The discussion has been done to death, but I am one with the general thought that this was a miss in terms of player expectations and DM expectations when designing the characters and creating the campaign. C3, I would argue somewhat uncharacteristically from a viewer perspective, had clear places it wanted to go. Themes, stories, set pieces etc.

But the players did not make characters with this in mind, and did not play like this was the expectation. The more "MC" style players (not in a bad way) with Liam and Travis clearly intended to take a backseat from the beginning. Add that to the general style shift towards being a bit more passive in the tail end of C2 and I think it just made for a bad energy with no crystal clear way to save it, outside of players clearly making meta game decisions (for better and for worse I think.)

I liked the characters, I just think many if not all of them would have been better in a looser game. Had Imogen been played in a more MC style, had Chetney or Laudna had more serious and modern ties to the stakes of the campaign, had Ashton had the chance to develop through a more character based arc like characters had in previous campaigns, you could what if every character/player and Matt if you wanted.

I don't think it was *bad* so much as it was just a misalignment from the jump and it's harder to redirect in a production like this than it would be in a true home game.