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Hell yeah ground floor. Hope to see this series carry on to the original campaign’s finale (and hopefully the epilogue adventures).
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Jan 28, 2022 00:00
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Realizing the whole season together would be about as long as an average episode of Critical Role. Us Critters have been spoiled on such a long show.
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Jan 28, 2022 00:22
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The show attempts to be as accurate as possible to the campaign and Pike suddenly leaves to a faraway place called Blindspot.
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Jan 28, 2022 01:56
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CuwiKhons posted:I can see why she didn't though. Fans were really torn on whether or not Matt should get to voice his favorite character so changing the voice would just invite criticism. Matt should stick to his perfect merchant role (Campaign Spoilers) Victor
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Jan 28, 2022 02:28
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I'm glad Scanlan's comedy doesn't feel overdone and too disruptive even when he just (Episode 3 Spoilers) did a song about anal beads in front of a banquet of nobles and emulated a moneyshot with pastries on a man's face while the party was fighting the Briarwoods outside. The comedy felt appropriate because he was purposefully doing a distraction and had no idea how bad it was getting with the other group members.
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Jan 28, 2022 10:15
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Hulk Smash! posted:Ok, yeah. Ep. 3 has much better pacing. I too am wondering if Scanlan can work without Sam being his charming self on screen to dilute some of the crassness of the character. I hope he has somewhat of an arc this season because, so far, he's basically just there to make sex/fart jokes. And the show is about to bring out his magic blue shits that he uses to scry on people. Scanlan's humor in the campaign mostly came from him insulting enemies whenever he Counterspelled their magic or used Cutting Words. And it would get funnier when they'd react in confusion. But you can only sell the same gag so much in two dozen 22-minute episode before it becomes predictable (even when that's what I think he's classic for). Scanlan does get a bit of development as he goes on. I personally feel his humor changes with (campaign spoiler) discovering Kaylie and experiencing the fall of Emon. Scanlan took a turn from being gross to annoying but clever. But it's all down to Sam and Matt deciding if they want to develop him and his humor or stick to outrageous stuff for the sake of entertainment. Nothing wrong with an occasional dick or poo poo joke but too much could dull Scanlan's moments of being caring and serious. Not to mention the funniest thing of the show so far is Matt Mercer playing an NPC each episode that gets hosed over by the party. Episode 1: Guy that Scanlan pisses on. Episode 2: Guy with the beer barrels that Grog steals from. Episode 3: The security guard that Grog throws later.
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Jan 28, 2022 19:01
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The progression of Vox Machina’s personality goes from ‘edgy teens’ to ‘grownups that care for each other while still making the occasional low-brow joke”. It’s the funny thing with trying to get people into Critical Role. People see the beautiful fanart, cool world-building and funny animations but then you show them the livestream and it feels like something out of an Adult Swim comedy some of the times. I got a curious friend into EXU when it was coming out and they nearly dropped it at the (EXU campaign spoilers) pissing contest and poo poo beard prank . They stuck around. When it comes to Critical Role, you have to deal with their worst if you want to see their best. And some don’t want to invest in something they don’t like for the not garunteed chance it gets better to them. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 21:32
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Character-wise, I have been enjoying Pike and Keyleth the most. Pike getting her own new story stuff because Ashley was MIA for some of the stream run was nice. And Marisha was definitely the awkward player that got frozen in the spotlight back in C1 for fair reasons (Moon Druids are a lot to play) and dumb reasons (chat mad at every little thing she does). Keyleth feels more authentically nervous and uncertain.Raged posted:As a long time connoisseur of dick & fart jokes Scanlan has always been my favourite character. Fart jokes always felt like a Grog thing to me.
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Jan 29, 2022 00:01
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Robobot posted:So I didn’t read the OP or anything because if I watch this I wanna come in totally blind, but is this a show I can jump into without knowing any of the backstories? I’ve been trying to find more adult animation to watch but I don’t want to have to watch like 200 episodes of a bunch of people playing D&D to jump into this. To Question 1: Yeah you can. The characters' backstories eventually come along as the story goes. It doesn't bog itself in exposition. Just "here are these dumbasses and here is what each of them do" To Question 2: No little kid but it depends whether you like the horny gnome bard or not.  Dragonstoned posted:I was thinking its little like this is Scanlan's retelling of what happened and he's changed a few things and trimmed some of the fat to make it work a little better for the wider audience I think they just retconned most of the pre-campaign story arcs except for their character backstories and their personal bonds. This is evidence by (pre-campaign lore & TV show spoilers) The party saying they never fought a dragon even thought they actually did fight one in the Winter's Crest arc of the pre-campaign. And Lady Allura was already acquainted with them personally in the pre-campaign. . I think they really wanted to squeeze things and keep it simple without doing so much exposition. Part of the reason I think Kraghammer got cut was because it was mostly a wacky adventure without too much developments. Then there's the extra work of having to say That One Dragonborn Sorcerer never existed. It's just easier to get to the juicy stuff. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jan 30, 2022 |
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Jan 30, 2022 07:19
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It's probably the Critter fandom rush but it's really funny to see a theatre guy beat a more well-known theatre guy with a song about anal beads (but it's never going to be #1 because Disney has a big fanbase) https://twitter.com/neal_acree/status/1487534818266996737 Marsupial Ape posted:My 70 year old parents liked Vox Machina. Not a good sign. My mom knew about Critical Role because she asked me about it last year since I played D&D and she had been hearing of it from people at work. I told her about how they were making an animated series for it. I thought she wouldn't care (or get turned off by the gross stuff of Episode 1) but she called me earlier today and said she liked it. Vax is her favorite. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Jan 30, 2022 |
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Jan 30, 2022 09:15
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Gaz-L posted:No, you're dead on, Scanlan works almost by sheer force of will from Sam Riegel because almost anyone else would either make him too obnoxious or too tame Sam has shown his flexibility in comedy when he went on to play Nott in C2 and F.C.G. in C3. Animated Scanlan is going to be a new challenge because Scanlan’s biggest jokes in the stream besides the Cutting Words insults and Counterspelling villains trying to pull a fast one was singing really catchy parody songs. Scanlan was essentially a very naughty Weird Al. But now they have to avoid for the new show because of copyright idiocy. So far he has shown he can make a good song like episode 1 and an absolutely outrageous song for episode 3. It’s only three episodes so far and Scanlan hasn’t been a spotlight hog. I trust Sam and Matt to balance his airtime and rate of jokes, even if Scanlan might do a song about his dick. I hope he does a song for (Major Campaign Final Arc Spoilers) Counterspelling Vecna, right down to Vecna being absolutely confused and angry at the song.
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Jan 30, 2022 18:19
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eke out posted:yeah that's part of why I don't mind the first two episodes so firmly establishing them as dipshits, it's quite accurate. they're just going to rapidly accelerate that bit to the part where they start becoming actual people rather than broad archetypes Yeah even when they are basically stereotypes of the game's classes (low INT Barbarian, edgy Rogue, hippie Druid, horny Bard), that was pretty much how they played in the home game and their first impressions when they debuted on stream. The closest they ever got to being a more formal party is Campaign 3 if you ignore Ashton saying 'gently caress' all the time and Fearne stealing things. Campaign 1 was the story of absolute dumbasses growing a heart and saving the world.
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Jan 30, 2022 20:09
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Robobot posted:Maybe it's just because the actual character backstories and main storyline haven't kicked off yet, but my goodness everything about the main cast is amazingly generic. Maybe that's on purpose (I know they're based on a bunch of friends goofing off in a D&D game) and I'm assuming they'll be fleshed out a lot more as the series goes on. Dragon episodes weren't really doing it for me, but I did like the dinner party episode because it felt like something was starting to happen. The first two episodes run into the issue to introducing everyone, selling what their deal is and then pushing through a two-episode quest. And the plot of the first two episodes is essential for a number of reasons related to the campaign so it was unavoidable. Critical Role is used to drawing out quests over several hours and episodes and then had to grind it down into around 40 minutes for just one adventure. Thankfully the next adventure is assumed to go to the end of the season so there's more time for character development, showing the world and more intrigue.
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Jan 30, 2022 20:51
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AngryBooch posted:Scanlan has a moment during the Briarwood arc that I can't wait to see animated. It makes it absolutely clear that sure, Scanlan is a funny meta character, but absolutely can't be underestimated. If it's the scene I think you're thinking of, then yeah. That was when I went from liking Scanlan to loving him.
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Jan 30, 2022 21:57
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It’s going to be disappointing but understandable when some anticipated scenes or even characters might not make the cut. But it’s to be expected. You can only do so much with 300 hours of stuff and have squeeze it into 20 minute episodes without making it seem like time-wasting filler. There is no way they are going to do the Chroma Conclave arc in just one season. That definitely sounds like a 2 or optimistically 3 season ordeal. As long as they do a good job with what they present. I know it might become a longshot but the one scene I want to see animated is (Campaign Episode 103 spoilers) when Grog and Scanlan induce widespread panic in Vassleheim to get out of being arrested. But that scene also requires having the Grog and Taryon shopping disaster that caused it.
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Jan 31, 2022 05:28
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I think another good thing of Pike being around for the show this time is that we get more scenes of her and Grog. It was an unfortunate blindspot ( ) of the first campaign given they are the little big sister and the big little brother of the party. Better siblings than Vax and Vex. Their scenes together stood out in the first episode because the party seemed pouty with each other. But not them. 
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Jan 31, 2022 06:41
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Paracaidas posted:Eta: also thriller I say gently caress the tone. Just have them do this once they get to Whitestone.
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Feb 1, 2022 05:32
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Nemo2342 posted:Thankfully, if you (or anyone else coming in because of the cartoon) want to try the stream again the campaigns aren't connected so you can just start with the newest one (which only has 11 episodes so far) and not have to worry about the 100s of hours from the other two campaigns. Campaign 3 does bring up the arc the show is going into now. It might have to wait until after the season ends, which is just three weeks.
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Feb 1, 2022 19:29
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Beef Jerky Robot posted:I think the first two eps were tolerable and the third was good, I think the limitations of the medium will go a long way to making Vax and Percy tolerable. The Briarwoods arc is Percy’s personal story mission so they’ll have to work to sell him at his lowest. Liam O’Brien will forever be a sad boy in every campaign.
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Feb 1, 2022 20:36
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Percy left a pretty good introduction in C1 because he fires guns and Talisin is known for rolling Nat 20s so he tends to just overkill enemies and might make a snark comment about it. The show’s first couple episodes left him pretty skim besides a couple smartass things he says. Episode 3 having him try to act the most mature and convince the party to be formal only to completely lose it does a better summary of his character.
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Feb 2, 2022 02:45
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Dameius posted:Speaking of Keylith, I can't wait for the we're basically gods moment in... probably season 2? 3? moment. It happens during the Taryon arc, which hopefully won't get too trimmed because it has crucial plot points like Keyleth finishing her story quest and VM going to Hell to permakill Hotis.
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Feb 2, 2022 05:47
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Push El Burrito posted:It also has the shopping scene which made me laugh harder than probably any other thing in the entire campaign. The follow-up scene to that in Episode 103 is also a riot. The shop scene was a result of the PCs rolling low. The follow-up was the result of the NPCs rolling high. e: Watching the Twitch watch-a-long. We are in Episode 3 riiiight before Scanlan's moment of infamy.
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Feb 2, 2022 05:50
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All I want at least once in this series is for him to pull out a gross song in front of a villain and confuse/infuriate them.
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Feb 2, 2022 06:30
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My DM for my online D&D game found out most of the players have Prime and wants to do a watch party the hour before our game. Two (including me) watched the Vox Machina campaign to the end, one had only watched Mighty Nein, another has only see EXU and C3, the other two are absolutely new to it. Might be fun. Might be just an hour-waster. If anything goes wrong, I blame Scanlan.
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Feb 3, 2022 02:16
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The Repo Man posted:I told a coworker last Friday about TLoVM, and he checked it out over the weekend. It's all he wanted to talk about Monday. He's planning on listening to the main campaign, so I had to give him the usual warning about a certain someone, and that the podcast is going to be very different than the show in many ways which interested him even more. He's also kind of stoked for 3-4 hour long episodes. I don't hear that much. Honestly the roughest thing to get through of Campaign 1 besides That One Sorcerer is how the audio quality of the first 30 or so episodes is pretty poor and their shouting leads to mic clipping.
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Feb 3, 2022 07:35
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I would have been forgiving of Orion with the stress in his life given his health but the guy turned out to be an rear end in a top hat to fans and tried to make his own show with Tiberius as a reaction to being asked to leave the group. I’m not going to dig up this coffin again. People linked the Reddit post that summarizes it all. Everyone knows the 8th Vox Machina member is Trinket and the 8th Critical Role member is Robbie Daymond who sadly won’t be until Campaign 3. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 18:46
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Dameius posted:When Matt realizes Orion had been loving with the ruled on what his ring of spell holding (or whatever it was called) to give himself 3 level 3 spells instead of up to 3 spell levels of spells is the closest I've seen him just lose it on a person. I would have absolutely given the benefit of the doubt to Orion for the ring thing but it was one of many things that Matt had noticed. Robobot posted:I may actually check out that one episode because it sounds INCREDIBLY awkward. Don’t know if I’ll be able to make it through hours of watching other people playing a table top RPG, but figure it may be worth checking out. Episode 27 is pretty much 'skip if you want to avoid seeing the table actually getting upset'. I remember going in being warned it gets ugly and I still got hurt seeing Matt drop onto the table. He just about had enough. And Travis looked ready to rise up from his seat and get up to Orion. Good job on the group for trying to keep cool. To happier news, my D&D group is doing the watch party. Starting Episode 3 and so far everyone is liking it. One of the players new to the show recognized Liam as Illidan Stormrage from WoW and got pretty excited. Hopefully the Matt Mercer effect doesn't happen and everyone wants to be like the dumbasses that are Vox Machina.  But it might be fun to do if we run the upcoming Netherdeep campaign (which is set in Critical Role's world) next.
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Feb 4, 2022 00:43
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Well poo poo, I got my D&D game starting now. I'll catch them after. The Cleric of the party considered Scanlan her favorite. Yes, even after that song.
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Feb 4, 2022 01:06
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Our game ended and some of us stuck around for the next batch of episodes. Holy loving poo poo the show has taken a step up from the first three. I'm glad the 4th episode just giving the characters time to talk with each other. It got to show Vox Machina as friends and not people that treat adventuring like it's a job they hate that the first couple episodes seem to give the feeling of. One of the things I was worried about was that they'd go too hard on the comedy but Scanlan and Grog have their comedic scenes done well. They have their funny moments on top their genuine moments and it doesn't ruin the tension (although no comment on the dog tentacle in mouth scene ). It was about time they showed Grog being a really caring guy because that's what he is in the campaign: A walking boulder with a peanut brain, big muscles and a bigger heart. Keyleth was my favorite character back when I watched the campaign because I related to Marisha's nervousness and seeing her adapted years after Marisha has gotten more confident while still keeping true to Keyleth's character is a nice thing to experience. It's also done a great job capturing the horror. The undead shadow things were nightmarish. My brain was tired and I didn't catch on that the people brought to the Briarwoods were murdered for the tree until the part where Percy froze in horror at the sight of it. . I swear that the animated plans sequence from Episode 6 looked like Dingo Doodles. Anyone else get that vibe?
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Feb 4, 2022 07:41
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I was pretty confused of why Stonefell looked like an ugly bald frogman but I just learned he is voiced by Darin De Paul, who is exceptionally good at voicing weird monster humanoids. They probably changed him for the sake of having Darin voice a nasty little creature. edit: Also Darin is a long-time friend of Matt and played D&D with one of his parents, if I recall correctly
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Feb 4, 2022 22:03
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lemonadesweetheart posted:I'd actually suggest people just start with 3 instead of 2 because it only just started. It's way less daunting when it's 10 episodes to catch up than 100+ for a full campaign. The new characters are at the very least as good as two's and Robbie is a great addition. It should be suggested those new to the Vox Machina story wait until the season ends before jumping into campaign 3 because (C3 spoilers) Laudna’s Patron . So give it two more weeks.
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Feb 4, 2022 23:50
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Quinton posted:I think it's also for the team -- I believe Matt said something along these lines during the watch party thing -- they get a chance to revisit these characters they spent years playing and polish up the story they jointly created during the campaign and share it in a new medium and a new telling with some tweaks and adjustments. So it doesn't have the some of the spontaneity of the gaming table version, but it also can be coaxed into a form that feels more like a story than a gaming session, able to be enjoyed by new audiences as well as old fans in a new way. The new episodes have been balancing the horror and humor pretty well. The tone doesn't feel disrupted. The writers know when to take their time after the horror moments to calm down and then try something funny. And even the few jokes during the tense parts don't break the flow. What I thought was amusing about the camp scene of Episode 5 was that Keyleth's story was dialed down from the campaign version because originally she tried to Gust of Wind the duergar down into the magma and it ended up cooling it and solidifying his horrified form in rock Han Solo style .
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Feb 5, 2022 08:15
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CuwiKhons posted:The entire Briarwoods arc 'officially' consists of episodes 24-38 but that's including one filler episode early in the arc where Taliesin couldn't make the session so they fundamentally couldn't progress the story without Percy being present (this was between the Feast and them leaving Emon for Whitestone and was cut from the cartoon for obvious reasons), a Christmas episode after the end of the arc, and two episodes of dithering and minor subplots before the next arc started, so without those four, it's functionally only 10 episodes long (which still makes it a good 35-40 hours in total since CR streams are 3-4 hours long). It does make me worry how much might be cut for the Conclave arc. (Major campaign spoilers) When VM isn't fighting the Conclave, they're looking for the Vestiges. Umbrasyl's part will be the easiest because it covers Grog's backstory, provides a Vestige and advances against the Conclave all together. Then the Conclave and Vestige progress parallel splits because they have to go through the Feywild, deal with Dr. Ripley and then go to the City of Brass before finishing off the Conclave. . Best case scenario is that they get 3 seasons to cover it. Otherwise they might have to alter the story structure and try to run them the storylines more together to keep things moving. Just the struggles of putting what is at least 120 hours into about 8 or maybe 12 hours. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Feb 5, 2022 |
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Feb 5, 2022 18:47
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Druid is a hard class to play if you are more new to D&D. You could see a lot of Marisha getting stuck on the spot in Campaign 1 but as someone who has had choice paralysis over playing a Wizard, I absolutely do not blame her. But also people got mad at her for just about anything from bad calls of a spell to personal character choices. It got to the point that Sam and I think Liam made fun of haters live on stream. Beau was fun and I am glad she is trying a major spellcaster again with Laudna. You can see how more confident she is now. Plus Laudna’s a riot (and scares the hell out of Travis).
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Feb 7, 2022 06:11
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Wheeljack posted:Long time TTPRG player, don't follow CR or any gaming streams or podcasts, seen up to episode 6 of the cartoon and like it very much. Origins won’t spoil anything. It tells about all of their adventures during the pre-stream home game. The first two episodes of the show do retcon some things and only cover one pre-stream arc as a way to simplify the story.
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Feb 7, 2022 08:35
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I have been rewatching the last 3 episodes as a refresh for the new ones a couple days from now and realized the shopping sequence of Episode 5 didn’t have us get to see Victor 
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Feb 9, 2022 02:52
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CuwiKhons posted:That character isn't in Emon. And they fundamentally have to go to Vasselheim next season so it'll probably happen then. Oh yeah. We probably won’t see any of that until S2. I look forward to seeing that come alive.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:00
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Did another watch-a-long with the D&D group. The Scanlan episode was a lot of dumb fun but Jesus Christ the Anders episode was brutal . The violence in that one actually made me squirm. I know (campaign spoilers based on end of Episode 7) Cassandra's throat slit was originally an illusion. And it seems they made it real this time? If so, Anders is such a fucker. . Stephen Root (Bill Dauterive from KOTH!) did an excellent job as Anders. An absolutely cocky proud rear end in a top hat. Finally we got Percy's whole name! And during a serious moment, too.
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Feb 12, 2022 07:49
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CuwiKhons posted:I noticed that too and I thought it was odd, but I don't think anyone in VM either in character or in real life actually realized it was an illusion until Matt told them much later? I think they were busy panicking and didn't pick up any of the hints. No reason to complicate things for the cartoon then since nobody in game had any reaction to it and they certainly gave Anders enough motivation to actually do it. Yeah that's fair. It would have been meta if they did know. And making it real when it was confirmed to be fake in the campaign made the scene in the cartoon much more horrifying.
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Feb 12, 2022 08:51
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TV program executives always spin choice wheels on what they do with shows regardless of quality. I think Vox Machina will stay at least for 3 seasons unless ratings really drop. It would seem dumb for a TV show based on a livestream show from a website owned by Amazon to be dropped by Amazon. I dunno how much of a headache it would be if like Hulu or Paramount picked up Vox Machina.
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Feb 12, 2022 20:15
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