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I got to start Critical Role completely unaware of the Orion Problem, and when I learned about it (thanks youtube comments) about episode 15-16, it was already speeding toward me like a train. The telekinesis blade followed by the Archimedes Death Laser plan followed by the Draconian Knights bullshit in rapid succession was painful to watch. Prior to those, I saw some weird and uncomfortable bits, but I also spent the beginning thinking Taliesin was weird (in the not good way), quiet, and out of place for a while. I think the best example of the show without Orion are comparing the Trial of the Take team with Felicia Day and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn on it to the one that had Orion. One of them was fun and exciting with everyone clearly having the time of their lives. The other one was filled with uncomfortable silences and exasperation.
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Aug 27, 2018 16:38
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Taliesin admitted later that he was on the wrong kind of medication for his depression, which meant he was suffering badly from it early in season 1. The Taliesin we know and love now is properly medicated and back to his normal personality.
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Aug 27, 2018 16:42
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Yeah, when he mentioned that on Talks or wherever, pieces kind of fell together. It's a little strange seeing it so clearly play out on screen like that, especially since I remember thinking "Does Taliesin Jaffe even want to be here?" to a complete turnaround by the Briarwood Arc.
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Aug 27, 2018 16:54
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The Briarwood Arc was such good play by Tal. He hit it out of the loving park; his performance was critical to that whole thing and he nailed it.
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Aug 27, 2018 17:19
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I still say the Briarwood Arc is the best place to start. The previous episodes aren't important enough that you can't just read a synopsis and get the gist of their past adventures, but the Briarwoods are where they start really getting into deep overarching plots that seriously affect the party in the long term. I also find a lot of the stuff with the De Rollos and their enemies more interesting than typical D&D fantasy setting stuff because of the quasi-Renaissance/Victorian aesthetic they and the gunplay add. Also if you start with the Briarwoods, you only have a few episodes before Tiberius leaves.
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Aug 27, 2018 17:23
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Thom and the Heads posted:Ep 27 is probably the closest you'll get. It's got the half chub line, the mirror shopping debacle and my personal favorite - Tiberius writing a letter to his father requesting ~~THE DRACONIAN KNIGHTS~~ be prepared in case the party has any trouble. They all kinda roll their eyes at this and Matt has the father write a letter back immediately essentially saying "No, gently caress you". Man, that dude really tried to make 'MY DAD TOTALLY HAS A PRIVATE ARMY' happen.
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Aug 27, 2018 17:52
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Dawgstar posted:Man, that dude really tried to make 'MY DAD TOTALLY HAS A PRIVATE ARMY' happen. It sucks too because if you actually go out of your way to approve that kind of thing with a DM you can sometimes get it. A player who recently left my main D&D campaign had his backstory be that he was from a noble family, so when we went to visit them early in the campaign I was able to just get a bag of holding by asking for it from them, and we got access to basically an expense account for stuff like travel expenses, all at level 4. I can just about guarantee that Tiberius was just trying to pull access to an army out of nowhere though, and you need one hell of a lenient DM to have them willing to just let that happen.
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Aug 27, 2018 20:38
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Dawgstar posted:Man, that dude really tried to make 'MY DAD TOTALLY HAS A PRIVATE ARMY' happen. Oh my god that particular thing drove me up the wall. It was such a dumb idea. Why the gently caress would you do that in D&D? The DM starts you on a cool adventure to a spooky town with evil rulers and one of your party members has a personal grudge and it's looking like it's gonna be a great adventure and then you just loving roll up with "I CALL IN THE ARMY"? Do you even want to play this game?
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Aug 27, 2018 23:49
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I think that scene with the army parallels nicely with the scenes in campaign two regarding Jester and her mother. In both cases, characters are asking for things they aren't going to get, and dealing with the feelings of disappointment and anxiety that come with realizing how cut off they are from old channels of support. The difference is that I don't think Laura ever came to the table with the expectation that the Pearl of the Sea was going to be a shortcut or a way to upstage the other members of the party, whereas Orion played it like he was legitimately fuming, out of character, that he didn't get a free army out of nowhere. I guess what I'm saying is that with any other person at the table that would have been a nice scene, and I think Matt played his dad's response as well as he could have. The stuff with Jester's allowance early on is still some of my favorite Jester material, and the way she roleplays her character's changing relationship to money and luxury after getting the letter has been wonderful. I think the issue is, as with so much Tiberius/Orion stuff, is that it's so hard to disentangle the character's pretty interesting shortfalls with the player's deeply aggravating ones.
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Aug 28, 2018 00:08
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Rewatching the episode and Laura throws some primo shade at Orion, calling him the eagles from Lord of the Rings who can invoke ultimate destruction whenever he wants. Wow.
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Aug 28, 2018 00:55
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Archyduke posted:I think that scene with the army parallels nicely with the scenes in campaign two regarding Jester and her mother. In both cases, characters are asking for things they aren't going to get, and dealing with the feelings of disappointment and anxiety that come with realizing how cut off they are from old channels of support. The difference is that I don't think Laura ever came to the table with the expectation that the Pearl of the Sea was going to be a shortcut or a way to upstage the other members of the party, whereas Orion played it like he was legitimately fuming, out of character, that he didn't get a free army out of nowhere. Yeah the big important part of the Jester asking for resources shes not going to get is very much that it then gets used as a narrative and character interaction with Caleb etc and Jester going through the motions rather than it just being a you want a problem solved yes/no type of scenario.
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Aug 28, 2018 01:12
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Yeah I recall Laura saying on Talks shortly after she wrote the letter to her mom but before Jester got a response that she expected to get absolutely nothing out of it. I think Laura was legit surprised Jester's mom sent her anything later, even if Jester was just disappointed by the amount she got. But that's the difference between people playing D&D to roleplay and tell a story vs someone like Orion who is playing to "win".
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Aug 28, 2018 01:21
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CuwiKhons posted:Yeah I recall Laura saying on Talks shortly after she wrote the letter to her mom but before Jester got a response that she expected to get absolutely nothing out of it. I think Laura was legit surprised Jester's mom sent her anything later, even if Jester was just disappointed by the amount she got. I mean you're right but on top of that, having Matt actually sprinkle in a reward for Jester going for the obvious failure is very important for that too. Ironically in order to cultivate that behaviour of just roleplaying and going for it, you need to reward them for making that choice. So props to him too for that.
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Aug 28, 2018 01:29
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Dawgstar posted:Rewatching the episode and Laura throws some primo shade at Orion, calling him the eagles from Lord of the Rings who can invoke ultimate destruction whenever he wants. Wow. Watching that right now, had never seen this episode since I started at 28. Travis and Laura were both getting pissed about everything he was doing.
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Aug 28, 2018 01:29
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Dawgstar posted:Rewatching the episode and Laura throws some primo shade at Orion, calling him the eagles from Lord of the Rings who can invoke ultimate destruction whenever he wants. Wow. To be fair, being able to invoke ultimate destruction whenever you want is just playing an evocation wizard. 
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Aug 28, 2018 11:34
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Sion posted:To be fair, being able to invoke ultimate destruction whenever you want is just playing an evocation wizard. Ahem. He was playing a Sorcerer and...whoa, sorry. Didn't mean to classplain.
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Aug 28, 2018 12:53
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One of the problems with playing a evocation wiz is that you tend to get into a situation where everything looks like a nail and you have 8d6 worth of hammers.
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Aug 28, 2018 13:41
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Sion posted:One of the problems with playing a evocation wiz is that you tend to get into a situation where everything looks like a nail and you have 8d6 worth of hammers. I remember at least once they had to stop Orion from Fireballing the hallway.
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Aug 28, 2018 14:47
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Dawgstar posted:I remember at least once they had to stop Orion from Fireballing the hallway. Ah, see if he'd been a proper wiz he'd have been able to select people to automatically save against it for zero damage. Do everyone other than the rogues and call it a day.  Seriously though, having a toy on your character sheet and wanting to use it is- kind of a thing in games. Dude just pulled the spotlight onto himself a whole lot. Here's a question. What systems would people want to see CR expand into? Another 5E game set in Taldorei with a different GM? They have a studio and a huge amount of potential to start producing new content so it kind of makes sense they'd kick off a second AP.
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Aug 28, 2018 14:56
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I think I'd like some more modern setting and horror stuff like the games Taliesin and Liam GM'd.
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Aug 28, 2018 15:11
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chitoryu12 posted:I think I'd like some more modern setting and horror stuff like the games Taliesin and Liam GM'd. Liam running a session of Delta Green would be amazing.
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Aug 28, 2018 15:15
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Sion posted:Ah, see if he'd been a proper wiz he'd have been able to select people to automatically save against it for zero damage. Do everyone other than the rogues and call it a day. Yeah I think thats more of the issue, wanting to fireball stuff all the time is very common in players excited to use their thing. Making every scene about you using your thing is when it because a lovely experience. I've said this before but I would love to see the CR crew run a star wars rpg, the Edge of the Empire system is solid and would really bounce off their improv skills well though they'd probably be more comfortable with one of the others.
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Aug 28, 2018 15:31
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chitoryu12 posted:I think I'd like some more modern setting and horror stuff like the games Taliesin and Liam GM'd. Given that this thursdays one-shot features Werewolves and Liam GM'ing again, we might get just that.
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Aug 28, 2018 17:04
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I thought the Darin de Paul teasers they’ve inserted into the breaks were supposed to be some kind of Call of Cthulhu promo. They have their own critical role twitch channel, might as well fill it with other groups playing different systems throughout the week and not just use it for the giveaway.
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Aug 28, 2018 17:09
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The Missing Link posted:I thought the Darin de Paul teasers they’ve inserted into the breaks were supposed to be some kind of Call of Cthulhu promo. The Darin de Paul teasers were for a show that already exists on Project Alpha. It's based on a game called Dread and there's two "seasons" of it. I put that in quotes because they're basically entirely separate games with completely different casts and different plots. They're both extremely good. The second one is Cthulhu themed. The first is more spooky monster in the woods and kids on a camping trip sort of thing.
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Aug 28, 2018 17:56
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I wish De Paul was on more stuff. He was great on Pencils and Parsecs (a Star Wars game on the Twitch Hyper RPG channel), but left pretty early on for whatever reason.
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Aug 28, 2018 18:02
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As much as I'd love for the CR cast to get into another ongoing series - I second that SW EoTE would be great - I don't see any of them, except Taliesin and maybe Marisha, having the time to commit to that. With a different cast, sure. Although I'm not sure what numbers that would pull if non CR main-cast stuff on G&S numbers is anything to go by. Their Star Trek thing had like 6k views to CR's 500k+ on YouTube...
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Aug 28, 2018 19:36
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Hulk Smash! posted:As much as I'd love for the CR cast to get into another ongoing series - I second that SW EoTE would be great - I don't see any of them, except Taliesin and maybe Marisha, having the time to commit to that. I think that some of that is because of the production values of that. Like, there's very clearly a CR production team (even before they left G&S) that's of a higher caliber than the rest of the live shows. I mean, just look at this Callisto 6 thing with the same people as the star trek RPG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29D7rkjvk0&t=4262s Someone sat down and said 'aye, you know what we need? let's blow out all the colors, add a vaseline filter over everything to make it look real low res, and pay the GM by the "um"'
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Aug 28, 2018 19:47
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I could only make it through 5 "ums", or 25 seconds, before I stopped that video. Maybe you're right. I don't know that I would personally have a lot of interest with non-CR cast members but I'm sure that's in the works, if they want to sustain a full time channel. I hope that whatever they do it works out for them. They all seem to genuinely love doing it.
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Aug 28, 2018 19:56
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Hulk Smash! posted:I could only make it through 5 "ums", or 25 seconds, before I stopped that video. That genuinely is the first 25 seconds holy poo poo.
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Aug 28, 2018 20:13
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Hulk Smash! posted:I could only make it through 5 "ums", or 25 seconds, before I stopped that video. I think they're going to keep it within the cast with occasional guest stars for whatever they do on the channel. You have the main attraction Thursday game, supplemented by handbooker helper and whatever else like that is in the pipe, and occasional oneshots. Put together all that and you have a pretty steady channel presence for youtube, and twitch is more of an occasional place to see it if you want to than a full-time streaming channel. Talks Machina is in the mix as well, if they can talk the G&S folks into making the archives of that not Alpha or twitch subscription exclusive, at least going forward, that's another show to plug in to be viewed whenever. Everyone's too busy to do a second campaign at the same time as the current one, the only way that's happening is if they're legitimately making enough money from merch and all the other revenue streams that it's become a "quit your day job" situation, and as much as they talk about being broke voice actors they're pretty much all high-profile VA's who were popping up at cons before critical role had even taken off, plus Liam and Sam do voice direction, so it's not like everyone taking home $10k a year more is going to be the difference maker there. It's also just really not a good idea to hitch your horse 100% to streaming d&d. There's been a surge in interest there led by critical role, but I think it'd be a really bad life decision to scale down the professional career you've spent your whole life building up to put out 2 games a week. With all that said it's not a bad idea to get a second campaign hosted on the channel and with the same crew shooting it, but with none or very few of the actual CR cast on camera for it. Kind of get a next generation thing going and possibly pass the torch when the OG crew wants to walk away, though that's about 2 years away at the earliest and probably more like 5 years from now after a third campaign. It wouldn't surprise me if that's an idea they're at the very early planning stages of, trying to put together a list of who should be on it and what that might look like. While people have a lot of love for the cast I think that love and the critical role brand can transfer on to others relatively smoothly if done the right way. Or to put it another way, any 2nd table they put together would probably start with at least 20k viewers for the first game (quite possibly more like 40k), and that's one hell of a launchpad and really sets people up to succeed.
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Aug 28, 2018 22:36
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NowonSA posted:I think they're going to keep it within the cast with occasional guest stars for whatever they do on the channel. You have the main attraction Thursday game, supplemented by handbooker helper and whatever else like that is in the pipe, and occasional oneshots. Put together all that and you have a pretty steady channel presence for youtube, and twitch is more of an occasional place to see it if you want to than a full-time streaming channel. Talks Machina is in the mix as well, if they can talk the G&S folks into making the archives of that not Alpha or twitch subscription exclusive, at least going forward, that's another show to plug in to be viewed whenever. I know that I, personally, would tune into a second campaign that featured Ashly Burch. She was great in CR, seemed to make time for it and, from what I can tell, enjoyed the experience.
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Aug 28, 2018 23:26
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Hulk Smash! posted:As much as I'd love for the CR cast to get into another ongoing series - I second that SW EoTE would be great - I don't see any of them, except Taliesin and maybe Marisha, having the time to commit to that. Yeah thats genuinely my assumption too, running two campaigns with the amount of behind the scenes stuff required is just not practical even assuming they dropped their other lives to pursue this. kingcom fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Aug 29, 2018 |
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Aug 29, 2018 00:19
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Mywhatacleanturtle posted:I know that I, personally, would tune into a second campaign that featured Ashly Burch. She was great in CR, seemed to make time for it and, from what I can tell, enjoyed the experience. Ashly Burch is good enough and gets along well enough with the cast that I would have absolutely zero objections to her being on the main cast. I would definitely tune into a show that had her and one or two other regular cast members.
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Aug 29, 2018 00:23
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Sion posted:I think that some of that is because of the production values of that. Like, there's very clearly a CR production team (even before they left G&S) that's of a higher caliber than the rest of the live shows. I mean, just look at this Callisto 6 thing with the same people as the star trek RPG. I hadn't watched the Callisto 6 thing before and that does look absolutely awful but for what it's worth, Eric is a legitimately good DM. He's not Matt Mercer but that's a very high bar to clear. Mywhatacleanturtle posted:I know that I, personally, would tune into a second campaign that featured Ashly Burch. She was great in CR, seemed to make time for it and, from what I can tell, enjoyed the experience. 100% same. You could throw some other regulars in there like Will Friedle or Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. I'd love to see Phil Lamarr get to be on a regular series instead of one shots but I'm sure he's a VERY busy man. Maybe get Brian in there? The big problem is that I don't know who you'd get to DM it. Matt is already the most insanely busy guy on the planet and there's no way he can run two games at once. Marisha's probably the only person on the main cast who has the time to spare and the only thing she's ever DM'd before are the bear oneshots - which are great but good lord I cannot imagine the rage from Reddit if we all were watching her first time DMing a normal, serious campaign.
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Aug 29, 2018 01:00
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That's more or less what I would expect, bring in an all-stars group of guests from the show like Will Friedle, Darrin Depaul, Ashley Burch, Mary Elizabeth, those kinds of people, then grab a few more who seem like good fits. Make it a 5 person table to change the dynamic, and there's bound to be someone at least a little bit in the entertainment industry who's a good DM. Maybe you use a traditional setting instead of Tal'dorei so Matt can be that much less involved in it, or use a different game system entirely. I could see FATE working well, and one benefit of not doing another 5E game is that fewer people will get mad about rules stuff being missed or inefficient plays, kind of all that mess is less major when you're working with a less well known system that fewer people know. Of course, that cuts both ways since people generally want to know what's going on when they tune in, I expect, but a simpler system might be what it takes to bring a DM on board, especially if Marisha is in that role. One way or another if they want to really spin off and become a proper business unto themselves I think a second campaign is inevitable, just not something that can really be rushed in to when there's still work they want to do on the studio. I could see a long-term timeline where at the end of campaign 2 instead of doing just some oneshots in between (though surely there'd be oneshots) they pretty quickly get the second group going in their usual timeslot, maybe with members of the current cast making guest appearances, and then when campaign 3 slots the current group resumes playing Thursday nights and the new one moves to a different timeslot, but hopefully gets an audience from people who tuned in at the usual time.
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Aug 29, 2018 01:32
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chitoryu12 posted:Ashly Burch is good enough and gets along well enough with the cast that I would have absolutely zero objections to her being on the main cast. I would definitely tune into a show that had her and one or two other regular cast members. Sumalee Montano, absolutely. Nila was her second time playing D&D and she nailed it. I really want to see her in a larger role.
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Aug 29, 2018 01:36
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Cheston posted:Sumalee Montano, absolutely. Nila was her second time playing D&D and she nailed it. I really want to see her in a larger role. Not to mention her gushing about the experience when she thought the cameras were off. 
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Aug 29, 2018 02:00
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Yeah Sumalee's definitely someone I'd want on board, just put that raw natural d&d talent to work. Not a bad idea at all to bring in guest-heavy groups for oneshots about once a month too (kind of like how this thursday's game will be) and put them on the internet on a Friday or something, start to introduce them to the viewers and see what the chemistry is like.
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Aug 29, 2018 02:04
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Caduceus is so much better than Mollymauk.
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Aug 29, 2018 02:23
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