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Dameius
Apr 3, 2006
The first time they went to Ank'Harel in campaign 1 it was towards the end of the episode and Matt called the game a little early because he basically had nothing prepared at all and wasn't expecting them to randomly decide to gently caress off to a different continent for the first time ever when he had laid out all these plot breadcrumbs right in front of them.

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Rougey
Oct 24, 2013

Agaragon posted:

One time he set up an adventure in a city that they'd been planning on going to, even making plans with a guest who was going to be a major part of it. He later had to text the guest, "I'm so sorry, they hosed off to an entirely different country"

Yeah and it was Matt loving Colville - would have been rad as hell.

On the D20 stuff, the rough part in terms of audio quality is in the middle (when they had to figure out recording it while all the players who would usually be in the same room together were under lockdown).

The production value is insane - Bloodkeep is probably the easiest jumping in point with Mercer as a player, but you have to give Fantasy High a go - watch the first two episodes at a minimum. I am so happy Lou is on Calamity, his breakdowns at the poo poo Brennan pulls is just *chefs kiss*

Pussy Quipped
Jan 29, 2009

https://youtu.be/b4a4IoyNkwU
Season 2 in January! Way sooner than I expected.

CuwiKhons
Sep 24, 2009

Seven idiots and a bear walk into a dragon's lair.

And they're greenlit for Season 3!

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!
:siren:Spoilers Ahoy:siren:
The redband trailer for S2 is out and it's a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmlwr-qFQeA

Because this absolutely doesn't merit two threads, I beg the critters to put meaningful discussion and speculation behind spoiler tags until they occur on the show.

Guest cast has also been announced, including new and returning friends like: Will Friedle (Ron Stoppable), Billy Boyd, Henry Winkler, Lance Reddick, Cree Summer, Alanna Ubach, Cheech Marin, Troy Baker, Sendhill Ramamurthy, Ralph Innerson, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Stephanie Beatriz, Indira Varma, Gina Torres, Kelly Hu, and Esme Creed-Miles.

My nonspoiler take on the trailer is there's a pretty substantial rectretcon at the end. My spoiler take is GROGBEARD

Also, do we want to keep the thread or start a new one for S2? - either way, will update the OP and characters.

Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Dec 15, 2022

CuwiKhons
Sep 24, 2009

Seven idiots and a bear walk into a dragon's lair.

This thread's not long enough to warrant making a new one, I think.

Also main takeaway - hhhhnnnnn there's a brief few frames of Vex wearing Percy's coat and I suspect that's after the tomb and my dumb shipper heart is so excited. I love their relationship.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

CuwiKhons posted:

This thread's not long enough to warrant making a new one, I think.

Also main takeaway - hhhhnnnnn there's a brief few frames of Vex wearing Percy's coat and I suspect that's after the tomb and my dumb shipper heart is so excited. I love their relationship.

Would absolutely mark out if we get the bit where Vax talks to Vex in the tub and after he leaves Percy sticks his head up from the water, takes in a deep breath and says "I thought he'd never leave."

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!

Dawgstar posted:

Would absolutely mark out if we get the bit where Vax talks to Vex in the tub and after he leaves Percy sticks his head up from the water, takes in a deep breath and says "I thought he'd never leave."
Absolutely fits the show's humor and the opportunity to include it is what made me decide to do gifs as cast introductions in the OP

CuwiKhons
Sep 24, 2009

Seven idiots and a bear walk into a dragon's lair.

Dawgstar posted:

Would absolutely mark out if we get the bit where Vax talks to Vex in the tub and after he leaves Percy sticks his head up from the water, takes in a deep breath and says "I thought he'd never leave."

That wouldn't be this season if they did but god I hope so. Also you have that backwards. Vax talked to Percy in the tub and Percy called him a weirdo for getting in the bath with him. Then after he left, Vex came up from underneath. Laura said she was actually keeping track of how long the conversation was and if it went on too long, she wasn't going to do it because it wouldn't make sense.

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006
Seeing the trailer reminded me of the episode where Keyleth was tripping balls and Travis had a table talk joke about how Keyleth couldn't stop clenching her jaw and that's when I realized him and Laura were also in the cool kids club, not just the burning man crew.

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!
The OP has been updated! If timing matches season 1, the first three episodes will drop tomorrow.

AngryBooch
Sep 26, 2009
I hope they drop 3 episode batches, just one episode is so short. I'm also hoping that they drop at midnight GMT so I can watch this afternoon.

ninjahedgehog
Feb 17, 2011

It's time to kick the tires and light the fires, Big Bird.


Not super familiar with Critical Role but Vox Machina season 1 loving ripped, cannot wait to see what they do for season 2. Been a while since I watched a show this goddamn fun :black101:

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!

AngryBooch posted:

I hope they drop 3 episode batches, just one episode is so short. I'm also hoping that they drop at midnight GMT so I can watch this afternoon.
I know the plan is three episode drops, so that's good news!

ninjahedgehog posted:

Not super familiar with Critical Role but Vox Machina season 1 loving ripped, cannot wait to see what they do for season 2. Been a while since I watched a show this goddamn fun :black101:
:hellyeah:

Exia
Feb 12, 2014
Episodes 1-3 of S2 are up now

Rougey
Oct 24, 2013

Exia posted:

Episodes 1-3 of S2 are up now

Well, there goes my productivity for the afternoon.

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...
Cinemark is doing screenings for them tonight

Cheston
Jul 17, 2012

(he's got a good thing going)
I'm 99% sure "...last name pedobear?" and "I mean, you've gotta get your perv on" were lifted directly from the stream and I love it.

Government Handjob
Nov 1, 2004

Gudbrandsglasnost
College Slice
gently caress why did I agree to DM tonight when I could be watching the new episodes?

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...
I will say people melting everywhere while they make sex puns is a lot more jarring this time around

It’s not even just scanlan

koreban
Apr 4, 2008

I guess we all learned that trying to get along is way better than p. . .player hatin'.
Fun Shoe
I feel like the pacing is maybe a little too quick on this set. I totally get what they are trying to do, and I agree, but holy poo poo do they handwave off a lot of stuff for the sake of not taking 4-5 episodes to set up the arc. I'm hopeful that they settle down a bit and let some of the guest characters grow on us, or allow the VM cast grow a bit between their action setpieces. It's not egregious, but it's noticeable compared to S1.

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...
in terms of stuff cut from the CR show? I'm not as familiar so I'm curious what did

Senjuro
Aug 19, 2006

Alan Smithee posted:

in terms of stuff cut from the CR show? I'm not as familiar so I'm curious what did
They're trying to cover many hours of the D&D campaign in a handful of half hour episodes. A LOT is inevitably going to get cut especially in this Chroma Conclave arc which is particularly long. They're faithfully hitting the major story beats for the most part but they have no time for the smaller character moments. For example one of my favorite episodes of the campaign is when they spend the entire episode after the initial attack on Emon sitting in their keep completely shell shocked over what happened. In the show it wasn't even a minute.

Rougey
Oct 24, 2013

Alan Smithee posted:

in terms of stuff cut from the CR show? I'm not as familiar so I'm curious what did

Senjuro posted:

They're trying to cover many hours of the D&D campaign in a handful of half hour episodes. A LOT is inevitably going to get cut especially in this Chroma Conclave arc which is particularly long. They're faithfully hitting the major story beats for the most part but they have no time for the smaller character moments. For example one of my favorite episodes of the campaign is when they spend the entire episode after the initial attack on Emon sitting in their keep completely shell shocked over what happened. In the show it wasn't even a minute.

They were able to save more people as well.

Another example; the Slayers Take - they actually travelled to Vasselheim before the Chroma Conclave attack and spent a bunch of episodes there with a bunch of guest characters. Long story short one of the firsts things they did was wander out into the wilderness and kill a hydra without the proper permit (which the show alludes to), so to make amends with the take they did some other contracts where they met Kash and Zahra. To be honest I appreciate the way they managed to truncate that entire arch; Kash and Zahra being shitheads is a bonus.

Also the Broom has been introduced without the baggage that comes with it.

We haven't seen Grog going shopping yet which is one of the highlights in the stream, however it is easy to cut because the best part of Grog haggling was Laura (Vex) completely breaking character whenever Travis (Grog) had an opportunity to gleefully set money on fire haggle.

Personally I'm looking forward to the bath tub - a lot of the joy of that scene is watching the entire table lose their poo poo but I reckon they'll pull it off.

Rougey fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Jan 20, 2023

Macdeo Lurjtux
Jul 5, 2011

BRRREADSTOOORRM!
The IGN review of the season said they take a lot of liberties to tighten up the story and that fans that watched the actual plays might be a little upset.

NowonSA
Jul 19, 2013

I am the sexiest poster in the world!
Show got to me more than I expected at the end of episode 3, it had me tearing up a bit.

So far I'm okay with how they're streamlining things because man do they need to do a LOT of it to condense some long as hell streams into a season. Thematically I feel like the fight against Vorugal would be a good endpoint, but I expect we won't get that far. I think with the current pacing 6 seasons is the magic number to make it through campaign 1 if they keep getting renewed.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with Scanlan's Vestige since they almost never used it in a show-y way on the stream.

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!
Solid first few episodes!

Gripes:
  • Felt like a lot of telling (rather than showing) on the grandeur and power of Emon and the Cloudtop District but those are wages of past sins coming due and I don't blame them for the earlier choices
  • As Alan noted, I found the humor and horrific destruction mix jarring early and for me personally it missed the mark on setting the tone... but I don't think it's unintentional, keeping humor regardless of what's happened (from Grog and Percy after orphan deaths in S1E1 to Vax's mock exasperation climbing back up at the end of S2E3) is clearly a goal for the show
  • It feels like Uriel's death should have mattered more but all we got from him is "likes Trinket, easily brainwashed, happy his family was safe and the last thing he saw"

For things I really enjoyed:
  • We got to see Allura show off!
  • Ron Stoppable Kash and Zahara were adapted really well into what was essentially a new story
  • Vax/Vex backstory was cool - I'll lean on anyone who actually read Kith & Kin to lmk how closely it hewed
  • Matron of Ravens keeping an eye on them is really interesting and I'm excited for that payoff
  • Craven's Edge!
  • Victor!
  • Ripley!

As for adaptation overall, for me they've earned enough goodwill and trust with how they've handled things thus far that I expect any disappointment will be on "aw, that would have been fun to see animated" rather than "I can't believe they eliminated this crucial character" or "they robbed this character of their essential arc"

AngryBooch
Sep 26, 2009
Similar to season 1, the first two episodes felt very, very fast but episode 3 slowed the pace down just enough to be very enjoyable.

They are setting up a lot of character arcs at once, Vax of course, but Scanlan and Grog as well with even Ripley/Percy stuff thrown in.

Lucas Archer
Dec 1, 2007
Falling...
This'll probably be an unpopular opinion, but I was pretty underwhelmed by episodes 2 and 3.

The end of ep 3 didn't hit me - like, at all. Maybe I'm just a cynical old man these days, but the whole "don't go far from me" and Vax's incredibly unhealthy dependency on Vex was very heavy handed and a bit aggravating. This may be a product of them having to stuff in dozens of hours of character development into 3 thirty minute episodes, and I recognize the difficulty there. And this also may be partly my issue since I was watching the stream live when this stuff went down, and having Vax just crumble and end the episode crying rubbed me the wrong way. I won't spoil anything after that, but I think the people who watched the livestream will know what I'm talking about. I'm sure it'll be at the beginning of episode 4, but... eh.

Good voice acting, good animation, episode 1 was loving bonkers in a good way, I was just left with a very 'meh' feeling.

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Lucas Archer posted:

This'll probably be an unpopular opinion, but I was pretty underwhelmed by episodes 2 and 3.

The end of ep 3 didn't hit me - like, at all. Maybe I'm just a cynical old man these days, but the whole "don't go far from me" and Vax's incredibly unhealthy dependency on Vex was very heavy handed and a bit aggravating. This may be a product of them having to stuff in dozens of hours of character development into 3 thirty minute episodes, and I recognize the difficulty there. And this also may be partly my issue since I was watching the stream live when this stuff went down, and having Vax just crumble and end the episode crying rubbed me the wrong way. I won't spoil anything after that, but I think the people who watched the livestream will know what I'm talking about. I'm sure it'll be at the beginning of episode 4, but... eh.

Good voice acting, good animation, episode 1 was loving bonkers in a good way, I was just left with a very 'meh' feeling.

Campaign 1 happened at a time in my life where I had a ton of time at work to fill with background noise and putting the VODs on worked wonders for that. As a result, I've watched the majority of C1 multiple times and I'm really trying to just take this show as is and not try and imprint any feelings from C1, especially beats they had to cut out. It worked well for me for season 1 but also the Briarwood arc didn't have a lot of the campaign high points in it.

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!

Lucas Archer posted:

This'll probably be an unpopular opinion, but I was pretty underwhelmed by episodes 2 and 3.

Good voice acting, good animation, episode 1 was loving bonkers in a good way, I was just left with a very 'meh' feeling.
I think your points are very fair. There are few moments in the campaign that actually put the group at risk of splitting up and this was one of them. If they shortchange that drama, it really robs Vax, Vex, and Percy of essential parts of their character. It'd be like having Scanlan hook up with a bard named Kaylie and then gently caress off from the group in a huff when everyone criticizes him for having a one night stand

I think I'm just broken on release models and am giving the benefit of the doubt with our assumptions of how Ep 4 will start. If we're right, it's annoying for the one week wait but for anyone who watches/rewatches after this week I think it falls better than stuffing that into this episode.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice
Has there been any word on if they're going to release a soundtrack for this season, too? I loved Acree's work on season 1.

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin
I wish they were playing Craven Edge subtler. Literally every person Grog has met this season has told him to throw the drat thing away.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Froghammer posted:

I wish they were playing Craven Edge subtler. Literally every person Grog has met this season has told him to throw the drat thing away.

Oh I'm sure that will be fine (my wife turned to me and said "Can we just call that Mat's Dagger?")


I missed first campaign CR but started watching C2 and then c3 during quarantine.

Overall I like this show so far. I think my favorite part was, yeah, the moment when they're all freaking out back in their keep after the city is blown to smithereens. So far I feel like this season is clearly higher stakes but maybe a little less fun -- nothing so far like Scanlan's triceratopsian rampage -- but that's also how I feel about high level vs low level D&D, I've always preferred campaigns that top out around level 8-10.

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!
The biggest change from the stream thus far - aside from when and how the Slayers Take is introduced - is Craven Edge.

On stream Percy identities the sword and what it does and allows Grog to take it mostly without warning. Which is the equivalent of giving lit matches to a clumsy kid taking a gasoline bath.
I'm not surprised they retconned it, it's a deeply shitheaded move by Percy that I don't recall leading to any character growth or tension beyond Grog's experience with the sword
. So the vibes around the sword haven't changed much -- though I can see why some would prefer they had.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Senjuro posted:

. For example one of my favorite episodes of the campaign is when they spend the entire episode after the initial attack on Emon sitting in their keep completely shell shocked over what happened. In the show it wasn't even a minute.

what episode is this?

Senjuro
Aug 19, 2006

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

what episode is this?
40
Word of warning if you've never watched it before then this episode will reveal a bit more about Thordak than the animated series has thus far.

Senjuro fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Jan 20, 2023

Dragonstoned
Jan 15, 2006

MR. DOG WITH BEES IN HIS MOUTH AND WHEN HE BARKS HE SHOOTS BEES AT YOU
by Roger Hargreaves

Paracaidas posted:

The biggest change from the stream thus far - aside from when and how the Slayers Take is introduced - is Craven Edge.

On stream Percy identities the sword and what it does and allows Grog to take it mostly without warning. Which is the equivalent of giving lit matches to a clumsy kid taking a gasoline bath.
I'm not surprised they retconned it, it's a deeply shitheaded move by Percy that I don't recall leading to any character growth or tension beyond Grog's experience with the sword
. So the vibes around the sword haven't changed much -- though I can see why some would prefer they had.

Another part of the problem was the fact it wasn't "identified" properly, non of VM actually had the spell "Identify" that gives all the info about the item (they were just attuning to items and finding out) When Grog got free of it, Matt gives him the full stats of the sword and the paper is twice as long as before and explains what the curse was.

FlavoFibe
Nov 9, 2015
I didn't know how much I needed Thordak having Shin Godzilla atomic breath.

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Crazy Ted
Jul 29, 2003

Paracaidas posted:

The biggest change from the stream thus far - aside from when and how the Slayers Take is introduced - is Craven Edge.

On stream Percy identities the sword and what it does and allows Grog to take it mostly without warning. Which is the equivalent of giving lit matches to a clumsy kid taking a gasoline bath.
I'm not surprised they retconned it, it's a deeply shitheaded move by Percy that I don't recall leading to any character growth or tension beyond Grog's experience with the sword
. So the vibes around the sword haven't changed much -- though I can see why some would prefer they had.
However, that deeply shitheaded moved led to the episode where Grog talked to Craven Edge in a bathroom stall while pretending to take a massive dump with Scanlan covering for him, which was hilarious.

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