#were their party more like vm it's likely they would’ve taken the plot hook of the war

[nellasbookplanet]

Actually loving how the different critical role campaigns exist in relation to themselves, each other, and the world at large, and how their different narrative structures ripple outward.

Campaign 1 was story driven. Not to say the characters weren’t deeply important and dynamic, but their growths were largely driven through and by the plot. They were on a mission and grew along with that mission, and as a mission driven archetypically heroic party they also left very few loose threads by the end.

Campaign 2, meanwhile, was more insular and character driven. Where Vox Machina traveled all over the world and planes outside the main setting of Tal'Dorei, the Mighty Nein largely stayed in Wildemount, allowing for a more intimate and political look at it’s cultures. Instead of story and characters revolving around plot, plot revolves around character. We only got to see Yasha’s tribe in the epilogue, because her growth didn’t require facing them. We didn’t face Uk’otoa, because Fjord’s arc culminated in embracing the Wildmother, not in facing his former patron. Similarly, while the entire Assembly was an antagonistic force, only Trent was dealt with directly, because he was the only one directly tied into one of the pc's arcs.

The larger world building let us know about Molaesmyr and Ludinus, about the Luxon, even about Ruidus to some extent, but the Mighty Nein weren’t a typically heroic party here to save the world and solve every mystery, but a group of broken people finding it in themselves to heal, and to end their journey ready to face greater threats in the future. They were still getting the Assembly and Uk'toa, they just weren’t doing it in the main narrative, because they were irrelevant to the growth of the characters. Of course, that also left a lot of threads hanging, which brings us to campaign 3.

By now, it seems pretty clear that campaign 3 is another plot driven story rather than the more meandering, character driven narrative of c2. That leaves the cast free to pick up on the many larger mysteries in world building left in the wake of the last campaign. What is the nature of the Luxon? Of Ruidus? Of Aeor and the aeormatons? Half the party was just plopped down not far from the ruins of Molaesmyr, Ludinus' former home - will they go there? One of them is tied to the Luxon and dunamancy, another to Ruidus and Predathos - will we get to know the true nature of these entities?

Much like c1, the characters of this campaign are driven and shaped by events rather than shaping their own events. The difference is, c1 began as a blank slate, whereas c3 has history. Powerful allies and enemies alike are tied to former campaigns because such is the nature of the world. Mysteries left to solve were introduced earlier but approached only now because this is a campaign whose narrative and characters are served by approaching them. The world is dynamic. Alive. One story merges into the next, and new heroes are born on the shoulders of the last, ready to be shaped by their own narrative.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E12 (Apr 3, 2018)

Happy 60th episode, Talks Machina! Take that, only-12-episodes-of-Critical-Role! (NB: Brian made the same joke like five minutes into the episode. I don’t know what this says about me.)

Tonight’s guests are Pillow Matt Mercer, Matt Mercer, and Marisha Ray!

Announcements: the first five episodes of Key Question are available on Alpha, Dani Carr’s Critical Recap will be on Thursdays before the show, C2E12′s podcast will be available this Thursday (”How neat!”), Wednesday Club will be on tomorrow, Critical Role will be attending C2E2 in Chicago on April 7-8.

Matt names all the episodes (he now comes up with a name right after the episode, which may or may not match his working title for the session) and Dani writes the descriptions (for early episodes, it was Taliesin).

@critrolestats for this episode:

Sam held his pose for 12 minutes and 12 seconds. Travis’ thumbs-up moment in C1E61 was 7 minutes and 51 seconds.

Episode 12 had the first point of damage dealt by Frumpkin.

This was the first time this campaign we’ve had a friendly KO.

There were 21 bird calls made in this episode.

This campaign has now passed 1,000 d20 rolls. 1,052 total!

This campaign has also now passed 50 natural 20s. 55 total!

Joe Manganiello pops up on FaceTime, calling from the very fancy Gary Gygax Memorial DM Chair. As one does. There’s a brief discussion about amazing minis and casting him as Wolverine. Brian: “Dude, can you believe... that guy’s a nerd.”

Had Beau been involved in the infirmary debacle, Marisha suspects she’d be a lot less nice than Fjord.

If the team hadn’t picked up Ulog, he would’ve tried to infiltrate the High Richter’s house by himself partway through, and possibly could’ve ended up in an altercation with the party. There was also the chance of developing a rift with the Knights of Requital if things had gone badly in a different way.

Beau can step up to a leadership role when the group’s goals are in jeopardy, but it’s still generally rooted in selfish reasons.

Was the Rug of Smothering revenge for the magic carpet-related antics in the first campaign? Matt: “In hindsight, subconsciously, maybe?”

There was another chamber with some extra information they could’ve acquired, there were some challenges they avoided, but Matt doesn’t want to get into specifics in case the party decides to go back at some point.

Gif of the week: a valiant struggle against a flying foe.

Matt briefly considered having the Metagaming Pigeon make an appearance to drop a hint about mage hand, but decided it was more fun to bring it up after the fact.

If Fjord and Caleb had been actively in combat when she arrived, the High Richter would’ve turned around and brought in the guards instead of coming in alone. Many of the group could’ve wound up being arrested.

Matt is enjoying being able to space out the intense moments and give people a chance to explore their characters, especially after the constant intensity of high-level D&D at the end of the last campaign.

Everyone is delighted at the second username of the night that ends with a “69″.

Marisha suspects that Beau and Fjord might have similar morality beats, although Fjord’s better at holding his cards close to his chest.

Ulog’s item was a Necklace of Fireballs with only one use left. His final fatal attack was a last-ditch secondary plan in case things went south.

Marisha points out that Beau doesn’t know yet that Ulog’s dead.

Fanart of the week: a glimpse at the events at the end of the episode.

Matt placed the scroll purposely as an invitation for character drama: “I put it there knowing it was going to cause a ruckus... but I didn’t think it was going to cause that much of a ruckus.” Marisha: “Fuckin’ reality show director here.”

Marisha’s reaction to the ending was: “Wow, that escalated quickly!” Beau’s still in shock over all this, and right now her only thought is, “Run.”

Matt is a little defensive over people pointing out how many towers he’s brought down between the two campaigns (there’s a great back-and-forth where he points out that one of them was the party’s fault, but Marisha insists that they were inspired by a previous tower falling, and I’m really dodging spoilers here so let’s get out of this parenthetical). Marisha gets into how a tower is generally a symbol of power and established order.

Marisha points out that the whole party is trying to keep in mind that they’re just level 3 and they’re not established heroes, so they can’t run towards the problem the way VM could. Brian points out that VM was also already at will-die-for-each-other levels of loyalty at their big crisis point, whereas MN are still begrudging allies for the most part.

Matt, on the players now knowing to look for plot clues in smut: “I am so excited for them to be hoarding all the smut and have none of it inform anything for the rest of the campaign.” Later: “Please... please don’t keep doing that.” He loves the idea of some ultra-powerful future-seer in-universe hiding all this stuff in smut.

Matt is continually surprised at the weird parallels between the campaigns that keep creeping in here and there, like the intra-party conflict right before the big upheaval.

Marisha tries to RP her combat and find in-universe reasons to do new things. She’s looking forward to having the Cobalt Soul abilities really start to kick in. Matt points out that the Cobalt Soul abilities are situationally useful.

Asked about Lord Sutan being from the same family that lost the Plate of the Dawnmartyr in a game of cards last campaign, Matt says: “...maybe.”

Matt put in a few red flags for Ulog to see if the party would pick up on just how desperate he was (like giving away his life’s savings to the party).

There was an alternate plan out there for the party to learn about the Crick (that they can still avail themselves of), but the smut plot was made up on the spot as a tease of information.

Who does Beau trust the most in the Mighty Nein? Marisha: “Probably Jester, believe it or not. Jester’s the most open book thus far.” Brian asks to what extent she trusts what Jester says. “Beau thinks that Jester believes what she believes, and that’s enough for Beau. She sees her as being 100% forthright.”

Matt is enjoying being able to bring in these lower-level enemies he didn’t get a chance to use in the last campaign.

Dark Times at Talks Machina High on Alpha:

Pillow Matt is the true power behind the throne and gets his own splitscreen.

Matt had a plan in mind if the party had opted to turn in the Knights of Requital. They would’ve received a reward, gotten in good with the Crownsguard and the High Richter, and probably would’ve been invited to the Gala. It was possible that they could’ve taken plot hooks that took them further from the tower, and they may have only heard about the events of that night the next day.

Marisha feels like, compared to the other team, she and Jester did “pretty fuckin’ okay” at casing their building, and they even managed to retain their dignity.

Of everybody, Matt most fears the notion of Jester getting her hands on a Deck of Many Things.

Matt’s priority as a DM is always to keep his players excited and engaged. He finds D&D to be a great exercise in renewing friendships and relationships. Marisha has really come to appreciate the problem-solving aspects of the game.

Matt’s moving mouth has been superimposed on Pillow Matt. “What have you done.”

Information about VM is not common knowledge in the Empire, especially since Wildemount either wasn’t directly involved in or didn’t really believe a lot of the threats they faced. It would be a history roll for the current characters to learn more about them.

Matt does an alarmingly good Keyleth impression when Brian points out that Marisha’s perfect attendance means Matt’s never had to play her character.

Marisha recommends getting Dwarven Forge by running a D&D game at your work as a corporate team-building exercise. Some talk of tax fraud gets bandied around. It’s fine.