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 What the gently caress is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz2o_bVkgPA Critical Role is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign being played in front of a bunch of cameras (a podcast version is also available, but half the fun is the watching the cast). It's a bunch of nerdy-rear end voice actors rolling dice every week and having the time of their lives doing so. It originally started as a birthday present to Liam O'Brien and from there it grew into a thing the group played for eight hours on a Saturday every six weeks or so. Now it's a weekly show on Geek and Sundry, airing every Thursday evening at 7pm PT. It is currently on its second campaign. Who the gently caress are they? MATTHEW MERCER: the DM/GM. Has played over 500 different NPCs so far; is amazing at each and every single one of them. That little crush you're nurturing is totally normal. LIAM O'BRIEN: human wizard Caleb Widogast. Played half-elf rogue Vax'ildan "Vax" in Campaign 1. TRAVIS WILLINGHAM: half-orc warlock Fjord. Played goliath barbarian Grog in Campaign 1. LAURA BAILEY: tiefling cleric Jester. Played half-elf ranger Vex'ahlia "Vex" (Vax' twin) in Campaign 1. SAM RIEGEL: goblin rogue Nott the Brave. Played gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt in Campaign 1, as well as human artifcer Taryon Darrington. MARISHA RAY: human monk Beauregard. Played half-elf druid Keyleth in Campaign 1. TALIESIN JAFFE: tiefling blood hunter Mollymauk "Molly" Tealeaf; as well as firbolg Cleric Caduceus Clay. Played (here it comes) Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the Third "Percy" in Campaign 1. ASHLEY JOHNSON: aasimar barbarian Yasha. Played gnome cleric Pike Trickfoot in Campaign 1. Ashley is a regular on NBC's Blindspot and often absent for long stretches of time. Occasionally she will join sessions via Skype, but that's sadly not as often as we'd like. Where can I watch this thing? Campaign 1 is available in its entirety on CritRole.com, the official website. A playlist can be found here. There are 115 episodes. They're all 3-5 hours long. Good luck! All right, all right, I'll take pity on you new viewers wanting to watch the first campaign; here's some good points to jump into c1 when you're all caught up with c2 but still wanting more: * The Trial of the Take 4-parter (part 2, part 3 and part 4). These episodes are semi-standalone, introduce some great guest stars (Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, Will Friedle and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. The last two will pop back in occasionally and become beloved recurring characters) and feature some cool combat stuff. * The Feast. Start of a new arc that's generally considered one of the best, delves deep into Percy's backstory. Features some great villains. * The Sun Tree, a continuation of the stuff introduced in The Feast, but now you're past the Orion episodes. You're welcome. * Omens. A new arc starts here... with a bang. It's of course entirely possible to start at the beginning, but it's honestly not recommended. There are sound issues, the RP isn't on point yet because they're basically broadcasting their combat-focused home game, and Orion Acaba becomes increasingly more irritating to watch. Campaign 2 is of course available on the very same website, here. Here I would recommend just starting at the beginning, unless other posters have recommendations for starting points in this campagn. This is the current campaign and it airs live every Thursday at 7pm PT on the The Critical Role twitch channel. Twitch subscribers can watch the new episodes immediately the livestream ends. Non-subscribers can watch the new episodes every Monday. Audio versions of the episodes are released a week after the livestream. The podcast versions of campaign 1 can be found here and the versions for campaign 2 here. Talks Machina is a weekly show-after-the-show where host Brian W. Foster discusses the most recent episode with some (sometimes all) of the cast. All episodes can be watched here. Here's some videos to whet your appetite (all from the previous campaign, so minor spoilers, nothing major) Mercer's NPCs are a treasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao92XkhPzGM Messing with the DM, always a safe bet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E68AmtqMJPA Sam takes a year to set up and execute a joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhKsvUib2AE Math is hard. Reverse math is even harder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z7f49k8rnI Fuckin' doors, man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVRBHecr-78   cyclical fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Feb 27, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2018 17:23
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It's good poo poo yo. Very funny. Definite primo 2nd monitor material if you got one and are spooked by the long runtimes of each episode. Campaign 2 is drat good so far.
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Mar 18, 2018 15:46
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cyclical posted:Campaign 1 is available in its entirety on the Geek and Sundry website, here. There are 115 episodes. They're all 3-5 hours long. Thank you for giving me something to "watch" while I play video games for like, the entire rest of the year. e: oh this is actually good, too. I'm losing it at the Scottish innkeeper precision fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 18:24
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This is one of my absolute favorite shows ( <---- see avatar) and I've wanted to make a thread but I couldn't figure out if it'd go here or in TTRPG's or what and honestly it's such a big show that it's a huge ask to get people to try watching it. Watching a 3-4 hour stream every week is a big commitment. The new campaign has made it much easier to jump on though since Campaign 1 has a longer total runtime than the Simpsons. Also like, fair warning to anyone starting with Campaign 1 - Orion Acaba leaves the show after episode I think 26 or 27? And the episodes leading up to that are uh... well. You can tell why he left. The rest of the group became aware he was cheating on his dice rolls (Matt was too far away to see them and was just taking people's words for it) and he has since said he was going through a drug problem at the time and he was not on good terms with anyone. The tension at the table is palpable and it's hard to watch. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 00:31
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CuwiKhons posted:Also like, fair warning to anyone starting with Campaign 1 - Orion Acaba leaves the show after episode I think 26 or 27? And the episodes leading up to that are uh... well. You can tell why he left. The rest of the group became aware he was cheating on his dice rolls (Matt was too far away to see them and was just taking people's words for it) and he has since said he was going through a drug problem at the time and he was not on good terms with anyone. The tension at the table is palpable and it's hard to watch. Haha I totally knew that was happening before I read this post! It's so obvious!
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Mar 19, 2018 02:12
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precision posted:Haha I totally knew that was happening before I read this post! It's so obvious! Oh it gets even more obvious. A few weeks before he leaves, you can actually see Marisha and Taliesin leaning over his shoulder to count his dice for him because they're pissed he's been lying. Taliesin's also terribly boring for the entire Underdark arc. According to him, it's because he was changing medications at the time and it was really loving him up so he just didn't talk. Percy's a much more interesting character once Taliesin's on meds that work.
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Mar 19, 2018 03:01
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I was lucky enough to find Geek and Sundry just in time to get in on the ground floor on their second campaign. Haven't caught a live show, though. It's also pretty amazing how different everything is at the start of campaign two compared to the first few sessions.
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Mar 19, 2018 04:19
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:I was lucky enough to find Geek and Sundry just in time to get in on the ground floor on their second campaign. Haven't caught a live show, though. It's also pretty amazing how different everything is at the start of campaign two compared to the first few sessions. Part of that is just experience. They've been doing this most Thursdays for like 3 years now, so they're used to playing in front of a hundred thousand people on Twitch, and have a team that knows how to produce it in a way that's engaging for the stream viewers. But part of it is also the fact that the regular sessions have caused their play to evolve. Most of the cast have admitted that their characters didn't really have much backstory in the first campaign beyond the bare essentials that most of us that play TTRPGs would be familiar with doing when we put together a character the same day we start playing them (Sam and Marisha pretty blatantly cribbed theirs from outside sources, for instance: Scanlan is basically fantasy Eminem and Keyleth has an Avatar: The Last Airbender vibe, albeit one that Matt folded neatly into his setting). For the second one, they knew how much they enjoyed how the stories unfolded in the first one, so they made sure they had relatively fleshed out backstories, like Jester's mother, Beau's father and relationship to her monastic order, or whatever's happening with Molly's memories or Fjorde's pact.
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Mar 19, 2018 04:38
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I'm a huge fan of this, and since I have no job or social life I've caught every episode to varying degrees, though I've more skimmed or skipped through episodes Orion is on. I knew about the drug issues but didn't know about the dice, I mostly hated him because I found him annoying and he kept trying to do poo poo with spells that wasn't in the rules, like using telekinesis to fling loads of daggers at stuff. And yes I am that huge of a nerd and D&D snob. If you want to watch campaign 1 I'd jump in at around episode 30 for the Briarwood arc since that's just good fun with a fair number of highlights, and if you don't mind seeing how things end catching the final stretch of 10-15 episodes of the campaign is full if high spots. Since the time commitment is a big ask you can't go wrong with checking out campaign 2. The roleplaying is really the best part of the show, though I enjoy all the fights too, so if you just catch the episodes after the fact and mainline the non-combat stuff you can trim down a fair amount of time. You can look up the couple of live shows they've done too, those are just markedly better than usual. It's basically my favorite show, so my advice is to not let the amount of content daunt you, you can always skip around past episodes for what you like, and there are tons of highlights and cute little animations based on the show on Youtube. You can probably catch some highlights there to start with to decide if this is your kind of show. Glad to see a thread for Critical Role, and I hope to see some discussion of the upcoming episodes as they happen!
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Mar 19, 2018 05:23
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Honestly Orion was fine to start, and even had a few legit good moments. It's when it approaches the Big Bad of the first arc(episode 11) and then beyond is when he starts his rapid descent into That Guy at the table. I wouldn't really suggest starting at 28(first episode he's not there), since there's still so much good stuff leading up to it, good humor and story drama...just during combats you can stop paying attention or skip forward a notch whenever it's Orion's turn. Oh, and 27(last episode he's in) as a whole anything involving him can safely be ignored cause that was just...ick, unless you got a high tolerance for watching someone noticeably piss off another player. On the topic of Campaign 2, episode 8 is probably one of the most funniest 3-4 hours of DnD I've ever seen. So many good moments from start to finish, and Pumat Sol is the greatest NPC Matt Mercer has ever made.
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Mar 19, 2018 09:52
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Yeah I don't actually recommend skipping straight to episode 28. The Underdark arc is easily the most skippable and involves the least amount of stuff there will ever be a callback to, but that ends around episode 14ish or so? If you're okay with missing the beginning seeds of the next story arc and some farting around in a new city, you could skip to the start of a guest story arc called Trial of the Take, which begins at episode 18 and involves splitting the party into two teams with different guest stars to round out the tables. The team without Orion in it is noticeably more fun  .
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Mar 19, 2018 11:58
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Pumat's great, there have been some good NPCs so far but he's the first absolute SSR-rank one able to go toe to toe with the likes of Victor. They were talking about going to bug him to get them to clean them all in the latest episode and I was so hoping they would, it actually made a lot of sense for the characters to do it in addition to all of them I'm sure wanting Matt to do the character again. I hope they spend a solid 10 episodes in the city they're in now since it seems full of fun shops and quests to go out on, and I'm worried that the latest developments will lead to them getting run out of town at best and imprisoned at worst. On the other hand, I don't think they've done a proper prison escape or extended prison scenario, their escapade in hell is probably the closest they've come but they had the escape plan built in from the get go. It seems like that would be a fun scenario for these new characters to try to work through, especially since some have time spent in at least a county jail situation and they would still be low level so they can't just wave their hands and poof out of there.
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Mar 19, 2018 12:19
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CuwiKhons posted:Yeah I don't actually recommend skipping straight to episode 28. The Underdark arc is easily the most skippable and involves the least amount of stuff there will ever be a callback to, but that ends around episode 14ish or so? If you're okay with missing the beginning seeds of the next story arc and some farting around in a new city, you could skip to the start of a guest story arc called Trial of the Take, which begins at episode 18 and involves splitting the party into two teams with different guest stars to round out the tables. The team without Orion in it is noticeably more fun On the other hand, the team with Orion has Wil Wheaton's odds-defying antics.
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Mar 19, 2018 19:13
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:On the other hand, the team with Orion has Wil Wheaton's odds-defying antics. Oh yeah this is true. The B-Team with Orion has Will Friedle and Wil Wheaton, one of whom will be a reoccurring guest star and one of whom can't be a reoccurring guest star because he has an ancient curse placed upon him to defy all statistical probability and the other players deeply fear him.
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Mar 19, 2018 20:44
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CuwiKhons posted:Oh yeah this is true. The B-Team with Orion has Will Friedle and Wil Wheaton, one of whom will be a reoccurring guest star and one of whom can't be a reoccurring guest star because he has an ancient curse placed upon him to defy all statistical probability and the other players deeply fear him. Maybe Khary broke the curse a couple of weeks ago? I also hope Wil and Mary drop in on this campaign. Maybe Mary could even drag Steve Blum in.
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Mar 20, 2018 00:10
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I've so happy this thread finally exists. I keep searching over and over, wondering if I'm just missing where discussion is or what. I just started watching with Campaign 2 and have been absolutely loving it. The characters and the role playing is wonderful. Agreed on episode 8 and them just goofing around all episode is perfection. I'm slowly making my way through the first campaign as well but the Underdark arc is very slow going for me. I may have to start skipping through some fights or listening on a faster speed until I get to more interesting parts. Glad to hear that Percy picks up some, he's been very "just there" for me so far.
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Mar 20, 2018 01:00
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blackcross posted:I've so happy this thread finally exists. I keep searching over and over, wondering if I'm just missing where discussion is or what. Once they hit Vasselheim it seems like Tal's meds are a bit better so he engages a bit more and has some fun 'madman with a gun' moments, and then the following arc is all based around his backstory.
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Mar 20, 2018 01:31
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You can tell when Taliesin's medications kick in because he starts doing fun things with his hair. The Underdark arc is honestly very boring overall. Almost nothing in that arc that happens is relevant in the long term. It's a good way to pick up on characterization I guess, but even then characters will change drastically from how they're initially presented (which they should because the game takes place over several years so of course they evolve over time).
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Mar 20, 2018 01:57
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As fun as all the new characters are, I'm kind of hoping for a character death while they're all too low level to really do anything about it, or with an attempted resurrection not working, so that we can see the actors flex their dramatic chops and get someone exciting and fresh in there. I would have never wanted to have a party member swap happen in campaign 1, but then Tarion showed up and was instantly super fun to see in action and to see how everyone else bounced off of him. They won't be fighting Dragons anytime soon, but since most of them aren't super deep into maximize every combat action or character build possibility, or choose to put what their character would do in the moment ahead of the broader "game" aspect of things, I can easily see their first encounter with something like a beholder leading to a death, really all it would take is a big disintegrate hit and you're kinda screwed. Granted even something like that is a ways down the line, but it's something I'm open to. Of course I say that now before I've completely fallen in love with a character to the point of really missing them if they're taken before their time.
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Mar 20, 2018 11:27
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https://www.twitch.tv/geekandsundry New episode starting now.
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Mar 23, 2018 03:07
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I think this week is the first time they've made Matt break by virtue of a location he had to design for them (The smut shop) Also very much enjoying Laura's ongoing quest to make Travis turn crimson in every episode. Gaz-L fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Mar 24, 2018 |
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Mar 24, 2018 03:24
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I chanced onto Critical Role at the beginning of Campaign 1 on twitch and followed it pretty regularly for a couple of months before losing track. Then I saw it start again for Campaign 2 and have been following it again. Don't get to watch it live most of the time but the YouTube VODs are great since it's not too hard to avoid spoilers usually. It was wild reading the episode summaries of the end of Campaign 1, I'm looking forward to seeing where things go during this campaign. Overall I wish there was a little more combat and a little less world/character building but they're all so good at what they do it's hard to get too upset about it.
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Mar 26, 2018 22:05
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The new campaign has definitely been a lot more low energy than the last campaign so far, although that's definitely just because I'm comparing a group of level 3's to a group of level 19's. Its taken some adjustment to the slower pace.
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Mar 26, 2018 23:10
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CuwiKhons posted:The new campaign has definitely been a lot more low energy than the last campaign so far, although that's definitely just because I'm comparing a group of level 3's to a group of level 19's. Its taken some adjustment to the slower pace. It's also the kind of party they're running. One of my favorite moments from the newest session is, "So who all can make their own disguises?" *Five hands out of six go up*
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Mar 26, 2018 23:51
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:It's also the kind of party they're running. One of my favorite moments from the newest session is, "So who all can make their own disguises?" Oh yeah, they definitely made a smarter, more diplomatically capable party. Nott's the only one who really can't talk to people and she's not stupid, just uncharismatic. Molly has the lowest intelligence in the party at 11 so there's no Grogs this time around (not that Grog wasn't a ton of fun). Matt said in an interview or panel somewhere that this campaign would have more political intrigue and it wouldn't be as black and white as the Tal'dorei campaign was. Which is kind of interesting because so far nobody in the party actually cares about politics. They're just kind of going along with stuff, whether for pay or because "Well alright, this person hates puppies and is racist to tieflings, I guess we gotta kill her."
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Mar 27, 2018 00:12
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It's great that I found this thread today because I actually just finished the last episode of campaign 1 a couple of hours ago and I'm watching the first episode of campaign 2 right now. I've been looking for a thread for a while and wasn't sure where it would be. I never knew any of that information about Arcaba or Jaffe from the beginning and it probably explains a lot of what I found ...off about the beginning of the campaign. I could tell something was weird but apparently I have the observational skills of a teaspoon because I could never figure out exactly what.
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Mar 28, 2018 01:14
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Sweet, there's a thread for us nerds now! I was really slow on getting into this, despite my friends insistance that I needed to watch this (Hi Trast!), because I thought "It's just going to be terrible D&D playing with 'roll for sex hur hur hur' stuff that I was familiar with from my own youth", but I got really sick for Christmas 2016 and decided to at least give it a chance and then it was the next day and I'd devoured 6 episodes back to back. Been with it ever since and I haven't ever regretted it. Regarding Orion: It wasn't entirely 'dudes a druggie and cheating' either, he spoke about it on his own twitch stream back in August and what it boiled down to was a combination of an ex coming back into his life to be a real weirdo stalker as well as him finding out he was HIV positive, which is what really turned him into a drugged up wreck in the longer term. These days he's at least clean and has his HIV under control, but as he put it there's pretty much zero chance he'll show up on CritRole again because he burned those bridges real hard. I had no idea about the Taliesin stuff, which does explain why he sort of just vanished into the background up until the Briarwood arc takes off. I'd also like to point out that getting to watch Travis play someone who isn't just smart but also charismatic and personable is going to be a loving treat, dude's constantly the most tactical player at the table and not having to play a (admittely a very funny one) meathead is going to be great. Fjord is a sailor who summons a magic sword and ice armor. He's a loving magical girl, change my mind.
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Mar 28, 2018 01:57
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To be fair regarding the Taliesin stuff, nobody knew that's what it was until he mentioned it like a year and a half later. He has another show he does on G&S called Wednesday Club where he talks comics with Amy Dallen and Matt Key (it's extremely fun and I recommend it as someone who doesn't even really read comics) and they did a mental health in comics episode early in the show's life where he discussed it. Taliesin's exact quote was "If you want to see what it looks like when somebody's on the wrong meds, I invite you to watch the first 13 or so episodes of Critical Role." He explained he'd had to change meds because his old ones stopped working and he was so up and down that he'd watch episodes back to see what he was doing from the outside and even he thought he looked awful. But he's doing great now and is consistently one of the most entertaining people on the cast. Taliesin is an actor I follow around to different shows that G&S/Project Alpha puts out because I trust him to at least amuse me, no matter what he does. Matt too, but Matt has less free time to do other shows. Speaking of which, while this isn't a general G&S thread, Geek and Sundry and Project Alpha really do put out a lot of other very good shows. There's Talks Machina, a sort of after-show for Critical Role - which you wouldn't think would be that interesting but it's mostly a chance for the cast to gently caress around for an hour and a half and just be extremely funny friends. There's Wednesday Club, as mentioned earlier, there's Asinine Wisdom (also a podcast), there's Painter's Guild, a show about teaching people how to paint minis, hosted by Will Friedle, noted bad painter, and assisted by professionals, there's the Sagas of Sundry horror series, on which Matt, Taliesin, Liam, and Marisha have all appeared, and there's multiple other RPG's that I haven't watched because I simply do not have the time to watch more than one 3-5 hour per episode show. Alpha has an extra subscription fee of $5 a month but honestly I find it completely worth it.
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Mar 28, 2018 03:47
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^ I actually wish they'd get Amy Dallen on as a guest for a week or two on CR. She's a really, really solid RPer (she's a regular on their Star Trek series and was on the Doctor Who RPG they ran before it) CuwiKhons posted:Oh yeah, they definitely made a smarter, more diplomatically capable party. Nott's the only one who really can't talk to people and she's not stupid, just uncharismatic. Molly has the lowest intelligence in the party at 11 so there's no Grogs this time around (not that Grog wasn't a ton of fun). I think Fjord and Beau are as much pushing for the rebel group because they're into the idea, Fjord because he seems to be the most outwardly and traditionally moral of the group (probably deliberate on Travis' part so Matt can gently caress with him when his patron starts calling in favours) and Beau because despite herself, she does buy into the Cobalt Soul's "gently caress the system" thing. The bit with Molly and Fjord managing to pull a hint of backstory and motivation stuff from Nott was great too. The nature of the group as actors means they're usually more engaged by narrative and character development than by combat unto itself. Gaz-L fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 03:50
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Gaz-L posted:The bit with Molly and Fjord managing to pull a hint of backstory and motivation stuff from Nott was great too. Probably my favourite scene from the whole campaign so far. Molly's Devil Tongue out of nowhere leading to an amazing segment of acting/improv.
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Mar 28, 2018 08:54
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victorious posted:Probably my favourite scene from the whole campaign so far. Molly's Devil Tongue out of nowhere leading to an amazing segment of acting/improv. Because Sam's been so consistent about Nott not caring about the value of what she steals, I had actually only clicked to WHY she was stealing Fjord's letter about 10 minutes before that scene. (Then again, Sam Riegel spent like 6 months setting up a gag of turning Vex into the Wicked Witch of the West, dude can play the long game)
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Mar 28, 2018 19:54
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Gaz-L posted:Because Sam's been so consistent about Nott not caring about the value of what she steals, I had actually only clicked to WHY she was stealing Fjord's letter about 10 minutes before that scene. (Then again, Sam Riegel spent like 6 months setting up a gag of turning Vex into the Wicked Witch of the West, dude can play the long game) It was over a year at least from start to finish, super long game, or at least remembering and having the perfect little move chambered. Based on the Nott backstory/character stuff during her second letter theft attempt, things are going to get interesting as they advance in levels and have more and more spells to help her change her appearance at both the illusory and physical level. NowonSA fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Mar 29, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 21:43
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That little moment when everyone drops their disguises but Nott shouts "No this is who I am now!" is a lot sadder than it it seems at first.
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Mar 28, 2018 21:46
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CuwiKhons posted:Speaking of which, while this isn't a general G&S thread, Geek and Sundry and Project Alpha really do put out a lot of other very good shows. There's Talks Machina, a sort of after-show for Critical Role - which you wouldn't think would be that interesting but it's mostly a chance for the cast to gently caress around for an hour and a half and just be extremely funny friends. There's Wednesday Club, as mentioned earlier, there's Asinine Wisdom (also a podcast), there's Painter's Guild, a show about teaching people how to paint minis, hosted by Will Friedle, noted bad painter, and assisted by professionals, there's the Sagas of Sundry horror series, on which Matt, Taliesin, Liam, and Marisha have all appeared, and there's multiple other RPG's that I haven't watched because I simply do not have the time to watch more than one 3-5 hour per episode show. Alpha has an extra subscription fee of $5 a month but honestly I find it completely worth it. If you're looking for more of a bargain option Project Alpha is part of VRV, which is basically a bundle of a lot of different subscription services including Crunchyroll, Funimation, Dramafever for my fellow Korean TV fans, and a few other lesser known ones, and you can subscribe to that for $9.99. I just have an Alpha subscription since I tend to get my anime/KTV fix from free streaming sites or Netflix, but it's worth a look if you're into those things as well. Alpha also has stuff more on the enrdist side of things like a nice interview show with various major voice actors, I just saw a thing with Alicia Vikander of all people on it, basically they have interesting shows based on all kinds of pop culture, but particularly nerdy stuff like comics and comic book movies, and sometimes they punch way above their weight level in their guests. Like most things you can check it out for a month free to see if you like it, but for Critical Role in particular the only thing that's really behind the paywall is same-day streams of episodes and the archive of Talks Machina and the 15-20 minutes of extra talk show they do just for Alpha which is them just dicking around even more than usual.
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Mar 29, 2018 03:52
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NowonSA posted:If you're looking for more of a bargain option Project Alpha is part of VRV, which is basically a bundle of a lot of different subscription services including Crunchyroll, Funimation, Dramafever for my fellow Korean TV fans, and a few other lesser known ones, and you can subscribe to that for $9.99. I just have an Alpha subscription since I tend to get my anime/KTV fix from free streaming sites or Netflix, but it's worth a look if you're into those things as well. Alpha also has stuff more on the enrdist side of things like a nice interview show with various major voice actors, I just saw a thing with Alicia Vikander of all people on it, basically they have interesting shows based on all kinds of pop culture, but particularly nerdy stuff like comics and comic book movies, and sometimes they punch way above their weight level in their guests. Like most things you can check it out for a month free to see if you like it, but for Critical Role in particular the only thing that's really behind the paywall is same-day streams of episodes and the archive of Talks Machina and the 15-20 minutes of extra talk show they do just for Alpha which is them just dicking around even more than usual. I had no idea but I also don't watch anime so I don't think I'd get anything out of that I wouldn't get out of just paying for Alpha, but I'll give it a look. Also yeah, G&S/Nerdist/Alpha have a hard line to the VO industry and bring in some drat interesting people. Darin de Paul (Overwatch's Reinhardt) is a regular when he's in town because he adores everyone in G&S (he also does all the intros for each episode of Sagas of Sundry if you want to watch him chew the scenery like a pro). Ivan van Norman is also currently running a zombie apocalypse RPG called We're Alive. I can't watch anything with zombies in it but Anjali Bhimani (Overwatch's Symmetra) and Josh Petersdorf (Overwatch's Roadhog) are both regulars I think? Then you've got folks like Khary Payton and Jennifer Hale who have guest starred on Critical Role and guys like Phil Lamarr and Ashly Burch who just show up randomly in various shows because they're friends with everyone around.
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Mar 29, 2018 05:27
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I'm a big fan of CR, and along with others recommend skipping the first few episodes, or just podcast them so you don't have to set aside a large chunk of time. As people have said, the early episodes are the slowest and have the least long term impact on the campaign wrt storyline and characterization. THAT SAID, there are some pretty goddamn funny moments in the Underdark as well as meeting two fantastic NPCs. But do not skip Trial of the Take. It introduces a couple of guest's that will continue to make appearances through campaign 1, as well as starting an extremely long running side thread that gets paid off in epic fashion.
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Mar 29, 2018 22:55
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I skipped the Trial of the Take episodes the first time around, but doubled back to them once those guests showed up again in episodes and I can confirm: skipping those episodes is a mistake, they're really solid.
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Mar 30, 2018 03:07
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Not to doublepost, but I'm really enjoying the more political intrigue focus for this campaign, even if they're about as subtle as a sack of hammers thrown through a window. Edit: This is a loving episode you don't miss. Keru fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Mar 30, 2018 |
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Mar 30, 2018 05:17
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Jesus this episode was bananas.
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Mar 30, 2018 07:05
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The first half of this episode: DnD in its purist form. Second half of this episode:  
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Mar 30, 2018 07:07
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