TO ANYONE COMING TO COMMENTS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT A "LAUGH TRACK": There is no laugh track. The clip at the beginning of the video is from one of their live shows, where they were on a stage at a convention playing in front of a live audience. There is no canned laughter involved. They have done several episodes on stage in front of an audience, including I think 3(?) Of their one-shots and a couple main series episodes.
@@BriannaZumbro Haha no problem. I'm sure it's been frustrating. My comment probably isn't going to do anything but I figured it's worth throwing it out there to maybe detract SOME people from being obnoxious.
"Why did you put a laugh track?! I couldn't hear anything" "I didn't. those are genuine laughs from a genuine audience. It's almost like they're funny"
Yeah I know he found it really frustrating being that limited (and that's what happens when a random one off character with 6 int runs for years) but holy shit does it take some big brain acting to figure out how to be as dumb as possible at all times
It's a great question in that moment because it shows that Grog isn't straight up cartoonishly stupid. He understands everything (as long as he knows what the words mean) but can lose track of details or context. His mind was still on the dragons, and as those were the last "they" that were mentioned, that's how he understood the question. Brilliantly played by Travis.
Travis set an example on how to play a low intelligence character. No speaking from himself in third person, no utter bullshit that cinematography would sell as "oh, haha, look at him, he's dumb!"- Just a perfectly acted out character with low intelligence. Travis is just gold.
And then doesn’t even give him his full name on a 12 intelligence check just giving him the first 2 letters also kinda cruel I definitely got the sense that that whole scene while very funny was a big reason Grog tried to learn and get smarter every time they had time off
@@EdsonR13 no, but to take away EVERYTHING? Damn, like maybe at least let him keep 10% of what he learned. Again, still funny just really cruel. But honestly, that’s one of the reasons it’s funny
@@delmerputnam1679 I dont think it was literally everything, but saying it was is a good way to see how serious grog was about learning and he ended up sticking with it. Besides I dont think Pike was really the best of teachers
@@delmerputnam1679 The reason is because in the previous version, barbarians have a feature that literally stops them from being capable of reading. And Matts knows this, and even though nothing in 5e does this, he still had that character feature from a previous edition.
Tropes exist because they are enjoyable and interesting. However, its easy to take a trope and turn it into a patronizing stereotype. Its a very fine line.
Proof that a vanilla human fighter or Goliath barbarian can be just as interesting as some crazy combo of class and race. Its all about how you play and develop them
Okay but like, after seeing stuff like this from campaign 1 and jester's crazy antics in campaign 2 I want nothing more than to see Grog and Jester go out on adventures and shit together. They would perfectly fit the whole "2 halves of the same braincell" trope and I would fucking love it.
Grog learning the Alphabet is easily some of the absolute best roleplay I've ever seen. Grog is not a complex character, but to have everyone else at the table fucking dying takes some serious cleverness and good acting.
I think Tal played a bit into Percy's "burden of knowledge" and had him delight in the simple way in which Grog sees the world. The "oh to be a child again" angle.
i love how Matt was going to warn them about how the alphabet would not translate to giant, but then realized the comical value of what was happening and let it play out
@@ThePluralApostrophe Well, then you should know that it isn't a laugh track. That was a clip from one of their live shows, which to be fair, when watching it I also thought it was a laugh track, and it really should have been put a bit later in the video. But yeah, it's there for like 30 seconds.
I love the way everyone in the cast smile/laughs at grog’s “dragons can fly” because it’s a great dumb line… and then each one kinda gets this fond expression like “yep, that’s OUR idiot… and we love him”
In my head cannon, Pike taught Grog how to spell his own name. He gets pretty confident with it, and learns to spell Pike's name as well. They were having a real friendship moment, and then the potion starts to wear out. Grog can feel himself becoming slower, duller, and he panics a little bit. He's worried that he's going to lose a part of himself. He snatches the pen and keeps writing his name over and over again, but the more he does it the slower he scribes. On his final attempt, he spells out 'Gr' and then his hand trails off, incapable of going any further. He slumps back on his chair, disappointed, and sheds a few tears in self-pity. Pike comes to him to try to comfort him, and at her touch he remembers where he is. He hides his sadness, makes a completely hair-brained excuse to leave, and returns to his room to rest and let himself feel vulnerable. The thing that really disappointed him is that he forgot how to spell Pike before he forgot how to spell Grog. 'Grog' was the only word he knew, a lonely word on a lonely sheet of paper
Now I kinda want Grog to come back in something like either showing up in a campaign or a one-shot a few years after the end of campaign one with an intelligence of 8, reading and writing like a child, slowly and painfully mouthing the letters before finally actually reading it.
"You have 4 letters in your name." "4?" "But 2 of them are the same, so you have 3 letters in your name." "3?" "3" "I'm not so great with the numbers either." I laughed so freaking hard!
So, I had never seen grog learning to write before, nor had I heard about it. Probably three or four years ago now, I was running an Orc named Thok. Thok had six intelligence. I had a self-imposed rule that Thok took 1d6 of damage for using a word above two syllables, he didn't know how to read or write, and he was weirdly a lot like Grog in a lot of ways, even though I had never even heard of Critical Role at that point. We ended up more or less settling in a town, and I had managed to come to own a tavern in a rougher part of town. My idea was basically, "Thok own tavern, Thok drink for free." In the course of me becoming a small local business owner, a NPC that was part of our party taught me how to read. The DM had me make a series of intelligence checks to see how I did over the course of a week. I did pretty good until I rolled a nat 1. The learning hurt Thok's brain to the point he went on a blind rampage. Outside his tavern. In the shady part of town. Thok ended up accidentally chasing out all the local thugs and inadvertently gentrified the neighborhood. That NPC disappeared shortly thereafter, having learned she was an heir to the kingdom we were now living in, though her claim was rejected by the steward (a la LOTR). Well one day, she returned. With an army at her heels. Thok heard she was coming back and made a giant (mostly spelled correctly) banner that said "welcome back teacher!" While everyone was preparing for battle, I unfurled it over the gate. No one inside could see what it said and just assumed it was a banner for the keep. The DM laughed his ass off when I handed him the note of what it actually said. Oh, at some point, kobolds attacked the city. Thok and the party killed them all, but Thok killed the last one by. . . Mushroom-stamping him. He had the body stuffed and preserved, and became a statue that stood just inside the door of the tavern, a nice, long concave dent ending in a bulb on his forehead. We hired a mage to cast Magic Mouth on it so it welcomed people into the tavern. That was a pretty wild campaign. . .
5:33 My favorite part of moments like this is you can see how hard Travis has to try to dumb himself down to Grog's level and it is absolutely hilarious every time 12:33 The way Ashley says this sends me laughing every single time. It's SO GOOD
It’s from a Dungeons & Dragons streaming show called Critical Role and it’s amazing! They’ve done two full campaigns and the episodes are all on RU-vid. These clips are of the character Grog from the first campaign. If you’re interested in trying the show but overwhelmed by the amount of episodes, they’re actually in the middle of a mini campaign right now called Exandria Unlimited that’s only going to be 8 episodes. The first 4 episodes are up on RU-vid and they stream every Thursday at 7pm pacific. Here’s their channel in case you’re interested: ru-vid.com
Soooo many people in this comments section just,, don’t know about the live shows?? This video seems to be a very strange wormhole to a Grog-like alternate timeline...
Honestly same I hope we come across him and end up getting a favour from him or something and he just goes oh come in to my office I’ll write yous a letter and successfully does so
I love these videos of yours, I always know where to go when I feel down and I just need some amazing Critical Role to cheer me up 😊 And just bc I am seeing it rn, would you consoder making a Taryon learns VM names one?
I have a halfling barbarian with a 7 intelligence. She saw a skeleton and decided to poke it. My personal favorite was when the other barbarian threw her through a door and she was too short to reach the handle. I tried to channel Grog.
Bidet! Great work on the compliation! 10 out 10! Loved your work with the laugh track, too. Employing all those people to attend a recording at the "studio" and laugh without years of experience and training was top notch. beep beep
Comment section showing off their intelligence score. You do have to scroll to the bottom but it's like 30 comments talking about a laugh track that doesn't exist for the clips that came from the live shows with real audiences really laughing.
