Wrangling an Unfocused Party - Vox Machina Ep. 1 | Critical Role Demystified 

Haha don’t worry, we’ll get there :)

Yeah, the whole 'mostly good party sides with Mind Flayer over Paladin' was a moment.

While their adventures in the Underdark got me hooked on the show, I was SCREAMING at how they treated Kima. The only thing that makes it okay is that later on they fully admit they bungled that entire encounter and its a miracle Kima even talks to them.

@@j.s.4778 I believe they actually explained it well enough, but at the same time it's really weird, that they side with a creature literally sucking the brains out of people. Is there enough lawful characters, that wanted to keep the promise they gave to him?

@@crafciak31 the party was literally split 50/50 on who they wanted to support , 4 for Kima and 4 for Clarota

There are definitely some highlights along the way that I can’t wait to relive.

shoutout to the flying cows episode

I love scenes like that so much, they do make up some of my favorite moments on CR. I think later in the run, future versions of those scenes will be more deliberate as they have a better sense of the medium as they go. (Honestly, so much of the randomness in this episode could just be chocked up to nerves.)

In one of my previous campaigns, we had a session like this after a dungeon. Up to the dungeon, most of the campaign had been lighthearted, dealing with problems around the village we started in, fighting wolves and orcs and such, and getting a few hints of some big stuff going down. This dungeon was hell, in-character. It tied together a lot of what we'd seen and provided motivation for several of us to go further on, and was generally way heavier tonally than anything prior. Our party and some NPCs set up camp to rest after almost meeting our end to a stealthy boss, and just talked. All we really did was speak our internal thoughts out loud, compare our theories and thoughts, and discuss the future. It's still one of our most memorable sessions. We had something similar later on after a similar point, after we'd gotten a glimpse of the BBEG for the first time and we got a new party member, which also was great and let us catch up the new PC in-character.

do you remember what ep this was ?

Thank you so much!

Haha I feel much the same! I sympathize with people who want to skip Orion/skip the bad audio/skip to when the show “becomes” CR by focusing on a backstory and having excellent roleplaying, and for that reason I understand why people recommend starting there… but if I was just joining CR, I don’t know if I could do it. I’m too much of a completionist. Also, I agree, there will be some rough Tiberius moments we can learn from but I’ll also say plenty of nice things about him for the next several episodes. Glad you enjoyed the video!

Yeah agree 100%. Even the rough Tiberius parts still have some great, or funny moments in between that make it worth going through, and honestly as bad as some Tiberius moments get, there are still some really great Tiberius moments that I still enjoy and don't think should be missed. I get a kick out of his "I walk away" after talking to Allura that results in him just getting up from the table in the middle of the feast, whether he intended that comic moment or not, and him introducing himself to a cow with the "I'm Tiberius Stormwind......" among others.

"I feel really bad for people who skip the first episodes of CR and just go straight to the Briarwood arc," I think that line of logic is slightly justified when the Critical Role cartoon show itself also decided to skip those arcs.

@@garrettcarter5622 well, IIRC, the legend of vox machina's original kickstarter pitch was a fairly short series that preceeded the campaign (i.e. the first 3 episodes of what became season 1). with *specifically* the briarwood arc being only a stretch goal. the reason the briarwood arc was chosen was due to its massive popularity among the fans. it had nothing to do with how the players feel about it. I imagine when they were storyboarding/planning the actual show, they decided to 'skip' the kraghammer arc simply because its not what the fans paid for. Its pretty clear that that arc set up much of the character development. it formed the impetus for their first trip to vasselheim, which led to their first meeting with the raksasha (which later returned), its where pikes holy symbol began to crack. and it spurred keyleths own self-doubt: particularly clarota's betrayal.

@@sillyking1991 irk, I certainly hope that they find ways to go back around to that stuff and not just discard it as irrelevant to the plot simply because they want to skirt around Tiberius.

I’m very glad!

It’s true, I made it seem like it was *only* a side quest available if Tiberius was curious, but that leaves out the fact that they could’ve recruited somebody to help if it hadn’t gone so poorly.

Thank you! The fact that people so often bounce off of C1 is, like, half of the inspiration for this whole channel. My hope is that videos like this will help viewers who are in the position you were in!

I definitely will include them for future episodes, it’s just that the sound quality is so bad for the first episode that it felt kind of cruel to include a clip. The next one also probably won’t include a clip for similar reasons, but I think episode 3 and going forward will include clips! Really glad you enjoyed the episode!

You’re very welcome! I’m glad you liked it, I’ve got more on the way 😁

Thank you so much!!

That’s a great one!

Thank you!

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Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

Thank you! I plan to start including clips around episode 3 - including clips from this episode would have been cruel, since the audio was SO bad.

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

Thank you!!

I’m so glad you enjoyed them! More on the way soon 😁

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

I do want to say that I disagree somewhat with your advice of "don't correct the players." Sure, don't *corral* your players and force them to your plot checkpoints, but you can give them information without corraling them. I think a DM can absolutely correct players who have forgotten some crucial detail or have some misunderstanding that their character would not have. I think it's absolutely possible to say, "You actually remember she said he would be down at the mines, but since you asked, his house is at [such and such]." This leaves the door open to go to his house if they have some creative shenanigans they're planning (as you suggested they might), but still throws them a rope if they're floundering under a confused objective and trying their best to move to the plot you set up (which I think is what they were *trying* to do when they asked for his address). If Matt was aware that they were trying to follow his thread, I think it was a huge mistake to not gently remind them of where they were told they could find him. The only thing the session would have lost is an hour of baggage. I can't read this as anything more than an oversight. I don't think Matt realized that they didn't know where to go, and that their tail-chasing was a result of a lack of information. So I don't think "Don't correct your players" is a good lesson to learn from this episode. This is something I think Matt Colville covered in his video on Information. Indeed, I think giving players a clear view of their objective, as well as direct consequences to their actions, is absolutely crucial to making the world feel real. And this is an area where I've seen Matt Mercer struggle a lot. Hell, I could write a whole video-essay about how his lack of clear communication made almost all of Keyleth's support spells into active hindrances, but that's not what this comment is about. If you've read all the way through my ramblings, thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to engage. I'm enjoying your videos.

Thank you!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

I’m so glad you enjoyed this!

Thank you so much!! (Terrific username, BTW 😁)

@@SupergeekMike Thanks!😄

I’m very glad it helped!

I agree; I think the cast later gets better about making sure they have time to decompress before their next big mission. Thanks for watching!

Thank you so much!! ♥️