Critical Role

Oh, just finished EP 29 myself! A good one.

I couldn't be bothered to follow Campaign 1 from the start, but sorta started watching from the end of EP 85 recently, because it seemed a funny place to pick things up.

I've watched it from the start, currently going through Episode 27, can't wait to see the back of Tiberius Stormwind - I know he has his fans, but this bumbling professor persona combined with a massive amount of self-importance really gets on my nerves, and is really jarring.

That's not even going into the other reasons^note (hogging the spotlight, metagaming, losing interest and fucking off whenever he isn't in the spotlight, trying to power game, getting creepy). Glad Orion left, having the other members call him out for being creepy and metagaming constantly (and Sam and Travis were really getting to the end of their rope with him) would have put a massive damper on the series as a whole.

Funnily enough, the place I'm at in S1 and S2 both feature the party closed off from the high-class district of the city they're in because Vox Machina have fallen out of favour with the council in Emon, and because the Mighty Nein are a bunch of low-level ragamuffins in Zadash.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Aug 6th 2019 at 11:14:36 AM

@ Health still in recovery from 26 although Caduceus is very cool

I'm shit at keeping spoilers from myself, that's a hard moment alright.

Campaign 1 finale spoiler: almost as hard as Sam burning his only level 9 spell slot to stop Vecna from teleporting.

I loved that and the follow up. I wasn't much of a fan of Molly. Didn't hate him by any means, but he was easily the character I cared the least, and that is including Yasha who is not there half the time and barely speaks when she is. Still, his death had a big impact. I was actually spoiled on that before the fact, and I still felt very emotional at the moment. The players are just that good at selling it.

That said, Caduceus is great. Up to episode 34 now, the story is moving into interesting places. I am likely to slow my pacing down the next week, but for now I am glad I decided to overcome Archive Panic and start watching this show.

Pretty much have loved all of Taliesin's characters. My least favorite? Anything by Sam which is a credit to him as he actively works at making them annoying and obnoxious.

Spent the last couple of weeks binge watching Critical Role Campaign 1 as I only discovered it last year and Campaign 1 was hard for me to get into. Had little to do as I adjusted to new anxiety meds that have made me super lethargic and while looking for employment.

Currently, I'm on Episode 105. Loved Taryon. Liked Scanlan leaving Vox Machina and I was completely on his side. Really didn't care at all for how he came back to the group since I kind of think Scanlan was in the right, but then Scanlan is the one to apologize? Whatever. Kind of felt super bad for the guest that night since it seems pretty clear they didn't intend for Scanlan to be revealed yet, but the players caught on and the guest seemed to have very little to do as the focus turned to group dynamics.

Vax died to Vecna and this was a spoiler I knew going in. Very few people were able to talk to me about Keylith's development as a character and final outcome without mentioning it. But I was still super sold. Also, just met Sprig and, while this is a character I would normally be easily annoyed by, I love his player so much. They're a joy of a voice actor and I'm in love.

As for Campaign 2, Still sad about Molly. I genuinely liked him and, even if I wasn't super invested in the big mystery of his past (which had very very VERY few clues), I found him to be an exciting joy to have around, genuinely funny, and a great contrast to the rest of the party who can sometimes be a bit dour. And I'm still... not really sold on Cadeusus still. I'm not super interested in his projected plot hook and I don't think his inter-party interactions are super fun or interesting since it some times feels like he's just... there and not really invested in a lot that's going on with other characters. He feels... too reserved? I just don't like him. I don't hate him either, but I miss Molly.

Anyway, I am a few weeks behind on Campaign 2 since I've been binge watching Campaign 1. Last I saw, they were off to visit the Kiln with Cad and that's where I left off. I heard some shit has gone down; something about Marisha maybe having gotten Caleb either nearly killed or into some shit. So, that should be fun.

Also, I bought the PRIDE Month CR shirt and it arrived today and I love it.

Watching the Wendy's one-shot, and trying to enjoy it on its own merit without worrying caring about the controversy, and I'm still feeling uncomfortable watching it. I was expecting product placement, because obviously - it's entire point of the module - but man I can't shake the feeling of corporate slime lurking under what looks like a very geeky and fun game. I didn't think it would bother me, but it does.

Same. I tried and I couldn't even enjoy it with a 'So Bad It's Good' Edge. I'm usually down for good puns but just... everything felt like shallow corporate marketing. And the controversy over 'Wendy's is a fucking awful company' just left a worse taste.

I think I made it 45-60 mins before I just shut it off.

And I know people think the controversy is over blown, but this is also what CR faces going forward because of the Kickstarter. You don't get to have one of the largest kickstarters ever and not get noticed by the corporate machines. In some cases, that might mean better merch and pop figures and such. In other cases... You'll get things like this Wendy's junk. And I know Matt and the crew have always tried to be cognizant of the companies and groups they work with and promote indie and other people who might not get the spotlight, so this Wendy's thing feels like a big misstep.

I'm glad it was at least in a one-shot that we can learn from and move on and not some... larger project that would be harder to ignore the problems of.

As one of the Kickstarter stretch goals, Travis Willingham has to go through a haunted house:

The amount of "AARRGH!"'s this show has cause me in the last few dozen episodes has been unreasonably high. I actually had to stop listening around episode 70 just out of sheer frustration. The groups fights don't have to be perfect and optimized, but no one is thinking at all and compound that with most of them still forgetting what their abilities do more than half of the time, it was just so infuriating to listen to I had to stop.

Then finally ran got to the end of an audio book series I was listening to last week so figured I'd give Critical Role another chance. Got about ten episodes further this time and it's the same exact issue again, taken to the same extreme. This group just can't plan anything more complex than crossing the street and you can do this for only so many years when you run out of excuses for not knowing the rules of 5th edition or what your class abilities do.

It's such a shame since I love what Mercer is doing and it's such a joy to listen to when the cast gets to riff off each other in a casual conversation, but the mess it is when ever it gets close to anything more structured is just causing way too much teeth grinding at my end.

Maybe it's just a different playstyle to yours.

Idk man. It's Dn D. Shit goes off the rails and short sighted in literally every game I've ever seen of it. And Wacky Hi-jinks seems to be something they welcome with open arms rather than frustrate themselves by.

And, even having played for two years, there are still plenty of mechanics that I'm ignorant to the actual functions of and things that I just always forget and need explained at the table no matter how many times I try (usually, it's miss-remembering or remembering a similar rule back in 3.5 or other games).

Though, to be honest, I haven't really seen anything that recently about them forgetting their mechanics or features.

Apologies for necro'ing the thread, but there's recently been an announcement of an eight episode mini campaign called Exandria Unlimited.

• Aabria Iyengar will be the Game Master of this mini campaign.
• Players in the campaign will be Liam O'Brien, Aimee Carrero, Robbie Daymond, Ashley Johnson, and Matthew Mercer.

It will certainly be interesting to see Matt as a player character in the world he created.

Never could believe this show would be trending on Twitter.

Edited by HBarnill on Jun 10th 2021 at 7:07:55 AM

Wasn't it trending before as well?

Like this is pretty much biggest any type of rpg livestream.

I'm pretty Critical Role has trended multiple times. It's really popular.

Hello, Critters! I have followed all completed campaigns and also have seen many one-offs. Campaign 3 is getting started very well by now.

It was fun watching the older games on You Tube and seeing the scruffy backstage and watching the gifts of food. Hungry gamers, for sure. Now they have a polished set with special effects.

I went and watched the March 17th 2022 seventh anniversary episode in my local theater, and that was a trip. Lots of fun!

Just thought I'd bump this up a bit and see if other fans of CR are here.

I wasn't sure if there was a thread. Cool. I have basically been watching Campaign 1 very slowly, if only because the show isn't super polished yet.

So they Just announced a Mighty Nein animated series.