#wait until you learn what my blade in the dark leech character invented last night

[rationalnerd62]

As someone who has spent a year and half watching C1/C2/C3, is now finally caught up, and as a result is finally allowing myself to look at fandom reactions to episodes... Boy, critical role discourse is weird.

People will spend days arguing about who's evil and who isn't, which decisions made sense and which ones did not, whether the plot point is solid or not, what's the consequences of that fake action in that fake world, who's a psychopath and who isn't, which group is better than the other, etc etc etc.

Meanwhile I'm there enjoying every single episode of that show. For ten years, this group of friends has met every week to roll some dice. They've created characters that made them laugh, and cry, and smile, and frown, and shout, in excitement, fury, terror and joy. Through them, they've lived adventures, drama, tension, trauma, in a sandbox world they'll never put a foot in. They've created wonders in Exandria, then destroyed them just to see what would happen (shout out to Emon and the Chroma Conclave arc 🎉).

Their world had mystical artifacts, so they created lost civilisations to justify both their existence and rarity. It had Gods, so they gave them backstories and myths, to make this world feel real. They understood that history in itself is flawed, so the knowledge of the past is changing. Each campaign, they went on bigger questions, bigger challenges. From very early on, Campaign 3 has been questioning the status quo between Gods and Mortals, and what we know of the deities has evolved as a result. Why should I care, really, whether Bell's Hells are right or not to challenge the Gods. It's obviously a storyline that Matt and the rest of the cast were curious to explore, so they're doing it. Maybe it'll work out great, maybe it won't, they don't know, and that's fine. After all, what is the point of a sandbox world if you cannot push a few red buttons.

And of course, not every plot point or decision is going to be resilient to scrutiny. It's an improvised ttrpg game, with 100+ episodes per campaign, and we're almost at 500h in length for C3. Yesterday, in my ttrpg, I forgot who my new vice purveyor was, after I overindulged a few months ago (... It's a Blade in the Dark thing). Last week, I invented a drag persona for my character because I was trying to find a distraction and I panicked. Ttrpg are soooo random, mate. Even with professional players like the Critical Role folks, it stays a ttrpg. Things get forgotten. Some things get developed and others don't get the time to. Discussions happen, and sometimes they happen again six months later because maybe characters have changed or maybe not. It's not a scripted TV show, where things can be planned in advance and you know the characters will stick to the script. Inconsistencies will happen, and that's fine.

(Contrary to my ttrpg though, the CR folks are absolutely mind-blowing improv actors and watching them every week stays absolutely thrilling to me. Some of the things you all have apparently fought a long time about are some of my favorite moments, in any of the campaigns. See swordgate, a masterpiece of dramatic improv and bonkers choices. Those players are *not here* to stay safe, they want to feel the highest highs and the lowest lows and I am there for it 🥺.)