What is Veeky Forums's opinion on this?

Honestly? Tabletop roleplaying has been for "normies" for a long time. When I first started playing 3.5e and other games in HS, it was with my drama/techie friends and we all had boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. We might have had some food and drinks at the table, but this was before iPhones and social media took off so everyone was really into the game. Only recently did grognargs decide that "their" hobby doesn't belong to us all.

Nailed it for me. Travis, Sam, and Laura are S-Tier players with Liam, Taliesin, and Ashley being up there as well, but Marisha is almost bad enough to cancel the rest of them out. But she's the DM's wife so, deal with it.

Technically yeah, but not really the typical "DMGF gets whatever she wants". Her unlikability has nothing to do with her relation to the DM

I didn't know they were together until I'd finished the first 100 episodes, finding that out really helped me understand why she reminded me of the 2 girls that forced their way into my group before

That's only because Matt isn't as spineless as he seems. He calls out her shit and refuses to back down on decisions he's made. He still lets her get away with a few things here and there though.

To be fair the only person who didn't let get away with shit was Orion

...

They got married last year, she's now the DM's wife.

let the old grumblers grumble.

By the time Crit Role came about, I'm sure Mercer had no choice but to not let Orion have his way. He was playing a Sorc, so it's one of those give an inch, take a mile deals.

I'd like to mate with Laura Bailey.

That's about my entire opinion of it.

Orion got kicked out because he was trying to claim intellectual property rights over his character and because he yelled at a fan.

It was purely a business decision to get rid of him, and the stuff about him not being a good fit with the group was just a way to justify it.

Who's 'we?'

I accidentally watched some short video about their last battle and what Scanlan sacrificed and damn, that was touching. I wish I had a friend like him.

I think it's great that they are bringing more people to D&D but it's nothing something I enjoy watching. I just have a different style of play and there is nothing wrong with that

Fuck off normie scum

I will, but I'd rather they join in on the fun.

Trust me, I'm sure my friends and I had more fun with tabletop that you. But you could still change and join actual fans.

The IP rights leading to Mercer destroying draconia right?

Guaranteed replies
Euthanasia worthy

Theadly reminder that he literally did nothing wrong

>Orion got kicked out because he was trying to claim intellectual property rights over his character and because he yelled at a fan.

Source or story?

Did he really just obliterate Draconia? I heard Orion recently deleted all his Draconian Knights shit or something

Based on the last live thread? They fucking hate Warlocks but not as much as the English language.

Us roleplayers. :)

Literally cheated

Give examples

Bet you can’t.

Constantly used more sorcery than he had, his ring stored multiple 6 level spells when it could store exactly 6 levels of spells

Sorcery points*

I don't understand.

It's probably referencing how Mercer pulls a face whenever he segues into the opening sequence

He somehow managed to get AIDS in the 2000s. He's made a lot of wrong decisions in life.

Personally I never could get into it. It seemed very boring and I dropped it early.

Try the new series. New and better characters, also much funnier.

I can't honestly recommend the first series, it has some great moments but overall you have to love the characters to really give it a shot. If you're not invested in them the story kind of falls flat.

Except manage to get AIDS, addicted to hard core drugs, alienate his best friends and loose a sweet gig to get better exposure.

Yes, during the Thordak arc the white dragon took draconia and wiped the place, only left the tailless as survivors barely scraping by.

Nah most people are just reeeing at the power creep Hexblade represents.

Which made sense for the storyline, but is a massive cockslap for something that was a collaborative effort between Orion and Matt

Yeah it was kinda fucked up, however easily justified in that the dragons wiped the majority cities to destabilize the land and take control. Only the desert place, Wildmount region and Whitestone were left untouched. Everything else was attacked to destroy Eamon's army and strength.

Don't forget the part where Matt specifically pointed out Tiberius' frozen corpse to the party.

Nice try but only one of them noticed it, forget who it was, due to a good perception roll and Mercer whispered it to that player. If they hadn't said anything none of the others would have known.

Please stop

Pretty much this. Marisha keeps describing what she does as her character as really badass (whenever she cast a big spell as Keyleth, and now kind of in combat with Beau). If she just played well I might be inclined to think her character's cool, but she doesn't. She plays below average and then says "but I do it in a cool way." It's kinda cringy.

He got angry at fan for making fanart of his character

I just watch it for Liam and Travis.
Liam's voice is basically my childhood because of all the games and shitty anime English dubs he's been in (and made watchable). Aside from the period where his mother died and he was depressed for a good while, I love watching him do his thing.
Travis is a smart guy who looks even if he looks like he'd be an idiot and is just overall a great dude.
Everyone else I don't care for as they're either Marisha, actively encourage tumblrshit, or just act in ways I can't stomach for long periods at a time.

I've only watched a handful of sessions so I admit that my knowledge is limited compared to those of you who've kept up with the series, but I really don't mind Marisha at all. So far all I've been able to glean is that some fa/tg/uys really hate how she plays a monk wrong.

Anyway, Matt seems like an unbelievably good DM and he makes me want to run a campaign.

This. Travis is a god-tier roleplayer

I wouldn't care, but you faggots are posting the same thread every fucking day.

Lust+Mustang best combo.

She metagames super hard constantly, doesn't pay attention, tries "epic" stuff that doesn't make sense, literally cheated to the point that Matt is now marking concentration himself so that it doesn't happen again, forces herself to the forefront of the story consistently and doesn't know how to play "wise" and yet both her characters are wisdom based.

>D&D

...

Marisha's issue is that she's essentially a bad role-player.

She really struggles to separate herself from a character, which means she meta-games, because she'll know somethings up OOC but not IC, plays her high wisdom characters as brash and impulsive, because she can't get into the correct mindset.

This is all exacerbated by the fact she doesn't pay attention, either to the game at times or to her own abilities. And also to the fact that the other players are much better than she is. I'm not saying all the others are brilliant, it's just that she tends to stand out more because of it.

I think realistically she wouldn't be a problem if she was playing a fighter, barbarian or just something with a bit more in line with her own personality.

Good and bad. I posted on an LFG forum because I want to run a game, and half the replies were people who have only learned 5e from watching the show. On the one hand, I'm super happy that the show is getting more people into a hobby love so much. On the other hand, I'm worried that they're going to expect me to be a professional voice actor who has a set design team building 3D battlemaps for me. Is what it is. As for the show itself I didn't finish the first series but I'm loving the new one. Nott, Caleb, Fjord, and Jester would be a fantastic party on their own, but even Marsha is slightly more tolerable.

She's a bad player because her real life situational awareness is god awful. She tries to act like a tomboy at stupid times and it just becomes cringey, she won't listen to Matt's explanations of a scene and complains when it wasn't what she heard, and she overall is the embodiment of 'stonk female womyn' - and you know that for certain, because Matt clearly has a strong woman fetish.
Also, you can play high Wisdom characters as brash and impulsive, it just means they generally know what to look out for or always know what they're getting in for. A high int character could be brash and impulsive too, it just means they're good at reacting to the shitty situations they've caused.

This is correct, the real grognard hobby is wargaming

It's shit and only redditors and tumblrfags like it.

It's an okay to pretty good show but it sets a high standard for playing for people who aren't experienced in actually playing the game and a lot of the fans just want to play Critical Role instead of their own games.

Laura is a lot better this time around as well. They need to get Joe Manganiello back though, so he and Travis can chad out together some more.

I've always liked Laura as an actual person and player, but I just can't get behind Jester, as contrarian as it sounds to how most people fawn over her.
Her alignment hasn't actually been shown yet, but you know she's CN and is basically playing like she's chaotic retarded. It's only acceptable because she's an endearing woman you can actually see at the table. Had it been a guy, you know everyone would despise him with a passion because "haha xd rearrange items for no reason and lolpew everything in combat". I didn't like the Jester voice in the beginning but it's growing on me, but right now how she's playing the character doesn't. If she has major story developments, sure, but I'm almost certain she'll never drop the 'lol so randumb' act.

I really don't get the love for Scanlan. I couldn't stand his sense of humor the first 20 or so episodes. Grog was great but the charismatic idiot bit got old real quick. Seemed like Travis was a good rper caged by playing a very narrow archetype. Tiberius was easily my favorite of the characters but I couldn't keep watching as Orion became an increasingly awful player. Everyone else was unnotable, with Marisha being vaguely worse than the rest.

Gave the second campaign a shot and it seems like everyone is in much better form, but Marisha is god awful now. I guess she degenerated too, but GM girlfriend status ensures she can never get the same treatment as Orion. Sam actually seems funny as Nott and Travis seems to have a broader character to play with as Fjord, but he still seems to fade into the background too often for how well he rp's. I'm starting to think Travis is just a shy guy despite looking like a chad.

Scanlan was pretty mediocre as a character, but Sam was fantastic as a player, putting in way more effort across the board than anyone else playing. Travis is espoused as the best player, and deservedly so, but Sam was a consistently shining beacon in the dour, stupid, and absurd. When it came to hard RP, the best moment in the entire campaign was Scanlan leaving, and yet the the whole point was largely disregarded by the cast beyond Travis.

Isn't it grand how all these 'grognards' forget that 3rd edition DnD was called "Diablo Edition" several times, and there were so many accusations that it was dumbed down for new audiences?

It's almost as if 'normies' have been in the hobby for decades...

>Only recently did grognards decide that "their" hobby doesn't belong to us all.
>us
>including yourself as a normie and not a grognard
You come to Veeky Forums, we are all grognards here.

You can't escape it.

>Unironically thinking this

Who's edgier; Liam or Taliesin?

It's fine I guess. It's not something I'd personally watch for entertainment but I don't really care what others do. I also have never met one of these supposed new players who expect their GM to be as good of a voice actor as Matt is so I have no irrational hatred towards him for being good at his job.

Liam isn't edgy. He had a bad period last campaign because it was around the time his mother died, but he couldn't afford to stop coming for a few months to calm down because of where they were in the story. You also need to keep in mind that Critical Role was made as a birthday present for Liam originally, so him leaving for a decent period to cool off and not feel so down would be redundant.
In the beginning and at the end of the last campaign he was one of the best players. This campaign he hasn't done a single edgy thing (and no, talking with a gruff voice, the one he's slowly improving each session to sound more German, isn't edgy).

The cause of every problem I have as a GM. They arnt playing the game in a way aimed at being fun to play, just one that is fun to watch.

Talesin, but he's also better at it. Liam is more emo.

If you're going to have an edgy player, Talesin played it like a champ.

But's it's so fucking boring to watch half the time

Yeah, when I was introduced to the hobby in my early teens it was by regular people who did sports and had girlfriends etc. it wasn't until five or six years later that I actually met someone resembling a neckneard (fat, ginger, started using macs because they became hip, extremely liberal and extremely keen to let everyone know about it, also pretty sure that guy became an alcoholic, and extremely elitist about his tastes in games and comic books) and thankfully he's the only one.

Its whatever, I wouldn't mind it but it brought a lot of the worst kind of reddit into the tabletop community

I didnt say they were very good at their job.

Honestly, if CR played a half-decent system and cut the cast in half, it would probably be much more watchable. I cant count the number of groups I see at my FLGS who are trying to play 5e with 6+ people and a fairly novic GM, when, IMO, its impractical to ever play with more than 5 unless the game has an emphasis on player-action economy.

Liam had voiced some of the edgiest characters in all of gaming and anime. If he wants to be edgy he can be far more so than Talesin. It's just that he's not inherently edgy, he only went through a bad period for a justified reason. Talesin was definitely 'that kid' in high school and is just edgy by default, but it's moreso teenaged angst edgy.

>Travis now has the most op character

Good, along with Sam he's the only one that doesn't metagame and sticks to his character when making decisions, plus he suffered through the last campaign with the most Worf-effected character.

Whenever I see people that are in shape and don't look like pedophiles doing larp stuff, I immediately think they're fake and only doing it for the attention. It's the strangest sort of feeling.

My first game was with a bunch of normies but they whittled away until we were left with the core group of grognards. It's been like that in every game I've ever been in; everyone wants to join in but they don't last more than three sessions. They're too busy with "friends" and "responsibilities" to dedicate the time.

Its almost like you're right.

>Travis seems to have a broader character to play with as Fjord, but he still seems to fade into the background too often for how well he rp's
I think he knows when to take the spotlight and when to let the rest of the party have their time to shine and makes sure he isn't hogging it (see: Vax), i.e. it's a team game and he realises that. The times when he needs to step up, he does it and does it well, especially with his disguise self antics and voice-changing. My suspicion, however, is that he'll end up as the unofficial/official party leader eventually, because he's the one that does the talking when they need to talk, keeps Marisha restrained on a player side (look at the last couple of episodes for examples, where he takes advantage of her perception etc. to nudge her into the lookout role when she's otherwise not paying attention), makes the decisions that need making, and in general is directing what they do and where they go without being obvious or pushy about it.

this. Every fucking normie plays DnD here. or atleast has played.

What little I've seen of it I like but fuck it seems like such a commitment. Over 100 episodes that are 3 to 4 hours each? I'm struggling to find that kind of time for my own campaigns let alone watching someone elses.

I havnt played 4 or 5, and I only played about 20 sessions of 3.5 before I realized it was garbage.

>because he's the one that does the talking when they need to talk
He doesn't though, it's always Caleb or Molly leading the talking. Fjord just chimes in with the most well thought out statement/question and steers things back on track when they start veering.

I'd say he's the most intelligent player of the group but he really doesn't take as much charge as he logically should. I can only assume he was in anguish as Grog sat out virtually every discussion and he watched as everyone else dug whatever hole they were in deeper. But even as Fjord he just lets the other guys lead the show. The current direction of the campaign seems to be following his character's quest to get to the school but half the time I forget he's even present until he steps in to make sure the others don't completely fuck up whatever they're doing. It's such a bizarre feeling listening to him, knowing he's probably the best guy at the table but feeling like he purposefully diminishes his role in the game. It get wanting to let others shine, but he seems downright invisible sometimes.

I listen to it at work, but only because I have a brainless job I don't need to be 100% mentally present for. Even then sometimes it's a slog to get through a whole episode. I can't understand where normal people find the time. Maybe they watch it in parts throughout the week?

I'd argue that its much easier to look smart chipping in from the sidelines than when you have to pretend to be in charge all the time.

Even the reactions to Critical Role are done better by other series.

Matthew Mercer and his little gang of roasties and nu male hipsters, are doing their best to degenerate and degrade the tabletop roleplaying hobby. They attempt to make the game accessible to the masses but in doing so they not only set unrealistic standards for actual games but also make these morons think that RPGs are some kind of comedy hour. Why the fuck would someone want to watch 3-4 hour episodes of retards talking over each other and flaring out the mic with their tinny, screeching voices. Four nu males with receding hairlines and cuck glasses and their three giggly female cohorts act like utter retards and pose in cosplay for the most embarrassing success of the D&D industry. The only reason to watch Critical Role, is right before downing a bottle of bleach and shooting yourself in the head with a .357, in order to remind and reaffirm yourself that yes, this earth is no longer worth existing on. If you watch this show, it is because you are either an uncreative, boring cunt who has the personality of forgotten tapioca, or because you are such a media consumption slave that you can't even take the gaming hobby that requires the most creative input, and do it yourself. Instead you watch it. You watch seven or eight or boring fuckers talk for a few hours, about their fantasy story. They are voice actors, too, why the fuck are their voices so goddamn grating? Why do these nu males have such low testosterone that their voices sound like a battered alto saxophone. Why do they laugh like such utter faggots? How the fuck can people watch this shit and associate it with D&D? Because that is what is happening. This show is becoming more and more mainstream. D&D is becoming more and more mainstream. Watch now as hordes of undesirables who don't really give a shit about RPGs when it comes down to it, this is just the cool new thing to do in between fucking paint bars and trying a new IPA, do it for a couple nights then ditch it. Fuck Critical Role.

>Fjord just chimes in with the most well thought out statement/question and steers things back on track when they start veering.
I don't see how nudging them back into the right direction is a bad thing. He's the one in charge, but there's no need to lord it over everyone.

This 100%. The best part is when you see everyone else’s faces when she does some dumb shit and you know even they hate her too.

>doing their best to degenerate and degrade the tabletop roleplaying hobby
Like they need to even try. Most of the people I've played with have been godawful. Most of them are just number crunching autists who have no interest in the story aspects and only exist for me to cart them from combat encounter to combat encounter. The other half are special snowflake retards who ONLY care about the role playing and try to pull the dumbest shit off in combat just so they can imagine themselves as the anime protagonist. True, most people coming in to the hobby from Critical Role have unrealistic expectations, but at least they want to play the game, everything included. I'd rather play with a Critical Role fan than a minmaxing autist or a anime snowflake.

Yeah, Matt takes no shit from her. In DM mode, he is the DM and nothing else.
See "We're golden gods". He let her jump off the edge of a cliff and die, with sufficient warning and respect.

Kentucky didn't teach about terminal velocity I suppose. Or anything to do with falling.
Or that water=concrete at terminal.

God damnit marisha...