LADS! LADS! LADS!
Mar. 20th, 2022 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabinetzinSo I quit twitter recently. It was pretty sudden, but there were a lot of reasons. It's a big time suck, though admittedly I just reach for other things to suck my time away. Mostly, it was really aggravating my paranoia and compulsive need to fix things. I'm the kind of person who feels attacked if they can't solve a problem, which is wild but some of y'all know what I'm talking about, and you can't have a 24/7 unasked for news feed in your face during a war if you can't handle the fact that you can't just get on a boat and tell a world leader to calm his tits.
In the interim, I suffered a pretty significant career setback that was genuinely very surprising, whether that was my fault for not being prepared or not. I'm still not anywhere near reaching a resolution, but I did kind of appreciate that someone didn't smear it across twitter as it was happening.
It's me, I'm someone.
The annoying thing for me and everyone around me is that I've been using twitter daily for over ten years, and I just have so many thoughts about everything all the time, so they're getting splashed across the like four people I talk to in huge torrents. So I thought I might make a post about the fandom I am currently torturing everyone with: Oxventures!
So Oxventures is a pair of connected actual play shows, featuring the people who run the youtube gaming channels Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra, plus Johnny Chiodini, who was with Eurogamer, then Dicebreaker, and now runs their own independent channel. I actually started watching Oxventures right when it started, but then during lockdown I stopped watching or listening to literally everything. For reasons that I now cannot recall even though it was a few weeks ago, I decided to pop back in, and it was one of those situations where I jumped into what looked like a puddle and ended up up to my neck.
The campaigns are about as linked as, if you come from the CR side, Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein, in that they take place in the same world a number of years apart but the connections are mostly in the style of, if you know this thing, this other thing is cooler (in contrast to VM and Bell's Hells, where you're actively missing things if you didn't watch the earlier one). Both are the same players, except Johnny DMs the main campaign and Luke DMs the later campaign.
The main campaign is D&D 5e, and it is very much a "watch these idiots screw around and accidentally save the day" kind of thing. The characters are a human pirate with daddy issues (Corazon de Ballena), a tiefling warlock who really enjoys being evil (Prudence), an elven druid who's just trying to be the moral compass because nobody else will (Merilwen), a half-orc bard whose alignment is Chaotic Himbo (Dob), and a very stupid dragonborn paladin who specializes in bombs and pamphleteering (Egbert). Also of note is the no-thoughts-head-empty tabaxi DMPC Rust on the Harbour, who isn't around long but is so fucking great I had to mention him.
The thing to recommend it, in a sea of shows like it, is that it's so much fun. The players are just so good at bouncing off each other, and Johnny does an impeccable job of just rolling with it and yes-anding them. Johnny is also so expert with their worldbuilding and encounter structuring, to create situations where the players can really shine. I mean, they made the party organize a stag weekend for a bunch of Vikings (which is why the crowd is shouting "LADS! LADS! LADS!" at the beginning of later livestreams). Faire Trial is a whole episode of just having a paladin competition at a ren faire, and it actually manages to have some really nice character work in it.
Each named "episode" is between one and two hours, but they're posted in sections. They usually encompass one session, but they're more like self-contained mini-arcs. It's possible to skip forward and back fairly easily, except for the Orbpocalypse Saga, which you should watch in sequence. I don't even really have any warnings, except that there's some D&D-typical animal harm, particularly in Peak Performance.
The other campaign is based on the Blades in the Dark system, with some minor modifications. It takes place five hundred years later, in a gaslamp fantasy setting where the force that created magic is draining from the world. It's much gritter and more faithful to the rules than the main game, but I just love it. The characters are a prizefighter who only knows how to punch her problems (Zillah Bruzard), Nicola Tesla (Edvard Lumière), any given character played by Tom Hardy in a Guy Ritchie movie (Kasimir), a ghost whisperer (Lilith), and evil Bertie Wooster (Barnaby "The Butcher" Foresque III).
The way the game works is that almost all the episodes are just Luke and two of the players, with the idea that the gang is running smaller missions in teams while working towards a bigger score. This mechanic lets the characters and their relationships really get their time in the spotlight.
The characters are surprisingly deep, in a really compelling way. We learn in a downtime moment that Edvard, Man of Science, is a spiritualist who cares deeply about the supernatural. Most of the time Barnaby is just that upper class twit who always seems to have a drink somehow, but then he'll do something that makes you remember that, actually, he's a dangerous sociopath who doesn't value human life. Lilith and Kasimir both surprised me in The Gut-Cutter Bargain, a quieter, stealthier episode where they were both able to really shine. Also Zillah is perfect. Protect Zillah at all costs.
It's much the same deal as the main campaign, where the episodes are split in half for posting. There have been no live or livestreamed episodes of Blades in the Dark, but that's fine. It benefits from being edited and curated, given the nature of the story and the system. More warnings, but primarily for animal harm and, um. Murderous children? Also, I have this thing about body horror that's magical in nature, and there's some pretty integral stuff with torturing and manipulating ghosts that was like, A Lot for me.
Which one do I like better? I always like the one I'm currently watching the most, and in my catch-up, I decided to power through Blades in the Dark before moving any further in the main campaign, simply because of the length. They're extremely different. If you like rules-light happy funtimes with very low stakes, I strongly recommend the main campaign. If it bothers you when people ignore rules and you like a good meaty game with persistent consequences, you should go with Blades in the Dark. But really, you should come along with me and watch them both. It's way less than watching Critical Role, I'll put it that way.
(And if you want the character psychoanalysis, it's that Jane (Prudence, Zillah) likes her characters depth-optional, Mike (Egbert, Barnaby) wants to watch the world burn, and Andy (Corazon, Edvard), an attractive man, likes to play attractive men who hide pain behind bravado, which is his own business. Luke and Johnny get out of it, because that is the DM's privilege.)
Links:
Main campaign playlist
Blades in the Dark playlist
Also I should probably say that I'm pretty deep into making a Prudence cosplay right now, so you can come see me at primematerialplane on instagram! The Oxbox account followed me and I am unsure what to do with myself.
In the interim, I suffered a pretty significant career setback that was genuinely very surprising, whether that was my fault for not being prepared or not. I'm still not anywhere near reaching a resolution, but I did kind of appreciate that someone didn't smear it across twitter as it was happening.
It's me, I'm someone.
The annoying thing for me and everyone around me is that I've been using twitter daily for over ten years, and I just have so many thoughts about everything all the time, so they're getting splashed across the like four people I talk to in huge torrents. So I thought I might make a post about the fandom I am currently torturing everyone with: Oxventures!
So Oxventures is a pair of connected actual play shows, featuring the people who run the youtube gaming channels Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra, plus Johnny Chiodini, who was with Eurogamer, then Dicebreaker, and now runs their own independent channel. I actually started watching Oxventures right when it started, but then during lockdown I stopped watching or listening to literally everything. For reasons that I now cannot recall even though it was a few weeks ago, I decided to pop back in, and it was one of those situations where I jumped into what looked like a puddle and ended up up to my neck.
The campaigns are about as linked as, if you come from the CR side, Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein, in that they take place in the same world a number of years apart but the connections are mostly in the style of, if you know this thing, this other thing is cooler (in contrast to VM and Bell's Hells, where you're actively missing things if you didn't watch the earlier one). Both are the same players, except Johnny DMs the main campaign and Luke DMs the later campaign.
The main campaign is D&D 5e, and it is very much a "watch these idiots screw around and accidentally save the day" kind of thing. The characters are a human pirate with daddy issues (Corazon de Ballena), a tiefling warlock who really enjoys being evil (Prudence), an elven druid who's just trying to be the moral compass because nobody else will (Merilwen), a half-orc bard whose alignment is Chaotic Himbo (Dob), and a very stupid dragonborn paladin who specializes in bombs and pamphleteering (Egbert). Also of note is the no-thoughts-head-empty tabaxi DMPC Rust on the Harbour, who isn't around long but is so fucking great I had to mention him.
The thing to recommend it, in a sea of shows like it, is that it's so much fun. The players are just so good at bouncing off each other, and Johnny does an impeccable job of just rolling with it and yes-anding them. Johnny is also so expert with their worldbuilding and encounter structuring, to create situations where the players can really shine. I mean, they made the party organize a stag weekend for a bunch of Vikings (which is why the crowd is shouting "LADS! LADS! LADS!" at the beginning of later livestreams). Faire Trial is a whole episode of just having a paladin competition at a ren faire, and it actually manages to have some really nice character work in it.
Each named "episode" is between one and two hours, but they're posted in sections. They usually encompass one session, but they're more like self-contained mini-arcs. It's possible to skip forward and back fairly easily, except for the Orbpocalypse Saga, which you should watch in sequence. I don't even really have any warnings, except that there's some D&D-typical animal harm, particularly in Peak Performance.
The other campaign is based on the Blades in the Dark system, with some minor modifications. It takes place five hundred years later, in a gaslamp fantasy setting where the force that created magic is draining from the world. It's much gritter and more faithful to the rules than the main game, but I just love it. The characters are a prizefighter who only knows how to punch her problems (Zillah Bruzard), Nicola Tesla (Edvard Lumière), any given character played by Tom Hardy in a Guy Ritchie movie (Kasimir), a ghost whisperer (Lilith), and evil Bertie Wooster (Barnaby "The Butcher" Foresque III).
The way the game works is that almost all the episodes are just Luke and two of the players, with the idea that the gang is running smaller missions in teams while working towards a bigger score. This mechanic lets the characters and their relationships really get their time in the spotlight.
The characters are surprisingly deep, in a really compelling way. We learn in a downtime moment that Edvard, Man of Science, is a spiritualist who cares deeply about the supernatural. Most of the time Barnaby is just that upper class twit who always seems to have a drink somehow, but then he'll do something that makes you remember that, actually, he's a dangerous sociopath who doesn't value human life. Lilith and Kasimir both surprised me in The Gut-Cutter Bargain, a quieter, stealthier episode where they were both able to really shine. Also Zillah is perfect. Protect Zillah at all costs.
It's much the same deal as the main campaign, where the episodes are split in half for posting. There have been no live or livestreamed episodes of Blades in the Dark, but that's fine. It benefits from being edited and curated, given the nature of the story and the system. More warnings, but primarily for animal harm and, um. Murderous children? Also, I have this thing about body horror that's magical in nature, and there's some pretty integral stuff with torturing and manipulating ghosts that was like, A Lot for me.
Which one do I like better? I always like the one I'm currently watching the most, and in my catch-up, I decided to power through Blades in the Dark before moving any further in the main campaign, simply because of the length. They're extremely different. If you like rules-light happy funtimes with very low stakes, I strongly recommend the main campaign. If it bothers you when people ignore rules and you like a good meaty game with persistent consequences, you should go with Blades in the Dark. But really, you should come along with me and watch them both. It's way less than watching Critical Role, I'll put it that way.
(And if you want the character psychoanalysis, it's that Jane (Prudence, Zillah) likes her characters depth-optional, Mike (Egbert, Barnaby) wants to watch the world burn, and Andy (Corazon, Edvard), an attractive man, likes to play attractive men who hide pain behind bravado, which is his own business. Luke and Johnny get out of it, because that is the DM's privilege.)
Links:
Main campaign playlist
Blades in the Dark playlist
Also I should probably say that I'm pretty deep into making a Prudence cosplay right now, so you can come see me at primematerialplane on instagram! The Oxbox account followed me and I am unsure what to do with myself.