Oh Look, It's the Consequences of My Actions - Vox Machina, Ep. 26 | Critical Role Demystified 

What’s your favorite part of this episode? Besides the cows flying across the sky, that’s obviously the best scene 😂

To me yelling that someone’s soul was forfeit while emptying a 6 shot revolver into their chest would most definitely be something a friend should be asking about.

That moment where Allura confronted Tibs about buzzsawing that old woman is the exact moment that the romance arc between the characters died. It was excellently played by Matt.

When they’re talking to Ripley while she’s masked as an old lady and Scanlan says “We’re really good with old people.”

Kelith pushing a duragar into lava. "This is the meanest thing I have ever done!" Vex "No! You killed that kid one time remember?" Classic DnD dialog right there!

i'm a little late but complaining about Marisha metagaming at that moment makes no sense because she _literally lost her concentration_ and gave up her round of combat to just stare at Percy in shock among hearing him say "your soul is forfeit"

I personally don't find Keyleth/ Marisha reading so much into Percy's words as pure metagaming because Keyleth IS the sensitive one. She IS the one who worries. She was skeptical of Kima and now she's weary of Percy. To me, even tho a bit of it is metgaming [Marisha's experience with Matt as a DM and knowing a bit of Percy's history], it's all in character so it makes sense. 🤷‍♀️

On "Your soul is forfeit!", it seems like a legitimate doubt to think Percy is implying something greater: The guy is a scientist, at best a fatalist. Not the kind of guy to put metaphysical flair on an execution. "Your life is forfeit" would be in line for Percival, but talking about soul? And in a way that sounds like he's cursing the person? That's suspicious from that guy.

I loved the scene where the group is able to talk the druid into relocating the roc and Matt revealing that he was anticipating a fight with the reveal of the map. The whole moment has big "Look how much you've grown" energy. And then Travis says "Missed opportunity" lmao

Interestingly, if you make the mistake of reading the twitch chat you can actually see the audience struggling with the shift into what the show is becoming. I remember this was the episode I started covering up the chat because I just couldn't take all the complaining that they were solving the Rok problem through roleplay rather than violence. In hindsight especially it seems even more ridiculous since the character moments are pretty much the main selling point of Critical Role, but even at the time it baffled me seeing people getting mad that they were talking through it rather than just throwing dice at the problem in just another fight. Maybe that's just me though, combat was always my least favourite part of the show.

Man, Orion and Tiberius is really in a different campaign at this point

Time for my weekly lamentations that Tiberius, a *character* who I really liked and thought was a lot of fun on paper, was....played by orion.

I like Keyleth’s rant about pushing the Roc off on other people turns into Marisha ranting about how bad of an idea it is.

While I generally don't like to further dogpile the guy, this episode does include 2 more areas of Orion not quite jelling with the group that Mike sort of skips over, each a problem for different reasons. 1) The scene where Vax offers Tibs a drink. Liam clearly intends this to be a bonding moment between the two as the two characters share a drink and a contemplative chat together, something Liam is quite fond of doing (i.e. Vax asking Scanlan how he stays so cheerful or any of the talks with Percy post Purvons tomb). Orion, instead, makes the scene all about Tiberius by drinking the whole flask and makes the scene a comedy bit about drunk Tibsy complaining about it lot. It always kind of stood out as a point where role-playwise Orion didn't seem to read scenes the same way the others often dead. 2) The scene with drunk Tiberius hugging a frustrated Keyleth is made more awkward by the fact that Orion is actually touching Marisha in that scene, so it's hard to tell how much is roleplay and how much is a frustrated Marisha actually getting annoyed with Orion . This could just be reading too much into the situation, but the scene for me is coloured too much by the fact that 1) Orion would later go on to make comments in game that clearly didn't fly with the cast (the infamous 'half-chub' line) and 2) orion would go on to be accused by ex-girlfriends to at least be emotionally abusive.

I recognize a lot of Orion in other people I've played with, who maybe don't understand that the stuff you're trying to skip past is supposed to be part of the fun. He's trying to get Allura to fix their whole problem with the crown so they can go back to adventuring and the "fun stuff", whereas the rest of the crew seems to recognize that needing to prove yourself, to remain in good standing, and have a little bit of the political intrigue, a little bit of being good while still being a game where murder is seen as a "win" at times, is part of what they want in the game. They don't want do just skim past authority with a warning like a lot of groups, they want to be in good standing with the king, to be seen as protectors of the realm. Notice how in season 1 of the animated show, there's a lot of playing up of the not-so-nice parts of the characters (Vex, Vax, and Scanlan's deserter mentality, Keyleth and Pike's insecurities, Grog's murder tendencies, Percy's tunnel vision when it comes to the Briarwoods) just to get them to a point where they grow into the characters we see them as, and so they can be not trusted by Uriel. If this group as-is were the ones in the animated show, I have no doubts that it would be a different story. Which is shown when they're allowed to go about the city vs being placed under house arrest. The actions are similar, but the flavor is different. I also think Matt calls attention to the fight that killed Pike to remind the audience as much as the players, since we weren't there to see that part.

"Tiberius hugs Keyleth". More accurately "Orion hugs (and paws at) Marisha". It's one thing to have a *character* touch another *character* without permission, it's a total other level to have a *player* do it to another *player* (and to seemingly decide to make his character get drunk *so* he can do it and blame it on 'roleplaying'). While there had been problems before, THIS was where I reached my 'WTF! They need to ask him to leave" point.

38:45 it wasn’t mentioned in the video, but I loved how after they all made the deal Vax, who was hiding the entire time, literally over 30 minutes of real time, walked out of the nest from behind the Druid, just to let him know he was ready the whole time. Such a small moment and the deal was already done but just an example of “anime badassery” in DND

The fact that "if someone says, 'stop touching me,' stop touching them" is a lesson adults still need to be taught is just....... 🤦‍♀️ As I watched this episode back when I was first starting CR, what I got from it was that Matt was pretty handily reining in what he saw as a slide down to murder-hobo-ville. MANY players were guilty of bad behavior, but only one of them refused to learn when presented with consequences. This moment (and other moments in the Briarwood arc where, spoiler free, Keyleth seems to be the only person who thinks about the consequences of careless decisions) is one of the reasons I actually really grew fond of Keyleth early on.

Keyleth is a high WIS, empathetic, overtly moral, often extreme character. If anyone is going to notice something off in her friends, and pursue it uncomfortably, it makes sense it's her. Especially with regard to Percy (before his later relationship). Not saying Marisha has never metagamed, but I think Keyleth's low CHA bumbling tricks us into thinking she has poor insight in general. Edit: I see many people before me agree!

Not to imply this was something Orion was going for but there could've been something really compelling about a Tiberius "fall from grace" arc. Where his experiences at the beginning of the Briarwood Arc led into a humbling of the character. Suddenly his name doesn't mean all that much, friends start to call him out on his behavior, etc. If this happened, it would've been cool to see him overcome these struggles and be a better person because of it. Again, I don't think that's what Orion was going for, especially since his proposed side series seemed like "The Cool and Awesome Tiberius Show", but just a musing I had recalling the drunk Tibs scene.

I didn't think that how Keyleth pointing out "your soul is forfeit" could be metagaming. In my perspective, Kiki and Percy are pretty close friends at this point and with that in mind along with Kiki being pretty adverse to extreme violence and on the more cautious side I personally saw it pretty within character and character knowledge to be like "something's wrong here" while the rest of the party (most of whom were involved in the brutal killing of the old woman and the rest being pretty okay with the level of violence so far) waving off something being seriously wrong in favor of it being another example of their recklessness especially since Percy appears relatively mild-mannered when not in No Mercy Percy mode. Also, as someone who likes that sort of RP and is in a game where the party does too, this sort of interaction where someone points out someone being not okay and everyone going "noooooo, they're fiiiiine!" is just a fun way to rack up the tension as a party member starts to lose it. That's just my opinion tho! I can definitely see how it could be considered metagaming.

Glad Oreo is here to help us get through Orion's nonsense, love your videos Mike.

Ah yes, Consequences And Cows, one of the best episodes of campaign 1 hidden inside one of the worst. Really good work calling out the good and the not so good with measured fairness.

I didn't have a problem with Keyleth picking up on the "your soul is forfeit" line, because I had the same reaction (and had pretty much forgotten the hints in Percy's backstory reel anyway). When he said that I remember perking up and going "Oooh, that could either be just a dramatic one-liner, or... something else is going on..."

I’m catching up on CR and just started the Chroma Conclave arc, and one of the biggest differences between how Orion played Tiberius versus how the rest of the table played their characters? If Orion found something “boring” he makes Tibs absent, while also demanding DM Attention and also forgetting his character wouldn’t be privy to information as a result. If Tibs can’t be in the limelight, Orion refused to be invested more often than not. Meanwhile, everyone else is playing “Yes, And.” Matt brings in the Briarwoods? Tailsin plays up No Mercy Percy. Marissa plays up Keyleth’s perceptive nature to again follow that thread (especially since Ashley/Pike couldn’t be present as the other moral center for Vos Machina). The other players then played their characters as “it’s probably nothing…okay no, that was pretty bad. Let’s keep an eye on Percy.” It’s all working together following prompts the DM is placing while Also being stoked to see another player get to shine. IF it’s “metagaming” it isn’t done to “beat the dm” or upstage someone else. Meanwhile… “Oh so everyone LOVES Trinket? I’m getting a pet and steamrolling through its training and roll before the DM can even react (and totally ignore that the DM’s drawing through his own experience as a bird owner for this.) Percy got attention blasting someone’s chest in? Well Tibs has a chainsaw, feel Sad Boi Hours for him too. Scanlan and Pike have one-sided flirtations? Well now Tibs is going to get an erection while Vex lectures him for murder (who cares it made Laura, Travis, and the rest of the table deeply uncomfortable.) Vex makes a Nat20 on a puzzle designed specifically for her character? Well now Tibs will ‘assist’ and undercut it entirely.” Like…even without reading about some of the stunts Orion pulled away from the table, he wasn’t behaving like a player they could continue to play with.

So glad you're doing these. I know the next episode is bad...but also I'm kind of looking forward to the cringe. I am planning to literally pop popcorn for when I get to that episode.

If this episode is 41 minutes, I can't imagine how long the next one is going to be. Good Luck.

Was this the episode where Orion tries, for the umpteenth time, to come in with his, "I am the danger and doom and destruction" spiel with Tiberius, for Uriel(Matt) to shut him down? If so that was my favorite part because it felt like a moment where Matt became more willing to take control of the table and not just let players get away with stuff.

21:40 Subtle as it may be, Travis/Grog's reaction here is masterful :') Who are you and what did you do with Vex'Ahlia? (More seriously, that she was the first one to step up and tell them to keep the money was a power move that held much meaning.)

Great idea adding a cute furry co-host, it makes what is already a good channel even better! :D

I admire Matt so much for not going the easy route and instead actually making VM's actions, not only from the last night, come back to bite them. The start of this arc genuinely felt like their darkest hour for me. You also put my thoughts into words perfectly: it seemed a lot of the times VM decided to have a discussion about something important, or just engage in some roleplay, Orion simply removed Tiberius from the scene. Also the drunk Tiberius moment was so uncomfortable...but the flying cows are one of the most memorable moments of this show.

As someone who knew nothing about the context "your soul is forfeit" immediately sounded off. Obviously some of that is the meta knowledge that it's most likely meaningful but frankly I can't imagine hearing that and thinking that it's normal.

Great video, Mike! Uriel dressing them down at the beginning of this episode was one of the hardest scenes for me to get through in C1, but it was definitely important. I’m remember thinking when Tiberius left for his own quarters during the party’s conversation back at the keep “there he goes again, off to do his own thing” and I could feel that didn’t vibe with the party, and I didn’t know anything about DND or good play behavior then. (Still don’t know a lot, but what I do know, I owe to Mike!) my point is I think it was obvious that there was some kind of disconnect in game play within the group. In regards to Keyleth’s “metagaming”, I would argue that with her high wisdom, she probably has a high passive perception/insight and would therefore have gotten more out of that soul line. Here’s looking at you, Cad.

To be fair, Position of Privelege is a super weird feature in general. It's taking something that's inherent in storytelling and roleplay (status) and codifying it. If you apply the idea that "if you didn't take the noble feature, you can't get this benefit" to other background features you running into weird things like "No, you can't offer to work on a ship in return for passage, only sailors can do that." or "No, you don't know what library might have that information - that's part of the Sage background feature that you don't have." That's not to defend Orion trying to game the system as much as possible, which he definitely did, but I think background features should be considered a little "You don't need to do a check for this" benefit, rather than abilities that are unlocked by taking that background.

41 MINUTES?! Thank you for this one, Mike!

I will add, if you do happen to watch ep 27 just know that after that episode the show becomes something different, for the better. It's the lowest the show goes, but after we get some of the best CR out there!

My attitude as a GM historically has been to give my players lots of freedom, but to also state that actions have consequences. This has given me a reputation as a 'bloodthirsty GM', at least partly in jest, but sometimes my players where genuinely surprised when the undead chickens came back to roost.

All of these episodes have been great, but this one in particular has been super helpful for me with the current game I'm running. Finding a way to allow for player agency and fun with a party that would likely be pictured in the dictionary definition of "gray morality," while balancing consequences, has been my biggest learning curve as a new GM. I'm certainly not there to provide an ethics lecture for my players, but world-appropriate consequences are super important to me in order to make the world feel as real as possible. The point you make at 19:11 about the difference between actions in a dungeon versus actions within civilized society were just what I needed to hear to make the last few gears click into place. Thank you!

Even if Percy is, undoubtedly, my favourite Critical role Character. Kyelith is for sure my 2d favourite VM character, if not Cr Character in general. I never found a problem problem her, and find that the way you're walking about here here does her justice. I almost can't understand how other people don't see how good see is :) She's doing some very important things for the group, and they ain't easy.

The dog flip at 26:33 got to me lol.

Hope Oreo can return for the next demystified. Boy, I remembered this episode to be so fun and wholesome with the flying cows and half of it is about Tiberius getting so annoying (at this point I think I was getting so tired and angry of his behaviour).

Everything you said about Keyleth is exactly why I love her so much and why she’s crucial to the party. Keyleth is desperately trying to learn to be a good leader and doesn’t always know what that looks like but she tries to hard to do what she thinks is right. In a party like Vox Machina, who were pretty morally grey at this point, that’s so hard to do but without her I don’t think they would have become actual heroes. It sucks that the audience at the time only saw her as a self righteous buzzkill when she was trying to convince the party to do the right thing. Marisha said that Keyleth didn’t really become a leader until the Kraken fight but I think the Briarwood arc is when she starts gaining that confidence. One of my favorite Keyleth moments is later on in the arc when she’s the only one willing to risk her life to save civilians. It’s so hard to be the only voice of reason in a group but she never stopped fighting for what she thought was right.

I'm fairly certain Matt hadn't decided the roc encounter was a skill challenge until he could tell they were quite adamant to not fight this time.

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

Honestly in the context of CR the complaints about meta-gaming always annoy me far more than any time they've actually meta-gamed. Predominantly because I feel like the cast not infrequently go so far out of their way to avoid even the appearance of meta-gaming they end up making their characters either incredibly oblivious and/or incredibly dumb. A big VM example is Vax's talk with the Raven queen where Liam biffs dropping the one piece of information Matt wanted him to say, he didn't say it entirely because he could not remember if it was information Liam had learned out of game, information chat had given him, or information Vax would have. Vax should have known it, but Liam stumbled dancing around saying it just to avoid the internet potentially yelling at him for "meta-gaming". There are many other times things like this happen as well and for me at least it's always more frustrating than if they'd just do what they were going to do. For Keyleth, I genuinely loved moments like in this episode. It's very similar to the Sunken Tomb where Keyleth has a feeling of concern and unease after the ritual and places her hand on Vax's back to see if anything felt different or wrong. A moment of completely believable intuition from a deeply empathetic character that serves as also a great little character beat for her.

I wouldn't say this episode is peak Problem Player Keyleth. Her efforts and methods are more tempered and justified. Maybe there should have been an Insight, Perception, or Investigation check on her character's part. This episode is unequivocally peak Problem Player Tiberius. The lack of acknowledging consequences, the power gaming of the Background features, inability to read the table for increasingly tart jokes, the appearance of not paying attention to exchanges of that session. I will say the group evolved their playstyle, these few sessions playing a big role in the shift. Whatever happened outside of games probably didn't help a lot of the change in demeanor to be a smooth transition, and it's not like all the underlying problems disappear with a single player removed from the group. Some people talk about Problem Players like they're an unquenchable force of nature that can't be bargained with, but they are just people too. In a vacuum it can look like Tiberius as a character is getting saddled with all the sins of a problematic group of adventurers. And if it hadn't been for outside drama piled on top the adult thing would have been to talk it out. Most won't see themselves as being the problem, and just feel personally attacked, possibly even justifying in their mind their antisocial behavior. What Problem behaviors is more egregious in game largely depends on the group, some value immersion, balance, and not cutting in line. Others value respect, humility, and creating a safe space. Session Zeros get talked about in advice as a way to avoid miss aligned expectations for your game. There's even a term for revisiting these expectations as a group to address a change in direction for one reason or another. I imagine Critical Role did one when they swapped from Pathfinder to 5e. If they didn't meet up to do that, you can tell who did their homework, and who was still playing from the seat of their pants, most of the group was halfway in between. They wanted to share their experience via live streaming, and were aware not all their past shenanigans were gonna fly in the detail they had been used to up to now. Twitch ToS been a predictable hot mess over the past several years. Where before you had a table of friends with differing levels of intoxication, now you have a business, and your at a table with coworkers that require your active respect. This Corporatization of a beloved hobby has and will be an issue for many fans and players, and not every change will work for everyone. We can only really reflect, and make decisions for our own groups and games, but it takes the whole table to make gambling with character sheets a worthwhile story.

One of my favorite things about this series is being able to revisit this campaign after watching the second one, and after watching a bunch of oneshots.. and a couple Dimension20 campaigns.. and be able to more critically analyze what was going on, how I feel about moments, characters, etc. Vox Machina was my first foray into actual play, and basically my first foray into *theater*, so I didn't have the chops yet to construct and articulate my thoughts. Having this opportunity is such a gift.

The background features as a concept are a nice idea. but worfully ill-thought out in practice. They vary from the occaisonally useful, to the merely flavourful, to the potentially game breaking - and vary depending on DM interpretation, too. It would make more sense to give every character a 'favoured milieu' or similar, where they get some sort of advantage to social interactions because they are familiar with it.

Brace yourself, episode 27 is coming.

Mike, what you are doing on this channel is excellent. I actually just binged your last ten episodes of this CR series. I know its a lot of work but I will say having the clips is a huge help for us viewers. I have no interest in watching the first season. I finished season 2 and am in the middle of 3. I am watching the animated series, and I am interested in the story of Vox Machina. So this series is perfect. I need to figure out the best way for me to throw a little support your way. But I wanted to extend my gratitude.

Keyleth is 100% valid throughout the events being recapped, it sucks that people were apparently jerks about it

Brennan Lee Mulligan has an anecdote from when he worked at LARP camps where characters would die and the player would say something like "Oh, no one ever discovered such-and-such secret about my character." They cared so much about saving it for a big dramatic reveal that it never got addressed. It's one thing to keep interpersonal secrets (as in, secrets between two or more players) relatively private, but *personal* secrets fundamentally define the person and inform their words and actions. If you're a cleric of Orcus, you probably don't go around telling people that, but it should be obvious that whatever god you serve is evil. Personal secrets should be less a fly on the wall and more an elephant in the room; a situation the people around you choose to ignore until it inevitably boils over.

I just wanna say I know next episode is rough but I’m glad you’ll walk us through it

Thanks. I was waiting for the next video on the series. Great video.

Been looking forward to this series all week! Love these episodes

Woah, I didn't notice how long this video was! It flowed so well and all felt interesting and meaningful. Great job. I love this series so much.

Something I really wanted to mention because the thought occured to me. I want to clarify that I don't think this is what Orion was going for, however... I was really hoping that SupergeekMike would mention during the scenes of Tiberius "flexing" his "station". I agree completely, as a DM, that it definitely felt like he was trying to have two features. But for those trying to learn to roleplay. I just wanted to point out that in the hands of a empathetic and thoughtful roleplayers, his approach could actually be quite good. Trying to use your perceived privilege and station to no effect can be a good story beat for his character. Part of Tiberius' background (proof: the BG reads early campaign) is supposed to be that he is a bit of an outcast in his own society. That he "technically" has the station but hasn't even earned it in his own society. Him playing up that belief he deserves it makes perfect sense for the character that clearly should have that journey based on their background. It could have been done well. The issue at hand with Orion, I believe, is that the player did not seem to either want this storyline; or, did not realize this story beat had become opportune. That could be solved with some discussion outside the game between that player and DM so they can both tell that story together. Similarly, I think having the one "stuck in his ways" character actually makes for a good addition to the morality themes that will grow far more prevalent throughout this campaign. It gives the other side of the coin from Keyleth in these scenes. I would even argue it could have been even more interesting considering Tiberius and Keyleth were depicted as having a close relationship. Having them be polar opposites in the issue would have been compelling if done well by both players. But as SupergeekMike has said a few times now, it was clear that Orion did not want to play this style of D&D as this went on. And that is okay. Everyone plays the game for their own reasons. I am in no way excusing any behavior of Orion. Just wanted to share some fruit for thought for anyone who wants to tell a "Redemption" story or a "Proving your worth" storyline. Huh. Realized in my own closing thoughts... Keyleth and Tiberius are both telling the "Proving your worth" story in very different ways. One more morally questionable than the other. Probably explains the reason those two were so close early campaign. Neat. Sorry for the wall of text!

I’m so happy to see the growth of this channel. I’ve become more of a philosopher than a dm now thanks to this channel (in the best way possible).

Real Talk: I’ve permanently blacklisted 26 and 27. Because it’s too much of a mood whiplash AND because it’s the bottom of the barrel, respectively. So much so it actually made writing a fic of mine all the more difficult because I wanted to have it to where Keyleth and Vax reconcile after his VERY STUPID comment about the child, seeing as they’re back on friendly terms from Episode 28 onward. I did manage to write it, thankfully, and it’s one of my favorite stories that I’ve done, appropriately titled “Mending Bridges”. Also, I should point out that this episode was one of many turning points for whether Keyleth would either multiclass into barbarian, thus straying further from her path… or just leave Vox Machina altogether. There are crossroads like that which we aren’t fully made aware of until the Campaign Wrap-Up.

The Orion situation was so stressful for me as a viewer that I took a long break from the campaign directly after it all blew up… But this situation was a great “your actions have consequences” with the whole brutal murder situation.

Wow what a long episode! Stoked!

these are always so interesting and entertaining. Wish I was still catching up with the backlog.

Knocked it out of the park again, dude! Thx. Especially for injection morals and (Alignment!) into the game.

I found your channel because of critical role content like this but I stuck around for everything else you've put out. Keep up the good work :)

Great video brought out some things I didn’t even consider

Never clicked so fast, I love these!

I can't say that I've seen the show but I definitely enjoy your summaries and analysis.

Huh. I'd never have pegged you as the type to pick a curly white dog as your familiar, Mike, but here we are. I enjoy your content very much, thank you! And all my best wishes to you for...The Next Episode. (Dun dun dunnnnnn)

Great video as usual. And a very very good dog!!!

I discovered your channel shortly after I started watching Critical Role for the first time, and have been having a lot of fun watching your commentary as I go along. As of this one, my CR watching has caught up to your videos! Thanks for the interesting insights on the stream.

Best doggo

IIRC, one of the arguments made in the confrontation with Uriel was that he had been mind controlled once himself, already, as a plea to hear them out on the possibility. I don't know if Matt's reminders about that whole ordeal prompted it, but it feels worth mentioning.

About skill challenges and PCs using their highest skills - I think that's actually very realistic. Those skills are high because they are the things the character is best at, what they specialise in. IRL, that's the skills we all tend to fall back on when faced with challenges.

What I like the most about the Roc encounter is that it's a perfect example on how not every encounter with a monster needs to end in violence. That's something a lot of players seem to forget is an option. Also, it's a great way for DMs to bring in strong monster that the players really shouldn't fight by making the objective something different than combat.

Loved when. The cast goofing around as cows in this episode

Your dog reminds me so much of my dog. I'm getting teary eye. I miss him.

Here comes the dreaded Episode 27 I don't know if I should be excited or terrified these next 2 weeks

Over 40 minutes? Yessssssssss

I thought that was the point of Tiberious is that he is a noble but him using his position doesn't always work

Something i love about this show, are the little tidbits about your personal life we get to learn about you. About how recording audio in your old place was awful, about the move. Your job situation, and your new pet. You're a likeable guy. And i like the way you pitch becoming a Patreon supporter too. As soon as im able im definitely going to become a supporter. We need this to be a weekly series of we ever want to catch up 🤣

Oh boy. So ready for Episode 27.

Loved seeing another one of these popping up on my sub feed, fantastic video as always, I can't tell how vindicated I felt to hear you highlight the exact same thing that ticked me off so much when watching this ep, tiberius (without dm approval or even bothering to inform him at all) using two backgrounds simultaneously and then trying to claim he was only using half of each when he immedietly demonstrated both parts of both and had been doing so consistantly since the start but except for the reseacher feature just not really being needed till recently. I was so shocked when that was brought up and it was clear matt had zero knowledge of it. I have been loving these episode breakdown so much that i have actually slowed down my watching of critrole so that I can watchalong with these and we arent far from catching up now since i have only seen up to whispers and i am so excited for hearing what you think of the handling of the enemy territory :)

I genuinely can't wait until you get to the episode with the counter spell (9) (wish). I haven't seen a great breakdown of just how profound that moment is, and I've looked. They try but I like your delivery and breakdown of character, I think hearing you break down the real life implications of that moment will be fascinating

This episode was the "calm" in the eye of the storm before shit hits the fan next episode for a variety of different reasons and looking into it and seeing where the signs of what was to come already showing makes what happens next all the more... chaotic.

I know a lot people don't like the level-headed one in fiction because they try to "stop the fun exciting things from happening". It's the same phenomenon that they see in various movies and shows where you have a person, most often a woman, being reasonable and logical and trying to put the train back on the tracks get a ton of hate for doing what a logical person would actually do in that situation. Like in Breaking Bad, people hated Skylar because how dare she want Walt to stop, but honestly, if anyone was in that situation, they would do the same (at least I hope). Keyleth's arc is about finding out what kind of leader she wants to be. She's been thrown out into the big strange world to have these experiences and actually ask these questions! If she never asked these questions, I would never believe her as being an effective Voice of the Tempest. She needs to able to question why Percy, a man that doesn't put his faith in gods, says something like "Your soul is forfeit". Not your life, your soul! Something specifically connected to faith and gods and the ethereal. Things that Percy "has no interest in". That's a red flag so I never thought of that as meta-gaming because it just fits. I found it strange that he said that. It's not a leap to have her, a caring empathetic person who's been around this guy to ask him wtf is going on because clearly something is very very wrong. Also, she needs to know why someone would be that brutal and that angry and that single-minded. Being an effective leader depends on her learning these lessons and getting them right! Personally, I always hated Tiberius's "But I'm a Stormwind so the rules don't apply to me" attitude. It grated on me hard. This whole situation with the old woman just pushed me over the edge with the character as a whole, especially given that the same argument could be applied to Pike and her death. The enemy could use the same excuse. "She tried to kill us so who would expect us to let her go". Alignment doesn't factor into it. The situation has been reduced to survival and if the idea is "gotta get them before they get me", well, the enemy can then use that excuse too and then what. My philosophy is, if you want to be the hero, act like it. If you're self absorbed and rude, people aren't going to like you and won't want to do stuff for you, no matter what you do, and eventually, some real heroes will show up to put a stop to your tyranny.

On the brutality and the difficulty of toning it down, I've seen in multiple games that when you get to initiative, most players get into, let's say "First Person Shooter" mode, where it's hard to realize what you're doing, how you're doing it and how brutal it is until the dust settles. (per example, using a fireball to clear a group of bandits is perfectly fine as a defence standpoint... But if the group is playing a band of non-murderous optimists, the realization that there was an explosion and now all the bandits are decorating the nearby trees or at least were violently rendered unconscious in a round... That can cause whiplash to the players and GMs alike.) And I think one of the reasons it's so hard to do "non-lethal" combat is that it's much easier to say "swing, hit, wound." After all a lethal attack is assumed to be the normal way and for a non-lethal you have to call it every time. But also, it seems many GMs just... don't explain or refresh the group on the ability of doing non-lethal attacks (WHEN it's a thing, many systems just don't have the option.) Also, give mages goddamn non-lethal attack spells. It's so frustrating to me that in DnD and such you have the choice between crowd-control that is very limited, attack spells that hurt bad, or even duration AoE spells that will kill the baddie that had the bad taste of falling unconscious in the zone. I mean Force damage spells could have been an always-nonlethal damage type.

The gnome druid really irked me the first time i watched this episode. Namely just i thought that their logic was incredibly circular. They were allowed to travel all across the continent looking for the best place to settle. All so this Rok could move to a place without predators. The Rok's ecosystem was destroyed and the solution is to ruin all these other ecosystems by introducing a new apex that doesn't belong? It is all summed up with the idea that they think its moral to protect the Rok but doesnt understand why farmers would want to protect their cows. The farmers have adopted to the surrounding ecosystem, live in accordance with it. The Gnome destroyed it.

Love this series, your channels is great. Never really thought about players not being able to be as persuasive as their characters, I guess not everyone is a silver tongued devil who used their persuasion skill to get through college lol

It wasn't an "old woman" it was a bandit/assassin that was going to kill them. The bandit in this case happened to be elderly and female.

I need the next episode like.... NOW. Telling me not to watch it doesn't make me NOT want to watch it, Mike.

Regarding the background combination, I feel like how I'd handle it would be: if someone wanted the flavor of Noble but the feature of Scholar, they'd come from a disgraced or fallen noble family. That way there's no way the Position of Privilege feature would work, and in fact it'd have the opposite effect if they tried to use it. (Also, restoring the family name or uncovering their secrets could be a fun plot hook) Also thinking about the world logically, I don't think it makes sense for Tiberius' standing in Draconia to have any influence in Emon or Kraghammer anyway. They're on a different continent, and Draconia is a floating city distanced from the rest of the world's politics. To them he's just a silly upper class guy who likes saying his name. (This is in fact my favourite aspect of Tiberius as a character and makes me wish he had a better player)

You just so happened to upload at the exact same moment as the official Critical Role Account.

Pathfinder Initiative is a great example of this "When rolling your initiative, you either roll Perception or the stat you are currently performing when initiative started." - this has lead to EVERY SINGLE person I've RP'ed with answer with "I'm ALWAYS reading my ARCANE book to roll Arcane in initiative." or "I'm ALWAYS skulking and sneaking wherever I go to roll SNEAK as my initiative". I know Paizo didn't foresee this nor want this with PF2e, but its happening now. They might of well just told people to roll their highest stat modifier for Initiative because players will jump through flamming hoops backwards after being doused in gasoline in order to explain why they're rolling their highest skill (Even if its Persuasion) at the beginning of combat.

I went ahead and joined your Patreon. I really hope you can do this weekly soon!!!

Obviously talk to your DM, but making custom backgrounds is in the PHB

I feel like some of this episode just highlights the issue with granting access to certain roleplay scenarios to a background instead of just letting the character do it if it makes sense. Tiberius was both a sage and a noble, so I don’t think it was necessarily bad for him to try to exercise those areas of his character, but because of the features tied to those backgrounds, it makes things convoluted. It’s not like a character shouldn’t be able to show off his nobility just because he was a shut-in, or if a character is a good cook but also a bounty hunter with criminal connections. This is partially why I’m considering doing away with background features in my games entirely, or at least revamping them to affect roleplay less. EDIT: Not to say that Tiberius was in the right for trying to switch features, he definitely wasn’t, I just think the character’s roleplay and the capabilities of what they can do based on their background should be determined by the player and not a feature. Once you make roleplay elements into a feature, it convolutes whether or not other character can do a similar thing without the feature, at least in my opinion.

This episode always cracks me up in hindsight because when Campaign 2 started, the whole cast was talking about how the new characters aren't like Vox Machina, they aren't boilerplate heroic figures. Like...VM were for a long time such bigger arseholes than M9.

the sticky note covering up the twitch chat is perfect

I've watched the cartoon's first two seasons (the only two released at the moment when I'm typing those words) before I started watching the actual play, and I always watch tose videos right after I finnish an episode. I think it's the perfect episode to talk about something that I've been thinking a lot about for some time: It always surprises me to see so many old fans say they didn't like Keyleth much in the actual play but love her in the tv-series, because I have almost the opposite experience. When I see Marisha play her as a ttrpg character, I can't help but feel like the animated version has been defanged and looks far younger (if not childlike), inexperienced (despite technically being as experienced as everyone else in her team) and less self confident or talkative. Obviously everyone can like or dislike either version of the character (or both) for very different reasons, it just keeps amusing and surprising me to see people talking about an experience that is opposite to mine.

Aww what a cute pup 🐶