This show is far better than it should be

there a way I can watch this show without giving that bitch Felicia Day or that faggot Wil Wheton any money or clicks?

It's an entertaining D&D game, which is kind of a HUGE unlikelyhood. And I say that as someone who streams D&D myself, I will never run a game remotely as capable of entertaining a crowd as they do.

There's really not much else to say about it.

Here's the thing I've noticed, though; Probably 70% of the fanbase, if not more, is women.

Twitch with adblock. Done.

Just watch the prerecords on twitch with adblock? That's it?

That fucking easy?

I've been missing out on a good show all this time (because of two of the biggest assholes in the C-List) and I could have watched ythis shit with adblock?

Why the hate for Wil Wheaton?

B8 harder.

Memes.

Makes sense, thanks family

can't speak for anyone else, but have you listened to acquisitions inc? he's legitimately an annoying, unfunny faggot, especially once they started playing live in front of audiences at pax.

get addblock and go to the geek&sundry website. thats what i do.

critical role is pretty good... i FUCKING HATE marisha/keylith

like many other posts said it really is doing good for tabletop gaming as a whole, though when people jump in and expect a mat mercer DM they will be sorely disappointed

Wait Matt Mercer isn't the DM?

that fucking sucks!

mat mercer is the DM for crit-role.
sorry i worded that terribly...
i ment to say...when people play a table top rpg with their friends and expect the DM to be on par with mat mercer they will be disappointing.

He obviously already designed the encounter/character with the party in mind, its obvious he was never meant to be dueled to victory.

oh.

Well yeah the guys a professional voice actor who's been in the industry for a while. You're not gonna be on his level for a while if ever.

Pike is also 60% fiat, 40% absent.

This is kind of why I don't agree with 's point
>the general consensus on Veeky Forums is that Critical Role is a net good for the hobby, as it gets a lot of normies and less hardcore nerds into the game

If I had a dollar for everyone introduced to the hobby and who then flared out of actually playing when they realized that not every DM is, in fact, the one they see on the high-paid TV show they watched, and that THEY are not as interesting or charismatic or entertaining as those professional actors playing in a group of close friends they've known for many years? I'd be fucking rich.

Most people who watch the show don't actually play D&D and never will.

anyone else glad tiberius/Orion is gone? that fuck head pissed me off so much

At first he was my favorite character, but he rapidly turned into being slightly better than marisha. He was like a non-charismatic sam/scanlan.

his meta trash frequently pissed me off...
his arrogance was also very frustrating

What in particular is wrong with Keylith? I never had much of a problem with her.

4e at least tried something different whereas 5th is just pathfinder/3.x with a fix or two. Though, nobody should continue playing D&D after getting their feet wet anyways. There's so many systems that do whatever you actually liked about D&D better than D&D ever will.

I fucking hate Grog. He's the GM's special little boy. Seriously the GM panders more to Grog than his own girlfriend.

>Edgy dark magic sword for Grog-senpai
>Like six fucking stories revolve around grog.
>Special PVP episode, teehee Grog-senpai will win, the fucking look of pure butt hurt on there faces when will friedle won.
>Oh hey a wolf companion, nope not for the ranger to replace her shitlord pet, not for the rogue, nope its for Grog-senpai.
>Ancient Magic item quest, everybody gets one including Grog-senpai who has a dark edgy sword and a dark edgy wolf companion already.

i find her roleplaying utterly obnoxious. her attempts to display any amount of serious emotion comes off forced and awkward... i feel myself cringe every time she talks for any longer than one or two sentences...

the character itself is also very irritating...her morals get in the way of everything...she is so useless as a character and only helps the party when it comes to traveling or something INCREDIBLY circumstantial

>whereas 5th is just pathfinder/3.x with a fix or two
This meme is just proof you're not familiar with either. 5e is as similar to 3.5e as 4e is.

while i do agree he does get alot of nice things, i think its more because he does a good job at playing his character and is rewarded for such. travis himself is a pretty smart dude and a good strategist but does an amazing job at acting with a low INT but keeping it interesting

Well, okay, but...

>her morals get in the way of everything.
I know what you mean, but I kinda appreciate having a voice of morality to mitigate murderhoboing. Like the Roc episode. Sure, she derailed the would-be fight, but it was certainly a happier solution.

How do y'all recommend being the voice of morality without getting in the way of things?

you are very right...i don't expect her to just go with it when she view something as morally wrong, but it gets to the point where her morals get in the way of logical though and reason. potentially creating a bigger problem than the one they where initially faced with

She also only pays half attention when things aren't directly related to her, so the rest of the group gets 80% through a plan or idea, and THEN she comes in, asks whats going on and that its wrong so stop.

The cursed sword was given to Percy, who gave it to Grog.

He got the wolf because he was the only one who did a decent job on his Handle Animal check. And there's no way Vex would ditch her fuzzy anchor. I'm just glad Matt gave them a magic plot-convenience item for it.

>this

If anyone except marisha was a druid i guarantee the wolf would have been awakened. Trinket would also have been awakened for a while, but she doesn't know what her spells do, or that she has them

Actually, this came up in an interview thing one time. I heard Vex say she didn't want to awaken Trinket because she's worried Trinket may leave her.
I fukken would, if I were that bear.

Mat has mentioned before that she has access to Awaken, but they shouldn't do it because Trinket would no longer be a pet/ranger companion.

All of these complaints seem pretty dumb to me. And I mean, I'm certainly no fanboy or anything, I'm just saying that they all make sense from a purely mechanical sense in how they happened:

>The edgy dark magic sword belonged to the Vampire who was, in fact, part of Percy's backstory. Percy took it off the Vampire, and then gave it to Grog because he had no use for a greatsword. The fact that the weapon happens to be evil/intelligent and give strength based on it's kills just means that Grog worked really well with it and had too low of a Wisdom to succeed against it. Plus, it played on his character's personality.

>There's only one main story I think that revolves around him. Unless you mean the one with the Monk guy, but that was just Matt coming up with a way of pointing the players towards the Artifact items based on which PC went searching for info. It happened to be Grog.

>The PvP thing doesn't really count, does it? It was literally just 4 players fighting in a ring.

>He intimidated/handle animal'd the Wolf. That's kind of what the skill is for.

>He doesn't have a wolf companion? The wolf is protecting a village or some shit, right? I don't remember. And they got rid of the sword. The sword wasn't an artifact, so why would it be planned for in that aspect of the game? If the DM made one legendary item per PC, why would he not give one PC one based on a piece of loot that technically the whole party could have laid claim to when it was obtained? That wouldn't affect the history of the world and what legendary items existed.

Beat me to it. Thanks for the clarification

To be fair, her roleplaying may be cringy because, as she said, she intentionally plays the character as socially awkward due to the character's low Charisma.

I'm not saying it's THE cause, but it might be part of it.

As a 4e fan, I have to disagree with your assessment. 5e is no more a fix of 3.PF than it is of 4e.
If 3.PF was a giant bowl of sweet and sour pork and 4e was a giant platter of spicy mutton, 5e is a splotch of overcooked and unseasoned porridge.
3.PF fans complained about 4e's taste and vice versa, so WotC made 5e specifically to just lightly scrape over your tongue without your taste buds noticing, so nobody could actually complain about it tasting bad.

>Here's the thing I've noticed, though; Probably 70% of the fanbase, if not more, is women.

That's because Matt Mercer is an incubus and I want him to impregnate me with little DM babies.

What's the show? What is it about?

Edition war, edition war never changes

You're a man, you can't get pregnant.

>like tabletops enough to create a series on it
>still so casual they use 5e

How can you take these people seriously?

There are also people who claim to love tabletop RPGs but only play 3.PF.
They're not being duplicitous, but merely myopic.

At least they don't play 3.5.

>it's the "if he doesn't like 5e he loves 3.5" meme

Amazing.

What would you prefer?

accepting 5e has flaws instead of just playing the "nuh uh X is worse" game.

All tabletop games have flaws, what's your point? It makes sense for them to play d&d, the most iconic rpg.

>How can you take these people seriously?
I thought the show was for humor and entertainment, so.... you're not supposed to?

I did not claim 3.PF was worse.
Matter of fact, I'd rather play 3.PF than 5e.
But okay, I'll fix it for you.

There are also people who claim to love tabletop RPGs but only play GURPS.
They're not being duplicitous, but merely myopic.

Actually they used to play PF and then later converted to 5e. So they switched from the worst game on the market to just the most bland, casual game on the market.

...

Scanlan > Grog > Percy > Keykey > Pike > Vex > Vax

Fite me

Here's your (You).

5e is ok system.
And in the pragmatic view, it's popular so it's likely to get more views.

Matt also said that Trinket is "smarter than the average bear," all jokes aside, because in terms of stats Trinket actually has 4 Int, so he can't be Awoken by the Druid. I don't know how he got 4 Int, maybe Pathfinder bears are smarter than 5e bears (remember, they started this campaign out in PF and updated to 5e prior to episode 1).

To quote Matt's intro near verbatim, "it's a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors sitting around a table and playing D&D."

Not with a quitter attitude like that!

In terms of how I like the characters from a RP perspective, my list is:

Scanlan > Grog > Percy > Vex = Vax > Keyleth > Pike.

I don't have anything against Ashley (the actor playing Pike) but she just hasn't had much of a chance to RP because of working on Blindspot (a NBC primetime show in the states that films in NYC when the game takes place in an LA sound studio).

She missed basically all of the Briarwood arc, the return to Emon, and now is back in time to partake in the Vestiges hunt, which can be a way for her to show her RP chops (as Pike is probably the 2nd most liked party member, first being Keyleth.)

It's pretty easy to be the most liked character when you don't have any time to prove that really, you don't know how to play.

Honestly, my problem is that somehow these guys can play literally every fucking week, and still have no clue how to not die every single fight.

Whut I lurned tonite...
1)There's an overrated show in which Geek L33ts play DnD for the enjoyment of filthy casuals and geeks so low on the totem pole they can't go out and find a game.
2)Never play any edition of DnD with people from Veeky Forums; they each only like one edition, and every other one is shit, so make sure you cater to their every need.
...Yeah, I see why you need an internet show to enjoy dnd...

>2)Never play any edition of DnD, every one of htem is shit
ftfy

>Never play any edition of DnD with people from Veeky Forums; they each only like one edition
I like 4e, I like 3.PF under specific circumstances and I'm interested in trying AD&D.

Craven Edge is Vecna's Vestige
A vestige has no definition, other than being a powerful ancient artifact used in battles in a god's name
>Clearly associated with Vecna
>Clearly ancient
>+2 Greatsword
>Strength drain increases strength to a max of 25. Compared to Grog's stats of 17 Strength, at maximum power the sword is practically a +7 Greatsword, which is an unprecedentedly high bonus in 5e
>piled on another 2d6 nectrotic damage at max evolution
>when used by truly evil beings, the kind that would serve Vecna, the sword can be very easily charged to full power in a couple of minutes of farmer slaying before heading to battle

I mean sure, the whole dying thing is a large drawback, but with the proper preparation can be mitigated, and compared to the two other vestiges we've seen so far, it is more than powerful enough to qualify.

Scanlan (or more specifically, Sam Riegel) is easily the best character. He knows when to be funny and when to be serious, and when he's playing serious it's easily the best moments of the show. The episode where he meets his daughter is amazing roleplaying.

>70% of the fanbase, if not more, is women.
Like most women in gaming, they're attracted to the man-du-jour, not the games.

That show is absolutely terrible,l I have no idea how it has any fans.

That show is absolutely amazing, I have no idea how it doesn't have more fans.

That show is absolutely mediocre, I have no idea how it doesn't have a more moderate amount of fans.

He's right (You) know.

In what way is this traditional games?
It's just a bunch of actors pretending to have fun

what are the other two? I forgot

The other two what?

vestiges

is this something like 'the guild'? if it is, i'd watch it, I dont know, I had a lot of fun watching that show and there's probably tons of people out there saying that it was bad

Well first, I'm pretty sure the greatsword is not considered one, as indicated by the fact that Matt had the stats of that pre-written on a card that he was able to give to Travis after the sword was banished. Whereas the vestiges were all written on a specific paper sheet by name.

They have one called Mythcarver which is a shortsword that was given to them by the Sphinx, and the Titanstone knuckles are owned by Grog's rival. I believe the Raven Armor was also one?

No, The Guild was a shitty, not funny TV show filmed by Felicia Day to spotlight her "lol imma girl gamer idol" shit.

Critical Role is literally just a bunch of (attractive and charismatic) professional voice actors who used to be playing a private game of D&D together, and now are doing it on camera. It's just a live-play D&D game.

They're playing a traditional game. It seems like streaming tabletop games is going to be the next big internet thing.

>the next big internet thing.

It's not going to get bigger than it currently is. We've probably hit the saturation point.

yeah she was annoying as hell but I loved the living shit out of that old bald guy with a tie, clingy asian guy and that wannabe cool teenager guy, their characters were carrying the whole show easy

you know mercer straight up killed Grog for carrying that sword right?

That's not gonna stop people from trying. Gotta get the streamer money somehow.

I don't think anyone thinks there's money in streaming. And this is coming from someone who has a Twitch channel and knows multiple people who are trying to do it full-time.

You only get 1 Critical Role in the industry. Before that, Geek&Sundry was making fuck-all money, and now that it exists, no one else is making money.

You know those 20,000 people who show up every Thursday to watch live? Those 17,000 people who pay $5 a month to support the channel? Yeah, they don't watch other streams. Any day that isn't Thursday night, Twitch's D&D section is lucky to host a few hundred viewers.

How did that play out?

The sword was at max-power, but needed more energy, and since there was no one around for Grog to kill, it attacked him. He failed a Will save against it and it sucked his soul.

The party freaked, attempted to Revivify him, and Percy threatened the sword to throw it into the center of the earth or some shit if it didn't put his spirit back.

And then he came back to life.

I watched the first episode or two and found it somewhat lacking. Everyone had trouble taking turns to speak, the party dynamics didn't come off great, and the party seemed to be following the DM's carrot-on-a-string to further the plot if not doing things at seemingly complete random. Maybe if I watched more it'd get better, but with episodes that long it is a bit of a chore.

I like the Campaign and One Shot podcasts. They're good stuff.

But the potential of being the next big streamer and the seemingly low barrier to entry ("you mean I can just get my friends to be on camera and play a game?" is absolutely something that will cross people's minds, though of course it's more than that) will prove tempting. It doesn't matter if there's already a saturation point, many internet trends continue well beyond that.

It's going to get bigger. Not more successful, just bigger, like podcasts or the video game streaming world.

>and the party seemed to be following the DM's carrot-on-a-string to further the plot if not doing things at seemingly complete random.

Why would you want to watch a campaign about people tromping about like retards without any plot at all?

Yeah it definitely improves and some episodes are downright fucking great.
I agree the first few episodes had some troubles like you said. You need to remember though, it's likely the party is gonna try to easily follow the plot hook, they're going live and do have a time limit.

>what is rollplay