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CuwiKhons posted:He had started rebalancing them a bit before Molly died This is a beautiful quote I want to save forever. Adnor posted:Good news that Taliesin next character will still be fabulous, another kind of fabulous but fabulous none the less. Hope he picks a bard and keeps his Vicious Mockery train going.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:13
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CuwiKhons posted:Yeah Matt strongly implied that just because Molly may be gone, his story isn't necessarily over for the campaign. Based on the questions around that my take was more that they may run in to NPCs out in the world who knew him, but who knows. I'm certainly down for a returning Molly at some point, and if he has total amnesia again it'd be so perfectly heartrending for the party to see him again like that. Given that Taliesin's thrown some love to the Sorcerer class in interviews and said it was his second choice for Molly, that's the class I'm expecting his next character to be. Seems like a fine addition to the party. I think I want to see his take on a sorcerer or druid more than any other class, just that funky bloodline aspect for sorcerers and I feel like he has some good hippie/burning man stuff to draw on for a Druid.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:14
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This party needs a second healer so Sorcerer is not the best option there. I kind of want to see him play a druid but I'm ready to see what he's got.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:20
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On After Dark, Taliesin notes that Molly was in fact the backup he had prepped for campaign 1 if Percy bit it, and figured he'd get around to making a new backup eventually. It took him about 13 hours to make his new character, and he's happy with it.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:23
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Matt had no sympathy because he apparently warned them that low level characters die often and they should start thinking about backup characters ASAP and Taliesin just didn't.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:34
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CuwiKhons posted:Matt had no sympathy because he apparently warned them that low level characters die often and they should start thinking about backup characters ASAP and Taliesin just didn't. I mean, this is a weird point. If you're likely to die, do you even bother with a backstory until you're out of that death phase?
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Jul 18, 2018 04:35
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I dunno, they do need more healing ability even after they save Jester and Laura's back, so if he's aiming for that it makes it druid, bard, paladin, or cleric off the top of my head. Factoring healing need into it, put my down for Firbolg druid in the betting pool. I encourage others to take a shot at guessing it as well, with the hive mind at work one of us will might nail it even if you have to guess the race as well.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:37
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I dunno if he'd pick bard, because that would (by precedent) require singing for every inspiration.
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Jul 18, 2018 04:39
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kingcom posted:I mean, this is a weird point. If you're likely to die, do you even bother with a backstory until you're out of that death phase? Yeah??? I mean a character can die at absolutely any time, not just low levels. If you bring in a character who just doesn't have a backstory at all because 'eh, they're probably going to die' then you're just going to wish they died because they're loving boring. Teddybear posted:I dunno if he'd pick bard, because that would (by precedent) require singing for every inspiration. Yeah I assumed nobody in the party went bard for exactly this reason. Scanlan's a hard act to follow. NowonSA posted:Factoring healing need into it, put my down for Firbolg druid in the betting pool. I encourage others to take a shot at guessing it as well, with the hive mind at work one of us will might nail it even if you have to guess the race as well. I'm gonna guess... Tabaxi druid. Circle of Dreams even, just to get real specific. CuwiKhons fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 04:39
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CuwiKhons posted:Yeah??? I mean a character can die at absolutely any time, not just low levels. If you bring in a character who just doesn't have a backstory at all because 'eh, they're probably going to die' then you're just going to wish they died because they're loving boring. Whats the logic behind writing up a backstory if you're likely to die before you get a chance to experience of see much of it? Assumably you enjoy playing the game and the story and your characters influence over the story as you go so the longer you survive the more backstory you can add over time. Why frontload it if the stated premise is that you are likely to die. I mean is the reverse not true, you dont care about the backstory because 'eh, they're probably going to die'?
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Jul 18, 2018 05:08
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^^^ edit: In depth backstories are important because it really does help establish logical goals and courses of action for your character. It also helps foster an emotional investment for you and party members. Sometimes it gets wasted, but whatever. You never know when other players will press you into why you are doing something and I've found that DMs are far more likely to give you bonuses social rolls when it is blatant that your character is passionate about something or has some experience with it. Even though it isnt RAW or whatever, it helps create a much stronger sense of community. I think there are a few reasons why level 1 characters die a whole lot in Dungeons and Dragons, and that has a lot to do with DMs and newer players figuring each other out. That and sometimes DMs will do stupid things and think it is ok to fight things that have an AC of 18 at level 1 while also being able to OHKO any of the party excluding some beefier fighters/barbs potentially on a non crit. Not trying to say anything about Mercer, but there have been DMs in my past that are just trying to live some power fantasy and set up a campaign that revolves around one of their characters. Grinning Goblin fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 05:10
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I could see Molly being like The Nameless One from Planescape: Torment. Each time he dies, he loses all his memories and has to build a new life and identity. Each incarnation can be wildly different and turn out to be good, evil, crazy, or fairly uninteresting.
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Jul 18, 2018 05:13
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NowonSA posted:Factoring healing need into it, put my down for Firbolg druid in the betting pool. I encourage others to take a shot at guessing it as well, with the hive mind at work one of us will might nail it even if you have to guess the race as well. Comedy option: Dark elf ranger. Serious guess: Halfling druid. I originally wanted to say goth paladin of the raven queen but then I googled that and welp. I think I already knew that spoiler in the back of my mind though (I'm still on the briarwood arc in season 1).
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Jul 18, 2018 05:27
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Grinning Goblin posted:^^^ edit: In depth backstories are important because it really does help establish logical goals and courses of action for your character. It also helps foster an emotional investment for you and party members. Sometimes it gets wasted, but whatever. You never know when other players will press you into why you are doing something and I've found that DMs are far more likely to give you bonuses social rolls when it is blatant that your character is passionate about something or has some experience with it. Even though it isnt RAW or whatever, it helps create a much stronger sense of community. I mean, they don't though. People can say they do but they only form the most general of basis because ultimately you're a person playing the game (unless you're a real method actor who just disappears into a character I guess). After GMing a lot of games what I find influences a 'character' far more is their party members and everyone working out a group dynamic that solidifies over time as well as your first few decisions and NPC interactions (i.e. your first rough goes at improv). Those are what form your basis for a character's actions. Your backstory can be written and interpreted a thousand different ways to justify virtually any choice and behaviour or decision. What a backstory is actually really good for is setting up your initial thoughts and ideas for a character arc and for signalling to the GM the types of themes and person problems you'd like to explore in the campaign. I mean you saw this in s2 of critical role, Matt running an initial adventure for most people resulted in everyone coming into the campaign with a good idea of how their character works and how they behave. The characters who weren't were Molly and Yasha who had not really built any dynamic so far and were making those early defining steps on camera.
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Jul 18, 2018 07:55
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By method actor do you mean people who... make decisions their character would make??? Instead of whatever is optimal? Because I think a lot of people who play D&D hope to do exactly that. Regardless of your personal opinion on it, it's how the cast of Critical Role plays D&D so saying a backstory is unnecessary at low levels is moot because they're definitely gonna have one.
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Jul 18, 2018 08:03
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Teddybear posted:I still think that Molly will come back in some form-- but as Matt's NPC with amnesia again. What's to say that this was Molly's second time dying and not his eighth? If I have to hear Matt Mercer doing a Tony Jay impression it will be entirely worth it. Also I think creating an interesting backstory is always cool and helps build connections to the character. I played a Kenku Cleric during my currently running game of Tomb of Annihilation named "Writer Friend". He was a short, adorable bird whose backstory was that he was working on a unified theory of Gods and was trying to prove to people that flight wasn't necessary and that Kenku's ability to ferret out secrets was in fact creativity the whole idea of their "only copying" thing was because they thought differently to most. No-one got to hear too much about it because I ended up getting flung a mile straight up into the air by a goblin village at level 3. And yet, I am still glad I created the backstory because it helped me to flesh out the character, it let me have cool interactions like being a 3"10 bird man squaring up to a Lich, or trying to figure out how the Gods of here fitted into the pattern I had been building. So the idea and the character aren't wasted if you don't get to see them through, because you got to have fun with people and make things interesting anyway. It might not be as narratively satisfying but life is frequently like that. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 08:15
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CuwiKhons posted:By method actor do you mean people who... make decisions their character would make??? Instead of whatever is optimal? Because I think a lot of people who play D&D hope to do exactly that. Sorry what? You know a method actor, the people who go on set as that character and draw real powerful emotions from their own experiences to associate with the characters desired emotions I didn't say anything about whatever is optimal, im not sure where you are getting that from? Nothing about what I'm saying is about playing in some optimal manner or 'correct manner'. I'm saying i've run enough games to see people work out who their character is after they have a NPC to bounce off of and work out what they enjoy or not especially with another person to bounce back and forth with. I've found a group dynamic is really powerful for pulling out a personality. Think Beau and Fjord are really perfect examples for this and obviously I don't that off-camera session but even early in their first adventure and meeting Knott and Caleb you got a good sense that Travis and Marisha were really working out their character from how they dynamic formed. Who they are and the decisions they were making down the line seem very much made in those first few sessions with the group. Knott and Caleb worked out their stuff together anyway so they came in with a lot of that in place, which I thought was very clever and I think those have been the two most clearly defined personalities from the get go which definitely shows the power of making your characters together though I'm just a big fan of Liam (who seems like most Method Actor of them all) and Scanlon so I'm biased. Molly, interestingly, was straight up playing a character with no backstory as far as 'no memory, now a circus conman' which is the kind of backstory I really like, gives you lots of room to add things later, and I think Taliesin definitely had a connection to the character because of the relationships built up. I'm in general someone who loves to improv' so the simpler a backstory the most fun I can have putting things together on the fly. I think knowing the setting and GM well before going in is obviously a really big leg up in having a backstory be useful. You're right say no backstory is obviously a poor hyperbole on my part but that was referring to you talking about Matt saying that low level characters often dying so I was kinda putting it in that context. Sorry if I pissed you off then. Hows your experiences using a backstory do it stay very stagnant or do you find your character's personality doesn't survive contact with the campaign? Josef bugman posted:If I have to hear Matt Mercer doing a Tony Jay impression it will be entirely worth it. I really want this to happen. Bonus points if Matt manages to bring Kiri in to quote old Molly's words at the new Molly. kingcom fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 08:24
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I want Kiri to come back as like a 20th level bard towards the end of the campaign.
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Jul 18, 2018 08:41
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Josef bugman posted:I want Kiri to come back as like a 20th level bard towards the end of the campaign. I'm extremely onboard with this, shes already got Vicious Mockery down packed.
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Jul 18, 2018 08:47
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Oof, I hope Matt doesn't miss the chance to have Kiri pop out some perfect Molly mimicry when the party sees her next. I hadn't even realized that would totally be a possibility, even if he'd been kind of avoiding her she was hanging around like all the time, there's bound to be a few phrases she could bust out, especially if Matt does some prep and finds some choice words from past episodes.
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Jul 18, 2018 08:49
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NowonSA posted:Oof, I hope Matt doesn't miss the chance to have Kiri pop out some perfect Molly mimicry when the party sees her next. I hadn't even realized that would totally be a possibility, even if he'd been kind of avoiding her she was hanging around like all the time, there's bound to be a few phrases she could bust out, especially if Matt does some prep and finds some choice words from past episodes. Kiri's Hideous Laughter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bLwlwMJdJU&t=2080s
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Jul 18, 2018 08:54
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kingcom posted:I mean, this is a weird point. If you're likely to die, do you even bother with a backstory until you're out of that death phase? Pretty much. At level 1 in DnD you can get killed by a lucky dice roll from a Kobold. At level 1 you are, essentially, someone that farms dirt and also learnt to stab people. It's almost like the game played RAW kind of clunks along and requires a bit of a gentlemans agreement to function as a fun storytelling tool.  You can have a backstory, sure, but maybe don't become too attached?
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Jul 18, 2018 10:57
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I'm going with Firbolg Oath of the Ancients Paladin or Lizardman Druid for the next character. I'm glad to see that they seem to be sticking to a no-rez death. Throws a good wrench in the group dynamics early on and might drive some interesting character growth in the remaining M9.
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Jul 18, 2018 12:40
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It gets lost in the shuffle of this latest development, I think, that Vox Machina died a LOT. They were at a level where they had spells to mosey on back to the land of the living, but they each had a chance of staying dead for realsies if the dice hadn't gone their way and Matt was sticking to his resurrection rules. It's kind of a minor miracle that they kept coming back when they were always one bad d20 roll away from staying dead. With that in mind, as shocking and wild as this has been, imagine the shock when one of them inevitably dies at around level 11 or 12 but doesn't come back due to a failed resurrection. That's going to be the real test of how well Matt sticks to his guns on resurrection rules, though I think it's more iikely to lead to a story about finding a way to properly bring them back than the character staying dead, especially if they feel they have unfinished business or would naturally have a strong desire to come back supplemented by impassioned pleas to aid the ritual by party members, and then Matt rolls a 1 or 2 on die and is just like welp, it's not gonna be that easy.
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Jul 18, 2018 13:09
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If Nott or Caleb dies I will be heartbroken. I will though look forward to whichever of the pair lives going full murderhobo.
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Jul 18, 2018 13:14
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NowonSA posted:It gets lost in the shuffle of this latest development, I think, that Vox Machina died a LOT. They were at a level where they had spells to mosey on back to the land of the living, but they each had a chance of staying dead for realsies if the dice hadn't gone their way and Matt was sticking to his resurrection rules. It's kind of a minor miracle that they kept coming back when they were always one bad d20 roll away from staying dead. They got insanely lucky on the rolls for a lot of the later deaths. Matt always photographed the die (and people still accused him of rigging it) to show what he rolled but he said the DC on a rez goes up the more often someone dies and some of them were up there pretty loving high by the time the campaign ended. If you don't know his specific rules for it, the basic gist is that the DC starts 10. Three people can participate in the ritual to try and convince the dead person to come back. They have to decide what they want to say or offer or try and the DM determines what sort of skill check that would be and also privately sets a DC for it. If the check succeeds, the DC for the rez is lowered by 3. If the check fails, it goes up by 1. Once all three are done and the final DC is set, the DM rolls a single unmodified d20 and if it meets or exceeds the DC, the person comes back to life. If you've died and been rezzed before, the DC goes up by I think 2? So it starts at 12 and then the checks apply from there, unless it only goes up by 1. I don't remember. So you'll notice that if its your first time dying, even your party totally loving up all their checks leaves the DC at 13, which isn't terrible, but not great. And if they all succeed then you can only fail to be rezzed on a natural 1. But once you've died and been rezzed a few times, the odds stop being in your favor.
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Jul 18, 2018 13:35
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Sion posted:Pretty much. At level 1 in DnD you can get killed by a lucky dice roll from a Kobold. At level 1 you are, essentially, someone that farms dirt and also learnt to stab people. I think the level of attachment people have to characters is exactly why the potential for death matters so much. After just 26 episodes, Molly is so popular that the fanbase had an outpouring of grief and rage at his death (even though there's still multiple ways he could be revived). Almost every death in the first campaign had the whole table sobbing because of how attached they all were to each other's characters and Vax's final death joining the Raven Queen in the last episode just destroyed everyone. I don't think the deaths would be as meaningful if people didn't get attached to characters from the very moment they appeared.
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Jul 18, 2018 15:08
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Poor Matt is getting a ton of hate on Twitter today, to the point he's apologizing. Probably from people that realized Molly isn't coming back after last night's Talks Machina.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:12
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While I understand that Molly's death being permanent makes sense at their low level, I still feel like there's a lot of potential story options that could be explored with resurrecting him if Matt and Taliesin work something out. Like maybe they get the full story behind his Lucien Nonagon persona figured out and he comes back as Lucien instead, without any memories of the Mighty Nein. It's up in the air how it could go from there, but they could expand it into an arc where they learn the truth about him and find a way to converge his two separate sets of memories into one. I'd find that a lot more interesting than simply killing Molly off for good or leaving him as an NPC to be replaced. Plus, as we saw with Vax, there's a lot of ways you can get a resurrection going that have a hefty price.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:26
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quote:I appreciate the support, and judging by the conversation, a number of people suddenly hate me. That’s fine. I’ll weather the slings and arrows. Ours is a story of heroism and hope in a dark world. A story many of us need. One that turns in unexpected ways, and one I believe in. I hate people. I especially hate entitled people in small numbers with access to the Internet and increasingly poor attitudes. The dice fell where they may and Matt did nothing wrong...he did exactly what a good villain would have done in that situation. Molly's death was tragic but drat good role-playing will lead to intriguing storylines down the road. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 17:26
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  midnigtartist.tumblr.com
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Jul 18, 2018 17:34
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I'm not trying to start poo poo with anyone, and I like Taliesin himself as much as anyone, but Molly was probably my least favorite PC and I'm curious if anyone else agrees. He had some moments here and there, but he didn't really come together as a character for me. If I remember anything, his most consistant trait is that he's the guy who would tell the party to stop what they're doing and continue over beer, so I don't really feel like I have much to miss. Regardless, that I didn't care for the character, it's much more interesting to have a death like this than anything else that could have happened. I'm probably in the minority, but I would like it more if characters had a real chance of dying throughout the campaign and the opportunity to die in spectacular or meaningful ways without being resurrected. That being said, I'm guessing that the chance of dying will go back to normal 5e levels (that is, very low) once they get their healer back.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:05
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CuwiKhons posted:This party needs a second healer so Sorcerer is not the best option there. I kind of want to see him play a druid but I'm ready to see what he's got. Divine Soul can certainly do some work since he can pull from cleric spell pool and also go beastmode on metamagic.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:05
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DeathSandwich posted:Divine Soul can certainly do some work since he can pull from cleric spell pool and also go beastmode on metamagic. As someone who has a level 8 sorcerer of exactly that subclass in my friend's game, I can verify this, though I never took twinned spell and now I'm wondering if it would make sense to use that to allow, say, regular Healing Word to hit two targets... (Plus there's the thing where you can use sorcery points to reroll healing dice)
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Jul 18, 2018 18:18
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kingcom posted:I mean, they don't though. People can say they do but they only form the most general of basis because ultimately you're a person playing the game (unless you're a real method actor who just disappears into a character I guess). After GMing a lot of games what I find influences a 'character' far more is their party members and everyone working out a group dynamic that solidifies over time as well as your first few decisions and NPC interactions (i.e. your first rough goes at improv). Those are what form your basis for a character's actions. Your backstory can be written and interpreted a thousand different ways to justify virtually any choice and behaviour or decision. What a backstory is actually really good for is setting up your initial thoughts and ideas for a character arc and for signalling to the GM the types of themes and person problems you'd like to explore in the campaign. I've always been in groups where the majority of players are willing to make flaws, goals, and demeanors and have people play around those limitations. But then again, most of the time, the DM/GM/whatever the system has tells the players the backstory of the campaign and we tend to make our characters a week or two later. And we always managed to have players call each other out when people ended up meta gaming or really acting out of character. That isn't to say that some people play around optimizations, and when it becomes clear that a player isn't enjoying their character, everyone is ok with giving them a way out that doesn't involve a random suicidal action. Maybe I just got lucky over the past 15ish years of doing table top RPGs I always end up in groups where people are willing to get into character and make character driven choices as opposed to player optimized ones and suffer the consequences. I always figured that was the norm outside of people just learning how to play the game.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:19
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I have opinions on death in D&D, but they're not that popular so I'll sidestep them to say Molly is probably the best character this could've happened to, and I mean that sincerely as someone who still enjoyed him when he wasn't doing nothing in combat. Although Matt's hinted at his backstory, he's still probably the least developed protagonist (in terms of direct interaction with his own past and choices moving forward), he's already come back once (opening the door for an amnesiac NPC, at Matt's option), and Taliesin just didn't seem to be having a lot of fun in combat (because Blood Hunter is still kinda bad, sorry Matt). Under different circumstances - by which I mean not streaming for an audience of thousands who love your character and whine when anything bad happens to them - Taliesin might've just swapped him out for another character, violently or otherwise. Now he gets to make a new character he'll enjoy voicing just as much who actually gets to contribute in combat on equal footing with everyone else, and the party gets a powerful bonding moment as a result of his death. I'm glad Matt is making this stick and glad Taliesin is rolling a new character, and I hope he has even more fun with the new guy than he did with the old one. Anybody throwing things at Matt or Ashley or Travis and Laura or whoever is an idiot. It's a game, and maybe more than a game, but it's their game. If the players are fine with it, that's the last word.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:42
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Nuggan posted:Poor Matt is getting a ton of hate on Twitter today, to the point he's apologizing. Probably from people that realized Molly isn't coming back after last night's Talks Machina. His tweets today are great but he needs to go the other direction. Tomorrow night should start with a villain point of view where the main bad guy starts cutting off Fjord's fingers while Matt stares into the camera and says "Anyone else have any complaints?"
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Jul 18, 2018 18:47
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bagrada posted:His tweets today are great but he needs to go the other direction. Tomorrow night should start with a villain point of view where the main bad guy starts cutting off Fjord's fingers while Matt stares into the camera and says "Anyone else have any complaints?" That'd be a mean thing to do to an absent player when you're trying to punish people who aren't at the table.
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Jul 18, 2018 20:02
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:That'd be a mean thing to do to an absent player when you're trying to punish people who aren't at the table. Yeah, if he wants to be a super dick to people, just have the villain kill Kiri.
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Jul 18, 2018 20:10
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:That'd be a mean thing to do to an absent player when you're trying to punish people who aren't at the table. Cold open with it, then say "Just kidding." Nuggan posted:Yeah, if he wants to be a super dick to people, just have the villain kill Kiri. I think the studio might actually be burned down if he did that.
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Jul 18, 2018 21:04
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