This is part of the reason why I love D&D. You can go from "there's no lock" to "a lock appears, utterly pickable" to "that backdoor is cursed" within minutes of each other. And all it usually takes is a simple roll of the dice.
In the original liveplay, Tal's blinking was him in shock, processing the fact that Matt does indeed read character backstories, and that while he made it ambiguous if Percy's family was murdered or if he was just delusional, he had to now go with the fact that Percy's backstory is real. In the anime, they were more able to show Percy's reaction, so they went all in with the "anime character going crazy" face, hyperventilating, and instinctively drawing a gun. You can see him freak out in real time, as when he hears "From Whitestone!", his demeanor immediately shifts, and when he hears "Lord Sylas and Lady Delilah Briarwood!", he looks around to spot them, and begins to completely break down.
I know they wanted to keep on theme with Scanlan's character but the original was so wild. That episode genuinely got me fully hooked on the story. It was so bleak because of what Whitestone had come to but Scanbo was truly belly laughs till I cried. 😂 absolutely golden!
confused during the front part they're pulling a door, but there's a plank on the other side... isnt a plank suppose to stop you from pushing something open? How would that stop a door from being pulled?
They were trying to lift the bar so they could open the door. But since all the weakling characters were there none of them had the ability to actually lift the bar.
As a DM I havent had a moment like this yet with my players. But as a player I did. I was helping some newbies learn and I played a dumbass named Bob the Barbarian Berserker. He basically smashed kobolds into one another, killed a dragon with a kobold corspe and because "Ooo a weapon i can swing!" He literally grabs a flying sword and bashes an animated armor with it breaking all four swords and killing the armor this way. Anyway in the middle of that I had the bright idea after getting downed by a female bandit captain only to rise up again to grapple her and let my cleric, and rogue comrades wail on her and get the kill. So satisfying since I got a nat 20 on the grapple check.
The worst time? There might not have been any other time. Keyleth rejecting later regretting than changing her mind while Vax has alotta shit being some champion for the death is Worst timing.
So funny story regarding doors for everyone, seeing we're here. It's a *long* one, so buckle up. My party was pretty much just.. A chaotic mess frankly, one I may or may not have.. Encouraged, for better or worse, but besides our cleric, we were all pretty much unhinged. One of us was, and I quote, "Gandalf with a Glock 19, but he's coked up on all the drugs and can do backflips like he's Dooku." We often used him as a bludgeon, especially when he ran out of spell slots. It was funny. My character was a goofy Ogre (you'd never guess that if I hadn't told you, trust me) that was also a chef, and a warlock. Somehow, he became a patron of Gordon Ramsay. His cooking was so awful, it made a Scottish chef from another realm omnipotent, and used his seething ire for his spells. This dude managed to widen a small crack in a rocky wall by trying to cram his entirety into it, and also climbed into a boss room through a goblin's shitter, and gave two goblins food poisoning so hard, they died. The crack was what lead to the shitter, by the way, and I botched a stealth check, and somehow still got away with no goblin being none the wiser. This was half of our party, to give you an idea of what our DM was stuck dealing with. The other two dudes at least tried.. Well.. One poor sod tried initially but decided to join in on the chaos. I'll spare you the details however as sadly it's not nearly as interesting or batshit crazy. So now I've set the tone of how fucking apeshit we were in general.. Well, three of us anyways. Let me tell you exactly what we did whenever we stumbled across a door... Exactly as you'd expect. I heard a story from my friend about a dude on a podcast, who's character was a dwarf that kicks in doors. Like.. Always. All the time. I might've gotten inspired and started the running trend of us laying waste to all doors in existence. It did not matter what material it was, nor if we were attempting to be stealthy. That door was getting kicked in. We've used the Meth-Head Saruman as a battering ram to break into rooms, and we've even engaged in full on PvP over just who gets to actually kick the next unfortunate slab of wood off it's hinges. In fact, our DM did something fucking funny and clever. *He just told us that "there is a door."* Chaos ensued, we fucking bludgeoned the ever loving fuck out of each other, and I think our Dragonborn was the lucky guy to get his boot to the door and just kicked that shit as hard as he could. *"The door was unlocked." Our DM said. "It's kicked clean from it's hinges and soars across the room."* Not once, in our entire campaign session, did we ever even ask or consider whether the doors we've collectively kicked were locked or not. We just kicked them because we fucking could. And this mad lad used that for the simplest, yet funniest result I've ever had in a D&D session thus far, even topping the Goblin Shitter incident. This poor guy put up with so much chaotic shit and never even once dared say "you need to tone it down" or even asked us to stop it outright, at least anything beyond trying to keep it confined to a specific place. We didn't deserve him, and he really was the real MVP. Then again, apparently he told us that he once DM'd for a party where one dude conjoured magical dicks and literally fucked some poor sod to death. So I think it was just Tuesday for him. But yes. Doors are hilarious, especially when shit goes horrifically wrong. Same for the opposite. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I never watched C1.. but all of the little clips I’ve seen compared to the show just make it so much funnier man. But I will say, I wish Sam had just been “American” Scanlan from the beginning. His accent he was using in the live plays takes some of the whimsy out of it in my opinion.
This is why, in my home games, I make more things have "passive" stats, meaning 10+skill modifier. So if a door has a "stock quality" lock as apposed to, say, high quality locks a noble might commission, and I determined the DC is 16, and someone in the party has a +6 Slight of Hand, I usually only make them roll once to see if they succeed on the first try. If they don't, they'll succeed on the second without a roll, but they'll encounter a problem, such as a guard on the other side of the door. Shenanigans like this can be hilarious, but they can also be really frustrating if you just keep "Wil Wheton'ing" a relatively easy thing over and over again. In this case, so long as Scanlan had a strength above 8 I would not have made him roll to see if he was able to lift the bar on the door. I would have counted the use of Misty Step (I'm assuming that's what he used) to get to the other side of the door as enough of a creative solution to "solve" the problem.
I fucking love this show. I'm so glad I caught it during campaign one. I don't even watch TV anymore. Critical role, and dimension 20 are pretty much the only thing I watch.
This reminds me very much of a party i had at one point, they arrived at a door (not locked but for some reason they thought it was) so first the druid attacks the door with thunderwave and rolls a 1 and a 2, and the door shakes but nothing happens. Then the blue dragonborn used his breath weapon against the door, and rolled equally bad. Then the fighter had enough and walked up to the door to kick it in, and nat 20... The door flies across the room, and the druid and dragonborn just looks humiliated at each other before laughter breaks out. Definately one of the funniest dnd moments I have experienced.
I wish they included the clip later in the episode where Travis and Laura arrived and told them they were listening to the entire episode on the drive there and door scene was hilarious.
