It was a bit of a Sad moment in hindsight, but the Alura and Tiberius conversation is my favorite. The fact that After what happened to Orion's PC had Alura literally crying tears over their last conversation was an amazing bit of Character development IMHO ...
Another bit(and I agree with you here) is Keylith standing up for what she thought was right, regardless of the situation. It defined how her character would go forward from then onwards...
Must be a tie between having an NPC genuenly asking "Tell me it isn't so?" showing that they WANT to believe SO BADLY that the heroes are... well heroes, but the players can't reassure them without lying to an NPC they love. That shit is powerful. And the other is Kelyeth just standing her ground at the mention of sending the bird to Whitestone, and going "fuckers no, you pushed my attempt at making us better for the last 2 days but that's enough. I will risk your wrath for our comunal good." And seeing a player do this make me go "eeeeeeeeeheheheeeeee"
I think my favorite moment was the council meeting. The group was basically stripped of their title, and they tried to _talk over the sovereign of the realm_ , were told to wait and let him finish, idk it was just all around a nice setting of the scene that couldn't be handwaved away with magic. Even when they did free Assun from his charmed condition, he still sided with Uriel because it was tactically the best thing to do in the moment. It told the group that their actions have consequences, and that they need to face those consequences and not make excuses for everything they've done as if it justifies anything.
Kyelith trying trying be the moral compass of VM. She's amazing at it, while also being subtle and shy and unsure of herself. Mariska is juat and AWSOME actor Edit: Scrap that, the omens on the Roc with Mqrisha! It's just brilliant and SO satisfying
To me yelling that someone’s soul was forfeit while emptying a 6 shot revolver into their chest would most definitely be something a friend should be asking about.
@@Anduril74871 I think it was intentional on Tal’s part to signal that Percy was not alright. I see roleplayers do that sort of thing all the time, bait a reaction out of the party to get them interested in that PC’s story without pushing it on the party.
That moment where Allura confronted Tibs about buzzsawing that old woman is the exact moment that the romance arc between the characters died. It was excellently played by Matt.
I just watched the episode and i agree. Everyone, in the comments of other videos were going on about how she wasn't interested in Tiberius at all, which it ddin't seem like to me. Then over time, she thought he could be a catch until the old lady. The only way I can see that there may have still been hope for them to start something owuld have been if he was remorseful about kicking an enemy while down from the beginning but he never was, even when asked by his love interest. so she's just completely turned off from that moment. and even if he did act remorseful in front of her, it still would have been disengenuous and even if she hadn't found out then, she would have learned his character later. The were doomed from the start.
Also, and maybe my favorite line of all 3 campaigns, when they meet Gilmore's parents: "ooooh they were absolutely lovely people ! Now let's decide which one of us is going to kill them and let's go"
I loved the scene where the group is able to talk the druid into relocating the roc and Matt revealing that he was anticipating a fight with the reveal of the map. The whole moment has big "Look how much you've grown" energy. And then Travis says "Missed opportunity" lmao
Kelith pushing a duragar into lava. "This is the meanest thing I have ever done!" Vex "No! You killed that kid one time remember?" Classic DnD dialog right there!
I personally don't find Keyleth/ Marisha reading so much into Percy's words as pure metagaming because Keyleth IS the sensitive one. She IS the one who worries. She was skeptical of Kima and now she's weary of Percy. To me, even tho a bit of it is metgaming [Marisha's experience with Matt as a DM and knowing a bit of Percy's history], it's all in character so it makes sense. 🤷♀️
Also being a 22 Wisdom Druid who is more insightful than Marisha herself is, this make sense as something for Keyleth to put together. It's like playing a high Intelligence character and knowing more facts than you the player know, the inverse of which being Grog, a player playing a character as dumber than they themself are.
In what world is "your soul is forfeit" more alarming than "DIE DIE DIE" as he's continuing to waste valuable and rare resources on an already dead target? It has been established by that point that each and every shot takes a lot of time and effort to make, utilizing a material that's hard to obtain. And he wastes 4-5 of them in pure rage. Keyleth being the sensitive one doesn't explain her latching onto the least unusual part of what Percy did.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 umm, in a world where demons and devils and the fae are real, who will absolutely steal your soul - which is ALSO real, and a necessary thing to be considered truly alive. DIE DIE DIE is someone in a rage. An intelligent person like Percy using that language is very specific. You also have to remember that Vox Machina live together. They are with each other all the time. They know each other very well. Percy went from controlled, restrained, aloof, and basically a background character with a gun to what is by your own admission at least blind with rage to the point of wasting valuable resources ensuring someone's death is as painful as possible in the moment. I don't think you need a 22 Wisdom and proficiency in Insight to see that happen and want to make sure your friend is alright.
On "Your soul is forfeit!", it seems like a legitimate doubt to think Percy is implying something greater: The guy is a scientist, at best a fatalist. Not the kind of guy to put metaphysical flair on an execution. "Your life is forfeit" would be in line for Percival, but talking about soul? And in a way that sounds like he's cursing the person? That's suspicious from that guy.
Exactly, also this is a fantasy world where souls are real they know they are. They know demons and devils can take souls. The whole line was a very good thing to be a hey we should watch this.
i'm a little late but complaining about Marisha metagaming at that moment makes no sense because she _literally lost her concentration_ and gave up her round of combat to just stare at Percy in shock among hearing him say "your soul is forfeit"
Yeah that’s a really dark thing to say, even for Percy who can be pretty cold sometimes. It’s not unbelievable for someone like Keyleth who’s known him for a long time and is very good at reading people to suspect that something’s up. If she said “I think Percy is possessed by a demon” that would be meta gaming, but she didn’t she just has alarm bells going off in her head that something isn’t right which makes sense for her character.
@@user-je2lv3sf3sso your saying when your normally calm friend is pointing a gun a someone and saying their sould is forfeit and your in a magical world your saying you wouldnt think anything wierd is happening
@@user-je2lv3sf3s ah yes the high wisdom druid with a high insight, whom has been with this person who is normally calm and collected, hears and watches that same friend yell out in a world where souls matter "your soul is forfeit die die" while shooting the full chamber of his gun and still pulling the trigger while the gun is broken would totally not notice something is off. i cant read the room for the life of me and even my dumbass could notice something was wrong
38:45 it wasn’t mentioned in the video, but I loved how after they all made the deal Vax, who was hiding the entire time, literally over 30 minutes of real time, walked out of the nest from behind the Druid, just to let him know he was ready the whole time. Such a small moment and the deal was already done but just an example of “anime badassery” in DND
By this point, they're practically playing a different *game* than the rest of the party. Like, he's playing Skyrim while everyone else is playing Dragon Age.
I recognize a lot of Orion in other people I've played with, who maybe don't understand that the stuff you're trying to skip past is supposed to be part of the fun. He's trying to get Allura to fix their whole problem with the crown so they can go back to adventuring and the "fun stuff", whereas the rest of the crew seems to recognize that needing to prove yourself, to remain in good standing, and have a little bit of the political intrigue, a little bit of being good while still being a game where murder is seen as a "win" at times, is part of what they want in the game. They don't want do just skim past authority with a warning like a lot of groups, they want to be in good standing with the king, to be seen as protectors of the realm. Notice how in season 1 of the animated show, there's a lot of playing up of the not-so-nice parts of the characters (Vex, Vax, and Scanlan's deserter mentality, Keyleth and Pike's insecurities, Grog's murder tendencies, Percy's tunnel vision when it comes to the Briarwoods) just to get them to a point where they grow into the characters we see them as, and so they can be not trusted by Uriel. If this group as-is were the ones in the animated show, I have no doubts that it would be a different story. Which is shown when they're allowed to go about the city vs being placed under house arrest. The actions are similar, but the flavor is different. I also think Matt calls attention to the fight that killed Pike to remind the audience as much as the players, since we weren't there to see that part.
Interestingly, if you make the mistake of reading the twitch chat you can actually see the audience struggling with the shift into what the show is becoming. I remember this was the episode I started covering up the chat because I just couldn't take all the complaining that they were solving the Rok problem through roleplay rather than violence. In hindsight especially it seems even more ridiculous since the character moments are pretty much the main selling point of Critical Role, but even at the time it baffled me seeing people getting mad that they were talking through it rather than just throwing dice at the problem in just another fight. Maybe that's just me though, combat was always my least favourite part of the show.
Their audience had yet to shift from the hardcore D&D nerds (who were more into Orion's play style) to the live show fans who liked D&D (who gravitated to Marisha's and Liam's styles, that the rest of the cast preferred). The former group brought so much baggage into the fandom that took two campaigns to properly snuff out.
That's curious. My complaint about critical role is always that Matt seems to think he's obligated to get at least one fight into an episode. Maybe that's coming from these early complaints. He once talked with Brennan about that he got self-concious about eating on stream, because of early complaints and never did it again. Maybe with this it was the same. Usually my brain just tunes out during the fights. Counting down numbers for an hour just isn't that interesting to me. I come for the roleplay.
There is a point where folks complaining about lack of combat does get to be too much. That said there is just different ways to play the game. Some folks are all about the rp and others love making combat machines. Either is valid and depends on your group style. Truthfully I've never been comfortable with extensive roleplaying. I enjoyed pulling off crazy plans and close combats. When other folks want to do deep roleplaying I just kept my peace and made sure I was caught up on everything happening in the game. But if the game would just be endless combat I'd get bored with that as well. Plus I enjoyed combats that moved the story along more than random encounters, guess I just kinda fall in the middle of the spectrum.
A tip for you. Never read twitch chat. Just don't do it. It's a toxic cesspool, no matter whose stream you're watching. It's the worst part of the youtube comment section, only emboldened by the fact that their nonsense will get swept away within seconds or minutes so they have no accountability in any form.
@@4203105 I noticed that the cast does indeed itch for a fight or at least an encounter pretty often. In C3 when they have rolled for encounters Liam especially would be sad if they rolled above a 5 (where a 5 or lower is an encounter bound to happen). Not just Liam of course, but he stood out to me most in one of the episodes. Thinking back on it, every time there was a sudden encounter with combat, everyone in the cast would react positively, some more than others. In character they would be sad of course, but it's one of the few times they break character and let themselves come out, especially Liam and Travis. One thing though is when the cast plan for a bigger fight, then it seems like they dread the encounter, but that could just be them being too good at method acting. Overall and we can see from all of their playing over the years, this is a group that absolutely love combat and takes it very seriously. Which is probably why Matt would like to include a fight as much as possible.
The fact that "if someone says, 'stop touching me,' stop touching them" is a lesson adults still need to be taught is just....... 🤦♀️ As I watched this episode back when I was first starting CR, what I got from it was that Matt was pretty handily reining in what he saw as a slide down to murder-hobo-ville. MANY players were guilty of bad behavior, but only one of them refused to learn when presented with consequences. This moment (and other moments in the Briarwood arc where, spoiler free, Keyleth seems to be the only person who thinks about the consequences of careless decisions) is one of the reasons I actually really grew fond of Keyleth early on.
I suspect it's also one of the sources of Keyleth / Marisha dislike that was too common at the time. She holds up a mirror not only to the other PCs, but to all of us players as well.
This. Keyleth was quickly my fave and i couldnt tell why until i realized i grew up as the “Chuckie” (Rugrats) of the group, the “Should we realy be doing this?” one. It makes sense that wpuld rub some players the wrong way, no one likes to be reminded theyre making the wrong decision haha
i think it was unfortunately often necessary especially towards the end of Orion's time with critical role for people to break character to say "hey you're making the game less fun for me your irl friend" i think it shows how at the end of their patience they all were with his bs
@@toshmagosh666 Yeah, that's basically what happened during the drunk Tiberius interactions, too. Her anger felt way too genuine the third time she told him to stop. It's the most uncomfortable I've been watching this campaign, individually worse than the multiple episode 27 incidents.
@@BrandonVout Knowing her personal history with sexual assault that she opened up about on individual interviews way back when, I can see why his touchy-feely attitude got her riled up.
While I generally don't like to further dogpile the guy, this episode does include 2 more areas of Orion not quite jelling with the group that Mike sort of skips over, each a problem for different reasons. 1) The scene where Vax offers Tibs a drink. Liam clearly intends this to be a bonding moment between the two as the two characters share a drink and a contemplative chat together, something Liam is quite fond of doing (i.e. Vax asking Scanlan how he stays so cheerful or any of the talks with Percy post Purvons tomb). Orion, instead, makes the scene all about Tiberius by drinking the whole flask and makes the scene a comedy bit about drunk Tibsy complaining about it lot. It always kind of stood out as a point where role-playwise Orion didn't seem to read scenes the same way the others often dead. 2) The scene with drunk Tiberius hugging a frustrated Keyleth is made more awkward by the fact that Orion is actually touching Marisha in that scene, so it's hard to tell how much is roleplay and how much is a frustrated Marisha actually getting annoyed with Orion . This could just be reading too much into the situation, but the scene for me is coloured too much by the fact that 1) Orion would later go on to make comments in game that clearly didn't fly with the cast (the infamous 'half-chub' line) and 2) orion would go on to be accused by ex-girlfriends to at least be emotionally abusive.
Yeah I agree, it is very unclear what the boundaries are in the touching situation, what is real and what is RP. If its purely RP then it is just Orion committing to the bit (though a bit that went on a bit too long), but if Marisha was genuinely not wanting to be touched then that's obviously an issue. I have a hard time believing it is the latter given how close the cast were, even with orion, but if it were me, I would have instantly paused and checked in when she first said it.
There is also the fact that " Drunk Tiberius" actually goes on for a while. He kept pushing the moment longer than it needed to be, making the cast uncomfortable. ( or they looked uncomfortable to me ) which is another factor in the infamous joke that occurs next episode
@@antheathetiefling8581 Orion never knew when to quit. He had so many great moments killed by dragging it on. In this episode, my favorite moment is when Tiberius, in cow form, greeted a cow with his "I'm Tiberius Stormwind..." line, only for Matt to tell him he just looked like a cow so they couldn't understand him. Orion's reaction was perfect. Then, when Keyleth was actually talking with the cows, he kept interrupting her to ask her to tell the cows his name and where he's from. He knew he hit gold but didn't understand how to recreate it.
@@BrandonVout I think knowing when a bit has run its course is a rare skill, but Orion talks so damn much that we just notice him trying too hard all the more often.
I never really held the "half-chub" against him. I mean that's really harmless compared to Laura and Sam. I think it's just that there was a bunch of tension already and so a harmless joke was picked up in the worst possible way by the other players. It was certainly a good thing that he left the game, but I don't think he was as bad as a lot of people made him out to be. He just didn't gel with the rest of the cast.
I’m catching up on CR and just started the Chroma Conclave arc, and one of the biggest differences between how Orion played Tiberius versus how the rest of the table played their characters? If Orion found something “boring” he makes Tibs absent, while also demanding DM Attention and also forgetting his character wouldn’t be privy to information as a result. If Tibs can’t be in the limelight, Orion refused to be invested more often than not. Meanwhile, everyone else is playing “Yes, And.” Matt brings in the Briarwoods? Tailsin plays up No Mercy Percy. Marissa plays up Keyleth’s perceptive nature to again follow that thread (especially since Ashley/Pike couldn’t be present as the other moral center for Vos Machina). The other players then played their characters as “it’s probably nothing…okay no, that was pretty bad. Let’s keep an eye on Percy.” It’s all working together following prompts the DM is placing while Also being stoked to see another player get to shine. IF it’s “metagaming” it isn’t done to “beat the dm” or upstage someone else. Meanwhile… “Oh so everyone LOVES Trinket? I’m getting a pet and steamrolling through its training and roll before the DM can even react (and totally ignore that the DM’s drawing through his own experience as a bird owner for this.) Percy got attention blasting someone’s chest in? Well Tibs has a chainsaw, feel Sad Boi Hours for him too. Scanlan and Pike have one-sided flirtations? Well now Tibs is going to get an erection while Vex lectures him for murder (who cares it made Laura, Travis, and the rest of the table deeply uncomfortable.) Vex makes a Nat20 on a puzzle designed specifically for her character? Well now Tibs will ‘assist’ and undercut it entirely.” Like…even without reading about some of the stunts Orion pulled away from the table, he wasn’t behaving like a player they could continue to play with.
"Tiberius hugs Keyleth". More accurately "Orion hugs (and paws at) Marisha". It's one thing to have a *character* touch another *character* without permission, it's a total other level to have a *player* do it to another *player* (and to seemingly decide to make his character get drunk *so* he can do it and blame it on 'roleplaying'). While there had been problems before, THIS was where I reached my 'WTF! They need to ask him to leave" point.
yes!!!! there were more uncomfortable interactions too, i remember feeling tensed for Marisha all the time, i would be so stresed if guys felt like they could touch me all the time without asking, even friends
Rewatch the 2 hour 27minute mark. What you saw was a very good improvisational scene between between two very good actors. All of the cringe was between Keyleth and Tiberius, not between Marisha and Orion. There is a beat or two, the scene ends, and then Marisha starts laughing and smiles at Orion and the scene is over. That is what most people miss when they point this out. As actors, they both likely really appreciated the strong choices they both made in that scene.
Keyleth is a high WIS, empathetic, overtly moral, often extreme character. If anyone is going to notice something off in her friends, and pursue it uncomfortably, it makes sense it's her. Especially with regard to Percy (before his later relationship). Not saying Marisha has never metagamed, but I think Keyleth's low CHA bumbling tricks us into thinking she has poor insight in general. Edit: I see many people before me agree!
IK, it’s wild that people have criticized her for playing into being insightful when… insight *mechanically* falls under wisdom, her highest stat. Esp because I’ve heard of people criticizing her for not playing as high wisdom???
Not to imply this was something Orion was going for but there could've been something really compelling about a Tiberius "fall from grace" arc. Where his experiences at the beginning of the Briarwood Arc led into a humbling of the character. Suddenly his name doesn't mean all that much, friends start to call him out on his behavior, etc. If this happened, it would've been cool to see him overcome these struggles and be a better person because of it. Again, I don't think that's what Orion was going for, especially since his proposed side series seemed like "The Cool and Awesome Tiberius Show", but just a musing I had recalling the drunk Tibs scene.
In the old world if this went against his alignment then it would be up to the DM to prescribe a suitable "punishment" for his sin or be forced to change his alignment. Either way, if Ryan was truly their friend who was facing some personal demons, then they absolutely did him dirty. Who quits a longtime friend for facing issues? Just another example of why I believe this is a major business decision and the game itself is scripted, or at least the dialog is. I do believe the gameplay is real and that dice and decisions are being made but the long interactions between encounters are totally scripted.
@Jon Marshall i dont really think its a business decision, unless geek and sundry got involved. The critical role cast dont really have that sort of business savvy training to cover the situation up if it was especially so early in CRs history Based on the fact we see orion and matt have deep talks in the background post the mlst problematic episodes, id gather that the communication problems mike mentions were taking a toll not only on the party and dm, but also on orions enjoyment of the game. I dont think its conincidence he leaves shortly after tiberius requests to draconia for help are declined. And orion did go on to make a radioplay of his own world after the show where he could have his own freedom. If anything i think the toll the show was taking on orion and his relationships with the game and cast lead me to believe the decision to leave was personal and mutual As for him never coming back? Thats likely the more business side of things especially after his ex girlfriends spoke up.
@@tokenhol sure they do, they are set up as a business, they aren’t doing this for charity anymore but I believe thats partially how it started. They get paid, their production gets bigger, they are monetized on twitch and RUclips
@@aknar1999 Where they're at now doesn't, at all, apply to before when Orion was involved with the show. But, to clarify your points about his "hardships" the shit he had going on *never* validates abusive words and actions coming from the people going through those experiences. Said as someone whose dad has two kinds of cancer, grandma just received her second cancer diagnosis after having breast cancer several years ago, and I'm neurodivergent with arthritis since I was a child and a cardiovascular thing I'm trying to pin down a diagnosis for. People who are going through hardship are granted *some* leeway for being in pain, but they should never lose accountability and be absolved of responsibility for the way their actions, behaviors, and words effect others. If we're talking about Orion, the 27 episodes he was on the show were very clear in that he's being given a lot of leeway. They kept giving him chance after chance to adapt and adjust to the new system, to adjust to the game and the story they were trying to tell, they continually gave polite corrections and feedback, and it's completely okay for him to want a different gaming experience and have his own playstyle that differs from there. What is not okay is for him to lie, hide information, get angry/defensive when called out and corrected for metagaming and breaking rules or gaming mechanics, and then absolve himself of all responsibility for his words and actions by saying "It was a joke" and "I didn't know" and "Well I had/have cancer." You can be an asshole and have cancer. They are not mutually exclusive or inclusive. Considering he, during his radio show that you mentioned, stole money being donated for charity and used someone else's fund to buy himself a new mic etc. He's just an asshole who also had cancer. Considering his actions and words during his time on Critical Role and how he handled fans, he's a man who had a sour attitude when he got put in front of a camera, but also had cancer. I have worked with so many people with cancer, who were the nicest people in spite of their pain because they could understand that it's not on anyone else to regulate their emotions or take responsibility for their actions and words. Patients who knew that they were still accountable for their behavior and attitude. That obviously isn't everyone, but *nothing* absolves someone of the consequences of their actions. Orion faced the consequences of his actions *after 27 attempts to give him grace for his hardships and grant him leeway*. He's just an asshole who also had "hardships."
Ah yes, Consequences And Cows, one of the best episodes of campaign 1 hidden inside one of the worst. Really good work calling out the good and the not so good with measured fairness.
I didn't think that how Keyleth pointing out "your soul is forfeit" could be metagaming. In my perspective, Kiki and Percy are pretty close friends at this point and with that in mind along with Kiki being pretty adverse to extreme violence and on the more cautious side I personally saw it pretty within character and character knowledge to be like "something's wrong here" while the rest of the party (most of whom were involved in the brutal killing of the old woman and the rest being pretty okay with the level of violence so far) waving off something being seriously wrong in favor of it being another example of their recklessness especially since Percy appears relatively mild-mannered when not in No Mercy Percy mode. Also, as someone who likes that sort of RP and is in a game where the party does too, this sort of interaction where someone points out someone being not okay and everyone going "noooooo, they're fiiiiine!" is just a fun way to rack up the tension as a party member starts to lose it. That's just my opinion tho! I can definitely see how it could be considered metagaming.
After Percy goes "Oh, well I suppose I did let that slip didn't I?..." Keylith starts questioning him, clearly implying something more at play as well, and considering all other factors, she had every reason to question his behavior even further. She said she was so surprised she dropped concentration and spent an entire action just staring at him in shock. I don't even think she took an offensive action at all when that scene happened. Being the most sensitive and morally aware she's the only one that it even makes sense when asking who is the best person to suggest when pressing Percy about his actions.
So glad you're doing these. I know the next episode is bad...but also I'm kind of looking forward to the cringe. I am planning to literally pop popcorn for when I get to that episode.
When I watched through Campaign 1 in 2020, I really didn't like Orion. I was on episode 10 when I found out through google that he gets booted after e27 and it was just a hype train countdown for me. Knowing there was a milestone to when his BS would end made getting to e28 much easier. I wouldn't tell anyone to skip any episode- it all becomes clear how much better the party gels without him involved.
@@BaronVonDex As someone who liked Orion, I agree. There was a constant tension in the group towards the end that went unnoticed until it was gone. It's like feeling warmth for the first time and realizing you've been cold your entire life.
Great video, Mike! Uriel dressing them down at the beginning of this episode was one of the hardest scenes for me to get through in C1, but it was definitely important. I’m remember thinking when Tiberius left for his own quarters during the party’s conversation back at the keep “there he goes again, off to do his own thing” and I could feel that didn’t vibe with the party, and I didn’t know anything about DND or good play behavior then. (Still don’t know a lot, but what I do know, I owe to Mike!) my point is I think it was obvious that there was some kind of disconnect in game play within the group. In regards to Keyleth’s “metagaming”, I would argue that with her high wisdom, she probably has a high passive perception/insight and would therefore have gotten more out of that soul line. Here’s looking at you, Cad.
Was this the episode where Orion tries, for the umpteenth time, to come in with his, "I am the danger and doom and destruction" spiel with Tiberius, for Uriel(Matt) to shut him down? If so that was my favorite part because it felt like a moment where Matt became more willing to take control of the table and not just let players get away with stuff.
I admire Matt so much for not going the easy route and instead actually making VM's actions, not only from the last night, come back to bite them. The start of this arc genuinely felt like their darkest hour for me. You also put my thoughts into words perfectly: it seemed a lot of the times VM decided to have a discussion about something important, or just engage in some roleplay, Orion simply removed Tiberius from the scene. Also the drunk Tiberius moment was so uncomfortable...but the flying cows are one of the most memorable moments of this show.
21:40 Subtle as it may be, Travis/Grog's reaction here is masterful :') Who are you and what did you do with Vex'Ahlia? (More seriously, that she was the first one to step up and tell them to keep the money was a power move that held much meaning.)
As someone who knew nothing about the context "your soul is forfeit" immediately sounded off. Obviously some of that is the meta knowledge that it's most likely meaningful but frankly I can't imagine hearing that and thinking that it's normal.
I didn't have a problem with Keyleth picking up on the "your soul is forfeit" line, because I had the same reaction (and had pretty much forgotten the hints in Percy's backstory reel anyway). When he said that I remember perking up and going "Oooh, that could either be just a dramatic one-liner, or... something else is going on..."
Hope Oreo can return for the next demystified. Boy, I remembered this episode to be so fun and wholesome with the flying cows and half of it is about Tiberius getting so annoying (at this point I think I was getting so tired and angry of his behaviour).
My attitude as a GM historically has been to give my players lots of freedom, but to also state that actions have consequences. This has given me a reputation as a 'bloodthirsty GM', at least partly in jest, but sometimes my players where genuinely surprised when the undead chickens came back to roost.
All of these episodes have been great, but this one in particular has been super helpful for me with the current game I'm running. Finding a way to allow for player agency and fun with a party that would likely be pictured in the dictionary definition of "gray morality," while balancing consequences, has been my biggest learning curve as a new GM. I'm certainly not there to provide an ethics lecture for my players, but world-appropriate consequences are super important to me in order to make the world feel as real as possible. The point you make at 19:11 about the difference between actions in a dungeon versus actions within civilized society were just what I needed to hear to make the last few gears click into place. Thank you!
I will add, if you do happen to watch ep 27 just know that after that episode the show becomes something different, for the better. It's the lowest the show goes, but after we get some of the best CR out there!
Yeah, I had to _force_ myself to watch it when I was bingeing the entire series a year ago. It was just... horrible. The real-life tension between the players was just so freaking awkward - I really felt like Travis was just like 'he goes or I do' at the end of it. I got the vibe Orion was like a disgruntled employee who'd been (justly) corrected behind the scenes, and was just acting up to the max to take out his frustrations. They absolutely had no choice but to remove him, and it couldn't have ended any other way, but it's definitely not something I enjoy watching.
Even if Percy is, undoubtedly, my favourite Critical role Character. Kyelith is for sure my 2d favourite VM character, if not Cr Character in general. I never found a problem problem her, and find that the way you're walking about here here does her justice. I almost can't understand how other people don't see how good see is :) She's doing some very important things for the group, and they ain't easy.
There's fringe bozos with weird or just dumb reasons to hate on Keyleth and/or Marisha, but as someone who just isn't a big fan of either, my reasons only go so far as Marisha having a very..."loud" style of play? That's not to say she's constantly yelling or anything like that, just that when she has a moment, it's often very domineered by her, however unintentionally, in a rougher way than the others handle scenes. I don't know if that gets my point across, but I will add that in C3, her choice to play a more relaxed character in Laudna seems to be helping mitigate that effect. Also as an entirely personal, preferential thing, I don't like how Marisha's first two characters have voices that are just mild inflections on her own. I'm a voice actor, I like my funny or out-there voices. My brother is playing a robot rn and he ALWAYS talks with the breathe-in robot voice. It's glorious. So when I hear Jester Lavorre talk to Marisha's tough guy voice, it's disappointing. Again though, I'm well aware that that is very much a preference.
@@henrymartinvo So your problem is basically that she's a good actor. Because your problems with Kyelith. Are on par with the kind of problems she wanted to RP as those characters xD. I get it that it might not be for everyone, and I'm not judging or talking you down. Sorry if I come out that way. But she DID wa t to play a character that was so "clunky/loud" like Kyelith. She found fun in Rp-ing characters with such problems as those. And I can only guess that she chose an easy voice to RP because she wanted to focus on her character instead of her voice. And I'll say,that I didn't like Beu, but I get it that she wanted to role play her with as much skill as she could muster, and to really get into character for an example, of someone less skilled at that. Non other than Teliesin. I get that he did do his best, and I did love Moly and Percy more than anyone else. But he clearly couldn't role play as Complex characters as Marisha. He focused on being parts of his own self, and found difficulty with RPing stuff that deviated from that. Like at the Library near the end, when he was like a kid in a toystore for a bit, but then realised that this wasn't for him and stopped. He also brakes character allot when on the table On the contrary, Marisha is so in character that everyone on the Internet forgets aboutnmarisha and talks about her instead while in truth they should've been addressing Kyelith or Beu
I'm watching c1 for the first time and my only problem with Keyleth is the "Kima is evil" thing, otherwise I mostly agree with her, especially in this episode. coming from c2 and c3 it was quite surprising how early VM treats npcs and are being borderline murder hobos, but it's interesting to see Matt nudging them into taking things seriously and Marisha/Keyleth helping the transition.
I'd like to start out by saying that I don't have any issues with Marisha as a person. I respect her as an actor, and I have no problems with Keyleth as a character. But I don't like Keyleth as a person. Meaning that, if I had to deal with Keyleth, I'd find her insufferable. Honestly, I have the same feelings about Scanlan, and I think Sam's pretty fucking awesome. To me, Keyleth shows what great friends they all are, how well they gel together, in addition to Marisha's talent as an actor. Because god DAMN would Keyleth not fly at any table I've played at or DM'd for haha.
One of my favorite things about this series is being able to revisit this campaign after watching the second one, and after watching a bunch of oneshots.. and a couple Dimension20 campaigns.. and be able to more critically analyze what was going on, how I feel about moments, characters, etc. Vox Machina was my first foray into actual play, and basically my first foray into *theater*, so I didn't have the chops yet to construct and articulate my thoughts. Having this opportunity is such a gift.
I love this! I feel the same way/have a similar relationship with Critical Role. It was my first “Live Game” to watch and really helped me conceptualise DnD and how everything would work in the playing. SUPER rough to watch at times (definitely figured out what I DIDN’T want to do as much as what I wanted) but I also needed time and these vids to really express what I disliked/liked about the series! Revisiting through Mike’s evenhanded analysis has been a lot of fun!
I wouldn't say this episode is peak Problem Player Keyleth. Her efforts and methods are more tempered and justified. Maybe there should have been an Insight, Perception, or Investigation check on her character's part. This episode is unequivocally peak Problem Player Tiberius. The lack of acknowledging consequences, the power gaming of the Background features, inability to read the table for increasingly tart jokes, the appearance of not paying attention to exchanges of that session. I will say the group evolved their playstyle, these few sessions playing a big role in the shift. Whatever happened outside of games probably didn't help a lot of the change in demeanor to be a smooth transition, and it's not like all the underlying problems disappear with a single player removed from the group. Some people talk about Problem Players like they're an unquenchable force of nature that can't be bargained with, but they are just people too. In a vacuum it can look like Tiberius as a character is getting saddled with all the sins of a problematic group of adventurers. And if it hadn't been for outside drama piled on top the adult thing would have been to talk it out. Most won't see themselves as being the problem, and just feel personally attacked, possibly even justifying in their mind their antisocial behavior. What Problem behaviors is more egregious in game largely depends on the group, some value immersion, balance, and not cutting in line. Others value respect, humility, and creating a safe space. Session Zeros get talked about in advice as a way to avoid miss aligned expectations for your game. There's even a term for revisiting these expectations as a group to address a change in direction for one reason or another. I imagine Critical Role did one when they swapped from Pathfinder to 5e. If they didn't meet up to do that, you can tell who did their homework, and who was still playing from the seat of their pants, most of the group was halfway in between. They wanted to share their experience via live streaming, and were aware not all their past shenanigans were gonna fly in the detail they had been used to up to now. Twitch ToS been a predictable hot mess over the past several years. Where before you had a table of friends with differing levels of intoxication, now you have a business, and your at a table with coworkers that require your active respect. This Corporatization of a beloved hobby has and will be an issue for many fans and players, and not every change will work for everyone. We can only really reflect, and make decisions for our own groups and games, but it takes the whole table to make gambling with character sheets a worthwhile story.
Mike, what you are doing on this channel is excellent. I actually just binged your last ten episodes of this CR series. I know its a lot of work but I will say having the clips is a huge help for us viewers. I have no interest in watching the first season. I finished season 2 and am in the middle of 3. I am watching the animated series, and I am interested in the story of Vox Machina. So this series is perfect. I need to figure out the best way for me to throw a little support your way. But I wanted to extend my gratitude.
The background features as a concept are a nice idea. but worfully ill-thought out in practice. They vary from the occaisonally useful, to the merely flavourful, to the potentially game breaking - and vary depending on DM interpretation, too. It would make more sense to give every character a 'favoured milieu' or similar, where they get some sort of advantage to social interactions because they are familiar with it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the concept of a specialized feat tied to background, it was just the inconsistent execution that was an issue. Each Background just needs a thing they can do to solve a minor problem, that usually sets a PC or party up for more play. Both of the ones mentioned are perfect, they're broad enough to be applicable to a bunch of situations, helpful at directing the party towards some kind of encounter, but not so powerful they totally solve the issues that might arise. They frankly needed to be the standard by which the others were judged.
Everything you said about Keyleth is exactly why I love her so much and why she’s crucial to the party. Keyleth is desperately trying to learn to be a good leader and doesn’t always know what that looks like but she tries to hard to do what she thinks is right. In a party like Vox Machina, who were pretty morally grey at this point, that’s so hard to do but without her I don’t think they would have become actual heroes. It sucks that the audience at the time only saw her as a self righteous buzzkill when she was trying to convince the party to do the right thing. Marisha said that Keyleth didn’t really become a leader until the Kraken fight but I think the Briarwood arc is when she starts gaining that confidence. One of my favorite Keyleth moments is later on in the arc when she’s the only one willing to risk her life to save civilians. It’s so hard to be the only voice of reason in a group but she never stopped fighting for what she thought was right.
To be fair, Position of Privelege is a super weird feature in general. It's taking something that's inherent in storytelling and roleplay (status) and codifying it. If you apply the idea that "if you didn't take the noble feature, you can't get this benefit" to other background features you running into weird things like "No, you can't offer to work on a ship in return for passage, only sailors can do that." or "No, you don't know what library might have that information - that's part of the Sage background feature that you don't have." That's not to defend Orion trying to game the system as much as possible, which he definitely did, but I think background features should be considered a little "You don't need to do a check for this" benefit, rather than abilities that are unlocked by taking that background.
To be fair I think Tiberious being like I am a Stormwind in Uriel's Court is laughable. Wtf dude you are speaking to the leader of a kingdom or empire that spans a continent. Your people have a single city (I think could be wrong never was sure). On the other side of the world. You throwing your name around really means nothing to this guy. But I do agree with you, having a Noble Background should make you better able to persuade and convince people of Noble backgrounds and intimidate the lower classes with your name. But the way I run it is very simple. How important are you and your line? Are you the child of a guy like Tywin Lannister? Or are you the child of a dude like Walder Frey or some other random low lord? That changes things. Are you on the other side of the world from your homeland and family? Or are you in the same country. All of those things should be accounted for by both the PC and the DM.
Realistically, no you shouldn't be able to offer to work on a ship in return for passage. Not even as a sailor, though I'd imagine that would make it easier to persuade them to let you on board. And realistically, even a person who is very familiar with researching things wouldn't know exactly which libraries have the tomes they're looking for, even if they did magically happen to know every single book in existence. The researcher might know how to find out where to go to seek that knowledge, but that's almost certainly the extent of it. I disagree with your assertion, and the examples you use to justify your assertion do not make sense at all.
I mean, no, you can’t offer work in exchange for passage unless you’re a sailor, what work would you offer? You can’t help the crew you’d just be in the way because you’re not a sailor. Researcher is harder to define but still you can’t simply wander into a library and suddenly know all the information you need of you have no frame of reference or past experience to help you navigate all that raw information.
Something i love about this show, are the little tidbits about your personal life we get to learn about you. About how recording audio in your old place was awful, about the move. Your job situation, and your new pet. You're a likeable guy. And i like the way you pitch becoming a Patreon supporter too. As soon as im able im definitely going to become a supporter. We need this to be a weekly series of we ever want to catch up 🤣
Honestly in the context of CR the complaints about meta-gaming always annoy me far more than any time they've actually meta-gamed. Predominantly because I feel like the cast not infrequently go so far out of their way to avoid even the appearance of meta-gaming they end up making their characters either incredibly oblivious and/or incredibly dumb. A big VM example is Vax's talk with the Raven queen where Liam biffs dropping the one piece of information Matt wanted him to say, he didn't say it entirely because he could not remember if it was information Liam had learned out of game, information chat had given him, or information Vax would have. Vax should have known it, but Liam stumbled dancing around saying it just to avoid the internet potentially yelling at him for "meta-gaming". There are many other times things like this happen as well and for me at least it's always more frustrating than if they'd just do what they were going to do. For Keyleth, I genuinely loved moments like in this episode. It's very similar to the Sunken Tomb where Keyleth has a feeling of concern and unease after the ritual and places her hand on Vax's back to see if anything felt different or wrong. A moment of completely believable intuition from a deeply empathetic character that serves as also a great little character beat for her.
It’s funny cuz if you’re referring to the one after Vax gets disintegrated I saw a comment saying Matt shouldn’t have had the RQ let Vax come back because Liam was doing the very thing you mentioned and not answering “properly”. Or something to that effect anyway.
Didn't Liam say that one was because he knew a lot about Vecna and the Raven, that they are eternal enemies, and thus throught she should already know that he was trying to become a god? I think that is actually an example of (unintentionally) meta gaming and not one where he tried to avoid it.
@@Boundwithflame23 Well he wasn't answering "properly". The only reason the raven queen would have had to give him extra life was if she knew that Vecna was trying to become a god and she never got that information. Vex telling her wouldn't have been metagaming as the character knew this. It actually was a case of metagaming that Liam didn't tell her, since he thought she must already know, because of the prior knowledge he had about her from other D&D campaigns.
@@4203105 I only vaguely recall the comment’s wording but it was sorta along the lines of “Liam didn’t answer the way _I_ would expect him to do if he were a player of mine so Matt should have done what I would have done which was to say ‘too bad so sad; roll a new character’” Leaning also into criticizing Matt for doing things differently and portraying the RQ as being more compassionate towards her champion. Metagaming wasn’t even brought up iirc. It was just “different bad” which is a common criticism I’ve seen of CR in general
Huh. I'd never have pegged you as the type to pick a curly white dog as your familiar, Mike, but here we are. I enjoy your content very much, thank you! And all my best wishes to you for...The Next Episode. (Dun dun dunnnnnn)
I discovered your channel shortly after I started watching Critical Role for the first time, and have been having a lot of fun watching your commentary as I go along. As of this one, my CR watching has caught up to your videos! Thanks for the interesting insights on the stream.
Real Talk: I’ve permanently blacklisted 26 and 27. Because it’s too much of a mood whiplash AND because it’s the bottom of the barrel, respectively. So much so it actually made writing a fic of mine all the more difficult because I wanted to have it to where Keyleth and Vax reconcile after his VERY STUPID comment about the child, seeing as they’re back on friendly terms from Episode 28 onward. I did manage to write it, thankfully, and it’s one of my favorite stories that I’ve done, appropriately titled “Mending Bridges”. Also, I should point out that this episode was one of many turning points for whether Keyleth would either multiclass into barbarian, thus straying further from her path… or just leave Vox Machina altogether. There are crossroads like that which we aren’t fully made aware of until the Campaign Wrap-Up.
I genuinely can't wait until you get to the episode with the counter spell (9) (wish). I haven't seen a great breakdown of just how profound that moment is, and I've looked. They try but I like your delivery and breakdown of character, I think hearing you break down the real life implications of that moment will be fascinating
@@9012FerdinandNot to get political, but Vox Machina went full American Cops in that moment and frankly I appreciate that they live in a world where that shit doesn't fly.
In Tiberius defence, the whole party were loudly saying that she was evil, that she attacked first and that she needed to die. I don't get why everyone is piling up on Orion for doing what anyone would do against the old lady. This is dumb.
Something I really wanted to mention because the thought occured to me. I want to clarify that I don't think this is what Orion was going for, however... I was really hoping that SupergeekMike would mention during the scenes of Tiberius "flexing" his "station". I agree completely, as a DM, that it definitely felt like he was trying to have two features. But for those trying to learn to roleplay. I just wanted to point out that in the hands of a empathetic and thoughtful roleplayers, his approach could actually be quite good. Trying to use your perceived privilege and station to no effect can be a good story beat for his character. Part of Tiberius' background (proof: the BG reads early campaign) is supposed to be that he is a bit of an outcast in his own society. That he "technically" has the station but hasn't even earned it in his own society. Him playing up that belief he deserves it makes perfect sense for the character that clearly should have that journey based on their background. It could have been done well. The issue at hand with Orion, I believe, is that the player did not seem to either want this storyline; or, did not realize this story beat had become opportune. That could be solved with some discussion outside the game between that player and DM so they can both tell that story together. Similarly, I think having the one "stuck in his ways" character actually makes for a good addition to the morality themes that will grow far more prevalent throughout this campaign. It gives the other side of the coin from Keyleth in these scenes. I would even argue it could have been even more interesting considering Tiberius and Keyleth were depicted as having a close relationship. Having them be polar opposites in the issue would have been compelling if done well by both players. But as SupergeekMike has said a few times now, it was clear that Orion did not want to play this style of D&D as this went on. And that is okay. Everyone plays the game for their own reasons. I am in no way excusing any behavior of Orion. Just wanted to share some fruit for thought for anyone who wants to tell a "Redemption" story or a "Proving your worth" storyline. Huh. Realized in my own closing thoughts... Keyleth and Tiberius are both telling the "Proving your worth" story in very different ways. One more morally questionable than the other. Probably explains the reason those two were so close early campaign. Neat. Sorry for the wall of text!
I've watched the cartoon's first two seasons (the only two released at the moment when I'm typing those words) before I started watching the actual play, and I always watch tose videos right after I finnish an episode. I think it's the perfect episode to talk about something that I've been thinking a lot about for some time: It always surprises me to see so many old fans say they didn't like Keyleth much in the actual play but love her in the tv-series, because I have almost the opposite experience. When I see Marisha play her as a ttrpg character, I can't help but feel like the animated version has been defanged and looks far younger (if not childlike), inexperienced (despite technically being as experienced as everyone else in her team) and less self confident or talkative. Obviously everyone can like or dislike either version of the character (or both) for very different reasons, it just keeps amusing and surprising me to see people talking about an experience that is opposite to mine.
I kind of wonder if they nerfed her a bit more in the show because she's really a powerful druid. I'm not sure how to phrase it but like, the show works within DND rules but also doesn't as it has to move more quickly. I understand them needing to do something to reel her in so casual fans (who don't know DND or critical role) don't go "WELL WHY DOESN"T SHE JUST MAKE A HUGE BLIZZARD AGAIN" or whatever. I do agree they did nerf her personality a bit too much. Maybe they've planned it with the future episodes of the TV show, or to match any character growth she has within the campaign itself so it's paced well (I haven't finished it either). Guess we will have to wait and see!
IIRC, one of the arguments made in the confrontation with Uriel was that he had been mind controlled once himself, already, as a plea to hear them out on the possibility. I don't know if Matt's reminders about that whole ordeal prompted it, but it feels worth mentioning.
The gnome druid really irked me the first time i watched this episode. Namely just i thought that their logic was incredibly circular. They were allowed to travel all across the continent looking for the best place to settle. All so this Rok could move to a place without predators. The Rok's ecosystem was destroyed and the solution is to ruin all these other ecosystems by introducing a new apex that doesn't belong? It is all summed up with the idea that they think its moral to protect the Rok but doesnt understand why farmers would want to protect their cows. The farmers have adopted to the surrounding ecosystem, live in accordance with it. The Gnome destroyed it.
I have rarely read a comment so horribly wrong in my life. Farmers do not live in accordance with the ecosystem. They DESTROY it to make it work for them. Those open fields had trees, had ecosystems that existed in them. Farmers clear-cut the clan to have more grass for their animals. So no the Roc's kind were likely in the area FAR longer than the humans had been there. Likely those farms had encroached on ITS and its parent's hunting grounds by the farmers clear cutting the forest and driving out the other animals the Roc would have hunted. In our real world we have people burning down and cutting down the Amazon rainforest to make more land for FARMERS to have cattle and other livestock. Is that them "Living in accordance with the ecosystem" no its not.
Brennan Lee Mulligan has an anecdote from when he worked at LARP camps where characters would die and the player would say something like "Oh, no one ever discovered such-and-such secret about my character." They cared so much about saving it for a big dramatic reveal that it never got addressed. It's one thing to keep interpersonal secrets (as in, secrets between two or more players) relatively private, but *personal* secrets fundamentally define the person and inform their words and actions. If you're a cleric of Orcus, you probably don't go around telling people that, but it should be obvious that whatever god you serve is evil. Personal secrets should be less a fly on the wall and more an elephant in the room; a situation the people around you choose to ignore until it inevitably boils over.
The trouble is, it doesn't seem like Orion is in on the joke. The best example is in the next episode, where Orion tries to call in a huge favor from his father. If he was trying to play the character as too arrogant and due for some comeuppance, he would do that fully expecting it to not work. Instead, he gets genuinely annoyed at Matt when Tiberius' father shoots the idea down. That tells me that he wasn't trying to portray a flawed character, he was just powergaming.
Regarding the background combination, I feel like how I'd handle it would be: if someone wanted the flavor of Noble but the feature of Scholar, they'd come from a disgraced or fallen noble family. That way there's no way the Position of Privilege feature would work, and in fact it'd have the opposite effect if they tried to use it. (Also, restoring the family name or uncovering their secrets could be a fun plot hook) Also thinking about the world logically, I don't think it makes sense for Tiberius' standing in Draconia to have any influence in Emon or Kraghammer anyway. They're on a different continent, and Draconia is a floating city distanced from the rest of the world's politics. To them he's just a silly upper class guy who likes saying his name. (This is in fact my favourite aspect of Tiberius as a character and makes me wish he had a better player)
The Orion situation was so stressful for me as a viewer that I took a long break from the campaign directly after it all blew up… But this situation was a great “your actions have consequences” with the whole brutal murder situation.
What I like the most about the Roc encounter is that it's a perfect example on how not every encounter with a monster needs to end in violence. That's something a lot of players seem to forget is an option. Also, it's a great way for DMs to bring in strong monster that the players really shouldn't fight by making the objective something different than combat.
I know a lot people don't like the level-headed one in fiction because they try to "stop the fun exciting things from happening". It's the same phenomenon that they see in various movies and shows where you have a person, most often a woman, being reasonable and logical and trying to put the train back on the tracks get a ton of hate for doing what a logical person would actually do in that situation. Like in Breaking Bad, people hated Skylar because how dare she want Walt to stop, but honestly, if anyone was in that situation, they would do the same (at least I hope). Keyleth's arc is about finding out what kind of leader she wants to be. She's been thrown out into the big strange world to have these experiences and actually ask these questions! If she never asked these questions, I would never believe her as being an effective Voice of the Tempest. She needs to able to question why Percy, a man that doesn't put his faith in gods, says something like "Your soul is forfeit". Not your life, your soul! Something specifically connected to faith and gods and the ethereal. Things that Percy "has no interest in". That's a red flag so I never thought of that as meta-gaming because it just fits. I found it strange that he said that. It's not a leap to have her, a caring empathetic person who's been around this guy to ask him wtf is going on because clearly something is very very wrong. Also, she needs to know why someone would be that brutal and that angry and that single-minded. Being an effective leader depends on her learning these lessons and getting them right! Personally, I always hated Tiberius's "But I'm a Stormwind so the rules don't apply to me" attitude. It grated on me hard. This whole situation with the old woman just pushed me over the edge with the character as a whole, especially given that the same argument could be applied to Pike and her death. The enemy could use the same excuse. "She tried to kill us so who would expect us to let her go". Alignment doesn't factor into it. The situation has been reduced to survival and if the idea is "gotta get them before they get me", well, the enemy can then use that excuse too and then what. My philosophy is, if you want to be the hero, act like it. If you're self absorbed and rude, people aren't going to like you and won't want to do stuff for you, no matter what you do, and eventually, some real heroes will show up to put a stop to your tyranny.
On the brutality and the difficulty of toning it down, I've seen in multiple games that when you get to initiative, most players get into, let's say "First Person Shooter" mode, where it's hard to realize what you're doing, how you're doing it and how brutal it is until the dust settles. (per example, using a fireball to clear a group of bandits is perfectly fine as a defence standpoint... But if the group is playing a band of non-murderous optimists, the realization that there was an explosion and now all the bandits are decorating the nearby trees or at least were violently rendered unconscious in a round... That can cause whiplash to the players and GMs alike.) And I think one of the reasons it's so hard to do "non-lethal" combat is that it's much easier to say "swing, hit, wound." After all a lethal attack is assumed to be the normal way and for a non-lethal you have to call it every time. But also, it seems many GMs just... don't explain or refresh the group on the ability of doing non-lethal attacks (WHEN it's a thing, many systems just don't have the option.) Also, give mages goddamn non-lethal attack spells. It's so frustrating to me that in DnD and such you have the choice between crowd-control that is very limited, attack spells that hurt bad, or even duration AoE spells that will kill the baddie that had the bad taste of falling unconscious in the zone. I mean Force damage spells could have been an always-nonlethal damage type.
Sleep, Hold Person, Calm Emotions... There are absolutely mage spells that have the option of non-lethality in a violent encounter in mind. Or you can do something like Dimension Door yourself and friends away, or turn Invisible and hide. Blindness/Deafness is a good one, Cause Fear. Mages have tons of ways to end a battle or potential battle without doing a single point of damage
For as much as I agree about not trying to use skills that are strong for skill checks, it can force creativity at times. For example, my druid was just in a skill check where I used survival to look for the best footing in difficult terrain for my action. Not a typically used skill, but I had to get creative.
You make a point about Marisha being the conscience of the group, which is something I hadn't noticed before. I think this is a point where she really starts to get to the truth of her character; earlier, she has moments with NPCs (most infamously, her distrust of Kima) which seem like an improv actor's attempt to explore conflict for its own sake, and they don't ring true like this does.
This episode was the "calm" in the eye of the storm before shit hits the fan next episode for a variety of different reasons and looking into it and seeing where the signs of what was to come already showing makes what happens next all the more... chaotic.
When I present my players with a skill challenge, many times I have them describe what their character does to get through it, but I determine what skill is rolled. It forces my players to be clear in their description and engage with what’s going on if they want to get the skill check they’re best at. It winds up being a lot of fun for them.
The “Welcome to Critical Role Demystified” intro near the beginning of the view suddenly inspired an Animaniacs-like chant in my head: “Wheel of Criticality, turn turn turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn.”
Looking forward to 27. I stopped watching c1 after around session 15. I was too conscious of what was going to happen with Orion and it made me uncomfortable -- but at the same time i didn't want to move forward without the interstitial episodes. Maybe after your analysis I'll be able to start fresh on session 28 with a light heart and hope in my eyes
In relation to the Flying Cows, I like to imagine they look like PNGs. Since they transform into flying creatures under the guise of cows, I don't believe they have "flying cow animations"
I've run a social skill challenge before and I thought it worked well; at least for my table. I set a high/low bracket and a number of checks (I think it was 25 and 5 and 5 checks, or something like that). The PCs would then run dialogue. At certain points, a DC would be set and they would either need to make a Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion check depending on what they were trying to do. The difference between the DC and what they rolled was added up. When the total reached 25, the skill check was successful. If the total hit the bottom of the bracket, they failed. If they reached the number of checks without succeeding or failing, a middle-ground result would be determined based on how they fared on the overall total. It required some math, but they thoroughly enjoyed the tension of it, and it was fun to roleplay somewhat drastic mood swings based on their roles lol.
Matt's skill challenges do often lead to people working backwards from their best skills. One option in conversation is to narrate the NPC changing their expression or attitude to be more interested or open on a success, or getting irritated or folding their arms on a failure.
I like all of your points about tyberious. You're right, and I like your way idea thinking. This video has helped me. I also needed to comment something and this awkward, and also true/heartfelt comment fits the bill 😅
What’s your favorite part of this episode? Besides the cows flying across the sky, that’s obviously the best scene 😂
It was a bit of a Sad moment in hindsight, but the Alura and Tiberius conversation is my favorite. The fact that After what happened to Orion's PC had Alura literally crying tears over their last conversation was an amazing bit of Character development IMHO ...
Another bit(and I agree with you here) is Keylith standing up for what she thought was right, regardless of the situation. It defined how her character would go forward from then onwards...
Must be a tie between having an NPC genuenly asking "Tell me it isn't so?" showing that they WANT to believe SO BADLY that the heroes are... well heroes, but the players can't reassure them without lying to an NPC they love. That shit is powerful. And the other is Kelyeth just standing her ground at the mention of sending the bird to Whitestone, and going "fuckers no, you pushed my attempt at making us better for the last 2 days but that's enough. I will risk your wrath for our comunal good." And seeing a player do this make me go "eeeeeeeeeheheheeeeee"
I think my favorite moment was the council meeting. The group was basically stripped of their title, and they tried to _talk over the sovereign of the realm_ , were told to wait and let him finish, idk it was just all around a nice setting of the scene that couldn't be handwaved away with magic. Even when they did free Assun from his charmed condition, he still sided with Uriel because it was tactically the best thing to do in the moment. It told the group that their actions have consequences, and that they need to face those consequences and not make excuses for everything they've done as if it justifies anything.
Kyelith trying trying be the moral compass of VM.
She's amazing at it, while also being subtle and shy and unsure of herself.
Mariska is juat and AWSOME actor
Edit:
Scrap that, the omens on the Roc with Mqrisha!
It's just brilliant and SO satisfying
To me yelling that someone’s soul was forfeit while emptying a 6 shot revolver into their chest would most definitely be something a friend should be asking about.
If you're a buzzkill sure (jk obviously)
@@samuelstensgaard4828 maybe Tal was just letting the Alucard out.
The red flag isn't dyed or painted red. It's dripping with blood in this case.
@@Anduril74871 I think it was intentional on Tal’s part to signal that Percy was not alright. I see roleplayers do that sort of thing all the time, bait a reaction out of the party to get them interested in that PC’s story without pushing it on the party.
Especially when the someone in question is not really the type to curse people to eternal suffering/oblivion.
That moment where Allura confronted Tibs about buzzsawing that old woman is the exact moment that the romance arc between the characters died. It was excellently played by Matt.
I just watched the episode and i agree. Everyone, in the comments of other videos were going on about how she wasn't interested in Tiberius at all, which it ddin't seem like to me. Then over time, she thought he could be a catch until the old lady. The only way I can see that there may have still been hope for them to start something owuld have been if he was remorseful about kicking an enemy while down from the beginning but he never was, even when asked by his love interest. so she's just completely turned off from that moment. and even if he did act remorseful in front of her, it still would have been disengenuous and even if she hadn't found out then, she would have learned his character later. The were doomed from the start.
She saw a red flag and set boundaries.
@@JelenedraKTulsa As did the actual cast of CR at the time, lol.
@@JelenedraKTulsa
"When you're spattered with the gore from a giant arcane buzzsaw, sometimes red flags just look like flags."
-Allura, presumably
When they’re talking to Ripley while she’s masked as an old lady and Scanlan says “We’re really good with old people.”
Also, and maybe my favorite line of all 3 campaigns, when they meet Gilmore's parents: "ooooh they were absolutely lovely people ! Now let's decide which one of us is going to kill them and let's go"
I loved the scene where the group is able to talk the druid into relocating the roc and Matt revealing that he was anticipating a fight with the reveal of the map. The whole moment has big "Look how much you've grown" energy. And then Travis says "Missed opportunity" lmao
Travis just wanted Grog thrown off a cliff XD
Kelith pushing a duragar into lava. "This is the meanest thing I have ever done!" Vex "No! You killed that kid one time remember?" Classic DnD dialog right there!
I personally don't find Keyleth/ Marisha reading so much into Percy's words as pure metagaming because Keyleth IS the sensitive one. She IS the one who worries. She was skeptical of Kima and now she's weary of Percy.
To me, even tho a bit of it is metgaming [Marisha's experience with Matt as a DM and knowing a bit of Percy's history], it's all in character so it makes sense. 🤷♀️
Especially since she was so disturbed by Percy's "your soul is forfeit" kill last time that she dropped concentration.
Also being a 22 Wisdom Druid who is more insightful than Marisha herself is, this make sense as something for Keyleth to put together. It's like playing a high Intelligence character and knowing more facts than you the player know, the inverse of which being Grog, a player playing a character as dumber than they themself are.
In those instances where we play characters that are either more intelligent or insightful than we are I think a little meta gaming is necessary.
In what world is "your soul is forfeit" more alarming than "DIE DIE DIE" as he's continuing to waste valuable and rare resources on an already dead target? It has been established by that point that each and every shot takes a lot of time and effort to make, utilizing a material that's hard to obtain. And he wastes 4-5 of them in pure rage. Keyleth being the sensitive one doesn't explain her latching onto the least unusual part of what Percy did.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 umm, in a world where demons and devils and the fae are real, who will absolutely steal your soul - which is ALSO real, and a necessary thing to be considered truly alive. DIE DIE DIE is someone in a rage. An intelligent person like Percy using that language is very specific. You also have to remember that Vox Machina live together. They are with each other all the time. They know each other very well. Percy went from controlled, restrained, aloof, and basically a background character with a gun to what is by your own admission at least blind with rage to the point of wasting valuable resources ensuring someone's death is as painful as possible in the moment. I don't think you need a 22 Wisdom and proficiency in Insight to see that happen and want to make sure your friend is alright.
On "Your soul is forfeit!", it seems like a legitimate doubt to think Percy is implying something greater: The guy is a scientist, at best a fatalist. Not the kind of guy to put metaphysical flair on an execution. "Your life is forfeit" would be in line for Percival, but talking about soul? And in a way that sounds like he's cursing the person? That's suspicious from that guy.
Exactly, also this is a fantasy world where souls are real they know they are. They know demons and devils can take souls. The whole line was a very good thing to be a hey we should watch this.
Also the fact that I'm pretty sure that was the first time he said something like that.
@@crazyscotsman9327really good point, and they probably know that it’s a thing to buy and sell souls, as well
@@R0B0T_J0NES61 At least in the stream ya. Maybe he might have said stuff like it off but I doubt it.
i'm a little late but complaining about Marisha metagaming at that moment makes no sense because she _literally lost her concentration_ and gave up her round of combat to just stare at Percy in shock among hearing him say "your soul is forfeit"
Big agree. Keyleth is also played by Marisha as the most empathetic of Vox Machina, so it makes sense that she knows something is up immediately.
Yeah that’s a really dark thing to say, even for Percy who can be pretty cold sometimes. It’s not unbelievable for someone like Keyleth who’s known him for a long time and is very good at reading people to suspect that something’s up. If she said “I think Percy is possessed by a demon” that would be meta gaming, but she didn’t she just has alarm bells going off in her head that something isn’t right which makes sense for her character.
Just because you narrate your metagaming does not negate the metagaming.
@@user-je2lv3sf3sso your saying when your normally calm friend is pointing a gun a someone and saying their sould is forfeit and your in a magical world your saying you wouldnt think anything wierd is happening
@@user-je2lv3sf3s ah yes the high wisdom druid with a high insight, whom has been with this person who is normally calm and collected, hears and watches that same friend yell out in a world where souls matter "your soul is forfeit die die" while shooting the full chamber of his gun and still pulling the trigger while the gun is broken would totally not notice something is off. i cant read the room for the life of me and even my dumbass could notice something was wrong
38:45 it wasn’t mentioned in the video, but I loved how after they all made the deal Vax, who was hiding the entire time, literally over 30 minutes of real time, walked out of the nest from behind the Druid, just to let him know he was ready the whole time. Such a small moment and the deal was already done but just an example of “anime badassery” in DND
Yeah it was an excellent moment ! Thanks for reminding me of it. It felt badass without being too cheesy
Man, Orion and Tiberius is really in a different campaign at this point
By this point, they're practically playing a different *game* than the rest of the party. Like, he's playing Skyrim while everyone else is playing Dragon Age.
@@darknight910 thats a good analogy
Glad Oreo is here to help us get through Orion's nonsense, love your videos Mike.
I recognize a lot of Orion in other people I've played with, who maybe don't understand that the stuff you're trying to skip past is supposed to be part of the fun. He's trying to get Allura to fix their whole problem with the crown so they can go back to adventuring and the "fun stuff", whereas the rest of the crew seems to recognize that needing to prove yourself, to remain in good standing, and have a little bit of the political intrigue, a little bit of being good while still being a game where murder is seen as a "win" at times, is part of what they want in the game. They don't want do just skim past authority with a warning like a lot of groups, they want to be in good standing with the king, to be seen as protectors of the realm.
Notice how in season 1 of the animated show, there's a lot of playing up of the not-so-nice parts of the characters (Vex, Vax, and Scanlan's deserter mentality, Keyleth and Pike's insecurities, Grog's murder tendencies, Percy's tunnel vision when it comes to the Briarwoods) just to get them to a point where they grow into the characters we see them as, and so they can be not trusted by Uriel. If this group as-is were the ones in the animated show, I have no doubts that it would be a different story. Which is shown when they're allowed to go about the city vs being placed under house arrest. The actions are similar, but the flavor is different.
I also think Matt calls attention to the fight that killed Pike to remind the audience as much as the players, since we weren't there to see that part.
Excellent insight!
Time for my weekly lamentations that Tiberius, a *character* who I really liked and thought was a lot of fun on paper, was....played by orion.
This sums up my thoughts on him perfectly.
Interestingly, if you make the mistake of reading the twitch chat you can actually see the audience struggling with the shift into what the show is becoming. I remember this was the episode I started covering up the chat because I just couldn't take all the complaining that they were solving the Rok problem through roleplay rather than violence. In hindsight especially it seems even more ridiculous since the character moments are pretty much the main selling point of Critical Role, but even at the time it baffled me seeing people getting mad that they were talking through it rather than just throwing dice at the problem in just another fight. Maybe that's just me though, combat was always my least favourite part of the show.
Their audience had yet to shift from the hardcore D&D nerds (who were more into Orion's play style) to the live show fans who liked D&D (who gravitated to Marisha's and Liam's styles, that the rest of the cast preferred). The former group brought so much baggage into the fandom that took two campaigns to properly snuff out.
That's curious. My complaint about critical role is always that Matt seems to think he's obligated to get at least one fight into an episode. Maybe that's coming from these early complaints. He once talked with Brennan about that he got self-concious about eating on stream, because of early complaints and never did it again. Maybe with this it was the same.
Usually my brain just tunes out during the fights. Counting down numbers for an hour just isn't that interesting to me. I come for the roleplay.
There is a point where folks complaining about lack of combat does get to be too much.
That said there is just different ways to play the game. Some folks are all about the rp and others love making combat machines. Either is valid and depends on your group style. Truthfully I've never been comfortable with extensive roleplaying. I enjoyed pulling off crazy plans and close combats. When other folks want to do deep roleplaying I just kept my peace and made sure I was caught up on everything happening in the game. But if the game would just be endless combat I'd get bored with that as well.
Plus I enjoyed combats that moved the story along more than random encounters, guess I just kinda fall in the middle of the spectrum.
A tip for you. Never read twitch chat. Just don't do it. It's a toxic cesspool, no matter whose stream you're watching. It's the worst part of the youtube comment section, only emboldened by the fact that their nonsense will get swept away within seconds or minutes so they have no accountability in any form.
@@4203105 I noticed that the cast does indeed itch for a fight or at least an encounter pretty often. In C3 when they have rolled for encounters Liam especially would be sad if they rolled above a 5 (where a 5 or lower is an encounter bound to happen). Not just Liam of course, but he stood out to me most in one of the episodes. Thinking back on it, every time there was a sudden encounter with combat, everyone in the cast would react positively, some more than others. In character they would be sad of course, but it's one of the few times they break character and let themselves come out, especially Liam and Travis.
One thing though is when the cast plan for a bigger fight, then it seems like they dread the encounter, but that could just be them being too good at method acting. Overall and we can see from all of their playing over the years, this is a group that absolutely love combat and takes it very seriously. Which is probably why Matt would like to include a fight as much as possible.
The fact that "if someone says, 'stop touching me,' stop touching them" is a lesson adults still need to be taught is just....... 🤦♀️
As I watched this episode back when I was first starting CR, what I got from it was that Matt was pretty handily reining in what he saw as a slide down to murder-hobo-ville. MANY players were guilty of bad behavior, but only one of them refused to learn when presented with consequences. This moment (and other moments in the Briarwood arc where, spoiler free, Keyleth seems to be the only person who thinks about the consequences of careless decisions) is one of the reasons I actually really grew fond of Keyleth early on.
I suspect it's also one of the sources of Keyleth / Marisha dislike that was too common at the time. She holds up a mirror not only to the other PCs, but to all of us players as well.
This. Keyleth was quickly my fave and i couldnt tell why until i realized i grew up as the “Chuckie” (Rugrats) of the group, the “Should we realy be doing this?” one. It makes sense that wpuld rub some players the wrong way, no one likes to be reminded theyre making the wrong decision haha
I like Keyleth’s rant about pushing the Roc off on other people turns into Marisha ranting about how bad of an idea it is.
It's funny that especially early on Marisha has to be the voice of reason when now we know how much chaos she can do herself
i think it was unfortunately often necessary especially towards the end of Orion's time with critical role for people to break character to say "hey you're making the game less fun for me your irl friend"
i think it shows how at the end of their patience they all were with his bs
@@toshmagosh666 Yeah, that's basically what happened during the drunk Tiberius interactions, too. Her anger felt way too genuine the third time she told him to stop. It's the most uncomfortable I've been watching this campaign, individually worse than the multiple episode 27 incidents.
@@BrandonVout Knowing her personal history with sexual assault that she opened up about on individual interviews way back when, I can see why his touchy-feely attitude got her riled up.
While I generally don't like to further dogpile the guy, this episode does include 2 more areas of Orion not quite jelling with the group that Mike sort of skips over, each a problem for different reasons.
1) The scene where Vax offers Tibs a drink. Liam clearly intends this to be a bonding moment between the two as the two characters share a drink and a contemplative chat together, something Liam is quite fond of doing (i.e. Vax asking Scanlan how he stays so cheerful or any of the talks with Percy post Purvons tomb). Orion, instead, makes the scene all about Tiberius by drinking the whole flask and makes the scene a comedy bit about drunk Tibsy complaining about it lot. It always kind of stood out as a point where role-playwise Orion didn't seem to read scenes the same way the others often dead.
2) The scene with drunk Tiberius hugging a frustrated Keyleth is made more awkward by the fact that Orion is actually touching Marisha in that scene, so it's hard to tell how much is roleplay and how much is a frustrated Marisha actually getting annoyed with Orion . This could just be reading too much into the situation, but the scene for me is coloured too much by the fact that 1) Orion would later go on to make comments in game that clearly didn't fly with the cast (the infamous 'half-chub' line) and 2) orion would go on to be accused by ex-girlfriends to at least be emotionally abusive.
Yeah I agree, it is very unclear what the boundaries are in the touching situation, what is real and what is RP. If its purely RP then it is just Orion committing to the bit (though a bit that went on a bit too long), but if Marisha was genuinely not wanting to be touched then that's obviously an issue. I have a hard time believing it is the latter given how close the cast were, even with orion, but if it were me, I would have instantly paused and checked in when she first said it.
There is also the fact that " Drunk Tiberius" actually goes on for a while. He kept pushing the moment longer than it needed to be, making the cast uncomfortable. ( or they looked uncomfortable to me ) which is another factor in the infamous joke that occurs next episode
@@antheathetiefling8581 Orion never knew when to quit. He had so many great moments killed by dragging it on.
In this episode, my favorite moment is when Tiberius, in cow form, greeted a cow with his "I'm Tiberius Stormwind..." line, only for Matt to tell him he just looked like a cow so they couldn't understand him. Orion's reaction was perfect. Then, when Keyleth was actually talking with the cows, he kept interrupting her to ask her to tell the cows his name and where he's from. He knew he hit gold but didn't understand how to recreate it.
@@BrandonVout I think knowing when a bit has run its course is a rare skill, but Orion talks so damn much that we just notice him trying too hard all the more often.
I never really held the "half-chub" against him. I mean that's really harmless compared to Laura and Sam. I think it's just that there was a bunch of tension already and so a harmless joke was picked up in the worst possible way by the other players. It was certainly a good thing that he left the game, but I don't think he was as bad as a lot of people made him out to be. He just didn't gel with the rest of the cast.
I’m catching up on CR and just started the Chroma Conclave arc, and one of the biggest differences between how Orion played Tiberius versus how the rest of the table played their characters? If Orion found something “boring” he makes Tibs absent, while also demanding DM Attention and also forgetting his character wouldn’t be privy to information as a result. If Tibs can’t be in the limelight, Orion refused to be invested more often than not.
Meanwhile, everyone else is playing “Yes, And.” Matt brings in the Briarwoods? Tailsin plays up No Mercy Percy. Marissa plays up Keyleth’s perceptive nature to again follow that thread (especially since Ashley/Pike couldn’t be present as the other moral center for Vos Machina). The other players then played their characters as “it’s probably nothing…okay no, that was pretty bad. Let’s keep an eye on Percy.” It’s all working together following prompts the DM is placing while Also being stoked to see another player get to shine. IF it’s “metagaming” it isn’t done to “beat the dm” or upstage someone else.
Meanwhile… “Oh so everyone LOVES Trinket? I’m getting a pet and steamrolling through its training and roll before the DM can even react (and totally ignore that the DM’s drawing through his own experience as a bird owner for this.) Percy got attention blasting someone’s chest in? Well Tibs has a chainsaw, feel Sad Boi Hours for him too. Scanlan and Pike have one-sided flirtations? Well now Tibs is going to get an erection while Vex lectures him for murder (who cares it made Laura, Travis, and the rest of the table deeply uncomfortable.) Vex makes a Nat20 on a puzzle designed specifically for her character? Well now Tibs will ‘assist’ and undercut it entirely.”
Like…even without reading about some of the stunts Orion pulled away from the table, he wasn’t behaving like a player they could continue to play with.
"Tiberius hugs Keyleth". More accurately "Orion hugs (and paws at) Marisha". It's one thing to have a *character* touch another *character* without permission, it's a total other level to have a *player* do it to another *player* (and to seemingly decide to make his character get drunk *so* he can do it and blame it on 'roleplaying'). While there had been problems before, THIS was where I reached my 'WTF! They need to ask him to leave" point.
You can tell Matt, who was already dating marisha at the time, was not amused and trying to keep his composure.
yes!!!! there were more uncomfortable interactions too, i remember feeling tensed for Marisha all the time, i would be so stresed if guys felt like they could touch me all the time without asking, even friends
Rewatch the 2 hour 27minute mark. What you saw was a very good improvisational scene between between two very good actors. All of the cringe was between Keyleth and Tiberius, not between Marisha and Orion. There is a beat or two, the scene ends, and then Marisha starts laughing and smiles at Orion and the scene is over.
That is what most people miss when they point this out. As actors, they both likely really appreciated the strong choices they both made in that scene.
Keyleth is a high WIS, empathetic, overtly moral, often extreme character. If anyone is going to notice something off in her friends, and pursue it uncomfortably, it makes sense it's her. Especially with regard to Percy (before his later relationship). Not saying Marisha has never metagamed, but I think Keyleth's low CHA bumbling tricks us into thinking she has poor insight in general.
Edit: I see many people before me agree!
IK, it’s wild that people have criticized her for playing into being insightful when… insight *mechanically* falls under wisdom, her highest stat. Esp because I’ve heard of people criticizing her for not playing as high wisdom???
Not to imply this was something Orion was going for but there could've been something really compelling about a Tiberius "fall from grace" arc. Where his experiences at the beginning of the Briarwood Arc led into a humbling of the character. Suddenly his name doesn't mean all that much, friends start to call him out on his behavior, etc. If this happened, it would've been cool to see him overcome these struggles and be a better person because of it. Again, I don't think that's what Orion was going for, especially since his proposed side series seemed like "The Cool and Awesome Tiberius Show", but just a musing I had recalling the drunk Tibs scene.
In the old world if this went against his alignment then it would be up to the DM to prescribe a suitable "punishment" for his sin or be forced to change his alignment. Either way, if Ryan was truly their friend who was facing some personal demons, then they absolutely did him dirty. Who quits a longtime friend for facing issues? Just another example of why I believe this is a major business decision and the game itself is scripted, or at least the dialog is. I do believe the gameplay is real and that dice and decisions are being made but the long interactions between encounters are totally scripted.
@Jon Marshall i dont really think its a business decision, unless geek and sundry got involved. The critical role cast dont really have that sort of business savvy training to cover the situation up if it was especially so early in CRs history
Based on the fact we see orion and matt have deep talks in the background post the mlst problematic episodes, id gather that the communication problems mike mentions were taking a toll not only on the party and dm, but also on orions enjoyment of the game. I dont think its conincidence he leaves shortly after tiberius requests to draconia for help are declined. And orion did go on to make a radioplay of his own world after the show where he could have his own freedom. If anything i think the toll the show was taking on orion and his relationships with the game and cast lead me to believe the decision to leave was personal and mutual
As for him never coming back? Thats likely the more business side of things especially after his ex girlfriends spoke up.
Tiberius, the character, had a lot of potential. Too bad Orion was in a bad patch at the time.
@@tokenhol sure they do, they are set up as a business, they aren’t doing this for charity anymore but I believe thats partially how it started. They get paid, their production gets bigger, they are monetized on twitch and RUclips
@@aknar1999 Where they're at now doesn't, at all, apply to before when Orion was involved with the show. But, to clarify your points about his "hardships" the shit he had going on *never* validates abusive words and actions coming from the people going through those experiences. Said as someone whose dad has two kinds of cancer, grandma just received her second cancer diagnosis after having breast cancer several years ago, and I'm neurodivergent with arthritis since I was a child and a cardiovascular thing I'm trying to pin down a diagnosis for.
People who are going through hardship are granted *some* leeway for being in pain, but they should never lose accountability and be absolved of responsibility for the way their actions, behaviors, and words effect others.
If we're talking about Orion, the 27 episodes he was on the show were very clear in that he's being given a lot of leeway. They kept giving him chance after chance to adapt and adjust to the new system, to adjust to the game and the story they were trying to tell, they continually gave polite corrections and feedback, and it's completely okay for him to want a different gaming experience and have his own playstyle that differs from there.
What is not okay is for him to lie, hide information, get angry/defensive when called out and corrected for metagaming and breaking rules or gaming mechanics, and then absolve himself of all responsibility for his words and actions by saying "It was a joke" and "I didn't know" and "Well I had/have cancer."
You can be an asshole and have cancer. They are not mutually exclusive or inclusive. Considering he, during his radio show that you mentioned, stole money being donated for charity and used someone else's fund to buy himself a new mic etc. He's just an asshole who also had cancer. Considering his actions and words during his time on Critical Role and how he handled fans, he's a man who had a sour attitude when he got put in front of a camera, but also had cancer.
I have worked with so many people with cancer, who were the nicest people in spite of their pain because they could understand that it's not on anyone else to regulate their emotions or take responsibility for their actions and words. Patients who knew that they were still accountable for their behavior and attitude. That obviously isn't everyone, but *nothing* absolves someone of the consequences of their actions. Orion faced the consequences of his actions *after 27 attempts to give him grace for his hardships and grant him leeway*. He's just an asshole who also had "hardships."
Ah yes, Consequences And Cows, one of the best episodes of campaign 1 hidden inside one of the worst. Really good work calling out the good and the not so good with measured fairness.
If this episode is 41 minutes, I can't imagine how long the next one is going to be. Good Luck.
I didn't think that how Keyleth pointing out "your soul is forfeit" could be metagaming. In my perspective, Kiki and Percy are pretty close friends at this point and with that in mind along with Kiki being pretty adverse to extreme violence and on the more cautious side I personally saw it pretty within character and character knowledge to be like "something's wrong here" while the rest of the party (most of whom were involved in the brutal killing of the old woman and the rest being pretty okay with the level of violence so far) waving off something being seriously wrong in favor of it being another example of their recklessness especially since Percy appears relatively mild-mannered when not in No Mercy Percy mode. Also, as someone who likes that sort of RP and is in a game where the party does too, this sort of interaction where someone points out someone being not okay and everyone going "noooooo, they're fiiiiine!" is just a fun way to rack up the tension as a party member starts to lose it. That's just my opinion tho! I can definitely see how it could be considered metagaming.
After Percy goes "Oh, well I suppose I did let that slip didn't I?..." Keylith starts questioning him, clearly implying something more at play as well, and considering all other factors, she had every reason to question his behavior even further. She said she was so surprised she dropped concentration and spent an entire action just staring at him in shock. I don't even think she took an offensive action at all when that scene happened. Being the most sensitive and morally aware she's the only one that it even makes sense when asking who is the best person to suggest when pressing Percy about his actions.
So glad you're doing these. I know the next episode is bad...but also I'm kind of looking forward to the cringe. I am planning to literally pop popcorn for when I get to that episode.
When I watched through Campaign 1 in 2020, I really didn't like Orion. I was on episode 10 when I found out through google that he gets booted after e27 and it was just a hype train countdown for me. Knowing there was a milestone to when his BS would end made getting to e28 much easier. I wouldn't tell anyone to skip any episode- it all becomes clear how much better the party gels without him involved.
@@BaronVonDex As someone who liked Orion, I agree. There was a constant tension in the group towards the end that went unnoticed until it was gone. It's like feeling warmth for the first time and realizing you've been cold your entire life.
@@BrandonVout Or that you’ve been slow boiled and someone remembered to turn off the heat
Great video, Mike! Uriel dressing them down at the beginning of this episode was one of the hardest scenes for me to get through in C1, but it was definitely important. I’m remember thinking when Tiberius left for his own quarters during the party’s conversation back at the keep “there he goes again, off to do his own thing” and I could feel that didn’t vibe with the party, and I didn’t know anything about DND or good play behavior then. (Still don’t know a lot, but what I do know, I owe to Mike!) my point is I think it was obvious that there was some kind of disconnect in game play within the group. In regards to Keyleth’s “metagaming”, I would argue that with her high wisdom, she probably has a high passive perception/insight and would therefore have gotten more out of that soul line. Here’s looking at you, Cad.
Was this the episode where Orion tries, for the umpteenth time, to come in with his, "I am the danger and doom and destruction" spiel with Tiberius, for Uriel(Matt) to shut him down? If so that was my favorite part because it felt like a moment where Matt became more willing to take control of the table and not just let players get away with stuff.
I admire Matt so much for not going the easy route and instead actually making VM's actions, not only from the last night, come back to bite them. The start of this arc genuinely felt like their darkest hour for me. You also put my thoughts into words perfectly: it seemed a lot of the times VM decided to have a discussion about something important, or just engage in some roleplay, Orion simply removed Tiberius from the scene. Also the drunk Tiberius moment was so uncomfortable...but the flying cows are one of the most memorable moments of this show.
41 MINUTES?! Thank you for this one, Mike!
21:40 Subtle as it may be, Travis/Grog's reaction here is masterful :') Who are you and what did you do with Vex'Ahlia? (More seriously, that she was the first one to step up and tell them to keep the money was a power move that held much meaning.)
When the dragon of the group doesn't want your coin you know she's really trying to be nice.
Oreo DID NOT undercut dramatic narration. Oreo enhanced it. I have never been as glued to the screen as I was during your cohost's contribution.
I'm fairly certain Matt hadn't decided the roc encounter was a skill challenge until he could tell they were quite adamant to not fight this time.
As someone who knew nothing about the context "your soul is forfeit" immediately sounded off. Obviously some of that is the meta knowledge that it's most likely meaningful but frankly I can't imagine hearing that and thinking that it's normal.
I didn't have a problem with Keyleth picking up on the "your soul is forfeit" line, because I had the same reaction (and had pretty much forgotten the hints in Percy's backstory reel anyway). When he said that I remember perking up and going "Oooh, that could either be just a dramatic one-liner, or... something else is going on..."
Hope Oreo can return for the next demystified. Boy, I remembered this episode to be so fun and wholesome with the flying cows and half of it is about Tiberius getting so annoying (at this point I think I was getting so tired and angry of his behaviour).
This is a good channel. This is a good series. I like Mike.
My attitude as a GM historically has been to give my players lots of freedom, but to also state that actions have consequences. This has given me a reputation as a 'bloodthirsty GM', at least partly in jest, but sometimes my players where genuinely surprised when the undead chickens came back to roost.
All of these episodes have been great, but this one in particular has been super helpful for me with the current game I'm running. Finding a way to allow for player agency and fun with a party that would likely be pictured in the dictionary definition of "gray morality," while balancing consequences, has been my biggest learning curve as a new GM. I'm certainly not there to provide an ethics lecture for my players, but world-appropriate consequences are super important to me in order to make the world feel as real as possible.
The point you make at 19:11 about the difference between actions in a dungeon versus actions within civilized society were just what I needed to hear to make the last few gears click into place. Thank you!
I’m so glad!
I will add, if you do happen to watch ep 27 just know that after that episode the show becomes something different, for the better. It's the lowest the show goes, but after we get some of the best CR out there!
Yeah, I had to _force_ myself to watch it when I was bingeing the entire series a year ago. It was just... horrible. The real-life tension between the players was just so freaking awkward - I really felt like Travis was just like 'he goes or I do' at the end of it. I got the vibe Orion was like a disgruntled employee who'd been (justly) corrected behind the scenes, and was just acting up to the max to take out his frustrations. They absolutely had no choice but to remove him, and it couldn't have ended any other way, but it's definitely not something I enjoy watching.
Even if Percy is, undoubtedly, my favourite Critical role Character. Kyelith is for sure my 2d favourite VM character, if not Cr Character in general.
I never found a problem problem her, and find that the way you're walking about here here does her justice. I almost can't understand how other people don't see how good see is :)
She's doing some very important things for the group, and they ain't easy.
There's fringe bozos with weird or just dumb reasons to hate on Keyleth and/or Marisha, but as someone who just isn't a big fan of either, my reasons only go so far as Marisha having a very..."loud" style of play? That's not to say she's constantly yelling or anything like that, just that when she has a moment, it's often very domineered by her, however unintentionally, in a rougher way than the others handle scenes. I don't know if that gets my point across, but I will add that in C3, her choice to play a more relaxed character in Laudna seems to be helping mitigate that effect.
Also as an entirely personal, preferential thing, I don't like how Marisha's first two characters have voices that are just mild inflections on her own. I'm a voice actor, I like my funny or out-there voices. My brother is playing a robot rn and he ALWAYS talks with the breathe-in robot voice. It's glorious. So when I hear Jester Lavorre talk to Marisha's tough guy voice, it's disappointing. Again though, I'm well aware that that is very much a preference.
@@henrymartinvo So your problem is basically that she's a good actor.
Because your problems with Kyelith. Are on par with the kind of problems she wanted to RP as those characters xD.
I get it that it might not be for everyone, and I'm not judging or talking you down. Sorry if I come out that way. But she DID wa t to play a character that was so "clunky/loud" like Kyelith. She found fun in Rp-ing characters with such problems as those.
And I can only guess that she chose an easy voice to RP because she wanted to focus on her character instead of her voice.
And I'll say,that I didn't like Beu, but I get it that she wanted to role play her with as much skill as she could muster, and to really get into character
for an example, of someone less skilled at that. Non other than Teliesin. I get that he did do his best, and I did love Moly and Percy more than anyone else. But he clearly couldn't role play as Complex characters as Marisha. He focused on being parts of his own self, and found difficulty with RPing stuff that deviated from that. Like at the Library near the end, when he was like a kid in a toystore for a bit, but then realised that this wasn't for him and stopped. He also brakes character allot when on the table
On the contrary, Marisha is so in character that everyone on the Internet forgets aboutnmarisha and talks about her instead while in truth they should've been addressing Kyelith or Beu
I'm watching c1 for the first time and my only problem with Keyleth is the "Kima is evil" thing, otherwise I mostly agree with her, especially in this episode. coming from c2 and c3 it was quite surprising how early VM treats npcs and are being borderline murder hobos, but it's interesting to see Matt nudging them into taking things seriously and Marisha/Keyleth helping the transition.
I'd like to start out by saying that I don't have any issues with Marisha as a person. I respect her as an actor, and I have no problems with Keyleth as a character.
But I don't like Keyleth as a person. Meaning that, if I had to deal with Keyleth, I'd find her insufferable.
Honestly, I have the same feelings about Scanlan, and I think Sam's pretty fucking awesome.
To me, Keyleth shows what great friends they all are, how well they gel together, in addition to Marisha's talent as an actor.
Because god DAMN would Keyleth not fly at any table I've played at or DM'd for haha.
One of my favorite things about this series is being able to revisit this campaign after watching the second one, and after watching a bunch of oneshots.. and a couple Dimension20 campaigns.. and be able to more critically analyze what was going on, how I feel about moments, characters, etc. Vox Machina was my first foray into actual play, and basically my first foray into *theater*, so I didn't have the chops yet to construct and articulate my thoughts. Having this opportunity is such a gift.
Honestly I feel like it's made me appreciate the campaign even more so, which is crazy because I already loved Vox Machina
I love this! I feel the same way/have a similar relationship with Critical Role. It was my first “Live Game” to watch and really helped me conceptualise DnD and how everything would work in the playing.
SUPER rough to watch at times (definitely figured out what I DIDN’T want to do as much as what I wanted) but I also needed time and these vids to really express what I disliked/liked about the series!
Revisiting through Mike’s evenhanded analysis has been a lot of fun!
I wouldn't say this episode is peak Problem Player Keyleth. Her efforts and methods are more tempered and justified. Maybe there should have been an Insight, Perception, or Investigation check on her character's part.
This episode is unequivocally peak Problem Player Tiberius. The lack of acknowledging consequences, the power gaming of the Background features, inability to read the table for increasingly tart jokes, the appearance of not paying attention to exchanges of that session.
I will say the group evolved their playstyle, these few sessions playing a big role in the shift. Whatever happened outside of games probably didn't help a lot of the change in demeanor to be a smooth transition, and it's not like all the underlying problems disappear with a single player removed from the group.
Some people talk about Problem Players like they're an unquenchable force of nature that can't be bargained with, but they are just people too. In a vacuum it can look like Tiberius as a character is getting saddled with all the sins of a problematic group of adventurers. And if it hadn't been for outside drama piled on top the adult thing would have been to talk it out. Most won't see themselves as being the problem, and just feel personally attacked, possibly even justifying in their mind their antisocial behavior.
What Problem behaviors is more egregious in game largely depends on the group, some value immersion, balance, and not cutting in line. Others value respect, humility, and creating a safe space.
Session Zeros get talked about in advice as a way to avoid miss aligned expectations for your game. There's even a term for revisiting these expectations as a group to address a change in direction for one reason or another. I imagine Critical Role did one when they swapped from Pathfinder to 5e. If they didn't meet up to do that, you can tell who did their homework, and who was still playing from the seat of their pants, most of the group was halfway in between. They wanted to share their experience via live streaming, and were aware not all their past shenanigans were gonna fly in the detail they had been used to up to now. Twitch ToS been a predictable hot mess over the past several years.
Where before you had a table of friends with differing levels of intoxication, now you have a business, and your at a table with coworkers that require your active respect. This Corporatization of a beloved hobby has and will be an issue for many fans and players, and not every change will work for everyone.
We can only really reflect, and make decisions for our own groups and games, but it takes the whole table to make gambling with character sheets a worthwhile story.
Mike, what you are doing on this channel is excellent. I actually just binged your last ten episodes of this CR series. I know its a lot of work but I will say having the clips is a huge help for us viewers. I have no interest in watching the first season. I finished season 2 and am in the middle of 3. I am watching the animated series, and I am interested in the story of Vox Machina. So this series is perfect. I need to figure out the best way for me to throw a little support your way. But I wanted to extend my gratitude.
Thank you so much, David!
I just wanna say I know next episode is rough but I’m glad you’ll walk us through it
The background features as a concept are a nice idea. but worfully ill-thought out in practice. They vary from the occaisonally useful, to the merely flavourful, to the potentially game breaking - and vary depending on DM interpretation, too. It would make more sense to give every character a 'favoured milieu' or similar, where they get some sort of advantage to social interactions because they are familiar with it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the concept of a specialized feat tied to background, it was just the inconsistent execution that was an issue. Each Background just needs a thing they can do to solve a minor problem, that usually sets a PC or party up for more play. Both of the ones mentioned are perfect, they're broad enough to be applicable to a bunch of situations, helpful at directing the party towards some kind of encounter, but not so powerful they totally solve the issues that might arise. They frankly needed to be the standard by which the others were judged.
Great idea adding a cute furry co-host, it makes what is already a good channel even better! :D
I didn’t realize there was a dog and was very confused
Yeah, and that furry co-host really complements Oreo's insights.
@@SenorVilla I really should have seen that coming
Everything you said about Keyleth is exactly why I love her so much and why she’s crucial to the party. Keyleth is desperately trying to learn to be a good leader and doesn’t always know what that looks like but she tries to hard to do what she thinks is right. In a party like Vox Machina, who were pretty morally grey at this point, that’s so hard to do but without her I don’t think they would have become actual heroes.
It sucks that the audience at the time only saw her as a self righteous buzzkill when she was trying to convince the party to do the right thing. Marisha said that Keyleth didn’t really become a leader until the Kraken fight but I think the Briarwood arc is when she starts gaining that confidence. One of my favorite Keyleth moments is later on in the arc when she’s the only one willing to risk her life to save civilians. It’s so hard to be the only voice of reason in a group but she never stopped fighting for what she thought was right.
To be fair, Position of Privelege is a super weird feature in general. It's taking something that's inherent in storytelling and roleplay (status) and codifying it.
If you apply the idea that "if you didn't take the noble feature, you can't get this benefit" to other background features you running into weird things like "No, you can't offer to work on a ship in return for passage, only sailors can do that." or "No, you don't know what library might have that information - that's part of the Sage background feature that you don't have."
That's not to defend Orion trying to game the system as much as possible, which he definitely did, but I think background features should be considered a little "You don't need to do a check for this" benefit, rather than abilities that are unlocked by taking that background.
To be fair I think Tiberious being like I am a Stormwind in Uriel's Court is laughable. Wtf dude you are speaking to the leader of a kingdom or empire that spans a continent. Your people have a single city (I think could be wrong never was sure). On the other side of the world. You throwing your name around really means nothing to this guy.
But I do agree with you, having a Noble Background should make you better able to persuade and convince people of Noble backgrounds and intimidate the lower classes with your name. But the way I run it is very simple. How important are you and your line? Are you the child of a guy like Tywin Lannister? Or are you the child of a dude like Walder Frey or some other random low lord? That changes things. Are you on the other side of the world from your homeland and family? Or are you in the same country. All of those things should be accounted for by both the PC and the DM.
Realistically, no you shouldn't be able to offer to work on a ship in return for passage. Not even as a sailor, though I'd imagine that would make it easier to persuade them to let you on board. And realistically, even a person who is very familiar with researching things wouldn't know exactly which libraries have the tomes they're looking for, even if they did magically happen to know every single book in existence. The researcher might know how to find out where to go to seek that knowledge, but that's almost certainly the extent of it.
I disagree with your assertion, and the examples you use to justify your assertion do not make sense at all.
I mean, no, you can’t offer work in exchange for passage unless you’re a sailor, what work would you offer? You can’t help the crew you’d just be in the way because you’re not a sailor. Researcher is harder to define but still you can’t simply wander into a library and suddenly know all the information you need of you have no frame of reference or past experience to help you navigate all that raw information.
The dog flip at 26:33 got to me lol.
Something i love about this show, are the little tidbits about your personal life we get to learn about you. About how recording audio in your old place was awful, about the move. Your job situation, and your new pet. You're a likeable guy. And i like the way you pitch becoming a Patreon supporter too. As soon as im able im definitely going to become a supporter. We need this to be a weekly series of we ever want to catch up 🤣
I’m so happy to see the growth of this channel. I’ve become more of a philosopher than a dm now thanks to this channel (in the best way possible).
Your dog reminds me so much of my dog. I'm getting teary eye. I miss him.
Honestly in the context of CR the complaints about meta-gaming always annoy me far more than any time they've actually meta-gamed. Predominantly because I feel like the cast not infrequently go so far out of their way to avoid even the appearance of meta-gaming they end up making their characters either incredibly oblivious and/or incredibly dumb. A big VM example is Vax's talk with the Raven queen where Liam biffs dropping the one piece of information Matt wanted him to say, he didn't say it entirely because he could not remember if it was information Liam had learned out of game, information chat had given him, or information Vax would have. Vax should have known it, but Liam stumbled dancing around saying it just to avoid the internet potentially yelling at him for "meta-gaming". There are many other times things like this happen as well and for me at least it's always more frustrating than if they'd just do what they were going to do.
For Keyleth, I genuinely loved moments like in this episode. It's very similar to the Sunken Tomb where Keyleth has a feeling of concern and unease after the ritual and places her hand on Vax's back to see if anything felt different or wrong. A moment of completely believable intuition from a deeply empathetic character that serves as also a great little character beat for her.
It’s funny cuz if you’re referring to the one after Vax gets disintegrated I saw a comment saying Matt shouldn’t have had the RQ let Vax come back because Liam was doing the very thing you mentioned and not answering “properly”. Or something to that effect anyway.
Didn't Liam say that one was because he knew a lot about Vecna and the Raven, that they are eternal enemies, and thus throught she should already know that he was trying to become a god? I think that is actually an example of (unintentionally) meta gaming and not one where he tried to avoid it.
@@Boundwithflame23 Well he wasn't answering "properly". The only reason the raven queen would have had to give him extra life was if she knew that Vecna was trying to become a god and she never got that information. Vex telling her wouldn't have been metagaming as the character knew this. It actually was a case of metagaming that Liam didn't tell her, since he thought she must already know, because of the prior knowledge he had about her from other D&D campaigns.
@@4203105 I only vaguely recall the comment’s wording but it was sorta along the lines of “Liam didn’t answer the way _I_ would expect him to do if he were a player of mine so Matt should have done what I would have done which was to say ‘too bad so sad; roll a new character’”
Leaning also into criticizing Matt for doing things differently and portraying the RQ as being more compassionate towards her champion.
Metagaming wasn’t even brought up iirc. It was just “different bad” which is a common criticism I’ve seen of CR in general
Huh. I'd never have pegged you as the type to pick a curly white dog as your familiar, Mike, but here we are. I enjoy your content very much, thank you! And all my best wishes to you for...The Next Episode. (Dun dun dunnnnnn)
Woah, I didn't notice how long this video was! It flowed so well and all felt interesting and meaningful. Great job. I love this series so much.
“We’ll talk more about Tiberius’ errands in the next episode.” …if you know, you know.
Keyleth is 100% valid throughout the events being recapped, it sucks that people were apparently jerks about it
Here comes the dreaded Episode 27
I don't know if I should be excited or terrified these next 2 weeks
I discovered your channel shortly after I started watching Critical Role for the first time, and have been having a lot of fun watching your commentary as I go along. As of this one, my CR watching has caught up to your videos! Thanks for the interesting insights on the stream.
Thank you so much!
Brace yourself, episode 27 is coming.
Real Talk: I’ve permanently blacklisted 26 and 27. Because it’s too much of a mood whiplash AND because it’s the bottom of the barrel, respectively. So much so it actually made writing a fic of mine all the more difficult because I wanted to have it to where Keyleth and Vax reconcile after his VERY STUPID comment about the child, seeing as they’re back on friendly terms from Episode 28 onward.
I did manage to write it, thankfully, and it’s one of my favorite stories that I’ve done, appropriately titled “Mending Bridges”.
Also, I should point out that this episode was one of many turning points for whether Keyleth would either multiclass into barbarian, thus straying further from her path… or just leave Vox Machina altogether. There are crossroads like that which we aren’t fully made aware of until the Campaign Wrap-Up.
Been looking forward to this series all week! Love these episodes
I genuinely can't wait until you get to the episode with the counter spell (9) (wish). I haven't seen a great breakdown of just how profound that moment is, and I've looked. They try but I like your delivery and breakdown of character, I think hearing you break down the real life implications of that moment will be fascinating
It wasn't an "old woman" it was a bandit/assassin that was going to kill them.
The bandit in this case happened to be elderly and female.
That’s certainly the party’s argument
She was, however, also disarmed, fleeing and almost 100% not a threat
@@9012FerdinandNot to get political, but Vox Machina went full American Cops in that moment and frankly I appreciate that they live in a world where that shit doesn't fly.
In Tiberius defence, the whole party were loudly saying that she was evil, that she attacked first and that she needed to die. I don't get why everyone is piling up on Orion for doing what anyone would do against the old lady. This is dumb.
these are always so interesting and entertaining. Wish I was still catching up with the backlog.
Knocked it out of the park again, dude! Thx. Especially for injection morals and (Alignment!) into the game.
I can't say that I've seen the show but I definitely enjoy your summaries and analysis.
Something I really wanted to mention because the thought occured to me. I want to clarify that I don't think this is what Orion was going for, however...
I was really hoping that SupergeekMike would mention during the scenes of Tiberius "flexing" his "station". I agree completely, as a DM, that it definitely felt like he was trying to have two features. But for those trying to learn to roleplay. I just wanted to point out that in the hands of a empathetic and thoughtful roleplayers, his approach could actually be quite good. Trying to use your perceived privilege and station to no effect can be a good story beat for his character. Part of Tiberius' background (proof: the BG reads early campaign) is supposed to be that he is a bit of an outcast in his own society. That he "technically" has the station but hasn't even earned it in his own society. Him playing up that belief he deserves it makes perfect sense for the character that clearly should have that journey based on their background. It could have been done well.
The issue at hand with Orion, I believe, is that the player did not seem to either want this storyline; or, did not realize this story beat had become opportune. That could be solved with some discussion outside the game between that player and DM so they can both tell that story together.
Similarly, I think having the one "stuck in his ways" character actually makes for a good addition to the morality themes that will grow far more prevalent throughout this campaign. It gives the other side of the coin from Keyleth in these scenes. I would even argue it could have been even more interesting considering Tiberius and Keyleth were depicted as having a close relationship. Having them be polar opposites in the issue would have been compelling if done well by both players.
But as SupergeekMike has said a few times now, it was clear that Orion did not want to play this style of D&D as this went on. And that is okay. Everyone plays the game for their own reasons.
I am in no way excusing any behavior of Orion. Just wanted to share some fruit for thought for anyone who wants to tell a "Redemption" story or a "Proving your worth" storyline.
Huh. Realized in my own closing thoughts... Keyleth and Tiberius are both telling the "Proving your worth" story in very different ways. One more morally questionable than the other. Probably explains the reason those two were so close early campaign. Neat.
Sorry for the wall of text!
I've watched the cartoon's first two seasons (the only two released at the moment when I'm typing those words) before I started watching the actual play, and I always watch tose videos right after I finnish an episode. I think it's the perfect episode to talk about something that I've been thinking a lot about for some time: It always surprises me to see so many old fans say they didn't like Keyleth much in the actual play but love her in the tv-series, because I have almost the opposite experience. When I see Marisha play her as a ttrpg character, I can't help but feel like the animated version has been defanged and looks far younger (if not childlike), inexperienced (despite technically being as experienced as everyone else in her team) and less self confident or talkative. Obviously everyone can like or dislike either version of the character (or both) for very different reasons, it just keeps amusing and surprising me to see people talking about an experience that is opposite to mine.
I kind of wonder if they nerfed her a bit more in the show because she's really a powerful druid. I'm not sure how to phrase it but like, the show works within DND rules but also doesn't as it has to move more quickly. I understand them needing to do something to reel her in so casual fans (who don't know DND or critical role) don't go "WELL WHY DOESN"T SHE JUST MAKE A HUGE BLIZZARD AGAIN" or whatever. I do agree they did nerf her personality a bit too much. Maybe they've planned it with the future episodes of the TV show, or to match any character growth she has within the campaign itself so it's paced well (I haven't finished it either). Guess we will have to wait and see!
IIRC, one of the arguments made in the confrontation with Uriel was that he had been mind controlled once himself, already, as a plea to hear them out on the possibility. I don't know if Matt's reminders about that whole ordeal prompted it, but it feels worth mentioning.
I found your channel because of critical role content like this but I stuck around for everything else you've put out. Keep up the good work :)
Thank you so much!
The gnome druid really irked me the first time i watched this episode. Namely just i thought that their logic was incredibly circular. They were allowed to travel all across the continent looking for the best place to settle. All so this Rok could move to a place without predators. The Rok's ecosystem was destroyed and the solution is to ruin all these other ecosystems by introducing a new apex that doesn't belong?
It is all summed up with the idea that they think its moral to protect the Rok but doesnt understand why farmers would want to protect their cows. The farmers have adopted to the surrounding ecosystem, live in accordance with it. The Gnome destroyed it.
I have rarely read a comment so horribly wrong in my life. Farmers do not live in accordance with the ecosystem. They DESTROY it to make it work for them. Those open fields had trees, had ecosystems that existed in them. Farmers clear-cut the clan to have more grass for their animals. So no the Roc's kind were likely in the area FAR longer than the humans had been there. Likely those farms had encroached on ITS and its parent's hunting grounds by the farmers clear cutting the forest and driving out the other animals the Roc would have hunted.
In our real world we have people burning down and cutting down the Amazon rainforest to make more land for FARMERS to have cattle and other livestock. Is that them "Living in accordance with the ecosystem" no its not.
Never clicked so fast, I love these!
Brennan Lee Mulligan has an anecdote from when he worked at LARP camps where characters would die and the player would say something like "Oh, no one ever discovered such-and-such secret about my character." They cared so much about saving it for a big dramatic reveal that it never got addressed.
It's one thing to keep interpersonal secrets (as in, secrets between two or more players) relatively private, but *personal* secrets fundamentally define the person and inform their words and actions. If you're a cleric of Orcus, you probably don't go around telling people that, but it should be obvious that whatever god you serve is evil. Personal secrets should be less a fly on the wall and more an elephant in the room; a situation the people around you choose to ignore until it inevitably boils over.
I thought that was the point of Tiberious is that he is a noble but him using his position doesn't always work
The trouble is, it doesn't seem like Orion is in on the joke.
The best example is in the next episode, where Orion tries to call in a huge favor from his father. If he was trying to play the character as too arrogant and due for some comeuppance, he would do that fully expecting it to not work. Instead, he gets genuinely annoyed at Matt when Tiberius' father shoots the idea down. That tells me that he wasn't trying to portray a flawed character, he was just powergaming.
I need the next episode like.... NOW. Telling me not to watch it doesn't make me NOT want to watch it, Mike.
Regarding the background combination, I feel like how I'd handle it would be: if someone wanted the flavor of Noble but the feature of Scholar, they'd come from a disgraced or fallen noble family. That way there's no way the Position of Privilege feature would work, and in fact it'd have the opposite effect if they tried to use it. (Also, restoring the family name or uncovering their secrets could be a fun plot hook)
Also thinking about the world logically, I don't think it makes sense for Tiberius' standing in Draconia to have any influence in Emon or Kraghammer anyway. They're on a different continent, and Draconia is a floating city distanced from the rest of the world's politics. To them he's just a silly upper class guy who likes saying his name. (This is in fact my favourite aspect of Tiberius as a character and makes me wish he had a better player)
The Orion situation was so stressful for me as a viewer that I took a long break from the campaign directly after it all blew up…
But this situation was a great “your actions have consequences” with the whole brutal murder situation.
What I like the most about the Roc encounter is that it's a perfect example on how not every encounter with a monster needs to end in violence. That's something a lot of players seem to forget is an option. Also, it's a great way for DMs to bring in strong monster that the players really shouldn't fight by making the objective something different than combat.
I know a lot people don't like the level-headed one in fiction because they try to "stop the fun exciting things from happening". It's the same phenomenon that they see in various movies and shows where you have a person, most often a woman, being reasonable and logical and trying to put the train back on the tracks get a ton of hate for doing what a logical person would actually do in that situation. Like in Breaking Bad, people hated Skylar because how dare she want Walt to stop, but honestly, if anyone was in that situation, they would do the same (at least I hope). Keyleth's arc is about finding out what kind of leader she wants to be. She's been thrown out into the big strange world to have these experiences and actually ask these questions! If she never asked these questions, I would never believe her as being an effective Voice of the Tempest. She needs to able to question why Percy, a man that doesn't put his faith in gods, says something like "Your soul is forfeit". Not your life, your soul! Something specifically connected to faith and gods and the ethereal. Things that Percy "has no interest in". That's a red flag so I never thought of that as meta-gaming because it just fits. I found it strange that he said that. It's not a leap to have her, a caring empathetic person who's been around this guy to ask him wtf is going on because clearly something is very very wrong. Also, she needs to know why someone would be that brutal and that angry and that single-minded. Being an effective leader depends on her learning these lessons and getting them right! Personally, I always hated Tiberius's "But I'm a Stormwind so the rules don't apply to me" attitude. It grated on me hard. This whole situation with the old woman just pushed me over the edge with the character as a whole, especially given that the same argument could be applied to Pike and her death. The enemy could use the same excuse. "She tried to kill us so who would expect us to let her go". Alignment doesn't factor into it. The situation has been reduced to survival and if the idea is "gotta get them before they get me", well, the enemy can then use that excuse too and then what. My philosophy is, if you want to be the hero, act like it. If you're self absorbed and rude, people aren't going to like you and won't want to do stuff for you, no matter what you do, and eventually, some real heroes will show up to put a stop to your tyranny.
On the brutality and the difficulty of toning it down, I've seen in multiple games that when you get to initiative, most players get into, let's say "First Person Shooter" mode, where it's hard to realize what you're doing, how you're doing it and how brutal it is until the dust settles.
(per example, using a fireball to clear a group of bandits is perfectly fine as a defence standpoint... But if the group is playing a band of non-murderous optimists, the realization that there was an explosion and now all the bandits are decorating the nearby trees or at least were violently rendered unconscious in a round... That can cause whiplash to the players and GMs alike.)
And I think one of the reasons it's so hard to do "non-lethal" combat is that it's much easier to say "swing, hit, wound." After all a lethal attack is assumed to be the normal way and for a non-lethal you have to call it every time. But also, it seems many GMs just... don't explain or refresh the group on the ability of doing non-lethal attacks (WHEN it's a thing, many systems just don't have the option.)
Also, give mages goddamn non-lethal attack spells. It's so frustrating to me that in DnD and such you have the choice between crowd-control that is very limited, attack spells that hurt bad, or even duration AoE spells that will kill the baddie that had the bad taste of falling unconscious in the zone. I mean Force damage spells could have been an always-nonlethal damage type.
Sleep, Hold Person, Calm Emotions... There are absolutely mage spells that have the option of non-lethality in a violent encounter in mind. Or you can do something like Dimension Door yourself and friends away, or turn Invisible and hide. Blindness/Deafness is a good one, Cause Fear. Mages have tons of ways to end a battle or potential battle without doing a single point of damage
For as much as I agree about not trying to use skills that are strong for skill checks, it can force creativity at times. For example, my druid was just in a skill check where I used survival to look for the best footing in difficult terrain for my action. Not a typically used skill, but I had to get creative.
You make a point about Marisha being the conscience of the group, which is something I hadn't noticed before. I think this is a point where she really starts to get to the truth of her character; earlier, she has moments with NPCs (most infamously, her distrust of Kima) which seem like an improv actor's attempt to explore conflict for its own sake, and they don't ring true like this does.
This episode was the "calm" in the eye of the storm before shit hits the fan next episode for a variety of different reasons and looking into it and seeing where the signs of what was to come already showing makes what happens next all the more... chaotic.
Thanks. I was waiting for the next video on the series. Great video.
When I present my players with a skill challenge, many times I have them describe what their character does to get through it, but I determine what skill is rolled. It forces my players to be clear in their description and engage with what’s going on if they want to get the skill check they’re best at. It winds up being a lot of fun for them.
A good solution.
An awkward episode, and its synopsis is made far better with a cute doggie!!😁 Congrats, she is adorable!
Thank you!
You just so happened to upload at the exact same moment as the official Critical Role Account.
Lol great minds think alike!
Obviously talk to your DM, but making custom backgrounds is in the PHB
Oh boy. So ready for Episode 27.
I quit hard after that one 😂 and then came back a few months later…
The “Welcome to Critical Role Demystified” intro near the beginning of the view suddenly inspired an Animaniacs-like chant in my head:
“Wheel of Criticality, turn turn turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn.”
Looking forward to 27. I stopped watching c1 after around session 15. I was too conscious of what was going to happen with Orion and it made me uncomfortable -- but at the same time i didn't want to move forward without the interstitial episodes.
Maybe after your analysis I'll be able to start fresh on session 28 with a light heart and hope in my eyes
In relation to the Flying Cows, I like to imagine they look like PNGs.
Since they transform into flying creatures under the guise of cows, I don't believe they have "flying cow animations"
I've run a social skill challenge before and I thought it worked well; at least for my table. I set a high/low bracket and a number of checks (I think it was 25 and 5 and 5 checks, or something like that). The PCs would then run dialogue. At certain points, a DC would be set and they would either need to make a Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion check depending on what they were trying to do. The difference between the DC and what they rolled was added up. When the total reached 25, the skill check was successful. If the total hit the bottom of the bracket, they failed. If they reached the number of checks without succeeding or failing, a middle-ground result would be determined based on how they fared on the overall total.
It required some math, but they thoroughly enjoyed the tension of it, and it was fun to roleplay somewhat drastic mood swings based on their roles lol.
Wow what a long episode! Stoked!
I never got the “shooting the messenger” reference until now…
Best doggo
Matt's skill challenges do often lead to people working backwards from their best skills. One option in conversation is to narrate the NPC changing their expression or attitude to be more interested or open on a success, or getting irritated or folding their arms on a failure.
I like all of your points about tyberious.
You're right, and I like your way idea thinking.
This video has helped me.
I also needed to comment something and this awkward, and also true/heartfelt comment fits the bill 😅
I'm so glad it helped :)