Tabletop RPGs

[lilac agate]

or 3 hours earlier

[low gorge]

the thing about being this age is stuff from last week like that is still affecting me and i hear that just gets worse 😅

i might ask a couple of my buddies if anyone wants to split a beacon sub so we can watch on the weekend

[summer perch]

Probably because they've started at this time every single time, and that isn't changing.

[thorn prawn]

My players got trapped a mile in the sky today. Fun problem to figure out how to get down without dying

Also that was the good option

[summer perch]

Slow fall?

[thorn prawn]

Nobody had it they were mostly underground

For most of the campaign

[summer perch]

Everyone jumps off, hope someone crits their death save.

[light meadow]

S L E E P I S F O R T H E W E A K

[tall steppe]

I'm finally updating my fairy wizard necromancer to 2024 rules in preparation for our sunday session (which is very hype, we are at the end of the arc)

I genuinely do not need this many options and so many spells I can utilize without a spell slot once per day. And I really don't need the eight cantrips I have at level seven but hey you know whatever

I did not need the power boost but I feel very powerful now

[thorn prawn]

I’m assuming you took Magic initiate lol

[tall steppe]

I did indeed

She already had a Sage background and I looked at new Sage and I'm like hey sweet now I can just have even more options and one of my standard level 1 spells casting once per day without a slot

love that

the other two extra cantrips are Druidcraft from fairy and Mage Hand from Telekinetic, which really didn't need the boost to not require knowing the cantrip initially to get the bonus but hey

But the real boost is the draft new necromancer rules which are just so good

[thorn prawn]

Yeah it took them a couple tries but they finally got it.

[tall steppe]

Animate Dead always prepped and I can cast it once per day without a slot??? So good for maintaining my horde, I basically get my third level slot back

Such a huge power boost

Yeah I read the one that had the Summon Undead version and that is significantly less fun

That said I do think this feels extremely powerful but hey I'm not complaining

I am not very good at this game and I probably should not have so many options but I, like my fairy necromancer, love just having lots of spells, so xD

[thorn prawn]

You can never have too many spells

[tall steppe]

Our party is also the "Ooops, All Spellcasters" party, so yeah, we have a lot of spells. We have another Wizard (doing very different things than mine)

[thorn prawn]

Well I hope the new stuff goes well. I think it should but never know till you play it.

[tall steppe]

There seems to be quite a spicy combat encounter for the finale but we don't really know who exactly we are going to be fighting

[low gorge]

well, we know one combatant... a zeal barbarian 😳 nine levels higher than us

[rapid sleet]

I was sleeping as you said this

[sleek sluice]

I would actually disagree about the change to Telekinetic, a feat shouldn’t require you to know a spell - a cantrip at that - for you to be able to take it. I do think that was an absolutely necessary change.

[tulip mountain]

I mean that's how it used to be and it allowed for a lot more creativity with feats and class design back in 3.5

[tall steppe]

I think it's more just that I didn't really feel I needed the buffs xD it totally makes sense

[dense mulch]

CR C4 all so far ||aight so if I'm understanding this correctly, the tables are
Soldiers: Sam, Whitney, Laura, Travis
Seekers: Ashley, Matt, Aabria, [Occtis player], Taliesin
Schemers: Liam, Dorian, Marisha, [soldier mage dude player]||

||also wow that's a fun way to end the episode ||

[thorn prawn]

||Your missing Robbie ||c4

[tulip mountain]

do we know if we have an episode tomorrow?

[livid geode]

There is, im not sure why there wouldnt be?

[tulip mountain]

oh I guess it's not the last thursday of the month lmao

[low gorge]

||Dorian? ||

[hazy forge]

||Dorian is his character from C3, Robbie is his name Also he’s with the soldiers||

C4 ||Otherwise I agree mostly though I would move Taliesin to schemers||

[dense mulch]

💀 that's on me

[summer perch]

I did a double take on this.

[low gorge]

CR 4 e3 ||Soldiers: Laura, Travis, Sam, Whitney, Robbie||

but then... ||Seekers: Ashley, Alex, but then I can't guess what two of the trio Taliesin, Matt, and Aabria will be here, because I could see any of them being slotted in seekers or schemers... but I think it'll be Matt and Aabria.||

||Schemers being Luis, Liam, Marisha, and one of the three above, gotta be. Taliesin is my first guess, because so far he doesn't seem strongly tuned into the big lore stuff but maybe he'll float between those two tables||

[tulip mountain]

huh interesting

C4 ||I haven't seen pretty much any like, intrigue connections for Bolaire tbh||

||other than I guess the generic "I'm a rich person who throws parties" thing, but even then I mean, Murray was in those parties so they can't be too highbrow||

||and he does have an occult museum||

||or works at one at least?||

[thorn prawn]

||Ashley, Alex, abria, tal (seekers)

Azune, Matt, marisha, Liam || c4

||I’m also fairly confident we see these groups in the teasers || c4 teaser and c4 all

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||with the new stuff from E3, I could see Matt's character going in Seekers if they are going to deal with the Shadowfell as I think they are||

C4 ||though then again that might be Schemers that go for that since Tachonys seems to be the big bads of the season for now||

[vernal oxide]

CR4 E3 2:40 ||"Your baby momma's back up right now. I'll kill em for you." Hell yeah.||

[thorn prawn]

C4 ||I’m really curious what may is trying to get out of rogue levels. I suspect he’s doing it to foreshadow he’s a multiclass despite it being suboptimal here. Which is reasonable. But beyond that I am curious ||

[vernal oxide]

3:05 ||WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO NATURAL ONES||

[light meadow]

||1/400 chance!||

"Its so bad" feels like the catchphrase of this overture

[vernal oxide]

||I KNOW!! ASTRONOMICAL. Istg someone cursed the dice for this game||

3:08 ||"Your character's fate is no longer in my hands, ok?" Oooohhhh boyyy...||

3:13 ||FINALLY a good roll||

[vernal oxide]

||"I won't forget..." "MM-HM" "....without that vest~" DANG Wick, SMOOTH recovery there||

I wonder if anyone is keeping a "hell yeah/hell yes" count for brennan

[velvet ingot]

CR 4.3 I caught up again! ||Alright, I didn't like Occtis's spooky necromancy but this episode swayed me a lot and the fact that he's really at odds with his very scary family is fun. Julian is also way up there for me. I... wish I liked Wick, b/c he's in a similar scenario with his scary family and I like the concept but I do not like the way Sam's playing him, alas. Tyranny is great though, she's v good. ||

alright. tier list.

[light meadow]

[dense mulch]

How dare Tyranny not be S tier

[velvet ingot]

CR 4 all ||She's close, but Wick babysitter is bringing her average down by a few points||

[velvet ingot]

also i don't know why my extremely correct opinions would warrant such an emoji, kon :p

[light meadow]

The Kattigan slander is mindblowing

[tulip mountain]

that's the least surprising S I've seen

C4 ||well I guess Vaelus being there is a little surprising but she is a blue elf so I think there's precedent ||

[velvet ingot]

I considered giving Kattigan his own tier below Hal b/c I actively dislike Kattigan while Hal merely doesn't enthuse me

[dense mulch]

But that's the best part

[velvet ingot]

Putting Hal and Kattigan on the same row felt kinda mean to Hal

[light meadow]

[dense mulch]

Sorry Feather I'm gonna have to unfriend you 😔

[thorn prawn]

kat is ny least favorite but thats most becuase|| hes shown so little||c4

||not for any bad reasons ||

[tulip mountain]

my least favourite is (C4) ||Vaelus because come on bro a level 3 avatar of destruction is still a level 3 😭 || but ||Kattigan is in second place because he's very loud 😔 ||

||Vaelus has a lot of attitude for a level 3 character 😔 ||

[velvet ingot]

why do people like Katt??? ||He's like. A stinky dude in the woods with no manners or social skills who just kind of bumbles through interactions and gets drunk or smokes things he shouldn't, apparently. Which, when Breannain revealed the soldier's table, I was like "ah, ok this was a character who was not built for RP, that makes sense, b/c there is nothing here that feels interesting as a character"||

[lilac agate]

Here’s mine

[dense mulch]

Yeah and that's funny

[lilac agate]

||I liked the thought of Kat and Murray just immediately having sex after meeting ||

[light meadow]

What if I told you Robbie turned in the largest volume of backstory to Brennan by an order of magnitude

[velvet ingot]

e3 ||ah yeah that was the moment where I went "ah, yeah, nope not for me."||

[lilac agate]

Considering Liam is my favorite player, I hope my opinion on ||Hal ||turns around

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||Katt stocks were super down in eps 1 and 2 but 3 he's won me over a little, I can see a touch of the charismatic brutish rogue archetype he's got going on||

[lilac agate]

My fav is most definitely ||Occtis and then Julien||

[velvet ingot]

e3 ||Hal just hasn't done anything, is the problem. He's fixing up a theater but there are no vibes. It's just like, the mildest sadboy in the background of scenes||

[light meadow]

CR4E3 ||I'm increasingly convinced that the meme theory about Kattigan being body swapped with his wolf is correct||

[dense mulch]

Honestly the Hal slander is the worst part of these tier list because I like him even though he's not my favorite

[velvet ingot]

alright that would be interesting, i'll give him points back if it's true

[tulip mountain]

c4 ||Hal feels like a good straight man but like the straight man by himself does not work you need the funny man too||

[thorn prawn]

this is where everyone is landing IMo amoung all characters after initial impresssions ( obvious only 3 epsiodes so they will change)

liveplay exclusive

[velvet ingot]

C4.3 ||I just... need Wick to be less stupid. I get that he's supposed to be naive and oblivious, but I wanted to see this pampered rich boy have to deal with like, being in Very Danger because his family actually sucks and his life is a lie, but the whole tailor shop scene was frustrating. Like, I think Sam's trying to be funny, but when Wick comes across so stupid it's like he has short-term memory loss, it kills my suspension of disbelief. Tyranny JUST told him that this tailor shop is a place where the family sends people to die and Teor's in mortal danger, and then Wick waltzes in and has 100% forgotten anything is wrong at all, and thinks Teor just drank too much sherry because the nice tailors said so???? I thought he was just playing along to keep up the lie, but after they leave the shop, Sam keeps playing it out like Wick is genuinely that oblivious and it really annoyed me||

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||julien lost a lot of stocks with me because of being an ass to Thimble 😔 ||

[light meadow]

I'm also inclined to give Robbie points for showing more range than some of the older CR cast members

[velvet ingot]

C4.3 ||I'm the one who bought all the stocks when you sold them b/c I love when Julien is an ass||

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||I like him being an ass just not to Thimble 😔 that was rude 😔 ||

[velvet ingot]

I haven't really ever seen him play, but I'm willing to be won over. It just hasn't happened yet

[light meadow]

This maybe isn't the most Feather take but it certainly is A Feather Take

[velvet ingot]

..........he has some dier vibes

[thorn prawn]

||Robbie in the one shot series wheree he played the fire guy was his best characetr||Critical role all

[light meadow]

I like Dorian a lot in CR3, he's maybe my favorite character in that cast despite having been gone for fully half the show

[velvet ingot]

Caleb had Meijin vibes, Julien has Dier vibes, and I am susceptible™

[low gorge]

cr4e3 ||Julien went down SO many on that. I wanted him mauled in the not fun way.||

[light meadow]

Hard to top the best one word gag in all Critical Role history

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||it's the way it was done for me, grabbing a fairy's wings feels like worse than just being an ass 😔 ||

[thorn prawn]

I agree but i think him being away doees alot since he doesn't get tainted by some of the more frustrating group decisions

[light meadow]

[Late CR3 context] ||https://youtu.be/7aa4TjS1PB0 ||

[thorn prawn]

he kinda just walks in gets to be cool and goes along with the BS

[light meadow]

He also has one of the better arcs

[low gorge]

mmhm and like 4e3 ||like, real pvp? sets me off. I'm SUPER confident Matt and Laura were fine the whole time and I also personally don't care. grimacing but in anger, not wincing||

showing my teeth as a threat display like a chimpanzee

[thorn prawn]

im really curious how the mighty nein show will be my worry is the ruin what i like about 10-40 to satiate what people who like 100+ enjoy and what people remeber

becuase C2 10-40 i think is the best of Critical role ( outside of like 1 epsiode)

tho i do include epsiode 1 in that since thats a peak intro

[tulip mountain]

dorian was very mid to me

he was okay

[light meadow]

I do get the impression that most of the changes will be additive, setting up later developments that "would have happened off screen" in CR2

[thorn prawn]

im not sure

based on what ive seen in the trailers '

and what they have said

[velvet ingot]

CR3 ||"Opens a CR3 video" "Vox Machina" "?????"||

this campaign went places i guess

[low gorge]

I stopped at like cr2 like 29 or something

[thorn prawn]

its sounds like they are making them far more proactive

[tulip mountain]

I want to see more of Bolaire 🙏

I liked what I've seen but it was so little 😭

[low gorge]

yeah we're not getting a lot of him tbh...

[thorn prawn]

I think they are less tied into the otehr characters and therefore less in the overture but will be pretty prominant once they set off

[low gorge]

can't wait

[light meadow]

I think I had a lot of tolerance for a lot of CR3's lows (and some of the commonly accepted lows are not lows to me at all) but its highs are really very high imo

[tulip mountain]

we should get more about them this week 🙏

understandably the others had a lot more plot these last few episodes

[low gorge]

Monday....

[thorn prawn]

what are the highs in your mind?

[velvet ingot]

I mean, CR3 lost me at like, episode 3 so I don't think it's salvageable for me. Also the idea of trying to watch through the backlog of a completed critrole season sounds torturous

[tulip mountain]

o also another thing I'm not too big on about Vaelus is actually Brennan's fault ||the way she joins the story is the most D&D out of the whole party lmao||

[thorn prawn]

i liked it but i would not reccomend binging lol

[lilac agate]

So true 🙏

C403 ||give me more of Julien just being straight horrible it’s so entertaining and juicy||

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||everyone in the party has connections to each other and history together and it makes sense that they'd work together at least in their own little groups. And then there's this complete stranger coming out of nowhere on a tense and antagonistical situation and then they just join the party because nothing better to do I guess lmao||

[velvet ingot]

I feel like CR3 was hitting around the time that I was pretty much fully converting to D20, which felt punchier, shorter, and funnier and scratched the itch better

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||I mean, the reason was also the players rolling like trash and getting bodied by level 0 characters but still ||

[low gorge]

cr4e3 ||Vaelus actually won me over more with her losing her aggro aimed at the other player characters, that was nice. I don't mind her being a super badass rn, it's nice of Brennan to help glaze her||

[light meadow]

CR3 ||Mostly moon stuff, when it felt like they were on track and going somewhere the campaign really worked on me. The arc heading into episode 50 before the great divide and then the final arc with all three parties operating in concert||

[low gorge]

cr4e3 ||there are lots of things about Vaelus I feel I should theoretically like more, which made it all the more frustrating that I SUPER hated her presence in the room for two episodes straight||

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||the glazing feels unearned to me, it feels a bit like the super storied player character that did everything and is so dangerous and dark and broody and is starting at level 1 which is more funny than anything for me ||

[low gorge]

||even now it's more a neutral-positive nod at her rather than me absolutely adoring her||

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||the dropping all friction to deus ex machina the party and just joining the crew after that feels like an actual storytelling problem like a break in the fiction that everyone has to work around||

[low gorge]

||I dig the concept of elves just going along with whatever with a shrug because you know, they just didn't have plans this decade anyway||

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||I don't mind it that much but it did stick out to me; it would be interesting if Vaelus was just misunderstood ||

[velvet ingot]

CR 4.3 ||Elf is already like an immediate 100pts for me, but I'm also very into the devotee of a dead god that kind of resents all these mortals that killed the Shapers and are now messing around with things that used to be sacred. I like her vibes. I don't mind that she's got a cool extra aura even if she's level 3, that doesn't bug me.||

[low gorge]

||I am realizing I don't actually like brooding types a lot. I think I was tricked by strongly enjoying some amazing examples of the type, but it's an instant -100 pts.||

||show me you're actually interesting, please, because that vibe by itself is a huge turnoff. ||

||it's boringgggggg||

[velvet ingot]

I like a brood if there's a good reason to brood and there's more than just brooding, ||for example, Hal feels like he's just brooding without anything else and that's boring. Vaelus feels more like... cold resentment. Sharper.||

[tulip mountain]

I feel the opposite

[low gorge]

||I need more... ||

[light meadow]

||I tend to find it all-or-nothing. +100pts or -100pts, with very little in between||

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||Hal did just lose the brother that he loved but also resented for bringing all this trouble on his family||

[low gorge]

||like it HAS to be interesting brooding. I am not the type you can just fill out the checkbox of traits and go "but I thought you love x?" no! you can have a premise made for me and if the presence at the table sucks, who cares.....||

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||Vaelus on the other hand I have no idea about her relationship with the deity of the elves, like we know that they loved the elves very much but was it like a more personal kind of love? was the deity of the elves a parental figure or more distant?||

[low gorge]

||yeah, Hal is actively grieving, not brooding, to me. I also don't find him super exciting but his reasons for being this way are way more obvious and front-and-center and also Liam is NOT being obnoxious with Hal's sadness, he's still clearly trying to continue on with his life||

cr4e3 ||I think Hal and Thaisha's flirting has been sooooo cute actually, I'm low-key enjoying them a lot. they're just so comfortable with each other and it's pleasant to see them just kinda hit on each other, but it's also really affectionate?||

[livid geode]

Is this where i mention that i could not care less about Kattigan?

(Granted Dorian also got under my skin in ExU, and was a big turn off for Campaign 3...)

[tulip mountain]

Occtis I like but like

the thing about Occtis is that he isn't Jasper

and like Occtis is fine, but Ward is so good at playing a different kind of character that I want to see more of that 😭

this is fine, it shows his range

but Jasper is so good 😭

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFyQtOghqwA&list=PLHy91_vd8BAM17yUmpgPr7ApLxsswJ1qy

highly recommend LA By Night btw

[low gorge]

I just find Robbie has some natural charm I'm enjoying

he makes me smile

[livid geode]

I started watching it a few months ago, made it about half way through season 1. I enjoyed it! Should get back to it at some point...

[lilac agate]

CR4e3 ||Yeah, I think Hal will get more interesting over time and Liam is playing it a bit reserved in his grief rn, rather than obnoxiously brooding. I like Vaelus, but I don’t fault Hal for being depressed. Just looking forward to seeing him in future episodes outside of his grief||

[low gorge]

||I also have found him to be a playful seeming guy, him on stage has been fun instead of sad, he still is looking out for his family and their feelings rather than being a gravity well about centering his feelings, like, it's not too much for me at all||

[lilac agate]

CR4e3 ||yeah he’s playing single dad simulator rn||

[tulip mountain]

C4 ||oh also another thing I don't like about Vaelus is that I'm a god hater 🙏||

||definitely interested in learning more about the gods||

[dense mulch]

C4 ||it is really funny seeing everyone else here have actual opinions while I'm just like "heehee funny demon lady"||

[vernal oxide]

Same

[vernal oxide]

Sounds to me you just don't like Robbie Daymond lol

[sleek sluice]

C4 ||I've found that Hal has only really been reactive to things around him, which I am finding to be dull, whereas everyone else is being more proactive in their stories and driving them forward.||

||Also I share the dislike of Kattigan feeling. Feather laid it out really well.||

[light meadow]

||I'm conflicted with Hal because he's very much giving off "I'm overwhelmed and am struggling to keep up with all of life's demands right now" and that absolutely makes sense but also doesn't make for great D&D character where you want Hal to have a lot of agency and he feels like he has basically none||

[velvet ingot]

CR4 ||It's like a totally fine person reaction, like I don't dislike Hal, but in the midst of such a large cast and where you're trying to get people excited and invested in this new crop of characters and new story, it's a very subtle, mellow flavor, where I'm hoping for a punch. I liked him attuning the sword, I had a feeling of like, okay maybe Hal will be interesting after this, but he wasn't interesting me before.||

[low gorge]

cr4e3 ||as much as i'm waiting for some of the cast to start shining more, i'm really really glad not everyone is coming in with a punch||

||i appreciate some people are taking the mellower approach now and taking it on faith they'll get their flowers later, it feels like, and in the meantime, there's a LOT of spotlight to quickly pass between hands in a never-ending baton pass rn||

||however i could not explain liking kattigan even if i were on trial for it. i just think robbie's funny||

||he's also not being gross in a way that bothers me tbh||

[vernal oxide]

||He gives off lovable-loser energy to me. Like, he's trying so hard to play this rugged, rough-and-tumble ranger, but in reality he's basically just a human dog.||

Ep 3 3:45 ||That was like 3 hell yeah's in under 60 seconds||

3:49 ||Ok yeah no Kat is 100% the dog possessing his body||

[light meadow]

RIGHT????????

[summer perch]

Cr4 e3 ||Tbh, it totally confused me why Robbie joined them... It wasn't clear to me why he was. Like Laura, Travis, Sam and Whitney all made sense in context of what was said but he felt randomly thrown in there?||

[summer perch]

||Of course you like Julian ||

[low gorge]

||because he had the wilderness expertise||

[thorn prawn]

||Ranger = guide || c4

[summer perch]

Cr2 ||Just keep the 🪑 scene.||

[light meadow]

CR2/3 ||I wonder if they give the chair the Chetney logo||

[summer perch]

||That would be good. ||

[summer perch]

It's Thursday now. O.o

[peak cedar]

and Im only 3h into ep 3

[vernal oxide]

I...don't pay money, I am monday gang lol. Gives me something to listen to on and off during the work week though, so that's something lol

[peak cedar]

yeah, Im monday gang as well, but idk if I have 2h of listen time till next monday 😩

maybe on the weekend

[vernal oxide]

Oof, real and fair

[thorn prawn]

every now and then im reminded Nystuls Magic Aura in the game and I instantly wonder why the developers allow such a warcrime to exist

[balmy coral]

I just have to say for any Diceborn/Critical Role 4 watchers, I can’t escape from the Luka vibes || Wicander || gives off.

Right down to || evil grandma 😭 ||

It’s probably endearing me to that specific plot line even moreso than it would normally (because it is still my jam)

C44 ep 3 / Diceborn || naive and spoiled noble kid forced onto an adventure with rebels and criminals while confronting his family’s dark legacy? Yup that’s the stuff. ||

[tulip mountain]

what's diceborn again?

[balmy coral]

Of course SiSG || Julien is so Dier coded 😭||

[balmy coral]

Our actual play series (season one is out season two is coming soon (tm) )

[tulip mountain]

ooo lmao fair fair

[balmy coral]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgGfrVwudwTGkqcD-hNOP3QlyMRtus4yM&si=gB2jpjcftqTFOS6m

[summer perch]

||I call characters like him Feather-Bait||

[balmy coral]

Your rating || baby boy Wick || so low is criminal 😭

[balmy coral]

(I do see this but even still!)

[velvet ingot]

CR 4 ||I want to like him, but Sam is just playing him a little too dumb for me. He just forgets things he was JUST TOLD about how scary the situation he's going into is and going back to the la-di-da, everything is fine, what a nice conversation we're having thing, and I'm over here with Tyranny like, bruh. we JUST talked about this||

CR 4/Diceborn ||You play the balance with Luka much better 😤 ||

[balmy coral]

CR4 || Ssssssshhhh with your sensical words and flattery ||

[velvet ingot]

I do fully respect the "I cannot resist loving this character because they are too much like blorbo" mindset though, I'm with you, it is impossible to escape

[balmy coral]

I feel like we are in the same boat, different fish 😅

[velvet ingot]

real and true

[low gorge]

I've never found a Mattie-like in the wild tbh

[velvet ingot]

at least I'm safe thus far from Meijin vibes

[balmy coral]

Yeah no Meijin clones (yet)

Cr2 had enough of those 🤪

[velvet ingot]

Maia TheGoblinEmperor gives me some early version Mattie vibes but not as many late Mattie vibes

[livid geode]

||I forgot about the grandmas!||

[lone light]

I just dropped in

Are we talking about critical role?

[velvet ingot]

Critical Role and Diceborn yeah

[lone light]

Ah

[balmy coral]

(And comparisons to home game dnd characters)

[lone light]

This is my first CR campaign I've watched

[livid geode]

Royce is probably closest to Percy i think? (And there's some Lachsleigh in there too...)

[lone light]

execpt for the multiple times I tried to watch calamatiy, but I just felt lost

[low gorge]

I also tried but couldn't maintain attention on ep1

[thorn prawn]

honestly this thread could be renamed CR reacts tbh

[low gorge]

I figure I'll keep taking cracks at it until one sticks

[velvet ingot]

Calamity is very good but also very dense with stuff going on at every moment

[livid geode]

and Thjiazi and Thimble give me Methera feelings...

[balmy coral]

CR4/Diceborn || Yanessa and Adaine are definitely cut from a cloth. ||

[lone light]

The show does make me miss the community I had when I ran games. I want to run a cosmere campaign at some point

[lone light]

Also it's very hard for me to pay attention to combat in sessions

To me it feels like, very disconnection because I can't easily feel the tension. I wonder if it's because combat is a very personal form of a game, where it is the ultimate test of the players build

[thorn prawn]

they are not the best at showing combat thats for sure

[tulip mountain]

I am wondering how long it'll take for a CR thread

[balmy coral]

Combat often loses me a bit in actual play

[tulip mountain]

though it is also a question of whether the interest will stay high at like

[velvet ingot]

it'll be soon, there's mooting happening

[tulip mountain]

episode 50 as it is at episode 3 lmao

[thorn prawn]

My issue is that they don't show the actual board. You get it from an angle that doesn't convey the actual scope fo whats happening

[tulip mountain]

I had a feeling

[lone light]

Cosmere Reading

[lone light]

It's also in the small box in the bottom left side so it's like when a video game sticks the camera in a weird position and you can't change it.

[thorn prawn]

yeah

[velvet ingot]

I do like how D20 will actually do little action shots of the combat where they make the minis play out what's going on, it's cute

[low gorge]

if interest wanes, we can just close the thread and let it flow back here if conversation becomes occasional only

[balmy coral]

Stuff like HP and spell slot tracking, a more viewable board, etc would help a lot, but those are a lot of work to implement.

[lone light]

yea, it's also a bigger board so you can get better views

[low gorge]

it bugs me that the CR editors have gone through and done the work but they barely show the name placards and stuff

I'm not always looking

[velvet ingot]

also: rick perry

[thorn prawn]

i just want a top down view of the board or even better do the board in post with graphics

[balmy coral]

Watching on Beacon they at least include character art nameplates. Wish they did those for YouTube too

[lone light]

indeed.

[balmy coral]

Oh wait are the name plate overlays only on the live version? I’m not seeing them on demand

[velvet ingot]

They have them every so often, but they don't keep them up all the time

at least on the youtube one

[lone light]

Also I love how D20 and CR are both sides of the TTRPG spectrum. D20 is like a group of chill dudes that can get serious fast, where CR is more focused on drama, which can give it the feeling of just a long form tv show

[balmy coral]

I do know CR prefers a light edit

[thorn prawn]

Like in post do something like this where we get to see the board ( this from tales unwritten by the guys who do DBZA not a heavy combat show but it does this weel)

[balmy coral]

And they do so much of their music etc live

Which, great, but I could never soundtrack live while DMing.

That’s a lot 😅

[thorn prawn]

or you could commision art of key scenes and show them as they do their stuff as like an image on screen

Use the fact its no longer live to your advantage

[low gorge]

you don't have a staff of production folks who are making it easy for you to hit a button and get a fun fx result :P

[lone light]

All ideas for when the 17th Shard does it's own show

[balmy coral]

Hey - Matt was doing that even back before they had production 😭

[velvet ingot]

we literally did do this in secrets in stained glass

[thorn prawn]

I haven't gotten to it yet i have 50 hours of other TTRPG's before i get there

im trudging along

[tulip mountain]

okay to be fair to Mercer/Brennan, that's like

heritage from home game vibes

[thorn prawn]

and thats before the stuff currently airing

[low gorge]

(had the head tilt "is he third person... oh") yeah I remember that - but it wasn't easy or flowing as easily

[velvet ingot]

Then again, we don't have a weekly production schedule for our actual play shows

[balmy coral]

Brennan deservedly gets his flowers for DMing but I do like how Brennan acknowledges how much stuff he relies on production for that Matt was just doing himself.

[tulip mountain]

down to using video game soundtracks for the game's soundtrack

[velvet ingot]

They take months to edit, even if we release them weekly or biweekly when they're ready

[low gorge]

also as the person recording, I do thank you for not adding a complication to the audio mixing

[tulip mountain]

you also have the problem of not playing in person

[lone light]

we love a simple audio job

[balmy coral]

Doing live or light edit actual play is something that really requires professional or very experienced performers/improvisors.

[tulip mountain]

in person setup is a bit easier to control the audio mixing

[balmy coral]

The CR folks made it look straight forward but a lot of craft went into what they were doing.

[tulip mountain]

or extremely amateur ones

[thorn prawn]

one thing i think that has become evident to me is that matt is a much more passive dm. He sets things up and lets the players kind of live in it. And hes kinds unlikely to force a character to engage with anything he creates were Brennan designs all of his stuff where its almost non negotiable. The characters will get you involved if you want to or not. Which i think is a function of him often playing short game s

[balmy coral]

Doing it well I should say maybe.

[tulip mountain]

well doing it with professional quality

[lone light]

so amateur that it seems professional.

[tulip mountain]

Critical Role is what your home game looks like in your and your friends' minds

[balmy coral]

Yup! Totally agree. Matt waits and lets the PCs cook, whereas Breannain is more likely to launch in an active hook

[velvet ingot]

gotta say. it's weird talking about actual play production when i am doing actual play production right now on my other monitor

[shell cargo]

It’s actually caused a lot of trouble for home games, people going in with way too high of expectations

[lone light]

Matt seems like the dudes who will actively watch you set up your own downfall

[tulip mountain]

some people would say brennan is a railroady DM

[thorn prawn]

not enough snacks or drinks tbh

[tulip mountain]

that's because they hide them nowadays

[lone light]

WHOMST

[shell cargo]

Brennan is the one setting it up

[thorn prawn]

why hide the snacks

[tulip mountain]

campaigns 1 and 2 were very snacky

production I guess

[thorn prawn]

lame

[lone light]

I meant as a DM

[balmy coral]

I think part of it is CR started as a home game and became (one of the og) actual play, whereas D20 has always had production baked in from the start, so Brennan I think is more willing to prioritize audience over players.

[tulip mountain]

I don't remember if c3 was but in campaign 2 there was a lot of snacking on camera

[balmy coral]

Whereas Matt I think still treats CR as a home game

[thorn prawn]

i would and its not a bad thing

[lone light]

All those food deals they could have made!

[tulip mountain]

I'm pretty sure that part of Jester's thing with baked goods is a bit of an injoke with the snacks going on at the table

[lone light]

Critical Rolls for Takis

[tulip mountain]

last time they did one it did not go well

[lone light]

ah

[tulip mountain]

it was with uh

Wendy's?

[shell cargo]

So did I

[low gorge]

also want to input about the d20 players - they're also comedians and in my view, extremely adept at catching the ball Brennan tossed in the air and slam dunking it through the hoop even harder

[tulip mountain]

and that was just like at the cusp of the Wendy's using slave labor or underpaying or something like that going on

[balmy coral]

I was gonna say not the verboten Wendy’s one shot

[velvet ingot]

I feel like the number of times that Breannain has talked about a table choice from the intrepid heroes or an unexpected battle result completely negating all the potential plans he had for a season like, halfway through it and his willingness to redirect and re-plan is a sign that this isn't really the case. D20 has enough pre-production that they do have to have some guardrails to make sure that stuff that gets built for a show is actually used though

[tulip mountain]

oh right it was something to do with the tomatos that Wendy's used?

anyway probably irrelevant and too political for the current topic

[balmy coral]

And playing it like performers producing a product, rather than performers who are playing a game for fun.

I think both casts transition between both, but they find their centre at different places on the continuum

[velvet ingot]

Like it just happened in Cloudward, Ho, where Brennan's like "I have to go rewrite everything for the back half of the season because I didn't think you guys would pull that thing off in battle and somehow you did"

[lone light]

Ah. I read what you wrote in a diffrent way

[velvet ingot]

... brennan

[balmy coral]

(Alyx you are doing that name thing again 🤪)

[velvet ingot]

I REALIZED

[lone light]

Brennan-elin

[velvet ingot]

my fingers don't type that name that way anymore 😭

[balmy coral]

I’m sure I’ve let some slip but I’ve corrected a bunch

[shell cargo]

He’s going to turn into Beanpole Cucumber

[velvet ingot]

its like back when i used to have a robot character named fiVe and i couldn't type the word normal anymore

[lone light]

I get that, My mind sometimes goes faster than my fingers and does nto look back

like that

[low gorge]

the d20 tables as a whole seem to me to be on the same page as all always thinking "ok what's the best joke here, what's the best beat, what's the best place to go here" in a way that makes it seem so much more active and... more momentum than CR sometimes

[balmy coral]

Missed this one

[velvet ingot]

(for context, our home game has a key npc named Breannain Arduenna, whose name is pronounced the same as "Brennan")

[tulip mountain]

or changing the plot for adventure high s1 because that combat went so poorly in the first episode

[lone light]

ah

[low gorge]

fantasy high?

[tulip mountain]

yeah that one!

[low gorge]

Brennan realizing he kicked their asses a little hard: "a life for a life, eh, mr. gibbons?'

[tulip mountain]

also very well done incorporating it into the bigger story of the game

[lilac agate]

Is it bad I hope Brennan tpks just because it would be SO FUNNY

[thorn prawn]

my only critique with that is i do think while that is one way to play the game it doesn't represent what i think of when i think of as a normal game one of the best parts of a liveplay are things were you see fundemntal challenges, moments, and actions that you can relate to as real

[vernal oxide]

They're very different shows for sure. But that's also why they're both so big, they're not trying to do the same thing

[velvet ingot]

CR 4.1 ||Introducing a character with death saves off the bat was iconic ||

[tulip mountain]

C4 e3 ||after the lengths that he went to to not have it happen in ep3 I'm not sure it'll happen tbh||

[velvet ingot]

the aura on that move

[vernal oxide]

||it cemented "I'm not gonna pull ANY punches this game" for SURE||

[low gorge]

I disagree to the point I don't even see it as a basis for critique. it's a different focus, they want a different result and they successfully play the way that will get them their desired result. I prefer d20's approach

[lilac agate]

||that felt less like Brennan’s mercy and more like “this is episode 3 I can’t do this to em”||

||also like the dice wanted Ashley to farm aura||

[low gorge]

overall every table is different and I don't need to see a situation at the table like mine to feel it's good or worthwhile

for "real", I have my home games

I don't need other people's shows to feel like home games, cause they won't even feel like my games anyway

[tulip mountain]

pretty much same

one thing I do care about are decent microphones and/or audio though

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||it was followed up almost immediately by Brennan pulling punches is the funniest thing ||

[rapid sleet]

They need to zoom in on stuff more , it’s really annoying

We can’t distinguish what is happening when you have a zoomed out map shrunk in the corner. It’s been a problem for years and they’ve never fixed it and idk why

[vernal oxide]

Because they prioritize showing the players vs the board

[brazen tendon]

but how soon? 😩

[summer perch]

Yeah, as a dm sometimes I do some Brennan things because there are certain scenes that need to happen.

[thorn prawn]

One of my tables have explicitly told me to railroad them. Its actually very funny. I'll be like it feels like bad process to just tell you where to go but then on the other hand they explicitly asked for a magic item that essentially allows them to directly tell them where to go and to assist in figuring things out

[summer perch]

I do light railroads, I give them an obvious 'you should go there' and if they don't...well... Bad things happen.

And yes of course bad things happened the last time I dmed.

[low gorge]

honestly give me a direction to go so I know there's story there if I move that direction. I don't actually want sandboxes, really

I want me and my friends to have a story together, and a bit of rails helps me trust that there is one

[light meadow]

I've found hard sandbox DMs are sometimes actually just looking to offload more narrative development than is often entirely healthy

[summer perch]

I have a very light story and have some specific events and then I make a bunch of characters and know how they will interact.

[light meadow]

For all the "Adam Koebel bad" that exists and makes Dungeon World hard to talk about in modern day, I do still default to that game's fronts system when designing a new campaign

[summer perch]

Have you heard there a Dungeon World 2 alpha? O.o

I am gonna do some one west marshes like things with it soon.

[light meadow]

In short, you have a number of "fronts" that the PCs are embattled on, usually 3-5 but varying by intended experience length. Each front represents a thing that will happen without player intervention, and which threatens things most or all characters at the table are motivated to care about

You as the DM develop wickets that represent the increasingly impending nature of each front and the threat it represents, to be deployed tactically as the players do (or do not) do things. You can and often do tie the fronts together with a central threat that is pushing all the other ones forward

[light meadow]

Using Lord of the Rings as a template, an example runs like this:
||Front: Saruman and the Uruk-hai||
||- Burnings in the Westfold, horses stolen, etc. General fear in Rohan||
||- Bold attacks represented as very difficult random encounters for the party in and around Rohan territory||
||- Madness expressed by the king||
||- The fall of Helm's Deep||
||- The complete fall of Rohan||

||Front: The Armies of Mordor||
||- General ongoing war with orcs on all reasonable fronts, Gondor is generally isolated||
||- Fall of Osgiliath||
||- Denethor's suicide, driven by despair and enabled by communion with Sauron||
||- Fall of Minas Tirith||

||Front: Sauron's influence in the North||
||- Isolation and departure of the Elves||
||- Constant presence of the Ringwraiths in northern parts of the game world||
||- Increased activity in locations historically associated with great evils (Barrow-downs, Dol Goldur, etc)||
||- Daily or near-daily random encounters on all roads||
||- Sacking and destruction of isolated and/or fringe peaceful locations, like Hobbiton||

||Front: Temptation and Influence of the Ring||
||- One or more party members becomes mechanically attached to the Ring||
||- One or more significant NPCs expresses overt temptation by the Ring (Galadriel, Boromir)||
||- PCs not normally mechanically attached to the Ring begin making checks against the Ring's power (Aragorn)||
||- A significant NPC attempts to take the Ring by force||
||- Gollum||
||- A PC is consumed by the Ring's power, representing a character death||

Oh that double spaced lmao

I love Discord formatting

Anyway a test I find myself coming back to a lot is "can I resonably describe Lord of the Rings using this game mechanic", especially for games using that as milieu

[lilac agate]

Runtime for tonight

C4E4 ||Brennan 😭 ||

[rapid sleet]

Bruh|| tal||

||”reasonably sized” ||

[rapid sleet]

Not again

[summer perch]

I'll be all alone. 😭

[jade tide]

C4E4 ||Tal dressed like he just turned Brennan into a vampire lol||

[summer perch]

We sure this isn't a Vampire the Masquerade game?

[rapid sleet]

Brennan looks like || a creepy dead mime||

[summer perch]

||Did he play Exp 33? ||

[rapid sleet]

Did he rob the louvre???

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||Idk what is happening or where we are. ||

[summer perch]

Nah, they wore safety vest.

I am cooking boudin tonight.

[lilac agate]

C4e4 ||selling their soul to the devil||

[rapid sleet]

👀

[rapid sleet]

|| to the dudes that almost ate Travis!||

[lilac agate]

||Tyranny’s dad||

Y’all eyeballing smth that was a joke

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||Why is Brennan so good at doing Taliesin coded stuff?||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||You don’t want to hear “what is your total hp” ||

[summer perch]

||Not the mask ||

[lilac agate]

https://tenor.com/view/phantom-christine-daae-phantom-of-the-opera-gif-5887508

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||Ew and so hardcore metal 🤘 ||

||Of course there's a dead body in the room ||

[lilac agate]

[summer perch]

||Yall, I don't think we're in Critical Role land anymore||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||well uh 💀 ||

||that happened||

[rapid sleet]

C4 || so uh is his personality in the mask and he just switched bodies ||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||So... Is he a vampire or did he get possessed?||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||wait did he have the mask back||

[rapid sleet]

|| didn’t say I think he’s in a new body||

[summer perch]

That cinnamon roll looks good. 👀

[lilac agate]

Wait that makes sense

[summer perch]

Ashley: 😐

[lilac agate]

I’m dumb I didn’t get that

[summer perch]

||I didn't either, HUH? ||

[lilac agate]

||he took the other guy’s body when he touched the mask||

[summer perch]

Wait what is Travis supposed to be?

[vast ivy]

I have to join the CR livestream late, did I miss too much for it to make sense/should I wait until I can watch it all on Monday, or can I jump in still?

[rapid sleet]

|| it’s not confirmed it’s just what I think happened ||

[summer perch]

||When the other guy touched his mask?||

[lilac agate]

I think this cold open was important. Dunno how much tho.

[rapid sleet]

But you can still join!

[summer perch]

You just missed a single seen, you should be good

[rapid sleet]

||my guess is he tried to put it on||

[summer perch]

Was it?

[summer perch]

||Maybe is soul is in the mask, you put the mask on and... You take over the body?||

[vast ivy]

Ok, maybe I will join, can anyone give me a quick recap of what I missed?

[summer perch]

I need a quick recap and I watched it.

[rapid sleet]

That was my first reaction

[rapid sleet]

|| Tal walked into a shady tavern ran into the tailors from last week then went to a meeting with a smuggler who put him to sleep and took off the mask. And he has a desiccated not quite corpse. Then jump cut to him waking up feeling better with a dead body in the room. Then he chopped up and burnt the body with his shape changing glass weapon. Then he put on the dead bodies clothes and walked out||

[low gorge]

ohhhhhhhh

thanks

i watched and was like. i'm not with it rn

[summer perch]

Okay I got my food

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||did we know that was Primus????||

[rapid sleet]

Yeah it was uh… A LOT

[rapid sleet]

|| I don’t think so. I think we knew the brother was jumping Oct||

[lilac agate]

||so uh gang they’re cooked||

[rapid sleet]

|| yeah I don’t think this is a combat designed for them to win||

[lilac agate]

||the most cooked is the wizard caught in a Silence spell lol||

C4E4 ||I retract my statement ||

||Matt roll death saves||

[rapid sleet]

|| obviously the solution is to kick is bro in the balls||

[low gorge]

matt's sweater is super cute

and aabria's, though different vibes

[rapid sleet]

|| I love Matt playing reckless here||

[summer perch]

||I mean, what else are you supposed to do?||

[lilac agate]

||is attacking Primus like instadeath? Yes. Is it what his char would do? Yes. ||

[rapid sleet]

||exactly!||

|| so is that candle the spell that lets him do this in between worlds thing?||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||Alex looks like a fish out of water. ||

[rapid sleet]

Uhhhhhhhhhh

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||💀 💀 💀 ||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||o7||

[lilac agate]

|| “What do you want me to tell your family” vibes||

||chat 💀 this is crazy. ||

[rapid sleet]

LOL

[lilac agate]

https://tenor.com/view/school-scared-mom-pick-me-up-gif-3548565

[rapid sleet]

|| so I didn’t consider an intentional sacrificial lamb ||

[summer perch]

Cr4e4 ||Reminds me of US travel advisery going to certain countries: Write your will before you go. Have a negotiator ready when you are kidnapped.||

[rapid sleet]

|| well at least not seriously considered ||

[lilac agate]

||wtf||

[low gorge]

............... no, oh my god??? noo!

[lilac agate]

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-patrick-panic-run-scream-gif-4656335

C4E4 ||HE’S DEAD?!||

[rapid sleet]

|| DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH||

[low gorge]

cr4e4 ||not THIS character!!!!!!!!||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||https://youtu.be/RRKJiM9Njr8||

[low gorge]

||bruh||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 || so much for the people thinking Brennan was pulling punches||

[summer perch]

||Tbf? He was.||

[lilac agate]

I’m legit shocked lol

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||Schemers out schemed themselves too much. Full tpk?||

[rapid sleet]

|| I think tbh was more or less set in stone ||

|| think oct was gonna die ||

[summer perch]

||Make my way... ||

[rapid sleet]

||NVM WHAT THE ||

[lilac agate]

||Brennan cannot be stopped||

[summer perch]

||6TH LEVEL? IS HE MY PAST GM? ||

[lilac agate]

||PRIMUS IS FULLY HERE?||

||is Brennan gonna tpk||

[summer perch]

||Was that... A FLAMESTRIKE? Fireball?||

I imagine a exp 33 song playing rn.

[low gorge]

oh i just had a theory
e4 ||.....what if the seekers all die and the seekers table starts in the underworld||

[rapid sleet]

|| I think this is more an assassination/coup. That they kinda stumbled into. ||

[lilac agate]

||that would be wicked. ||

|| “yeah the gods are dead let’s kill a table and make them go to the non-afterlife underworld stuck at the gates of death” like if that’s the case, Brennan POP OFF||

[rapid sleet]

BRENNAN

[low gorge]

||like it's so clearly one of the main problems being raised as the current result of godlessness||

[summer perch]

||Turn from trying to help the Underworld to being the underworld that needs help.

Brennan, if you wanted to play Hades II, just say so. ||

[low gorge]

||it would be funnnnnn||

||also possibly just copium because i really liked occtis||

e4 ||also extra copium because.... occtis being of the house he is .... i wonder how much he in particular is primed to still be able to be around after he dies||

||given how... like, inescapable that setup was?||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||This reminds me when I messed with a wierd weapons soul dealer.

He cast disintegrate and I dodged the first one. 💀

All my friends just ran ||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 || “he does not like getting hit with that” lmao||

[rapid sleet]

|| yeah it feels very meant to die here ||

[summer perch]

NOO I SPILLED DR PEPPER ON ME AND MY BED

[summer perch]

||It feels like a 'you were supposed to run here' encounter||

||HOW MANY DICE DID HE GRAB THERE? ||

[lilac agate]

||Occtis getting turn oned: whoops||

[rapid sleet]

Brennan I am eating dang it

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||When your the player who dies at the beginning of the session and just have to stay there for the rest of the session.💀 ||

[lilac agate]

||occtis was my favorite so I hope they all die 💀 ||

[rapid sleet]

👀

[lilac agate]

||is he… dead? He’s actually dead?||

[summer perch]

||What if I told you that he was one of my least favorite. ||

[rapid sleet]

|| oh dip maybe it is a wipe||

[summer perch]

||Do Paladin op things ||

Did they nerf ancient paladin?

[rapid sleet]

|| uhhhhhhhh is ash about to get jumped when aggro switches||

[summer perch]

||Where's the cleric when you need him? ||

[lilac agate]

||Matt knows what Julien would do lol||

[rapid sleet]

|| having an existential crisis of faith ||

[lilac agate]

||the gods are dead and so are you - Brennan probably||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||So yall... Are we gonna have another whole funeral episode? 🪦 ||

[lilac agate]

|| she’s downnnnn||

[rapid sleet]

I gotta stop eating during the show

[lilac agate]

||1 HP rip||

[summer perch]

||The traitor died 😂 ||

[rapid sleet]

||rip thad ||

[lilac agate]

||ability decrease is crazy||

C4E4 ||meanwhile Hal: cooking dinner 🍽️ ||

[rapid sleet]

|| chopping veggies with the god killer sword ||

[summer perch]

Matt is giving Noel Fielding rn.

[summer perch]

||They are... Mummies right? Or is that a ghoul thing as well?||

[lilac agate]

||imagine he tpks and there was no ghost team plan ||

[rapid sleet]

|| I think we’re at the balanced part of the fight too!||

[vernal oxide]

You kids have fun tonight

[summer perch]

||o7||

[rapid sleet]

Uhhhhhhh

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[summer perch]

|| ||

[rapid sleet]

|| low key I hope this isn’t him coming back ngl ||

[low gorge]

||highkey hope it is||

[rapid sleet]

|| I just think it’s a bit meh to go hey you’re dead to hey you’re back within like an hour||

[low gorge]

||eh, i don't||

[summer perch]

🐦‍⬛

https://tenor.com/view/haste-broken-worlds-haste-haste-zoe-haste-broken-worlds-zoe-haste-broken-zoe-gif-2128317811975173994

[low gorge]

e4 ||my passion for this all HAS been cut by like 80%, i do not like pc death||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||Mine went up ||

[low gorge]

||i just don't care about this combat or the results kinda anymore ||

[summer perch]

||Because you only like Occtis?||

[rapid sleet]

||uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh|||

[lilac agate]

||💀 💀 💀 ||

[low gorge]

||mm, no, i like lots of characters||

[summer perch]

||Nah only 2 💀 💀 ||

[low gorge]

||i am very much like... but who cares though? my brain is like, yeah, okay, there's no point in caring about them - self-protection there||

what's with the lul emote

[summer perch]

Laughing at the last bit.

[low gorge]

i wasn't being funny

[summer perch]

I think some things are funny when they shouldn't be.

[low gorge]

k

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||No is he coming back? ||

[rapid sleet]

||ooooooooooooooooh no ash ||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||sometimes I forget how powergame minded Matt can be ||

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||If I was Occtis, I would have told her to come with me. ||

[velvet ingot]

CR 4.4 ||I will be more into a PC death if there is actual like, content and story in death for sure||

[low gorge]

e4 ||instantly started feeling pressure relieve itself and my interest return||

||"oh look i'm paying attention to the combat again huh"||

[velvet ingot]

CR 4.4/Stormlight ||I was suddenly reminded of my SUPER old theory about the idea that this was going to be the plot of Stormlight Archive, that something was messed up with the afterlife on Roshar and the characters were going to have to figure out how to fix it because stuff was Not Working Right on the other side||

[rapid sleet]

Twitch messed up and I missed a lot of || the Oct stuff last turn with the hand ||

[low gorge]

e4 ||"and on a 22, you don't have to" haaaaaaaaa||

[rapid sleet]

|| roll for cognitive dissonance ||

[summer perch]

Youtube is our friend.

[low gorge]

e4 ||ashley i'm rooting for you i... no okay||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 ||the only one not screwed up rn is Julien lol||

[summer perch]

CR4E4/White Sand ||Julian is giving me Aarik vibes.||

[rapid sleet]

|| well Taisha just did like a big chunk of his health lol ||

[lilac agate]

||when the most dmg you are taking is from your party member||

Wait I know where I’ve seen this before

[summer perch]

I had a session where a pc got introduced, another player cast a fireball also hitting him, and he critically failed died.

[low gorge]

e4 ||oh. cool then. alright. 🫠 ||

[rapid sleet]

|| oh did he make it to the after life ||

[lilac agate]

C4E4 || is he deeeeeaaaad||

[thorn prawn]

C4 E4 ||so has anyone died yet i just joined ||

[velvet ingot]

CR 4 ||oh nooooooo he pulled the stone 😭 ||

[lilac agate]

||i kid you not||

[summer perch]

||HOLD!||

[thorn prawn]

👀

[rapid sleet]

||. How have we not hit break yet ||

[lilac agate]

||Brennan merked Occtis within minutes and now he’s dead dead||

[rapid sleet]

|| oh maybe his soul is in the stone now ||

[velvet ingot]

CR 4.4 ||I think it was what sustaining him and he wasn't supposed to pull it out 😭 ||

[thorn prawn]

||not the boi!||C4E3

[summer perch]

||We have two hours left. ||

[summer perch]

||Maybe a part of a god or something? O.o||

[low gorge]

2.5 hours left not including break

[summer perch]

CR4E4 ||I love Lady Vanessa ||

[rapid sleet]

|| I need to go rewatch the Oct stuff at the break ||

[thorn prawn]

||Is it Vanessa or avanessa|| C4all

[low gorge]

||aranessa||

[summer perch]

||Uh.. Idk ||

[thorn prawn]

The essa part is the only important part clearly

[rapid sleet]

||JEEZ BRENNAN WE DON’T HAVE TO GO THERE||

[summer perch]

||But we did ||

[rapid sleet]

||matt lol ||

|| ash yes roll good!||

||LOL AABRIA||

[thorn prawn]

||so aabria is officially a land druid right ||C4 E4

||Specifically of the temporate variaty at least at the moment ||

[summer perch]

Is it bad that I see a nose in the Dispatch logo?

[low gorge]

ok turning off for the night, i CANNOT risk staying up until 3am by accident

"accident"

i'll see if i might watch this tomorrow sometime somehow

[rapid sleet]

C4 E4 || omg was he one point off the roll telling him the correct thing to pull out|||

[summer perch]

Have a good night.

[lilac agate]

Ngl I’m tired too and I still have my Beacon free trial so I’ll finish in the morning lol

[rapid sleet]

I might stay up for a little longer but I ain’t making it to 3

[low gorge]

my thing is that if i get caught up in it i might not be able to turn it off and go to bed no matter how tired i am :P

[velvet ingot]

yeah i should go to bed too...

i have to take my trash down in the morning and they come at like 9

[rapid sleet]

I was gonna fold laundry during the stream but uh

[velvet ingot]

i've been cross stitching

[rapid sleet]

I’m not sure how well I could multitask and actually follow,what’s happening in this since I can’t rewind

Gonna be real funny if the rest of the cast isn’t in costume

[lilac agate]

My body wakes me up at 6am regardless so it’s a matter of 8hrs of sleep vs 6hrs of sleep lol

[velvet ingot]

my body does the same thing but it's uhhh 11am

[summer perch]

I am being left alone 🫡

[velvet ingot]

alright i'm tapped there, good night

[summer perch]

I'll separate my spoilers for a p2 so people who haven't gotten here don't get spoiled.

Cr4e4p2 ||My spoiler tags is now a monitor name. 💀

She's so mean to his daughter ||

||Neutral negative, a Brandon Sando magic system ||

Cr4e4p2 ||So she is Divination 🧙‍♂️ ||

Cr4e4p2 ||Murray has the girls out wet ||

||Murray is great ||

Cr4e4p2 ||A secret archive? Could it be a ☁️?||

||High giant ||

||Bell curveeee||

Cr4e4p2/Exp 33 ||So... Bolaire is Simon? ||

||He's in danger. ||

[summer perch]

Why am I alone?

Cr4e4p2 ||30 DC? ||

||Portent? 😎 ||

https://tenor.com/view/ive-drstrange-gif-26305530

[thorn prawn]

I’m still here I’m just not typing

[summer perch]

Cr4e4p2 ||Based Julian.||

Brennan is such a troll.

[thorn prawn]

Indeed

[summer perch]

CR4E4P2 ||A week without CR? ||

[wheat moat]

Parcel day.

[jade tide]

those are incredible vibes. never heard of this game until now

[wheat moat]

A mildly delayed Kickstarter project.

[low gorge]

went to the critical role spoiler tags on Tumblr to get the juice on the end of e4 and ||ok alright I'm cool now||

[tulip mountain]

marking this to come back to read after I'm finished with the episode

really funny to me that C4E4 ||half of the e4 runtime is a combat classic D&D||

okay but holy brennan with the goth getup though?

[low gorge]

that isn't a content spoiler

it's a screenshot about the length of the episode, so you'll be disappointed coming back to that I think

[tulip mountain]

oh sorry I meant like, mark where to start reading the episode reactions

[low gorge]

ahh! gotcha

[tulip mountain]

tal's getup tho

[low gorge]

a lot of people stopped at the break, so there's only half an ep reactions here for the most part

[tulip mountain]

o pog

C4E4 ||not the 'speak no evil' password😭 ||

[low gorge]

c4e4 I looked up spoilers for the full episode and ||lmao all this time Julien and Vaelus seemed so aggressive and like they might be the main instigators of PvP and meanwhile THERE'S TALIESIN JAFFE||

||a real enemy within the party??! ha||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||Bolaire being the mask is so fun ||

[vernal oxide]

Im trying so so hard not to click any of these 😭

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||holy everyone's outfits ||

C4E4 ||poor Ward ||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||I hope Lady Aranessa makes it out 🙏 ||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||the character from this plotline I care the most about ngl ||

[eternal axle]

I zoned put a bit just before the break last night before the table swap, C4 ||what was the portal the 3 remaining were running through? Like where did it go and where did it come from? Or was I super out of it and it was just the mansion door...?||

[summer perch]

||I think you might be talking about what they did was meld/etc the underworld/physical realm but it only reached so far? Or are you talking about the baddies leaving?||

[eternal axle]

Oh wow, no it was that. Haha guess I need to rewatch that whole bit 😅

I was thinking of ||when Ahsley aksed Matt if he wanted to stay (to keep fighting ghouls I think?) And he said no, after Aabria had peaced out||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||dropping the tactical Silence spell to trash talk is devious work ||

[thorn prawn]

Is that not a common use you see?

I see it all the time.

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||the sixth level spell too lmao||

C4E4 ||it feels like Aranessa should be at least the same level as him, I'm just saying Brennan...||

[dense mulch]

CR C4 E4 ||oh huh so they'd mentioned that killing the gods messed up the afterlife, but this is a pretty awful way to see that spelled out||

||I suppose that's probably why they can't just use magic to bring Thiajzi back to life||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||IS OCCTIS TRANS?||

C4E4 ||okay she has more hitpoints than a level 1 character at least but a 10 CON I dunno...||

also forgot to say

C4E4 ||man reddit is going to have a time with this episode huh ||

C4E4 ||the fandom in general||

[thorn prawn]

||Tough|| c4e4

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||"if this man were a god, he would not be fleeing right now"||

||bars||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||I don't see her being a d10 class tbh||

||I guess she could be a d8 with tough and 2 hp left but that seems a reach||

C4E4 ||oh she's a sorcerer I guess||

C4E4 ||makes sense lmao||

C4E4 ||saying that a single level 3 PC can take multiple shadows is crazy Brennan||

C4E4 ||str drain damage is no joke||

C4E4 ||ooo okay with her being immune to the str drain, fair enough||

[summer perch]

||I don't think so? I never got any of inclination of that.||

[thorn prawn]

I mean he’s not wrong it’s just volatile

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||okay Aranessa is at least a level 5||

[thorn prawn]

||I’m fairly certain she may be higher but parts of her sheet are inaccessible due to the sealing of the fey weakening her houses|| C4E4

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||this is Occtis very bad no good day huh ||

C4E4 ||Primus is not the Tachonys big bad? ||

C4E4 ||"be one higher" ||

[thorn prawn]

C4E4 Bleach all

[hazy forge]

C4E4 3h18 + Stormlight vague ||Azune is such an Edgedancer ||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||"If you took that mask off of him, I suspect you'd have him well in hand", oh Thjazi you joker ||

[rapid sleet]

lol I stopped last night at around 1:30 and there’s still || an hour and 45 left on the stream||

E4 3:50 || god I love Marisha. Just delightful. “We’re going huntin’ and it’s bastard season. Let’s go.” ||

3:58 || smh put a railing on your staircase tal cmon man ||

4:03 || omg Marisha and Liam just gonna keep poking magical artifacts. chaos squad!||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 post break ||is this a Liam character romancing a male (for now at least lmao) PC??? 👀 ||

[hazy forge]

||Well idk if that counts as romancing|| but also C3 ||that’s what happened last campaign so not that surprising||

C4 character tierlist

||S is my top 3, A is peak, B I like, C have potential, D haven’t done enough||

[tulip mountain]

C4 E4 ||oh I'm sure the fandom is going to be very normal about this finale ||

[summer perch]

||I agree with most of this, but would put Julian and Teor into A tier.||

[tulip mountain]

my tierlist for C4 characters after the overture

||I was going to put Teor in B but Travis gleefully backflipping onto the red buttons is delightful ||

[tulip mountain]

o also forgot to say, my favourite character is ||lady aranessa|| lmao

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||this would be interesting 🤔 ||

[rapid sleet]

||HAHAHA YES YES || 4:15

|| I love being right||

|| this is the most fun I’ve had with Tal in years||

4:33 || uhhhhhh tal danger danger danger. They’re there to seize the artifacts ||

[low gorge]

e4 second half ||oh my god luisssssssssssssssssss 😍 my god.......... so beautiful||

e4 second half ||oh.... Azune....... babe. a bit of a character defining nat one||

[rapid sleet]

E4 5:07 || COOK BRENNAN ||

[low gorge]

e4 second half ||lmaoooo oh tal can growl 😳 ||

[low gorge]

e4 second half ||ok i'm kinda glad i was spoiled for some of bolaire's stuff because i love to not be struggling in the reveal scene itself||

e4 second half ||oh are they gay? 👀||

||either way this is good||

[low gorge]

e4 second half ||also just thinking about Hal is just slowly working more and more in a lowkey way because Brennan makes Shadia work, like, yeah you know, i believe more and more that his motivation to protect his kids WORKS because we know her a little more and it's SO cute. "are my kids safe?" is SUCH a good scary question on a team that will be staying in this city||

[low gorge]

ok i'm done

damn i love dnd

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||yeah if this keeps up I might have to bump Hal up a tier in my tierlist||

[lone light]

Is there an LFG chat in the server?

[brazen tendon]

Only for the Cosmere RPG

#1391821174945611928

In general, you'll have better luck on other servers though (if there's an official server for the RPG you're interested in, go there)

[lone light]

Thank ya. I am using thr cosmere rpg

[brazen tendon]

The advice remains for the Cosmere RPG. That server's looking for group section is dramatically more active than this one's

[dense mulch]

So I made the mistake of watching a video about the first VtM Bloodlines game. I thought the setting looked cool so I looked up a bunch of lore on the clans and their sects. And then I was in a game store earlier today and saw this

Wrong photo lol

Are these new or old World of Darkness?

[tulip mountain]

old

new is called the Requiem

new werewolf is called the forsaken

hunter I have no idea tbh but just from being sold I'm guessing it's the new one lmao

old Hunter was not very popular

I don't recognise the cover so I'm guessing it's v5

[dense mulch]

Yeah I think I saw that that Vampire cover is 5th edition

I didn't buy anything though since I've already got two unplayed TTRPGs sitting around

[summer perch]

Oh this is your yearly reminder that day lights savings exist and Europe has just gotten into it. Don't have scheduling issues over this! Use discord timestamps to schedule around it.

[summer perch]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5sJEyMeo4NA

[light meadow]

CR4-4 ||The amount of nat 1s in the overture is unreal, especially from Ashley||

Also Matt is a real one for having a PHB at hand to help Brennan find stuff Just In Case

[rapid sleet]

-# Matt is just happy to be a player again

-# he keeps is close to remind himself

[light meadow]

Nah Player-who-DMs is a player archetype and he's living that life to a tee

He's even playing a human fighter, which is part of the archetype

[light meadow]

This week's Cooldown again feels like really important context

[Cooldown commentary on CR4-4] ||Alex wanted to play a Hollow One and sort of prestaged with Brennan that Brennan would take a very lethal shot at him and have the transition from human to hollow one happen on camera. They left the door open to that not going to plan, however, where Occtis could have survived or if the party had botched things Occtis could have died permanently. But he was not surprised at what was happening in a general sense and Brennan had very specific doors open for his resurrection at the end of the episode||

[rapid sleet]

-# once again gonna say that locking this behind beacon is silly

[tulip mountain]

I had a feeling lmao

C4E4 ||though I thought it'd be dhampir not hollow one||

[wheat moat]

Reckoning is Old, Vigil is New.

[peak cedar]

CR4E3 || Ok, I don't understand. Were the tailors actual fiends or not? ||

[dense mulch]

||afiak they were||

Also CR C4 E4 ||man murdering a player character and then attempting to bring him back as an undead is such a baller move||

||got up to the break yesterday and will probably finish today. I'm guessing at this rate that Mat, Aabria, Alex, and Ashley are going to be one of the groups (dunno which yet), which leaves Liam, Taleisin, Marisha, and Luis in the third group||

||I'm very excited for episode 5 and the soldier table since it's probably my favorite characters overall (yes it's carried by Tyranny and Wick)||

||OH and Bolaire ate a dude in the cold open. I'm betting he's actually a spirit tied to the mask that possesses whoever wears it, which is sick||

[peak cedar]

Well, I was quite confused, CR4E3 || Why didn't Divine Sense register them as fiends, then? ||

[dense mulch]

||do either of them have Divine Sense? I may have missed that?||

[peak cedar]

|| Teor explicitly used it while in the room with them, before they held person him ||

[dense mulch]

||oh 💀 I forgot he was there too. I guess they were just working with fiends||

[thorn prawn]

||Maybe just out of range|| c4 all

[peak cedar]

but it lasts like 10min

C4E3 || Brennan actually describes their magic as being fiendish, but never them themselves, while everything about their behavior and some weird body horror stuff that happens with them indicates they are otherwordly. I was very very confused ||

[vernal oxide]

||Its worth noting his senses WERE already clouded by the incense. But yeah, its a little unclear what, exactly, they are||

[vernal oxide]

Cr4 E3 4:08 ||"you never [BLEED] a sword before?" Lmaaaaoooooo||

[vernal oxide]

4:20 ||"he also believed that if you have a rich kid in your pocket to help pave the way...that is not a ticket you throw out" based Thjazi||

[vernal oxide]

4:28 ||That's actually so based of Brennan. Rule of cool > hard game mechanics any day, I appreciate him using such a good character moment to say "screw it, bardic inspiration that doesn't have a time limit"||

[vernal oxide]

4:47 + theory ||Oh balls...the underworld is so full of souls it nearly killed the Faywilds? Uuuuhhhhhhh...thats BAD. Also, Thjazi was absolutely doing something about death. Between the coffin of the halfling angle of death and the stone of nightsong... he had PLANS plans...||

4:49 ||OH BALLS the Tachonis are ALSO looking for the stone...well, that complicates things...||

[peak cedar]

another 5h (more actually) episode? <o>

[vernal oxide]

Ep 3 all ||JESUS CHRIST BRENNAN ANOTHER BRUTAL CLIFFHANGER????||

[summer perch]

||I was thinking maybe vampires, but wasn't ever sure.||

[vernal oxide]

CR4 general/E3 all ||I gotta say, I'm loving the west marches style for this game. Having so many people moving in and out from the table has made it feel really natural, as all of these characters have established lives. They're getting pulled into this web after Thjazi's death, sure. But its all happening at a pace that works, not like...a bar fight or such. Its just a ton of fun||

[vernal oxide]

Episode 4 0:17 ||THE [BLEEP] YOU MEAN BOLAIRE IS THE MASK?!?!||

[hazy forge]

||Well this is still the overture so there’s more switching around, the next few episodes will have just the soldiers||

[vernal oxide]

||Right, and I'm aware of that. But my point is the inclusion of this sort of overture, this build up into the individual tables, has been really good||

[vernal oxide]

CR4 E4 0:45 ||Brennan...I don't like what you're saying, maannn...||

[vernal oxide]

0:58 ||"I'm sorry does this feel different from the bar fight? Tonally?" JESUS BRENNAN TOO SOON||

[compact marsh]

C4 at the first hour or so of e4

||Laura and Travis just have the charisma to really sell their characters, and I’m super surprised and impressed by how serious and grounded Thimble is. I think it’s her grief that really sells Thjazi’s death. Teor is a basic character but one which works really well, and I could easily see him becoming the leader of the torn banner||

||Julien is amazing and messy and Matt’s voice acting is insane (also he’s lowkey kinda Jaime Lannister pilled)||

||Occtis is mostly S tier because I think he’s funny for dying and the necromantic family stuff seems neat||

||Wick has one of the most interesting plotlines for me and I’m sooo glad Sam decided to make a character not designed to cause pain to me specifically. Kattigan and Murray are both up there for being funny (and also because I think kattigan is actually a dog lol)||

||Hal has been kinda boring so far, Vaelus is fine as a character but annoys me because Ashley still doesn’t know how to play the game, and Tyranny feels generally kind of inconsistent and badly developed as a character||

[karmic bear]

https://www.tumblr.com/entropy-em/797864240663904256/pov-your-public-execution-has-created-a-domino

like if a girl was a dad was a girl

POV: your public execution has created a domino effect which will last at least 100 four-hour long actual play d&d sessions.

So happy with how this turned out! Speedpaint available here and here!

-# #critical role campaign 4 #cr4 #critical role #cr fanart #alright let’s tag everyone #tyranny cr #wicander halovar #vaelus cr #thimble cr #halandil fang #kattigan vale #azune nayar #teor pridesire #julien davinos #thaisha lloy #occtis tachonis #bolaire lathalia #murray mag'nesson #WOOHOO that’s 13 names to remember now… jesus #also this will be a print available at any cons I go to in the future! so keep an eye out for that

Tumblr · Oct 19, 2025, 7:37 PM

At least the pink demon girl is having fun. Even if nobody else is enjoying themself, I know my girl Tyranny is

[vernal oxide]

||The thing with Tyranny is she started out as playing the chaos to Wick's very straight-edged, no nonsense type deal. But she ends up playing a straight-man to Wicks commically goody-two-shoedness so it doesn't quite work||

[compact marsh]

||yeah, I think Whitney wanted to play a chaos gremlin, which was annoying but at least seemed like something she enjoyed. Sam kinda forcing Tyranny into being Wick’s mom kinda resulted in her getting a character reset from super clueless and carefree to uber responsible, and Whitney’s serious roleplay is like… very strained||

[vernal oxide]

||and like...there's still moments where she tries to be the chaos demon and the tonal whiplash is just...oof||

||I'm sure it'll get better over time, lord knows it takes me a hot minute to settle into how to play a new character once party dynamics hit||

[compact marsh]

||this is very nitpicky but some of Whitney’s word choices during Tyranny’s dialogue seems kinda forced to me||

||both the overuse of modern slang in comedic moments and her tendency to use incredibly careful corporate terminology in dramatic moments||

Unrelated but c4 ||I really hope kattigan is the dog. He’s provisionally in A tier because I think he’s the dog but he’s getting demoted to B or C tier if he’s not||

[vernal oxide]

||gods I'm praying he's the dog||

||It would be so bleeping funny||

[compact marsh]

||it would be soooo funny||

||teor and thimble just wondering “hey does kattigan seem a bit dumber than he was 12 years ago? Maybe it’s alcohol induced brain damage idk”, meanwhile Kat is eating raw meat and urinating on trees||

[tulip mountain]

C4E3 ||I think they are just people who sold their souls, maybe tieflings||

[kind osprey]

I need an in-universe name for a weapon that's basically a cross between monomolecular wire and a weed whip

Anyone got an idea?

[languid halo]

Whaddya mean by weed whip?

[languid halo]

Tfw your DM asks you this

[wheat moat]

Oh yes, I need to ask similar questions of my players. Thanks for reminding me.

[rare fable]

It doesn't matter what character I'm playing, my top 4 fears are all Nilbog

[languid halo]

Also planning my own campaign (the attack on titan inspired one, that I'm generally calling the Giantomachy) and players have been giving me backstory ideas and one is a half tiefling, half drow orphan who doesn't have any access to their racial magical abilities who bonds a sentient axe. I was thinking of fun parentage twists and was like "Oh man, I'm totally gonna Dune this dude"

Gonna make his birth something a "prophecy" foretold and if they ever visit the town his parents are in, gonna have them like "AH YES OUR PROPHESISED CHILD HAS RETURNED, NOW YOU CAN BOND OUR GOD THAT WE SO DELICATELY FORGED YOUR SOUL TO BOND WITH" and then they'll be pissed to discover he's already accidentally bonded a sentient axe

[compact marsh]

C4e4 ||does primus cast misty step and circle of death in the same turn?||

||or does he just have a free teleport||

||also does Matt even get to roll his crit damage? 😔 ||

[tulip mountain]

C4E4 ||I'm assuming it's a feature similar to shadow monk where they just get to teleport from shadow to shadow when they want (once per turn)||

||maybe rogue has that too? don't remember||

[livid geode]

C4e4 ||Shadow Sorcerer gets a bonus action teleport at level 14||

[compact marsh]

||oh it was 12 damage, he didn’t get sneak attack?||

||ohh because he attacked first and missed already, so he didn’t get the advantage from the vex||

C4e4 ||astonishingly, ghouls do not have resistance to necrotic damage||

C4e4 ||lmao shadar kai are busted||

[kind osprey]

https://tenor.com/view/tall-grass-cut-grass-trim-mow-lawn-grass-gif-11944116

[languid halo]

Hmmmm a monofilament weed whacker....

What universe is this?

[kind osprey]

Cyberpunk

[languid halo]

Oh heck yeah

Rotary molecular disassembler

[kind osprey]

The official term is "buzzhand" but I think that sounds like an adult toy

[languid halo]

Hmmm....

Spinrazor?

[rare fable]

What should it be marketed for doing?

The cyberpunk answer is that it's all brand name versions of the generic thing anyway

So there'd be a different term for it being used in a military setting as opposed to actually using it for weed wacking

[balmy coral]

Official update also coming soon tm 😅.

Progress is happening!

(Sorry for missing this)

[kind osprey]

Rendering an opponent into chunky salsa

While being comparatively discrete when retracted

[summer perch]

When I dm sometimes, I have several questions for my pc to answer... And really I only want one single answer and the rest are just filler questions so that it isn't just me asking a single question. 😂

[upbeat forge]

Caught back up on CR

Glad we had a nice, normal, chill episode

[light meadow]

2077 calls this monowire, and RED calls it Slice 'n Dice

Buzzhand is chunkier than monowire but I expect if you were in NC in 2077 and looking at a buzzhand you'd still call it monowire as a generic term

[compact marsh]

C4e4 ||HOW DOES ASHLEY NOT KNOW HER DIVINE SMITE DICE||

||also good on Brennan for prompting her to smite and then walking her through how to smite again||

C4e4 ||Aabria friendly fire-ing Matt 😭 😭 ||

[light meadow]

Mhmm

[compact marsh]

C4e4 ||good on Matt for making a mistake with vex and immediately catching himself lol||

||also this is a lot of body horror lol||

|| “there are things moving inside of you” EWWWW ||

c4e4 ||I don’t think pulling out the stone was the optimal move 😭 ||

||LADY ARANESSA DITCHING VAELUS||

||EVERYBODY IS DITCHING VAELUS||

||not Julien though, he’s a real one||

[rapid sleet]

|| or wants to die||

[compact marsh]

Btw @rapid sleet
|| https://www.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1oaqz89/the_18th_brumaire_of_wiccander_halovar_possible/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button||

Thought you might like this theory

Please let him be Napoleon iii, it would be sooo funny

[rapid sleet]

👀👀👀👀

[vernal oxide]

||BECAUSE THEY CHANGED THE RULES LAST YEAR CHILL||

[rapid sleet]

I love this theory! || god i hope we get to see Sam attempt two of the dumbest coups ever. Like oh let’s randomly shoot a guard in the face while absolutely hammered from the boat trip. Or just getting captured like an idiot ||

[compact marsh]

He would so cook with that

[rapid sleet]

Sam, Laura, and Marisha in a one shot during which they attempt the dumbest fail son coup

I would subscribe to beacon for that

[compact marsh]

Pull one coup, get out of jail free, and then pull a second coup

I guess third times the charm

[compact marsh]

Hasn’t divine smite always been d8?

[compact marsh]

Wait I have a dumber theory. ||what if thaisha is napoleon iii||

||she’s from the Napoleon analogue family (forged the blades that killed the gods) and is kind of a girlfailure||

[rapid sleet]

I LOVE IT

|| she could also be a sorta Lafayette. Scion who leaves and goes off to do their own thing etc ||

[compact marsh]

||that would be so good!!||

[thorn prawn]

the die is the same the quantity is different. the upped the number in exchange for using a bonus action

[compact marsh]

The extra 1d8 is for undead

[thorn prawn]

ok but thats easy to forget

[rare fable]

Circle Casting adding +1000 ft range up to a maximum of 1 mile vexes me

Miles are dumb

[compact marsh]

C4e4 after the break ||based Marisha for trying to make Liam stop roleplaying with NPCs and focus on the plot||

||also lmaooo at Thjazi micro-aggressing Bolaire and also keeping a filing cabinet full of blackmail||

[compact marsh]

C4e4 ||azune is basically kakashi, got it||

||Luis kinda roleplays Azune like he has pure O OCD||

||also I’m betting 100% he’s a draconic sorceror with some connection to house comoray||

[thin spindle]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ilgingell/journeymon-monster-trainer-roleplaying

[lilac agate]

https://discord.com/channels/304777819936784385/1433164468489289790
👀

[compact marsh]

Can’t comment on it yet lol

But I think we’re about to be quarantined

[low gorge]

Not a secret

[thorn prawn]

The question is does vox machina and mighty nein show stuff go in there

[shell cargo]

Why not make it for dnd shows in general

like D20

[thorn prawn]

They’d almost certainly get drowned out

[lilac agate]

Wait I just realized you were back lol

[lilac agate]

Yeah. Plus D20 has Dropout channel

[low gorge]

you'll see soon but yes - that's why it's in the media category instead of this one

[velvet ingot]

D20 already has a thread home, it goes in #1364955573782708344

[tulip mountain]

d20 has #1364955573782708344 also

oh I was too slow lmao

the bigger question is if Daggerheart goes here or there (this is a joke, I think it goes here pretty clearly)

[rapid sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/oops-gif-10031223162004539162

~~It’s because we’re about pass magic for most used sub forum ~~

[vernal oxide]

Lmaoo

[compact marsh]

Hi

I’m probably leaving soon (need to lock in)

[lilac agate]

valid

I'm too addicted to Discord to lock in

[shell cargo]

Mood

[vernal oxide]

Real and same

[spring niche]

the reactions to the forward don't carry over to #17s but I appreciate the attempt

[vernal oxide]

CR4 E4 all + minor speculation ||Holy [BLEEEEEEEPPPPPPP] so much just happened that episode was INSANE...||

||Ok first things first, the remaining 2 tables: I assume the schemers/those who will remain in the city will be Bolaire, Murray, Hal, and Azune, and will be trying to prevent the Sundered Houses from taking over the city completely.

Then the seekers table, I'm guessing will be Thaisha, Julian, Occtis, and Vaelus, and their goal is gonna be the death-related storyline, figuring out what exactly is going on with the Taconis and how to make the underworld not so...problematic.||

||On that note: soulless zombie boy occtis is a thing! I honestly do not know if that was scripted or not, but holy hell...||

[hazy forge]

Tables were confirmed in their overture recap vid on youtube if ever, ||it is indeed the ones you guessed||
And for that last part C4E4 Cooldown ||Alex pitched being a hollow one wizard who was murdered by his family and Brennan was like “how do you feel about us getting to see that” and here we are||

[vernal oxide]

||I'm just that good what can I say brushes shoulders. But yeah it makes the most sense; Murray, Bolaire, and Azune are already directly dealing with the Sundered Houses sticking their fingers in their respective day jobs, and Hal a) has dealings with all 3, and b) has dealings with the Revolutionary Council (how he got the Hallowed Round). So that makes the most sense.

The other four, Occtis and Julian both are now desperate to go after house Tachonis, so that makes sense. I think as far as motivation goes, Thaisha and Vaelus have the weakest, but obviously they're both now connected to the Stone of Nightsong in some way, and that seems fairly tied to the Tachonis plotline||

[crimson marsh]

Alright, Critical Nerds, your quarantine area has been established! 👉 https://discord.com/channels/304777819936784385/1433164468489289790

https://tenor.com/view/critical-role-matthew-mercer-matt-mercer-leave-nope-gif-13705202856823942658

make like matt

[karmic bear]

Banished

[velvet ingot]

im pretty sure that's mark mercer actually

[solid furnace]

Ah lmao ive been avoiding this channel because it was drowned in CR lmao

[golden flame]

Same might be time to follow this channel

[thorn prawn]

https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/frhof/JPqEhaazCgax0B8c/01-015.bladesinger-subclass.png

hi szeth didn't know you were an elf

Damn the fogotten realms must have good healthcare if prostetics are free

[woven citrus]

Oh heck, Daggerheart Void got a new class and domain
Blood Hunter and Blood

https://www.daggerheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Bloodhunter-v1.5-The-Void.pdf

[rare fable]

Last minute cancellation of my Helldivers themed siege, gotta clear my table unplayed

[thin spindle]

https://bsky.app/profile/levikornelsen.bsky.social/post/3m4hfeouyis2g

🍁 Levi Kornelsen (@levikornelsen.bsky.social)

As regards powergaming: Hopefully this clears things up.

Bluesky · Oct 31, 2025, 2:07 AM

https://bsky.app/profile/levikornelsen.bsky.social/post/3m4hg3vcvgk2g

🍁 Levi Kornelsen (@levikornelsen.bsky.social)

-# ↩ 🍁 Levi Kornelsen (@levikornelsen.bsky.social)
Definitions:

"A Powerclimb Approach" means "I am here to see the number go up"

"A Speculative Approach" means shit like "What's the weirdest dude I can make that'll function?"

"A Tactical Approach"... you know.

And "An Optimizing Approach" is "Coming at play attempting to work the rules hard".

Bluesky · Oct 31, 2025, 2:20 AM

[livid geode]

now they just need to do a 2024 version...

[velvet ingot]

The Szeth/Meijin quantum entanglement is accelerating to the point of corrupting the very concept of bladesingers...

[thorn prawn]

Wow I don’t agree with any of those classifications at all

[thorn prawn]

As much as I miss the old unified design the recent alt covers have been solid

[vernal oxide]

KARLACH MY BELOVED

[kind girder]

Simultaneously Szeth-coded and Solas-coded.

[thin spindle]

Aka bald

[kind girder]

Bald + magic

[thorn prawn]

Ive gotta say the whole Subclass in a rectangle aestetic is really rubbing off on me

[velvet ingot]

we call this move: "DM bait"

(one hour later)

✌️

~~unfortunately the bait has fully backfired and now there's just a bunch of family secrets im not allowed to know yet 😭 ~~

[languid halo]

Had a great DnD session with my irl group. My character is a dungeon delver by profession and has been avoiding going back to live with his family (because he's kinda a PoS who is running away from his responsibilities) and we got a message that an entity was threatening them. We all rushed to go there and save them and what ended up happening was a whole session where we all got to roleplay hanging out with my kids (which ended up being HILARIOUS and some characters I thought would be good with kids were terrible and the crazy buff wizard of the party turned out to be great with them) while I got to play a dad who really cares and loves his kids but is also kinda terrified of the responsibility of having a family and was kinda ignoring their questions and deflecting when they asked if he was staying

I have my issues with this DM for this campaign but every so often he throws out a cracking session which is just FUN roleplay

[languid halo]

The big problem I have now is that my character has dragon related ptsd but also is a drakewarden because he accidentally bonded a dragon (he doesn't go home often because his kids are scared of the dragon) and his plan for redemption is to kill the dragon from his backstory (that gave him and his family dragon ptsd) and go home a conquering hero (above the table, we're all aware this is Not How Things Work)

But now that I've gone and visited my family and they're all great, I'm struggling to justify why he wouldn't stay home and try and make things work with the big pet dragon

So I might have accidentally written myself into retiring my character (my plan was to explore the origins of my bonded dragon once the backstory dragon was dead but like, his family kinda feels more important?)

[thin spindle]

https://bsky.app/profile/dimension20.bsky.social/post/3m4qmfjngoc2u

Dimension 20 (@dimension20.bsky.social)

Is the Rule of Cool... lazy? 😳

#AdventuringAcademy

Likes

180

▶ Play video

Bluesky · Nov 3, 2025, 6:07 PM

[light meadow]

I'm a little bummed with how they chose to cut this

I know The Point is to get some amount of social media traffic over the takes, but it actually transitions into a very nuanced and thoughtful discussion on the place of rules in the game and the delicate balance a rule of cool has to walk to actually work

[thorn prawn]

I’d say he’s right 60% of the time. A lot of the rule of cool stuff is stuff you’re able to do in other ways but lack the knowledge to know what to do. Branching options to overlap with others. That said some are thematic. Some are more logical than those that exist normally. And some rules are made to be ignored ( jump rules, handed components, etc)

[balmy coral]

I have an addiction to family trees

[thorn prawn]

The Hereditary lettuce

[livid geode]

...do you have one of all of the Baba Yaga's adopted children? (That are relevant)

[velvet ingot]

gotta have generations to get that generational trauma in there

[low gorge]

me sitting here with a character with no blood relations whatsoever 🙂

hehe

[tulip mountain]

my favourite blood relative of baba yaga is anastasia romanov

[light meadow]

I do love that the Constitution Save segment has morphed from "Brennan is mad that Aabria and Mercer bullied him for snacking" into "D20 staff bullies Brennan and Guest with increasingly rancid and abhorrent snacks"

[balmy coral]

I do have a whole adopted family for Mattie with relations but you gave me most of those pre-generated 😅

[velvet ingot]

selûne can be his blood mom