A Masterclass in Player vs. Character Knowledge - Vox Machina, Ep. 45 | Critical Role Demystified

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The party processes what just happened, and we can learn a LOT from an episode dedicated entirely to roleplay.
Chapters:
00:00 - Lesson: How Liam’s Patience and Listening Skills Enhance the Roleplaying
05:27 - Lesson: Asking for a Religion Check About Something You Already Know
07:20 - Lesson: Vax’s Hypocrisy
10:09 - Recap: Everybody Has More Dramatic One-on-One Scenes
14:13 - Lesson: The Subtle Narration of Godly Magic
17:50 - Recap: The Party Finally Gets Some Stuff Done
22:00 - Lesson: Understanding Scanlan’s Mindset
25:10 - Outro
You can watch the full episode here:
Episode 45- Those Who Walk Away…
• Those Who Walk Away......
Timecodes:
Percy and Vax: 32:58 - 37:31
Vex and Keyleth: 48:44 - 52:55
Grog and Craven Edge: 52:57 - 58:33
Scanlan and Jameson the Painter: 1:02:51 - 1:07:39
Vax and Keyleth: 1:09:06 - 1:16:45
Recommended Reading:
How to Convince Your Players to Retreat - Vox Machina, Ep. 39 | Critical Role Demystified: • How to Convince Your P...
The Many Types of Metagaming: • The Many Types of Meta...
How Matt Mercer Handles Resurrection Magic - Vox Machina, Ep. 44 | Critical Role Demystified: • How Matt Mercer Handle...
"It's What My Character Would Do" and How to NOT Alienate the Other Players: • "It's What My Characte...
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16 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 121

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

Have you ever walked back/held off on having your character do what made the most sense for them, in order to make sure the group had a better game?

@DDann99 6 месяцев назад

Everytime I start or join a new game I always tell the players, Dm and the other players that (considering that the DM does't bring up the expectation of a table that has player vs player possibility or the fact that this is a roleplay-heavy game ((theses thigns should always be clarified on the start/ when introducing a new player))) I'm willing to put my personal roleplay aside if it means to keep the game moving foward in a positive way. As a DM, I always state that, at my games, the characters are not above the players, and that there might be times where the players will have to dicide among the group what is the next course of actions (even if it is not what the characters would do). On one of my last games the group had to decide between standing with one of 2 factions that wanted the groups support. I allowed the group to have an off-table discussion between what they would prefer to do. In the end the conversation went in circles, since all players were taking decisions that their characters would do. By the end, I asked the players to vote and take this decision as a group. They did it a civil away, after hearing each others points and the game carried on. I'm also playing on a "Descent into Avernus" table. My character is a warlock that doesn't use all his powers due to his backstory (not the most original I know hahaha) but, when the situation came where the party was dying and a tpk was in sight (even tho my character wouldn't, he didn't know or trusted the other players yet) I put my personal roleplay/ideals aside and used my sheet to the fullest to avoid the tpk. Everyone put alot of effort on their characters and storys, so I think it's important to consider that when you are playing a cooperative game.

@tonyzacker8946 6 месяцев назад

My character in our current campaign is war cleric with high wisdom and low intelligence, who constantly needs to satisfy the need of his deity for exciting fights. So he usually suggests blindly running at all kinds of danger. However, during our last dungeon-crawl, we hit a point, where our casters were pretty much out of spellslots and our hitpoints were halved. It was at this point, where we found the "boss room". When we as a group decided to leave and return later and my character was fine with that, my teammates, and their characters, were quite surprised. I argued, that my character had grown and learned, that the careful planning of his partymembers were also capable of resulting in exciting fights and that he wanted to fight this enemy at his full potential.

@Lurklen 6 месяцев назад

As a long time DM, I try pretty hard to stick to character knowledge, and ask for roles on things that I might already know about. Or, stay locked in to the perspective of my PC. If I think it's reasonable for my PC to have that knowledge or perspective, I just go with it and speak on that. If not, I'll keep mum, or maybe ask my DM if I would know about that, and then they can ask for a role. I also play a lot of Barbarians, often with low INT, so I can just throw myself at stuff, and not know anything, as a way of avoiding being in a leadership role. Alternatively, I've found playing a healer focused Cleric, or a money/loot focused Rogue both also provide a means of directing my focus so that I'm not thinking like a DM. I'll usually let the party know my PC wants to do something less than ideal, and I'll put it to them how to dissuade them. Basically "Lemme at em, lemme at em, hold me back, hold me back!" Which allows my PC a bit of spot light, while not actually derailing whatever is going on to the detriment of the party. With my Cleric it's usually me explaining their moral perspective, and how it will colour my judgment (we had a prisoner situation, and I basically told them if they wanted to kill them, they had to do it in a manner my character didn't know about, or it would be a problem.) It works well.

@sebastiana.l.594 6 месяцев назад

I have an extreme case of this actually. In my campaign, our characters have been given the choice to kill "innocents" (good aligned characters) for some... maybe useful things. I know my character (who's a selfish girl who only really wants her soul back from the patron she sold her soul to) would think about all of the most likely good aligned people close by, and consider who to kill. That DOES include her party members and adding 3 (in a group of 5 with my girl) to her list of "potential kills", but I would never let her actually go through with that. Partially because it's not to her benefit but mostly because you don't do that to your fellow players.

@SophiaAphrodite 6 месяцев назад

Only if it would metagame.

@FlentOrbix1138 6 месяцев назад

Something I really respect about Taliesin is he's always willing to take some punishment when he messes up. I love that Percy literally takes it on the chin here without argument, and Tal had a similar "fall on your sword" reaction to something in Campaign 3 when he realized how much he had endangered others. He's great at playing arrogant pricks, but I appreciate that his characters are also willing to own up to mistakes and face the consequences instead of trying to justify them.

@yiklongtay6029 6 месяцев назад

I think he might be too prone to this. I kinda wished he had a lot more bite during the C3E 77 and E78 confrontation

@Melina_Evarblume_Seelie 6 месяцев назад

@@yiklongtay6029 Same but honestly, it's good that it was broken up too. If they truly got into it deeply, it would be less and less likely for them to be repaired as a team. It's like TLOU1 during the everyone has either died or left me scene, it needed to be broken up by the raid so that the emotions stay without the rage, and therefore the opportunity to fully confront it.

@doopthedude 6 месяцев назад

@@yiklongtay6029it would have been more “Ashton”, but I think it would’ve lead to them having to leave the party.

@dylanehooverlibrarian7026 6 месяцев назад

I'm mostly familiar with CR season 1, so I might be off... but I love how Talisen plays his characters as dramatic vessels to build towards explorin a certain kind of story. Percy is an e titled boy who suffered an injustice no one should go through - his tension lies not only between Vengeance and Justice, but also between Status and Decency. Talisen plays him as an entitled jerk tempered by his good manners, and explored that tension throughout the campaign. I also respect how he does accepts character death when it happens. He knows how to play D&D tactically, and mitigates the worst of outcomes as best he can. Alas, when things still go sour, he accepts the losses with grace- so long as it's interesting to play, he embraces it gladly

@onyxosprey 6 месяцев назад

*"He's great at playing arrogant pricks"* This is why Caduceus is so entertaining to me, he's the complete opposite of every other character Taliesin's played and yet the role still works.

@Quon_the_Destroyer 6 месяцев назад

"Your secret is safe with my indifference" -Taliesin Jaffe Literally the best!

@AlexDelux2500 6 месяцев назад

Best Percy One-Liner!

@NumPad 6 месяцев назад

Regarding the Vax and Percy scene: I like to think it was specifically the instance of Vax rushing ahead and getting _Percy’s_ sister, Cassandra’s, throat slit that internally convinced him to drop it and move on.

@Batini 6 месяцев назад

I think that is very important to make a distinction here, concerning Vax's "hypocrisy": he constantly puts HIMSELF in danger. It is when others rush to save/rescue him that they face some level of danger that he tried to avoid for them. His behaviour has a self-destructive pattern that becomes more serious as his Chosen status kick in and he becomes effectively a martyr for the Raven Queen, but he does it in a way that is problematically protective. However, Percy put OTHERS in risk primarily. That is quite different. He was eager to have something, "eyes on the prize". He owns his mistakes, for sure, but his mistakes are of a different sort. I believe Vax steps away so as to not to unload on Percival the fact that he had to literally sell his soul to remedy the other's "mistake". There are orders of magnitude between the two, they aren't on the same page.

@mentalrebllion1270 6 месяцев назад

Love that analysis! Really hit home for me too since this same conclusion could be made for one of my characters in an rp heavy campaign I’m in. Though mine is a chosen of Kord and is a frontline fighter rather than a rogue. My entire point for this character is to tell a story about living with grief and to not take responsibility for things, people, situations, that are beyond your power to effect or change. Still, my own character has a compulsion born of their early childhood as a parentified child and reinforced by the loss of their lover and their friend declaring a feud on them due to blaming them for the loss of their sibling (my character’s lover). Thank you for putting into words this analysis. It was easy to understand and not only articulated well Vax’s character habits but has given me the language I need to communicate my character in a way that I feel will be easier on my table.

@dolphin64575 6 месяцев назад

Exactly! Vax makes the choice to put himself in danger to protect others. Percy acted without thinking and put other people in danger (which, they're adventurers, but still). (Also, it's his twin sister, he's probably not going to be thinking all that rationally.)

@tenkiforecast 6 месяцев назад

Yeah - I never saw that scene as Vax being hypocritical, even if his tendency is to charge off on his own and get himself into danger. Vex is his sister, Vax is a character who gets rather...unhealthily attached, and Percy just admitted to being the person responsible for both getting Vex killed and putting Vax into the horrifying limbo where he doesn't know what the Raven Queen is going to do/want in exchange for Vex's life. The fact that the issue is solved only by a single punch is...quite a bit of restraint. It also leads to one of my favorite lines from Percy: "This is a night of unbridled guilt, come here, let me show you."

@danieldaw1778 6 месяцев назад

I disagree. Even if Vax primarily thrusts himself into no win scenarios, this still endangers the party constantly. He knows they're always going to come back him up anyway, especially given half the party outs effectively obligated to via their personal ties to him (girlfriend, twin sister, twin sisters husband, etc.) and he has set the very least very solid relationships with Pike, Grog and Scanlan to the point they too would never just leave him to his fate. Especially given that prior to this, Percy had every reason to believe Vax himself rushed into a situation without thinking and nearly got Percy's sister killed because of it.

@Batini 6 месяцев назад

@@danieldaw1778 If you read my comment carefully, you noticed that we do not disagree. I said the same when I mention that " It is when others rush to save/rescue him that they face some level of danger that he tried to avoid for them." My point is not endangering others, it is the motivation behind jumping into danger in the first place.

@pavfeira 6 месяцев назад

I've left comments on previous episodes complaining about glass houses. There have been prior fights where one character (and sometimes it feels like the character's player) gets ganged up on for their mistakes... by players who are also making mistakes. It always felt a little tone-deaf, probably would be glossed over in a home game, but unfortunately gets put under a microscope when being a livestream with millions of views. Or worse, the audience internalizes it as permission to lash out at the character, or the player. That's why I appreciate Vax's scene here. While I was initially nervous, he then adds a lampshade that he (as Vax and as Liam) isn't perfect either. It's a scene of Vax being protective over her sister -- because it would be out of character to not react -- but he forgives quickly to move the scene. It feels like a much healthier form of an interparty conflict scene, when performed in front of a fanbase who might otherwise internalize that anger.

@tkurz3071 6 месяцев назад

the previous episode of c3 for example...

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

That’s a good point, and I think scenes like this one exemplify the direction the cast was moving toward. Like, we all know, unmistakably, that Liam is not pissed at Taliesin - Vax is pissed at Percy. And it’s especially useful when that sort of language works its way into the scene, either in character or out of character.

@intrusiveshadows724 6 месяцев назад

I read on Tumblr a description that I think fits all of Sam's characters and Scanlan fits it so perfectly: a knife tipped clown shoe. When he debuted FCG it was clear there's was a sad twist to them because it's a pattern by this point. Of all the cast, I definitely had the hardest time connecting to Sam's PC's, but he's grown on me so much. They all have.

@unexardiximarion1920 6 месяцев назад

Sam's way of RPing is absolutely fascinating because it is mostly total improv on a foundation of a joke character. Oh, my womanizer bard made to be the most useless and unserious character got a kid he didn't know about? Let me just spit out a wonderful tirade about how he can do nothing but love her because she is part of him. I got tired of playing that goofy bard, he is kind of pathetic now and grinding on my mental health. What's that? I died and my "friends" desecrated my corpse in front of said daughter? HERE WE FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Absolute madlad

@BigKlingy 6 месяцев назад

Something I've always said about Scanlan, and why I find him one of the most relatable in the party (this contains some spoilers for later C1 events so I'll put it under a "read more") Vax had Thordak. Keyleth had Raishan. Percy had the Briarwoods. Grog had Kevdak. Scanlan's personal nemesis was HIMSELF.

@TheLordofMetroids 6 месяцев назад

I love Scanlan, love Nott, love Terry, love Loquacious, but I cannot stand FCG. I don't know what it is, but I just don't like them. Though they were getting less annoying last I saw (group had just got back together).

@BigKlingy 6 месяцев назад

@@TheLordofMetroids I'm... sadly the same. I liked F.C.G initially, but he got so much worse once he found the Changebringer. Being a robot therapist with a mysterious past and his own issues was cool. Now he's just... jokes about religion.

@calebdouglas2512 6 месяцев назад

Last time I was this early, Vex had no concept of the value of money

@danielbeshers1689 6 месяцев назад

Divide by zero error.

@literallynamedcalypso172 6 месяцев назад

And here we get the most useful weapon of all! The pokeball!

@christopherpugnetti5827 6 месяцев назад

Heh heh. Can’t hear the words “phenomenal cosmic” without finishing it with, “power!!!….iiiitty bitty living space!”

@amateurishauthor2202 4 месяца назад

every single time

@BigKlingy 6 месяцев назад

0:33 I never realized in the moment, but in hindsight it makes a LOT of sense why Kima would want to drop everything to rescue Allura. 18:39 Now this is REALLY interesting. Travis-as-Grog is being surprisingly wise about exactly what to say to Galdric. Then I remembered: I'm pretty sure Grog has proficiency in Animal Handling. I say this because it very rarely comes up in the campaign, but I like to think this moment is an allusion to that. (I actually gave my D&D character proficiency in Animal Handling because I so rarely see it used on Critical Role and want to see what can be done with the skill) I forgot this episode was the origin of "your secret is safe with my indifference". I once referenced that line among people who didn't know the context and when I told them the general reaction was "a line that good came out of improv!?" Oh man, I forgot the Vax-Scanlan conversation happened here. Let's just say that one is... "interesting" to look back on. About Scanlan's perceived lack of relatability, I actually don't mind comic relief characters because it's a common fictional character trope, even if it's hard to believe a real-life person would act like that. But I also like my comic relief characters to have depth, and Scanlan absolutely does. Besides the womanizing (which I can stomach because it's not MEANT to be a likable trait), I actually find the arc he goes through one of the MOST relatable of the party, but that'll be explored way later...

@user-jn4sw3iw4h 6 месяцев назад

Sam has a pretty good point. Characters can shift their perspective to 'I'm a hero in a fantasy story' or if they take it as anything remotely realistic your options are roughly to be Scanlan or Nott

@BigKlingy 6 месяцев назад

@@user-jn4sw3iw4h I remember Sam saying on Talks that he wanted Nott to be the "team mom" of the group but that slowly became impossible once he realized that, in playing a D&D character, you kill a lot of people.

@steegen101 6 месяцев назад

Just wanted to comment how much I appreciate the captions. It's really dissonant when creators seem kind and claim they wanna help ppl run games but don't even bother with it. but Mike always makes it happen. Major props

@emmelineart 6 месяцев назад

the "it's four in the afternoon." comment sam made after percy and vax have said goodnight to each other is so funny to me.

@leadingblind1629 6 месяцев назад

I love the scene between Vax and Scanlan! It's the last almost peaceful moment the Scanman kinda has

@curvilinearcube8716 5 месяцев назад

When I originally watched C1 I binged the whole thing really quickly and I distinctly remember thinking Vax was super hypocritical, (sure he goes off on his own all the time and puts himself in danger) but also a few episodes earlier he went ahead rushed into something and Cassandra Percy's sister ended up with her throat slit. It kinda made me like Vax more it made him feel more like a real person. Liam did an incredible job as a role player with everything surrounding Vex's death.

@bristowski 6 месяцев назад

This is a good channel. This is a good series. I like Mike.

@k1tkat-kate 6 месяцев назад

13:00 I love watching Liam take a sip of his drink and then *immediately* collapse out of frame at Travis' sound effect. One thing I'm curious about is in a game like this, how to differentiate between character reactions/interactions and player ones. For the CritCrew it's usually pretty easy to figure out based on whether they're using their character voices or not - although for the first moment with Vax in particular, it took me a minute to figure out it was Vax reacting to what Percy had said about Vex's deth, and not Liam asking for Taliesin to repeat himself. For those of us who are not voice actors - how do players make it clear when their characters are talking, or more importantly, having a genuine reaction to something happening in game? Do you always start with "*character name* says..." as if you're quoting them? Not sure if you've done a video on this already Mike, but if you haven't, I'd love to hear your thoughts! (For the record, I've never played, so maybe this is something that becomes obvious with experience.)

@hyenaedits3460 6 месяцев назад

One actual play I listen to, after an intense rp scene, the players will say stuff like "I the player love this drama please bring it on" or "out of character you're being a little controlling rn."

@dolphin64575 6 месяцев назад

One DM tried to get us players to "meta moose" and hold a hand to our head like moose antlers when we were out of character. Didn't work. We ended up doing a lot of speaking in third person about ourselves and our characters. Like stopping mid-argument to say "Hey, I, Stephani fully know Timothy's in the wrong here, and he kinda knows it too, but can't admit it because he's a stuck up little shit. You good?" and the other player would be like "Oh yeah, Laura's fine, and Talia's mostly frustrated at Timothy because he always tries to pull this shit." and then we'd try to stop smiling as we kept arguing.

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

Definitely! I talked about this some in my video about “It’s what my character would do”, there’s a technique that has helped us a lot with these sorts of issues: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lkd6T8Usbb0.htmlsi=U-Bws5WkpBHgdNnA

@AsterOathbreaker 6 месяцев назад

I say "Out of character" first then the thing or "Hey (and then the person's name) That way they know I'm not talking in character I also say what my character is doing then speak that way there is a barrier between the two that either keeps every So like Character grabs her sword and shield "common guys let's go" is my character vs Out of character... Are we leaving?

@MorningDusk7734 6 месяцев назад

One of my favorite elements of my last character was he had a debt to his patron that he could never pay off, but he didn’t know that. He thought if he just kept giving money, his debt would be paid eventually.

@hyenaedits3460 6 месяцев назад

Is his patron the student loan industry?

@MorningDusk7734 6 месяцев назад

@@hyenaedits3460 he was meant to be a fey patron representing greed, feeding off of the labor that the money was earned using. Kind of a capitalism metaphor. The idea was that he was a fey at the bottom of a wishing well granting basic blessings in exchange for copper or silver, until my character wished for enough power to defend himself from an invading gnoll horde.

@hyenaedits3460 6 месяцев назад

@@MorningDusk7734 that's really cool! There's layers to that story!

@jejamu2282 6 месяцев назад

23:51 hearing that Scanlan speech really hits hard once you put it together with his lamentations in a future episode

@Jellybelly98 6 месяцев назад

Especially since they all think his character is WAY older than they actually are. I can't remember when his age was revealed but everyone was shocked at how young he was in gnome years

@Belphegor82 6 месяцев назад

@@Jellybelly98 He revealed his age in the last minutes (?) of the last episode, during the epilogue (and at this point he was a couple years older than the 69 he was at the start). More years than Vax's 28, sure, but in gnome years? That guy is the epitome of a mid-20s disaster. And yeah, this conversation is a big "funny aneurysm" in the light of what happens later. He's still very much a cheerful nihilist at this point.

@OccidentalAvian 6 месяцев назад

It's funny you mention "forgetting the specific events that lead to [Vex's] death", because based on some things Liam/Vax says a few episodes down the line, it seems like at the time he conflated her death with something Vex does in the next episode (#46) regarding a certain item a certain guest had.

@GameTornado01 6 месяцев назад

You know, I've tried getting into Critical Role multiple times before, but just never could quite keep up with the number of players. But even if I haven't watched it myself this series of videos is so interesting and helpful, and it has shown me so many awesome moments from the show, I think I will give watching it myself another try.

@intrusiveshadows724 6 месяцев назад

It's been already 2 weeks? I'm so excited!

@TakeWalker 6 месяцев назад

get you a man who talks about you the way Scanlan talks about pooping in other people's beds

@SupergeekMike 6 месяцев назад

We have gotten used to saying some extremely weird sentences in this community 😂

@Boundwithflame23 6 месяцев назад

That LoVM edit at 6:15 with Vex holding a pokeball sent me omg 😆

@jonathanstern5537 6 месяцев назад

Honestly, I connected with Scanlan a lot more than I did the others. I'm a generally happy person, I love to sing and act (that's really why I got into TTRPGs... I most often play a bard), and I genuinely enjoy being kind of goofy.

@ikariiprince 6 месяцев назад

These are always amazing videos and make for a fun way to go back and remember each episode. About to go on to campaign 3 so these are always helpful

@andrewkloiber4925 6 месяцев назад

Thank you for sharing this! I stumbled on your video, but I'm so glad I did. I've been struggling with this problem as well (I don't hate combat but I find it a bit of a chore, and as a DM rather overturning at times as well). This advice is so good! I recall DMsLair talking about players and DMs who "prefer role-playing to combat", and he points out that combat IS part of the role-playing, and many forget that. Fine, but I haven't found that "thing" that will, for me, make combat FEEL like it's still role-playing. Your video is going to help me so much with that!

@AlexDelux2500 6 месяцев назад

What an amazing episode!

@WolfieSilveira 3 месяца назад

its actually funny, there was small hints going up the the raven queens vestage, that percy was actually really interested in the raven queen and I thought he would have been the one to become the raven queens vestage/guardian. but i kinda like that it was Vax instead, because he find himself struggle with accepting it, instead of seeking it out, compared to percy, who’s seeking for something to replace the dark companion he had.

@lefterismplanas4977 6 месяцев назад

This was incredible!

@neerGdyahS 6 месяцев назад

I'm really stunned at how brilliant Sam can be sometimes. I feel like he's excellent not just in his skills, but in how he applies them to the game and story. It makes sense for someone with some focus on improv but still damn impressive. The combination of NO SUBTLETY and extreme subtlety from Scanlan is

@AdamEspersona 6 месяцев назад

As for this episode in particular, it's another strong one for all the reasons mentioned.

@tmdelacrush 6 месяцев назад

I love how this band of misfits across all 3 campaigns have a habit of having the low charisma characters be the ones who find themselves making the persuasion checks

@Mister_Mag00 2 месяца назад

god the scanlan speech has gotten me through so much

@mentalrebllion1270 6 месяцев назад

Always try to keep track of what my character knows and doesn’t know to be honest. I even get compliments from my dm on the subject matter. It can be difficult if I have been playing for a long time, as with most games I’m sure. Memory is fickle after all. But I do take notes and review them regularly enough to have some awareness of what I, as the character, would have awareness of or might reasonably make a logic leap to understand. I just really love telling a story and doing so means dropping in foreshadowing. Which means one may not know or understand things all at once. But this also means one needs to keep track of what has or has not been hinted at. For instance, most recently my character had been speaking to our party artificer. Very logical person and a Dragonborn. My character did not outright say but did imply heavily that they know draconic (the conversation didn’t feel right to just drop the subject entirely on the table, which is why I didn’t bluntly say so). This hint went over the player’s head and when I realized it next session during a discussion during break, I basically said “ok well I think your character is smart enough to have caught this. My character implied they know draconic as one of their languages.” We then had the characters have a conversation about it so that the party has some more pointed awareness of this and I was able to foreshadow another character in my character’s backstory, a different Dragonborn who may come in handy as an ally. All in all, yeah, it’s good to keep track of what your character knows and doesn’t know but it’s also good to keep in mind human error and how our memories aren’t always the most reliable. More so if no one is taking notes and reviewing said notes. I do give Liam credit however. He really did wait til the right moment to bring up his character being unaware of the flow of events. Very well played!

@KB42moomoo 3 месяца назад

was the siege arrow in this episode the "evening of unbridled guilt" one? heart wrenching on the perc'ahlia front!

@SupergeekMike 3 месяца назад

Yep!

@jacobbrown9894 6 месяцев назад

I’ve never actually watched the show just been inundated in videos but as a major Pathfinder fan hearing “Sarenrae” threw me the fuck off lmao. I had heard this started as pathfinder 1e before they swapped to 5E but that really backs that up lol

@ShyyGaladriel 6 месяцев назад

You know what’s funny, Pikelan was my main otp on my first watch of VM. Not Vaxleth, not Percalia, but Pike and Scanlan. I adored Pike so much and I guess I saw the soft side she brought out of Scanlan.

@troikas3353 6 месяцев назад

I wish I could have enjoyed them more, Sam is a delightfully funny and charismatic person. But personally Pike and Scanlan always felt super bloody offputting to me. Like, Scanlan canonically went out of his way to have a magic scry potion made so he could hide what amounted to a hidden cam in her bedroom to spy on her getting dressed after she'd spent a third or more of the campaign saying no to his advances. Sam was of course just doing it to make the table laugh and he as a player is often hilarious in C1, nothing against him as it was clearly all in good fun, but the result is Scanlan as a character is just such a massive creep and manchild. And his high charisma stat also basically lets him get away with all of it so he doesn't really get any better until after he comes back.

@leandroricardoorthmann7220 6 месяцев назад

@@troikas3353 Scanlan left the magic scry poo in an alcove with view to the ruins of the temple Pike was helping restore, not her bedroom.

@Belphegor82 6 месяцев назад

Oh hard same. I love the way both their characters evolved throughout the show, and I love how Pike bounces off Scanlan (the letter springs to mind) and how easily she makes the usually smooth-talking Scanlan flustered and wrongfooted. I love my Vaxleth, Percahlia, Vaxlethmore and Vaxlan (underrated ship 💜) but Pikelan truly is THE CR ship for me!

@janehundson2973 6 месяцев назад

I love them together in LoVM! They're so cute!❤ Now I'm at Ep. 22 of C1 but for me it's a bit hard to follow because English isn't my first language!

@troikas3353 5 месяцев назад

@@leandroricardoorthmann7220 He did it in more than one place, and deliberately asked if she was there and changing at least once on using the scry to check on her. Also more to the point the same episode he has it made, Laura ribs him for that being the exact reason he's making it and then reminds him that he's already done that exact thing- spyed on multiple female members of Vox Machina naked- before. So yes, Scanlan was literally exactly that kind of skeevey pervert according to the players themselves. Again this was all clearly in good fun above the table and the players didn't mind so there's nothing wrong with it in terms of Sam's actions as a player. But as a character in a story it paints Scanlan to be a massive creep with no real interest in other peoples consent or boundaries.

@Danny191 6 месяцев назад

There are some great moments in this episode, and i'll admit there havebeen time's i've accidently metagamed and had to be called out on it. Regarding Hardwick, wasn't it only one person who accused him and it turned out being false? He Broke up with his accuser for cheating on him and she only wrote the essay accusing him after months of trying to get back with him. And given how quick Critical Role are to cut out any sort of reference to people who are problematic (sans Orion) and them keeping his episode up, I think it's pretty safe to say dude was innocent

@daviddaspit4166 4 месяца назад

My approach is that if something is happening and my character(s) aren't there, I don't take notes (granted my notes are pretty bad anyway). However, I recently heard something told to another character that my character may have thoughts on and mentioned it to that player offline to say "hey mention this to my character" for more roleplaying opportunities. But that wasn't at the table, it was between sessions.

@Wanderinpaladin 6 месяцев назад

Nice breakdown. Coming up next "Remember kids stealing from the party is wrong"

@loesdevries152 6 месяцев назад

I was literally refreshing the page, waiting for the video to show up

@danieldosso2455 Месяц назад

Scanlan pooped in beds before Amber Herd did it!

@njdbrasil6 Месяц назад

Didn’t he get Cas’s neck cut.

@CyrilOfTheWind 6 месяцев назад

This episode actually perfectly exemplifies where I think Marisha shines as keyleth. I know she flubs her spells ALOT which is whatever, BUT the part that really grates me is when she plays keyleth as a proud perfectly composed leader. It just feels like...not who the character is so its more like...out of place? or she's just out of her depth with what she wants keyleth to be. This scene with her and the wolf is AMAZING though. I love the moments like this.

@timidwolf 6 месяцев назад

Not sure whether I'm looking forward to the next one or not. Even before the accusations against him, I disliked Hardwick in his episodes, I found him the most disruptive kind of player bringing the story to a halt just so people would pay attention to him without adding to the RP experience, which is bad enough behaviour for a regular party member, it's just massive bad form for a guest. Pretty sure he's the only player ever in CR to get his phone out for equally disruptive reasons, others have only used their phones for communication with absent players IIRC. I was very glad the broom just became a random object in Gilmore's for the animated series.

@rebeccaburton5449 6 месяцев назад

I just watched this episode and that scene made me so annoyed. It took the guts out of the very serious and emotional RP moments that marisha was having for a cheap joke. I found his entire presence just... distracting and annoying the whole time, but that was the cherry on top of the sundae.

@Mandaiish 6 месяцев назад

Honestly looking into the Hardwick thing was a bit confusing from what i gather it basically fell into a whole he said/she said thing in which case maybe you should look into as well. I know theres a comment here detailing a lot more. Just in the efforts of fairness instead of jumping to he's evil or whatever. Or maybe you already have and decided i got no clue. Just wanted to say look into both sides here just to be sure

@PVS3 6 месяцев назад

It's kinda obvious Mike is half-remembering and filling in details (There were not multiple accusers, for example). I'd say it's less a "He said/she said" and more a "She said, then he provided receipts" - it's actually an interesting exception to the stories of that time because of how quickly Hardwick's name was cleared and he was reinstated.

@Mandaiish 6 месяцев назад

@PVS3 I see, well let's hope Mike does look into it. Otherwise next episode will just be real awkward if he doesn't and just takes the surface view of the situation.

@wolfox7776 5 месяцев назад

Pokémon Ranger Vex'ahlia would like to battle!

@billberndtson 6 месяцев назад

06:52 Listen... she's kinda evil. In the same way that Lilliana Vess is evil. People argue with me about this all the time and I agree that in Exandria Matt makes the rules and she's not truly evil. In the Forgotten Realms....

@sarahmetcalfe50 6 месяцев назад

Soo... The Raven Queen is an own goals first, morally 'good' goal second or third kind of neutral evil (?) character, only her goals involve death and fate on a cosmic scale? Also less zombies.

@OccidentalAvian 6 месяцев назад

You guys know her alignment in the book is literally Lawful Neutral right? Not good but not evil either.

@sarahmetcalfe50 6 месяцев назад

@@OccidentalAvian For the Raven Queen or for Lilliana Vess? I thought the Raven Queen was more true neutral or unaligned?

@PVS3 6 месяцев назад

On Hardwick - there was only one accusation. It was by an ex-girlfriend who had been unfaithful to him, and then was rebuffed when she asked to reconcile. No stories mention other accusations, and no evidence was given publicly or to investigators that corroborates her story. Hardwick did produce examples of her attempting to restart the relationship for several weeks, and multiple women came forward to defend him. This was one accusation, presented with no corroborating evidence, which folded upon investigation. (The "I'm afraid of reprisal" excuse doesn't hold water when you publicly accuse someone in print. And yes, she left his name out, but made it obvious who she was talking about)

@PVS3 6 месяцев назад

Follow-up - Dykstra claimed she had evidence, but would only provide it for "ACTUAL litigation (not a network investigation, where I'm not protected)“ .... If she'd prefer court, all she needed to do is press charges. She decided to make a public accusation instead, but the option remains. More importantly, what protection does she lose by backing up a factual statement? She's already been public about it, and confirmed who it was. (there was only one person with network investigations into her accusations). If she was worried about reprisal, that ship has sailed. In fact, any evidence she could provide would REDUCE the chances of blowback by strengthening her claims. All this setup does is put Hardwick in a position where he must prove a negative, while absolving her of any need to show her claims are true. How is it fair to say "This person was rumored to have done something bad by someone with an obvious grudge. They provided evidence that those claims were unfounded, but we're still going to insist he MIGHT be evil anyways"?

@snakebitcat 6 месяцев назад

The only source I've ever found to back up his claim that she was unfaithful was him making that claim.

@PVS3 6 месяцев назад

@@snakebitcat You make a good point, I should hold him to the same standard even if that claim has not been disputed. I'm inclined to believe it because a) She hasn't claimed otherwise, b) He provided texts to the investigators, and I suspect if they didn't support his story, they'd have concluded he was lying & canned him. But that inclination does not change the fact that I have not seen the evidence.

@Bodharas 6 месяцев назад

Agreed. Mike seems to virtue signal when it comes to hot issues. I don't think it's fair to continue to accuse Hardwick of his indiscretions. Especially when the evidence is as clear as it is.

@damiens4601 6 месяцев назад

I like this Scanlan way more, they changed him too much in the animated show :/

@TheLordofMetroids 6 месяцев назад

One of the best episodes of critical role... Quickly followed by one of the worst. I'll probably have to watch the next one too see how I feel about it after all these years. I know for a fact it's on the top of my least favorite episodes list

@Bodharas 6 месяцев назад

It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It was funny, and everyone was having a good time. People just want to make drama where drama doesn't exist.

@TheLordofMetroids 6 месяцев назад

@@Bodharas true The cast having fun it's all that matters, But that doesn't mean I had fun watching it.

@restionSerpentine 6 месяцев назад

"Can I call you bacon?"

@chesra9515 6 месяцев назад

Could you fix the cabinet doors. They are very uneven. Thank you.

@AdamEspersona 6 месяцев назад

Episode 46 in my opinion... is about how NOT to behave as a guest at a table run by other players. The guest ruined the episode for me due to how annoyingly disruptive he was; you don't just blare music from your phone in the midst of serious RP, nor do you butt into other conversations and hog the spotlight. Read the room, he did not. It turned an important character-specific episode into a joke. That said, at least we had SOME stuff salvaged from it, stuff that would be adapted into LOVM Season 2.

@fakjbf3129 6 месяцев назад

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen the episode but I don’t remember anything controversial happening from the guest, just Laura stealing his broom. I thought all the drama occurred afterwards when various allegations were made against the guy in real life (I never followed closely enough to remember what they were or what happened as a result).

@AdamEspersona 6 месяцев назад

@@fakjbf3129 I’m referring specifically to his bad table etiquette. Stuff like playing music during RP (especially COPYRIGHTED music that could have shut the stream down) and trying to involve oneself in RP even when it’s not about them would absolutely NOT fly nowadays.

@fakjbf3129 6 месяцев назад

@@AdamEspersona I just rewatched the episode and I think you are over stating his faults. Yeah he played some music but the entire cast was having fun with it, no one said anything about it, and Sam played some music off of his phone a little while later. As for interrupting an RP moment I assume you mean the talk between Keyleth and her dad, but he waited until they were done and then came in with a joke which is extremely common on the show. They do that all the time even now, so saying that that would no longer fly is just inaccurate.

@Bodharas 6 месяцев назад

I don't remember it being that bad. I think people are making it out worse than what it was just to trudge up drama. In fact, I remember it being funny, and everyone having a good time. I think some fans are salty because it took the spotlight away for one episode from the main PC. But it was just different. People don't like different.

@stinky1895 6 месяцев назад

First

@helRAEzzzer 6 месяцев назад

Dude, the only people who might be legitimately triggered by Hardwick are his victims. His picture being up is what will be triggering for them, most likely. Stop talking about that metoo shit. It is a triggering topic for the rest of us SA'd in our lives. You're not talking about his crimes, so why go out of your way to bring them up? Let people heal and move on with their lives.