Stealing From Other Player Characters? - Vox Machina, Ep. 46 | Critical Role Demystified 

Have you ever stolen from another player character, or has another player character ever stolen from you? (I’ve done both!)

Something I think is worth considering in the "stealing from guests" conversation: Guest players might be awarded magic items with less concern for balance, either because it'll help bring them in line with the party's strength, or achieve some specific fantasy, with the expectation that even if the item might be something the GM would avoid offering to the party, it's fine for the finite span of a guest appearance. Here, Matt already knew Laura might try to get this broom, and the party is exceptionally high level and thus the broom doesn't present some great shift in how the players can solve problems (and as illustrated here, Vex has room for a boost like the broom provides). However, in a lot of other games, I could see a guest show up with a powerful magic item, and the act of stealing it becomes a concern because it presents design problems for the GM if the item is constantly in play rather than just around for a couple sessions.

The bit about Wheaton being willing to sacrifice his character if needed definitely gave me a chuckle. His dice were certainly on board with that plan :D

23:25 - This point gets made often enough that it's not unnoticed, but it REALLY should be on a billboard. The ranger is clearly inspired by Strider from LOTR, the fact that *by design* Rangers can't just disappear into the undergrowth or express their mastery of the forest mechanically in useful ways like hiding... is just nonsensical.

I disagree that changing player alignment is removing player agency, it's rewarding players choices even if not how they want to be rewarded. To remove Laura's agency Matt would have told her no, she can't put his broom in the bag of holding without permission because she already chose to be neutral good so she can't steal from her allies just because she want's something. Matt just said, 'do whatever you want, but you don't know what the consequences will be'

On the alignment thing, what always bothered me was the jump. Like, why go from Neutral Good to Chaotic Neutral? Like, surely if a change was needed it should come in steps no? Why was she not made True Neutral or Chaotic Good? Honestly, I kinda understand where Matt is coming from. if I had to guess, at that point of the story I would peg Vex as Chaotic Neutral as well, myself. But that is just one more reason for why he really should have had more of a talk with Laura about what being "Good" means" to both of them (and also why he thinks she is "Chaotic"). They were clearly just not on the same page on that regard.

I should preface this by saying I love Laura - she's probably my favorite cast member and I adore her characters. No roleplaying choice is justification for online abuse. But honestly this particular Vex moment definitely did rub me wrong, and the guest seemed like he was trying to be a good sport but was actually annoyed about it. I have complicated feelings on the alignment shift but ultimately I think I like how Matt handled it. Less of a punishment and more of a reasonable consequence - do selfish things to the harm of others, move into an alignment that reflects your actions. In parenting terms (because I think about that a lot), a punishment is doing something to make the other person feel bad, but isn't related directly to the thing they did (you kicked the cat so no candy after dinner - unrelated punishment, teaches nothing). A natural consequence is something that happens without your interference (you refused to wear a coat so now you get to be cold - may teach something, but not always easily available or immediately understandable for every misdeed). And areasonable imposed consequence (which I think is mostly what Matt does here) might be, you colored on the wall so I'm going to put the markers where you can't reach them and you're going to help me wash the wall instead of going to the park. Washing the wall isn't fun, but it's also not an unreasonable outcome. Alignment, when used, seems largely to do with how the world interacts with a character (aka only a good-aligned character can attune to this item created by a lawful good deity, and it's the item/deity and not the character who judges the definition of "good"). In that sense, I totally get what Matt is doing. There are many moments in VM where he has to remind them that in game actions have in game consequences. As an aside, I don't use alignment in my games much, but if I did, I might also have made a call like Matt's here. I've definitely had characters show up stating they're "lawful good" and then going around and doing war crimes with the justification of "this is within my character's personal code of ethics and they perceive the action as good and right" and i just roll my eyes behind the DM screen and then have the world interact with the character in question AS A DANGEROUS MURDERER because that's the reasonable outcome of their actions. 🤷‍♀️

I hear you on the initiative thing, but I do really love the drama spawned at the start of encounters where Matt has to ask for several ranges before he gets a response. It just adds a dynamic of “oh sH*T” that I find super fun to watch.

I understand what you’re saying about the alignment - but I far prefer Matt’s approach over the approach of “You can’t do that, it doesn’t match your alignment”

My rogue made a joke on day one about how she should never be trusted with the bag of holding because they'd probably steal something. It was a joke, and they didn't steal from the party... until someone handed her the bag of holding and she saw there was a gold bookend in it. So far, no one's noticed it's missing, and I plan to send it home to my much smarter but sickly little brother.

The fact that Percy kept his good aligned status while Vex did not remains one of the great puzzlers of the series to me

I really disagree on your view when it comes to aligment. Its not a punishment to change the aligment, aligments are nothing but story bait. Laura wanted to play good well then she actually has to roleplay good.

Sooo, this is the first episode I watch on release date after binging the other demystified videos for the last two weeks. By far not as hard to catch up to critical role. Thanks Mike, thanks a lot. 🙌🏻

I legitimately thought the broom was a planned opportunity. Vex has been loving flying the whole time. I didn't even think it was an issue xD

I really feel your argument about the alignment but I still agree with Matt that your choices should reflect on the alignment. cause characters are able to change and grow that way. They feel more human. You get more attached to it and make you think what my character is feeling about it.

On the topic of alignment, I 100% disagree with you and agree with Matt Mercer. You don't get the benefits of a particular alignment if you aren't prepared to maintain that alignment. If a lawful good paladin thinks nothing of casually breaking the law or behaving with cruelty, then they're not being lawful good. If the player has an issue with the Dm changing their alignment to reflect their behavior because it robs them of some of their best abilities, then it's the player's fault, not the DM's. You want all the powers that come with being a symbol of purity and righteousness? Then you best be righteous and pure.

For initiative, if you use an online initiative tracker, you can just put the numbers in any order and then it will sort them for you. Super easy way to manage it

I personally love Vex’s selfishness, it’s an appropriate flaw given her upbringing and it prevents her from being too perfect. It’s also obviously not a Laura thing, Jester is blasé about money most of the time and freely shares, and Imogen is sometimes selfish but once again, it’s for character-relevant reasons. I’ve always seen alignment as descriptive and not prescriptive. I had a neutral good wizard who after a couple sessions shifted to chaotic good as I got comfortable playing as him and figured out his personality and motivations through RP. Vex’s alignment shift isn’t a punishment, it’s just a reflection of her choices- and as she grows as a character and gets over some of her insecurities around wealth and status, her alignment shifts back to good to show the change in the choices she makes

Wait, 4 druids? That sounds so interesting! I'd love to hear more about the party composition and how it came about

Seems like Vex was more of a Chaotic Good character. I do think the DM may adjust players alignment if their actions are outside of the box. It is basically the world reacting to their actions.

The vex alignment issue is something i have so many disconnected thoughts about. Because on the one hand, i absolutely agree with Matt that alignment should reflect the actions of the player character whatever those were. But i do also agree with you in that this was absolutely a breakdown of communication between Laura and Matt. But I also think that the GM, providing they can explain it with a TREND of behavior from the player, has a right to change their players alignment, even if they dont like it. I also think that he probably should have bumped her to Chaotic Good, avoiding the later mechanical issues and likely the feeling of punishment from being bumped from good to neutral

As someone who had their alignment reversed (chaotic good rogue to lawful evil rogue)... not due to actions but due to a bad (forced) pull from the deck of many things, it can come as a bit of a shocker... even a involved a bit of mourning about playing the character as I originally intended. Our DM had put us into a situation that we were faced with the demon patron of one of our players. The player hadn't been upholding his end of the pact in the patron's eyes, and so the demon gave us the choice of some very dangerous task or giving him a number. My character said "seven" not knowing that it would mean drawing seven cards from the DoMT. I actually got really lucky... six cards were good or at least non-harmful, but the seventh card was the fate card. I actually didn't find it until after the game ended. The DM let us take the cards with us, and when I got home I was checking out the artwork on the cards and noticed that I'd missed a card. The DM had told us not to look at the cards we picked until we went around the table and revealed them one by one. I'd been stacking my cards back under each other after I revealed them, and missed showing the fate card thinking that I'd revealed all my cards. Anyway, I did some soul searching and had to decide whether or not I told the DM about the missed card. I didn't want to since I knew that it would mean switching how I played my character and I really liked my character being an honest and good-hearted rogue. But in the end, honesty won out, and I confessed to the DM about the missed card. It actually turned out to be a good thing. The other players in the campaign love her, and it even made sense for her character arc since one of the other cards that I pulled from the Deck righted something from her past, but in righting that wrong it also meant that she changed her childhood and background... instead of being raised in a poor, kind and loving adoptive family, she was raised by cold and power hungery nobels who saw love as a weakness to be exploited. She isn't as much evil as she is calculating and cold. Emotion doesn't really factor into her choices... it's more, "How does doing this 'thing' benefit me? Does the result to me outweigh the cost/effort?" As one of her first actions withe the new alignment, she walked away from a sick child being held captive by hags because she saw no benefit to herself in helping the child. That's when my fellow players saw just how much she changed. lol Now, ultimately she did go back to speak with the child to get more information about the hags the party were about to fight, and ended up freeing the child. But she was also ready to kill the child if she thought it was tranforming into a hag as well. So, all that is a long story about how alignment changes, even forced ones, can add an interesting character arc to play. Vex always seemed to be more of neutrally aligned character... yes, she did good things, but she also did very selfish things (understandably due to her childhood) in equal measure. So, saying her character was "good" aligned was pushing it. The stealing of the flying broom was just a final step in Matt's eyes. I never liked the character of Vex all that much, though I never hated Laura, and I remember being very angry with Vex's choice of stealing the broom. It came on the heels of still being angry at her for her greed getting her killed in the Sunken Tomb, and causing Vax to enter into his deal with the Raven Queen. lol Matt also "punished" Pike for her actions early on in the stream. I don't recall if it actually involved an alignment change, but it definately resulted in a strain in her relationship with her Goddess. Pike was able to make ammends and restore the balance after a time, much like Vex restoring her alignment.

Love the initiative-list! Especially for a bigger group and with a more complex combat.

I think the problem with the way of dealing with alignment in this way is that Matt changing Vex's alignment is a meta-commentary on her character, not an in-world one. It's not that Vex did something wrong and then had some real-world consequence for it, and then subsequently changed her behaviour to going forward; it's that Matt made a meta change to Laura's character, and Laura didn't like it, so she decided to play Vex differently to try to get her alignment back. This is where I think comparisons to, say, Percy, are faulty, because on the one hand, yes, Percy's alignment didn't change despite doing some really awful things, but on the other hand, Percy experienced some very serious in-world consequences for his decisions. It wasn't necessary for him to be 'punished by the gods' with an alignment change; Percy got to see where the destructive path he was following would lead first hand. Contrast to, instead of changing her alignment, Matt had made it that Chris' character figures out that Vex stole the broom, becomes angry and takes revenge on the party in some way later in the story. Now you have an in-universe consequence for Vex, and have a legitimate reason for her to want to change her behaviour.

“It’s a 10/10/30’ tidal wave, how much water could that be, 50 gallons?”

The weird thing is, and slight spoilers for the next episode When Vex is with Scanlan trying to get the broom to work, and Scanlan is like "wait, you stole it from a candlemaker who was just trying to help us?" Vex (and I'd hope Laura recognized it too) kept saying "I know, I know, I'm a terrible person! But I really wanted it because I just wanted to fly" Call it a head scratcher after a scene where you repeatedly called yourself a bad person and voiced that it was a selfish reason for taking it that you don't agree that your character is no longer 'good'

The thing that always bothered me about Matt changing Vex's alignment is that he never changed Percy's alignment. Like Percy has done worse things than stealing a broom. Even other members of the cast called this out, I remember specifically Liam called it out in one of the Q&A's and I don't remember Matt ever actually explaining why he felt Percy's alignment shouldn't change.

I never really saw a large problem with Vex stealing the broom, largely because it was just a one-off guest and he was already playing such an obviously joke character. The alignment change alos didn't bother me because it didn't seem like a punishment, more as a natural change because Vex clearly wasn't being roleplayed as good, or at least as good as expected. Also, Gern being a joke character in such a serious episode also never bothered me, although if I went back to the episode I could see how it may. The entire episode just seemed t me like they were having a good time.

If i was Matt, i would have approached Laura and asked her to pick between some of the Neutral alignments. That way there still a consequence, but it atleast gives the player some agency.

Imho created works and achievements should not be deleted (or canceled) if the creator is deemed undesirable later. Everybody makes mistakes and many do something bad once in a while. And mistakes and bad urges are best prevented in the future if they are remembered to be learned from. By removing the good works/deeds of that person, we 1) punish everyone by not being able to enjoy what was done/created. 2)prevent people to learn from past mistakes and behaviours.

love your content man keep up the great work hope you're feeling better

I really enjoy how plainly you lay out optional directions players and DMs can take when faced with similar issues. It seems like one big piece of advice you give regularly centers around consent. I love this- and you may have a video talking about this. But I would love a video specifically talking about agreements and consent in the context of playing DnD. When should you seek to obtain OOC buy in ahead of time, vs when should you let it ride and play it out IC? As a DM, what is your role in mediating character interaction and collaboration both in and out of game? I would love an exploration into this from your experience and perspective.

To throw my hat in the initiative thing, back in college we always played in classrooms, with whiteboards, which meant I could just go around the table and have everyone say their number, then I could just sort it once everything was up on the board, which is extra easy because players are really eager to help with basic stuff when its on a whiteboard apparently. Including when you track damage dealt to enemies on the board and you have someone who can do addition in their head very quickly. When I get back into in person games, a small whiteboard to write on is definitely going to be part of my kit. Write them down, let your players sort them.

Regarding initiative: I make laminated initiative cards. Every player gets a card, writes their initiative on the card, and gives them to the DM. You can clean off the cards to re-use them when you're done.

For those wondering when she whispers her complaint to Liam, ep 58, 1 hour 12 minutes 30 seconds ish.

For initiative I use a set of magnets with the character names on it. Super easy to move around as players roll. I'll be enhancing it with the number list like your sheet has. Thanks

I have an idea for a new video series: controversial dnd moments and what we can learn from them (expanding into d20, dice camera action, that infamous Adam koebel moment etc)

Mike I really gotta disagree with you about Laura’s alignment change. Yes it sucks whenever the DM has to make a decision about your character, but let’s remember something you often say about Matt Mercer. Matt is a DM who very much strives to honor his player’s choices in game. Matt definitely created Taldorei as a world where the player’s choices matter and I would argue that allowing Vex to exhibit a string of highly selfish behavior without her alignment changing robs her of more agency than changing it. After all if you can do things like that and still remain Neutral Good the implication is your choices about how your character interacts with the world don’t matter.

For Intiative, I like to use Google Sheets or Exel. I have my players' names in column B, and in column A I can imput their number. Then I sort fron Z-A in column A, and I have everything in the correct order! It isn't perfect, but it saves a bit of time. I might shift over to the MCDM RPG method in the future, just having having the players pick who goes when and alternating between them and the monsters. Just thought I would share!

That initiative tracker is brilliant! Using this in future for sure!!

I appreciate, while also finding tiresome, the disclaimer at the top about Hardwick. (Tiresome, only because it feels like this unfortunate topic comes up fairly often, and I just find it a little exhausting at this point, while recognizing that it's a sensible thing to do.) It's always a tough thing to handle, and I think you handled it well. I liked Hardwick, I found that whole situation really tough to deal with, because I don't know what happened, I just know what she said, and what he said in response, and then I found myself less interested in spending my time with his work because it all felt messed up and unpleasant. But I can't deny I enjoyed a lot of his content, and I'm pretty against just erasing people from history because we find them questionable (it's just a bad way to think about history, even if it makes us feel better). So I'm glad you didn't gloss over his involvement, but also glad you didn't ignore the unpleasantness either.

I've used Matts initiative tracking for sixish years and haven't had a problem. But every works table is different

my thoughts on the alignment change the punishment argument is weird cause there are things that are predicated on being a specific alignment, so being one alignment vs the other can be what someone wants, so changing someone's alignment could be construed as a punishment.. but that's kind of the point right, the character was selfish and acted purely out of their own intentions multiple times until now and stealing from another player just cause she wanted their item (when it was apparent these items exist in the world cause he had one) should not be something the character can just do without any consequences. Just cause something is a punishment for bad behavior does not mean the punishment is bad, or unwarranted. Otherwise alignment has no meaning in a game if you can do whatever you want without any issues. You mentioned she was excited to be back to her original alignment 30 episodes later, when it took her 46 episodes of poor behavior to have it changed initially. Good, she should be excited. it should feel like she needs to earn that alignment back over time, since it took 46 episodes to loose it. if your not going to care about alignment in a game then there is no point in even having it, and actions done should be counted against the alignment. Like in older editions if your a paladin and lawful good, and commit a brutally evil act for w/e reason the god just says "nope no spells for you" and "punishes" the paladin for acting against their alignment, and then they need to essentially earn their forgiveness back over time (if ever)

to be honest after that happened and not being familiar with D&D to that extent, i kinda hoped it would have been just a broom that was flying because of the owner enchanting it

Thank you for explaining what you do with initiative. I recall you complaining about Matt's method earlier, and I'm glad to see you elaborate on it. That being said, I think I prefer Matt’s method. It just seems wasteful to print out an entire sheet just because my players *might* not be listening during initiative collection, when I could just use Matt's method instead and fit my turn order in the margin of my notebook (right next to the HP totals of my monsters).

22:05 Sometimes when players get creative you just have to take it on the Djinn! 😝🤣 *Djinn and Efreet are different but the pun is too good to pass up.

I use the range initiative style just to help organize the talk, and then write them in order. It isn't perfect, but it has helped me out a lot

I honestly don’t even play with alignment at all. I have a vague idea on my character’s morality and where they are coming from in their priorities and reasonings, but I still don’t really ascribe to alignments. Large part of this is due to the wide or narrow range other people perceive alignments and how these don’t always overlap for everyone’s understanding of the alignments. Not a bad thing! But I’d rather explain the complexity of my characters than throw it into a vague box. For example, I have a healer character, a ranger. They have a weapon and do head into danger and have taken down enemies assassin style (silent one shots and then pulling the body in and tucking it away). Yet, they also ran over to a dying guard, got a spear to the back by the enemy for the audacity of disguising themselves as one of them, and prioritized healing the guard so he didn’t bleed out. When asked why, I mentioned that, while my character will take out others, one of their main creeds is to preserve life where they can afford to. They do this from a place of protectiveness though, not necessarily as holy mission or the like. This means they will be sneaky and stealthy and even dip into being shady. But over all, their mind is on leaning the balance towards life and agency of people. This also means they lean towards a more rebellious vibed faction when presented, so long as it is for the people and community. Their priority is the preservation of their loved ones. In fact, this character is searching for a kidnapped childhood friend and has already intimidated many a captured enemy already to get information. Also they have swiped a few valuables when the party was broke to tide us over, but also been known to return looted items to the town where the bandits may have stolen it from. For all this, they are still considered the kind and generous healer of the group who will largely promote "good" aligned courses of action. So for alignment? I consider this roughly neutral good. I still know my character enough that, under the right circumstances, they will lean "lawful" or "evil" in their actions but it all depends on context for me. Anyway, my point is, that alignment is too subjective for me, so I don't lean into it. I feel it also restricts "evil" aligned players and makes it more difficult on a meta level for us players to have our characters get along and stay together as a party. I also feel it pushes people to lean too far into tropes and use that as a crutch rather than flesh out their character's organically. But thats me. I prefer a roleplay/storytelling style of dnd so it works in those types of campaigns. I can see how this alignment thing might be a better fit for a different style than my preference.

Damn, dude, not even a mention of "innocent until proven guilty"?

I believe the most problematic thing about alignment in D&D is how people insist in thinking of it as a roleplay tool... when it is actually a game mechanics. Simply put, it is, mechanically speaking, to have laser guided weapons. Considering the typical Good party of PCs, versus the typical Evil opponents, alignment is more than just a suggestion of how to behave or a gauge or how moral or ethical someone is; it is LITERALLY a weapon, because when you summon a Holy Hand Grenade and explode, blind, or banish a bunch of enemies around your unscathed friends, it is no different than casting a Fireball in a group of enemies among your party that is immune to fire damage. Powerful relics and artefacts are aligned based, which means that Good/Evil, Law/Chaos translate not only in good fun and roleplay, but in actual power. Not only points of view, but actual cosmic forces that interact and influence the world just like gravity or termodynamics, and a PCs control or resistance to those forces must be taken into account. So it becomes quite complicated to consider that alignment doesn't or shouldn't have an impact on the table other than roleplaying, because its presence is there and has to be accounted for in encounter balances as well. So yes, it does come to a certain level of punishment, specially for aligned based characters like Clerics and Paladins. Which is why the point of communication of expectations Mike brings here is VITAL. Excellent call.

the way i used to do initiative before the computer started to do it for me, is i would write out all the players initials as well as the monster initials or some other shorthand for them the go down the list and ask for their rolls. and id have them add their actual dex stat to help avoid overlap. then i'd just list out their initials in initiative order. and every time their turn was done, i would put a tally mark behind their initials. it also helped me keep track of how many rounds of combat happened. i also mathed out the amount of gallons in the tidal wave a few years back, and it was.... alot. roughly around 22441 gallons of water... a little bit more than 50...

For in-person play I always have a notebook page with the numbers 30-1 down the side, just like your doc. Simple to set up and use, can erase the vales between encounters, and use the rest of the page to track hit points and statuses

That list thing is a good idea. I'm gonna use that, thanks!

I've always felt Matt's initiative range strategy plays somewhat like a card game called The Mind hahahahaha

For your point on how Matt rules failures, I usually try to avoid this for certain checks, basically if I feel like the player's character wouldn't commonly fail this task (based on the fanatasy of the character) I'll describe as bad luck but if it's something I don't feel the character is usually reliable at I'll rule it as a failure similar to how Matt would (i.e. the heavy armour cleric crit fails the stealth check because their armour clinked off something, whereas the rogues crit fail would be more like a dagger falls loose from their bag or something)

Yess, perfect timing for my commute home!

My initiative tracking system is similar to your paper form method. I have a 3/8" dowel with evenly spaced marks up to 30. This dowel is attached to my DM screen like a flagpole. I have clothespins with my PC's names written on them. When I call for initiative, i just go around the table from left to right and clip names to the dowel at the appropriate value. For enemies, I have more clothespins with letters that correspond to an enemy list behind the screen. The added benefit of this system is that the players can easily see who is next without constant reminders of who is next in line.

I have seen four times in games that I have been participating in where a player stole from another player. I have never seen a campaign survive it.

17:15 Sticky tabs work great for initiative, and you can even color code them. Just write name and number, and then you can sticky them in order

17:03 I use this method now but it’s coupled with the index cards on my DM screen. I have sticky notes with enemies that I put up in between as a clear visual for me.

16:03 #irlproblems This doesn't happen in digital bc turn order is sorted automatically, or if you use a text editor, you can easily insert lines between given init order

I love your content, even when I disagree with some of your takes this episode. I can see your points of view and you construct such wonderful talking points. Excited for more and more episodes.

I'm catching up fairly well with VM, and the episode after Hardwick joined, is when it started to sink in. I was not a fan of all the interactions Vex (and to a degree the party) has been acting on or justifying why they did things. Like it was all very selfish means to get results immediately. Sam in the following episode I think did well by laying into her about the ordeal on a moral standpoint, but kind of backtracked by superficially stating "you hurt one person, so we'll have to help someone to balance it out, karma." Vex agrees and Scanlan quickly adds "for a person of MY choosing" knowing she might try to easy mark the task to absolve herself quickly. It's not my personal choice to upset other players or intentionally pvp characters, but it should be a discussion at some point if these issues arise. Lingering resentment for a minor thing isn't fun for a parties morality in the longterm.

I agree that alignment should be based on your actions and can change any moment but this should be said in a session zero

When it comes to initiative I do both. I have some paperwork that’s kinda numbered the same way, but I ask out in sections of 5. That way, only a couple of people at a time will speak up, and very rarely do I get more than 3 in the same block of 5. Idk, I think it works really well with my large party of 7

Thanks for sharing your initiative order sheet! I agree: For me, this would be so much quicker and easier to get everyone’s order.

As an Irishman I can say the accent is almost perfect, it's sounds quite good at moments

My group uses the number range system, but with one added tool: The Whiteboard. Each party member's name is on a magnet for ease of reuse and one of the players writes down every item on the list for easy tracking both for the DM and the players. This also makes it clear who is next and lets the players manage turn order a bit if the DM gets distracted for some reason. If the DM has any secret characters or initiatives, they track that behind the screen and insert them as needed. The whiteboard has plenty of other great uses, large scale maps, group notes, day counts, setting tone.

This is a lovely early Christmas and birthday present (my birthday is next Saturday). Missed catching your Twitch stream yesterday because I was sleeping. Maybe I’ll get the next one. XD

A thought about the moment where Vex attempted to hide, but didn’t have enough levels in rogue to do so - I remember hearing from somewhere that Laura had originally wanted to play a rogue character, but decided she would let Liam play the class instead and settled on ranger. Matt allowing the bonus action stealth roll, although against RaW, feels like the way to go to let her actually play out the character she really wanted from the beginning. I don’t recall where I heard that bit about Laura wanting to be a rogue but giving it up for Liam, but I also remember hearing the same thing happened with her wanting Jester to be a warlock but letting Travis play the part instead. I appreciate her looking out for the fun of the other players.

I play online so initiative tracking is simple, and built in to the vtt i use, so players can add their own or others to the list, and i often default to asking one player to say the nrs

One thing my DM's do for initative is write our character names onto small specialized magnets or tiles on a digital graph. then they just move those tiles around based on who goes first. Kawa goes before Kenneth? Okay, we'll move her tile above his. Bracken goes after Kawa but before Kenneth? Okay, we move Kawa up and slide Bracken in the middle. Zama delays her action to go after Bracken? Okay, we push her tile to be after Bracken as well. This way it's more fluid and flexible, and you don't need to write down any specific numbers, you just measure who goes before who by arranging them vertically in a column, and having some method of determining who's term you're on. be that by moving a tile to the side briefly, or having a separate tile that points at the tile of whoever's turn it is.

Regarding how Matt handles failures/successes, there's definitely a shift in approach after Campaign 1, where he introduces the "which brings you to a total of?" principle. I.e a Nat 20 won't automatically make your character good at something they're bad at (e.g Grog on Intelligence). Regarding low rolls not being a character's fault, I often find it's best if it's left up to the PLAYER to roleplay hilarious failure if they want to. There's many times when the cast of Critical Role do this, though it's tricky to encourage this as more metagame-y players might not want to make their character fail. I love the Gern lore drop because, like you said, it's played as a joke in the moment. But coming back to the episode after later developments and I realized what seemed like a non-sequitur at the time was actually foreshadowing major things about Draconia. The whole tails vs no tails thing was interesting to speculate about because Matt... probably intended it as an arc for Tiberius, but obviously that can't happen now. So we'll see what he and VM do with it later.

I’ve played Chaotic Evil characters before. I once was referred to as Chaotic Splendid once. I have manipulated NPC’s to aid the party (& myself). If my party wins, they know my machinations were to the party’s advantage. Selfishness is Evil, but not always harmful to role play.

I think there's 100's of ways to organically introduce a guest PC to a group that one could find on the internet, but I believe it much more difficult to find a way to organically have them leave right at or near the end of a session, especially if you have a group such as Vox Machina where they could either be in a "stab, stab, kill, destroy" mood and plow through prepared content, or a "lets sit and have a narrative moment for an hour" mood. I don't envy Matt's position of having to plan around that for each session. The last thing you want is to have a guest come in and play, and have to call time on the session when they won't be able to make it back, or to set up some end goal for them that gets accomplished much faster than you expected, and there's still 2 hours of playtime that they either trail along the party and just say "bye" at the end, or awkwardly sit there with the game going on around them since their character walked away into the sunset.

i love the episode as always, i hope some time we get one of these for EXU Calamity, or any of the shorter games could be interesting to help new gms structure a one shot mostly i just really like calamity

I probably said this last time you talked about Matt's initiative system, but THANK YOU!!!! Its SO BAD! I tried it when I first started running D&D and IMMEDIATELY was like "Why the fuck am I doing this? I'm already confused!" After that I would just take a sheet of notebook paper out before the game started, and numbered it from 1 to 30 from the bottom to the top, and from there just call on each player one at a time, and you'll never miss a number! Like, I really want to know what in Matt's tabletop career made him start using his system, cuz like it happened for a *reason*, right? And I'm fascinated.

I have a rule in my games that there is no rolling dice or doing something detrimental against another PC, unless both PLAYERS are on board with it. To me, if Laura had asked Chris (not as PCs, but as players) and then done it if he agreed, I would have had no problem.

For initiative, what we would do in the table I used to play at was we each had an index card with the character's name, the player's name and certain relevant stats, like passive perception and passive insight. We'd also put any special senses (darkvision, etc) or relevant other stuff, like the Observant feat's ability to read lips. The DM would hand out those cards to us at the beginning of each game and we'd record our initiative on there. Monsters and lair actions would also have their own cards. Old initiative numbers would get crossed out neatly so the DM didn't get confused and once it didn't have enough space to be effective anymore, the player would make a new card.

I very much agree that it's nice when the players put in some work to explain why they're hanging out together. It makes a DMs life so much easier. The "Broomgate" thing is one of the rare times where I'll side against Laura, my usual fave player (although I'm not justifying some of the weird stuff the fans got up to when complaining about her). In my experience PVP theft is often a warning sign that something is about to go toxic or that one player is only thinking of their own fun rather than the group's enjoyment as a whole. Your policy on the matter sounds like a good solution.

I don't use Alignment often but I expect the players to have some idea of what their characters' Alignments are. Mostly because that helps set up conflict if an opposing magical item is found; such as the time the NG Ranger ended up with a LE Githyanki's silver sword. Unless a cursed item is involved, PCs' Alignments are usually left alone. Although many years ago we had a group of CN/CG PCs who spent so much time planning that I jokingly threatened to change them all to LN. In both Taliesin's and Laura's cases, there would've been warnings IF I picked up on it. The proscriptive and punishing Alignment rules of yesteryear have never been used in my games. For some time now, my Initiative rules have been basically d12+Proficiency Die and rolled each round. If a PC has a bonus from a class feature, that's added as well. The characters are written on a small whiteboard (roughly the size of a laptop) in alphabetical order and I record the numbers against each. Then it's a matter of erasing the numbers as we go.

17:00 THANK YOU SO MUCH MIKE FOR SAYING THIS!

For my party's initiative, we each have a clothes pin with our name written on it, then there are additional clothes pins with numbers to represent baddies and also a lair clothes pin only used when applicable. We do Matt's initiative range system to call out initives in general order, and the DM just pops the clothes pins on top of the DM screen in the right order, so it's easy enough to swap someone if they missed a range or have to roll again pt something. It works well enough for us.

In my current campaign first session, another player tried to steal a locket that's important to my character. I noticed in character and stopped it, but it would've really upset me if it had succeeded...

I really do not run alignment as something mechanical in the slightest, and I think the issue here is kinda that for those DMs who still do, like all other variable rules and lore that is unique to someone's games or setting, the DM is the one dealing with alignment. Just like if someone wrote on their sheet that they speak elvish, and the DM goes "actually in my setting there isn't an elvish language, so let's change it to something else" I see a DM telling you your alignment has changed the same way. As much as some people would like to act like it is, alignment is not nearly enough of an airtight system where every character is easily divided into the grid, and people are gonna disagree about that all the time, so again, while my and many other DM's solution is just not to use it, if it is being used, their needs to be an understanding of what sorts of character and actions fall on the chart. While this can probably be done more smoothly by having a group discussion and ironing out a sort of compromise between everyone's beliefs, if you don't think to do that ahead of time then the default answer is the same as for every other ruling, whatever the DM thinks is right. Laura's honestly one of my favorite players, but this is one case where I just think I'm too different from someone to understand their feelings. This isn't an indictment of her as a player, I'm just saying people are super different and I wouldn't be surprised if Matt straight up didn't understand why someone would be upset by something like that, because I feel like if I was in his place I definitely wouldn't be.

When I'm playing a bard, I will pick out instrumental songs that fit the narrative and play them quietly (playing pathfinder which is based on 3.5 rules) both for ambiance and as a subtle reminder that you have the bonus' from my bardic song. Keeping it instrumental keeps it from being too distracting, though I did get a laugh out of everyone when I started playing the Jurassic Park theme in violin while we were fighting a t-rex skeleton.

when you talked about this episode, the joke character and keyleth’s moment i thought it would be a slack, but i kinda saw that marisha was all on it, she enjoyed every joke, it made me more secure about the episode and a good moment in a moment when even vax wasn’t all himself

I'm 'relatively' new watcher of Cr, only at episode 68 for the first time. but im an old D&D'player. Now I adore Laura and i generally really like Vex. Except for her selfish greed. imo stealing within the party8including guest stars) is only okay if your charecter is of an alignment that would justify said stealing: ie. if you are playing evil you can steal what ever from what ever, why would you care? But if you are claiming a good alignment you can only justify that by stealing items that can be used to harm innocents from evil charecters. Vex stole from a freindly good/neutral charecter that was helping them, she stole 100% for Her own selfish greed. A charecter of a good alignment would Not do that. So Laura isnt being punished by her alignment shifting, Shes the one who actively shifted it Matt is simply telling her he's seen it. But honestly its been comming a long time, the whole groupe but especially Vex will happily blackmail and threaten innocent shopkeepers to get their way even forcing them under what would be 'at cost price'. When it comes to money and getting stuff they are all way closer to evil than good alignment. Vex is the worst though. So while I do not agree with Vex's action here, it was 100% in alignment with how she's acted all campain.

I don't think passing around a form for initiative is that superior to the batched gathering, particularly for larger groups(6+) or larger tables like the layout of their set; or at least I don't think the batched method is as bad as it is made out to be in the discussion of it. Unless playing something like The Laundry where filling ISO-9001 compliance forms fits into the theme, I think pausing while people do the paperwork with a single sheet going around - only one person writing down at a time, you get table talk and other distractions. If everyone has their own form and hands it in, it would be more work/time disruption. With the GM asking, and players answering the "audio" channel of the table is still in use so table talk is less likely to fill the silence. In con and club environments with larger groups or physically larger tables, as player and GM, I've found batching be very successful; one or two missed numbers are easy enough to add back into a mostly ordered list. writing down with pencil or pen makes it a bit awkward but double spacing leaves room and in notepad it's just a new line. The tool I find actually helps best for doing initiative is using something like dollar store clothespins with character names on them - clip them to a ruler/index card/cereal box/gm screen in the order, batching basically helps by allowing it to be bubble sorted quickly. I also like that the batching can be used to communicate something narrative by giving context to the ranges (1-5 is sluggish or cautious, 15-20 is focused or reflexive). I can also enable in game effects to interact with ranges and communicate that the ranges are relevant (e.g. the rumbling of the earthquake is worst in the 1d4th block of 5s).

Laura hate? She is my favorite player haha. And I think Marisha gets a bad wrap. Keylith is kinda clueless about the world. Marisha embraces that.

Stealing from party members - I view it as a form of PvP, which if the table is up for that, cool. Go for it. Otherwise... Probably not. Discuss in Session 0. The thing that feels weird to me about the alignment change - From neutral good to chaotic neutral - is that it feels like it's... Skipping... A step in the transition. In both directions. Surely the character should have gone via Chaotic Good or True Neutral along that path? (But I'm very glad Pathfinder has ditched alignment in the remaster)

In both my play groups, we have initiative channels in discord to record our rolls, then in the same channel we post an ordered list of the characters (and sometimes monsters) for everyone to see. It’s good for me as dm to organize scores visually, and the players can follow along and plan turns, like playing around another’s spell or determining who to prioritize healing/attacking. Also, I hate Tidal Wave being a fire elemental deleter. A 10ft x 10ft x 10ft space (the size of a Large creature) is 1000 cubic feet, or 7480gal, so a coplayer of mine declared she did 7 thousand damage before the dm could say anything. Next time it comes up in a game I run, it’s either getting a save, taking the written bludgeoning damage, or a flat 50 cold damage.

i think it's always cool if the players manage to "bypass encounters" by doing something interesting. tbf i don't play 5e, but i can't really see an issue with honoring players' choices in situations like this one. sometimes they don't even have to roll, if the plan was good on it's own.

If any player who is not a problem player does something that I think warrants an alignment change, I prefer to have a short discussion with the player, where I tell them what I think is starting to make sense and explain the pattern of behavior that I feel justifies it, but their alignment only officially changes if the player agrees to it.

Make a spreadsheet, list all characters and players, ask the players their initiative numbers and apply numbers for all others in the encounter. Sort column.

I actually like the Initiative Range System and I have been using it, modified with someting like your sheet, since about a year now. Since I have all my DM-Notes and Stuff on a dedicaded Tablet I have a dedicaded Google-Sheets Initiative Doc with the numbers from 30 to -5 ready to go. I just call out the Ranges, my players will say their Initiative and I add them at the Spot in my doc. Plus i added a column for AC and Conditions as well as HP for my Monsters etc. I found that the best way for me and I think this is kinda the best of both worlds.

As someone who's only ever played D&D in a VTT with automatic initiative tracking, it never occurred to me before that it's normally a difficult thing to manage.

Don't you ever think that when they're telling their initiative order that it's for the people that are listening sometimes it's nice to see somebody yell out their natural 20 or something else

I think I disagree with your assessment of the way matt handled alignment. I also fall into the 'alignment is descriptive' camp, and as far as I'm concerned (and how I DM in my groups), I can force an alignment change on a player as a consequence of their actions. I do make it a habit of telegraphing alignment shifts, so a player knows they're drifting from their alignment and can take actions to change it if they so choose before the actual change takes place. But other than that, an alignment change is no different as a consequence than getting the city guards set on you after you're caught burglarizing a store. Actions have consequences. Though I agree that an alignment change should never come out of nowhere, and if laura was not given any warning or information that her alignment had been shifting, that I would consider an oversight on matt's part. But as a DM you don't need a players permission to change their alignment if their behaviour justifies that, in the same way you don't need their permission to set guards on them and make them a wanted criminal when they commit a crime in a town, even if they feel like they didn't do anything wrong - because that's not their call to make, its the DMs.

Stealing someone’s coin purse and other small items can be fun. I had a pirate game where players were stealing from each other a lot. But it was all petty stuff, what nobody ever tried to steal were important magical items. Flight is a top tier thing to have in game. And even if this was a guest character thats not cool. Ive had characters bounce from game to game and I always present the DM with their current stats and gear for approval. It would be pretty crappy not to have something so useful because of a greedy character. And that goes to the alignment shift, Laura wasnt playing her alignment. You can see how she makes key decisions over the course of the game, and how her actions even endangered others. In the end it all worked out for a great story because she is a talented improvisational actress and player but I dont disagree with Matt’s ruling. For my part I dont do that. I dont shift my player’s alignment like we used to in AD&D but I do keep track of what you do…and there are ALWAYS in game consequences. Sometimes it comes from NPCs and sometimes it comes from PCs who have been done dirty by a party member.