Just a dude making stuff. Finn FIlms (formerly FraudOnTheTele) is a media commentary and entertainment channel, where we breakdown shows, anime, and trending topics.
The problem I have with Aabria here is two fold. One, she exibited every behavioral red flag you see in bad GM vids on RU-vid. Railroaded, told players how THEIR character felt, was actively antagonistic towards player and PC, "the rules are whatever the fuck I say they are", etc. It's every red flag. Two, and probably the one that annoyed me most, is changing the rules of chromatic orb. Why does it bother me? Because it isnt her world! She arbitrarily changed the rules for a spell we've seen used in this universe, and the universe isnt even hers. It's Matt's. Is he now hamstrung by this going forward? Everytime Dorian uses CO, does it have to be AOE for it to make narrative sense? Was that really HER decision to make in the 4 hours she was the GM? To completely change a spell on a whim so she could get her moment is... a choice. And generally I love her as a player and I can see the appeal when she GM's, but this was a train wreck for me.
I wanna preference this by saying I don't inherently agree or disagree with your stance - your stance is mailable and critical and I believe you've made a fair statement with this video :) It can be hard to be objective about issues you're passionate about and you seem to have done that. I hope I've done that, I'd like to think I'm capable of that, though I do admit to being a huge fan of CR, especially the core group. I also want to note that I agree with the Chromatic Orb argument. Unless I've forgotten something from a previous EXU or Dorian episode, that should have been a single-target spell and I don't understand why it wasn't This felt unfair to Robbie as a player. The mistake is seeing EXU as a "side project". It's a part of the mainline CR story, always has been. It has always influenced major beats of the core cast parties. Calamity delved into one of the most iconic and impactful events of Exandria as well as giving some history on characters and their relationships with the gods, influence seen in C1 and pree much core to C3 - not essential to watch, but if someone doesn't they're missing out on some serious worldbuilding. EXU Prime set up Fearne, Orym, and Dorian, 2 of whom have continued to be in the mainline campaign permanently and 1 of whom was in the first 14 episodes, and has been constantly referenced in his absence by Orym. To say that the Crownkeepers are completely separate or a "side" project of the mainline campaign is like saying the tree-herders were a side-project to the Lord of the Rings series. Sure, one could follow Gandalf's story and they don't explicitly "need" the other plot threads interwoven, but they would miss a lot of the story. Furthermore, having these "side" adventures is not new. They did it in C1, and the only reason it didn't happen more in C2 was due to covid - Opal was supposed to be a guest character in C2 but lockdown caused a lot of scheduling conflicts, something both Matt and Amy have confirmed. C1 had the Slayer's Take arcs, which, while shorter, easily fill the same criteria as the Crownkeepers do for "side-project". The only difference here is that the Crownkeepers had more production value put in, that's all. And let's assume someone has a problem with long, multi-episode branches from the main story. Aabria's stint in the DM chair less than 2 episodes - part of one and part of another. As far as deviations in the story go, it was minimal - certainly far less than any previously - and it was served as a succinct (if a bit railroad-y), effective way to bring Dorian back in. People can complain about these side-episodes all they want, but, it's nothing new to critical role. What is being complaining about is something that is a core part of Critical Role, and has been since 2015. The complaint is about the show structure as a whole, not these individual episodes. Just because someone may have not experienced them from earlier campaigns, or has chosen to not engage with the content that doesn't fall under the strict banner of "Strictly numbered episodes of Bell's Hells of Campaign 3 of Critical Role", doesn't mean that Critical Role has done anything different, or new, or unfaithful, or deserving or ire from the audience. Sidenote: Aabria was under no obligation to tell the players what the "win-condition" was, especially since, from what I could see, she did tell Amy. She specifically said, make them leave or they're going in the ground. That's a pretty clear win condition - you walk away alone or they die. That was definitely made clear, and all the players heard that. But this is an RP game as well, so the players didn't know that, and it was the responsibility of the players to make their characters act with what information they would reasonably have in-universe, which, as far as I can tell, they all did. The core cast has expressed their intent to eventually be able to step back from Critical Role one day and have the project continue. They don't want it to just end because Matt retires. However, in order to do this, other DMs will need to come in. Other players will need to come in. And none of them are going to be Matt. Just like Dimension20 has other DMs, Critical Role also has other DMs, and while the main DM is Matt, people can't be upset that someone different who does it different takes the reins on occasion - and to reiterate, this was not a long time. I'll never postulate that people must like the difference, must like the combat, must like the style, must like anything. But, I think people need to remember that Critical Role is made for the fans, but not for a specific fan. You can't appeal to 100% of audiences 100% of the time, it's not possible, we're all too individual. I don't like everything that Critical Role does. But, that doesn't mean I shoot them down for doing it. The combat was different, it was long, it was a bit arduous for me. But I don't fault it for being so, it was a different DM with a different group at the table. If it was the same, then what would be the point of people being unique. Just because it's not my preference, doesn't mean Critical Role has an obligation to meet my specific whims as just one individual member of the audience.
This and the episode where Chuckie gets taken by the dust bunny was pure nightmare feul for me. My dad literally had to watch me until I fell asleep so I wouldn't freak out 😂
Actually, I believe that the centaurs were created by Corellon after his battle with Grumbsh. Corellon saw how faithful his elven cavalry had remained during the battle and bonded them to their horses whom they loved so much.
I was with you until you said arcane has nothing on this show … clearly you lack perspective and intelligence anyways great watching you for 2 minutes and 38 seconds… best of luck in life
I know there are a bunch of people who hate Aabria for non-DnD reasons and I'm not in those camps (ACOFAF is actually my fave d20 series, though it also suffers from a lack of pacing control), but after the way Aabria treated the players in these episodes, I will not be watching anything she DMs ever again. I haven't been watching campaign 3 at all (I like CR but idk that I'd call myself a full-on fan? idk) but I tuned back in when I heard they switched back to Crown Keepers because I liked their EXU eps. 92 and 93 were really hard to watch. I get that every table is different, and both players and DMs have different styles and preferences, but it really felt like this went beyond that. Aabria wanted to kill players off but wasn't succeeding, so she really obviously ignored rules of the game and imo broke player trust multiple times. For example, Erica is extremely new to DnD, and said she wanted to move away from an enemy. Aabria told Erica she couldn't move without provoking an attack of opportunity. This is not true; Erica could have used her Hop ability. Not only did Aabria violate Erica's trust by telling her something untrue, Aabria then also took advantage of Morrigan not moving and attacked Morrigan multiple times for huge damage. It's hard to not read that as petty, or at least unenjoyably rail-roading. Even if you argue Aabria maybe didn't remember the Hop ability (tho why would an incredibly experienced DM not read up on a very new player's character sheet? I do that even as a fellow player), but Aabria did definitely know about Hop when Aabria chose to attack Morrigan a bunch regardless. With Robbie Aabria full-on rewrote the affects of a Chromatic Orb after Dorian had cast it, so when Robbie wanted to *save* Cyrus, Aabria had him instead do damage. Robbie was visibly upset when this happened, and even more visibly upset when Cyrus died. As Aabria herself said: Dorian left to save his brother, and his brother is the only one he didn't save. Erica was so upset about this that she started sobbing in the middle of talking (not the cathartic, good-narrative cry we see so often in CR and EXU, but a panicked-player sob). After bending these and other rules/trust to deal damage, Aabria then gloated and pretended to not know the rules for death saves, and passive aggressively pretended to ask Matt about the rules. It was seriously disturbing to watch Matt initially answer her questions in good faith, then realize what Aabria was doing and go quiet. Aabria essentially 'cheated' multiple times to kill Cyrus and try to kill the other players, then threw it in their faces when she. succeeded. Even if one argues that some players/tables enjoy that combative DMing style (some absolutely do!) it was very clear that this particular table did not. If not for Erica making jokes and saving the mood, I think things would have gone really sour for the whole episode after that. The purpose of this little interlude was supposed to be getting Dorian back to the main cast in a limited number of episodes, and doing it in an entertaining way (because unlike the main cast, these are not just buddies playing a home game; Crown Keepers are paid participants who are hired to come do a job). If Aabria is incapable of accomplishing that job in a professional way, then imo she should not be brought back. Maybe she meant this all in good fun, but it came off toxic, punitive, and even borderline abusive depending on the person. There are some players for whom being forced to roleplay helping kill your own brother would be incredibly triggering, let alone being mocked about it after the fact. I've played in enough toxic campaigns to never want to play with a DM that acts like Aabria did during these eps. It sets a bad example for the DnD community as a whole, and most importantly it was clear her players were negatively affected by that behavior. That's not only not entertaining, it's flat-out not ok. The fact that Aabria seems to be aware and doesn't care (she literally looked at the camera and said 'f- you Reddit' at one point) just feels very troubling to me. I've seen Matt, Brennan, and countless other DMs kill off NPCs and PCs, but only Aabria makes it feel like she's trying to punish her players to keep them in line, or that she's holding players down just so she can punch them more easily. It's icky, and I don't blame anyone for not being onboard.
What I personally find distasteful and kind of adheres to the upset fans is that Laura, at some point, just flat out suggested to Sam to kamikaze bomb himself to save the party from TPK. And since it definitely looked like that's what was gonna happen, he did just that. If I remember she did this pretty openly as Matt was talking I think, so I'd be shocked if no one else didn't hear her. And so when everyone is basically in tears Im just looking at them differently, like they dont address she did that.
Abria is the corporate plant and diversity hire. Nobody likes her. Nobody where she came from, but we have to be subjected to her all the same. We are being made to care....
This one, the one where a giant robot Angelica was outside the house at the end and the one where shes trapped on a desert planet with no signs of life or water all wete pretty horrifying
I skip anything Aabria DM'd. She's a DM vs. Player type, thinks its her job to screw over the party not play along with them. And she's really not that good. Tried a little ExU, but hated it all. She is extremely arbitrary and just changes the rules on a whim to fit her current mood. She's trying sooo hard to be iconic and with Matt sitting at the table, only manages to be ironic.
Enjoyed your video. You made some valid points that I can understand. I'm also a pretty serious Critical Role fan. I've been watching consistently since early(ish) campaign 1. I watch nearly every episode live on Twitch and have a great time doing so. This most recent season is the weakest in my opinion. I've not liked the more "accessible" or accommodating episodes. Yes, I understand that new players/viewers need that type of support in order to grasp a show like Critical Role, however I'm simply not a fan of it. It's annoying for me to watch explanations for action economy or hearing discussion on how certain things can be done. These aren't fresh players! They may not have as much experience as you or I, but they have enough to figure out most anything that it placed before them. Requiring Matt to explain rules or to hand hold these players is frustrating for me. I'll continue to watch Critical Role, Campaign 3 but I'm simply not as big of a fan as I once was. Campaign 1 will remain my top favorite campaign. Ain't nothing topping that! I mean, the fact that the animated show is based off of and follows the characters from campaign 1 should show how beloved that campaign was and is. I mean, I've got a terrible memory. Straight goldflsh levels, bad. I can still remember and name each of the characters from campaign 1 and who played them, whereas for 2 I'm drawing a blank and 3 - I can remember a few. This is a Monday and I watched the most recent episode on Thursday live. I do not enjoy Critical Role nearly as much as I once did. I have debated with myself whether or not I'll continue my subscription to Critical Role on Twitch. Love the cast, loved the show.. but it's going downhill and I'm not wanting to be on a sinking ship. That's my take on it.
Honestly, it was a choice. It was an interesting look at one of the questions that I've had with the story so far, which is How Do the Betrayer Gods Feel About All This, but at the same time, I also remember back when EXU and EXU Kymal were done that the Audience were told that we didn't have to watch them to get the full campaign story. That these were separate things. Even with 2 (3 if you count Dorian) core members of the Bells Hells as previous members of the Crown Keepers, we could watch it or not at our leisure. With thousands of hours of content to watch/catch up on, it had been nice to not need to have these shows as frames of reference. Now it feels like we almost HAVE to watch these mini-series that we were told we didn't have to, in order to get the full extent of what was going on with the show.
I think another thing we forget is that, yes much of what they do is for the fans, but at the end of the day this is their campaign not ours. They can perform however they want. Also ik people are a bit angry with Aabria, but we as fans dont know her personally, so maybe the cast is used to her and her way of dming. I also wonder if the goal of the episode was to kill everyone or get close enough to a tpk. Maybe that was the plan all along
Abria is trash, she has never been good. She is not always bad sure, but anyone with a little experience can DM a little. Whats so special about her? How is she close to Matt or Brian? And not only is she not that good. After the Orb incident, she acts hostile towards Robbie sure. But the worst part is, and I quote. "I'm telling those of you out there, fuck you!" She should be suspended and we are all waiting for an apology, I know for a fact she will never apologize and even change her mind on it. Stubborn self respect trash. Garbage.
I just absolutely can not stand Aabria at all. There are lessons that can be learned from her but she has more negatives than positives in my opinion. Whenever she’s on scream, it becomes a chore to finish the episode.
How I wish they picked up with the remaining crown keepers discussing how Opal took off without a trace and they’re trying to find her, and that would be the moment Deni$e shows up. I was truly expecting it. Would’ve been so fun to watch.
I wonder at which point people lost all ability to straight up say "this was bad" and instead started using phrases like "this is just her style and it's OK". No it's not OK and yes all Aabria's episodes on CR were pretty bad. She is very antagonistic, she does not know the rules and is proud of it, all her NPC's are the same abrupt and cocky person etc etc
It's just not fun to watch someone change something mid combat to railroad an outcome. Could have easily just made the enemy burst as it was destroyed doing AOE. You can have a different DM style but changing rules because you didn't have a back up plan is disrespectful to the players.
This is endlessly infuriating. "Aabria is divisive amongst the CR community..." No, she isn't... that would imply the division is based in rationality instead of an ism. You focus on the response being to Aabria altering the rules to the Chromatic Orb, yet everyone seems to miss that she changed it, flavor-wise, because ROBBIE changed the flavor of what he wanted to do with it. Robbie stated that he wanted to use it like a focused SONIC attack, like a thundercrack... to which Aabria told him that she can't see a way focus sound down that specifically and it not be an AoE.... but let's take this and slide a little to proce the inequitable treatment. Brennan Lee-Mulligan. His entry with Calamity is regarded by most as S-Tier. I'm not passionate enough to pushback, but let us look at Calamity. In the climax of that story, Aabria's Laeryn has to hold concentration on a spell for X amount of turns to minimize catastrophe... we get to nearly the mark and her character gets KO'd by the baddie... Sam's Loquacious having held an action to cast healing word... Brennan hand waves Aabria being KO'd with "Loquacious's spell was so ready that you don't even drop from consciousness..." and yet no one batted an eye. Hell, that same episode also counters the "pacing issue"... considering the final episode of Calamity we kick off combat with a russian nesting doll of time stops... resulting in 90 minutes to 2 hours of stream, where the PCs hadn't even been able to take an action. And because it was just Brennan narrating, they didn't even have an opportunity to RP because time was stopped. Again, no one batted an eyelash. What I noticed about the chat rage, was in episode 93. Now after the announcements and the seats swapped to the Crownkeepers... chat absolutely ERUPTED. IRATE. Shouts of "Bait n Switch" and threats of leaving the stream... but here's the thing, we all know that 93 was going to start with the Crownkeepers as the combat was still ongoing from episode 92. The rage is performative because there's a particular energy that surrounds the desire to hate on Aabria
Honestly I feel like everything leading up to FCG's death was also kind of unfair, from the bombs to Otohan literally sneaking up on BH despite them constantly checking for her. Just kind of didn't sit well with me. Also, nah fuck the spider queen. 🤷♂️
If they really needed to get Dorian's character and the player up to speed, then Matt could have done a one-shot with the player as he has done with Steven Colbert. Or they could have just brought in Dorian again and he could have regaled the story of how his brother fell from him own misdoings. Do you need to abruptly have a mini-episode in an episode? No. Do you need new players that only get a brief amount of air time/ game time? No, because this could just be thrown a money bone at these people and really trying to control more of the D&D community. They already get the biggest piece of the pie and now we just have a DM openly ignore rules to satisfy their narrations, they can write a novel instead of holding out for more money because they are having a writers strike. Just play the game and respect the rules.
They were planning a small dip into EXU already as a way to bring Dorian back into the main party and wrap up the crown keepers. Everyone was hyped up emotions wise and I think it hurt fans who were still grieving. I don’t think these were filler episodes though. This was the equivalent to Paul McGann’s Night of the doctor as a way to introduce John Hurt as the War Doctor for the 50th Doctor Who special.
Problem with critical roll season 3 is, fare to little aim or direction in where the story is going, and fare to many secrets that are hinted at and then just ignored.
I mean from a Dungeons & Dragons perspective you never get told exactly what you're doing from the NPC perspective on wire actually going on this Quest it's just you went to the bar you got told to go do this go stop the big bag before he kills hundreds of people and then he sends hundreds of henchmen to stop you before you get to him and then you kill the big bad this actually this guy actually is elaborating on the problems that led up to them having to kill the the big bad
Yeah a lot of people are saying the same thing I am going to say. And is it that he isn't a huge company and is instead a normal human that makes it fucked up to explore these roles in a rpg? Because it's certainly not the first, won't be the last.
