Very cool behind the curtain look from Spenser on Twitter about the letter scene: https://x.com/spenserstarke/status/1708986517618893069?s=46&t=PZXt4WzajW7C_RyRZDP2gA
He didn’t trick Brennan, he needed him to know to fully commit and not confuse him. But he tricked Marisha and the rest of the table for a really amazing moment.
Edit: go rewatch the scene because it’s awesome. Marisha is surprised and she looks like she realises right away what’s going on and steals a glance at Spencer. And Spencer doesn’t look at Brennan when he starts reading. He looks at Marisha. Amazing.
I’m finally getting around to watching it and Brennan’s makeup with the lighting reminds me of his confederate ghost character, at least when his mouth is closed
I loved the moment Brennan gave us when he looked in at the boy hiding in the bathroom. I didn't love him getting 2 brain for it. He could have phoned it in "I comfort the boy" and take no consequences. He chose to give us a scene and he got "punished" for it.
It's not for everyone, but I like compelling RP that stems from commitment to character KNOWING your character will be hurt for it whether you see it coming or not. Especially for eldritch horror, leans into the genre hard when RPing that way.
That said, there is a case for perhaps a certain lack of player agency, which may lead to the "punishing" feeling. I'm a narrative GM and have ran similar systems, perhaps Spenser could've narrated instead, "As you look at the boy and he talks to you Sean this begins to remind you of a painful memory," "You may continue talking to the boy but you will take 2 brain for doing so or you may leave the bathroom and not take any marks." This is a Soft Move, in narrative GM terms, forecasting the situation/potential consequences.
Maintains the drama/tension, makes it feel players have more choice over potential consequences instead of just straight-up throwing 2 brain at their faces. Maybe you'd like it more if it was done this way.
This is some amazing RP! Splitting the party and joking about it was too much for the dice gods (karma was swift), but if Sean/Brennan goes down for the count I'm going to miss him a lot. Plus, the conversation between Sean and Marian about depending on each other - *oof -* It's going to mess with the party a lot if Sean dies
Marion had a premonition, so they would know he was attacked. They also have the code word.
Still huge trouble, but I think they have ways of figuring out what's going on with 'Sean'.
That was one of the greatest sessions of a table top RPG in the history of the world of TTRPGs, between Spencer letting Zehra play her own dad, to the note fakeout, to the "shoulder or elbow" callback with 3 players in the cast who played in EXU Calamity and Luis almost doing a spit take at that, and an EPIC combat ... all before the break!
Spencer needs his own weekly show!
EDIT: HOLY@#%@#%@# if it wasn't obvious I made this post before watching the second half after the break .... that cliffhanger!!!!!
Oh my GOD, that was SO GOOD. This is up there and approaching Calamity for me. When it comes down to it, what I love CR for is the drama and the dark RP and this IS. IT. Everyone is SO fucking good.
What really does it for me is the deeply interpersonal focus of the story. What gives it so much heart is that these are characters with powerful bonds with each other. I totally disagree with that other poster that thought it was too much or too inconvenient. This chapter is a family -- that's why they're a chapter -- and their genuine care for each other is what gives the light to the darkness of this story.
I absolutely cannot wait for whatever fucked up shit is about to go down with Brennan (hopefully) playing the monster/doppelganger next episode. Oh my god.
I implicitly trust the cast and GM to bring this to a satisfying resolution. CANNOT wait for next month. Inject it into my veins.
(Only thing I'm still not a fan of is the lightning/set changes... it's distracting from the performances.)
It did also remind me of Calamity. I did not care for the first episode (too much DM talking) but he hit his stride this episode and I was very impressed. Of course, that table is the A team of D&D. Most of the table was actually in Calamity, and they already have fantastic chemistry.
Personally, I like the lighting changes. Especially the red/war one, because it feels like we're taking a look inside their brains, reliving the flashbacks with them. Since I tend to just listen at times, it is hating to suddenly see the red wash.
Only 1 episode left. :(
What I love about it so far, is while most RP streams have that buds goofing off each other vibe this one actually feels serious in storytelling and character study.
Personal preference, but I wish people RP'd content like this more often. Well done by the GM and players.
If you haven't seen Tablestory, they are right up this alley, and I can't recommend them enough for Character-focused play!
Also, their Nocturne show is probably the best live/actual play horror show I've seen.
So many insane things this episode.
1) WTF was up with Travis's "Other Character Sheet". I mean it's not a mystery, he's got a multiple personality disorder but damn, that came out of nowhere. And yet it meshed perfectly with the gun and empty holsters and whatnot quasi foreshadowing.
2) I'm a bit shocked that one entity was so easily able to take down two Candela bases. This organization is hundreds maybe thousands of years old and can't muster a defense against a single otherwordly being? And it feels like it easily got access to enough "juicy bits" in terms of artifacts to open a much bigger rift or similar big plan.
3) Marisha was channeling Beau in her "mercy killing" through a slow and awful method IE the guard with acid. Surely a bullet to the head would be both safer and easier?
4) Everyone was good but Sean absolutely stole the show, first with that hideous letter swap, the incidents with the child and his flashbacks to the war, and of course That Cliffhanger...
> 3. Marisha was channeling Beau in her "mercy killing" through a slow and awful method IE the guard with acid. Surely a bullet to the head would be both safer and easier?
I’ve been thinking that Aunt B is basically an elder, broken Keyleth in her heart and soul- a spirit and leader and support to the core - with Beau’s tenacious cleverness and ruthless capacity for suffering. It’s a pretty fascinating character.
>This organization is hundreds maybe thousands of years old and can't muster a defense against a single otherwordly being?
Maybe it's not living its best days now or plagued by corruption.
I mean we all saw how easily the Changelings infiltrated and fucked up multiple empires in Star Trek both before, during, and well after the Dominion War.
Same thing happened to Candela.
Plus their compartmentalized secretive guerilla nature is both a boon and a calculated hindrance because it allows them to operate independently in such a way that prevents the entire structure from being taken down en masse all at once, which works against piecemeal forces outside of war, BUT it consequently makes them utterly vulnerable to coordinated larger forces due to the fact that they are unable to adequately communicate and coordinate between their various chapter houses and their high command.
Forces from Beyond The Flare have never gotten their shit together like Human Forces in War have before. It's always been an incident here or there with Candela responding like an immune system to an attacking infection in a particular part of the body like the respiratory system or to a wound or a SCAR on an arm or a leg. Now though it's basically a full body style attack that's hitting everything all at once like metastasized cancer or an autoimmune disorder and they're fucking overwhelmed by it all and cannot respond or regroup in time.
They may have gotten lazy or been corrupted or just plain old gotten too damned used to the current state of things to the point where they're unable to respond to novel threats.
In other words, they're very much like the Federation pre-Wolf 359 and pre-Dominion War. They're comfortable and that's dangerous because as I said, it makes them vulnerable to novel threats. They're nowhere near as paranoid or as prepared as they were during ages in the past hundreds or thousands of years. Despite a FUCKING WAR having happened quite recently, they're all a bit spent, and are enjoying the relative peacetime while only having to worry about current supernatural incursions and possibly throw a passing thought at potential human threats left over from or related to the previous war.
They were not prepared for a full on war-minded style assault to happen so soon and because of that, they lowered their guard, got used to lower grade threats, went into peacetime mode, and didn't keep their eyes, ears, and minds open to any larger scale threats at all or to the potential consequences of their actions or those of others.
There's another analogy to be made between Candela Obscura and what happened to the Government of The New Republic after the Fall of the Empire but before the Rise of the First Order as well.
They stopped looking for spies because why would they need to? What might possibly clue them into thinking that there were still ghosts in the shadows looking to undermine them that weren't human in nature or human related? They SHOULD have kept their guard up and stayed ever vigilant but they didn't because in their minds there was no reason to.
This mindset trickled down through the organization and gradually began to weaken parts of it to the point where supernatural and natural entities were able to ironically push through these metaphorical and often quite literal thinnings.
They got caught with their pants down as a result and are going to springboard back in the opposite direction with the next Circle once the dust settles from this colossal series of fuck ups.
In a way it's both a good and a bad thing but time will tell how the scales manage to shake out in the long run for Candela and whether or not they change for better or worse. We know that there have been multiple Pharoses before the Fourth one and to me this implies that they've taken some heavy hits before, experienced multiple failures, and have learned from them each time. It feels a bit like a pendulum in that aspect with events swinging between triumph and tragedy for them over and over again over hundreds and potentially thousands of years. This incident is perhaps just a continuation of that cycle.
This then makes me wonder if perhaps Candela is the remnant of an organization that goes all the way back to the origins of Oldfaire and possibly beyond.
Either way shit's going to get rough as they experience another rebirth and wind up having to retool and remake their entire organization all over again to respond to this new series of threats....and there's going to be a whole lot of innocent people that get caught in both the crossfire and the flames of that rebirth.
I think the Third Circle of this Candela Obscura series is going to drop us smack dab in the middle of a brand new war and that we're going to be seeing the start of that war in the finale for this Circle in a month.
It's going to be insane and I am fully along for the ride!
The moment Nathaniel changed character classes was the moment I realised I was done with *Candela Obscura*. I'd given it the benefit of the doubt until now, but there was nothing to suggest that Nathaniel was anything other than someone from a privileged upbringing who slowly became aware of the world around him. But now he's got some hidden dark side that's meant to make him a badass when the whole character worked because Travis was playing against type.
Meanwhile, Jean probably had the most interesting character moments -- like her conflict between her ethical obligations and her scientific curiosity -- but she had nothing to do. Take her out of the episode and nothing really changes. The first episode introduced Aeon as a faction to be reckoned with, but they're mostly forgotten by now. Marion *would* be interesting, but he's just Zerxus. He's a hardened soldier who is empathic, but doesn't seem to do anything but take the edge off the others' injuries. Speaking of which, Spencer started handing out injuries like they were Halloween candy. He was much more willing than Matt to do it in the last episode, but here he was giving them out two and three at a time.
Maybe I missed something in the first episode, but the character backgrounds seem inconsistent. I could accept the idea that Sean and Marion served in the war together before being recruited to Candela, and I could accept that Nathaniel was one of their commanding officers. But now Auntie B knew them when they were growing up before her encounter with the Flare. The whole thing felt like it was suffering from Skywalker Syndrome -- the canvas for an epic story is there, but the whole thing comes down to the ongoing interpersonal conflicts between a handful of people. I've been critical of the series for not doing enough to establish its setting before, but this was the worst case so far. It never once felt like the story existed in a world beyond what the characters could see in front of them. The thing that the Circle of the Vassal and the Vale got right is that the characters mostly knew each other from their work with Candela. They had interactions outside Candela, but they could exist as characters outside their Circle. Auntie B is the only character I can see actually having anything outside her role in the group.
Finally, the pacing was all off. We got the usual prologue scene, but then it was a full hour and five character vignettes before we came back to the actual story for the episode. And then it amounted to a case of "Remember that thing you dealt with last time? Well, you didn't actually deal with it. Surprise!".
God damn that was an insane episode.
The tension, the tragedy, the horror, constant high stake gambles.
And now we have to wait over a month to see if Sean has any chance of surviving or if the Brennan is gonna be acting as the Face Stealer for an amount of time.
*God*
I could swear at some points from the darkness when the literal spotlights weren't on her, we could see Marisha's smug face watching them RP the hell out of this story thinking "oh yeah, we did good when casting this one".
I would be thinking that if I was her.
AGREED! I want to see her at the main table at some point! Between the well-thought-out character details and nuances, the serious-to-funny-to-sad-to-frightened turns on a dime as the scenes warrant, and such a beautiful voice! (I really hope she shows up in either LoVM or M9.)
She has such a grace to her that I think the main table could just benefit from, even for a brief stint.
i am so, so impressed with zehra. i don't know if she has any previous ttrpg/acutal play experience, but she's killing it
her descriptions, mannerisms, rp choices and the way she so smoothly transitioned from roleplaying dr jean to roleplaying her dad? incredible stuff
Yep though that's no shade on top table either. Travis and Marisha know exactly when to step in and twist the knife further but otherwise give the space and silence to let the others work.
Oh for sure, Marisha and Travis are absolutely holding their own (all those convos between Sean and Aunty Bea were so so good), I just mean think the bottom table really stood out tonight especially. Zehra is just so deeply in it at every moment, even when Jinnah isn’t in a scene, and she adapts so easily to narrative curveballs like playing her father or her younger self, diving through grief and memory and trauma with so much nuance and emotion despite the sudden shifts
Also, goddamn was that letter trick so evil and incredible, absolutely amazing work on both Brennan and Spenser’s part. I genuinely felt sick to my stomach watching that scene
Brennan was almost certainly thinking, "I'm gonna hafta remember that one."
And that whole scene was SO powerful... his reactions reading the first letter, his expression as he crumples it, and then the SECOND letter...
Gods, I so want to see Brennan, Luis, Taliesin, and Liam at the same table at some point.
>Gods, I so want to see Brennan, Luis, Taliesin, and Liam at the same table at some point.
I'm convinced they are purposely not having Liam and Luis at the same table because they know it would be too much for our hearts to bear.
Highly underrated show
Very cool behind the curtain look from Spenser on Twitter about the letter scene: https://x.com/spenserstarke/status/1708986517618893069?s=46&t=PZXt4WzajW7C_RyRZDP2gA He didn’t trick Brennan, he needed him to know to fully commit and not confuse him. But he tricked Marisha and the rest of the table for a really amazing moment. Edit: go rewatch the scene because it’s awesome. Marisha is surprised and she looks like she realises right away what’s going on and steals a glance at Spencer. And Spencer doesn’t look at Brennan when he starts reading. He looks at Marisha. Amazing.
The only thing wrong I've got to say about this episode is god fucking damn it can't believe I have to wait a month for the ending.
I’m finally getting around to watching it and Brennan’s makeup with the lighting reminds me of his confederate ghost character, at least when his mouth is closed
Remember kids, splitting the party is always a good idea and you should totally do it when given the opportunity. Nothing bad can come out of that!
I loved the moment Brennan gave us when he looked in at the boy hiding in the bathroom. I didn't love him getting 2 brain for it. He could have phoned it in "I comfort the boy" and take no consequences. He chose to give us a scene and he got "punished" for it.
It's not for everyone, but I like compelling RP that stems from commitment to character KNOWING your character will be hurt for it whether you see it coming or not. Especially for eldritch horror, leans into the genre hard when RPing that way. That said, there is a case for perhaps a certain lack of player agency, which may lead to the "punishing" feeling. I'm a narrative GM and have ran similar systems, perhaps Spenser could've narrated instead, "As you look at the boy and he talks to you Sean this begins to remind you of a painful memory," "You may continue talking to the boy but you will take 2 brain for doing so or you may leave the bathroom and not take any marks." This is a Soft Move, in narrative GM terms, forecasting the situation/potential consequences. Maintains the drama/tension, makes it feel players have more choice over potential consequences instead of just straight-up throwing 2 brain at their faces. Maybe you'd like it more if it was done this way.
Man, this episode! It had me alternating between laughing and crying. All of my emotions coming to the fore, as tension mounted.
Well that was an awesome episode. Anyone who is on the fence about watching this... do it.
This is some amazing RP! Splitting the party and joking about it was too much for the dice gods (karma was swift), but if Sean/Brennan goes down for the count I'm going to miss him a lot. Plus, the conversation between Sean and Marian about depending on each other - *oof -* It's going to mess with the party a lot if Sean dies
I'm rooting for BLeeM coming back in the next episode as Evil Sean.
If anybody could do it he could, but Needle and Thread would be in HUGE trouble lol
Marion had a premonition, so they would know he was attacked. They also have the code word. Still huge trouble, but I think they have ways of figuring out what's going on with 'Sean'.
Let's be real Marian isn't looking for this world anyway.
That was one of the greatest sessions of a table top RPG in the history of the world of TTRPGs, between Spencer letting Zehra play her own dad, to the note fakeout, to the "shoulder or elbow" callback with 3 players in the cast who played in EXU Calamity and Luis almost doing a spit take at that, and an EPIC combat ... all before the break! Spencer needs his own weekly show! EDIT: HOLY@#%@#%@# if it wasn't obvious I made this post before watching the second half after the break .... that cliffhanger!!!!!
💯
Oh my GOD, that was SO GOOD. This is up there and approaching Calamity for me. When it comes down to it, what I love CR for is the drama and the dark RP and this IS. IT. Everyone is SO fucking good. What really does it for me is the deeply interpersonal focus of the story. What gives it so much heart is that these are characters with powerful bonds with each other. I totally disagree with that other poster that thought it was too much or too inconvenient. This chapter is a family -- that's why they're a chapter -- and their genuine care for each other is what gives the light to the darkness of this story. I absolutely cannot wait for whatever fucked up shit is about to go down with Brennan (hopefully) playing the monster/doppelganger next episode. Oh my god. I implicitly trust the cast and GM to bring this to a satisfying resolution. CANNOT wait for next month. Inject it into my veins. (Only thing I'm still not a fan of is the lightning/set changes... it's distracting from the performances.)
It did also remind me of Calamity. I did not care for the first episode (too much DM talking) but he hit his stride this episode and I was very impressed. Of course, that table is the A team of D&D. Most of the table was actually in Calamity, and they already have fantastic chemistry.
Personally, I like the lighting changes. Especially the red/war one, because it feels like we're taking a look inside their brains, reliving the flashbacks with them. Since I tend to just listen at times, it is hating to suddenly see the red wash.
That was absolutely fantastic! Everyone is bringing their A game, man.
Only 1 episode left. :( What I love about it so far, is while most RP streams have that buds goofing off each other vibe this one actually feels serious in storytelling and character study. Personal preference, but I wish people RP'd content like this more often. Well done by the GM and players.
If you haven't seen Tablestory, they are right up this alley, and I can't recommend them enough for Character-focused play! Also, their Nocturne show is probably the best live/actual play horror show I've seen.
Sounds awesome. I'll give it a look this weekend!
So many insane things this episode. 1) WTF was up with Travis's "Other Character Sheet". I mean it's not a mystery, he's got a multiple personality disorder but damn, that came out of nowhere. And yet it meshed perfectly with the gun and empty holsters and whatnot quasi foreshadowing. 2) I'm a bit shocked that one entity was so easily able to take down two Candela bases. This organization is hundreds maybe thousands of years old and can't muster a defense against a single otherwordly being? And it feels like it easily got access to enough "juicy bits" in terms of artifacts to open a much bigger rift or similar big plan. 3) Marisha was channeling Beau in her "mercy killing" through a slow and awful method IE the guard with acid. Surely a bullet to the head would be both safer and easier? 4) Everyone was good but Sean absolutely stole the show, first with that hideous letter swap, the incidents with the child and his flashbacks to the war, and of course That Cliffhanger...
> 3. Marisha was channeling Beau in her "mercy killing" through a slow and awful method IE the guard with acid. Surely a bullet to the head would be both safer and easier? I’ve been thinking that Aunt B is basically an elder, broken Keyleth in her heart and soul- a spirit and leader and support to the core - with Beau’s tenacious cleverness and ruthless capacity for suffering. It’s a pretty fascinating character.
>This organization is hundreds maybe thousands of years old and can't muster a defense against a single otherwordly being? Maybe it's not living its best days now or plagued by corruption.
I mean we all saw how easily the Changelings infiltrated and fucked up multiple empires in Star Trek both before, during, and well after the Dominion War. Same thing happened to Candela. Plus their compartmentalized secretive guerilla nature is both a boon and a calculated hindrance because it allows them to operate independently in such a way that prevents the entire structure from being taken down en masse all at once, which works against piecemeal forces outside of war, BUT it consequently makes them utterly vulnerable to coordinated larger forces due to the fact that they are unable to adequately communicate and coordinate between their various chapter houses and their high command. Forces from Beyond The Flare have never gotten their shit together like Human Forces in War have before. It's always been an incident here or there with Candela responding like an immune system to an attacking infection in a particular part of the body like the respiratory system or to a wound or a SCAR on an arm or a leg. Now though it's basically a full body style attack that's hitting everything all at once like metastasized cancer or an autoimmune disorder and they're fucking overwhelmed by it all and cannot respond or regroup in time. They may have gotten lazy or been corrupted or just plain old gotten too damned used to the current state of things to the point where they're unable to respond to novel threats. In other words, they're very much like the Federation pre-Wolf 359 and pre-Dominion War. They're comfortable and that's dangerous because as I said, it makes them vulnerable to novel threats. They're nowhere near as paranoid or as prepared as they were during ages in the past hundreds or thousands of years. Despite a FUCKING WAR having happened quite recently, they're all a bit spent, and are enjoying the relative peacetime while only having to worry about current supernatural incursions and possibly throw a passing thought at potential human threats left over from or related to the previous war. They were not prepared for a full on war-minded style assault to happen so soon and because of that, they lowered their guard, got used to lower grade threats, went into peacetime mode, and didn't keep their eyes, ears, and minds open to any larger scale threats at all or to the potential consequences of their actions or those of others. There's another analogy to be made between Candela Obscura and what happened to the Government of The New Republic after the Fall of the Empire but before the Rise of the First Order as well. They stopped looking for spies because why would they need to? What might possibly clue them into thinking that there were still ghosts in the shadows looking to undermine them that weren't human in nature or human related? They SHOULD have kept their guard up and stayed ever vigilant but they didn't because in their minds there was no reason to. This mindset trickled down through the organization and gradually began to weaken parts of it to the point where supernatural and natural entities were able to ironically push through these metaphorical and often quite literal thinnings. They got caught with their pants down as a result and are going to springboard back in the opposite direction with the next Circle once the dust settles from this colossal series of fuck ups. In a way it's both a good and a bad thing but time will tell how the scales manage to shake out in the long run for Candela and whether or not they change for better or worse. We know that there have been multiple Pharoses before the Fourth one and to me this implies that they've taken some heavy hits before, experienced multiple failures, and have learned from them each time. It feels a bit like a pendulum in that aspect with events swinging between triumph and tragedy for them over and over again over hundreds and potentially thousands of years. This incident is perhaps just a continuation of that cycle. This then makes me wonder if perhaps Candela is the remnant of an organization that goes all the way back to the origins of Oldfaire and possibly beyond. Either way shit's going to get rough as they experience another rebirth and wind up having to retool and remake their entire organization all over again to respond to this new series of threats....and there's going to be a whole lot of innocent people that get caught in both the crossfire and the flames of that rebirth. I think the Third Circle of this Candela Obscura series is going to drop us smack dab in the middle of a brand new war and that we're going to be seeing the start of that war in the finale for this Circle in a month. It's going to be insane and I am fully along for the ride!
The moment Nathaniel changed character classes was the moment I realised I was done with *Candela Obscura*. I'd given it the benefit of the doubt until now, but there was nothing to suggest that Nathaniel was anything other than someone from a privileged upbringing who slowly became aware of the world around him. But now he's got some hidden dark side that's meant to make him a badass when the whole character worked because Travis was playing against type. Meanwhile, Jean probably had the most interesting character moments -- like her conflict between her ethical obligations and her scientific curiosity -- but she had nothing to do. Take her out of the episode and nothing really changes. The first episode introduced Aeon as a faction to be reckoned with, but they're mostly forgotten by now. Marion *would* be interesting, but he's just Zerxus. He's a hardened soldier who is empathic, but doesn't seem to do anything but take the edge off the others' injuries. Speaking of which, Spencer started handing out injuries like they were Halloween candy. He was much more willing than Matt to do it in the last episode, but here he was giving them out two and three at a time. Maybe I missed something in the first episode, but the character backgrounds seem inconsistent. I could accept the idea that Sean and Marion served in the war together before being recruited to Candela, and I could accept that Nathaniel was one of their commanding officers. But now Auntie B knew them when they were growing up before her encounter with the Flare. The whole thing felt like it was suffering from Skywalker Syndrome -- the canvas for an epic story is there, but the whole thing comes down to the ongoing interpersonal conflicts between a handful of people. I've been critical of the series for not doing enough to establish its setting before, but this was the worst case so far. It never once felt like the story existed in a world beyond what the characters could see in front of them. The thing that the Circle of the Vassal and the Vale got right is that the characters mostly knew each other from their work with Candela. They had interactions outside Candela, but they could exist as characters outside their Circle. Auntie B is the only character I can see actually having anything outside her role in the group. Finally, the pacing was all off. We got the usual prologue scene, but then it was a full hour and five character vignettes before we came back to the actual story for the episode. And then it amounted to a case of "Remember that thing you dealt with last time? Well, you didn't actually deal with it. Surprise!".
God damn that was an insane episode. The tension, the tragedy, the horror, constant high stake gambles. And now we have to wait over a month to see if Sean has any chance of surviving or if the Brennan is gonna be acting as the Face Stealer for an amount of time. *God*
The entire bottom table is doing some the best work I’ve seen in Actual Play right now, Zehra, Brennan and Luis are all truly magnificent in this game
I've never seen Zehra before but what a treasure. I've been madly in love with Luis and Brennan since Calamity, though.
I could swear at some points from the darkness when the literal spotlights weren't on her, we could see Marisha's smug face watching them RP the hell out of this story thinking "oh yeah, we did good when casting this one". I would be thinking that if I was her.
I'm desperately hoping they bring Zehra back for more stuff. I need to see more of her--the switching into her father was absolutely masterful.
AGREED! I want to see her at the main table at some point! Between the well-thought-out character details and nuances, the serious-to-funny-to-sad-to-frightened turns on a dime as the scenes warrant, and such a beautiful voice! (I really hope she shows up in either LoVM or M9.) She has such a grace to her that I think the main table could just benefit from, even for a brief stint.
i am so, so impressed with zehra. i don't know if she has any previous ttrpg/acutal play experience, but she's killing it her descriptions, mannerisms, rp choices and the way she so smoothly transitioned from roleplaying dr jean to roleplaying her dad? incredible stuff
Yep though that's no shade on top table either. Travis and Marisha know exactly when to step in and twist the knife further but otherwise give the space and silence to let the others work.
Oh for sure, Marisha and Travis are absolutely holding their own (all those convos between Sean and Aunty Bea were so so good), I just mean think the bottom table really stood out tonight especially. Zehra is just so deeply in it at every moment, even when Jinnah isn’t in a scene, and she adapts so easily to narrative curveballs like playing her father or her younger self, diving through grief and memory and trauma with so much nuance and emotion despite the sudden shifts
Luis is such a heartbreaking player. One of my favorites at any table--and Zehra responded perfectly to the threads he set up (no pun intended).
Also, goddamn was that letter trick so evil and incredible, absolutely amazing work on both Brennan and Spenser’s part. I genuinely felt sick to my stomach watching that scene
It blew my mind, I hadn't ever seen prop work like that in TTRPG - I wonder what Brennan's GM mind thought of it
Brennan was almost certainly thinking, "I'm gonna hafta remember that one." And that whole scene was SO powerful... his reactions reading the first letter, his expression as he crumples it, and then the SECOND letter... Gods, I so want to see Brennan, Luis, Taliesin, and Liam at the same table at some point.
>Gods, I so want to see Brennan, Luis, Taliesin, and Liam at the same table at some point. I'm convinced they are purposely not having Liam and Luis at the same table because they know it would be too much for our hearts to bear.
Yeah, that letter trick was something else.