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Critical Role: Voice Actors Playing D&D

K

KO Traveling Hobo

Member
Henchmen21 said:
Except that's the very nature of dnd. The dice roll constantly changes how the story plays out. How many times have we seen how a Nat1 will change things drastically for them.
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It's one thing for the story to change, it's another thing to hijack a core element of someone's character that they've been playing for years.
 
H

Henchmen21

Banned
KO Traveling Hobo said:
It's one thing for the story to change, it's another thing to hijack a core element of someone's character that they've been playing for years.
Click to expand...

Nothing was "hijacked". Vex was dead and Vax made a deal with a god to get her back. Taliesin (no offense to him, he's a good player) seems to me imo to want to regress Percy for no other reason than wanting to be the "scarred" character of the group.
 
R

Rockin' Ranger

Member
Pilgrimzero said:
Watched it. Hilarious. Laura hoola hooping is the hottest thing.
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MKaJnOq.gif
 
A

Alpha Centauri

Member
OMG Liam is an amazing voice actor.

Is this a Nier alternate ending? This shit is dark lmao

edit: With that ending. Legit one of my favorite episodes ever. Liam. You son'uva bitch!
 
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
He's pretty generous with this stats he gave his friends. 18 INT for Laura? She hold a PHD is something? 13 str or better on most of them as kids.

Ashley's stats are just amazing


A 10 is considered average human.


Reminds me when I did a game and asked the players to make themselves. I go who knew first aid and a guy in medical school both gave themselves 2 ranks in medicine.
 
J

Jest Chillin

Member
Pilgrimzero said:
He's pretty generous with this stats he gave his friends. 18 INT for Laura? She hold a PHD is something? 13 str or better on most of them as kids.

Ashley's stats are just amazing


A 10 is considered average human.


Reminds me when I did a game and asked the players to make themselves. I go who knew first aid and a guy in medical school both gave themselves 2 ranks in medicine.
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Eh.. these one-shots are for funsies, so it's probably done for that and because they've been high level in the main campaign so long that they're used to high bonuses. They don't get the benefit of all the fancy gear in these one shots so boosted states accomplishes that just fine.

It will be REALLY interesting to see how they adjust to the new campaign when they're lower level and lacking gear again. Most games don't last as long as the Vox Machina game has, so players typically are used to the low level stakes and abilities since they start new all the time. With that not being the case here AND this game being the first, longest, and only (in some cases) game for the players it could be jarring. We could easily see a TPK quite quickly.
 
J

.JayZii

Banned
I'm only half way through last night's episode. Anybody else get the feeling Liam was rock hard during the beach massacre?

I got another fake voiceover session! Also, Marisha's improv style can be described by the phrase, "No, but..."
KO Traveling Hobo said:
It's one thing for the story to change, it's another thing to hijack a core element of someone's character that they've been playing for years.
Click to expand...

I find the Vax as the champion of the Raven Queen storyline as tedious and overbearing as the next guy, but Taliesin doesn't get dibs on everything gothy just because he's intent on playing a tortured, scarred character. I just wish he would have used the fact that he didn't get to complete his Raven motif as a character growth moment and moved onto something else, rather than wallowing in a pretty bland limbo for the past year or two while waiting for another chance to sell his soul to some higher or lower power.

Vex died and her joined-at-the-hip brother tried bargaining for her life and it worked. Vax didn't stop and say, "Hey Percy, I've noticed you've been cultivating something of a dour raven aesthetic for a while now, would you like to bargain for my sister's life for me pretty please? This seems like your jam". Because why would he in that situation? If you want a tidy predictable story, there's plenty of fantasy novels in the world. This is improv group storytelling, and being married to your ideas of how things are supposed to go is a surefire way to suck the life out of anything improvised.
 
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
I'm like halfway through the new episode and I really hate Liam as a DM.

It's like he wants to tell his story and the other are just there to fight his crazy battles. No to mention he seems to get all his ideas from games and tv. I.E.: air siren and fade to black was Silent Hill. Etc.

Also, they may have been better off playing the Cthulhu RPG instead of shoehorning this into D&D.
 
J

.JayZii

Banned
I think Marisha's 4/20 edible really kicked in on the second half of the episode.
Pilgrimzero said:
I'm like halfway through the new episode and I really hate Liam as a DM.

It's like he wants to tell his story and the other are just there to fight his crazy battles. No to mention he seems to get all his ideas from games and tv. I.E.: air siren and fade to black was Silent Hill. Etc.

Also, they may have been better off playing the Cthulhu RPG instead of shoehorning this into D&D.
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Just finishing it up and I think I agree. It also says a lot about Liam as a player/person that even this two parter that he ran for his friends still revolved around him. It's like his Vax "I'm just going to talk at you and leave before you can respond" conversations extrapolated out into it's own game. It was still fun despite the flaws, though.
 
J

.JayZii

Banned
Pilgrimzero said:
I'm about 20 minutes from the end and wow, this is just.... not good.

Just wow.
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The last 30 minutes or so was especially rough. I was skipping ahead a lot because I felt like I knew everything he was going to say, and so did everyone else there, but he was just going to have everyone sit there and listen.

Again, just another one of his Vax conversation moments.
 
F

Famassu

Member
Yeeeah, this Liam run game is boring. There's really very little player agency. Feels like he just came up with a few silly scenarios that are barely connected & he thought were funny but didn't really think about anything interesting to do within those scenarios other than throwing some weird enemies against them. Like... what was the idea of the beach nightmare scenario? I guess it could've been fine if there was otherwise something more open and that was better connected to whatever came before & after but it just happened and then it just didn't matter.

Also, lulz, what is Marisha doing?

https://youtu.be/LHita2t54xY?t=11417

She high?
 
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
Famassu said:
Yeeeah, this Liam run game is boring. There's really very little player agency. Feels like he just came up with a few silly scenarios that are barely connected & he thought were funny but didn't really think about anything interesting to do within those scenarios other than throwing some weird enemies against them. Like... what was the idea of the beach nightmare scenario? I guess it could've been fine if there was otherwise something more open and that was better connected to whatever came before & after but it just happened and then it just didn't matter.

Also, lulz, what is Marisha doing?

https://youtu.be/LHita2t54xY?t=11417

She high?
Click to expand...

The idea was (it seems to me) is for thousands of years Liam was sending his friends to different realities where they would live and die over and over. He mentions something like this in the first game he runs then expands on it in the 2nd game.

He was literally their god and center of their universe until he realized he needed to die to stop the insanity.

Anyways, I am shocked that he apparently directs games as well as voice acts.
 
C

Capitan

Member
I think the beach scenario was because he likes fucking with them. the ending made me think he's like moving away IRL or quitting the show or something? could be he was just being dramatic. the robot voice was dope though.
 
J

Jest Chillin

Member
Pilgrimzero said:
The idea was (it seems to me) is for thousands of years Liam was sending his friends to different realities where they would live and die over and over. He mentions something like this in the first game he runs then expands on it in the 2nd game.

He was literally their god and center of their universe until he realized he needed to die to stop the insanity.

Anyways, I am shocked that he apparently directs games as well as voice acts.
Click to expand...

He directs VA performances. His job as GM during an obviously last minute game is no indication on that and to be honest, it's an overly harsh comment to make.

To be honest, a lot of the "critique" I'm seeing lately in the thread is more harsh than it needs to be. They play the game to have fun more than anything else. To expect them to play highly efficiently or to play their characters and storyline out like a wells scripted show is a bit much.
 
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
Jest Chillin said:
He directs VA performances. His job as GM during an obviously last minute game is no indication on that and to be honest, it's an overly harsh comment to make.

To be honest, a lot of the "critique" I'm seeing lately in the thread is more harsh than it needs to be. They play the game to have fun more than anything else. To expect them to play highly efficiently or to play their characters and storyline out like a wells scripted show is a bit much.
Click to expand...

You're right. As long as the players are having fun etc is what matters. And I applaud him for trying to DM. He obviously had a story to tell he just needs to remember it's all their story not just his.

If I had been in a game like that, I wouldn't return for a second session. But that's just me.
 
H

Henchmen21

Banned
Tonight's the night. Still would have preferred a 5-10 year gap instead of 1. Do a whole "getting the band back together" motif.

edit: Scanlan's mug

2nd edit: both mugs?
 
R

Razzer

Member
Loving the uncle, one of the best npcs in a while. Also like that Laura is really engaging with him, it creates cool scenes.
 
J

.JayZii

Banned
Oooo a Pike storyline!

That mug fake out really got me at the beginning. I hadn't even noticed the big one until he pulled it close to him, and then he dashed my hopes. I like that Vex and Tary are like BFF now, too.
 
F

Famassu

Member
Soooo... shit goin' down. Couldn't watch last week's episode more than maybe ~1,5 hours and started watching this maybe 1 hour into it so I have no idea why they are doing this stuff. :S

Edit: Lulz, was that
just a scam
 
J

.JayZii

Banned
Of course Vax just has a pound of dried Lavender lying around.

And "I'm not mad I'm disappointed" Pike was great.
 
P

PeskyToaster

Member
I'm at like episode 44. Some good moments with Zahra and Kashaw. Will and Mary really took to this thing lol. I feel the Pathfinder one shot with the goblins came a little early in the GandS playlist compared to real time but it was a fun watch. I thought that Ivan guy was a bit too up in everything while everyone else was super fun. It was hilarious that he was unconscious the entire fight. I know Ashly comes back later but I wish Phil did as well. He is excellent.
 
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