#also if the vm and m9 stuff in the last episode takes more time than talking to the gods...

[astralleywright]

i really do believe the CR cast loves Bells Hells, and recent decisions come from the fact that they love all their parties and see this as the end of an era for them and are also very, very busy. but man it does not fucking feel like it sometimes lmao

[eyeofthebrainstorm]

As I star camping 3 I'm trying to understand why campaign 2 didn't impact me as much as the first one.

It's not that I didn't like it, the story is still one of the closest to my specific taste than most stuff in current pop culture (and the same goes for what I've seen of campaign 3 so far).

But during campaign 1 I cried my eyes out 2 or 3 times and at the end I was devasted. There's so much I miss about it: it felt like they took their time a lot more, I liked the fact that they had downtime to see what times of peace did to VM, I liked how they took care of every side quest before the final battle (Pumat needed basilisk oil or something and the M9 never delivered), I feel like they allowed themself to lose time or take time for moment they cared about... Honestly I missed the first episodes when they were eating while playing and the sound was terrible.

I guess now it feels more like they're making content than playing dnd. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I guess the speed at which I caught up with all of it also factors in, gave me a little bit of whiplash.

But one last thing I'm trying to figure out, and I'm not sure I did yet... Vox Machina felt more adult. I don't know how to explain it yet, I can't pinpoint what it is. But I know that a big thing for me with VM was that it felt that I was watching something made for adults. Fun and light and deep and for adults. Vax and Vex were my same age and there was something very comforting about that. And I have no solid arguments why M9 felt more like YA to me, I guess the stories had more of a coming of age feel to them (Jester, Beau, Fjord and in some ways Caleb and even Cad).

When M9 ended I felt like there was so much more they could do, and I'm glad to know they rivisisted them to close some loose threads.

That said, I really love CR and it's still one of my favorite things ever and I'm excited about campaign 3, maybe I just miss Vox Machina. Feel free to let me know: which is your favorite campaign? Do you agree with C2 being less adult than C1?

[captainsspnanon]

C3E65 reaction

Imogen Laudna stuff in it's own separate untagged post. Don't search it out if you love the pairing, I'm not here for drama.

FUCKING fanTASTIC episode!!!! ALL of it!

Looking at the timeline for this, as I finished watching late last night but immediately went to bed rather than typing up my reaction, as I always then spent like, 2 or 3 hours on tumblr after no matter how much I say I'm just going to make my reaction then go to sleep.

We got some solid conversation between the groups, and Laudna's freakout was 100% justified. As much as team wildemount did have their own struggles (and they DID!), it was a much more comforting trip than team issylra, especially with all the downtime they got. (had team issylra gotten those five days of wibbly timeline, i'm not sure if it would have been downtime, or if it would have been hishari drama or other drama.)

At the start of the episode, both my mom and I were a bit confused as to why Ashton was so chipper. However, when they had their conversation with FCG about trying to do better, not necessarily being okay but not being bad either, finding a purpose, actively engaging in friendship rather than avoiding it for fear of being burnt again, THEN it made sense. It's certainly one of the times where I would have preferred Taliesin to show more of the emotional transition on screen, but that's not how Tal RPs, and I'm used to that. 4 Sided Dives/Talks are always the best to find out what's truly going on with Tal's PCs, which is a sign of how much he has the inner life for them, and also (in my slightly negative opinion) a sign of how much he isn't really showing it outright in main campaign. And I admit my usual annoyance with Ashton asking Milo to make something but not verbalizing it so that the cast can be surprised when Taliesin shows whatever it was off. I didn't mind it to start, and it made sense with a lot of Percy's things to not take up time, but I've since learned that Taliesin will just do this all the time and yeah. I'm over it. However, by the end of the episode we know at least that the immovable rod was put in the hammer, as well as the scatter spell crystals, so at the very least we know a good chunk, so I feel better about it.

No real comments on FCG's emotional state, especially re: FRIDA, as he right now seems to be keeping it pushed down. However, I did appreciate how much he pushed back on other party members in regards to the opinions of the gods. Things did get smoothed over a bit more easily than I was expecting it to, based on the comments from 6sd, but at the same time it makes absolute sense as this party really is the 'smooth things over' party, especially when compared with VM and M9. I don't consider it a bad thing, tbh, even though I love the interparty drama, because it's a different dynamic that's being explored.

As I've already talked about getting spoiled about the imodna kiss, I'll keep this section brief. 1) I adore how they clearly forgot how Matt held his face to do Zhudanna and I love that they both nearly lost it. 2) Marisha flailing whenever getting romanced will never not be funny. 3) I actually hope that when we next get her on 4sd, she can talk more about the fact that she built a PC to be 'unromanceable'. We know that Liam had designed Caleb to not have another romance, and we saw how that fell apart. I wonder what her thought process was behind it and how she feels about it going forwards, as Liam made the choice with Caleb to RP the unrequited, and then take the steps for the requited, whereas Laura took the initiative with this romance. 4) Pour one out for my mom who is mourning the platonic friendship that she felt mirrored very strongly a friendship that she has which she was enjoying seeing portrayed.

OKay, the NON-romance stuff! I'm very excited to see how it plays out with both Imogen and Laudna feeling the need for power from sources that they feel they can't trust. Laudna not even being able to admit that she wants the power from Delilah, this could be a very interesting road to go down. AND LUDINUS YOU FUCK. So excited to see where else he's dropping his propaganda. Is it just Marquet? It's GOT to be around all of Exandria, right???

Moving on to Fearne, Chetney, and Orym - I'm a little disappointed they didn't share more information with Ajit, but it was a good conversation nonetheless. There were a few things that he said which made me feel as if Matt was leaving a few options open for if the party wanted to do a few paid tasks in town, a la the Mighty Nein. I didn't see any of them being accepted, but I liked that they were still put out there, even if the party is pretty much mainlining the plot at this point. The bounty hunter sent by the shopkeeper was unexpected (or would have been if I hadn't gotten spoiled, dammit) and was a fun mini-combat! I wonder how long Matt had that sitting in his pocket.

THE DUSKMAVEN. That whole scene was SO good! I was a bit surprised at first with how emotional Orym was, considering he didn't really have a connection with her beforehand, until I realized that this was the first time he's been in any temple since the shit hit the fan. I suspect that no matter WHOSE temple it was, he would have been the same way, with the possible exception of the Dawnfather. Having multiple party members receive a vision was definitely a good play, as this moves from FCG being the only one with actual interaction to four members. Vax as an orb forever screaming? fun times fun times. ...there's the morbid angsty part of me that hopes they share that information with Keyleth who shares it with VM. LOOK I LIKE SOME GOOD HURT/COMFORT SOMETIMES OKAY.

LILLIANA ON RUIDUS. LUDINUS ON RUIDUS. IRA ON RUIDUS TALKING WITH REILORA. oh I cannot WAIT to see how things go from here! MOON'S HAUNTED Y'ALL AND THEY ARE GOING BACK WITH A GUN.

[your-turn-to-role]

so i was thinking about resurructions in cr so far, and i was wondering why it is that cr1 has a lot of famous rez ritual moments, whereas cr2 has had a few dramatic deaths, but revivify has been used on all of them so far. I'm not very far into cr1 so i was wondering if someone who watched all of it could offer some insight?

i can offer some insight, yes!

and the answer is two things, the first is matt shifting the mechanics, and the second is - we're really not that far into campaign two

there are gonna be campaign one spoilers ahead, just as a warning, i'm assuming you're fine with that bc it's kinda unavoidable, but letting you know just in case

so, for some perspective, vox machina started the show around level 9, whereas the m9 started at level 2. which means they were a lot higher level at any given episode than the m9 (and why we're about to hit 115 in c2 when 115 in c1 was the final episode)

the m9 at the moment, are about the same level as vox machina were for very early chroma conclave stuff - we're somewhere in the early 40s, episode wise, and the first on screen resurrection ritual didn't happen until 44, with vex. in fact, prior to vex, vox machina had only had two deaths at all - pike pre-stream, where they had to take her to a different cleric because no one else had any resurrection spells (which was likely where matt started the dramatic ritual thing, because it was a really big deal), and grog in the underdark, which was mid battle and matt didn't really use a ritual on him, pike rolled for the revivify, which is a thing matt's always done for resurrection spells, even though by the book they work automatically, because it's more interesting if there's a chance they may not come back

so by level 13, they hadn't really had a dramatic resurrection ritual either, barring pike, which was a special case. but then we get to vex, which brings me to my second point - vex was also a revivify

because back then matt used to do dramatic resurrection rituals for any resurrection that happened out of combat - and for the m9 revivifies, that's all of them. already, deaths have been a bigger deal for the m9 than they were for vm. grog, a few episodes later, also got a resurrection ritual on a revivify - the first death to be revived by a higher level spell was percy, in episode 69. when they were level 16. and that was only because they didn't have pike with them, so no one could cast revivify, they had to wait a day for keyleth to get her spells back so they could teleport to her

back in those relatively early levels, all deaths were a big deal, so if they had time for a ritual, matt gave them a ritual. but as they started to get into the higher level fights (level 17+), they started to encounter the really big bads, and at that point, you'd be getting like two or three deaths a fight, fairly frequently (power word kill's a bitch, as are dragons in general)

having rituals for all of them, even the ones that happened after combat, would start to cheapen the moment, so you still roll for them, but you save the dramatic rituals for the higher level spells - which still has to happen, because sometimes they don't have pike, so they gotta wait, or sometimes they do have pike, but the roll fails (that can happen, in any of these!), to keep that sense of a big deal when it happens

and that rule seems to have carried over into c2, even though they're a relatively low level again

you also may be noticing at this point that several of their higher level resurrections happened because they didn't have pike - a problem kinda hard to come by in a campaign with two full time clerics instead of one part time one. generally, between both caduceus and jester, someone's gonna have an available revivify. but those rolls could still fail! and by matt's rules in the past, if a revivify fails, you can't cast another one, you gotta then switch to a higher level spell. they've been lucky so far, but once we start getting into higher levels, i'm sure we'll have plenty of moments for res rituals, don't worry! we're still 20-30 episodes away from vox machina's first, and the m9 despite their clerics have had double the deaths by this point that vox machina did. everyone but keyleth at some point got a ritual last time, because that girl is goddamn immortal, their times are coming, there will be plenty of res ritual drama, i'm sure!

[the-big-nope]

Been rewatching Vox Machina in fits and spurts over the last few months (currently on The Kill Box), and recent meta has me comparing how it might have gone if it was the Mighty Nein in this Kevdak fight (or something very similar). 

Bless that person that said Vox Machina fights like individual heroes vs. Mighty Nein who fights more as a unit, because it feels damn accurate in the Kevdak fight. As a whole, VM is FAR more DPS focused than the M9. You’ve got Grog, Vax, and Percy, who are pure damage dealers. You’ve got Vex, who’s got access to spells but mainly uses them to boost her damage/number of attacks. Even Pike and Keyleth, who are what most people consider more support-based classes, tend to lean toward attacking more than anything else (Pike favors guiding bolt, spiritual weapon, and healing when needed, while Keyleth tends to spend large chunks of battle in beast shape or otherwise using big damage spells like call lightning, sunbeam, and blight. Keyleth’s broad utility tends to shine outside of battle, but she’s definitely a fighter druid once they do get into scraps). The only dedicated supporter VM really had was Scanlan, and that tended to be single-target focus: hold person, modify memory, counterspell, and bardic features that aided one person at a time. VM was a crowd of hard-hitting badasses whose fights were epic as hell when it came to straight up slug-fests that they could bash their way through, but who could fast get into trouble if the odds outweighed their DPS output or there’s some magical trick to them. 

Compare to the Mighty Nein, aka Team Debuffs McGee. I’m not CritRoleStats, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the impression that VM were probably putting out better damage at this level, given their sheer focus on it. However, it feels like Matt gets more frustrated by the M9 steamrolling through his encounters this campaign because the M9 are such a tough nut to crack when they’re all together. They have Jester and Caduceus stacking buffs and debuffs (power combo Bless and Bane, Incite Greed, and single target stuff like Command and Polymorph) like crazy, with the workload split allowing Jester to focus on damage and Cad on support. They have Caleb also on support and control, with some big broad damage spells that can wipe adds damn quick if Episode 86 was anything to go by. Nott’s mainly DPS with some of that Scanlan-reminiscent single-target control like Phantasmal Force and Hideous Laughter. Fjord’s just unpredictable as fuck: he can deal damage, move players around the battlefield, drop a demon on a boss’s head, and now with Paladin spellcasting he could even get in on the buff/debuff action. Even Yasha and Beau, the primary tanks and DPS, have some control and support abilities: Sentinel’s been crazy useful at times, Yasha can buff her entire team for a round, Beau can stun AND find out vulnerabilities to exploit in an enemy. They’re a VERY well-balanced team with some pretty solid strategies they tend to lean on. All together, the M9 are near iron-clad, but take away a member or two, or turn them on each other, and they’re much more vulnerable. 

So in looping back to my original thought about the Kevdak fight and how it would look with the M9 in place of VM. Put them at an equal level (12), accounting that VM knew what they were getting into and had time to prepare their spells, and ignoring variables like how the dice rolls are going, I feel like this is the type of fight the M9 would be kinda killer at. 

There are very few magic factors in play, mostly just melee fighters and archers. Good news for all the M9 magic users, since their enemies’ mental stats probably aren’t going to be stellar, making it easier to get save spells through. There are one or two druids that mostly served as healers, but with multiple M9 members able to counterspell, not as big a threat. The druids would probably see more combat use in this scenario, but then that splits into two alternatives: they stay in normal form, but they’re not the tankiest and don’t halve damage, so a few bolt shots from a hidden Nott would probably be enough to take them out; or they go into beast shape, making them able to take more damage but eliminating their spellcasting element. Since the fight ended when Kevdak died anyway, their staying power doesn’t matter as much. 

There are a lot of adds in play, but the M9 have a wizard available with AOE/multi-target damage spells on hand specifically made for clearing crowds. Granted, those adds are tougher than the average minions (mostly barbs), so them getting up in a party member’s face beforehand isn’t good, but the M9 all tend to have countermeasures for that (Cad can go invisible and run, Fjord and Jester can teleport, Beau and Nott can disengage, and Caleb can turn into a giant fucking ape). Of course, if Jester can get off an Incite Greed in the middle of a crowd, that takes care of a good portion of them for a while. 

Position Cad in the right place and he is set to ruin Kevdak’s day. Crit cancels, can inflict vulnerability so his barbarian resistance is null, Ray of Enfeeblement, Bane. Just make sure he doesn’t get swarmed and Caduceus is a serious drain on a boss’s effectiveness. 

Grog was VM’s only real front-liner (Vax was more of a hit-and-run artist and Keyleth wasn’t always available). The M9 has at least two in Yasha and Beau who would likely be on Kevdak. Not nearly as tanky as Grog, but action economy’s in their favor to take the heat off each other a bit. Beau has stun, and while it’s not likely to succeed, it’s always a possibility, and she is great to stack attack buffs on: haste, holy weapon, enlarge, etc. Additionally, they don’t have to stay alone if the situation calls for it: Fjord can also be a front-liner, Jester’s duplicate can cast touch spells, and if Caleb gets freed up then he can serve as Ape Tank. 

Nott/Veth just does a shit ton of damage, and it’s much easier for her to hide and get sneak attack now that she’s a halfling again. It would probably be easy to pick off the mooks, and if she combos with Cad’s path to the grave, Kevdak takes full sneak attack too. Her spells are also great for distraction, and again, a crowd of mostly barbarians probably chose to dump the mental stats. 

And those are just their typical strategies! There’s so many individual spells or tricks available to them that they’ve used before to great effect: Banishment, Antilife Shell, Cat’s Ire for grappling purposes, Slow, Summon Greater Demon, and the ever chaotic Polymorph. You never know what the M9 is going to pull out of the bag.

The Kill Box was a hell of a fight for Vox Machina, in large part because of the sheer amount of enemies, since Kevdak was paralyzed for a good chunk of the fight. If it had been just them up against Kevdak, they probably would have whittled him down super quick, but without any way to manage the large amount of minions aside from pure damage, things got tight with the action economy stacked against them. It probably would have been even MORE gnarly, if not unwinnable, without Scanlan and the essential control elements he provided. If it had been the Mighty Nein, it probably still would have been a challenge, but I don’t think nearly as much. Their plethora of options for controlling the battlefield, pulling themselves out of sticky spots, boosting their team’s abilities while reducing their enemies’, and without many opposing spellcasters to counter them, the Mighty Nein would probably be in their element in this fight.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E54 (March 12, 2019)

Four years ago today, Critical Role premiered!

This week’s guests are Marisha Ray and Travis Willingham!

Announcements: Gen Con: live show Friday, August 2nd, with a panel on Saturday! VIP Tickets on sale 3/19 at 10 AM Eastern, GA the next day. The cast will also be at ECCC this weekend! The Kickstarter has broken $7m (and more specific goals)!

And it’s time to discuss Episode 54: Well Beneath!

Stats for this episode! It’s been 117 days and 38 episodes since Beau last trained directly with Dairon. Beau has used 132 ki points. Fjord has cast Misty Step 11 times via the Summer’s Dance falchion.

Despite the loss, Beau feels pretty good about her and Jester’s display in the Four Corners; as soon as Dairon revealed herself, “she was like, okay, yes.” Had Dairon been revealed, Marisha suspects they either would’ve had to fight the whole bar... or undertake a second rescue mission.

Fjord’s interested in the ways in which Caduceus interacts with the Wildmother; part of that is wanting a deeper understanding, and part of it is knowing he’s probably going to need some sort of godly help with his current situation.

Marisha has been waiting as a player for Beau to have a bit of a moment of realization about her motivations for doing good; the encounter with Dairon was ideal for that, and they were one of the only people from whom it would really sink in.

Fjord’s reaction is “pure panic” every time he sees orcs. “There’s almost a false expectation with Fjord. He wants to sit down and have a drink with an orc.” He has a lifetime of questions for them---there weren’t a lot of orcs around in Port Damali---but hadn’t realized how many of them aren’t big conversationalists.

Brian: “Does part of Beau respect when someone calls her out?” Marisha: “100%. She’s a bit of a bully, and she knows it, so she’s going to respect people when they push back a bit. I’m not saying that’s healthy.” Brian brings up the contrast with the more archetypal beginnings of the VM characters. Travis points out that they’re still fleshing out the characters. “Why would you want to do everything safely and properly from the get-go?” Marisha brings up how D&D is a safe way to experience that kind of risk-taking and failure, and builds empathy. Marisha: “I didn’t like people like Keyleth---I didn’t undertand them that much---until I was Keyleth for... four years?”

Dairon was the first authority figure “who didn’t give up on Beau and think she was too difficult to be worth investing time into.” Beau deals with abandonment issues with her parents, and that definitely comes through with her interactions with Dairon.

Talks Machina exclusive reveal from Creative Director Marisha Ray: “Turns out, Beau? Uk’otoa the whole time.”

Fjord feels more comfortable in The City of Beasts---despite feeling very out of place---than somewhere like Port Damali, just because the focus is off of him for now.

Gif of the Week: serious table vs. party table.

Is it upsetting to be only 2 HP away from a victory? “Since I didn’t get my mentor captured by the opposing army... I... appreciate it... for story beats,” Marisha says, completely convincingly. “WHY THE FUCK, THOUGH?”

Brian asks if there’s any mistake they made in the show that they still dwell on. Marisha: “My meltdown during the Kraken fight? That was tough.” Travis found that fight especially hard, too. Brian points out that, while there’s a bit of a reset button for mistakes because they come back in to play the game every week regardless, it can also be tough because “this shit lives on the internet”.

Everyone reminisces about the goldfish incident from campaign 1.

Beau’s affirmation to Dairon that she only “kinda” trusts the M9 was accurate, knowing them. She doesn’t think there would be malice involved, but...

“Vandren would often say, ‘Nobody cares. Keep going.’” A lot of Fjord’s tough-love approach to interrogation comes from Vandren (although part of the intimidation was Travis belatedly realizing he has a pretty high intimidation bonus).

Fan Art of the Week: super cute fanart of everyone!

On Beau processing Dairon’s advice to not get attached: “I don’t know, man. Still unpacking that one. That’s going to take a bit.” Brian talks about how that’s an interesting part of the mentor archetype: at some point, you disagree with your mentor, often because of the lessons they taught you. Marisha notes that Beau was a little shocked back at Dairon’s level of contempt for the Krynn; that was the first crack.

Is Fjord actually yelling “Eldritch Blast!” in battle? “You bet your ass he is! He is a Dragonball Z fan, and that attack cannot be loosed without the proper wordage!”

Everyone’s looking forward to a full Beau arc! Marisha’s had time to flesh things out, “but there’s also the truth that Beau’s young; she’s human, in her twenties. Only so much can happen to her.”

Beau didn’t tell Dairon about the Beacon. “Beau is weighing all the information she has, ‘cause she knows it’s valuable.”

Bonus Search for Grog Questions! SPOILERS ENSUE

They both loved revisiting their characters. There’s pictures somewhere of everyone staring at their old character sheets before the show---Marisha in particular had pages upon pages of stuff.

Sir Bertrand Bell was “100%” inspired by Gilderoy Lockhart. Runaway Bride was also on TV, and Travis grabbed some inspiration there as well: “Richard Gere’s a handsome little son of a bitch.”

Marisha and Matt had talked about how they didn’t want the whole one-shot to be “a bummer”, so Keyleth chose to take this trip as a distraction and an excuse for compartmentalization.

Reaction to Liam’s character? Marisha: “Oh, FUCK YOU, bro. Fuck you.” She wasn’t actually mad, but in Keyleth’s eyes, it was a walking reminder.

Travis never thought he’d top the Kevdak moment, and it’s still at the top just for the importance to Grog’s character, but the odds of those natural twenties at the end... “I’ve scored touchdowns that didn’t mean that much to me.” It was the same die he used in the Kevdak fight.

Apart from their own characters, which were they most excited to see again? Percy. The massive damage, the Percy one-liners... Scanlan’s songs. The first time Vex said “Darling.” Pike saying “Grog?!”

Also, Brian desperately wants to host The Bachelor. “ABC, I know you’re listening.”

Brian just sort of wanders off with Henry until Max shuts down the bit. “Okay, that’s it.”

[agnesgoesadventuring-blog]

hey you don't need to answer this right away or anything. I know you're busy with the wedding coming up. I was just wondering how you feel about the campaign lately? with last night's episode and the craziness of the whole stealing the boat thing I've seen some ppl say that it's like there's too much forced fighting from matt and that the story is going completely off the rails because he keeps forcing them into fights and stuff just wondering how you felt about that

I did want to get to this because I won’t be around much at all for the next few weeks, not even the pop-ins I’ve been doing in this busy time. The wedding is really soon, and then the honeymoon, so that’s going to be awhile where I’m just not on at all. So I’m trying to clear out what I have in my inbox over the next few days. And I’ll probably just be focusing on the inbox mostly, so if anyone has something they really, really want me to see, send me an ask. :)

I just really don't agree with any of this at all. I've never felt like Matt has forced fights. In this latest episode, the fight was a result of very, very bad rolls. They tried to handle it in a more peaceful way, but Travis bombed his roll to be quiet in his sneaking in the water, Laura rolled badly to make the dolphin noise to try to cover, and Marisha rolled poorly with her drunk angry chick routine to try to cover both of those things. That wasn't forced, that was a bunch of bad rolls that Matt had no control over. After all of that, it made complete sense that the guy would order his people to shoot. There was shady shit going down, he was a criminal, and there were obviously people there that were being suspicious and could mess things up. It would only be forced if the choice to attack when he did didn't make sense, or if he had opened up with that attack. And he didn't. Beau wouldn't have had a chance to go any further with her routine if he had.

And the fight itself was pretty in character for the M9. They are an incredibly chaotic group. It kind of just part of their characterization now that they will get in over their heads, barrel through, and not really think about it until it's all over.

Also, while they've started enjoying the feeling of doing good and saving people, and they're all exploring the idea of that, they're not Vox Machina. Right now their main drive and priorities are not about being heroes, saving the world, and doing the "right" thing. So they're very much in-the-moment goal oriented, which can lead to things like what happened with the ship.

I don't think the fight in the sluice was forced either. They were flat out told that this was not a place they could just walk into, that if they went there they would probably be killed on sight. That makes sense and that's what happened (well, they weren't killed, but they were attacked). Going to the sluice to find Algar (rather than perhaps doing more investigating to see if they could find where he lived, or where his office might be etc.) was never going to lead to some kind of diplomatic exchange. It was always going to be a fight from the second they were spotted. And of course it was. This was a place that housed a big government secret that had an enormously important role in keeping the city running and prosperous, and that big government secret was something that many people might find more than a little immoral. There are all kinds of reasons that the policy would be to just get rid of anyone who gets down there to keep it all safe.

We had an RP-heavy, no fight episode prior to the episodes with these fights, and the episode before that had one instance of them clearly avoiding a fight thanks to good thinking (and I think dice rolls, but I don't remember if they did roll), when they decided to take that hidden loot and then disguised themselves and went on their way when they encountered the person likely meant to pick up that loot on the road, and then a fight that went incredibly smoothly. I wouldn't call this fight "forced" either, as the idea of them not having some kind of monster encounter while on the road outside of the Empire is kind of silly.

I see nothing that suggests that the story has been derailed at all by a few fights. There are several story threads happening and they are currently pursuing one of them with finding Marius to look into the stone Fjord consumed, and they might still pursue the Sabien lead. They've been handling Jester's story for a few episodes while in Nicodranis. These are still relatively early days in the campaign. We're not at a point yet where there's something like the Chroma Conclave or Vecna to tie all the threads they're pursuing together into one story. There wasn't in the early days of VM either. Maybe down the road we'll see that a lot of, or even all of, these story threads the characters have are tied together, or maybe these threads will be resolved and we'll get a big narrative changing moment like the Chroma Conclave attack that brings in a whole new journey and story. But for now, they're still somewhat low level characters exploring somewhat low level story threads. But that doesn't mean there's no story or that it's being derailed. They just have to pick which threads they're going to actively pursue at a time.

I'm just really exasperated with the attitudes toward Matt lately. First there was all the crap about him being "abusive" to the players and fans because Molly died, and now he's getting crap about "forcing fights" because of things like bad rolls, the choice the players/characters make even after being warned about how something would be a fight,  and in character choices that makes sense? This is ridiculous. I get that this kind of campaign and party might not be everyone's thing. They're chaotic and kind of reckless and that means that fights like these are going to happen sometimes, maybe even quite a bit. But if someone is taking "this campaign/party" isn't for me and turning it into "Matt's doing something wrong and forcing fights", then that's just ridiculous.

[nochiquinn]

campaign 2 episode 8: they got no breeches

I started a new dragon age inquisition game and I've been chanting "level 2, LEVEL 2" at my poor battered children

I've also been listening to the VM musical constantly, I love it so much, it's gonna be stuck in my head for months AND I'M OKAY WITH THAT

aww, that piece with yasha's shadow being grog's, that's awesome

maaaatt he still sounds sick, poor thing

LAURA'S SHIRT

(I am so excited about babyham)

mayonnaise is not a fursona sam

closet furries

home area

BELLEH

I was wondering how she was hiding the belleh

bladder kick is more powerful than you might think

"I like manacles" taliesin. molly. both.

"you look like a nerd" ".....I can deal with that"

"I require a drink and lumbar support" same

molly's morals drive them bankrupt

it's a dick in a book~

waterwalking!

"why is there a dickbutt in my spellbook"

"it's a wand of dickbutts"

"is she full of shit" most likely

look at this glaive, my glaive is amazing

find a hobby that gives you joy like doing magic gives caleb joy

it's sailor saturn

discord: caleb's a horder

TALIESIN

it's a Glove of Caleb's PTSD

"I am sloooowly beginning to like you, so please don't fuck it up"

"I'm going to eat some pickled ears!" "I'm going to watch this!"

"I wear him like a scarf" 

are you there traveler it's me jester

dimmadome

DOUG DIMMADOME, OWNER OF THE DIMMSDALE DIMMADONE

accurate cat behavior

"I'm going to go upstairs and pass out in the floor" hey look it's my boyfriend

jester. jester what. 

taliesin has never looked prouder

jester's mom is a madam!!! I FUCKING called it!!!

this makes me think of firefly

COMPANIONS that’s what they’re called

taliesin is going to die before this story is over

I have never loved jester more than in this moment

brb having biomom feels again

"people like us here" "it's only a matter of time before they don't"

[doctor who voice] I was a dad once

JUNKERS

ermagerd ninjar tertels

EXTREME syphilis

"syhpilis is intimidating"

spell: ends m9: INSTANT VIOLENCE

squish goes the wizard

discord: I can't believe caleb's last word was "syphilis"

I swear I just hear Joel from TLOU whenever he starts intimidating people

(also possibly sam jaworski)

[sera voice] THEY GOT NO BREECHES

scared straight: mollymauk

this is the greatest thing I have ever seen

I love my idiot children

jester: my name is flo and I work in a button factory

"you put clothes on your horse? that's a great idea"

this is me trying to make money in the beginning of a videoe game

"these are worth 2c a piece but I have 40 of them so"

clippy feat

"looks like you can't remember the details the DM told you!"

clockenticken

mechanical croissant

"that'll take you to a porn site" I typo'd fanfiction.net one time Back In The Day and got an eyeful

CHAIN WHISPER

"NUDIE PICTURE BOOKS"

as beau tries to meld into the wall

nott never ever succeeding in a deception check is my aesthetic

"before your family said come home" what's that now

it's a transmutation circle

is it a gilmore offshoot. I want it to be.

TAUREN

or furbolg. but also: tauren

I'm not gonna make it through this scene

mala gets my stuff

magicbath

"I'm not seducing this one" "so you say NOW"

I love the minnesota cowman

POOR MATT'S SOUL

d&d pawn stars

GAME GENIE

FANTASTIC HAVERSACK

I love literally everything about this

molly and beau buying pastries for jester is the most domestic thing and I love it

"I wish there was more of me - wait"

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E50 (Feb. 5, 2019)

Are any of us ever, really, on the internet?

This week’s guests are Taliesin Jaffe and Matt Mercer!

Brian shames Taliesin and Matt for (to be fair, accidentally) pouring coke in with their 22-year-old scotch. I am also physically pained by this. I may need a minute to compose myself. (@loquaciousquark: “I like how you’re Brian in this and I’m Matt.”)

Announcements: MAME drop airs three hours before Talks every week! Next week’s Between the Sheets will feature Will Friedle, and last night’s episode featured Quyen Tran! Critical Role will be taking this coming Thursday off, and Talks Machina will be taking next Tuesday off, but the show returns on Valentine’s Day!

But for now, let’s jump into Episode 50: The Endless Burrows

Stats for this week’s ep: Fjord got the 50th HDYWTDT in the 50th episode! The Roper’s crit on Caleb would have one-shotted him had Caduceus not reduced it by negating the crit. Spurt is the first on-screen guest player character death in the history of the show. Chris Perkins was at the table for 22 minutes and 15 seconds. Taliesin: “That’s an episode of network television right there.”

Chris was in town unexpectedly, and asked if he could come watch the show. Matt had written Spurt as an NPC character, just to see how the M9 would react to him. As he was driving to the studio, he realized it could be a lot of fun to let Chris play the character instead. Chris was on board, and Matt told him “You’ll know when to jump in,” and that was that. Nobody else had any idea he was going to be playing.

Caduceus is “in his element but out of his element” underground. “He’s looking for things to be excited about. Not a lot of things to be excited about here. It’s kind of awful.” Taliesin is trying to let him be a little more tactical, to just take care of things and do what needs to be done. “He’s on edge, but it’s a healthy edge.”

Matt clarifies that the party haven’t really emerged into the Underdark---they’re just skimming the edges of it. After spending a lot of time there in the last campaign, Matt didn’t necessarily want to bring it back there again.

Caduceus doesn’t see the group as being deceitful so much as just people who haven’t had the option of being open before. “He’s trying to make that option available.” Part of his training at the temple involved talking to people, helping them feel better, and helping them open up, so this is nothing new to him. Matt: “The solitary therapist.” Taliesin: “He really, really likes them.”

Spurt was originally intended to be a potential hindrance to keep the group from getting past the fire giants stealthily, if he wound up coming along with them. Turned out he... sort of removed himself from that equation.

On the parade of tragic backstories: “I don’t think Clay fully comprehends how bad this all is. I don’t know if he can comprehend art film horror. ‘That’s rough, man.’“ Matt: “He’s the Fred Tatasciore of the group.” Everyone is delighted by that comparison.

Matt was looking for opportunities to bring tragic backstories together. Taliesin calls it a “car crash” approach.

Why are D&D characters often so tragic? Taliesin: “It’s harder to make an interesting happy person.” Matt: “That’s true, but it’s not impossible.” He talks about how it’s natural to try to build something into a character’s backstory to propel them into the dangers of adventure. It’s also the opportunity for a player to work through something they’re going through out-of-game in a safe, cathartic way.

Caduceus is “still a little lanky”. Taliesin points out that this is to be expected because he’s a “vegan on the road”. There’s a long discussion about how the food he makes is “basically semi-firm tofu”.

Matt freaks out a bit about the unintentional callback... VM also being a mid-level party descending into the Underdark in search of a halfling and almost losing a rogue’s foot to lava. A lot of things had to go a particular way for that to happen, and he definitely wasn’t expecting it, especially since he was consciously trying to avoid familiar territory with the Underdark this time around.

Brian: “Which is funny, because the writers never even saw the first campaign.”

Taliesin points out that a trickster cleric is meant to be more of a toolkit, whereas a grave cleric build is more of a medkit.

Taliesin: “I’ve learned my lesson, and I have like three new character ideas ready to go, for this campaign or the next.”

There’s a lot of debate about where the hell Spurt got a skunk, which leads to the creation of the magical item Skunk Jug, which produces a skunk.

Caduceus enjoyed the romance novel, but it hadn’t “entirely clicked”. “He’s aware that: ‘Ah, they’re doing the hanky-panky stuff.’ It’s not really in his wheelhouse.”

Matt was very proud of the group coming up with their plan to get past the giant, and he felt a bit bad that Nott rolled so low (although he also loves the “magnificent clusterfuck” moments that are the hallmark of D&D). Brian: “That’s just a testament to how bad Sam is as a player.” 

Caduceus took Warcaster as his next feat. “This seems to be in-character and useful.”

Fan art of the week: Nott running across the lava! Taliesin: “I want to play that game. That’s an 8-bit game I want to play.”

Brian asks Matt if the game’s about where he thought it would be at episode 50. Matt: “We’re charging into Xhorhas earlier than I was expecting. We need to get Ashley back soon.” (They’ll get her back in a couple months.) He also points out that some story beats have happened in the world in the group’s absence. He didn’t want to tailor the story’s trajectory to manufacture a big moment in episode 50. The group’s involvement in the Empire has been less than expected, but the direction they’re taking is much more direct than he was expecting. Taliesin points out that if the group had been Vox Machina, they would’ve involved themselves in the politics of the war instantly. Matt reiterates that he loves DMing in a reactionary way when the players push in an unexpected direction.

All Taliesin wants to do right now is fix that sword. He’s expecting it to be, like, a +1 cursed sword that just sings constantly and can’t ever be put down.

Taliesin: “I’m enjoying corralling all the kids.” Matt points out that he’s a much-needed influence on the group. Beau is the one that Cad considers to be his best friend. Dani: “You two can’t not be best friends in this show.” Cad thinks of Fjord as an angsty teen. He thinks Caleb is occasionally up his own butt a bit. He hasn’t figured out that Jester’s an adult yet. “’Oh, she’s happy and fine. Thank goodness someone is.’ And obviously she’s not, but he hasn’t figured that out yet.” He’s disappointed in Nott for the amount of drinking, although he hasn’t said it out loud.

Taliesin: “Cad thinks dangerous things have wisdom. Sometimes just walking up to something and asking is very useful. Sometimes you can avoid getting arrested in front of a coffee shop by offering the officer a hot pocket.”

Matt talks about how getting players to avoid combat is a teaching process that involves incentivizing out-of-the-box approaches. That’s in direct contrast to the more traditional grind-through-fights approach to D&D that was prevalent in the early editions, so it can be a process. He points out that you can talk to players out-of-game, or you can change your own plans to allow players a non-combat win even if it’s a bit of a stretch.

Taliesin and Matt both own a pair of chaps. As you do.

Taliesin’s personal inspiration for Cad’s staff was very Dark Crystal-driven. The crystal comes from the land he lives on. He dug up the crystal and made the staff himself; the beetles crawl into and out of the stick continuously.

Talks Machina: After Dog

Brian: "Are you relaxed right now?” Taliesin: “Yeah, there’s something in this Coke that’s really...”

Taliesin got started with eyeliner in high school with Vampire LARPing. He had a (mumblemumble)”furk idee” that got him into goth clubs early. Matt first learned to apply eyeliner for cosplay, then wore it for the first time outside of cosplay clubbing with Taliesin (they also had an industrial goth karaoke night).

Dumbest way they’ve managed to injure themselves? Matt was editing There Will Be Brawl’s final episode, which was a bit too overambitious and he was the only editor, and he didn’t sleep for 72 hours and threw his back out horribly from sitting too long. Taliesin was doing a student film as a teenager, and was asked to do a stunt that involved holding someone up to a moving train (Matt: “What the fuck, Taliesin?”). He had really long goth nails at the time and managed to break all ten of his nails off entirely doing that stunt. “I didn’t drop him into the moving train!” Matt: “That’s why unions are good.”

Brian: “I lit myself on fire with a molotov cocktail.” Yes, really, but he wasn’t badly burned. Taliesin: “Did you at least hit the man? Did it stick to him?” Brian: “It was not a man. It was a porta-potty.” Matt reiterates how grateful he was not to have grown up with cellphone video.

Matt: “So you’re saying...” Taliesin: “I was Emperor Norton, yeah.” Matt: “Aw. I’m proud of you!”

We all learned... a lot today. See you in two weeks for episode 100 of Talks Machina!