Spoilers

“A Homecoming Most Good”

Bonus Action’s first season ended tonight with a fantastic finale filled with some great character moments and some fun action.

This group of players worked so well together, and brought the emotion and humor throughout the eight episodes plus.

Tonight’s highlights:

• Clearly, the final justice for Victor. Delivered beautifully by Adam.
• Marlon hitting that 18 early on the jump on the volcano.
• Speaking of Marlon, finally getting that pocket picked…
• Bric’s pain and anguish over his perceived failure, his self-doubt felt real and his scene with Alistair was excellent.
• Adam and Jay having their own moment with their characters.
• David’s work weekly has been sensation, with his voices and descriptions.
• Paying off Jay’s use of Flame last week with …dragons?
• The Star Wars-like celebration at the end.
• Just everything about Rory.
• Bar’B and Todd adding so much color to the campaign.
• The map/board once again showing that extra step that made this so enjoyable. Cool volcano.

This is such a fun show with an amazing group of players and characters. Jay teased something with Bonus Action later in the week. Excellent.

Spoilers

“The Z Knights vs. The B Team”

The big battle over the Arcfire did not go very well at all.

In an epic encounter, our party battled through the combat doing what they could. The main antagonist was challenging and targeting Victor took our young hero down.

It felt tough for others in the group. Bric tried something desperate at the end that could have backfired, but Rory came up HUGE with a major Nat. 20 roll when he needed it.

I am avoiding too many details, because you should really watch the episode yourselves.

Spoilers

“Fates Worse Than Prison”

The sixth episode of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign from Bonus Action has the group moving through a dungeon for the first time.

Well, sort of a dungeon. It is actually a multiple level building, with stacked maps as well. This dungeon actually goes up instead of deeper into the ground.

The group all showed some wonderful ingenuity as they moved through the different levels, avoiding what they could. Jay’s use of his goggles to avoid the bright light was brilliant.

There were some mysteries dropped too, including the drawings that look like Victor.

It appears that they have reached the showdown as it was left as a cliffhanger.

Another fun week with some very creative people.

Spoilers

“Welcome to Ray of Hope”

Our weekly dose of Dungeons & Dragons has arrived with the fifth episode of Bonus Action. I have really enjoyed this group as they have spent so much time dealing with character instead of just going out and fighting every week.

Once again, the group spends their time this week building character and having fun without having to dive into battle at every corner.

I think I said it before, but this is a type of D & D that I could really get into instead of the D & D that I remember playing, where having a lot of characteristics and a great backstory was second, if not third, to stats and fighting skills.

Rory had a very good week this week as his friendship with Victor continues to grow. Rory finding that blood curse that was on Victor was clutch.

And Bric’s magic skills came through big time too with his casting suggestion. Natural ones can be tough for DMs.

The running gag of Marlon failing to pick pockets is really funny.

Todd needs to get something special for himself as he was in he background for most of the night. He is more than just comedy relief.

The story is coming into the forefront of the adventure and the fight for the Arcfire looks to be shaping up to be a huge conflict.

Spoilers

“A Sea of Dreams”

The fourth episode of Bonus Action was an unexpected one, but it was truly one of the best.

The episode saw the group passing through the Sea of Dreams and they all had individual dreams, all of which had to deal with their back stories.

This was an amazing way to give us more information on these characters and their lives without simply telling us.

DM David was the star of this episode as he provided some of the best D & D descriptions I have heard. He weaved every dream from meetings he had with the players off screen and he provided some different variations of the dream concept. There were some dreams that were really scary, some of the dreams dropped hints or possible story beats, making the PCs unsure about what they were doing.

My thought as I watched this was… when I played D & D years ago, I would have loved this but my groups were never into character development or deep backgrounds. I always tried to add what I could, but the D & D format was never my strength.

Loved how these six players seem to believe that the character parts are every bit as important as the fighting.

Spoilers

“Punching a Sea Beast”

This week’s Bonus Action kicked off almost immediately with…COMBAT!

Yes, we picked up with the group on the ship just after we had the drama of Victor’s backstroy last week and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a battle with a monstrous Chimermaid.

Yes, I said Chimermaid.

It had multiple heads, a shark, eels, alligator etc. It was a horrific creature that gave our crew a real battle.

The battle featured several fun moments including:

• Bric kicking off with some huge shots
• Marlon having some of the worst luck rolling in a long time.
• Bar’B and Todd coming up with an epic teamwork attack
• It was nice to have Marlon end the battle after having such a tough time.

Then, after the battle, it was back to character development as sweet, sweet Rory kept talking to Victor and we had an awesome moment where Victor admitted what he needed was friends, and without saying it, he implied that Rory was his friend. It was a beautiful time and was a nice button on the end of an action packed episode.

This group of six D & D players have been excellent and are a lot of fun to watch.

Spoilers

“Pit Stop in Star-Top”

Week two of the Bonus Action Dungeons & Dragons adventure from the pReview’d crew was the shortest episode yet, but felt like the heaviest.

This was a sensational episode all based in character and backstory.

It started with some really goofy action from the crew, especially with Todd, Bric and Bar’b. And it had to do with food, of course.

However, when they were talking with one of the survivors who had gone after the MacGuffin that our new group is after, suddenly, Victor’s back story was front and center.

And it was heartbreaking. It was powerful. Adam Lash was amazing. He had been straight-faced with Victor for most of the time and we found out why. A great back story with Victor and his father brought Victor into conflict with his teammates as well as Alistair (via rock communicator).

It was tense and uncomfortable. And fantastic.

It brought some true drama into the campaign of goofiness and gave the comedy characters a chance to be more than just fun.

Congrats to Adam on the creation of a truly compelling character that doesn’t seem to fit, but he has an arc for the ages.

Spoilers

“A Beginning Most Humble”

After three weeks of Odd Jobs, mini missions to introduce characters, Bonus Action started off strong with all six characters involved.

This episode was used as practice, character moments and getting the group to interact.

These six players brought a ton of quirks and enjoyment from their characters. They all have some really cool concepts and back stories that they play as every bit as important as the actual mission. That is awwsome.

This week gave us the outline of the campaign and explained the MacGuffin.

These six players are funny, creative and should make this series a lot of fun.

Spoilers

This week was the third of the two character mini-campaigns splitting the six person group into twos. This week we have Jason Spina and Adam Lash. And oh was it great.

With all due respect to the other four players, this mini-adventure, called Odd Jobs 3, was an epic confrontation.

Jason was playing a character named Rory and Adam was playing Victor. They both did an excellent job of portraying these characters prior to the battle. I found myself really interested in both Rory and Victor. Their flashbacks were both fascinating and watching them play their characters was awesome.

The battle they put up was even more amazing, coming through with some unbelievable rolls. The whole creature at the end was scary dangerous and they truly took it out without too much trouble.

This was my favorite of the three Odd Jobs. I really enjoyed the first two, but I was completely engaged in the third one. I am anxious to see all six of the players starting next week.

Spoilers

Week two of Bonus Action Vol. 1 arrives on YouTube tonight, featuring Jay Schmidt and his campaign partner, Ja-Ron Young.

Once again, these pre-campaign mini-adventures featuring a pair of players are brought together to create a little connection. Last week, you had two really top notch improvisers. However, this week is a different case.

Ja-Ron Young had never played D & D and you could tell that he was not as experienced as Jay or last week’s team and you could see that he was not as comfortable with the game as Jay was. However, as the episode progressed, you could see him becoming more at ease and more creative with his gameplay. Sending the “Bric” illusion running away as a distraction was a genius move and the dice helped out beautifully. Ja-Ron came through big time.

Jay was his usual awesome self and created such a fun and entertaining character in Bahbric Warm Hearth (called Bric). I love when a player engulfs themselves into the character even if it may not be for the best, and Jay totally embraced that.

I would have 100% released that displacer beast too. Jay’s face when the displacer beast first asked him for mercy… was epic.

Two weeks in, this has been a lot of fun. DM David Armstrong is wonderful, moving the story along perfectly with humor and creativity. His expressiveness really helps the storytelling going on.

Adam will be next week. I’ll be here for it.

Spoilers

“Where friends don’t ley friends adventure alone.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. I was excited about seeing this new YouTube series from the pReview’d guys Jay Schmidt and Adam Lash. They had talked about it being a D & D campaign, which I used to play years ago.

They were kicking off their 11 volume series with what is called “Odd Jobs 1” where the six member campaign would be split into pairs and run a minor campaign with the duo. The first week included Amanda Nicholas and Josh Hurley in a mission to find and recover an item called the glass menagerie.

David Armstrong was the DM (Dungeon Master) leading them through the story and playing the other characters of the world. He was excellent in this role as he provided great details of what was happening and provided a series of voices and accents.

Amanda and Josh both were playing barbarians, Amanda played Bar’b the Barbarian and Josh played Todd the Barbarian. These two were very enjoyable and entertaining with their improv and their game play. They did several things throughout the campaign that were creative and played off of their characters. Amanda was on fire with her dice role too.

When the campaign started, they dropped a word that we used many times that brought me back to our own campaigns, and it was ‘nondescript.’ Ah, nostalgia.

Jay and Adam were not on this episode, but their presence was absolutely felt. Jay’s laughter echoed through the video from off camera. Jay’s laugh is awesome and only makes you want to laugh as well. Adam’s hand appeared in the show moving the figurines around the board during the combat.

This was a lot of fun. I am not sure I can commit a regular two our block every Monday night to watch this as a debut, but I would like to try and fit it in some time during the week.

Congrats on a solid first volume.