The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 - Critical Role Origin Moments Reaction
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2023
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0:46 - Where does your strength come from?
3:49 - Grog grows a beard
20:43 - The Sunken Tomb moment
22:30 - Take me instead
26:53 - Pass through fire
30:26 - Garmelie
34:39 - Trinket talks
37:38 - Baroness of Whitestone
40:30 - The Kevdak fight conclusion
44:39 - Kaylie
48:08 - Belly of the Beast
51:40 - Raishan
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0:46 - Where does your strength come from?
3:49 - Grog grows a beard
20:43 - The Sunken Tomb moment
22:30 - Take me instead
26:53 - Pass through fire
30:26 - Garmelie
34:39 - Trinket talks
37:38 - Baroness of Whitestone
40:30 - The Kevdak fight conclusion
44:39 - Kaylie
48:08 - Belly of the Beast
51:40 - Raishan
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One of the running jokes in Critical Role is Sam making fun of the Dallas Cowboys just to spite Travis.
As soon as I read this comment I looked up said running gag and found the hilarious DnD Beyond 9 ad.
Vax and Grog had the most EPIC prank wars until episode 109, at which point they joined forces to prank someone else
A part of me would LOVE to see that animated, but I'm sure it will be cut for time.
omg, I can't _wait_ to see that particular prank animated😂😂
@@OzgarthefighterIf we don't get Dalen's Closet animated, I will cry: I never laughed at anything so hard in my LIFE!
@melissanotthewebsbusiness7272 I'm worried it's going to get cut but I would LOVE to see that whole debacle brought to life!
@@melissanotthewebsbusiness7272if the Percy bathtub scene gets cut I will actually riot, that shit’s some of the funniest DND improv I’ve seen in my entire life
Yes,before Covid they periodically did live shows at cons and the like. They often dressed up for the live shows with Sam usually being somewhere between eccentric and outlandish. There was a great moment in one of the Mighty Nein live shows where the whole audience sang the theme song.
The Baroness of Whitestone was done live, on stage, for a theater full of dedicated Critters.
Sam's (Scanlan) monologue with Kaylie is still one of my favorites, it's crazy to me how someone can just improvise something like that out of nowhere lmao
One thing I have learned over the years of watching Critical Role is never ever think Sam Reigel will be unable to do a monologue. He is able to absolutely make you cry at the drop of a hat - so so good.
I never doubt Sam. Sam is amazing at improving and coming up with things
Taliesin (as Percy, re: Grog's baby beard): "Like a fourteen-year-old whose father doesn't love him enough to teach him how to groom himself."
Sam: That's dark.
Laura: Percy's seen some shit.
Still love this bit.
Especially since this was during the Trial of the Take arc, which was a good bit before any of Percy's dark shit started rearing its head.
I wouldve asked Percy, "Is that when the Briarwoods murdered your family? At 14, with grooming problems?"
It was so surprising to see even a reference to Vax's shaving prank in the animated show. Remember the fight with the fish people in the Matron of Ravens' temple? Do. Not. Touch. THE BEARD!
In many cases, it comes right out of Matt’s head. Not always, but a lot of the time.
The other cases it comes right out of his ass 😆
This needs to be a thing you guys do now, it's awesome to see your reactions to the live play. Especially if you end up reacting to the mighty nein show too!
Where they're from(mostly):
Liam(Vax) - New Jersey
Laura(Vex) - Dallas
Ashley(Pike) - Los Angeles
Travis(Grog) - Dallas (it's why he's a big Cowboys fan)
Taliesin(Percy) - Los Angeles
Marisha(Keyleth) - Kentucky
Sam(Scanlan) - Virginia, near Washington, DC
Matt - Palm Beach, Florida and LA
Related trivia bits:
Laura and Travis dated briefly in Dallas after they met as extras on a film shoot, but they didn't get serious until they separately moved to LA for their careers and reconnected. Ashley and Taliesin grew up in LA as they were both child actors. Sam used to claim he was a fan of the football team in Washington(now the Commanders), but that was just to rile Travis up. :)
I know Talesin only cause I saw this unusual name in the credits of 2010...he plays Roy Schieder's kid in it!
Talesin is also Kenny with the wooby in Mr. Mom.
in the game they never really split the party for the show splitting the party allowed them to get more events into the show and its easier to write for group of 3 to 4 characters then 7 characters.
also the moment with the twins dad was at their first live show so there was an audience
also it's a lot easier on the animators not to constantly have 7 main characters in every shot.
That end of the Kevdak fight was INSANE. Grog was absolutely at low enough health that he knew the drop was going to take him down to zero(you don't die immediately, you start making rolls to try and stabilize), so he knew this was an all or nothing proposition. And in the original campaign version of this fight, the Goliaths has a healer who was supporting Kevdak, making the fight even tougher.
Has no one sent you guysbthe entire Grog - Craven Edge saga? It's pretty epic and a ton of stuff that didn't make it into the show. Should check it out too. As a sidenote just an FYI but Travis and Laura are married irl and at this point Mercer and Marisha are dating but end up getting married.
39:55 In the watch party for the episode, the cast said that they didn't follow the scene 100%, because they wanted to give Vex a powerful moment of defying her father rather than have Percy take the spotlight in that scene. It was a way to concentrate Vex's growth into a small moment, since they had to compress a 4 hour session into a 30 minute-ish episode.
Love how of course, after Vex is brought back, Tal/Percy half collapses in relief.
Matt does a lot of preparation which we don't always see, but which allows him the freedom to improvise like the wizard that he is.
Those crowd moments come because they used to do live play in front of different conventions... they also did some pretty hilarious one shots at some as well. Unfortunately since the Pandemic they have not done any more.
If you noticed in the 'pass through fire' part, there was a random guy at the table. Scanlan never gave Vex the broom, she actually stole it from this guy's character since he was only gonna be there for one or two episodes haha
I had hoped they'd react to that scene...
Matt does occasionally prepare what he will say, but it's mostly for descriptions of big important places and such.
Dialogue is pretty much always improv, with maybe a few bulletpoints of the points he wants to bring across, or the information that particular NPC has.
You know I haven't seen any of the current Campaign except the first episode and have seen all of the second campaign but rewatching these clip from the first really make me remember how much fun they were all having in those early days.
they still have a lot of fun. they actually have so much fun in the current Campaign, people are mad at CR
"Oh they were there for this" Yeah, despite how the adaptation shows, outside of down time, the party rarely ever splits off as doing so would put them at much greater disadvantage for encounters. The show changed this so they can cover more of the campaign in less time.
Always great to see you do these
Travis Willingham isn’t just a Cowboys fan, he went to training camp to meet a few of the players. He’s a hardcore Cowboys fan
After just a few of these clips, it’s even more mind blowing that:
1) They made Grog/Travis the CEO of Critical Role, so he’s their face in business stuff
2) Sam and Travis are the main Executive Producers on LOVM. They all participate and have EP credit but the day to day work and deep planning with the studio are run by …Scanlan and Grog. Explains alot!
I wonder who was more flipping out, Travis, or any Cowboys who are Critters?
These are so funny, I hope you continue to do them for every season and show we might be lucky enough to get from Critical Role.
And yeah they sometimes have live shows - can't wait for you to see some of the later ones, the community and the shows just get bigger. The energy from the audience is amazing
I'm sad they didn't cover the black powder dealer, Matt's acting there was so good!
The thing I find so amazing about this is that creating a screenplay from a live-action role-playing game has never been done before. For any normal show, the writers will sit down and talk out how the plot will unfold, but in this case they already know. And I doubt that any production (except perhaps Tolkien's works) has such a rich selection of detail.
50:20 the moment Matthew realized a low magic item could break his whole dragon encounter.
So some of these clips lack a lot of the context. This comment is to help with that.
In the streamed campaign (C1), Vox Machina (VM) go to Vasselheim before the Briarwood arc and before the Chroma Conclave (CC) arc. Grog fights a fighting ring champion Kern twice. The 1st time he is defeated; the rematch Grog wins. After the win he sees Earthbreaker Groon (EG) leave after watching the rematch. Grog asks around about EG and learns that he is a respected figure.
Also during this 1st visit of Vasselheim, VM get caught killing a beast that the Slayer’s Take (ST) had a contract on. It is a crime to kill a beast that you personally didn’t have a contract for. Instead of taking this matter to the Vasselheim authorities, the ST put VM through a couple “Trials of the Take.” VM were split into 2 groups, had guests assist them, and were tasked w/ going after beasts. That is how VM met Kashaw and Zahra for the 1st time. During the Grog beard video montage, you can see Grog, Vex, Scanlan, and Percy with Zahra (played by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, who also voiced her character in the animated series (LOVM) and Lyra (played by Felicia Day).
The 1st time Grog & VM meet EG is just after the CC attack of Emon. VM go to the ST to see if they will help w/ the dragon problem. They cannot. But Kash and Zahra both join VM to help them find the nearby Vestige as friends, not adversaries. But before they head to the Sunken Tomb, VM accompany Grog to meet w/ EG. EG asks Grog to select 2 friends to fight alongside him. He picks Vox and Scanlan. EG does ask “where do you find your strength?” and eventually at the end of the fight Grog says “in my friends.” So in the adaptation to the animated series (LOVM), they decided to stretch out that realization that Grog has.
In the Sunken Tomb after Vex dies, Kash starts a Revivify spell. Do note that how they use Revivify and/or Resurrection spells (which are two different spells even though they sound like synonyms for each other) was still being fine tuned and tinkered with in C1. Matt had his own home-brew rules on resurrection magics. Either way, during the ritual, a visage of the Raven Queen (RQ) appeared before everyone and everyone was able to see her there. In LOVM, they adapted it so that only Vox saw the RQ.
In LOVM, Keyleth basically did an impromptu Aramente challenge at the Fire tribe as she helped close the portal to the Fire Plane. But in C1, Keyleth already had done her Aramente challenge at Pyrah way earlier. After VM succeeded in their Trials of the Take with the ST, VM accompanied Keyleth to Pyrah for her to do her fire tribe portion of her Aramente. During that test, they went into the Fire Plane and battled some beasts together. Also during that test, they all saw a huge red dragon flying overhead. They hid & the red dragon did not see them & flew away. The cast didn’t know at the time, but later found out that this was Thordak. Another great foreshadowing moment by Matt Mercer.
Besides the Trials of the Take, VM was never split. The split party thing in LOVM was mostly for animation reasons. Animating 7 characters in a scene is taxing. If you can split up the party & only have to animated 4 and 3 people respectively, then it is easier on the animators. In C1, VM didn’t venture into the Feywild until AFTER they defeated Umbrasyl, the black dragon. So all of VM were there. Also, the journey from Syngorn to the Echo Tree took 2 to 3 episodes to do in C1, so there’s a bunch of stuff cut out in the adaptation to LOVM.
As you found out, there was an audience during the scene where Percy bestows a title onto Vex. In fact, it was CR very 1st ever live show.
The Raishan reveal was a bit different in C1. There was an NPC called Seeker Assum who had the title of Master of Information. He was basically like the head spy for Sovereign Uriel in Tal’Dorei and Emon. Fun fact: he was there for the first fight w/ the Briarwoods in Emon after the feast. He was hiding in a closet next to the window that Vox jumped out of. After the CC attack on Emon, Gilmore told VM that he saw Seeker Assum live. Sometime later when VM moved their rebellion headquarters to Whitestone, Seeker Assum arrived in Whitestone to give a summary of the efforts in Emon. He told of the Clasp’s efforts to mount a rebellion in the city. All of this information was true, and Seeker Assum was alive. However, the bearer of this information was just in the disguised form of Seeker Assum. It was Raishan actually. She had been in Whitestone for some number of weeks, to scope things out, gather information, and learn about VM weaknesses. But really she was there to enlist VM to help her defeat Thordak. Keeper Yennan is an NPC in C1 but they weren’t that major of a character in C1 and also the character is male in the streamed campaign.
Laura Bailey (Vex) and Taliesin Jaffe (Percy) are not British. The entire cast are US citizens. Tal is from California, Laura & Travis are from Texas, Marisha is from Kentucky, Ashley was born in California and is basically a California girl but from 0 to 6 she spent time in Michigan. Liam is from New Jersey and Sam is from Northern Virginia. Matt is from Florida.
Laura who plays vex and Travis who plays grog are married in real life, which is why she was so defensive towards Travis when vax shaved grog’s beard.
The end of the Kevdak fight, all the members cheered wildly. Not only was it an awesome moment, but that whole episode of the live play was one gigantic fight. It was just as brutal at the table as it was in the TV show. So that was the end of a giant 4 hour battle. As soon as I saw the episode name "The Killbox", I knew it was gonna be stellar, because that is the name of the episode in the live-play as well. Loved watching y'alls reaction to this and the show! Cheers to season 3!
Also, you can see the early evolution in production even in the battle maps. Started with Matt doodling maps on graph paper; here we have some better drawings and even plastic buildings and such.
By campaign 3 they have custom made modular terrain with LEDs and smoke machines, custom painted minis. All the good stuff most of us never get!
40:20 The father was in the middle of some character growth regretting about how he treated his kids. He was in the middle stages where he recognized that it was wrong but still made excuses. He rationalized that it was the lousy elven political environment that forced him to be terrible to the twins. I guess the TV series decide to rewind his development to a way earlier version where the stick up his butt was larger
Probably so his character development could be shown entirely on screen for the audience.
@@timemonkey Assuming that they are gonna return to the fey wild to coordinate with Syngorn near the end of S3. This is a good time to see that development
Imo its because its quicker and easier to just make their father worse and weirdly racist than to go into detail about elven culture as a whole.
@@hhylobates4098 Oh definitely. the first thing to die in an adaptation is nuance. And I say this with no shade. You have to be efficient with your screen time and preserve on the important parts
41:20-"Grog, wanna do something crazy?" "FUCK YEAH!"
About Vex and Vax's accents. Laura just came in with that in their very first game and since they were supposed to be siblings Liam just kept up I assume. IRL they have the same birthday and the first game was sort of one of Liam's birthday gifts.
Accents becomes a little of a running joke in campaign two. I can't really hear the nuances in their real accents but I'm sure they're there. Marisha is from Kentucky. Matt and Ashley is from California. Laura and Travis is from Texas. Liam is from New Jersey and Sam I'm not sure, either Washington or New York probably.
ruclips.net/video/bdLOSDUZwTo/видео.html Kentucky
Matt is originally from Florida but he moved to LA very young.
And Taliesin's from LA.
Also I think that they later came up with an in-game explanation for their accents. Basically that they grew up speaking like their mother in a small rural village, but when they moved to Syngorn with their father they basically had to adapt their speaking patterns in an attempt to not get bullied _quite_ as badly and it kind of stuck.
The dissonance you're experiencing is the result of some brilliant compression.
Many details of character growth happen over a much longer period of time in the stream, and even though you're catching some backstory here, some of the missing elements and reasons for rearranging are still buried deep in other episodes.
I'm about as deep in this lore as you can get, and I'm continually impressed that they've pulled off such a satisfying adaptation.
Yeah, same. Adaptation is hard and they've managed to really capture the essence of what made the campaign so great, _and_ fit the story to the much faster pace of a 23 minute/episode show, _and_ make only changes that make sense _and_ keep it fresh and somtimes even surprising for people who've seen the campaign.
A masterclass in adaptation.
I love how much Mercer is silently freaking out the second Laura says she rolls a 1 until he needs to start talking
I always think about Marisha when there is a cliffhanger because she has to go home with Matt :D This video was so much fun, see you in Season 3 (unless you start watching episodes of the game)
An hour of content where my favourite reactors watch Critical Role origin moments, this couldn`t be better. Thank you guys!!
I am incredibly happy that you`ve seen Vax`s prank on Grog. It was hilarious, and I laughed on how you were worried for Grog. And Scanlan`s speech to Kaylie? Incredible.
(Ooooph, now I am imagining how would your reaction to season 3 would look like, both the show and CR origins moments, there are going to be some serious events)
I hope they will have season 4 and season 5!
looking already forward to your season 3 reactions (and maybe even m9 reactions), i will miss your weekly updates
If you like Vex and Vax's accent wait til you hear Caleb and Jester in the Mighty Nein. Played by the same two. It's fantastic.
22:50 this is something I wish they had done differently in the show. In the campaign, Kash is a cleric of an evil god iirc, so all of his spells were very dark in nature. In the show he's just a normal cleric with an attitude
His magic was still all about light and healing, specifically as a contrast and balance to his patron of death. Its more his dark personality that's been lightened up, I think his backstory being even worse than Percys was probably too much.
11:32 And this is before we've really delved into the horrors of the Briarwoods!
Hell yeah, can't wait to watch this!
29:35 Keyleth in the origin clip does sound kinda goofy in comparison, but the situation was actually quite different; she had *already completed* her fire trial on a previous visit to Pyrah and was just there now to close the rift. So she had a lot more confidence in her abilities, and didnt have the whole thing of struggling with fire. Her coolest moment of that original event was probably destroying a heap of elements at once with a tidal wave spell, something LoVM Keyleth can't do as she finds water stuff really difficult.
Her internal conflict was more complex than not being able to access certain elemental powers, but there was just one focused episode for her his season, we should be getting more depth to her character in the coming arc with Raishan, and hopefully her earth trial which we never saw in the game.
Highly recommend "grog meets craven edge"
I love these videos so much
Yes, Percy drops that line at a live show.
The scene with the twins' father, where Percy gives Vex the title, took place at their first live show. They were at a convention, and had their show in front of an audience. They've done several (and in fact, they have one coming up later this year in London). By this point in the campaign, the twins had actually spoken to their father before, and while he was still kind of a jerk, they had mended a few things. So he was much more receptive than he was in the animated series.
There's a great moment in Campaign 2 that reveals a connection between the Fey Realm and Jester, that's all I'll say.
There's a great episode where Grog tries to negotiate like Vex it's hilarious.
Vax'ildhan has always held grudges.
They come up with plans between breaks and they never stick to them lol
In the table top, the party did NOT split up, they were all there for all of Killbox and the Fey Realm. One thing they didn't mention in the cartoon - when you leave the Fey Realm you have to make a roll, and it dictates just how much you remember of the trip (for example, Percy didn't remember a thing about the trip) and how long it took in the "regular" realm to get back (that's why they were gone for 3 weeks). They did it in the series so they could fit it all into one season, and it worked!
Vax cutting Grog's beard for something that he did months ago is the pettiest shit i have ever seen and i love him for that
Will Friedel worked with Matt in the 2011 reboot of Thundercats. Will played Lion-o, Matt played Tigra.
My head canon defines the differences between the show & the cartoon thus:
1. The show is "The Legend" of Vox Machina, and
2. This is being told by Scanlan.
They have done several live audience shows (pre-COVID), and up until the 100th show of the second campaign, were recording them live on Thursday nights. So when you see the VM campaign, they were performed live on Twitch- including the audience shows.
Let me share context on DnD rules for reviving the dead. Rules as written, it is really easy to revive the dead. You can get the spell at level 5 and it has a 100% success rate. Matt wanted to mitigate how easy resurrection magic made death feel cheap. So he made a homebrew rule for resurrection rituals.
When used, Matt will roll a d20 behind the screen with a DC of 10. If he rolls 10 or above, the ritual is successful. 9 and below and the ritual fails forever. But you are allowed to make 3 symbolic offerings followed by a d20 roll for a skill check to hopefully lower the DC. Every successful offering lowers the DC by 2 and every failure raises it by 1.
If you get resurrected, your DC permanently raises by 2. So if Vex dies again, a resurrection would need to beat a DC 12 instead of 10
Also at this point in time, Pike had died once and Grog twice. Even though those events aren't really anywhere in this adaptation, behind the scenes those characters still have a higher chance of being permanently dead.
In dnd, normally when you get to zero health you don’t die immediately. You start making death saves as you struggle to cling to life, or until you get healed. Which is why vex dropping to zero and immediately dying was so shocking.
Raishan initially disguised herself as Seeker Asume.
38:30 yes, this was their first live show!
In the game Vex is a ranger which means she actually has a bunch of magic she can use anytime. For the animated series they've basically taken each characters abilities and boiled them down to their most recognizable/most used abilities only. For example in the show Pike is the healer with Keyleth as a distant second, while in the game almost the entire team had healing magic at their disposal.
You'll notice Marisha, Keyleth's player, looks pissed during the Raishan reveal, it's because Raishan is the one that infiltrated the Fire Ashari tribe and slaughtered them to free Thordak and Keyleth knows that in the game so she's barely holding herself back. In the show that reveal hasn't happened yet.
They should know about it by now though, obvious information is being ignored to be dramatically revealed in S3 😝 Like that info was originally revealed when Cerkonos plainly said "This weird girl named Raishan released Thordak", that moment has passed and there was no reason for him not to name her. And then the twins somehow haven't worked out that Thordak is the same dragon from their youth that Allura plainly said was the one her group sealed away at the same time. Kinda discredits Vexs expertise in dragons if she can't put two and two together.
@@hhylobates4098 How is Vex supposed to know that one red dragon is the same as anouther? She has no reason to connect the two yet.
As for Keyleth not being told yet, I assume it was to keep her reaction from interfering with other events. Once she knows every interaction and even conversation about Raishan becomes about her rage.
@@timemonkey Because Thordak didn't just pop into existence, destroy one village, and mysteriously dissapear. He was an *international* menace that razed a whole region of Taldorei and lands beyond. If Vex spent 5 minutes let alone "a lifetime" researching dragons she should know his name. I'd even argue Thordak should be a household name known to the common people.
Keyleth/Raidhan is at least understandable in that Raishan could have been smart enough to go by a false name, and yes once Keyleth gets ahold of the vengence thing it takes her over.
A lot of it is really different, but definitely they take highlights and work them into the show.
So right now they're confirmed for three seasons of LoVM and at least one season of an as of yet unnamed Mighty Nein show (based on their second campaign).
But Sam (Scanlan and also one of the leads on the whole production of LoVM along with Travis/Grog CR's CEO) has said that they're aiming for five seasons total for LoVM, which makes a lot of sense to me, knowing the material they have yet to adapt.
Fun fact, Liam and Laura (Vax and Vex) are twins in the game because they actually share the same birthday.
If you haven't already, you should check out The Legend of The Legend of Vox Machina Videos. Which dives into the process of making Season 1 a little bit.
ruclips.net/p/PL1tiwbzkOjQwJdoNetaNJE1zZVOE7xi8u
The kegs are labeled STRONGJAW ALE, I don't know if you can still get one in their store.
If you are interested in the people and events behind Critical Role, I HIGHLY recommend a couple of documentary videos by JRCollections called Beyond The Table (15-20 mins). They detail how the show came to be and the events behind the scenes of the game. Just in case you want to know more about the cast. There are two episodes out currently, the first talks about what brought the group together and how the game went from a simple home game, to an online show. The second episode talks about how the show evolved throughout the entire first campaign (Vox Machina).
Episode 1: ruclips.net/video/Yedl5v9kIXQ/видео.html
Episode 2: ruclips.net/video/0S9bOaaFq7A/видео.html
What you didn't catch is when Kaylie goes to kill Scanlan she rolls a natural 1 and that's why she couldn't go through with it, that roll completely changes the narrative.
They don't have the Saundor encounter in this? That's one of my favorite moments :(
15:25 Travis is a HUGE Cowboys fan, and Sam Riegel has repeatedly made fun of him for it. There's definitely a compilation out there of the Cowboys getting dunked on by the CR crew
In the show Laura and Liam play brother and sister.
Understand Keyleth HATES Raishan like no other.
The false hope of thinking you were gonna get a single digit number for a D100 roll because the tens die rolled a 0 only for the other one to also be a zero, which makes it a 100
Absolute agony
Especially in Call of Cthulhu lmfao
54:53 oh yeah, Matt has hung the cast (and us Critters along with them) off many a cliff over the years. There are compilations out there that are just the cast's outraged shouts and protests after he says something like "and that's where we'll go to break" or "and that's where we'll pick it up next week".
Yeah, I'm glad they picked up on that. I've noticed alot of people saying stuff like, "dang, they love they cliffhangers".
Critters be like, "you have no idea".
One more little nugget of authenticity that makes it great.
I think it would be fun if you take a look at highlights of important things that didn't make it to the show.
Let me just say, as someone who has accidentally killed someone else’s character in DND before… you low-key beat yourself up over it for the rest of your life lmao
So uhhhh yeah. Really relate to Taliesin on Vex’s death lol
And those reactions around the table are not just everyone acting in character. Pending character death in DND is genuinely a harrowing experience. There’s nothing quite like it.
Vax (Liam) is from New Jersey, and Vex (Laura) as well as Grog (Travis) are from Texas.
IMO they could get a solid 5 seasons out of this campaign. But campaign 2, "the Mighty Nein" has already been greenlit. Same actors, all new characters, new story, but it's in the same world.
The dialogue is so good that a lot of people accuse the show of being scripted. It happens so often that they joke about having writers now and again. 😆
Yes the twins father is noticeably less terrible in the original, the twins unfortunate childhood was equally to do with not being accepted into elven society as whole as it was having a neglectful, distant father. The twins hate him pretty much the same, but he's made worse to make it simpler as theres not time to go into the details of Syngorn society.
If we see some history of the twins mother next season we might get some more insight into Syldor, but that might be changed too since the original genuinely cared for her, while this version seems prejudiced against humans.
Honestly I think its also that Matt just doesn't feel comfortable going in to hard on certain things, one of which being abusive behavior. There's a couple times over the multiple campaigns where the portrayal of the abuser and the story of said abuse don't quite line up. I think LoVM's rendition of their father is probably more in line with what Laura and Liam had envisioned for him.
All due credit to Sam for the improvised speech - he is very very quick witted - BUT Sam's intelligence is why I don't think it was entirely unexpected. He made a character who was a notorious womanizer. Eventually Matt came up with a female muscian NPC who looks like Scanlan, and is also unusually interested in Scanlan. Either it was a honey pot scheme (lure you in to double cross you) or she was his kid. They all knew something more important than getting laid was gonna happen.
Just thought I’d recommend Alice in boderland.
I would love more people to react to moments like these of the actual game it’s very different in the show while it’s good not like the show
From what I can remember, I think it was purely Matt's idea to came up with Kaylie. Sam early on just wanted to play a simple fun bard (and he, as a player, tends to be the one that pushes party splitting and/or his character leaving the group, sort of being the rational "why are we doing this hero stuff? we should just leave!" characters) but Matt thought it would be a fun twist to drop this responsibility onto Sam. Also I think Sam's speech to her was improved due to Kaylie basically being a complete improv character.
Also not sure if people told you or not, but Sam pretty much based Scanlan on Eminem, and her name rhyming with one of Eminem's kids was purely accidental.
@MAC React
A couple pieces of Real Life context for you.
#1) Laura Bailey (Vex) is Travis Willingham's (Grog) wife. That's why she got pissed at Liam O'Brien (Vax). It was legit, "Why are you fucking with my husband?!"
#2) The Sunken Tomb Moment. The thing you need to know here is that Liam O'Brien (Vax) had JUST come back from his Mother's Funeral. D&D with Critical Role had been his escape and therapy during his Mother's illness so he was expecting it to take his mind off his Mother's Funeral he had just attended. And then Vex died. So that whole episode from Vex's death onward was very little to no acting on Liam's part. What you see in his face, the cold, detached, indifference is real. It's Liam trying to process what just happened. It's the pain of losing someone he loves boiling up all over again and him trying to deal with it. Matt Mercer, being quite empathic, the best friend you could ask for, and the best damn DM I've seen, picked up on it immediately. And when Vax made the plea of "Take Me Instead You Raven Bitch" which, for the record, was improvised, Matt used that as an opportunity to help his friend. That's when Matt decided two things: 1) Vax was to be a Fate-Touched and 2) Vax was to receive The Deathwalker's Ward. Matt Mercer, in that moment, turned this D&D game between friends into a safe way to help his friend deal with death. This was confirmed during the Post-Campaign Wrap-Up. Liam asked Matt during that Wrap-Up why he made Vax Fate-Touched and did he whole thing with the Raven Queen and The Deathwalker's Ward. Matt's answer? "For You." Liam promptly lost it because Matt altering Vax's character trajectory for the sole purpose of helping Liam because Matt loves Liam THAT much never even entered Liam's mind. Matt Mercer is a true friend and brother. He loves them all that much. A little tease for Mighty Nein: Beau's entire story arc was Matt's gift to his wife, Marisha, who plays Beau. So not only is D&D a way for Matt to have fun with his friends and fuck with them endlessly, it's also his way to help them and give them gifts that he, otherwise, could not give them.
#3) Since you asked, Liam O'Brien (Vax), if you couldn't already guess by his name, is Irish American. Laura Bailey (Vex) is Jewish American, I believe. Liam is from New Jersey and Laura is from Texas. Travis (Grog), Laura's Husband, is also from Texas. They met in college because they were in the same class (Acting). Long story short, Laura went on to be hired by Funimation Studios as Kid Trunks (and other characters) in Dragonball Z and Travis, being a massive DBZ Fan, asked Laura to hook him up. She agreed, then promptly and accidentally ghosted him (she was so busy and so many people bugged her to get them a part in DBZ that she forgot she actually promised Travis she'd help). Cut to Travis moving out to L.A. to pursue Acting, then Laura also moving out to L.A. after she left Funimation. Travis, having moved out first, offered a room to Laura in his apartment to help her out with cost of living. He figured it would be a win-win since it would save him money in the long run as well. She accepted, he reminded her about DBZ, she apologized profusely, and now they have a 4-year-old son named Ronin.
I hope this contextual information helps and is interesting to the two of you. On to more shenanigans!
I would highly suggest seeing the Victor compilation. It is absolutely amazing and worth the time, if for no other reason than to see the cast's reactions. They die every time Victor talks.
The reason why it takes so long for the beard growth is because goliaths don't grow hair. Like male goliaths are canonically hairless. So it's...not really supposed to happen. It's stretching the limits of the magical item.
For the most part, Matt's great lines (as well as his most questionable) are off the top of his head.
Loved this!!!!
And don’t worry, Vax and Vex’s dad is just as awful in the live play, but because the show had to condense things, they had to flip some dialog
The twin's father being nicer in the game version is probably a spoiler. They want to audience to see how shitty he was rather than hear about it second hand like the game fans did. Syldor's character growth happened off screen between visits. That doesn't make for the best television.
How forgot how awful the presentation was with the early shows. The twitter feed, the chat, the names of the characters taking up so much space, the constant scrolling nonsense, the bad audio, the shilling for geek and sundry all night long. They really were learning how to present this as they went on. It's been great for a few years now, but those early shows.... man.
In Travis' defense, he's from Texas so being a cowboy fan is kind of expected.
Grog and Vex are married, they're both from Texas. Matt and Keylith are married, she's from Kentucky, Matt from all over. Vax and Scanlan are best friends, both are from new york. Percy is a former child actor from L.A. Pike is also a former child actor who spent a lot of her childhood in California.