#i am having lots of fun with her arc and how that’s influencing her stats wise

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Shadowheart, cleric of light and vengeance paladin, blessed by Selûne

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E131 (March 30, 2021)

Tonight’s guests are Liam O’Brien and Sam Riegel!

Brian points out that a lot of Caleb’s greatest fears have come to pass. Liam: “It’s funny, because he’d kind of believed for a while that those things weren’t going to happen. After a while, he got complacent.” He notes that it was extra wild because everything with Trent popped up again in the midst of that complacency. And how did it feel to be defiant toward Trent? “I think Trent successfully made Caleb question if Caleb really was in control“ at the dinner party. “I feel like anything that I do is part of his plans for me, or is that just gaslighting? I’m legitimately scared of that dude.” Sam: “Of Matt?” Liam: “Sure.” He highlights the disconnect between knowing that the M9 is mechanically powerful and could possibly defeat Trent in a dice-and-stats battle, versus fearing him in a story sense and being convinced he can do almost anything.

Sam, on Luc’s death: “That was brutal, man. Matt Mercer is a-- he hates children! Clearly. He actively sought to kill a child in the campaign in as brutal a way as possible. He hates children and wants them dead. Canon. No, but to RP, that was horrible.” He highlights that so much of Veth’s arc has been about trying to get back to her family. “We had to choose something and we thought we were making the right choice. It was all Veth’s fault, and it was pretty rotten. My heart was beating pretty fast, and I certainly didn’t want to have my son die live on the stream. I don’t know what Veth would have done. That’s the end, that’s over. It’s almost worse than when your own character would die. This is something that would also kill Veth.” After the episode was over: “just shaken. I also didn’t know what to do next! That felt like a turning-point moment for my character, weirdly so close to what we assume to be the end arc of this campaign. I texted Matt later that night and was like, that’s it, Veth’s out, I’m tapping out.”

There’s an interlude in which Sam discovers a new dream to record an episode of this show from his Peloton. Dani informs him that she will not be inviting him back.

On Astrid, Liam: “I literally don’t know what she’s doing. I know that she’s dangerous, she always was ambitious, and there’s not been a moment where Caleb let his guard down with her. He’s not trying to reestablish what they had. He cares for the both of them, for Astrid and Eodwulf. He thinks about it a lot, still. He can’t tell how much she buys into everything that she experienced and is now living as a full-grown adult. He suspects that she’s bought in and is not going to change things, because she believes in the system, as much as he’d like to peel her away. He does believe that they want what’s best for the Empire, and stopping whatever wants to come vomiting out of a hole in the frozen north is good for everyone. And they’re powerful. They’re not trustworthy, obviously. But there’s enough at stake to make it worth it. He could imagine a situation where they fight each other to the death.” He was convinced Astrid was going to stop them when they left the tower and was really shocked when she held back. Sam: “Not me! I’ve trusted Astrid since day one. She’s the greatest! I sent a letter to her, she’s very nice, I think you guys would be a nice couple. I believe every word she says.”

On having to decide on Veth deciding to go off and save the world after Luc’s death. “Like I said, I was ready to be done. And then I decided somewhere in there that that’s not very D&D. So I thought I’d leave it up to somebody else, so I asked Caduceus to decide for me, essentially. She knows she’s putting her other family in danger if she doesn’t go. It’s an impossible choice, you know?” Liam: “I love watching you grapple with it, because you’re a lovely father and love your kids.”

On the Sanatorium, Sam: “That was brutal, man. Matt lulls you into a sense of complacency. We’d forgotten that Caleb was a stone-cold killer! It had been a while since he went on a murder spree. Still got it!” Liam: “I never meant for this character to be perfect sunshine.” Brian: “You don’t say.” Liam: “He’s very not-perfect, and I think in his brain, he was going in with the impression that they needed to get in and get out as soon as possible. The place is crawling with people with magic ability, and I didn’t have faith that we wouldn’t be sussed out or something wasn’t going to blow an illusion.” Everything was about getting out of there as fast as possible.

Did the conversation with Yeza help with Veth’s decision? “First of all, every conversation with Yeza is a beautiful one. Every time she talks to Yeza, it makes her feel good. In some ways, she’s gotten to the point now where she knows Yeza’s going to be supportive, she knows he’s going to allow her to do what she wants, but maybe that’s too much. Maybe she needs to not listen to him, basically, and be like, no, you need to be selfish now, dude, you need to say ‘come home, I’m sick of you leaving’. At a certain point, being supportive can turn into being enabling.”

Cosplay of the Week: Jester in the snow! (liljerbear47, photography by kairiceleste on Instagram)

On Trent’s motivations for chasing Caleb: “I really don’t know. The simplest explanation is to just hammer down the nail that’s sticking up. It has crossed his mind that all high-level wizards are in danger of their own ambition and egos, so it’s occurred to him that Trent might have the same kind of ideas that Halas had in the past, and maybe Caleb was always meant to be another body to jump into. Maybe in some sick, disgusting, twisted way, he wants him to be his successor. I am thinking of the next campaign, without getting too deep in, trying to do something that is much more ride-along. Caleb is very, very specific, and I thought long and hard about all the different pieces on the chessboard for him. For campaign three, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.”

Dani: “Do I need to be keeping lore on your fucking ads?”

On the cursed dagger: “It was a tricky one, because in campaign one, one of the characters was under the influence of a cursed weapon, but it interacted with him and he knew what it was and what it did. And it affected his gameplay as a character. For me, Veth didn’t know what it was, ever. I as a player knew what it was doing, but Veth didn’t know at all. So it was kind of like my dirty, dark secret for many months. I knew this thing was coming perilously close to killing me, but my character didn’t know enough to bring it up to her friends. Nobody ever asked! So I was like, well, I guess this thing’s just going to kill me one day, and it’s kind of going to be a surprise.” Liam: “Sam, you love danger and self-destruction so much, you might as well be Mollymauk.”

On the fight in Yasha’s sequence, Sam: “You gotta put a character in your storm giant creature. It was so fun! It was so great of Matt to involve us in this encounter. It would’ve been fun just to watch, because Matt would have made it amazing and Ashley was sweating bullets, which is always fun to watch.” Sam notes he felt guilty, but Liam was going for the kill. Liam: “Matt’s gotta be careful about giving me that kind of story beat. I do not fucking care, I just fucking flip, I’m like, well, I’m going to destroy you, and I have no qualms about it. It’s too much fun!”

The Beau/Yasha tower date was in part inspired by not being able to give gifts as easily this last year. “This thing that we do together is a gift, but I love finding these moments, like the book for Jester and the tower for Yasha and for Beau. I really just wanted to give both of them a little magic for a night. I wanted them to leave this-- we’re trying to be as entertaining as possible, but shit is having an effect on all of us too, and I wanted them to have an escape, a great place to escape to.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot, plus Marion, Yeza, and Luc! (vocaz on Twitter)

On choosing Essek over Trent, Liam: “It would have been so interesting and awful and great! Essek and Astrid and Eodwulf are everything that Bren used to be attracted to that are terrible for him. Essek, hopefully he can with time find a way out of the hole that he dug himself into, but it was only two months ago where he was found out and his ambitions came crashing down around him. Long-term, I have high hopes for him, but I think it’s going to be hard.” In contrast, Astrid and Eodwulf are still “deep in the shit. It would have been really hard to navigate, but fun to play at the table. We made the right choice with what we went with. Essek’s just getting started, and Caleb doesn’t trust him entirely, because he was burned so hard not too long ago. He’s still more trustworthy than the other three. So it’s the better choice. While Caleb has all these ties on the other side, they’re really fucking dangerous. So if you have to choose, you choose Essek. But fuck that die.” Sam: “Veth, much like Sam Riegel, makes instant decisions about whether to trust someone or not and sticks to it forever. Astrid, 100% trust. Eodwulf, 100% distrust. Essek, completely distrust. I still don’t think he’s a good guy. Ikithon? Trust. 100%. Because you know where he’s coming forward, you know what he wants. I still want him dead, but I trust him.”

On Veth’s post-adventuring plans: “Veth is probably still too in it right now to think about what comes next. I, Sam Riegel, have a good idea of what I want Veth to do post-campaign.” Brian: “Maybe you shouldn’t tell us. Save it for the show!” Sam: “All she knows is she can’t do this anymore. It’s very unhealthy to be battle-wounded every other day. It’s fun for a while, but college has to end at some point, and she’s gotta go home.”

On Frumpkin changing appearance and returning to the Feywild: “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but the way it feels now for Caleb is that he feels too enmeshed in everything that has happened, and too much good has happened, and too much needs to happened, that that really narcissistic, selfish goal has the risk of harming everything else, which is more important. And that’s how he looks at it now. So he’s gearing towards letting everything from the beginning of the campaign, and where he started, go, and trying to figure out what use he’s going to be now and what he’s going to do if they’re not all dead. If Matt throws that shit down, I don’t know what I will do, I think about it a lot. But turning Frumpkin white and saying you’re free either way is him preparing to let go of everything he’s been holding on to for a really long time. He’s addicted to that idea that he can fix himself, and we’ll see if that hard choice gets presented, what he might do. But where he stands now, he doesn’t think that’s going to be reality, and he sees a way that he can be of use that he never really anticipated before, so he’s slowly shifting gears towards living with the pain he was trying to remove.”

On the last request scene and confidence heading into Aeor, Sam: “I feel like that’s a good request. I think all of us realized that if we die, that probably bodes badly for the world. I feel like all of us are at a point now as characters and as friends, that the first order of business would be to take care of everybody else’s shit, although we probably have different ideas of how to do that.” Liam: “I want the Empire to be healed, Caleb has all these memories of his parents and what they wanted for the world, and he wants that too. It’s clearly not in place now, the system needs to be broken and replaced. That could be a part of Caleb’s sunset. I don’t want Caleb to die, so maybe he can work on that after. As everything starts to shake out and we start heading towards our destiny, Caleb’s just free-floating. He’s not even going after the same thing he started for. So he’s looking at Veth’s family, and Luc specifically, and seeing that’s me, that’s a little boy in the Empire.”

[crystalelemental]

Before I shift into my game playing for the day, I have been going through Thracia.  Thoughts under the cut.

Full disclosure: I am cheating at this point.  I have the codes on and do not give a fuck.  I hit Chapter 4 and was pretty much done the instant I opened the north gate.  For anyone who likes a bit of karma, though, it turns out the cheat codes I’m using also affect the enemies.  If I turn on “100% re-move,” then enemies also get to go again.  If I turn on max movement range, the enemies get that too.  Though that one was funny, because it gave it to the children in 4X, who then booked it in one turn.  If I add stat modifying codes, the enemies are all that strong too.  I did find a workaround by applying them only at the end of chapters when the enemies are all dead, but guess what.  Sometimes the codes stop working and your stats return.  Which led to Leif having the stats he had back in Chapter 4, and getting immediately hit by a Sleep staff from all the way across the map.  I did not find out until after beating it that Sleep, and all status conditions, do not wear off at all.  So the map was impossible to complete.  Because Leif was fucking asleep, and no power in earth or heaven would wake this sleepy bitch.

I think this is the best indicator of why I’m not enjoying Thracia.  Even while cheating just to blitz the game, it’s still a pain in the ass.  There’s still all manner of nonsense that can just throw off your entire progression.  And what’s worse?  If it weren’t for the fact the game is just too finicky and obnoxious to want to play fairly, it would have nothing holding it back from being one of the best in the series.

Story?  Excellent.  I love this.  I think it stems from my general love of side stories.  Blazing Blade is still my favorite after all.  Leif’s progression just within Thracia is great to follow, and it’s really engaging to see him work through this rebellion.  It’s also great to have the game focused on other antagonists.  The major ones, like Travant and Ishtar, have made brief (and great) appearances, but there are new antagonists to focus on because again, you’re not the main story.  I love that shit.

Characters?  Fantastic.  Like, granted, it suffers in the same way as every game that pre-dates support conversations, in that a lot of the cast is pretty one-note and then doesn’t do anything.  But there are more prominent faces in general, and they’re all really good.  Leif is a great protagonist.  He’s got the right amount of fire in him, and I’m actually stunned he’s not more popular.  I know it’s because Thracia isn’t popular, but I feel like he’s the same general personality type as Hector, who people love.  Driven, intense, ready to throw down at a moment’s notice, and honest to a fault.  Also it’s really, really funny to me how your advisor (who I don’t trust for shit) tells you about the child hunts, and Leif is like “Shut the fuck up, that’s not real.”  Olwen does it too, which is also funny.  She’s fighting on this side, sees the children in cages, and is like “I just thought this was some kind of liberal propaganda.”  Although man, I really love Olwen.  She’s great.  Trying to stab Kempf is absolutely the correct move, and her decision to defect as soon as she learns the truth is the correct course.  I can’t wait to hate Reinhardt because he won’t defect despite knowing the truth.

Eyvel is the best.  I adore her, what an absolutely fantastic early-game pre-promote unit.  Granted, she’s basically gone forever now that she’s turned to stone, but she’s so good while she’s conscious.  Mareeeta’s just as good.  Everything surrounding her and the Shadow Sword is super compelling, and her conversation with the Bishop was incredibly powerful.  Dagdar is really interesting, not just in what’s good about him, but also in his faults.  He’s trying to live an honest life, like Eyvel showed him to, but at the same time he’s so caught up in this lifestyle that people are dying under his care because there’s no food.  I love how that whole arc was another instance of where the hardship stems from and the why of a situation, blurring those lines between who’s good and who’s evil until it all seems like a matter of circumstance.  That’s my favorite.  Even the minor freeblades have some great dynamics, and while they don’t get much past that point, your recruits in Chapter 4 all get really funny dialogue that makes them feel a lot more fleshed out.  This is probably the best job you can do with character development in a game that pre-dates support conversations.

If there are any characters I don’t like...Lithis?  I don’t care for him.  He’s stuck around, so he’s not a complete flake, but he doesn’t seem to really stand for anything, he just goes along with you to not die, and his only motivation seems to be attempting to get into Safiya’s pants.  Not happening, my friend.  Not while I’m playing.  Also not a big fan of Dalsin, who only joins when you save his sibling who was taken for the child hunts.  Entirely because he works for the enemy, and when you recruit him, he says that he joined because they said his family would be spared.  So you’re willing to toss everyone else’s families into complete disarray and sorrow, as long as you’re unscathed.  Okay, Dorcas.  I also don’t know how to feel about Pan.  He seems alright?  Like, he’s one of the honorable thief types, and his talk with Lara does suggest he’s decent, considering “I used to love watching you dance until I realized you were still a kid” implies that, once he found out she’s underage, he stuck it back in his pants and was like “hell nah.”  I just can’t get a good read on whether he’s actually good or mostly a shitheel trying to pretend he’s doing good, so like...to be determined.  Also, hate to say it, but Nanna isn’t that interesting.  I don’t dislike her, but I’m also not as invested in her as I want to be.  So far, she’s been kidnapped, protected by Eyvel, saved by Leif, and has kinda been silent since.  Maybe more modern games have spoiled me, but I expected the protagonist’s love interest to have more to say and do.  But I guess we are still in the Kaga era, so...

The maps themselves do remind me a lot of the GBA era, and retroactively, I can really see Thracia’s influence on them.  I got up to Chapter 14, and the map layout is identical to the one on the Sacae route in Binding Blade.  If I have any serious complaints, aside from general enemy difficulty and my dislike of the capture mechanic, it’s that enemy formations are a bit too genealogy.  “What does that mean? “ Everything is a goddamn block of the same enemy type.  Like here’s your block of 10 armor knights.  Here’s your block of a bunch of cavalry units.  Maybe it’s bias, because a block formation like this is probably more accurate to general warfare tactics, but I like when things are spaced out instead of placing things in a massive blob.  Oh, also the Escape mechanic is hilariously dumb.  They spell it out, thankfully, because if they hadn’t I would’ve killed myself.  Apparently, if Leif escapes before any of his allies, those allies are lost forever.  For some reason.  Now, if they hadn’t explained that?  My solution would’ve been to open the door and fucking book it with Leif to end the chapter.  And I would have lost everyone.  That’s such an annoying mechanic, especially since it still happens even if there are no enemies left on the map.

I’m also not the biggest fan of some recruitment procedures.  “Capture this boss to recruit them when you go to Chapter 12x!”  Okay.  My best unit is dealing 3 damage with the capture command.  Also his tome can poison, and if it does, there’s no way to remove that status during the chapter.  He’s on a fort that gives +10 defense and heals most of that damage.  I’m supposed to do this how?  Like I actually can’t figure out how some of these conditions are supposed to be met without cheating.  I really, truly cannot.  It’s overall very similar to the GBA era, but just a lot more ridiculous and obtuse.  I’m sorry, like...who would have thought to capture a boss and hold them until the end of the chapter?  And you’re expected to do that twice!  I just...I dunno, man.  Sometimes Thracia feels super obtuse.

Overall it’s...really not fun to play, but is fun to experience.  This really feels like a game that I would adore if it were given a remake that make it less stressful to play.  Instead, it’s another to add to the pile of “Fantastic concept and I love it in general, but can’t stand playing it without cheating.”