Giving Yourself Permission to Feel (with Marisha Ray) 

There was someone in my party who would always be doodling in her notebook. Like even when we were just shopping or at a tavern or in the middle of combat. It was a little distracting at first because I kinda felt like she wasn’t invested in the story, but she popped in and out of RP where her character would have, and she spent the normal amount of time on her turns so I didn’t think much of it. Then one day after a session, as I’m leaving she rips out a page and hands it to me. It was this badass sketch of my character doing one of the killing blows I’d described a few sessions back. Turns out she was doodling things from the story- cities, PCs, NPCs, weapons. It was so cool. She said she just had trouble making eye contact

Two gingers, chillin in a studio, five feet apart, cause that’s what their sound system requires

The DM decides that the adventure will be a heist mission. The PCs decide whether the music that plays will be Mission Impossible, the Pink Panther, or Benny Hill.

08:15 "I've even looked at someone and been like, 'hit a nat 20 and I'll let it happen'... PC's always think they're gonna hit that nat 20." ...to be fair, if they're ally beardsley, They Will.

"Talk to your players. If that doesn't work, kill somebody." ...

God, Brennans side track on stimming. The more I hear him speak outside of pure comedy the more he's just a genuinely good accomidating person

Man that bit about Marisha wondering if Beau tapped into a part of her that she didn't want influencing her personality for the next three years was powerful.

I'm autistic and I've never heard someone who's not autistic bring up our needs and accommodations and shit in such a respectful manner, and I wanna cry, like whenever they do there's thinly veiled ableism with what they say, but here Brennan talks about it with such respect and understanding holy shit It was such a small act but it means so much so thank you

"Plans are worthless, planning is essential " - Dwight D. Eisenhower This is true for war and DMing

Brennan on Crit Role when????

True story- Honey Heist is actually what got me into watching Criticalrole campaign 2

Also important to consider: did your players go down the "wrong path" because the "right path" seemed boring?

Marisha Ray is a ray of sunshine, you can't change my mind.

9:06 Sounds just like two people who would join forces in convincing Matt to let them stack summonable horses nearly 3 years later... 😄

Yeah but remember when Ally hit that Nat 20 and was revived, stopped time, brought a man who has been dead for about 8 months back to earth, and created a new god? So the whole odds are this won’t happen thing doesn’t always work in a DMs favor

22:58 This is such a great story. Especially about Laura, because that's so like her: she lets herself get so emotionally invested in everything Matt is giving her, it's just the best.

Brennan, I can’t thank you enough for mentioning stimming and other attention-anchoring methods. As someone with ADD _and_ autism, it’s hard for me to give my undivided attention for more than 20 seconds. I’ve gotten very used to telling people that if I don’t have my phone or a puzzle book or something, I’ll actually be LESS likely to listen to what they’re saying because nothing will be able to stop my mind from blasting off into outer space at the first hint of a side thought. So yes, I’m the person who’s constantly on her phone at DnD, and I’m not sorry about it. Brennan and Marisha understand why. PS: “Just take notes to stay focused!” I can already see someone responding. Okay, let me pick out a possibly important detail that I heard the DM say, figure out how to word it so that it takes the minimum number of words but is also easy to understand if I read it later, write it down in at least triple the time it took for the DM to say it, and... oops, I just missed 5 minutes of the session. Why are we rolling initiative?

"There are no wrong paths." Me watching my players spend an hour on a puzzle where the answer is just to spell "pathology" but they took pathogen, rearranged it to spell heptagon and now are obsessed with the number 7 and looking for a seven sided room. -_-

Everyone's saying Brennan should do a guest spot on Critical Role and I'm over here like, he should be a full cast member.

Something incredibly traumatizing happened to my character and I ended up crying for the first time playing DnD a couple weeks ago, it was sudden, I didn't expect it to happen, and I did not think I was the type to be so invested in the moment, but I just burst into tears and had to take a moment to collect myself. I learned that session that even though the moment was incredibly sad, it created a memory that I wouldn't want to forget and would propel me to want to create even MORE memories for me and my character.

PCs always think they're going to hit that nat 20 "can i roll to see if ghosts exist?"

The stained glass metaphor is a beautiful way of phrasing things. I'm glad to have such a great way to put how I've been feeling about my characters. I also now want to go and make stained glass portraits of all my past characters.

So glad Marisha persevered with Beau. That character had such growth and her journey was so good to follow!

I loved this. What Marisha was saying about the memories being as real, or even more so, than her actual memories really struck a chord. I will never forget having my head stuffed into the couch as my character, Magnus, watched all of his friends die horrifically after playing every Sunday for over a year. I'm making a map right now, I've just named the River that runs through it The Marisha.

this channel would be nothing without Brennan’s quiet interjections of “rad” and “hell yeah”

When Marisha was talking about respect, I immediately thought of that one time she tried to write down the contents of a smut book after Matt, cos she thought there might be some important info in there. That's high respect for the DM right there~ and I say that as a person, who was constantly interrupted by players and could barely convince em to write down important npc's names. Respect is very important, you guys

As a student of Linguistics, I appreciate Brennan even more now that he's made that reference

The importance of using DnD as an exploration of what would happen if you reacted differently cannot be understated. I fully attribute DnD with my ability to function in social situations. I had a lot of depression growing up from social anxiety and a lack of friends (likely due to some form of autism but I've never had the money/time to get a proper diagnosis) and having the "excuse" I could tell myself that, "It's my character screwing up this social interaction, not me" made it so much easier to actual experiment and figure out how to be a functional person who could actually make friends. I fully credit DnD with pulling me out of depression and bringing me the longest lasting, deepest friendships I've ever had.

I'm so so glad you talked about stimming. I used to color all the time in high school, specifically in math class because I'm ADHD and dyslexic, primarily with numbers. My teacher would yell at me and embarrass me in front of the entire class and I ended up getting a much lower grade than I could have because he stripped me of my ability to pay attention to what he was teaching.

Brennan’s nerd knowledge is amazing I would love to sit and just have a hour long conversation with him about everything nerdy.

I'm here from the future. Merisha's voice @ 19:36 is her rat in campaign 3 of critical role!

I love brennan talking about giving players a chance with the dice to like do something crazy if they hit a nat 20 with the foreknowledge of the true magic of Ally Beardsley like its so funny

We have an ongoing honey heist game where we get orders from Abraham Lincoln's ghost as to what honey related item to steal.

I could listen to another 3 hours of them talking.

To add to the Pike death moments in the home game, Ashley and Brian talked about it, I think in Ashley's Between the Sheets interview. She came home at about 2 AM crying and talked to Brian about Pike's death. He didn't quite understand what happened then because he hadn't get into D&D yet. But it was a profound moment for both them as well.

Seeing Marisha, I procede to click immediately.

I'm a newer DM but I realized that Call of the Netherdeep provides a good answer to how to solve the party meandering too much problem. Have the rival group beat them to it. Let's say it was to obtain a crucial clue about the BBEG. Well now they have to negotiate with their rivals to share the information with them. 🙂

For some of these interviews, it sounds like Brennan is just getting to know someone or talking with a friend, but sometimes it really feels like Brennan is connecting with people on his own level. This is one of those. Marisha gets a lot of shit for playing characters that are flawed, including from me. But it is a brave choice for an actor, and it ultimately doesn't harm the story at all.

This is hands down one of my favorite entries. I wish they had more time to chat on embodying a character, because it was getting so interesting.

So glad to see some more Marisha! Can't find enough panels or hosting shows with her on it! Thanks for giving us 50 minutes of heavenly comfort and pleasure! ^^

Brennan needs to be on Critical Role

this is a master class on character embodiment, aspiring actors take notes

Recently diagnosed w ADHD, it's so touching to see this neurodivergent representation! I will go nuts if I have to shut up and listen for a long time without doing anything, and drawing has always been my "socially acceptable" lifeline for that. I can verify it HELPS to focus, in fact, having learned about this side of myself, i've started to offer similar activities to my friends if they feel awkward in situations. ADHD brains are like 6 moneys writing on a single typewriter and if you want one monke to do something specific, you need to gather all the rest and put them in the daycare so the last one can actually finish writing something. Drawing, adult colouring books, knitting etc are all activities that engage hands and visual part of the brain with low focus tasks, while leaving the listening part of the brain with more RAM so it actually stays engaged! For example, 'accidentally' leave a dirty set of dice and some cleaning supplies next to them and by the end of the game they'll have meticulously scrubbed every single die at the table. (ngl this made me want to do this at 1am). If this need for fidgeting isn't accommodated, you can find the adhd brain start to lose focus in the gap between sentences. If you think that's annoying, try living with that every day. Pls give us something to keep us occupied at the table and don't judge.

love the side mention on Stimming and how important it is to let folks stim

it's really incredible to hear that even in a game that matt mercer ran that people would still get distracted.

Speaking of players destroying plans, My first game started a lot like Skyrim, so the players started off in a cart leading to their trial. There were only two players mind you, but my Fighter player, who was an Eladrin Elf, has a racial trait that lets him cast misty step once per short rest. And I gave my other player, a Goliath Barbarian, a stomp ability that works almost the same as thunderwave. So the fighter teleports away from the cart and his bindings, then the barbarian stomps and destroys the cart, kills the guards, and runs away. The fighter walks straight up to the keep of a nearby town, talks to the lord, rolls high on charisma, and gains favor with him. In about 15 minutes the players circumvented almost the entire first session and got into my later plans. ALWAYS be prepared to deal with players actions, it's pretty incredible to see how differently people think and react to different situations.

19:36 we hear Pâté de Rolo's voice for possibly the first time...critters can correct me but its awesome. much love guys...

“matt mercer, you may have heard of him” he says to matt’s Literal Wife ahdhfhvjv

I hope to god he’s the guest on the 69th ep of this campaign it would be so so amazing

Loved Marisha sharing that, playing Keyleth and Beau made her a better person. The possible transformative gifts of playing D&D!

The barkeep metaphor gave me the idea of having like a franchise of taverns or shops that are all the same right down to the proprietor's personality. The only thing that changes is their name. "Oh I'm not them, my name is this."

im not watching it on drop out because im watching it 3 years later BRENNAN

“Context is everything” - YUP! I have to constantly remind myself when watching CR C1 or C2 that Marisha Ray is playing a character which eats gravel in EVERY scene. She, herself, is not an actual disaster. She’s just that great as an actor & role player.

i'm actually looking into dnd as group therapy, like possibly covered by insurance and definitely ran by therapists, bc seeing the level of catharsis people can get in dnd just feels so perfect for that and i'm glad that enough other people thought that, because it's a real thing.

As soon as he said hit a nat 20 and I'll see. I pulled out my dice and hit a nat 20

Can we talk about Marisha's nail polish? It looks so cool and the color is great

"do you have a bus to catch?" is a great response to being worried about detours lmao

The Queen of DnD!

That is the best Laura Bailey impersonation I have ever heard.

I can’t believe that I’m now just finding this interview between two of my favorite people

I love this series. brennan is so eloquent and always has amazing analogies and ways of explaining things

Dude. This will be a required watch for my players from now on. Bravo.

I freaking love these, Brennan! Thanks for putting them out. This was a great.

I actually love this crossover, it's insane

That was seriously one of the best dnd interviews I've see, spectacular job and I love both of you marisha and brennen

Absolutely love Marisha....such a great actress! She played a character I hated so much and stayed true to it. Then played a character that was my most favorite in their second campaign. Good actress.

Best talk about playing and DMing I've ever heard. Thanks guys.

I absolutely love your metaphors

The talk about letting the dice decide and Brennan DIDN'T mention Ally's "roll a Nat 20 and you can be alive" moment??

"Yes, and..." plus redirecting the energy are two of the thinga I'd definitely love to master :) Very pleasant, entertaining and informative 'interview' :D

It’s kind of ironic, I’ve heard people speculating about Marisha seeming more comfortable while acting about Beau after hearing about her struggles. I’m currently playing as a grumpy cowboy and experiencing similar feelings as Marisha was when she started as Beau and it’s kinda cool to hear

You guys have the best discussions.

"Players will look up from their phones if someone is rolling death saves, and thats a fact!"

Jokes on you, I cry all the time even without D&D

BIG DM MOOD. Quote of the day

My group just started streaming, and even with no viewers I still have to get over myself when I do intros. Like I was a theater kid so have to put in my head I'm on a stage its time to act once you get there it makes it amazing

I had a similar situation occur as the "feeling awakening" of Pike's death that happened with Marisha in the 1st campaign that I played in. We had played for about 2 sessions (we had like 8hr sessions at the time), and we were just doing silly things, making jokes and all that stuff. But we had been sent to this other continent, and were tasked with opening up trade routes to our home continent again. And we learned that the reason why they closed were due to the 2 biggest nations going to war and cutting off trade lines for each other. So we went to the evil nation first (on accident), talked to the BBEG, and then left for the good nation. But when we got to the good nation, we ended up witnessing the evil nation's entire army show up out of nowhere, and massacre almost everything. We were able to help lessen the damage, but the scene that made us feel something for the 1st time in this world was the aftermath. The DM had slowly been lowering the volume of the music while the massacre happened until it was completely silent when he was describing the aftermath of the massacre. *warning for those who dont like gore or traumatic scenes* And so all we heard were his descriptions of rubble everywhere, dead bodies all over the place, even going so far as to describe how my paladin attempted to heal someone who was already dead, and how our rogue found a woman holding her dead child. And it made multiple people at the table cry because of the severity of the scene he was describing, and it totally shifted the tone of the campaign. Especially when it was discovered that the only reason why the evil nation was able to commit this atrocity was because when we met the BBEG, he stored an invisible teleporting anchor on my character that allowed him to see where I was and teleport mass amounts of creatures to the anchor's location. It was incredible for learning how to feel the character

I am at the last part of my first GM experience, doing a one shot with a group over Roll20 and I have LOVED setting the landing page of the session with scenery that reminds the players where they left off and planned music for scene changes, combat scenarios, both ambient music and ambient environment sound. For me, it has done SO MUCH for retaining player attention. I recommend taking that extra little bit of time to add polish to the immersion. Works wonders.

A changeling the lost character i played helped me come to terms with my bisexuality, so i totally agree about how therapeutic aspects of these games.

A little moment of self pity , I have aphantasia so I have no minds eye. Hearing these guys talk about their memories of dnd adventures and wishing I could visualise the epic adventures in books and from master DMS, well it really stings... Makes me so envious. I love the world's they create and so so wish I could experience them to there true potential . That said I'm still thankful to hear everyone's amazing stories :)

Such a great episode

I love what they said about memories of your characters being so real. When you talk with your party members years later, you don't say, "Remember when Zaltar the sorcerer and Tremdal the bard killed that dragon" You say, "Remember when YOU and I killed that dragon?" Because you remember it as yourselves in the moment.

This is the good stuff. To any DMs out there.. hear this one out.

I'm so happy to hear you mention stimming! Especially in such a loving and positive way❤❤ thank you ! The ttrpg community attracts a lot of autistic people, and it can mean the world to us, to be meet with kindness ❤ As with so many other things, it's good to talk about it, as long as you come from a genuine place of wanting to have fun with this person. It's okay to ask "hey I noticed this, is there anything making you uncomfortable? And can we make that better together? " then they have a chance to tell you if it's just a normal relaxed stim or not, ect. Being open and kind about it, will allow many of us to be more relaxed, because we normally still face a lot of stigma. I can only speak for my self, but my stims even tends to be less disruptive, when I know the people around me are chill about it ❤ Go have fun with your autistic player, we really love you🥰

I knew that the "chair" gonna be a thing!

holy shit, Brennan and Marisha - you're both so wise and empathetic

oh my god i was SCREAMING about the chair the MOMENT the question was asked im so glad marisha brought it up

"doing a Voice like this" She says in the future voice of her Familer. lol love it.

I love the comment about making combats more deadly, Matt did just that in Asarius when he mindcontrolled Caleb, they were breezing through the last few combats and getting very cocky until that moment.

There was a lot of good stuff in this episode, thank you. I super loved the bear adventure and hope for more. I watch pretty much everything I can with either of you in it. So to my comment.. Thank you so much for discussing access and disability, etc. And also you might know one autistic person, yet not know how it will look on another person. People think I am not convincingly depressed sometimes, because I am talkative and social. But a lot of my symptoms are related to autism, while I do not have it. I did not even know that was a thing that happened. I love being around people, who will take the person's word on what happens with them. And also the consent stuff was very important. I see it in my own life, and in my friends, how being allowed to be yourself brings out the best in us. Watching both your main shows has helped me deal with my depression, because I see people respecting their friends and being true to the trust and kindness you should be able to expect from your friends. I have not always experienced that. I am hoping to find more games like yours. I know every GM is not going to be a professional actor. But I do wish for respectful and open minded ones every time.

The question that Extreme Otter posed. Most of my games the last decade, part of what happens between session 0 and a full table meet up is there is a written agreement made between the DM and players about the rules - consensus about phone/(when it's ok or not to) use of social media apps, etc. Helps create that mutual expectation of focus, etc., meeting needs of everyone, etc... so forth. Awareness of accomidations/comfort, etc. Great question, and really appreciate B&M's responses to reaffirm. In my games we also finish the session with 'what worked well for you, what really didn't, and we determined again, with consensus who *one player for session max* may have earned an extra inspiration based upon their contribution/action made in the game. Insentive even to be engaged. The questions also help the DM/players perhaps make some adjustments for the next session.

THE CHAIR HAS FAN ART

they were talking about distractions and such while i was reading a fucking novel... people can definitely focus on two things at once

I've had a player lick a concoction of alchemist's wares that pooled together on the floor. The potions were all knocked over because the PCs decided to engage in pvp. They took 14 damage at level 2, weren't looking great. The concoction actually morphed into an enemy that melted any steel they used. After the battle, THEY LICKED IT AGAIN. And I let them. They rolled a very high con saving throw and took no damage. That's the magic of D&D.

That last question is a great opportunity to role play the person into paying more attention. "I attack that gnoll over there" "Ok, roll for attack.... you hit the dead gnoll for 6 points of damage and that's the end of your turn." or "Your turn, what do you do?" "What's happening?" "You wake up, you don't know what's happening. You're confused and have disadvantage on your next saving throw."

One of the other players at the game I play, after filling up her character sheets spare space with doodles, she then filled our table, then we moved and she's currently on her new character sheet

She he'll yeah-ed him right off the bat. Great tip of the hat.

I played a character while getting to know him I discovered that he was gay. It wasn't a decision, it was a realization. It was really neat, and very much felt like an introduction.

The idea that you could break physics as long as you can make it funny is would be an awesome dnd looney toons mech.

40:58 The "could the clue be down [the other] fork?" part reminds me of the first time I felt like a real GM. I was co-running a larp with friends, and we gave them the "map of the city with magical leylines" so they could figure out where to go next. We had convergences at all of the sites they should explore ... and also a set of 4 separate leylines coincidentally intersecting in the middle of nowhere. OBVIOUSLY the players wanted to go there, because that's where the most magical energy pooled. I moved the city's Archmagus (who they hadn't met yet, but were going to in like 1-2 more sessions) estate there and the players were rewarded for their "totally correct instincts" to "find the plot"