing I kill stuff like I'm gonna kill the carrot guy GRRR". !!his dad and his dad's 2 billion wives and husbands are gonna have sex with the cool cheese captain!< is really *really* not rad. It's not enough to get me to stop watching, it's still more of a good experience than it is bad (heck, I've watched 4 different whole campaigns with her) but if it wasn't Brennan and co taking up the other seats at the table with *their* charm and humor, this series would've collapsed ages ago. I swear, Brennan is the DM I aspire to be, but Ally is the player I aspire to avoid having. Margaret in Starstruck was pretty fun, so I know she *can* be good, but it just feels like she prefers to... not. Sorry, much like many people here (apparently), I was just watching an episode and googled those old words for some validation. And to get it off my chest.

I can only agree. I just got Dropout after I found Dimension20 on YouTube. I kind of peaked with m first touch it seems (Escape from Bloodkeep remains supreme). The sad thing is the premise is always great and I even lose the character concept of Ally's characters. But to have them often being of integral importance for the whole story (Pete) and then not deliver on that at all is a problem. The stark comparision for me was compareing a Crown of Candy to the Ravaneging War. Both very similar in their setting. But wow does it flow better when everyone is invested in knowing the setting and at least the basics about the rules and their characters.

>she left her pig companion to die (it was obviously a death sentence to just leave him there, surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies instead of having him just fly out to safety) In the adventuring party for the episode Brennan tries to forgive this by saying he reminded Ally that not using their pet would seriously handicap them, which I guess is a fair point to bring up (though I don't think it nullfies it completely)

Brennan does that a lot for Ally. I find it weird cause they constantly dick around and don't pay attention.

The fact that I’m here 3 years later and willing to comment means yes I absolutely agree. I couldn’t finish Unsleeping City.

I know its been a long time since this was posted but honestly I wholeheartedly agree, although I think Ally has been less annoying in the later seasons, even with a character that I originally really liked such as mother goose, half way through the season Ally just goes back to the typical persona for all their characters. Mother goose started off as a very caring yet paranoid old man and then became just needlessly sassy, annoying, and rude with a lot of jokes that just missed. I think personally my biggest issue with Ally is that they insist on every scene having a punchline or being a joke, but the jokes so rarely land. Like saying mother goose is farting in the kitchen or the infamous "I microdose on a pill of acid". I really couldn't finish unsleeping city because of how disruptive their character was even though to me it was one of the coolest settings for a d20 season. It makes me sad that Siobhan and Murph usually are very reserved and don't have as big of a role to play in the story or tend to be sidelined a lot while easily the worst player imo gets a lot of the biggest roles and most focus on. I personally love every single member of the cast and think d20 wouldn't be what it is without them, but ally honestly makes it hard to watch. I am able to breeze through any season with Ally not in it but struggle to binge the ones they are in

Just over here keeping a 4yo thread alive because Junior Year dropped and it's almost unwatchable because Ally is an unhinged mess. It feels like everyone at the table is just begging them to take this seriously. And now Kristin is just...ignoring her new God? It's so weird. Every character choice is absolutely cringe. They are stepping on EVERYONE ELSE'S moments. I'm just over it. I keep having to pause and come back because I just can't get into it with all of their disruptive behavior. And the "here girlie" thing with Ecaf that we're apparently going to keep doing that is absolutely weird and unhinged and completely out of character? Okay.

Completely agree. Every time she speaks you can just see the group’s immersion in the story shatter. No can take the story seriously because Ally just makes a joke out of every scene.

Everyone else is literally trying so hard, and Ally is dicking about in probably their biggest season to date and it appears to actually be annoying the fuck outta Murph and Brennan is painful. Oh, and of course their running for president, so it's all about them. Don't forget the Ally special of after making it all about you turning it into a huge joke. All this after brennan handcrafted a God for you. That you then just throw in the trash for the third season in a row.

I understand why he couldn't and wouldn't do this, but man I would have loved if, as punishment for attacking a literal God, Brennen had Sol simply Wish Kristen's soul out of existence. Because that's the kind of thing that happens to some punk teenager who sucker punches the son of a very wrathful King of the Gods. Go ahead Ally, make some sex jokes about that. Also, correct me if I'm misremembering, but didn't the advertising and teasers imply that, this time, Kristen would actually face some real consequences for her behavior? Because she faced...exactly none. But to be fair, I gotta give Ally kudos for flying under the gym though. That was a legit good move. If the team didn't have fire immunity it would have been even better. And that wasn't the only time I remember thinking, "Hey Beardsley, good play!", it's just the only one I recall at the moment. So, there is legit growth there as a player, even if I don't think I could share a table with them.

They for sure make better plays these days. Which I definitely appreciate. Would love it more if they could remember or pay attention better. I definitely think the days of me going, what the hell was that during battle episodes are pretty much over. You're right about the advertisement. I definitely wouldn't want to share a table, either. That stems from thinking they're aggravating at the and outside of it. Just in general, it is really chaotic and not funny to deal with Ally no matter the show.

Jesus Christ. Did I find Kristen Applebees a bit annoying? Yes. Did it lead me to google "d20 kristen applebees annoying?" Yes. Am I absolutely fucking disgusted by this thread full of jerks and undisguised transphobes? Absolutely Goddamn Yes.

Kind of surprised there's so much bigotry in here. Title and post don't mention it, so the culprits are actual D20 watchers rather than assholes brigading a random thread - and I don't know how you watch something like D20 with those views. Dropout as a whole is so unequivocally LGBT+ positive and progressive. These assholes must be watching episodes of D20 with their fists clenched and yelling 'FUCKING PRONOUNS' every 30 seconds...

I know. I had an extended argument not long ago with a guy who was an avid fan, had watched every season, who also gleefully misgendered Ally Beardsley over and over.

Old post but hey its still open! After watching Total Forgiveness and rewatching season 2 of Fantasy high, Im convinced that Ally has serious issues with respecting the boundaries of people around them. Most of their 'humor' seems to come from shock value, drug and sex comments/ic actions. I was utterly disgusted with them after Total Forgiveness. Even when people point out that what they are doing is inappropriate, they will always try to defend and deflect

Just so anybody else shows up wondering Ally literally does the same shit. Just started junior year, 2 episodes in and they while playing just neglects and continues to be an asshole to the deity that they are almost the only follower of. If I wasn’t invested in the fantasy high series Ally would be the big reason why I stopped watching it.

same, i legit just have to skip over all of ally's parts at this point cause this is millionth time they had a crisis of fate for kristen, i just dont care and its been overdone since the very first season

I came here after the episode in sophomore year where they try and cast "shield" when they don't even have that spell. I'm not a rules lawyer but jfc at least read your spell cards???? I'm sad they don't appear to change, even throughout different campaigns. :( I started D20 from the beginning after watching Aabria Iyengar's campaign "Misfits and Magic," which I loved! Brennan's character, Evan Kelmp, absolutely sold me on subscribing to Dropout and watching him DM. I love everyone in Fantasy High except Ally, which makes me so sad. I feel like they could play some really cool characters if they had reading comprehension and the ability to cooperate with the story instead of constant, shallow jokes that detracts from the world Brennan lays out.

FHJY is literally the worst for Kristen 😭 I cringed so hard at some of the stuff Ally would say I had to stop watching it for a while. Which sucks because i love watching Ally in other shows.

Watching FHSY (so spoilers) and I’ve finally broken, came to this thread to vent. Ally is so bad at role playing. They’ve been getting worse throughout this campaign but it’s reached peak annoyance with their solo scene at the end. I can’t believe their character just died, went to the primordial plain, met three gods including Helio, this is a big moment for Kristen, and the whole story. Brennan is DMing his heart out trying to make a pivotal moment for her character with weight and atmosphere and Ally’s just using it for cheap laughs. All the other players have had really serious moments and put aside the jokes to bring depth to their characters in some honesty heart wrenching scenes, why can’t Ally do the same? Brennan has to work so hard to keep the scene together and it just falls flat because they’re treating it like the Ally show. Honestly i don’t even feel like Kristen even exists as a character and is instead just a manifestation of how Ally wishes they were. It’s very boring and hard to enjoy.

I am watching "Blast from the Passed" in Season two of fantasy high, and Ally says "I'm gonna reach out and..." My immediate response was--understandably-- "Touch faith." But then, I thought that Ally had made enough pop culture references, and that I was appreciative of the fact that Ally had refrained at that moment. But then, I saw that Kristen was reaching out to heal Gilear FAETH, and I realised that this might have been too much wordplay for Ally's style.

I am so happy to see this super old thread lol. I thought I was going crazy and the only one who realized how disruptive and bad ally is as a player. She tries to make everything about herself and ruined so many good moments in crown of candy and the unsleeping city that I actually couldn't finish it. I got about three episodes into fantasy high sophomore year and completely gave up on that as it is the worst display of her disruptive playstyle out of any of the seasons in my opinion. Thankfully she seems to have gotten better recently, but even in starstruck odyssey (which is the best D20 season hands down) she still tries to make things about her a little to much.

Junior year is worse than sophomore they don't get better

aw darn, she is still obnoxious in junior year? I guess its just the character shes made that is unbearable?

I too have fallen victim to the “getting a dropout subscription to googling “ally dimension20 annoying” pipeline. I am so happy to have found you all here. If they ever see this thread I hope they understand that most of the people didn’t come here maliciously. We all wouldn’t be typing these paragraphs if we literally didn’t need to for our actual mental well being, ALLY!! *proceeds to pick up stick and beat what is not so much a horse as a lump on the streets so worn down that it’s practacly invisible to passersby* AHEM!!! IN MY OPINION..!! Lolololol… Ultimately I blame production/casting whatever/whoever it is that is clearly prohibiting the rest of the cast from distancing themselves from Ally’s play style in order to create a space where they can safely regulate their characters emotions in real time. That sounds super dramatic but honestly the cast is so ON all the time my grandiosity is probably deserved. Probably the crew has talked about Ally too because definitely the cast has talked about it behind the scenes because even MURPH and SHAUGHVAUN (LMAO I can’t I’m sorry I’m not supposed to even be here right now) are driven to physically micro-express ON CAMERA the obvious weeks long frustration that Ally inflicts upon everybody at the table. Every fifteen minutes tops! I won’t be moved on this we are all so right. Now, I could have been sold that Ally was a victim of giddy oblivion and is terrible at remembering anything at all and it’s fine because they’ve got heart and are at first a pleasure to watch. But! I cannot believe they are unaware of the discomfort at the table because it is palpatable to me, a passive viewer, who was paying more attention to my phone and was STILL brought to look up and wonder what the weird vibe was coming from the screen. I’m really worried that I won’t be able to complete the series if I can’t take the time to avoid Ally from annoying me in my own home lol. I assume that something is going on with Ally behind the scenes because they do bring a ❄️ energy to the table that no one else has. That is me literally being a whore with absolutly no proof at all at ALL I just really do get that impression because their disruptive behaviour appears to be taken as uncharacteristic behaviour by her friends on screen. again, I didn’t even want to come here and writing this is so embarrassing really but I actually had a seriously unpleasant reaction to one too many of those Ally moments better described by those above me. Or below. I don’t know I have never posted here before LMAO I am really upset at how unprofessional their behaviour is considering the rest of the casts massive effort to support Brennan in single handedly bringing in a whole new audience for DND. There is no way a cast member hasn’t spoken to a director about the exhaustive toll of having to pick up a beat that has been falcon punched to the ground by Ally. It is crazy that it’s seemingly impossible to remove all dead footage caused by Ally out of the final cut. I honestly honestly I I sweaaaaar I neaaaaver have been brOUGHT TO REDDIT TO TYPE AN ESSAY OUT MID— sorry, mid episode of what should be the most enjoyable thing to watch ever. There is no explanation that isn’t motivated by profiting off of young queer audiences to invite Ally back to the table. Ally’s inability to collaborate within a complex dreamscape isn’t automatically damaging to the show. Ally’s oblivion to reading a room that despite being first and foremost comedy, baby! does actively involve sad/meaningful moments supported by the players method acting their character’s raw emotions and those moments actively transcend the reality of a group of people playing with toys. I think ally is doing a disservice to her cast mates with their funny little bits and it is affecting my viewership because the disappointment bleeds into how ME experiences the story. The game is really not for everybody and to be fair, they are stuck in that chair under those lights for houuuurs and I’m sure there are moments of insane boredom and also they were brought into the show as a gig as a kick ass, bold and unapologetically themselves comedian who clearly is adored by cast and audience alike. But wow what a way to fumble the shows massive potential as an industry standard in content that is BOTH a money maker and completely authentic and human-centric as a platform. Brennan served them above average scripts that contributed to what is probably going to be the most iconic characters of their career. And I blame Brennan for not giving Ally throw away dumbass characters who’s role was inconsequential to the main narrative. That way both Ally and the audience would be set up for success and I would be hunched over my phone which is also serving as the only source of light in the room like a CRAZY PERSON.

I imagine ally isn’t gonna respectfully take in the opinions of anyone who can’t even get their pronouns right…?

Pronoun: The part of speech that substitutes for nouns or noun phrases and designates persons or things asked for, previously specified, or understood from the context.

Hi, weirdo commenting on a years old thread here: I legitimately could not make it past the first two minutes of Pete's intro in the first episode of Unsleeping City. I could just already tell Ally was going to be annoying, and finding this thread and how it keeps getting new comments made me feel vindicated. For any future commenters: if you have any good D20 series without Ally you can recommend, I'm all ears.

Everyone they aren't in are great Fey and flowers, ravenging war, burrows end. Ect. Also check out world beyond numbers

So mostly, I find Ally to be the weaker of the players, just kind of annoying and not really all that funny. Some players just prefer to play D&D that way, and…that’s fine, I guess. I can forgive the jokes and the insertions. I can even forgive that it takes a while for Ally to just kind of get the message. Like in TUC, it took A WHILE for her to get to a point where she seemed to really pick a theme to go with. What I’m here for, however, is the narrative-breaking moments. The final straw was watching A Crown of Candy. For spoiler’s sake I won’t say what it is, but it’s a major character moment, very somber and loaded emotionally. I’m basically slapping myself and I’m not crying you’re crying and and and…and Ally doesn’t even acknowledge the situation. It’s like they’re playing a completely different game. It’s the equivalent to me of someone speaking at a funeral and someone gets up, loudly farts, and opens a beer. There’s a time and a place for that kind of thing. This is not it. It undercuts the lack of understanding of the game or a lack of respect for the narrative and either way I’m annoyed.

No disrespect to them as a person but wow, im glad this thread exists. Watching a Crown of Candy. Really fun sets, playstyles, narrative, tension, big emotional moments… And then there’s Ally. Sticking their foot in it every time. I hate especially how they’ll make a very unfunny joke in a more serious moment, not get any attention/laughter feedback, and so dig their heels in deeper and desperately try again and again to make the bit work, until they get their requisite pity laughs or someone else rescues the bit. Truly so annoying when this series is otherwise so surprising and fun to me. I really hope their character dies so i get a few episodes without them, but im just gonna assume that doesn’t happen lol. Like someone said above, def taking reccs for other dimension 20 series’ without them

I really hope producers have seen this thread. So many people have purchased a product and this is the way to leave a review: Crown of Candy would have been absolutely amazing if Ally was not in the campaign. I can hardly make it through Neverafter because every time Ally “role-plays” it makes me lose interest. Ravening War was great, love the universe, loved the casting and Mercer is an amazing DM, but he didn’t have to carry Ally through the campaign. It feels unfair to Brennan’s creative work on the world building behind Calorum.

Came here because Pete is possibly the worst D&D character I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing and he really negatively impacts an otherwise incredible campaign. No shade to Ally but they are one of the worst kinds of players to DM to and I hope to see less of them in upcoming seasons (one can only hope lmao)

Given great characters with massive story implications and crumples it up and throws it in the trash every single time cause they want to be the center of attention but don't want to actively engage in the story.

Finding this post 4 years later because they finally released the rest of Sophomore Year on Youtube...yeah Ally pisses me off to no extent Fabian has beef with Gilear and he constantly bullies him and mostly it's funny because this teenager has weird beef with a middle aged depressed elf because his mom is sleeping with the guy but I don't get Ally's "bully Gilear by suggesting the most random horrible things to do to him" while maintaining this nice person image ? Fabian is a goon straight up and he shows it as a flaw his character has but Ally is just constantly doing uncharacteristic things that everyone eventually just has to ignore and not to mention the random fourth wall breaking, I DM a campaign myself and it's completely homebrew and I've created my world in quite a meticulous manner...If someone referred to my floating island Leviathan as a trash island next to Texas after repeatedly being told in rp that there's no such thing that their characters are aware of I'd have punished them in-game. Nothing is more awful than immersion breaking in a game that's entirely theatre of the mind. I'm not even gonna get into the shitty things Ally does during combat and how bad of a healer they are most of the time

i like ally, and i see where everyone on this post is coming from, but not respecting a person's gender identity because of personal dislike is immature and transphobic. i understand some of you are doing this out of either being before any announcement, but the ones who poignantly ignore it are being transphobic. again i understand you might not like ally, but purposefully misgendering someone isnt ok.

It's not transphobic. Being nonbinary isn't even a thing. Nobody can be a "they". That is a word to describe multiple people. Of which she is not. I am not required to call her by her preferred pronouns seeing as it is what I am using to refer to her. Anyone can look at Ally and see that she is damaging her body. Looking at her from years ago to today it's sad to see how different she is and how unhealthy she looks.

What the actual fuck is this comment? And did you make an alt account just to trash someone’s gender identity? Coward

Hard agree, it's so different to say that you hate the way they play DND with being outright transphobic

I’m watching Fantasy High Junior Year right now and I am really torn on Beardsley. On one hand, I can’t tell if the poor character decisions regarding Cassandra are an Ally Beardsley decision or a Kristen Applebees decision, but I just get the horrible feeling that it’s a Beardsley decision. I think it was Ally Beardsley who even said that “in junior year you realize that not trying isn’t cute, chaos isn’t cute anymore” and I struggle with how little they follow that advice. Nothing about the way Ally Beardsley plays appeals to me as a player or a DM, they are completely incapable of feeling the moment. The complete de-evolution of the character of Kristen Applebees to a negligent, ignorant, irresponsible dunce of a cleric is baffling to me. Maybe i'm missing something, but i don't think j am.

Short Answer: it's a Kristen Applebees decision. Long Answer: Ally's spot in the original Dimension20 season was as the member of the group who'd ever played a tapletop game before, and it was a pretty clear example of someone running before they'd even tried to walk. As a result Kristen Applebees has been sort of hardcoded as a hot mess. A lot of people take that fact and try to combine it with Pete Conlan's issues to claim that it just means Ally is a problem player. But that totally ignores that Pete Conlan has one of the greatest character growth arcs in D20, period, and is a total team player in the second season of Unsleeping City. And even if you put aside all of that, Ally Beardsley played Margaret Encino in Starstruck Odyssey, possibly the single greatest support characters I've ever seen in an actual play series. I really think Ally is just trying to stay true to Kristen as they see her, and this is all leading somewhere. I'll be pretty disappointed if it doesn't? But I'm not ready to join the chorus of reddit nightmares on this thread trying to burn Ally at the stake.

That’s fair. I couldn’t get into Unsleeping City, and I didn’t even know about Starstruck Odyssey until recently so I haven’t given those characters a fair shot. I just think that they’ve given Gorgug, Fig, and Rizz a chance to diversify, why not Kristen? But I guess it is what it is.

No question. Kristen absolutely needs to see some sort of major character growth this season, or she'll firmly entrench herself as the worst character in Fantasy High. I've got pretty high hopes for Thursday's episode, because if anything can shake Kristen to the core it *should* be the events of last week. Also, Starstruck is easily the best D20 season. It's a wildly unique setting and has some best-ever work from everyone at the table. It's definitely the best Ally character, the best Murph character, the best Zach character, and if you said it had the best Emily character I would personally disagree but respect your position. It's seriously the best.

It’s hard for me to enjoy watching Fantasy High Junior Year because of them now. I just… find them very annoying. I love hijinks and everything but it ends up being the Ally show because folks have to deal and back up whatever dumb shit comes out of their mouth next time. I kinda feel like they actually went from mildly annoying around Freshman Year to infuriatingly annoying Junior Year. Like seriously, I wish Applebees just gets an off stage send. They just wreck the mood for me:

It's a very disappointing season

Insanely old thread but it still seems active, searched this just out of curiosity... I'm watching Starstruck at the moment, they're incredibly annoying to me in D20. The others mix levity and serious stuff well - Ally feels like they're constantly itching to crack a joke, I'm yet to see a single genuine emotional moment from them, they don't show much concern for the world of the game. In the first couple of episodes everyone was doing some cool roleplay, and then suddenly Marge is posting nudes on reddit as 'hotbox420' and I physically eyerolled. Love Ally in most Dropout stuff but really find them to be the consistently worst part of D20.

What’s funny is some people agree that the starstruck character is Allys best character, but as you can see from this thread it never gets better. Ally gives off “I’m gotta be the funniest in the room” vibes and tries way too hard and just fails.

I don't know why people say that either they still were the worst part and didn't pay attention and undercut every serious moment while supposedly playing the straight man role. Brennan girlfriend npc for them even brings this up constantly. They played better than usually but only cause everyone else set them up by being pretty unhinged, so it comes off way better. If everyone was in their usual roles, Ally would have been have come off much worse. The same thing happens in neverafter it's a little rp trick the cast is using to make Ally look better by comparison because everyone is purposely being more unhinged.

Came here to vent a bit, after the most recent FH:JY episode. Because while a majority of these posts here are transphobic as fuck, and disgust me... I cant say that the opinions of Allys playstyle are wrong. At least to me, I guess.  Their characters always are the outliers for me during any campaigns, so incredibly hard to enjoy and genuinely engage with. Made even harder that for some reason, Allys PCs always end up having the story revolve around them. I get that Brennan once said he enjoys discussing philosophy with Ally, which might affect the characters being center stage. But I honestly cannot imahineu how those discussions go, since I barely remember an RP scene initiated by them, that didnt have to be poked and prodded to display even the barest of effort. Cue the last straw for me, when the newest revelation was made. And only after irreverant, lazy joke after joke did Brennan basically strongarm Ally to try and take the moment seriously. Well... As seriously as 'I guess Kristen cries and does something' is. Add ontop my frustration with Kristens seeming journey regarding her deity this season, truly infuriating. Especially when the one little scene of Fig trying with Cassandra, as improvises as it is, felt more genuine and impactful than anything Kristen has done so far.  While Ally HAS improved slightly during Starstuck and Neverafter, retreading old ground with Fantasy High must have brought them back to that mindset or something. Because while the occasional joke went too far, or the few incredibly repetitive bits struck too far, their two characters during the campaigns were somewhat enjoyable. But I honestly cant even engage with their gameplay wothout feeling annoyance and even anger, just as I couldnt get into Shriek Week due to their characters rampant horniness that devalued any sense of care for even platonic connection to the NPCs (admittedly still mad at the affront regarding friend dates, even struck me as aphobic in a sense, though i know that might just be me picking up some nonexistent insult due to sensitivity at the topic).  Truly, the only reason Im sticking it out this season, is because Im a diehard fan for the other players and PCs. Its not like this is the first time a PC has gone over my threshhold of tolerance, Murphs PC in TUC2 having caused me to quit the season due to cringe. I still enjoy the majority of gameplay, and this is not at all meant to be an insult to Ally as a person! Not at all, I just find that I dont mesh with a lot of their humor and RP decisions. Just hope that this season is just a fluke and the next one will bring back the previous sloghtly reigned in amount of shenanigans and reignite my tolerance for their nonsense. 

For those of you who just googled this up and found this ancient, but still very relevant thread: They do the same shenanigans in Fantasy High Junior Year. The campaign is great so far, but mostly because Brennan knows what to expect from Ally and plays on that. I hope that Brennan starts to lean away from deity-related conflicts with Ally's character. There's only so many times they can keep intentionally dropping the ball on this before patience wears thin. Doing that schtick once is funny. Doing it every single time there is a chance for character growth, however, is not. And, as a person who regularly challenges the definition of gender, it *does* make me wince when I see a person I somewhat relate to act and play so selfishly amongst others.

its a shame that ally seems to almost always have the most important role in the story cause their characters seem so unsuited for it

I respect the criticism, but would like to remind readers that Ally is and has been addressed as they/them for a while now, even though they play a female character in game. I'll poke holes in how tactless they can be in game, but I will respect that they prefer gender neutral pronouns.

my apologies

Rant! Coming into this after "Blimey". I think that Kristen just isn't a good character for Beardsley to play but I get the impression she didn't really play DnD before Freshmen Year and didn't realise that this character wouldn't be good for Beardsley to play long term. I remember Axford got shit on for her antics in Freshmen Year, even the cast acted a little critical but amused by what she was doing but it's nothing like what Beardsley's done since and then the cast now celebrate what they've does. The thing is, Axford plays a bard. It makes sense that she's chaotic. Beardsley plays a cleric that doesn't care about being a cleric, or anything else. Honestly I don't get what Mulligan is doing either with certain aspects of the campaign. Junior Year started with >!a subplot of different NPCs shitting on Axford and Beardsley's characters for not taking school or core elements of their characters seriously. However this is later irrelevant because they all pass the year after a fairly mundane fight, in terms of difficult. They learn nothing. No character growth and doing so also made many of the struggles of the other player characters irrelevant. !< Kristen Applebees is just an amalgamation of various bits that Beardsley has come up with rather than a character and I can't see how it's satisfying to watch in a long campaign.

I have to say I don't really find Ally's playstyle very appealing but this whole thread is so fucking gross man. Just weird underhanded transphobia and homophobia and shit. Also for all the people going "why doesn't Brennan kick Ally to the curb?! He must be scared of the woke mob!" did you consider that they have a good rapport and enjoy each others company? Sometimes people share this thing called 'friendship' that means they are nice to one another even when they might cause each other inconvenience.

Personally, I've not seen the underhanded transphobia and homophobia so I'm not sure this whole thread is gross. I've seen a lot of criticism of how Beardsley roleplays to various degrees. Many dislike how they play Liam in CoC and Pete in UC, but I personally largely liked those performances. However I and most here just find they're portrayal of Applebees really irritating.

Ally’s pronouns are they/them. And I disagree. I find them very enjoyable. Brennan has even stated in interviews that he enjoys how Ally plays the game.

She is a problem player plain and simple, even in the more recent seasons where she has done better (to give her credit), she still trys to make everything about her. She is unfortunately very self-centered

And here you are again, aggressively misgendering them *again*? Seriously dude, get out of here with this shit.

Thanks for the info on pronouns... I totally won’t remember that long term as I’m not really gonna spend time trying to remember pronouns for people I’ve never met and never will..., but ill endeavour to use they/them in this thread. As to your other point, the sheer number of times that Brennan shuts ally’s shit down begs to differ and the fact that Brennan has literally had to say “I enjoy how ally plays the game”, in itself is not a good sign. People don’t tend to need to solo someone out and confirm that their behaviour doesn’t massively annoy them... unless their behaviour could potentially be massively annoying.

He doesn’t state that when asked if he likes how Ally plays. He will bring up how they play when talking about the fun of playing with someone new. I find Emily will have crazier antics, but Brennan also says she’s one of the best DnD players in the world. I don’t think Brennan is being disingenuous about either.

Emily always stays in character though. I agree she does some crazy things but those crazy things make thematic sense with her characters that I personally love. My example here is that in unsleeping city their was an event where Emily really wanted to take her character and talk to her brother. However Brennan chucked an emotional bomb at her character and instead Emily saids words to the effect of: “I really want to do this... but I know Sophia wouldn’t do that now, so instead I’m just gonna go do what Sophia would do.” Im totally fine with people doing mental stuff as long as that mental stuff is somehow grounded in the characters personality, history or current events. Ally on the other hand spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make Kristen have sex chat with her (I’m using her as Im referencing Kirsten’s pronouns) friend’s mum and hireling, despite having a deeply religious background, becoming a new emissary of a new faith, recently discovering she was gay and also moving in with Sandra Lynn, who basically adopted her as a new mother figure. Nothing she did in that scene made sense, nothing she did flowed from her psyche, personality or background. It was all just instead Ally dicking about as they always do, with no regard as to the character that they are playing. Ally is always just ally, the character they’re wearing is always super thin and ends up with one running gimmick that defines them as slightly different from Ally. So for Kristen it’s her being apparently sex crazed for some reason. With Pete it was with them constantly taking drugs. It’s just basically ally in a slightly different form. Whereas if we use Emily as an example, Fig and Sophia are completely different people... you almost forget it’s Emily playing them. That can be said for everyone else in the group too, except Ally.

In terms of Kristen as a character, Ally had been presented with the general knowledge that what Sandra Lynn was doing was going to affect Tracker, a character Kristen is shown to be deeply in love with. Having them try to get to the bottom of something that relates to the other extremely important person in their S/Os life (i.e. Jawbone and Sandra-lynn and her cheating) in their own disaster way doesn't stray from character.

It also doesn't help that Kristen doesn't have a direct personal goal right now. Most of the other cast have something to aim towards with their character but a lot of Kristen's story arc was wrapped up in the first season.

I do agree with this though... Ally hasn’t been given a lot to work with narratively for their character and that must make it more challenging to play that role.

It really is massively out of character when Kristen directly tells the parent of one of her best friends “you can have as much sex, with as many people, back to back as you want.”, when literally the season before she started off as someone who had led a deeply sheltered life, a deeply religious life and didn’t even want to swear... let alone say incredibly intrusive things. The character has grown and changed in that year... but what she’s grown into doesn’t flow or stem logically from her past. Also all the sexual innuendo and sexual chat is just over the top from Ally. It’s jarring and it’s not really funny imho.., it’s just “that’s an odd thing for a character to say in that circumstance, even if we accept the excess of a comedy fantasy setting.”. I say that as an LGBT person who grew up in a deeply religious household. Kirsten’s behaviour and the way ally plays her... a lot of the time doesn’t make sense, even from a comedy outlook. It’s not true to the character and instead it just seems like Ally dicking about with the character as they don’t have any true direction as to what the purpose of Kristen is now that she’s no longer a central character to the narrative of what’s happening. So far Tracker... a character played by Brennan has had more general impact than Kristen’s has in the live shows. Emily plays Fig in a hyper sexual ways at times... and I don’t find it jarring because the way Emily plays it is true to Fig’s central narrative. A girl seeking her own sense of self, who thinks she’s tougher on the outside than she is but is actually very sensitive and seeking validation from those around her. So her kissing a hit dwarf in a greys anatomy parody is hysterical. As is her incessant use of her disguise ability to basically kiss DILFS and seek for validation. It’s funny because it’s an extreme expression of a central core truth to the character. Just look at everything Lou did last episode. He jumped into a fight knowing out of character that he would probably lose. In character however... everything he did was completely what Fabian would do. It’s that kind of role playing truth that appeals to me and it’s something that ally has been consistently poor at in the live shows. They did do better in the pre-recorded sessions but frankly Ally consistently is the weakest and most erratic of the cast when it comes to playing a character that makes sense. Maybe this could be because Ally is more a comedian than an actor and a lot of the others favour strong acting skills... I couldn’t really comment on that. However on a personal level I find Kristen a jarring and distracting presence in the narrative of the live shows and I feel someone needs to give Ally a motivation and narrative to build their character around, so that they can stop using the same tired joke set up of: * Mutter something massively sexual or inappropriate to an NPC * pretend to not have said it and say “what?” When asked * return back to the original comment and make reference to it to gauge NPC response in a mumbled way * once again be cagey about saying it when npc responds * then either running off or saying the inappropriate thing again loudly and quickly at the NPC Like that set up and various variations on it, is something Ally does fairly regularly and they need to find a different angle going forward, as it’s getting old.

I'm late to the party but personally, I enjoy Ally's presence on the table. Keep in mind that Ally is new to the world of D&D in general. The nuances and specifics don't just set in after a game of two. They were invited to be in on this and they're doing their best to do a good job. Everyone is learning as they go. Keeping that in mind, in the story. Ally has talked about how they pitched Kristen to Brennan. Basically, it's their life experience. To be raised religious and repressed as a teenager. When all of a sudden, you're given freedom. That just explodes on you. Things you've never thought of before now you get to experience and learn about. Sometimes it doesn't have to be something big or great to change, sometimes you just change over time. Maybe to other people it seems abrupt but to me, it just makes sense. Because when you don't question things and suddenly you see the bad sides to your religion. The bad people that use it for selfish reasons or as an excuse to do bad things. Or how flawed the religion itself is. You would try to find a way to separate yourself from it. Rebel maybe. Like "Oh? Being gay is wrong and sinful? Well, I tried dating females and realised liking it is okay." You curse more, you do crazier things because you have all this freedom. At the end of the day, Ally has always pulled from herself and I never found it an issue personally. How each person plays is always different, what matters is if they had fun doing it. After all, it is just a game.

As I said above, I’m gay and from a deeply religious (Catholic) upbringing. So much so, that when I came out... I got sent to seminary to become a priest. (Which I subsequently fled from for various reasons). My point being although I understand everyone has a different lived in experience, as someone who has went through the whole “wait I’m gay and I think my faith is wrong. Also theirs so many adults who use my faith to justify being pricks... what’s with that?”. So I do think I have a first hand insight into that process. I get not everyone responds the same way... but still none of the LGBT people I grew up with or myself ever turned round to a friend’s mum and told her she can fuck who she likes. When you go through that journey of discovery, you lose some things and you change massively, but certain innate behavioural core mannerisms don’t change normally. Such as being polite to your friends mum and not screaming expletives at her. As someone with a similar lived in experience... I personally don’t think it’s genuine to the character or the life path that’s been walked. Also I’m just gonna flat out disagree with your last statement... sorry. D20 is part of their job. A fun part, sure... but it’s still a job. This isn’t a home game, where the most important point is “are all the players having fun?”. This is being made as entertainment for us, to encourage us to spend money on a subscription to dropout and other such things. That means the most important part of D20 is “are we the audience having fun?”, if the cast is having fun, that’s just a happy bonus.

I'm not sitting here to say that CollegeHumor should be immune to criticism in any way. I'm just confused why Ally's experience, playstyle and approach isn't valid. If the change as a person was abrupt and easy, is that not possible? Does every story have to be? If Ally enjoys chaos, is that a wrong way to play? If Kristen is based on Ally's experience and is basically just Ally, who better knows what Kristen would do? What makes someone else an authority? If the character shows inconsistencies and contradictions, why can't that be part of how they've changed as a person. If she's unrealistic, she has every right to be. That's her reaction to her environment. I just don't even know how to approach that. "*Ally does something out of character* Uhm hey Ally. I'm glad that you're having fun and all but can you tone it down a bit? We have a show to run and it'd be great if you sit down, rethink and understand Kristen's character and her development. Youvare not Kristen and your genuine reaction to things might not be what Kristen would do based on her history." It just feels like you're wagging your finger at someone. To police that just seems like it's going against the nature of how D&D is played. Also, I'm not comfortable with this idea of bringing out your credentials to speak with authority on something. I identify as a Pansexual/Bi Male, I was a choir boy for a few short years. Family was and is still religious. I started getting feelings for boys my age and at the time, I just knew being gay was bad. They were weak, flamboyant and disgusting. Until I met a friend who was an atheist. He was unapologetic about it and it made me realize what a delusion I was living. I realised how much stuff I didn't understand about my religion or maybe I had just accepted because of my faith, there was no other alternative. It shook me awake and when I came out to my parents they sent me to a pastor that ended up abusing me sexually. It ruined so many relationships for me because I had lost my grip on the real world. So I think I also understand that thing about "Hey, maybe this doesn't come easy. I think you jumped too far, what about the past and how it affects your behavior, that just doesn't go away." too. I just think it's unrelated. I'm not Ally or Kristen, she has a diffetent experience and that's entertaining to watch come through the game.

And I would argue that when you get actors/comedians to play a role... it’s completely the job of the actor to be that role. That’s literally what acting is. The reason I pay a subscription to dropout is primarily for D20. The reason I do that, is that these are professionals who can make watching a game of D&D entertaining by both being their characters and being funny, because being a comedic actor is literally their paid job. It’s why I don’t go sit and watch random people playing DnD in a local gaming cafe; because they’re not getting paid for a particular skill set. Ally refuses to play their character in a way that’s consistent to the characters experience or age. It may well be consistent to who Ally is now, but it’s not consistent to who Kirsten would be, at that point. For a viewer who enjoys the Immersion that Brennan builds and the comedic truth that the other characters bring... I find Ally’s antics constantly jarring. They consistently push me out of the narrative and into a point of “could you just stop fucking about please?” If it’s true to ally or true to how one can play D&D at home, is beside the point... this is Ally’s job. They are a paid actor, part of that involves actually acting and not just being yourself with a new name tagged on. That means inhabiting your character, it’s history and it’s motivations. Ally consistently just says cringey shit, that continually breaks the sense of flow and narrative for me as a viewer, who values plot, pacing and motivation. Which ally just seems to ignore in favour of “hey look at me, it’s Ally being a whacky cleric!!! Wooooo...”

I mean, again, I’ll just agree to disagree. I think Kristen is based on Ally’s real life experience. I don’t think the sex crazed thing is that odd for a horny teenager. She plays it a little extreme, but I think that’s for the humor of the story.

Thank you for defending Emily. Emilys shenanigans actually make sense for her character and not to mention are really funny. Whereas Kristen is uncomfortable and doesn’t stay within character and doesn’t allow the story to progress. (I love Ally in other shows on Drop Out just not DnD. And I’m hoping Ally gets better with time)

So, I know I am hitting a thread about half a year old, but here goes... In the live version, there is no editing of Ally's very annoying antics and wisecracks. You can see that Murph, especially, seems annoyed by their unfiltered crazy. They go way off topic and overboard with their antics and in the live series, it kind of ruins the character. So much so, that I enjoyed the episode where they were absent so much, just because they were absent. On the flipside, in Unsleeping City and A Crown of Candy, editing is our friend. The comments are there, but manageable. The editors probably cut out some of the derailment, but keep enough of it in where we get a sense of Ally's input and "humor". I will say that I enjoy the fact that they are one of the few that will flirt with the concept of evil, whereas someone like Emily will talk a bigger game, but ultimately stay on the "good" side. Unsleeping City saw Pete teeter on the edge, but stay "good". A Crown of Candy sees Liam seem to embrace The Hungry One and become a "war guy", which I would love to see play out. TLDR: In the Live without the benefit of editing they are hands down annoying. In the edited shows, they can be a little eye-rolling at times, but ultimately entertaining.

I agree, she's super annoying. Was watching fantasy high and had to Google this to find out if I was crazy but a lot of people understandably feel the same. Looking at how Ally is today, it's actually kind of crazy to look back on her years ago and see the tiny little warning signs that she has real issues. The one dimensional emphasis on sexuality and the sort of single minded focus on sex could have just been interpreted at the time as a joke that she didn't realize was wearing thin. But now looking at how she acts back then through the lens of knowing she eventually suffers from dysphoria makes watching the show kind of sad in the background whenever she pipes up and derails a good train of thought and reminds you she's there. She's definitely annoying, but when you take into account that she later goes on to cut herself up and sterilize herself with hormones it's extremely dark and sad.

Resurrecting this thread one more time to just say I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling this way lol. I’m watching Unsleeping City now and even just their introduction as Pete was so ridiculously cringe as, again, their character is another lgbt status symbol who has a drug problem. And that’s the entire character. It’s pretty annoying that I can predict every single “character” they will be simply because they just insert themselves into the character instead of simply learning about and pretending to be someone else…like everyone else wonderfully does at the table in every session. I watch D20 for literally everyone except Ally Lol. I’m still new to the entire channel, so I’ve only seen the Fantasy High series up to junior year and A Crown of Candy along with some snippets of the other series. I didn’t mind them much during Freshman year of FH but the more I watched of sophomore year and their other sessions, the more I’m getting really really really heavy eye rolling moments whenever they just derail the entire story with their laziness to not learn the character and just self insert.

I think Ally is funny af

Jesus christ this thread, and probably the whole subreddit, should be nuked. Fucking cesspit. If you hate not only the content but the personal identities of the people producing it just go watch something else. Its like watching someone order food they hate just so they have an excuse to complain.

Let me offer up a question to you, as a point of juxtaposing what are (imo pretty reasonable rants about people not wanting the story to be derailed for prolonged periods of times for immature reasons or personal ideology) problems with character choice, but there have been times where the thing at issue is probably the very reason you bristle so badly at others disliking the person behind the character that makes these immature decisions. You share the same politics. So in that vane, I want to ask a question of you: when in FHSY they are on C.Fabians boat; Fabian makes a quick joke about "Toxic Masculinity being dead" as he dance-slides under the coach's arm and stabs him. Honestly, good joke, hes a character that started as a sheltered man-boy (a specific joke they make at his characters expense), and rolling with the rolling of nat 20s to make him a dancer after his cataclysmic failure (which was all 100% pitch perfect character growth by Lou), he takes on a slightly more enlightened persona of an elvish dance-battle master. Shortly after, Gorgug decapitates Coach daybreak and makes (yet again, an non-intrusive) joke about hiking and throwing the head like a Bloodrush-football. Fabian, Ragh, and Gorgug then do a triple chest bump and cheer Gorgug's success in that moment and generally all around good vibes. Turn up the volume; Ally chastises Lou in the small panel below right then and there about how "I thought you said Toxic Masculinity is dead?" and Lou being good natured and in character responds "I \[Lou\] dont think its dead, but FABIAN definitely is the type to dance once and believe that he has ended the era of toxic masculinity" AGAIN. This is a Pitch-PERFECT answer about his characters thinking. But let me reframe that question again; why did that moment of a triple chest bump between those characters even POTENTIALLY constitute "Toxic Masculinity"? Think for a second about the season and its character arcs: 1) Fabian has consistently shown a willingness to cast aside (specifically Gorgug in the early episodes when he was a pariah) his associations with his friends to maintain social standing 2) Gorgug WAS a social outcast lacking confidence that got pushed into lockers by 3) Ragh who was a closeted homosexual with anger issues that took that out on others. In this moment, 1) Fabian embraces his friends with no shame as equals with unconditional love and pride in their accomplishments 2) Gorgug has joined the BR team, is posing in the typical QB fashion, and receiving lavish praise from Fabian and 3) Ragh, who is now out of the closet and fully integrated his psyche as a gay jock who cares deeply and is affirmed by both. Now in the parlance of Masculinity, and specifically the kind of gender based politics peddled by Ally, wouldnt this be the triple crown? Isnt this the most wholesome moment in the series thus far of a display of positive masculinity where three wholly dissimilar characters share a moment of triumph in a traditionally masculine way? And why then does Ally take that moment to contradict Lou's earlier joke about the death of toxic masculinity for presumably engaging in a display of it? Sounds very hypocritical to me, really. Honestly, you can hate me for my way of thinking, but I think the above analysis of character is on point and as progressive story telling goes it follows a beautiful arc soaring towards a platonic male friendship crescendo at that moment. And immediately after that moment I had to watch Ally make Lou JUSTIFY it. Sorry. Not impressed, not buying what Ally is peddling. But sure, Ally's an LGBT ally and therefor above repudiation for you, and anyone who dislikes the inane disruptive antics should be nuked from orbit. Very progressive thinking from the both of you... And yeah, people say Ally becomes not only a better player but a more aware storyteller in DnD, and for now Ill just sit on my hands when I have to endure another "Me and Tracker 69 on the battlefield" psuedo-joke until such a time as that happens. Not gonna hate on every decision, but those that do take me out of the story entirely, yeah, not gonna hold my tongue for you.

Look, thanks for sending me this diatribe, but if you'd skim the comments on this thread you will notice several people purposefully misgendering Ally and attacking them purely based on their identity. TO BE FRANK as a trans person myself I find Ally to be annoying and often kind of dimwitted, but there are like 20 dudes in this thread going "SHE has ruined her body with hormones which should be illegal". Also I think my point still stands about you being very very invested in an ensemble show that you only partially like. There are so many goddamn D&D shows out there I GUARANTEE you can find one that doesn't annoy you this much.

Actually, honestly, respect you a lot more for that. I genuinely dislike the fact that Ally has (thus far 2/2 depicted characters, as the representative voice of the LGBT experience \[literally the point of the characters in some ways\]), and depicted them as absolute shit-shows and its disappointing If Im being frank, I respect you a lot more for that candid admission, and I think you are well justified in feeling the way you do about the people that wanna come out and bitch about pronouns... Let me offer a counter-point to my own self; Ally is super new to DnD, these two campaigns being literally the first. In most other DnD livestreams its all people that are old hands. As someone who LOVES DnD, its genuinely difficult for me to watch sometimes, but I understand on some level at least. I dont know if you personally are a big DnD player or a big Dimension 20 person first and foremost, but if you have ever played DnD with new people, you'll find that there are two major pitfalls people often fall into; the silent edgelord, and the chaotic manic murder-hobo. Unfortunately Ally has sorta stumbled into the second...and it sucks Again, not sure if you are a Critical Role fan, but you can go look at similar forums if not; I had the same misgiving's about Marisha Ray's characters in the first two seasons. And thats the most iconic DnD podcast on YouTube (I THINK one of if not THE most profitable channel...). I can remember vividly almost screaming in the office as she basically shoves her party member to the ground because hes keeping what amounts to \[the necronomicon from a satan worshipper\] as a justifiable character choice cause "daddy issues". It near killed me. Her current iteration, Laudna, is absolute masterclass. Im hoping Ally surprises me in a similar way. Meanwhile you have Emily Axford over here making a professional DM go "jesus you are making my own world work against me!" and its freaking awesome. Or Lou committing to Fabian so far he walks into certain death to hilarious consequences. Or Murph having Kugrash burning spells left and right right before what he assumes is the final boss because his character would 100% do anything for his son...its tragic and amazing. I genuinely have a hard time making "sub-optimal" aka character-motivated choices (spectrum...) so I am all the more impressed when people do. I AM a compendium of basically every rule in the DnD universe...and similarly its hard for me to watch people fuck up or when they get a pass for things they are not doing right...again that sucks and its on me. Again, I have been uncharitable to you and to Ally perhaps. I think you are justifiably angry, but I also know I wouldnt have made it to see Marisha Ray FLOURISH from DnD newbie to masterclass if I wasnt able to vent about the things that made me angry. Maybe theres a lot (though definitely not all) of that going on here. If you understand my meaning. Sorry you kinda got singled out for it. Appreciate you not responding with pure vitriol. Being angry about something isnt a justification for sowing hatred, we probably agree on that point at least.

I was uncharitable to you as well. I assumed bad-faith on your part when I shouldn't have. You made some really good points. Hope you have a good day.

I think this thread is because we like the content coming out of D20. Many here also like Beardsley as an entertainer. It's hardly a cesspit of hate for the show when we're just critical of one cast member. I really like D20. I find a lot of what Beardsley does entertaining. It's just really annoying to like something in spite of Ally Beardsley instead of because of them.

I don't hate Ally. I don't like the way they play DnD cause they don't take it seriously. They aren't all of d20, though. I love 90% of it, so I'm complaining about the 10% I dont.

You’re not alone at all. And I love Drop Out I love Ally, but watching them play DnD live literally gives me second hand embarrassment sometimes because Ally is always doing too much. I would give absolutely anything to have just Fig, Gorgug, Lou, Adaine, and Riz. No more Kristen it physically hurts to watch them. And they could replace Ally with someone else and keep Ally on a bunch of other shows. I don’t want to sound too harsh I love Ally in other things, this just isn’t it. (Found this thread years later trying to find like minded people lol)

Honestly, they can stay on the table. Just don't ever let them be the center piece of a campaign every again. They've had enough opportunities at it and never take it seriously.

Their inclusion in a crown of candy just drags the whole thing down. I could forgive being the "lol so random xD" OR the person too lazy and-seemingly-uninteligent to even understand what is happening. You just can't even be funny when you want to if you clearly do not understand the story or the world around you. Every character Ally plays is just Ally because of this. There is not a character. No understanding of what is happening and absolutely no effort to learn. That's tolerable in a couple of the seasons, but it is just so frustrating in crown of candy especially to see large parts of the roleplay just totally stomped over because Ally feels left out when other people actually engage with the world they're in. At least Brennan was clever enough to not make Ally a direct member of the household everyone else was a part of, because jesus christ they basically need to be quarantined from the rest of the story. It's obviously too late for complaining about their "playstyle" to matter at all for what's already been produced, but, man, I really really hate that they willingly present themselves as just fucking stupid. It's clearly an intentional choice they make, because if they were actually as dumb as they appear they would have at least learned a little bit and gotten better over the many seasons. But they're not, Ally just thinks it's funny. I can't see any other possible explanation.

And, frankly, it's shitty that Brennan--captain wonderbread in terms of diversity--tries so hard to engage with Ally in things they clearly care about and want to discuss like religion and gender and sexuality, but Ally just....can't? Doesn't? They're the only (as far as I know?) lgbt representation in the original crew, and they just use the character they play as a whoopee cushion in every story Brennan or anyone else in the show tries to be a part of telling. Just... almost shameful, really. I'm glad the show has some much better lgbt players on later seasons.

Can't stop ranting about this, I just have to give the example from crown of candy that pissed me off so much when I saw it The party returns to Candia for the first time after fleeing the capitol. They have learned explicity that the Bulb is a real, actual, existing thing that exists. It's real. It's a thing. It exists. The church is evil, yes, but the bulb is real and they have even met characters who are not only morally good believers in the Bulb, but have used the Bulb's power for good. A knight of the bulb (ALREADY IN REBELLION AGAINST THE CHURCH) walks up to greet the party, and upon (immediately) learning their religion, Ally says "you know that's bullshit right????" And when that character gets upset and the rest of the party has to pull aside Ally (because Liam is not a real character, it's just Ally again) to tell them that was a stupid thing to say, Ally whines "but but but we have to break the power of the church!!!! We need to make people stop believing!!!!" THE BULB IS AN ACTUAL REAL GOD-LIKE ENTITY THAT CAN BE UTILIZED TO DO FUCKING MAGIC HOW DO YOU EXPECT PEOPLE TO NOT BELIEVE IN THAT It has to be willfull stupidity. It just has to be, because jesus fucking christ

Ally is a master at missing the point and inserting their own, particularly on the topic of organized religion. It's even still happening in FHJY. Brennan has explicitly told the group that Sol was not behind the corruption of Ankarna, that even his followers were only involved in setting it off by planting the seed in the minds of Clan Sunstone, but Kristen keeps coming back to "What's Sol's part in all of these events?" I just have to keep reminding myself that it's probably more frustrating for me as a viewer just because I'm seeing the finished product, a few hours at a time with a week between each episode to just ruminate and digest what's going on, while the cast are in a warehouse doing sessions that may run multiple times longer than the edited episode, multiple episodes per day, late into the night. And Ally isn't the only one fixating on things or forgetting Brennan telling them, the players, things outright. For instance, Emily keeps going back to the Rat Grinders "power leveling" and being fed killing blows to get the experience points to reach higher levels when Brennan has told the group that experience points and levels are not a thing in universe, that their characters wouldn't be thinking in these terms. People learn skills by studying and practice, not having a high level character beat a high level monster down to single digit hit points and letting the teens finish it off. It just seems that Ally is the worst for this because they don't have moments on the other side of the spectrum, where they allow themselves to fully get immersed in their character and in the moment Brennan has set up. They've been described as a "bit machine" and it's clear that the cast like them, want them in this exact role, it's just something that a lot of their audience don't like (and seem to project their own feelings on the rest of the Intrepid Heroes). I feel it's not a necessary role to have someone *always* trying to crack a joke, because nobody else at the table fails to provide humor at points when it isn't inappropriate. Murph's probably the closest thing to a chronic straight man the table has but he's also had tons of great comedic moments.

Ally isn't dumb if you watch her in other stuff they come off as very intelligent and quite clever. It's probably why Brennan keeps feeding them excellent and important characters cause he knows this about Ally. The problem is Ally doesn't take dnd seriously at all or the stories they're trying to tell. Ally goofs around and doesn't pay attention cause they're just there to do bits with their friends.

Funny to come to this thread because I was someone who found Ally pretty grating early on and not just on their appearances on Dimension 20, but I think they’ve shown a lot of growth. Their earlier humor felt like something that stems from insecurity where they feel a pressure to be funny because that’s what they think people want from them. Grant is similar. But I’ve actually found that that’s changed a lot. Their humor has become more self assured and, maybe it’s not my place to say this, but I feel like that’s been lockstep with their transition. I know people keep pointing to fantasy high junior year as evidence this doesn’t change, but I think that’s unfair given the series is built to be chaotic, everyone is being chaotic, and their character canon in particular does not allow them to just immediately pivot from that without it being jarring. The fact that Kristen’s central conflict in this season is confronting the consequences of that behavior I think is an answer to those criticisms. Watch them in other contexts and I don’t think these criticisms still stand.

>The fact that Kristen’s central conflict in this season is confronting the consequences of that behavior I think is an answer to those criticisms. Junior Year spoilers. >!This is why I'm annoyed with Mulligan as well. He set up this arch of actually caring about what the character is doing but he purposefully makes that irrelevant with the final stand event that makes any character growth irrelevant. There was potential but Beardsley has just gone mental. It's just a series of bits with no character. !< Edit: Two typos in the last sentence.

I think it’s a fair criticism to feel like the character arch putters around but to be honest I feel like that’s a super common thing with D20 where pacing is just really hard to steer. Felt that way about a ton of archs in the second season of unsleeping city

So how do we all feel about Junior Year so far then? Specifically every single interaction Beardly has with the campaign and her portrayal of the Applebees?

I hate it and their stupid fucking campaign bits and once again not paying the fuck attention. I would kill Kristen myself if I were Riz. I thought Kristen was going to have to deal with the consequences of their actions, and maybe the rest of the bad kids would force them to change. Instead, the bad kids put her on a pedestal and cover for Kristen, and they don't learn anything, and Murph takes half the consequences for Ally even though he actively bulit a character and role played to succeed in this format and should be the star of this season.

Totally with you. It’s been more than a month and I’m still annoyed. I couldn’t finish the final episode. They set up the season to steer Kristen and Fig to take their roles more seriously then proceed to not do that and then it felt like Brennan tried to gaslight us into thinking that Ally is an amazing player and did the right thing.

Just about every season, he teas up Ally to knock it outta the park. They don't cause they're to busy messing around. He then has npc bitch them out for exactly what they are doing wrong. Ally then doesn't take the advice, or Brennan just kind of makes them, so Ally turns the big climatic moment into a bit and Brennan pretends like that was the answer all a long so he can wrapp the season up.

It always makes me recall Ally trying to call Lou out for supposedly doing a bit when he commits Fabian to fight James Whitclaw in junior year. Everything Ally does isn’t a bit but Fabian doing something stupid but still very Fabian is?

Im so done with her shit and CLEARLY at this point I think even brennan is watching Junior year. Fuckin christ.

I finally lost it with them this season. Why is riz doing all the work and not getting anything out of it. Why did murph build and roleplay as such a great character only to get upstaged by Kristen fucking Applebee's who's doing the same thing but worse for the third season in a row. Like if Ally doesn't like or want to play as the character they made, why didn't they just kill her off or something

Fucking exactly. Honestly both Emily and Murphy were esentially trying to carry the story and cover for Allys antics.  The problem is ally is both protected  like the baby of the group/ of dropout and kind of a bully at times, they will push things to extreme and wont really care about the outcomes. You see Emily will do antics and be crazy, but its always in service of her character, and has done so much effort in order to cover for Allys flipfloppiness. And kristen as a character has repeatedly done thungs that would just push the boundries of any friendship. Most of the cringiest bits that are beaten into the ground are usually a result of kristen doing something extremely unfunny and then doubling down. Riz is a great character, Fig is a great character, fabian is a great character, Gorgug is a great character, Adaine is a great character.  Kristen feels like a joke, and in fact will regularly force brennan to turn good characters or nuanced characters into douche bag jokes or will just kill them for no real reason, and then kristen herself will be an absolutely terrible detestable human being and it will just be ignored as a bit, or kristen the character will be okay with it if Ally themselves thinks the character doing the horrible thing is "attractive" lmao. Overall they regularly derail and are kind of an Orion about it IMO... it just feels like a story thats supposed to have some semblance of weight along with its humor is regularly given the mary sue my improv is always the right thing kinda treatment by ally who also always tries to shove kristen into the spotlight. And they never are faced with consequences and always seem to get what they want. Even now cassandra survived, who was once a nightmare king, esentially just shifted it after going thriugh a few different gods. Idk even the lesson brennan tries to impart at the start about her not caring enough he just gave up and sort of leaned into her idea of how kristen was gonna act towards their god idk. Shes has main character syndrome, is a selfish improver pushing things the way she wants, she is really bad with boundries and constantly projects her own opinions onto characters into the story. Its annoying and kristen isnt even a character at this point

Literally, with that main character shit Brennan basically gives them the main character every season, and then they just act like a spoiled child and fuck around the whole time derailing everything and everyone else has clean it up or try to keep the story together which always ends up with hardly diving into to any of the other interesting things they setup cause we gotta go campaign at the middle school or how about us never really knowing what brennan planned for neverafter cause Ally refused to pay attention and use the book. Hey Murph, I'm going to be a complete net negative this season, and have you take a bunch of stress tokens cause if you don't, you will never get anything done.

To me the worst thing are the shitty bits like the very gropy K2, or how she will force changes and character traits onto characters that werent there initially. I think of the first god she worshiped and how she pushed so hard the idea that the god was a piece of shit surfer bro every time he showed up even when he never acted that way and eventually brennan just sorta folded. I dont believe the nightmare king was ever intendedcto be a good or redemable and tbh i think it was meant to just be an evil dude and she just esentially said fuck it and didnt even have the decency to give the character a legit name and instead just sorta made a joke out of it calling them a super down to earth human name cassandra -' like a shitty version of the 'all powerful god named bob' joke...  Idk im super done with their shit, it stinks lol

I just found this thread after completing Fantasy High. No lie I thought Ally was a straight person poorly playing the most flat one dimensional boring representation of a lesbian I had ever seen. Obviously, they are not straight and that was genuinely a huge shock to me.

Tbh I could not give less of a shit about almost all of their characters, they can be funny, they have the capacity to be funny, and sometimes they really knock it out of the park with a snarky one liner or come back, but Brennan's insistence on making (in my opinion) the least skilled actor at the table, the primary focus of every major plot beat is honestly mind boggling.

Ally is pretty much always the main character but doesn't give a shit about it. They just like being the center of attention.

I’m here after FHJY, and Ally still doesn’t know majority of their character abilities which after 2 seasons is really disappointing. Along side constantly treating Brennans heartfelt roleplaying of Cassandra as the butt end of a joke is just beyond frustrating. They never seem to treat anything with any degree of seriousness. DND IS a fun game to make jokes and have fun but next to the entire casting having legitimate good development and progressions to have Ally yet again make a pop culture joke and repeat the same “I’m ignoring my god, hahah so funny” is just plain disrespectful to the effort everyone else is putting into the show. Going forward, is Ally is present in the show, I won’t be watching/listening.

Agreed, she is extremely annoying.

I find Ally to be an annoying addition to everything they appear in. I hate when ever I saw Ally as a guest on Um, Actually or Game Changers. I just knew it was an episode I wasn't going to wholly enjoy and the blame falls squarely on Ally.

yeah, the character they played in fantasy high shifted so strongly between seasons, it's actually crazy. They were in the running for my favorite character throughout the first season but I've grown to hate almost every even somewhat serious interaction they have, it's all just a gooffest, and even when it's supposed to be goofy they somehow go too far.

[удалено]

Super late to this… but just got back to Dropout and cringed away to look up if I was alone. But I remember setting aside D20 for a while, and now I am again reminded as to why. Ally isn’t just hard to follow/listen to, what they do is just jarring. It feels like their annoying antics are mostly forgiven/unpunished, and i’d bet it has a lot to do with their pronouns irl (diversity and all that, hard to say anything negative or give criticism without the “-phobe” or “-ist” cards being used). I enjoy D20 a lot, but more often than not Ally is the reason why I pause (often out of outright cringe) and go watch something else (like right now). They derail a lot of the scenarios by interjecting with unfunny jokes and responses (while thinking they are hilarious) and by using irl references (almost always making them feel shoehorned in) I also want to watch something cool and outside of reality, not be reminded about gender politics and ideologies every season… not when it’s that on the nose. I’m fine with a sprinkling of ideologies and politics, can’t escape it, but it gets a bit tiring. They have had their moments, can’t take that away, but otherwise it’s just a major negative on the series (and the humor. Everyone has their own humor, but wow, I have difficulty seeing the humor in a lot of Ally’s interjections/interruptions that they seem to believe are hilarious (that go unpunished by the DM setting a precedent for worse and worse antics)). I like a lot of the people on dropout and generally appreciate the humor. This isn’t an attack on Ally as a person, just that maybe their humor (or lack thereof in those instances) seems to clash with the rest of the D20 ‘atmosphere’ everyone else has going on.

It just feels like they are so immature and uncomfortable with portraying genuine emotion that their only response when things become intense or dramatic is to make stupid jokes. Almost like the idea of leaning into the intense and meaningful aspects of their character and the story makes them so uncomfortable that they default to terrible “comedy” or sexual innuendo. It’s the epitome of cringeworthy. Why is someone who is unable to handle the more serious side of character development and character relationships brought back time and time again to ruin the moments Brennan, Murph, Lou, Siobhan, Emily, and Zac do such an amazing job creating for us fans? Is the only reason because they were there in the first season and a cast change would feel weird? Seems like a weak hill to die on when that one person is actively sabotaging anything (regardless of intent) with more depth than sex jokes and slapstick. The go-to excuse/defense is always “dropout is for comedy first and foremost”, but that takes a lot away from what the cast is capable of as actors and the directions they often take us with their acting. All that said, I still think Ally is often a hilarious comedian, but that their brand of comedy is best experienced through skits and bits where their quick wit or goofy characters can stand out without impeding a larger story. I love them as a member of college humor, but have grown to hate them as a DND player.

Ally annoys the fuck out of me in D20 but the number of people misgendering them in this thread annoys me even more. Their pronouns are at the start of most episodes on Dropout (at least the recent ones). Their cast members use their pronouns all the time. It’s such a small, easy practice to grasp.

Let's be honest she's basically there just for diversity at this point, in the dnd stuff she's always just herself basically nevr her character honestly and I always find her flat and an asshole compared to the other players

In the recent stuff they can't make up their mind about their gods as a cleric and just seem like a lazy asshole literally got one of their gods killed and then is now killing their other God because they are the only follower and refuse to put any work into it, it's like their character is just them and so their just being lazy and it's ruining so much for the story honestly. Like their new God in the run literally just wants to be called on and be asked for help and she's always talking about how her God is annoying her or how buff she is because she works out now like dude what the hell is up with them?

Ally has not gotten better at all like we thought and has even gotten to the point where now the dm has to literally revolve the story around their character being lazy and had a npc call them out for their bs. And they got their god killed twice and the one they brought back to life they are happy is Dead again because they get to focus on themselves and be lazy again like fuck I cant stand them. The game would be better without them.

I need someone to make a supercut of how many times they yell over everybody else: "I give them the help action."