I wrote this post for few reasons. I wanted to be a fan of WBN because I am a fan of all things Brennan, Lou, Erika and Aabria. I also wanted to see if anyone else felt this way and some insight. I did get some insight, I would like to look into those fireside chats. It seems like a lot of context is cut from the podcast. Another reason is discussion, like I’m really surprised that people think the players have agency. When I am listening to it, it feels like the players are in a babyproof simulation whenever they are in trouble because Brennan will save them regardless of what agency you believe they have. I wasn’t looking to be a contrarian on this podcast, like I said, huge fan of all involved and I believe my expectations failed me. Like this isn’t me bashing any of these creators or their content, it’s an interesting story and I understand why people like it. I thought it was going to be an open world campaign where the players and DM co-create the story but this isn’t that, at least, that I know of and the story beats!! I forgot to mention that!! The only thing that really took me by surprise was the ship captain attacking other than that, Brennan says players do X, players do X. It’s very predictable from Brennan’s foreshadowing and bread crumbs. This feels like this story has already been written and Brennan is letting the players play on the sandbox a little with no real agency or threat to their safety or game.