Pirates of Leviathan, Tiny Heist and Shriek week. I’ve started them all, but haven’t gotten into them and stopped a few episodes in (or even mid the 1st episode). I have already listened to some other seasons twice through, and all my Libby holds are a few weeks out. Any thoughts on should I try these…or attempt NADPOD (the sheer scale has made me nervous) thanks!
Oh hell yeah. Early NaDDPod is a hard high to chase. Don't get me wrong it progressively gets better, but there is nothing like listening to players and a DM figuring out the rules and their rhythm as they go.
Theatre of the mind can be hard to get use to if you haven’t listened to it before but NADDPOD is great, totally worth it. Once you get to episode 14 they have an after show podcast where they talk about the episode on their Patreon and you only have to subscribe at the $5 tier to get access to it.
Tiny Heist is relatively short and has some fun battle sets. Leviathan can be hard because of the zoom format but you get more Ayda and Cathilda which is fun. I never got into Shriek week.
Pirates of Leviathan is one of my favorite seasons. I know the Zoom thing can be a big barrier to entry but once you get in there is so much to enjoy.
I think it's the 1st time we get all three of Aabria, Matt, and Brennan at the same table. 1st time we get future D20 Co-Executive Producer Carlos Luna at the table. Plenty of Brennan doing exasperated or befuddled pirate voices.
Everyone's characters are on point.
Mercer with an incredible journey of a cursed rat man, punishing himself for the mistakes of the past hopefully learning to love and be loved again.
Aabria as the Icy priestess of an evil storm goddess with a heart of gold she'd rather you not know about cause it kills her image and her profit margins.
Carlos as a plucky young wizard with a trapper keeper full of off brand spells trying to find some good and positivity in a world of piracy.
Marisha Ray's Sunny Biscotto, an aarakocra paladin, fascinated and inspired by the pirates and their gods of olde trying to make something positive and mildly altruistic in a sea of pirate cynicism is a joy. I especially liked the way her and Carlos, as the two youngest members of the Buccaneer Buddies, contrasted each other. Two kids thrust into piracy with decidedly different motivations and experiences, worked really well.
Krystina as the lounge singing mashup of Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Betty Boop, finding the best in those around her while just trying to find her friend. 👌 Would love to see her back in the Dome.
Now B Dave is going to be an acquired taste here. He tends to roll even before being asked to and surprise of surprises almost always rolls miraculously well. This put a lot of folks off if I recall because there was plenty of evidence of dice fudging going on. (I think I even saw a post of someone analyzing the probabilities of B Dave's rolls. This is how perturbed some got with it) That said I had heard this before my 1st listen so I decided to ignore B Dave's dice and instead focus on his character. To that end Marcid the Typhoon is a really fun character. To rework a famous line, you can always count on Marcid to do the right thing. After he's exhausted all other alternatives. The back and forth between Marcid and Aabria's Myrtle the Bitch, is a delight as well.
Worth the price of entry for sure.
Tiny Heist is pretty fun, as long as you like the McElroy's sense of humor. Pirates was okay, it had some fun moments. I haven't seen Shriek Week because the premise seemed uninteresting, but I've seen people say it wasn't great.
NADDPOD is awesome, highly recommend.
Agreed. Couldn't get into Shriek Week. Just didn't like the DM style. The whole vibe at the table felt very forced and not organic. It just seemed totally different from the rest of the D20 seasons. Never finished Shriek Week, I've started watching it 3 or 4 times but never could get through it. I guess it is realistic in the way that sometimes at home you throw a group of people together who just don't gel and have to scrap the whole idea in search for better chemistry. I guess that's what happened there.
Escape the Bloodkeep is my accidental introduction to D20 and it’s great.
If you mean seasons without the full main cast go for A Court of Fey and Flowers and Burrows End, I similarly couldn’t get into the seasons you listed above, but LOVED both ACOFAF and BE.
(If you want other shows, try Dungeons and Daddies which you can listen to on Spotify or Once Upon a Witchlight on YouTube. Both hilarious campaigns with something different to bring to the table)
If you want, you could start with Naddpod campaign 2. It's only 40 episodes with a 6 episode mini arch that features Lou Wilson.
I'll be honest I was skeptical about tiny heist at first, but by the end I was loving it. It's hard to explain but I loved how the battle sets showed their plans playing out.
Shriek Week is the worst of the games. Either it's uncomfortable sexual things, people trying to discover the plot while also doing all they can to ignore it, or my personal gripe, one player trying to romance someone but then being mad when the clearly monogamous person was upset about the player sleeping around... but because they were a PC doing the bad thing, we all just had to accept it and move on. I don't know these people personally obviously, but I feel like they didn't like what the player was doing either..... I watch nearly everything I deem OK at least twice, yet I decided that will never see this season again.
Tiny Heist got fun after they stopped actually planning the heist and actually started doing the plan.. But I personally really enjoyed Escape from the Bloodkeep even if it disappointed me when it came to villains acting like villains. That being said, all the fights have fun gimmicks and the players stick to their silly characters even when not wise. It's maybe top 5 for me! Worth a shot at least through the first fight! Especially since Mike Trapp is in it, and he's always fun.
Mentopolis is also way more fun than I expected. Once again, they are silly characters who play into their silly concepts. But there are also small details mentioned at the start that become so important late in the season. I'm excited for the day I eventually give this a second watch-through.
Shriek Week is a misfire, without significant stakes or cohesion, though the PCs all do fun work.
Pirates is a little rough, technically (it was filmed early covid) and some of the performances are divisive, but I think it’s a total blast.
Tiny Heist is likewise not as cohesive or balanced an adventure as the show can be, and some find the dynamic of the McElroy family to be kind of a lot (I do not), but I also think it is one of the single funniest seasons of the show.
NADDPOD is an absolute delight. I started actual plays with CR and had trouble with the length of episodes. Then I found D20 and was like, okay this is more my style. Then I found NADDPOD and I was home. It's just such a delight.
Mice and murder, coffin run, and Burrow's end are all super fun seasons.
NADDPOD is so good! It's a bit intimidating, but you'll also have so much content for like a year or two lol
NADDPOD C1 is insane! It feels overwhelming (and with 100 episodes especially coming from 20 ep D20 seasons, it is) but Murph does a really great job of breaking up arcs and telling little stories within the big one and the story the gang tells together is INCREDIBLE! Moonshine is one of my favorite media characters probably ever man I can’t speak highly enough about the show