Praise the chatroom!!! | Critical Role Ep 27 

Fuck yeah, I love that :D there's so much there for some really great flaws too, bias against rich rolks, distrust of establishment, really simple but there's so much that can be done there!

That's totally fair. The idea of stepping on moments in D&D is complicated, and it's something that largely depends on vibes (like a lot of things in TTRPGs honestly XD). Like, in some cases, stepping in and getting involved in other peoples activities is like, the essence of D&D, and it's hard to write down, on paper, what the difference between getting involved in something vs taking something over is because it depends so much on the feelings of those involved. Which can make it tricky when watching something like an actual play, but in this case I think it's very obvious that Orion is stepping waaaaaay over the line :P

@@MegaphoneMan0 Yeah totally. It was almost like 'this has already been discussed out of session, and you never even said you were there as tiberius before the rolls started, we're moving on'

I have heard similar sentiments about Sam echoed in chat before, and I am very psyched to see him grow as the show goes on :)

Another difference between Scanlan and Tiberius is expectation. Scanlan being sleazy and inappropriate is well a established character trait, both for the audience and for the players. Tiberius is not sleazy or pervy though. When Sam have Scanlan make improper comments, he is playing his character, that is part of how we understand Scalan. But when Orion makes Tiberius do a similar thing, what even *is* happening? At best it is just confusing, even if Orion was as good a comedian as Sam is, the set up is not there, so the confusion would destroy the timing regardless. And, at worst, it doesn't feel like Tiberius making the comment which reflects poorly on the player.

I suppose, but to me it's sort of an extension of the true strike problem, the concentration aspect is really killer. I never find sneak attack so hard to land that I need to dedicate a prepared slot, a turn, and a spell slot for a save or suck that is also concentration. Even the AOE aspect is pretty mid to me. Most of the time I'd personally opt for Ice Knife or Entagle if I want to contest a large amount of enemies effectively. I pretty much would only take it if I had the feeling that we were going to be going after invisible enemies.

For me, the big difference between a Faerie Fire type situation and True Strike is that True Strike is situationally difficult to pull benefit from. Giving all your allies advantage on attacks against the targets is a pretty strong group buff. Giving your rogue, fighter, and barbarian advantage can easily swing a fight another way. I think I'm similar about using Entangle. I rarely ever use that spell.

That's totally fair, I think Faerie Fire is an actually useful spell and True Strike is fundamentally mis-designed, I more bring it up to highlight the concentration aspect. I do think that Faerie Fire is situationally useful, and the difference between situationally useful and just straight up useful can often be a difference in perspective, table, or just opinion.

honestly!!! I will say, it was DEFINITLEY awkward and boring XD I got no argument there, but I just kept waiting for another Vex Arrow situation! It all makes total sense in retrospect, but after thinking about this situation for so long it really did go out with a whimper compared to what I expected.

There's a tough balance here. If we're looking at this from the perspective of a media piece with actors playing characters, then I don't disagree. It's a good way to teach a lesson to Tiberious Stormwind. On the other hand, I pretty patently dislike in-game consequences for out of game disagreements or misunderstandings. If this is Orion Acaba not getting something, that's an interpersonal issue that should be resolved off-table, outside the context of Critical Role the media project. Giving Tiberious a consequence for Orion's shortcomings is a road and tactic that I don't think should be encouraged

Lol, that's very fair. Honestly, when it comes to time and money, being within an order of magnitude is really all you can expect from a DM in the moment 😅 also sort of funny-impressive given that Xanathar's wasn't out yet, Matt yet again steals from the future 😈

oh, I completely agree. At this point in the watch through I've stopped commenting on the Scanlan discomfort (beyond an eyeroll or small comment) because I've just sort of said everything there is to say on it. His behavior is often weird, creepy, and I don't like it. However, I don't feel the need to harp on it because have been told that it gets better, and it doesn't feel like adding examples to the pile is all that productive. But yes, if Scanlan said that I would also probably find it uncomfortable. Probably not AS uncomfortable purely because I assume the table would have reacted differently, but it would still be very very creepy.

@@MegaphoneMan0 fair!!

I can definitely see that being what really kicked things off. Going straight from a bad meeting like that in to this episode is a very bad series of events. And I do definitely agree. It's one of the reasons I try to be really careful about letting players just do stuff without me understanding their goals. I don't want him to waste a bunch of time and resources (and all of our times) when he's just trying to do something I already didn't allow / didn't work.

Really? I thought it happened after 27. Daaaaamn, it must have been uncomfortable for everybody, to sit through this session already thinking about booting him. (I kind of think it was the business stuff ultimately that broke the camel's back)

Oh I remember those Twitter interactions. Threatening legal action against Critters doing creative things and chewing them out isn't a good look.

​@@ShadowyFox_86especially, because if I recall correctly the fan made the T-shirt specifically just for themselves. I do not think that they were selling that t-shirt which absolutely would be against copyright... But I think the fan was making the t-shirt for themselves and was not planning to sell it which made Orion's outburst make NO sense.

yeah you're totally right! I think some folks were talking about that in chat. Spellcasting is weird man XD we should all just play martials or Warlock. Keep the spell slots to a minimum :P

I understand your mindset, but I do think I fundamentally disagree with it. You are always going to abstract something, you are always going to have to draw a line somewhere. He drew up a "schematic", but that's closer to fan art than a blueprint. There is SO much that is abstracted here, that my level of abstraction isn't much more of a leap. I chose to, and think it leads to a better overall experience, to try and abstract to the level of the system I'm running in. The more you add on little homebrew bits on bobs for what is ultimately thoughtful philosophizing about how something might work in a world where the fundamental concept of health and damage is already abstract, the harder it will be to be consistent in the future. If the method really really matters, you are constantly and consistently boxing yourself in with stacked rulings that can (and likely will) interact in unintended ways, and I don't think that that future painful and restrictive experience is worth the small benefit in the moment. You will either have to ignore rulings from the past, or allow progressively more bonkers inventions to be crafted as the other spells and class features allow for creations beyond reasonable comprehension. Like, not to belabor this point, but the fact that mage hand allows for the manipulation of objects within a completely sealed chamber and arcane eye allows for vision within a completely sealed chamber already unlocks such a ludicrous degree of possibilities that trying to allow use of those factors to bypass the normal cost and power recommendations within the game seems like a bad idea. I will also say, I didn't mean to imply that I would just make it equivalent to an existing item. I would look at what they're going for and use similar items to try and create a base cost and power effect. I'm also not one to typically do the whole "D&D isn't built for that go play something else" bit, but I DO think that if you have someone that consistently wants to craft, and you don't want to use the magic items system as a base, then you NEED to play a system that has a system or come up with an actual system for that methodology.

Summary: I don't think that wanting the method to matter is bad or wrong for D&D, but I do think that a system should be flushed out if it's going to happen as frequently as it does with Taliesin

Hello! I will hedge my opinion slightly by noting that I'm REALLY not hard on metagaming in general at my tables. However, even at my more permissive tables, where I start to have a problem is when character act on super specific information that the player has that the character has no feasible way of knowing. Where I diverge a bit from I think the majority of DMs is that I'm pretty willing to bend over backwards to justify characters having information to sync up the character and player knowledge. That said, I've NEVER seen Keyleth act on information it wasn't feasible for her to have had. I think a lot of the heat she got is rooted in 1. Woman, but 2. in that it is a bit harder to tell Keyleth and Marisha apart. It's a bit more obvious when Vax is saying something compared to Liam, Laura vs Vex. I can tell the difference relatively easily, but I can understand how a more generalized audience watching (especially if some of them have some negative biases) could find that more difficult. So overall, I haven't seen any instances that I would call metagaming from her, and in general I do think that people are a bit too harsh on the topic in general