Unlisted video because I don’t know why? It wasn’t before. But this is by far one of the best critique videos of the show on the internet and very much worth your time.
I liked it once I got past the absolutely atrociously bad first episode. But not because of the whole “kill all goblins” shit.
The thing that makes it good is the DnD party style combat, where combat is genuinely high-risk, the combatants all have reasonably down to earth skills/abilities, and they could all easily die with one mistake made. The combat itself is extremely DnD-like, in particular with the kinds of DnD parties that invent cheese methods of beating encounters. For example this Beholder fight scene is VERY DnD party in style.
I think there is a real audience for combat encounters written and played out in this way, and that anything would be popular without the whole genocide-the-goblins narrative if anything else were like this. A lot of combat in anime is just whoever screams loudest or whoever has the highest power-level instead of intelligent application of the powers to a scenario. You could see this exact scene play out in a BG3 encounter or group tabletop game and it rocks.
That doesn’t sound like any game of D&D I’ve ever played lol. Since 3rd (ie since 2000), combat is very much a game that is focused on abilities on character sheets, and balanced such that the PCs should win every fight. This is also very true of Baldur’s Gate, where just by playing the game as intended you can easily win every fight with little to no trouble (I will concede this may not be true on Tactical difficulty, but that is a departure from 5e rules anyway).
Maybe it’s just the DMs I’ve had then, although I’ve had 4 and they all played like this, including our Numenera games, or even especially our Numenera games… We always end up in absurd extreme scenarios either through our own fault (aggroing entire town guard) or some other thing. Perhaps I’m the influence causing it? Who knows. Either way I like extreme situations that call for utilisation of tools in a way that is extremely creative to cheese situations that would otherwise end in instant death. It just feels good.
Combine Mcguyver with DnD abilities and physics. Break the universe. Create infinite energy machines. That kind of thing.
(I will concede this may not be true on Tactical difficulty, but that is a departure from 5e rules anyway).
I’m definitely thinking of Tactical difficulty, which is honestly the only way I’ve played the game.
DnD party style combat, where combat is genuinely high-risk
D&D hasn’t been high risk for decades, especially not at high levels where it’s nearly impossible to take enough conventional damage in one round to be dropped from full HP with conventional balanced CR encounters, no matter how bad the rolls.
