#THEY'RE ONE OF MY FAVE PC SHIPS EVER OF ALL TIME!

[verosvault]

Y'ALL! GO WATCH MICE & MURDER! IT'S SO GOOD!!!!

🚨MICE & MURDER SPOILERS IN THE TAGS!!!🚨

Okay so I'm slowly going through the massive backlog of Dimension 20 because it is PRECISELY my speed for actual plays and the first old season I watched was Mice and Murder because my husband and I are huge murder mystery fans and. You guys. This season is so good.

I know I'm preaching to the choir because the m&m Tumblr tag consists entirely of "Mice and Murder is underrated" and "this is a post about D20 in which I have tagged the name of every season," so I will leave most of the gushing to one side and just give my biggest takeaway.

Mice and Murder is a masterclass of how to start playing D&D and how to support people who are just starting playing D&D. From Brennan's patient leading of players to conclusions without being pushy or condescending, to Ally's welcoming energy as the one experienced player, to all the newbies learning their rhythm and just diving in...it gives some really good models of what an early D&D experience can be like and I just respect it so much for that.

(If you are intrigued by my thesis and haven't watched that season's Adventuring Party, absolutely go do that, cause they really get down into it and I love it.)

[memento-morri-writes]

tis i the crit role anon 🙏

hey morri! i’m kind of the reverse of you where i’ve seen all of c3 (all of it to date i suppose), but none of c2! i am enjoying the overlap the first two campaigns have had with the third, tho i definitely don’t have a ton of context to the second!

tell me more about why you love it so much! what sticks out to you about the style, defining moments, the characters? who’s your favourite if you can pick just one? why were you drawn to that campaign over the other two?

if i had to guess i think my fav pc would be caleb, im a huge fan of vax and orym. liams characters in general haha

also i have to ask have you watched tlovm?

HI ANON!!!!! I'm so glad you came back and gave me a chance to ramble about this silly little show that I love so much.

This is extremely long, so I'm putting it under the cut to spare people's dashes.

So, campaign two is very near and dear to my heart. It's the first campaign I watched (and the only one I've finished), and it's (in part) what got me into dnd in the first place.

I mean, it really is everything I could ever want from a dnd show. The characters are amazing, the plot is excellent, there's the right mix of shenanigans and sincerity. Okay, yes, all of crit role has those things, but c2 knocks it out of the park.

Like, c1 is a bit more of your typical hero's journey. You have these people who start out rather ordinary, and end up rising to extreme heights, saving the world and gaining a lot of power as they do so. These people are also (generally) pretty good and righteous people. Which isn't bad!!!!!!!! I love c1 a lot! (I would kill and die for Vax, which explains why I've been procrastinating finishing, lmao.)

But c2 is more my style when it comes to characters. A bunch of fucked-up misfits who become an extremely dysfunctional but loving family, and semi-accidentally save the world while they're at it. Idk, there's something about the fact that the Mighty Nein don't start out to be heroes, don't intend to be heroes, that really really endears me to them. A fair amount of what they do is for not necessarily self-serving, but personal reasons. They fuck up sometimes, and it's great.

Also, TMN are just so much more chaotic than Vox Machina. I mean, it's to be expected when you have such chaotic characters as Nott and Jester in one party, plus everyone else.

As for defining moments, there's literally too many to list. I could sit here and talk about c2 for hours. But I will say that near the end of Episode 7 was where I well and truly knew that there was no going back, and that my life had been changed. (A lot of good things there, but the Molly+Caleb bit is what did me in, I think.)

Other top faves include (in no particular order) literally the entire pirate arc (but esp the fight on the ship in Darktow and the yuan-ti temple), Yasha's pit fight (I literally wrote a mini essay about it on my personal blog bc it made me so emotional), any time Essek is there (for both feels and laughs), Caduceus's speech in Dinner With The Devil, Jester and Nott fucking up that one temple (just because it made me laugh so hard I stopped making noise for like 10 minutes straight), any time Beau and Caleb interact, THE FIRST TIME THEY SEE THE NEIN-SIDED TOWER, the Lucien/Jester tarot reading, the Lucien fight (all stages of it), Fjord throwing his sword into lava, any of the times they polymorphed large monsters into turtles (giant -> snapping turtle or the turtle on ice), the time they got banned from two libraries in less than 20 minutes...

As you can see, I could go on for hours. And yes, if you're a Liam character fan, Caleb will be your favorite. Caleb is also my favorite critical role character of all time ever, and I'm so obsessed with this man it's unreal. Like, autistic (to me) sad wizard man who loves his cat, has so much trauma, and is played by Liam O'Brien??? Obviously going to be my fave.

As for why I started with c2 over c1, I'm not actually sure. I think it was on the recommendation of some friends and my cousin, because the beginning is more polished than that of c1, and in their opinions it was the best campaign (I'm inclined to agree. No other crit role campaign will ever top it).

I have not watch tlovm yet, but I plan on getting around to it someday. Unfortunately for me, I am very very very very bad at finishing tv shows. It's basically either I finish it at an insanely fast pace (ie all 141 episodes of c2 in ~6 months, or all 38 episodes of Black Sails in just over 2 weeks), or I never finish it at all. Someday I will get my shit together and watch tlovm, though.

Actually, I happen to have a little art wall at my mom's house that is mostly Mighty Nein art. I don't have everyone yet, just Jester, Yasha, Caleb, and Essek, but I'd love to get the full party up there someday. Sadly I don't have any good pictures of it.