How to Convince Your Players to Retreat - Vox Machina, Ep. 39 | Critical Role Demystified
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
- In this episode, Matt pulls the trigger on the biggest arc of the Vox Machina campaign… and he does it with style!
CW: Cursing
Chapters:
00:00 - Lesson: Fog of War
08:56 - Recap: The Skull, and the Fly
11:59 - Recap: Springing Kaylie
15:03 - Lesson: The Players Want Meaningful Stories
20:43 - Lesson: The DM Just Might Want You To Run
40:06 - Outro
Understanding Your Player Characters - • Understanding Your Pla...
Running an Escape Scene Without Initiative - Vox Machina, Ep. 5 | Critical Role Demystified - • Running an Escape Scen...
You can watch the full episode here:
Episode 39 - Omens
• Omens | Critical Role:...
Timecodes:
Trying to free Kaylie from the stockade: 2:38:42 - 2:57:11
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Развлечения
What’s your favorite moment from this episode?
"19 misses?"
Allura‘s tower collapsing was such a strong visual. Still one of my favourite moments in CR history.
"You chose so poorly"
I remember having a very vivid mental picture of the death of Uriel.
Though honestly, this episode (in my memory at least) is actually outshone somewhat by the next episode's follow up in Grog's suggestion at the end there.
The players faces as Matt describe the dragon. Season 1 my favorite because these aren't actors making a show of d&d. It feels like us just watching some people playing an interesting
to watch actual d&d game.
Matt convinces the party that running away is an option early in the episode knowing full well he was about to drop four Ancient dragons on their heads, and wants them to remember that for later.
Later:
Liam (in character) I want a reason to keep doing this with these people.
Matt (internally): Okay. I got you.
15 minutes later: How about four big fucking dragons? Is that a good reason?
I remember in one of the Q and As, Matt said he was screaming in his head: "just wait a few more minutes..." at that moment.
"An enormous vision of death, a grinning Ancient Green Dragon."
Matt really knows how to describe a monsters when he needs to.
The advice about fog of war is useful in heated arguments of many kinds: don't talk before you get the time to cool off. Better for everyone.
Thats not exactly what fog of war means. It means nobody has perfect information and nobody can be perfect with that much chaos and metaphorical fog clouding their vision.
Cool off is nice advice, but its a bit different than what Liam means
One of my favorite things about how Marisha played Keyleth was that she tried out SO MANY interesting spells. People who play druids or clerics are often overwhelmed by the number of choices and tend to stick to a limited selection of spells with obvious use. And she picked WEIRD spells from the druid list all the time and tried to find a way to use them. Does it always work? Obviously not. Is it fun to see more and more spells used in unusual situations? YES!
Yeah, like sometimes she probably picked a spell in preparation for how to use it (ie, having sunbeam prepared when they were about to fight a vampire), but I think she often picked spells that just sounded cool even if she didn’t have a specific use in mind just yet; which is great bc as you said it meant we got to see really cool and niche spells actually get used
I love that the description for this episode includes “a political shift in Eamon”. Understatement of the century
Thordak had what we called an “impassioned gamer moment.”
“And in other news, Emon has been completely and totally destroyed by four gargantuan beasts who literally breathe instant death upon all those unfortunate enough to be nearby. Here’s how this signals a potential downturn in the economy”
Vax: “I don’t know what we’re doing”
Matt: *laughs maniacally in Dungeon Master*
Raishan is probably my favorite antagonist of campaign 1. the weakest, yet most dangerous of the whole arc. Just, such a fantastic villain
I cannot wait to see the deadly rivalry unfold between her and Keyleth in Season 3 of LOVM.
I pray that it's the Voice that completely silences the Deceiver.
! (I love green dragons and Raishan is a perfect depiction of one)
She was, by body count, the most lethal opponent Vox Machina faced. No one dropped as any members as Raishan.
@@Amikas117 so true not even vecna got that many of them down at once
she was my fav, would love to see her back in redeem version too!
At CR's most recent live event Q&A someone asked Matt what his one biggest piece of DMing advice would be and he replied "If a rule prevents players from having fun at the table it's not worth holding onto." He talked a bit about how sticking to the rules is important and it's part of the DM's job to enforce that, but if a rule is actively damaging someone's good time, the good time is more important. Then he mentioned that there have been times in the past where he was more of a hardass than he wanted to be because, in part, he felt the weight of the streaming audience judging him, and he has tried to change that.
I really believe that the Windwalk moment was what was in his head when he gave that answer.
I dunno about windwalk, you can't just change the mechanics of spells and abilities on the fly because your players don't understand them, that's just pandering and hand holding.
@@0saintclark0 it happened once, it was a mistake its been 7 years move on
@@heykak it's literally a topic in the video you're commenting on 😂 I ain't upset about it just pointing out that while you want your players to have fun you can't be consistently changing abilities in the moment because at the end of the day a game has rules for a reason.
If you were playing chess you wouldn't let someone move their knight to the opposite corner of the board, there are rules and limitations.
@@0saintclark0 except unlike chess this is a cooperative game, it's not a competition.
@@0saintclark0 but wind walk shouldn't have been able to be cast at all due to taking one minute, so him letting it be uncast the way it was is just upholding what should have happened anyway, being that no one would've turned to mist. And like someone else said, comparing the rules of dnd with chess is comparing apples and oranges, one is a competition and the other is a fun co-op game with friends, which actually encourages changing of rules if they prevent fun at the table.
"It's always gonna be Grog." I straight up cackled.
Pike as Barbie, Grog as Ken when?
@@nlm2nd Now all I’m thinking about is Pike and Grog in brother sister Halloween costumes.
“it’s always gonna be travis” hitting hard after recent items found in c3. he’s a magnet for cursed swords i swear
At this point it's tradition and the whole cast is playing into it :D
He got ahead of the curve in campaign two by STARTING with a cursed item 🤣
"Fucking, it's a game, it's fine"
Is a perfect statement about DND
I always appreciate your mindset about gameplay and player interactions
I can relate to matt at the end. Destroying something you've built is devastating to both the GM and players. I had to destroy my starting city in my campaign and didn't know how bad it would feel until it had been done.
It's kinda fun tho.
I'm a novice writer(trying to publish my first book), and destroying what I've made in such a thorough and cinematic way would have me Grinning to no End, just like Mat. With With same tagline to boot. "This feels weird"
To me, personally, "destroy" has an extra extra meaning in due to some mental problems I'm working aggianst. But... destroying what you love the most? Provides a very surprising, and suspicious, amount of satisfaction. Having the trust that everything will be OK after? Does not fix that, and it only makes the move itself more intoxicating. It's exciting, it's thrilling and it's exhilarating.
But the realisation right after will hit you like a truck
I'm glad that my second main system that I ran (third that I played) was Apocalypse World, which tells you right from the start 'Forget the status quo, let your players ruin everything' so I got immunised against the loss of things I've built pretty quickly.
I always love Liam‘s attitude towards mistakes or misunderstanding, even when you can tell, he’s pretty bummed something didn’t work he always takes it like a champ. And it’s ready to move forward. Which is such a great trait for a player to have. That’s not to say the rest the cast doesn’t do this really well. But Liam especially.
Liam has, by and large, always understood the bigger picture, including the importance of misses/failures in telling a story. It's one of his most endearing traits.
Liam really is great about this. He definitely has fun finding ways to creatively stack items/spells/abilities for maximum effect, and he's not afraid to speak up to the DM when he feels he's doing something legitimate based on RAW or previous rulings. But at the same time he's also totally respectful to the DM and will defer when there's a firm line drawn. He's a great example of how to min/max without being a dick to other people at the table.
That’s one f my favorite things about him (there are many). He does advocate a little, and some may consider that arguing with the dm, but he doesn’t go on. He states his case, asks questions, but takes what Matt says and accepts! He doesn’t go on and on and on.
I think that a large part of the reason that Marisha was worried about Matt giving her an out was because, at the time, an annoying portion the community was questioning as to whether Matt was giving his girlfriend special favors... The classic "DM's Girlfriend" trope. She didn't want to be seen as getting special treatment because she was worried about additional harassment from the Anti-Marisha members of the fanbase. She also knew that she was already in for a shillacking from that group over the spell to begin with, and probably didn't want to give them more ammo.
1000%. It’s why both of them get so worried about Keyleth-related rulings appearing fair. He was a far more strict GM with her than anyone else for the same reason, because he wanted to seem fair. But I wonder if it sent the opposite message, making it seem like she was trying to get away with more stuff and he was having to call her out on it, which only added fuel to the fire. (And even if that wasn’t the case, Matt’s and Marisha’s concerns about appearing fair clearly didn’t quiet any of the Marisha-haters, so it wasn’t worth it to try to change their style to appease those viewers.)
This episode is the best example of one thing that makes campaign one special: the fact that for most of the players it's their first campaign. Matt will never be able to blow their minds with a high CR monster in quite the same way again. *spoilers for campaign 3* He still gets close with sudden difficulty spikes like their first fight with Otohan -- but he had to actually kill members of the party to get the same type of effect he could get here with one missed attack.
Yeah. And the difficulty spiked in c3 made e drop the campaign 2-3 times, but I'd gladly rematch c1 if I had the time. It's werid
@@lefterismplanas4977 c3 has final fantasy cutscenes in it where the party are just there to watch bigger characters fight and its really really lame.
@@MorbidMind123 Exactly. He just railroaded the first part of the campaign for no good reason other than humble and scare them I guess. I actually found the need to Read the plot of a few episodes online Cuase there was no way in hekk that I'd manage to struggle through them
@@MorbidMind123 I had a hard time with that episode, too, though to be fair the players seemed to enjoy it in the end. A lot of really good stuff has come since, though. Like now that the railroad has arrived at the station it's a lot less burdened.
The fact that 5E PCs can really punch above their weight if the player knows what they're doing contributes to that
I also think that Matt put his player's fun before his own a bit much in certain cases in later campaigns.
And i'm not talking about the gotcha moment, when it was outplayed or outsmarted by the players, but about cases where he cut off interesting bits because he wanted the players to obtain complete victories even when the odds where unlikely
Like when SPOILER CAMPAIGN 2 The Mighty Nein killed the Young Blue Dragon
Inside Halas' Funball. I feel he did not really want him to die, and he had a lot of plans for it, and i'm kinda sad we did not manage to see them
I live for the ".......19 misses???" moment. It's one of my favourite Critical Role moments.
They absolutely nailed the Raishan moment in LOVM.
Especially since it led to the first face-to-face encounter between Keyleth and her.
“Travis Willingham… best D&D player since 2012 and I’m not even joking”
Truer words have rarely, if ever been spoken.
Yeah the ruling Matt makes on the Wind Walk spell is 100% fine. Sometimes mistakes happen and it's better to mess with the rules to keep the game moving. They already faced negative consequences (a round being mostly useless) and used resources (a high level spell slot). If sticking with it makes the party miserable, a one time ruling to end it is fine. It's how I would have run it
I don't think the Laura whisper was just rewarding Vex's passive perception, it was also him rewarding her choice of favored enemy. (Like he does more explicitly later) Something I like about Vex is that technically, Primeval Awareness is just a feature all Rangers get, but Critical Role treats it as an important part of her character. We'll see later that there's a very good reason Laura chose dragons as Vex's favored enemy, and Matt was able to work that choice into the narrative, and it shows up in the animated series too (where this whisper is clearly adapted as Vex's "spider sense" going off).
This is one of the best plot twists ever. Building tension and uncertainty, and then quickly turning into chaos, destruction, and fear for what is to come
But OMG where’s Larkin at a time like this, they could really use his help!
Larkin Watch 2023
@@slfteach89 still can’t find that guy! Best rogue ever!
Hoping to see him in LOVM S3 at least
@@bryanduncan6954 keeps rolling those nat 20s on stealth checks
I'm disappointed no guest has ever named their character Larkin.
6:55 I think the biggest takeaway for me on the Windwalk thing and misreading spells is that I would have run that differently than Matt, which is fun to know! "I wouldn't have cast the spell if I knew how it really worked" is usually met with a retcon or "okay, it works like that this time, but in the future..." But it was still neat to see how Matt handled it. It was cool and creative, even if I think Matt's ruling was less generous than what I would have done.
So, a "mis-cast"? The result of improperly casting a spell by accident (or, less likely, on purpose)?
You could also link Vax’s frustration to Liam’s plan to multi class as a paladin. Liam has said he planned on multiclassing as a paladin of Sarenrae before the Raven Queen and this could be early hints to him wanting a greater purpose.
I feel especially early on, Matt and Marisha were more afraid of showing favoritism then they needed to be.
I have little doubt in my mind that had anyone other than Marisha cast that spell, Matt would have let them undue it next turn.
Furthermore moments like this tought the whole cast a valuable lesson, and really "leveled up," Sam and Marisha's spellcasting, as well as the casters in future campaigns.
I agree with your first statement. I think they both were overly cautious about there being any view of "going easy" or "getting away with things" because "Marisha is the DM's girlfriend", leading Matt to be harsher or more stern with her than needed.
I'm already a 25+ episodes past this one (first watch-through), and one thing I've noticed that has really been bugging me, is how impatient? Matt can get when Marisha is planning out and narrowing down Keyleth's moves in combat. He definitely rushes her and says "what are you doing Keyleth/Marisha?" far more than he calls out any of the other players, who also take a while to plan out and decide their move-action-bonus action, namely Liam & Taliesin, who have multi actions they do per turn.
This could be just down to him knowing her well enough to know that Marisha is effected by decision paralysis and needs to be pushed into making a choice. But a lot of the time, it comes across as really sharp and blunt, and I think that is a symptom of once again, trying to avoid their being any call of favouritism towards her "because she's the DM's gf".
I’d agree with you on this. If it helps he does get better about this before campaign one is over, so I think he did realise he was doing this and made an effort to stop.
I've only recently (about 5 months ago but heyho) began watching CR's VM series, going in mostly blind to the story as a whole. I can easily say that Matt's introduction to the Chroma Conclave arc is one of the most exhilarating pieces of story telling I can honestly think of.
The casts' reaction to "19 misses" is also both hilarious and so very understandable.
This was the episode where I fell in love with D&D. The emotional damage that Matt dealt in the last half hour is phenomenal. And I hope to someday be able to deliver something even half as skillfully.
The way I think about it is just because the player didn’t know better, the character definitely understands their world more (and likely would’ve made a decision with that information) and I generally favor “oops let’s redo that turn”
Finally it's Chroma Conclave arc. This arc is where I set the bar for my game, not in a way that I need to be as good as this (it's impossible considered the gap in years of DMing between Matt and me) but in trying to achieve this kind of emotional experience to my players. If my players have as half the fun/fear/thrill/hype as the cast during this arc, I would feel satisfied.
40 minutes?? what an unexpected yet very welcome treat!
Matt absolutely handled this correctly. I really appreciate 4e splitting long cast time spells into 'rituals', and they're entirely separated from combat resources. It helps avoid accidentally casting spells like wind walk in the first place, and solves 'do I cast speak with animals or cure wounds' type situations.
Granted, the 1 minute casting time is the assumed deterrent to casting it in combat. Buuuuut, having it categorized as a ritual is always good to make it even clearer
@@MrSeals1000 That's absolutely the intent! But its easier to make that mistake when you read "okay, I have fireball, mirror image, and wind walk. Which should I cast?" when looking at your spell list at a glance. As opposed to "here's all my in combat stuff, here's all my out of combat stuff" neatly organized into two piles. In 4e they're in entirely different halves of the book, and one is "spells" and one is "rituals" rather lumping all spells together.
Players could also absolutely do this themselves in any game or edition, but that adds burden to the players to do proactively, rather than it being the default of the system.
Been looking forward to your discussion on this episode. Easily one of my favorites of the show. Travis' reaction to realizing a 19 misses just speaks volumes
tbf as a DM when my players get a new spell I will bail them out if they misundestand it, because lore-wise your characters when they learn a new spell would most likely be far more aware of what a spell does then your player would be. Naturally this is true as your PC's life is dependent on their capabilities when your player is not, also, when your PC levels up they usually have far more time to process their spell then their player does.
Poor Marisha would go on to waste each of her newest highest level spell slots as she got them
Just got past her "But hey 8th level spell" moment against Thordak in my current rewatch lol
Always sucks the hardest balls to blow your biggest magical load and either accomplish nothing OR negatively effect the situation.
*the shit eating grin on Travis when Vax whines about Grog to Vex always kills me
It's the casters fallacy. You wanna spend that big spell slot on something badass.
Sometimes it works. Other times you make yourself look like as ass
It led to a funny moment of solidarity when Gilmore also wasted a high-level spell, which was worth it.
Doesn't help that Matt read the spell wrong that time and made Thordak take no damage when he should've taken at least the initial damage. He read that creatures larger than Huge don't get pushed and thought that meant they take no damage at all. Ultimately the damage would've been relatively minimal and inconsequential to how the fight went but it's salt in the wound.
I remember feeling more sorry for Laura than Marisha this episode. Ranger spellcasting is so far behind Druid's, while sharing roughly the same niche. Makes leaving an impact with your turns a real challenge. Vex used her highest level spell slot on a Conjure Barrage, but aimed it at the ceiling to try and collapse some stalactites on top of the worms. Unfortunately Matt ruled that 19 (3d8) damage from the spell gets converted into 7 damage from falling rocks, which almost all land on her allies.
This is a good channel. This is a good series. I like Mike.
Honestly I remember watching the “fog” of war moment and just thinking that it’s a masterclass in how to fix a situation in a game. I remember Marisha especially apologizing to everyone, but naturally they were all super sweet about it. Overall I thought the whole fight, including Matt’s lifeline that he gave Keyleth, was actually pretty cool. I really don’t have bad memories of that.
I love Marisha and don't understand all of the discourse surrounding the very few moments she messed up. It makes sense in the moment and also made the situation more interesting.
Also the dragons are awesome and I love this story arc.
Honestly, the Marisha hate didn't make any more sense at the time. There was just a vocal segment of the community that decided she was terrible and leapt on any mistake or (in their opinion) sub-optimal decision as proof of why she shouldn't even be there (even when, as Mike points out, other players made similar mistakes and decisions). It was just baffling.
@@SanjayMerchantI believe they mean her mistakes made sense in context, not that the outrage was reasonable.
@@Heavensrun Oh the mistake was totally understandable. I was agreeing with them about not understanding the "discourse" around said mistake. The standard was always set above wherever she happened to land because the criticism wasn't being made in good faith. It didn't make sense then and it doesn't make sense now.
To be honest I also do not understand the hate. She was my second favourite character after Percy and I was dumbstruck to find that the community hated her this much. Its absurd
A lot of it honestly roots in misogyny. TTRPG has a wild spectrum of acceptance, especially now, because it draws in a lot of people in oppressed categories, but it also can attract a more homogenous audience; with a game that partly kicked off in circles of “nerdy” white men, and with the game’s own history with racism etc, there are still a lot of circles in the community that just aren’t that friendly toward POC, women, and queer people.
At the start of CR, this part of the fandom was a LOT more influential, and unfortunately that led to a lot of girls and women in dnd being bullied or ostracised.
In Marisha’s case, it was especially horrendous, because they could easily claim that Matt was favouring her, given their status, and because she was still very new to a lot of DnD spells.
Lots of them also disliked Keyleth, and Marisha’s theory on this is that maybe she felt too nice, friendly, and awkward. “Too good,” which made people look down on her for Mary Suism (its own thing entirely) and for just not feeling relatable. If you look to Pike and Vex, they’re both more confident; they would be harder to bully in the real world, so I think people looking to cause problems saw her as an easier target.
Things have gotten loads better over the years. A lot of people have either learned and changed, or they’ve left the CR community, overall shifting the median to a much more accepting place for everybody.
Not everyone likes that, but I’m glad that Marisha is more respected now. She’s incredible, and I like that more people see that these days.
Definitely one of the top storytelling episodes they've done. I'm at 24:20 and you might end up talking about it, but the (want of a better word) "reward" of Liam/Vax expressing wanting more and wanting purpose, to seeing his face and how he reacts to the dragons becoming a threat to the city (and civilisation) is just exquisite; not only has his character been given some purpose, but it's a BIG mountain to climb.
Yep there's your comment about it 😂
My mindset is that if the DM screws up, they should own up to it, which Matt did by allowing the 1-minute cast spell in the first place, when that happens, the DM should offer an out to fix the situation if their mistake caused things to go fubar and ruins the fun. Which in this case, Matt did. That's basically proper DM etiquette and thus the right call, in my opinion. Allowing it in the first place? Sure, he could do that, but it comes at the cost of a horrible result that basically forced an absolutely unfun and downright frustrating situation; thus it was a mistake, and he gave an out as he should. All in all, right call.
I like that in the animated series they really play up how much Umbrassyl wanted to usurp Thordak but didn't have the power, and in this scene of the live show we hear Thordak specifically call out Umbrassyl to move on from the Cloudtop. Could be foreshadowing, could be convenience to say another dragon's name, but still very cool!
It's really refreshing reviewing this part of the campaign, because in my own campaign my players are amping up to the finale of a story arc that has taken them from level 1 to level 12. Apocalyptic scales are crossing the continents, and I've destroyed the majority of the area the campaign began in as the bbeg razes it to the ground.
It's weirdly sad, but also incredibly fun, to take something I've spent hours cultivating and building and then smashing it with a narrative sledgehammer in front of my players.
I really thought there was a pink post-it on my screen for longer than I care to admit.
I was flabbergasted when I watched this episode for the first time and I had never been more glad that I wasn’t watching it live so I could just jump straight into the next episode lol
The chroma conclave was in my opinion one of the best stories ever created not just DND best story and arc I’ve seem
Huh I thought the house Vax watched was Krieg's on the off chance that Grog's outburst was unknowingly on to something
Oh interesting. I always thought the way Matt said “the windows are dark” felt more like he was clarifying something, like he was giving Liam additional context he wouldn’t otherwise have, and I got the sense he was inviting him to look into it more and would’ve gotten more info - but obviously that’s pure speculation haha
@@SupergeekMike I'm with you. I also interpreted it as going to check in on Kynan.
That worm battle was an absolute clusterf*k marisha definitely dropped the ball but her and Matt handled it pretty well and seemed to me marisha learned her lesson and everyone moved on
Matt also dropped the ball by relying on a phone app for spell information . . . which listed the casting time for Wind Walk as 1 action instead of the correct 1 minute. Ever since that episode he's been pretty good about going straight to the Player's Handbook for spell rules. Even the official spell cards often provide edited-down versions of the spell details, so it's good to keep the core rulebooks handy. That goes double for Matt's situation, where he was still adapting to the differences between 5th Edition and Pathfinder.
@@SingularityOrbit yeah they all struggled back then. The app not being consistent with the book, the pathfinder to 5th edition, the pressure of people watching them, so many rules and shit they don't know and didn't have time to get into, the whole thing with Orion. It was a lot at the time, they're only human. I absolutely despite the people who're hating on the stupid mistakes they've made. We have ALL misread spells, dm's and players alike. It's a loooot of spells and a loooot of words, it's a lot to keep track off.
@@MoonyFBM Heck, I've had to explain the _real_ rules for a spell after a month of running it wrong, and I'm only dealing with a small group around a folding poker table. And we're not trying to go fully cinematic. It's really hard to comprehend how much stress Matt was under trying to make "actual play" actually play as a dramatic show.
@@SingularityOrbit How's a DM using a more convenient tool dropping the ball? I'd much rather my DM use a slightly inaccurate tool than than grind the game to a stop leafing through the PHB whenever they need to reference a spell.
@@incognitoburrito6020 You're right, I didn't explain that correctly. Marisha was operating on the text of a spell card, not the full text of the spell. Matt was operating on the condensed text of an app. Since they were both using paraphrases and condensed edits of spell they hadn't fully read in the original PHB form, neither of them was fully prepared to make use of it in the game. It's because of that moment that, when I DM, I'm perfectly fine with pausing the game to check the PHB on a convoluted spell if a really fiddly moment happens.
Man, I wish I could convince my players to retreat.
A good strategy for me is enemy reinforcements when they're already going down
I feel that sadly, you need to go extremely overboard in 5E for it to work, at least past 10th level. Like Matt did in this episode 😂
This is a great breakdown and I never thought about how he used the purple worms to sort of re-mind them to run from things they can't do. I hope you hot that 1000 patrons soon!
Why was there a sticky note below sam btw?
Thank you!
Sam was teasing Travis (a Cowboys fan) by wearing a shirt for one of their rivals, the Washington Football Team that still had a racially-insensitive name and mascot.
@@SupergeekMike ahhh. See I thought maybe he had something on the bottom of his cup but then he did lift it over the note briefly and I didn't see anything you'd want to cover, so that makes sense.
Probably my favorite episode in the entire CR series, the introduction to the Chroma Conclave Arch is perfect!!
I always hated the "read your spells" discourse. In fact, the number of times her spells have actually been read wrong and impacted the party negatively I can count on one hand.
More times than not, it's actually Matt that gets it wrong and eventually he rightly corrects his ruling, namely during a certain huge boss fight 40 episodes later.
I never understood the Marisha hate. She just made mistakes, same as anyone else, and happened to do it in a public forum for the first time, and the CR crew were still ironing things out, in a show format that had practically never been done before at that scale and visibility. Honestly I admire Marisha all the more for having taken that unwarranted harassment and improving through it all.
Which moment in the huge boss fight are you referring to? # It's been a whiiile #
@@DannyMakesVideosIGuess Thordak and the Tsunami.
@@groofay also some of her spell mistakes are from the changes from pathfinder to dnd 5th, the times she tried heat metal to give grog bonus fire damage worked in pathfinder, but the spell was different for dnd,
if you've used a trick mulitple times in the past and its worked, it takes time to get yourself out of the mindset
Meanwhile Ashley tried to cast Air Bubble to restrain someone in C3.. it's a single target buff spell that requires a willing creature, lol.
Another great analysis.
I began watch C1 for the first time just under two months ago (ish), and at the beginning I was alternating watching an episode of CR and then your follow-up analysis of that same episode. I'm now at the point where I've over taken your analyses, and am many episodes beyond this one, and it's great to relive the moments I might have forgotten, or ones that had some foreshadowing.
Like with most people, it's the "19 misses?!" and the freeze from Travis. You can tell he's so used to being able to hit nearly everything with 19, that he automatically starts to shake his hand for the roll of the die before it clicks.
What's especially noticeable for me about this moment is 1. The realisation that they're vulnerable, and 2, *most of the table miss it*, and the implication of what that means, because they're already head into books to plan out their attacks. They also are so used to hearing 19 = grog hit stuff, that they don't register that a 19 isn't enough and that they're not ready for this fight.
It's a great moment as we as audience can see VM's flaws & weaknesses, but they don't yet, they've bought into their own publicity and think that they are the default heroes of everything. (Personal annoyance of mine is Vox Machina's insistence that they are the only ones qualified to handle something, even when it clearly needs to be in the caretaking of someone one - like the Horn of Orcas & Kima, or like here, having the possession of Krieg's house).
Then of course later the realisation that 20 isn't enough to save from the damage either. Dropping all the clues that they're not ready for this jelly yet.
This episode always reminds me of the phrase "Thanks Keyleth." I know it can seem mean at times, but I see it as a funny phrase whenever Marisha/Keyleth goofs 😂
I love the destruction of emon it's the perfect visual
For sure, if the spell should not have even been able to be cast in the first place, ruling that you can end it is great. Sometimes the best fix for having broken one rule is to break a second one to balance it out.
This was such a perfect setup to one of the best arcs in all of CR. Mercer was cooking with gas with the Chroma Conclave.
On the topic of getting your players to flee, I must be the outlier. The players in my game have a pretty keen sense on when to run. Maybe even too keen. The moment shit gets bad, retreat is always an option.
I would either retcon (as the spell wasn't really supposed to be cast at all), or allow a bit more flexibility in what a creature under the effect can do (not attacks per say, but maybe blind of suffocate a monster, at least do intimidation or some kind of effect to distract or impede enemies in combat). Or allow the caster a check to alter/end the spell early. It happens, and a ruling that leads to more interesting results is better than one that leads to frustration.
I just had a situation with a player in a state similar to Vax, though I don't know if they knew it. We're running through Tomb of Annihilation, and his character has been through the ringer, and is making darker and darker choices. Signing his soul to hell, making foul bargains, leaping into danger and messing with ancient artifacts. And after our last session, I asked him what he wanted for the character and what the character wanted, because the road that character was going down was going to alienate them from the party. It brought about a really interesting conversation, where we sussed out the three end points along the character's path, as we saw them. It was a good moment, and helps me keep in mind how I want to present situations to the character.
I actually disagree on not telling a character what they think and feel ( *TO A POINT* ). You don't really control your emotions, and to some degree your thoughts. They're reactive, and they pop off for a bunch of reasons. However, those tend to be impulsive emotions and thoughts, that aren't super detailed or articulated, and they don't usually have a conclusion tied to them. I'll tell a character they feel a sizzle of fear, or a strange sense of satisfaction, or doubt, or sadness. Basically something a little primal and inarticulate that fires off through the back of their brain. *They* decide what their character does with that information (unless it's actually triggering a mechanical effect) and perhaps dismiss the feeling as weird, or try to explore it as suits them (the caveat to this is I follow the thread of the character, and don't supply them with feelings that have no real source in their person or story. I have a PC who is ruthless warrior, who is ambivalent about the feelings of others. He also was a child who was mistreated, and his actions lead to the deaths of the only friends he had. That guy has triggers, even though he's pretty lacking in sympathy.)
With thoughts, it's purely information based. These characters know a lot of things, and they are in the situation the player is only abstracting, so I fill in the gap. "You recall", "It seems to you", "You know" "You get the sudden sense" basically information they should have in the moment, that isn't already presented to them in some way. These can have conclusions, ("You know you are likely outmatched by a dragon of this size and age.") though they character may regard or disregard them as they see fit. We all "Know" things that we ignore under the right context.
I have only been a player but i consider it a necessary bridge between player and character knowledge.
Normally the player is privy to the descriptions of events their character is absent from and has to act as if they weren't.
But sometimes the character who lives in the world will know something that hasn't been made clear to the player yet, or due to stats will spontaneously notice something that the player would have no reason to ask for in the current situation. (Why would Laura expect a dragon attack during this dramatic speach?)
I consider this related to the teirs of lore/information in fiction.
For any given event you have:
What real happened as declared by the author, or intentionally unspecified. (The people of the story may never know)
What was recorded in the historical record. (Archives & education)
What the people's rumor mill says happened. (Folklore & Gossip)
What any given character actually believes/knows, and what they want to believe. (Character knowledge)
Over the course of the story certain pieces of information will have to move around, and in D&D that falls on the DM to facilitate as they deem appropriate.
@@jasonreed7522 A good observation. And a good list for prospective DM's to keep in mind when considering the dissemination of information in their settings.
The difference between those first two tiers is often woefully under explored in table top. It pops up in adventures, but in my experience players are less likely to think that something is only the historical interpretation, instead of what actually went on. The fact that things may not have happened the way they were written down, or that the common knowledge of what occurred might be totally founded on inaccurate beliefs, often seems to escape players (though to be fair, it often escapes people with real history as well).
And it's such a juicy story beat to play around with, especially in fantasy, where you might have still extant millennia old empires or peoples who base their existence off that history.
I love reliving this show with you. Thank you for this
It’s incredible the amount of effort you put into your videos man, tons of deep analysis with clear explanations.. keep it up
You had me hooked throughout the whole video. I already know everything you said and all the clips, but just the way you presented it all was.. perfect. I'm def watching more vids.
I've been enjoying this serious for a while but this is the first time it's been really relevant to my own gaming. I'm pretty sure you just solved the ending of a one shot I've been struggling with for a while
Really enjoyed this episode as a newbie to Critical Role and DnD in general! It’s really fascinating to watch and learn how they tell stories like this
Been watching these for a while enjoying the tid bits and DM and player advise spread throughout when today I was like omg. As someone who never watched critical role this is an amazing rewind. (I know they had like the catch ups or whatever, but hey I'm catching up in this way) Amazing videos Mike!
I remember being kinda frustrated at the time, but so far removed from the episode the wind walk thing is just funny to me now. Especially considering how little that scene mattered in hindsight. A real "thanks Keyleth(complementary)" moment.
I'm looking forward to you getting into the Chroma Conclave arc. I still remember the first time I saw the aftermath of that initial attack in episode 40, incredible role-playing all around.
You're getting me through the semester Mike!
The most anticipated episode in CR demystified (for me, at the very least 😂)
I remember this episode. It was crazy good. I think I screamed when he said “And that’s where we will end it tonight”
I adore the look on Liam's face when Matt first begins describing the dragon attack. Like, yeah, it could just be him stunned at the dragon, but I read it more as "Are you kidding? I was just complaining we had nothing to do!" lol
This is the scene i think of when i think of campaign 1.
Its so good at setting the stakes for the arc to come.
For the record by the way, Raishan's AC of 22 is the same as a standard ancient green dragon, the only thing he changed was her hit points (which is more than normal but still less than all the other dragons). The other dragons also have the same AC as standard except Thordak, whose 22 is bumped to 23 thanks to the Soul Anchor.
I still get goose bumps from Matt's narration of the dragons attack on Emon.
A D&D player's journey:
16:29 Frustrated, despondent Liam
36:18 Engaged, grinning, hand-rubbing Liam
The whole 'fog or war' situation is a very healthy way of looking at stuff. Much like the player, the character is in a high stakes situation and might flub up during battle. It's a very human thing to do. It's one reason I love playing with my cousin. She wouldn't want to roll back anything because she saw it as great story moments. She'd be like "whelp, we can just say he forgot how that worked too especially since it's a new thing he just learned." It helped a lot. It helped new players feel like they could make mistakes and no one was going to bite their head off and it took a lot off of me as a DM since I didn't have to try to course correct over something that in the grand scheme of things was relatively small. At the end of the day, it's a game and we're here to have fun. If people aren't having fun, I feel like as a DM, I need to get things back to being fun.
Man, that photo of Matt holding Greyskull Keep in next week's thumbnail is so appropriate. Cause he's holding it in a way that suggests he could drop it and let it smash at any second. I don't think he'd do that with the keep specifically, that's a reward the players have earned, but it still works.
Around 6:50 your exclamation earned you a sub!
At 22:36 , I always assumed Matt whispering it to Laura (Vex) prior to anyone in the party was because of her ranger abilities, primeval awareness, as well as her backstory. I hadn't considered that she is also probably the one with the highest perception of the group. Good move on Matt's part for recognizing all that and rewarding Laura for her character choices.
I picked up on Liam saying fog of war recently and didn't quite recognize what he meant. Now I do. Totally OK with Matt throwing a lifeline on this, and totally agree that some people want to play the game differently, and that's OK too. More than one way to enjoy this game. Matt narrating the dragon sequence -- wish I could bottle that and crack it open for my next boss encounter.
Wow!!
The end of this episode has me wanting to talk enough to fill a whole podcast!!
Dam! I love this, and I can't wait for more content!!
I'm 0n my 4th comment btw, and I'm barely keeping myself from writing a whole essay right here 😅
Travis always getting the talking magic items is my favorite thing!
I had to translate the Dragon attack to my 6 year old son word by word as I was watching that. Today he is watching Legends of Vox Machina without need of translation and is an avid roleplyer. Well done, Matt.
“Bag of Hoarding” OMG, I’m using that from now on!
I'm only five minutes in here but just want to reinforce your point that Travis is one of the best people ever to sit at a TTRPG table. He's always constructive, even when he's frustrated. It's not his turn in combat? He's a hype man. He flubs a roll? He leans into it. It's a shopping episode? He goes to get a drink so he doesn't have an impact on the energy at the table.
Travis understands the fundamental principle that *you specifically* are not the main character, and that's genuinely such an underrated thing. I genuinely think a lot of players could watch him and pick up a lot of useful tips.
Matt has admitted that during the conversation where Vax asks what are they doing he was there thinking just give me 30 mins everyone...
6:44 🤣 thank you! This made me laugh out loud but it’s so true. ITS A GAME
Thanks!
Thank you so much, James!
I misread Find Steed thinking the 2nd level spell was casted as a bonus action, lasted for ten minutes, and required concentration. So glad someone explained it to me
I think its important to note that Marisha dropped the ball because Mat dropped the ball. If he had been aware of the casting time it wouldn't have happened. It is hard for a GM to be strict when his own mistake contributed to the situation.
In his defense, the app he was using to read the spell incorrectly displayed the casting time as “one action.”
Yeah these things happen to players and GMs. Its nothing to be ashamed of. ts the punishing of people for errors that you had a hand in, honest mistake or not, that would contemptible. Mercer in that moment had an obligation to mitigate the errors, which he did to the best of his ability. Not that my recollection is very clear tbh.
Lol. You had me pulling out my monster manual to look at the green dragons stats 😅 the AC and DCs on this thing are insane. Which makes sense for a dragon but it slightly terrifying as a player (which i guess was the point lol)
Also, I learn so much from these videos. Thank you for doing them. I hope I have as much insight eventually
> How to Convince Your Players to Retreat
Literally what I need help with, my players knowingly kicked a proverbial hornets nest in the shape of a vampire lord (3.5e) and I genuinely dont want to TPK, while also not just handing them the win or making the vampire lord run off
Yep, tricky. You need to punish them enough to make them think twice in the future. Let them get away with it and they'll keep doing it.
@@gibbousmoon35 After double checking the template, I found I missed the additional stat increases the Lord gets over the regular vampire. giving them a 36 AC. I think the players not being able to hit her without a crit, and then her having a 10 DR only bypassed by 3+ magic weapons might take the wind out of their sails. I'm just going to have her try to talk the players into thinking rationally while she "parries" every blow that comes her way.
@@Arbiter19963 😄
Another potential lesson is always have multiple sources with you
One thing that contributed to the Wind Walk debacle was the reason Matt missed the one minute cast time is he was using the Fight Club 5e app, which omits that detail and only says it's an action taken. (Matt quickly says it could be that he hasn't updated the app recently and they may have already fixed it, very quick to take blame off the app)
Standing rule at my table. The caster of any spell can always end it at will. Their creation. They have the unlimited ability to undo it if they wanna.
Hi Mike. Did you ever considered reviwing Dimension 20 Fantasy High? Brenan has a very distint type of dming, so I think it would be interesting.
20:43 Something else that I think is noteworthy about the atmosphere of the event. At that point of time Uriel had been using ambiguous words every time they've met after they returned from Whitestone. They are on the council, but were not privy to the discussions the city council's had lately. I think this was all deliberate on Matt's end, he wanted Uriel's current intentions to be not exactly clear. Especially when the event begins and the first thing he does is to clear Daxio's name. The tension was severe and I think the party was actually ready for Uriel to use them as a scapegoat and Alura was not there. The music of course doesn't help. (it helps Matt) I think that's why they looked so on edge during the start of the speech until Vex noticed the dragons.
8:23 I want a bag of hoarding so much xD
Make it preserve anything put into it perfectlyv(as if stopping the time from passing on the item) and have it held 10 times the stuff a bag of holding can. It's a legendary item. 😂
Sounds like a sentient magic item to me... one that may not want to give up it's collections easily.
@@MrSeals1000 That sounds like the Luggage to me. :)
(Not exactly a Mimic; slightly less monsterous and made of sapient pearwood, not shape-shifting ooze.)
One important thing which encourages the party to run is not just all the hints, but how short a time it happens in. We go from 19 misses, to Matt's speech to Laura, to Raishan's death breath wiping out half the council in three and a half minutes.
This is my second favorite episode of Critical Role of all three campaigns (not including EXU:Calamity)
Ooh what’s number 1?
40 minutes?
Dam straight. Awsome !
Ps. I always wanted to say "dam straight" 😂
And I think I'm spelling it wrong too, but who cares
So I'm watching this campaign for the first time in line with your videos so I only just saw this episode recently, I didn't see the mistake that Marisha had at the start with Wind Walk as that bad, she got a spell and was excited to try it and, in doing so, misread some of the spell. She's human and I'm guilty of making the same mistake, my DM just retconned it after realising my mistake and said I held my action instead but I prefer Matt's answer personally
Interestingly, the line you explain at around the 34-35minute mark sounds similar to how the rules for combat may function in Daggerheart.