sands

I think Pyke as a character is fine. He has an interesting story, he has a lot of fun material to play with, like all LoA characters, and I can see and understand the angle they were trying to go with for him. The problem is that he's an Andy PC and the one the story openly revolves around and Mace (as much as I enjoy Mace as a DM) doesn't have the finesse to handle an Andy PC as an MC.

And that's not a dig at Andy or Mace. Andy is just a very vocal player and it's just how he is that he makes himself known. As a novice GM it makes sense for an Andy PC to be the MC, but where Pyke gets to be too much is that Mace plays an enabler to whoever he's interacting with. Which doesn't work for a MC who's player draws attention to his PC and objectively does some cool shit. And admittedly I think it's harder than anyone would think to balance that, because Andy's other kinda MC PCs are Felix and Kaiyo, who are in Mikey campaigns. Mikey, while he indulges his players, is very very good about balancing everyone's "screen time" and he's had a decade of playing as Andy's DM that he knows how to work with Andy's play style. Which Mace doesn't know how to do yet. Mace is good at "Yes and-"ing cool things and playing with the dice for the story, but he doesn't quite have the DM experience to step in and turn the spotlight to someone else when Andy starts to get really into his character. Additionally, Mace, being the GM, is perpetuating and playing into Pyke's MC energy, which you don't need to do with Andy, if he's given the tools he finds his way there himself, see Felix and Kaiyo.

I will reiterate this several times; I love how Andy plays his characters. My personal play style is very similar. However, Andy is loud(/aff) and he interjects a lot about how his PC's are feeling and what they might be thinking. Which is fun, I love that play style. The issue is that Andy is prone to interjecting, loud and playing the Main Character. Which is not a good combo when no one else at the table is anywhere as loud or "Hey I'm gonna add something-" as Andy is. Andy is good at grabbing your attention and making him and his PCs hard to forget about. You can see it through every campaign.

And this isn't to say I think Andy is intentionally trying to steal the spotlight. He's just vocal and excited to play his characters. Which doesn't pair well with being in a DND party and the MC while letting the other PCs shine.

Personally, taking play styles into account, Mace's experience as a DM, and the PCs personalities into the equation. Rett probably should have been the MC of SDRA. Because, Richie plays best when he's playing off someone else. Kremy and Gideon, Toa and Felix, Jornir and Queenie, being some of the more notable duos Richie has. Rett plays beautifully off everyone, he's the support of the SDRA crew. And not to say the crew wouldn't all throw hands if Pyke was in danger, but we know from the scene in the Solar Fed with the Karcosa cultist that Rett doesn't need to be in much danger from the whole crew to be ready to throw hands. He's got a lot of weight in the story and with as mellow of a player Richie is, and with how much Mace plays into Andy with Pyke's MC energy, it could have worked very well if that was the direction they went in.

Would this fix all of the issues with Pyke being obsessed over by the wider fandom? No, again he's an Andy PC and Andy's PC's have a tendency to be obsessed over by the fandom, but it'd certainly help for Pyke to have less screen time.