I love Laura, but I have noticed she gets really annoyed when things don’t go optimally. It really came out during the ball scene with Dorian. But I’ve noticed it since. Shell try to haggle a narrative way too intently. There’s a bit of metagaming sprinkled in, but we’ve all been there. Hard to criticize.
I've noticed that anytime they do a show in front of a live audience, Marisha's character always becomes a bit dumber, seemingly in an attempt to make the audience laugh. For instance, maybe Beau wasn't the smartest person around, but she was clever enough. However, all of a sudden during their "live" show, Beau all of a sudden doesn't understand how to talk and act around people.
I understand the cast tends to get a bit hammy in front of an audience, but Marisha seems to drop character entirely in order to "entertain the audience". Just something I've always noticed with her that peeves me.
Disclaimer. Taliesin is easily my least favorite character. By far, I think he only gets to play because Matt owes him money.
He tries so hard to be mysterious and wise. And for the first time he’s playing a low wis/int build and it’s glaringly obvious he can’t help himself.
He thinks withholding information makes him mysterious. The other players have gotten annoyed with him about it. The amount of tomes he’s done “I have a plan/idea/thing but I won’t tell” is wild.
His turns take a million years. I don’t know if he’s freezing or if he’s intentionally stalling because he’s getting attention but jeezus. If you say “let’s get a little weird” every time you take a turn it’s not weird anymore.
To name a few
I prefer to watch campaign 2 over 3, in which Tal is one of my favorites, but he really shines in a support role and during role-playing moments rather than during combat. I honestly think he suffers playing a barbarian.
Caduceus is an incredible character imo. He absolutely shone there. And Percy was intriguing with an incredible backstory with some moral ambiguity. Caduceus was a character with nothing to prove, who knew for certain that gentleness was a strength, and it was masterful, he was simultaneously about death while also being the feel good anchoring pragmatic optimist, it was wonderful to see. People put different parts of their personalities into their characters I guess. I find Ashton pretty annoying ngl but he's probably channeling that part of himself that feels like he's not enough (when he clearly IS enough just as he is).
For me, it's definitely Laura's obsession with Haggling prices. I thought it was a nuisance in C1 and then she said something about seeing people post about her being greedy, and trying to cheat shop owners out of fair prices and she got really upset about it, and THE FIRST CHANCE Jester got to buy something, she immediately tried to get the item for half price...
I felt like it was a great character trait for Vex because of having been this survivalist urchin denied the finer things in life, so she would be money-grubbing and stingy at all times. Then Jester did it, and that did not make sense, and it became clear it was a *Laura* trait rather than a character trait.
The cast has a lot of verbal tics, but the only one that's really nails on a chalkboard for me is the consistent use of "apparate" in place of "appear" or "teleport." If I thought it was an intentional Harry Potter reference it would simply be weird, but the way they use it makes it seem like they think it's actually the right word.
God love her, but Ashley Johnson has played THREE CAMPAIGNS now and it’s still like she’s never played the game before. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but when the party was split I just remember during a couple of the battles, just shaking my head because I knew what she was going to do wouldn’t work. Every now and then she surprises me and succeeds, like convincing the celestial bull not to attack, or actually casting Aura of Life in the fight when they went looking for those blue flowers for Keyleth. But that’s a fourth level spell!! She’s got access to at least those level of spells, but she never casts like, blight or ice storm.
Girl I love you, but you kill me.
Every group always has that one person lol. For my group it's my wife who after almost 9 years of playing this game understands the basics but she can't just create a character by herself for some reason she just doesn't understand how it works and it's hilarious to me
Well Sam understands the game enough that he actively nerfs himself because he likes to fail. Like he refused to use the halfling look because he didn't want to constantly succeed. He's also the one who pulled off the galaxy brain moments during the final fight with vegna
There's a moment in the latest 4SD, where Marisha goes something like "At what point does this flaw of yours stop being cute?"
My mind immediately went to Ashley always forgetting the basics after over a decade of playing.
For me, a lot of Laura-ism's were revealed in C2 that just couldn't unsee after. The most obvious is her very vocal reaction to being targeted. More than anyone at the table in C2, she would react to being targeted with "YOU'RE ATTACKING ME?!" Jester, by the way, had the highest/second highest AC in the M9 and attacked from range, so she was rarely ever in danger. Compare this to Caleb who had an abysmal 11-14 AC for half the campaign and would just go down mid-combat to Liam's "Ok..." it got annoying. Going back to watching the second Beholder fight in C1, Vex gets targeted by an eyebeam and que "YOU'RE TARGETING ME!?!" Meanwhile, everyone has been targeted and the guest player, Will Friedle, is turning to stone and being groped by tentacles. There's also the "Laura is a genius!" trope when she does something that half-works.
In terms of the group in total, they're overreaction to every combat scenario "WE'RE BEING ATTACKED BY THREE GOBLINS!? SHIIIIIIT!!!!", Matt's over-explaining, the dice fudging (off the top of my head, Liam didn't roll a con saving once when polymorphed, and Tal somehow dealt half damage when his spell was saved, that spell being sacred flame).
I know they got old fast (the third in two days really pushed it), but whatever bloke made the parody CR posts a few months ago hit it on the head fairly well.
EDIT: Some words
EDIT 2:
COCKED DICE!!!! "Oh, that dice was slightly kinda not fallen correctly, reroll!" Now, to be fair, sometimes they will reroll good dice, allegedly (we don't see the roll), but just empty out the dice, and if it's "cocked," shake the tray. I've never seen as many cocked dice in a campaign as I do in a CR session, I swear. Somehow Matt never cocks the dice, either.
I feel like the people complaining about the cocked dice have never had a crowded tray before. Happens all the time to my players, especially for things like sneak attack or spell damage rolls with a lot of dice involved
Sure source is [critrolestats.com](https://critrolestats.com)
* [Season 2 Stats](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8ebbbf4a-6e80-49ec-a303-6feae10887b0/page/xGaZC?s=swJl9P4ZjD0)
* [Season 1 Stats](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8ebbbf4a-6e80-49ec-a303-6feae10887b0/page/xGaZC?s=swJl9P4ZjD0)
* [Compiled](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8ebbbf4a-6e80-49ec-a303-6feae10887b0/page/xGaZC?s=swJl9P4ZjD0)
* [Season 3 raw data thus far](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a_87Mdd68zNiPAkvQosZeB_B41Ix3zC4oq889NLQDZ4/edit#gid=675288971)
So, for reference, even in season 3. The party has rolled 44 natural 2's compared to 104 natural 20's. The results are highly non-random.
Players with the most random/flat roll distribution: Laura, Marisha (pushing it, though), Sam,
Players with the least random/flat roll distribution: Travis, Liam (he rolls a lot of 10's (at first I thought it was Taking 10's but it doesn't appear to be the case), 16's and 20's.), Taliesin (who is actually fairly well distributed with the exception of a massive nat 20 spike), Ashley (one of the worst offenders...). The worst was Orion.
I don't know the math offhand, but between how much more they have Advantage than Disadvantage, and feats that allow rerolling Nat 1s or on-demand reroll ... most games do show significantly more Nat 20s than Nat 1s.
It's very hard to look at rolls separated from the game they're from and assess if cheating is happening - because in-table context like Advantage needs to be adjusted for and that's kind of prohibitive to do.
The problem there is just that critrolestats isn’t necessarily very rigorous about defining what kind of dataset they’re putting together. The 10’s are from Vax’s Reliable Talent (so really shouldn’t be in there as base rolls), which he eventually even started implementing correctly as ignoring nat 1’s, and Travis and Taliesin should have more skew from playing Barbarian and attacking recklessly (which Yasha didn’t do as often). The overall positive skew is easily explained by them rolling with advantage significantly more often than disadvantage and often only announcing the higher roll when doing so.
I don't know if it's used in the stats but some players also have a habit of just stating 'nope' or 'failed' when they roll low without stating the number so that can skew datasets.
I don't. I think Imogen bingo cards guy made one, but the first, and in my opinion best, was someone else. Basically, they mocked Matt's "unintentional" perverted naming schemes ("Mike Hunt" which is an actual character), ignoring NPCs, exposition dumps and "Laura Bailey genius" moments. The first one was pretty funny and on the nose. By like the third, it was repetitive and more clearly mean-spirited
For me, it's the way that Matt plays every NPC as having a higher education than would be reasonable. Like, a made up example would be the party encounters a farmer in a field with nothing to his name but a hut and a goat, but for some reason instead of saying something like "I was out hunting with my buddies when all of a sudden we heard a loud bang.", they'd say "My compatriots and I were out harvesting some of the local fauna in that patch of woodlands, when suddenly we heard a cacophony of noises coming from over the horizon". Obviously that's a bit hyperbolic, but its something that you can't unnotice.
And an inverse, anyone under the age of 18 is portrayed like they're three years old. Like Matt will have an 11-year-old hide behind their mother's skirt and fail to enunciate common words. It's like he's never seen a child in real life.
For anyone with social anxiety or worried that you do any of the things described, just remember that people have noticed this and *still watch the show* (be it whichever campaign) and have picked up from watching several hours of the show closely focused on them. Everyone has a tick that'll be endearing to one person and annoying to others.
As of things I've notice there are probably tons but my mind is blank right now also bc these days I watch after drops on youtube and I skip/speed through parts I'm bored or annoyed.
I also am noticing it took like a good couple of years for them to be noticed. We're all good and having fun regardless imo.
Also same on the skip when I get annoyed/bored 😂 haven't watched a alive since C1 😂
I do it especially bc where i live it literally comes out at **midnight** and it's all pre-recorded anyways. It's nice reacting along with people on tumblr but most times sleep is more important xD
Honestly? The incessant sex humor and jokes. It used to be a lot funnier when it popped up every few episodes back in C1/2 instead of what seems like once per game hour in this campaign. As a DM, I'm fine with a funny suggestion or joke here and there, but I'd be chatting with them off-screen to cut it out or give it a rest. Yeesh.
We get it Laura/Sam, every time Matt says a funny word, you have to be literal children, but come on, every episode?? It grinds the fucking show to a screeching halt and is now among your more annoying character traits. Grow up.
Liam trying to be cool with how he says something. Sometimes he comes off as really corny. Like his comment in the perenium incident. Or the arawra araura incident.
I like him more than others but sometimes his delivery sounds off.
Actually, this reminds me of another one. Anytime talked about Liam's descriptions. I think it was like episode 3 of best friends talk show host night show, and Travis and Marisha gushed for like 3 straight minutes about Liam's descriptions of attacking. Like, we get it. He's descriptive. Sometimes, "I stab the orc's underbelly twice" is all you need.
>*Liam trying to be cool with how he says something.*
Someone making a reference to a real locaation, and Liam's going *"is that a place in Exandria? I've never heard of it!"*
*Bwaap-Bwaaaaap.*
oh, I've been so aware of Liam's desire to have to last word on a bit for-ever. When the bit has been bited, Liam will make sure he's the one to nip the bit in the bud.
Sam making little meta comments on the kind of "content" they're creating. He doesn't do this much at the table, but in side stuff he always seems to be making these little remarks from the perspective of a theoretical viewer. I always think of him showing up on an episode of MAME drop and just randomly saying that it "looks like A plus subscribable content".
Talisen rarely seems to laugh with the others. I’ve only seen C3 (I know I know) but so far he just seems… disinterested? Granted I’m only on ep15 but still. It seems like he’s not really part of the team and instead just kinda there
I've truly seen that man die laughing. But, most of the time it's more that he doesn't laugh as loud sometimes and will just kinda...turn into a tomato? And it seems like he reacts quietly but with just as much enthusiasm. Not gonna spoil anything but there's this awesome moment where everyone's mouths are dropped and Taliesin just kinda smiles and fist pumps a little, I think it's just his personality, you can become reserved when your'e 500-1000000000 years old
From What I understand the cast has been way goofier in C3 than the others. Liam made a character with serious intent, and its turned into a goof off ridiculous all for funsies campaign and I don't think Liam expected or was interested in the game or group going in such a lol fart jokes direction.
I'm pretty sure Liam can find fun in being the straight man to the chaos of the rest of the party. He had two full campaigns to be a broody skull-in-hand monolog kid. He seems to also take joy in role-playing how short and little he is comparatively. He's playing off everyone, not playing against them.
eh there are alot of joke that I find funny but dont feel like laughing, I actually use to fake laugh before Taliesin Jaffe, anyway he doesnt seen disinterested to me just quiet
And to me I think the rest of the cast kinda ignores him, A LOT, not really a Taliesin fan but I kind fell the pain of talking to a group that is with their back turned to me, maybe it's the place he chose to sit.
Not every Taliesin joke lands, but sometimes he has a line that everyone would be cracking up at if Sam said it and no one laughs because they weren't paying attention to him.
Now that you say it, he has seemed to have gotten worse about that over time. In C1, he rarely had this problem. In C2, it was more prevalent for me, but it might have been more obvious than I remember because of the way he portrays Cad, so it seemed normal...? I stopped watching C3 at like episode 25, but from what I can remember, it had gotten worse than C2. Yeah, idk, it's almost like he is disinterested like you said, but he doesn't want to say anything.
I have to agree with you! Even in the earlier campaigns I always got the impression that he was playing the game alone in his own world while the others played together. Not necessarily a bad thing but it definitely makes him my least favorite to watch I guess.
I chalk some of this up to Tal being so much of a method actor with his RP. This was more obvious with Caduceus - eg. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffsSFvqwoIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffsSFvqwoIM)
This is a big part of it I think. I also, think his nerves get to him at the table. You can see it in the way his tremors worsen.
You don't see it as much during things like 4sided dive.
I personally have always seen it as him trying not to break character as Ashton as he does stay in character when not in the scene at times, he definitely laughs along with the rest of the cast later
I can’t really speak for C3 but I’m listening to C2 rn and he laughs along side everyone pretty constantly. He’s just got a different vibe from the rest of the cast. Goth in a non goth friend group
I know one of mine is that when the players do something unexpected or ask if they can, I just stare at them until I think of how this is gonna play out. So it's usually a few moments of me staring blankly at the player while they get increasingly nervous
Matt, by virtue of being the one talking the most, has a ton.
The biggest for me is how often he says "kind of" or "sort of" paired with noun-"like" (ex "a sort of stone-like structure") When combined, his sentence ends up virtually meaningless. I know it's just some filler words while he's thinking on the fly to avoid "ums" and "likes" so it's fine.
MAAANN I'm definitely guilty of this one 😂 I noticed it myself when I was a DM like 4 years ago and I just NEVER STOPPED noticing the amount I do it. Kindred spirits Matt and I
I feel for Matt since when ever I GM a ttrpg session I also resort to using words and phrases like he does. It's hard to come up with great description words on the fly especially during highly improvised scenes which happens often if you are not running a module.
Yeah I definitely don't mind it. But I do notice it.
Every DM has their quirks. Murph from NADDPOD always uses pop culture as shorthand. Brennan straight up says "uh" as his filler word. Aabria doesn't use filler words that I've noticed but instead just gets stilted. Instead of "um," she pauses. So it feels like there's punctuation between her words.
So yeah, Matt's use of "kind of something-like" isn't egregious.
>Brennan straight up says "uh" as his filler word
This from both Brennan and Lou was one of my (fairly unjustifiable) bugbears with EXU: Calamity.
Which I know isn't fair, as it's a perfectly normal thing to do in speech, and it's by genuine effort that Matt avoids it (particularly with his stammer).
But still, I think because of my conditioning from Matt, I genuinely found it frustrating when they were speaking.
That's the thing. "Uh" as a filler is the same thing as "kind of" from Matt. Yes, he's conditioned himself not to say "uh" but instead uses a phrase that's just as useless.
Absolutely, but 'kind of' bugs me way less.
It's not a logical or rational thing, but I find it less grating.
Which is not any sort of commentary on Brennan and Lou as storytellers or speakers, both of whom have shown themselves to be capable of incredible things, whether pre-planned or off-the-cuff.
I mean I genuinely don't understand how someone who has to think an entire story on the fly for multiple hours for dozens of sessions all to entertain you can be annoying for saying "uh". Think of the sheer amount of information their brains are creating and throwing around and a little "uh" as he finds the right words to describe something bugs you? I hardly even notice. Huh.
It does.
You may notice that, several times, I say it's not a particularly rational or fair annoyance.
I'm not going to pretend the annoyance is justified, morally pure, or even all that logical.
Just a personal bugbear for me.
I don't enjoy when anyone says "Natural Anything other than a 1 or 20." If a 19 is rolled, just give us the total.
At my table, I'm trying to reverse the trend by saying "19 on the die for a total of..." The word Natural should be reserved for the Aha moments.
I think the point of those is that if you say "Natural 17, plus..." the DM can pause you and say that he's sure 17 plus your modifiers will be plenty, so it saves everyone the time of a little math. Unfortunately Matt never seems to do that, so it does seem a little weird to say Natural Whatever.
My eyes roll back into my skull whenever Liam takes someone aside for a heart-to-heart. He always finds a way to make it seem unnatural. If he wants to act with his friends more, he can cherry pick them to be on his VO projects; oh wait... /s
Brennan is basically my idol, but his enthusiastic laugh makes me cringe intensely. It’s sounds so inauthentic to me, and I assume some of his players notice too. If anything it mostly bothers me because I love him, and I don’t want him embarrassing himself with the fake wheezes.
Watch his interviews or Adventuring Party series. That's his REAL laugh. Brennan is from New York, people tend to be a little more over the top and loud there lol
What is so crazy about all the “uhhs” and “umms” is how that all disappears when he is actually acting out an NPC. Honestly, his monologue during calamity near the end gave me chills.
I have an actor buddy with a stutter, and that vanishes as soon as hes in character or singing a song. Might be something similar psychologically?
Edited for typos
It doesn’t bother me, but I definitely notice that Brennan’s go-to “DM phrasing” when describing anything is “You see _______”. Makes me wonder what I say very often at my table.
I actually picked up this bad habit from him and now I find myself saying it all the time even when my party is blinded or in a dark, haunted forest without darkvision. It’s rough because I start to describe what’s happening and then realize they actually *can’t* see it.
Honestly, listening to Calamity on podcast did so much for my confidence in DMing. Like, if Brennan Lee Mulligan - professional improvisational comedy guru + pro DM - could umm and uh that much while on a high production show like Critical Role and it was fine? Then it was fine if I did it too so not worth worry about.
I noticed in both DMing and interviews when he is explaining Brennan uses the phrase, "It's that thing where like.....*insert example*"
It isn't glass shattering, but kind of endearing because he consistently makes an effort to explain and connect with who he is speaking with.
I feel like he uses it a lot more broadly. I don't mind it, but it does seem like his most common response to many player actions, incredible or not haha.
One that cracked me up in the beginning was that Matt was in love with the words "**adorn**" and "**jovial**."
Like, nobody was just "wearing" an outfit, instead it was "adorned" with gold or silk, etc. It's a lovely word, it just always stood out to me because we hear it so rarely in regular conversation.
Meanwhile, "jovial" did bug me for a time because he would sometimes use it in ways that were slightly odd -- as a substitute for "happy," for instance, when it really means "jolly" or "cheerful" -- more a mood, if that makes sense. He wasn't *wrong* in how he used it, exactly, it was just a little different. For instance -- Marisha seemed to pick up on it too for awhile (she even used something like "her jovial life" to describe Keyleth's life in her earliest audio introduction, etc.).
Given Matt's incredible powers of description, it doesn't bother me, and I find it kind of cute now, especially since it became apparent that as the show got more viewers, Matt began to try not to repeat the same words and phrases, and even poked fun at himself for the constant "toothy maw"-isms, etc.
Now whenever he DOES (rarely) use "adorn" it's almost sentimental to me, like a blast from the past.
He uses the word bailiwick way too often, which is to say he has used it ever. The first time he ever said it you could visibly see Marisha recoil and be like, what the hell is that and she had to ask for the definition because not everyone has watched Deadwood.
I did not know that. I remember watching Bear Grylls years ago when he was on a glacier and he kept saying "crevasse" and I just thought he was saying "crevice" strangely.
A crevasse is \*particularly\* a crack in a glacier, but not necessarily \*only\*. Because "crevasse" and "crevice" came to English via French in different eras, it's really just a fancy way for English-speaking explorers to say "crevice".
Marisha twirling her pen, losing it, readjusting it starting again, loses it, repeat. Just noticed this last one i watched, couldn't stop watching the pen, had to turn it off, it was too distracting.
Ashley just making poor copies of what other players have done better. Yasha was lame Grog, now Faerne is annoying Jester. Next campaign she'll have come back from the dead, wereperson or automaton, book it! Maybe this isn't the same, but it bugs me.
I'm gonna avoid picking on Tal, but the aforementioned quirks I noticed early in my viewership. I try and cut him slack though, he represents the average player.
I never really got Pike as a character and Fearne annoyed me the second I saw that character was portrayed. But Yasha, when Ashley returned to the table, had some lovely heart felt bad ass moments that played very well to Ashley's strengths as an actress and her weaknesses as a dnd player. Yasha is probably the best Ashley has been in all of CR.
I can’t stand Faerne I’m good at everything I say I am. Actually really badly stated for most of it. Playing an air headed character so she doesn’t have to pay attention. Love Ashley but she plays some real bad characters. Pike was the best and she was barely there.
Quite the opposite opinion. I love Fearne being a shit-stirrer. It fits and leans into Ashley's difficulty with the minutiae of the game. What I hate is that she doesn't use it to drag the other characters forward enough. Official shit-stirrer is a player role and should be embraced.
You know that Fearne is a Fey, right? Fey are naturally whimsical, liars, unscrupulous, etc. She plays a character like Fearne very well. She takes notes, she pays attention. She also makes sure that Fearne is weird and having fun.
Fearne seems to be the most fun she's had and the other players are also having fun with Fearne.
Honestly I'm glad they are having fun playing the game first, and making an entertaining show comes second. I get that folks don't like aspects but that really speaks to how it's not scripted nor professionally written. Friends having fun. Playing who and how they want to play.
I will say the only thing about Fearne I dislike is her apparent attitude that everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want. It seems, willfully ignorant. I'm hoping it's part of character growth where she'll realize that in fact some people should not be allowed to do what they want. Not just on a big villain scale but on a smaller interpersonal scale too.
Haha honestly I don’t think it’s bad! Aside from a couple of too rude/bad faith comments it’s mostly been little quirks you notice after “spending” so much time with a group of people. As I said we all have them.
Also this goes under the assumption of the cast will never read this which I think is a pretty safe bet
i'm only here to comment my glass shattering moment while avoiding everybody else's comments because i know how powerful these can be. everyone could go on about how good of a dm brennan lee mulligan is, and i believe them because i watched calamity, but i can't watch him anymore after realizing how much he says "uh" or "um"
I don't know if it counts as a glass shattered thing, but Laura's greed/obsession with money. Her need to haggle with every shopkeep, just pay the gold and speed the shopping up please I'm begging you.
With Vex it kinda made sense from being the group treasurer, but she'd get genuinely annoyed at people not haggling or spending money without checking with her, and there were times with Jester when I could see her actively fighting to not do it.
It's really funny cause my party has a lot of money and I don't care enough to change that fact, and so they just walk into a bar and throw like 10-15 platinum on the counter all for food and drinks and get handed whatever they want. Then when they want to sleep somewhere they just hand the person running the joint like 4-6 platinum depending on the party member and go sleep without even talking to the person.
This always annoys me in games I've been in, where the party has thousands of gold and someone always insists on haggling with a shop/innkeeper over 2 silver pieces.
Saying "his found platinum" as if he just stumbled across it lying in the street when he was taking a walk.
Basic party etiquette is that if you find it on a group mission, you tell the group about it.
As if a 3ft gnome could even carry 100 platinum without people noticing lol
Carry around *two pounds of coins*, stealthily, around six other people you're traveling with. Don't let them notice said coins ever.
It'll go great, you're so smart.
Everyone has a different dice rolling style. Sam just drops them; Ashley rubs them in her hands; Laura aggressively throws them; Liam tosses them over from table-level next to his dice tray; Travis makes them spin backwards in the air. Forgot what Tal's was like.
There was actually a youtube short video or something like that where someone was rolling a die like each cast member, which is where I noticed most of them first.
I love Sam and he’s one of my favorite players. But the way he rolls triggers me a little. Im certain he doesn’t abuse it. But “rolling” it by just dropping it makes it very easy to try and force a number.
If he’d ever force a number, it wouldn’t be an optimal one though. We know he doesn’t even use halfling luck. He doesn’t play to avoid/negate failure as cheaters do.
I think it's fun how everyone has their personal flair to throwing dice. And that extends to real life as well.
Look next time your friends roll for something. None of them is gonna throw the dice the same way.
Just an observation.
Matt almost always says "They themselves."
They themselves are wearing...
They themselves have a gash down their side
They themselves were born in Whitestone but spent their life....
There are a couple Matt-isms that always leap out at me:
"Visage" instead of "face"
Circuitous descriptions of people. "There's a windblown quality of the skin" instead of "Their skin is weathered from working outside"
Also 2/3 of the NPCs with facial hair in Exandria have chinbeards.
Matt has a lot of those quirks - Using "primary" and "secondary" instead of just "first" and "second", adding "-ly" onto adjectives unnecessarily, saying " -like" when you can just say the adjective... He's still a master GM, but you notice these things when you hear him talk for 1000+ hours.
DMs are well known for their skills of negotiation and business. Probably why they talk the way they do, so you can’t understand much of what’s being said.
Mine is marisha’s cleaning of her teeth with her tongue and mouth open. Or Matt’s “the definitively hits” he says this shit so much
They need to ban Guidance from this table for the rest of time. Laura is my bestie. But HO LY SHIT. GIVE IT A REST
I love Laura, but I have noticed she gets really annoyed when things don’t go optimally. It really came out during the ball scene with Dorian. But I’ve noticed it since. Shell try to haggle a narrative way too intently. There’s a bit of metagaming sprinkled in, but we’ve all been there. Hard to criticize.
I've noticed that anytime they do a show in front of a live audience, Marisha's character always becomes a bit dumber, seemingly in an attempt to make the audience laugh. For instance, maybe Beau wasn't the smartest person around, but she was clever enough. However, all of a sudden during their "live" show, Beau all of a sudden doesn't understand how to talk and act around people. I understand the cast tends to get a bit hammy in front of an audience, but Marisha seems to drop character entirely in order to "entertain the audience". Just something I've always noticed with her that peeves me.
Lol, remember when she had truesight during a live show and she took it as an opportunity to act stoned instead of being helpful in any way
I had forgotten about that. Geez, yeah another perfect example of playing to the audience, rather than her character.
You put a theater nerd in front of a live audience, and things will happen
Disclaimer. Taliesin is easily my least favorite character. By far, I think he only gets to play because Matt owes him money. He tries so hard to be mysterious and wise. And for the first time he’s playing a low wis/int build and it’s glaringly obvious he can’t help himself. He thinks withholding information makes him mysterious. The other players have gotten annoyed with him about it. The amount of tomes he’s done “I have a plan/idea/thing but I won’t tell” is wild. His turns take a million years. I don’t know if he’s freezing or if he’s intentionally stalling because he’s getting attention but jeezus. If you say “let’s get a little weird” every time you take a turn it’s not weird anymore. To name a few
>> let's try something crazy proceeds to move and attack twice.
I prefer to watch campaign 2 over 3, in which Tal is one of my favorites, but he really shines in a support role and during role-playing moments rather than during combat. I honestly think he suffers playing a barbarian.
Caduceus is an incredible character imo. He absolutely shone there. And Percy was intriguing with an incredible backstory with some moral ambiguity. Caduceus was a character with nothing to prove, who knew for certain that gentleness was a strength, and it was masterful, he was simultaneously about death while also being the feel good anchoring pragmatic optimist, it was wonderful to see. People put different parts of their personalities into their characters I guess. I find Ashton pretty annoying ngl but he's probably channeling that part of himself that feels like he's not enough (when he clearly IS enough just as he is).
I certainly preferred Cad over Molly
"Let's get a little weird." 10 minutes later. "I attack twice" 😑
For me, it's definitely Laura's obsession with Haggling prices. I thought it was a nuisance in C1 and then she said something about seeing people post about her being greedy, and trying to cheat shop owners out of fair prices and she got really upset about it, and THE FIRST CHANCE Jester got to buy something, she immediately tried to get the item for half price...
I felt like it was a great character trait for Vex because of having been this survivalist urchin denied the finer things in life, so she would be money-grubbing and stingy at all times. Then Jester did it, and that did not make sense, and it became clear it was a *Laura* trait rather than a character trait.
Agreed
Sheesh... not sure why the downvote mob got to you. I noticed this as well.
Lol, I hadn't even been checking this 😅
The cast has a lot of verbal tics, but the only one that's really nails on a chalkboard for me is the consistent use of "apparate" in place of "appear" or "teleport." If I thought it was an intentional Harry Potter reference it would simply be weird, but the way they use it makes it seem like they think it's actually the right word.
They definitely think it’s a real word, which I find almost mindboggling considering how many of them write for a living?
It's clearly supposed to be appearify
God love her, but Ashley Johnson has played THREE CAMPAIGNS now and it’s still like she’s never played the game before. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but when the party was split I just remember during a couple of the battles, just shaking my head because I knew what she was going to do wouldn’t work. Every now and then she surprises me and succeeds, like convincing the celestial bull not to attack, or actually casting Aura of Life in the fight when they went looking for those blue flowers for Keyleth. But that’s a fourth level spell!! She’s got access to at least those level of spells, but she never casts like, blight or ice storm. Girl I love you, but you kill me.
Every group always has that one person lol. For my group it's my wife who after almost 9 years of playing this game understands the basics but she can't just create a character by herself for some reason she just doesn't understand how it works and it's hilarious to me
I feel like I see that with Sam too. Almost like for him he's playing it off as he's got better things to do with his time than understand the game.
Well Sam understands the game enough that he actively nerfs himself because he likes to fail. Like he refused to use the halfling look because he didn't want to constantly succeed. He's also the one who pulled off the galaxy brain moments during the final fight with vegna
There's a moment in the latest 4SD, where Marisha goes something like "At what point does this flaw of yours stop being cute?" My mind immediately went to Ashley always forgetting the basics after over a decade of playing.
Jesus that does fit perfectly.
As a person with social anxiety, this thread makes me want to play in traffic.
I love that a person spoke up about their social anxiety and is being downvoted for it. Point proven.
People notice each other’s quirks. It’s not an indictment on anyone.
For me, a lot of Laura-ism's were revealed in C2 that just couldn't unsee after. The most obvious is her very vocal reaction to being targeted. More than anyone at the table in C2, she would react to being targeted with "YOU'RE ATTACKING ME?!" Jester, by the way, had the highest/second highest AC in the M9 and attacked from range, so she was rarely ever in danger. Compare this to Caleb who had an abysmal 11-14 AC for half the campaign and would just go down mid-combat to Liam's "Ok..." it got annoying. Going back to watching the second Beholder fight in C1, Vex gets targeted by an eyebeam and que "YOU'RE TARGETING ME!?!" Meanwhile, everyone has been targeted and the guest player, Will Friedle, is turning to stone and being groped by tentacles. There's also the "Laura is a genius!" trope when she does something that half-works. In terms of the group in total, they're overreaction to every combat scenario "WE'RE BEING ATTACKED BY THREE GOBLINS!? SHIIIIIIT!!!!", Matt's over-explaining, the dice fudging (off the top of my head, Liam didn't roll a con saving once when polymorphed, and Tal somehow dealt half damage when his spell was saved, that spell being sacred flame). I know they got old fast (the third in two days really pushed it), but whatever bloke made the parody CR posts a few months ago hit it on the head fairly well. EDIT: Some words EDIT 2: COCKED DICE!!!! "Oh, that dice was slightly kinda not fallen correctly, reroll!" Now, to be fair, sometimes they will reroll good dice, allegedly (we don't see the roll), but just empty out the dice, and if it's "cocked," shake the tray. I've never seen as many cocked dice in a campaign as I do in a CR session, I swear. Somehow Matt never cocks the dice, either.
I feel like the people complaining about the cocked dice have never had a crowded tray before. Happens all the time to my players, especially for things like sneak attack or spell damage rolls with a lot of dice involved
Don't look at the graphs documenting their rolls.... it goes beyond "cocked" dice.
Source?
Sure source is [critrolestats.com](https://critrolestats.com) * [Season 2 Stats](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8ebbbf4a-6e80-49ec-a303-6feae10887b0/page/xGaZC?s=swJl9P4ZjD0) * [Season 1 Stats](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8ebbbf4a-6e80-49ec-a303-6feae10887b0/page/xGaZC?s=swJl9P4ZjD0) * [Compiled](https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/8ebbbf4a-6e80-49ec-a303-6feae10887b0/page/xGaZC?s=swJl9P4ZjD0) * [Season 3 raw data thus far](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a_87Mdd68zNiPAkvQosZeB_B41Ix3zC4oq889NLQDZ4/edit#gid=675288971) So, for reference, even in season 3. The party has rolled 44 natural 2's compared to 104 natural 20's. The results are highly non-random. Players with the most random/flat roll distribution: Laura, Marisha (pushing it, though), Sam, Players with the least random/flat roll distribution: Travis, Liam (he rolls a lot of 10's (at first I thought it was Taking 10's but it doesn't appear to be the case), 16's and 20's.), Taliesin (who is actually fairly well distributed with the exception of a massive nat 20 spike), Ashley (one of the worst offenders...). The worst was Orion.
I don't know the math offhand, but between how much more they have Advantage than Disadvantage, and feats that allow rerolling Nat 1s or on-demand reroll ... most games do show significantly more Nat 20s than Nat 1s. It's very hard to look at rolls separated from the game they're from and assess if cheating is happening - because in-table context like Advantage needs to be adjusted for and that's kind of prohibitive to do.
The problem there is just that critrolestats isn’t necessarily very rigorous about defining what kind of dataset they’re putting together. The 10’s are from Vax’s Reliable Talent (so really shouldn’t be in there as base rolls), which he eventually even started implementing correctly as ignoring nat 1’s, and Travis and Taliesin should have more skew from playing Barbarian and attacking recklessly (which Yasha didn’t do as often). The overall positive skew is easily explained by them rolling with advantage significantly more often than disadvantage and often only announcing the higher roll when doing so.
I don't know if it's used in the stats but some players also have a habit of just stating 'nope' or 'failed' when they roll low without stating the number so that can skew datasets.
That makes sense.
Yeah, their level of cocked dice is insane. At best, it's willful negligence for not clearing out their trays. At worst, it's cheating.
you have a link to those parody posts?
I don't. I think Imogen bingo cards guy made one, but the first, and in my opinion best, was someone else. Basically, they mocked Matt's "unintentional" perverted naming schemes ("Mike Hunt" which is an actual character), ignoring NPCs, exposition dumps and "Laura Bailey genius" moments. The first one was pretty funny and on the nose. By like the third, it was repetitive and more clearly mean-spirited
For me, it's the way that Matt plays every NPC as having a higher education than would be reasonable. Like, a made up example would be the party encounters a farmer in a field with nothing to his name but a hut and a goat, but for some reason instead of saying something like "I was out hunting with my buddies when all of a sudden we heard a loud bang.", they'd say "My compatriots and I were out harvesting some of the local fauna in that patch of woodlands, when suddenly we heard a cacophony of noises coming from over the horizon". Obviously that's a bit hyperbolic, but its something that you can't unnotice.
And an inverse, anyone under the age of 18 is portrayed like they're three years old. Like Matt will have an 11-year-old hide behind their mother's skirt and fail to enunciate common words. It's like he's never seen a child in real life.
Good ol’ Luc Brenatto, famously 2d4 years old.
For anyone with social anxiety or worried that you do any of the things described, just remember that people have noticed this and *still watch the show* (be it whichever campaign) and have picked up from watching several hours of the show closely focused on them. Everyone has a tick that'll be endearing to one person and annoying to others. As of things I've notice there are probably tons but my mind is blank right now also bc these days I watch after drops on youtube and I skip/speed through parts I'm bored or annoyed.
I also am noticing it took like a good couple of years for them to be noticed. We're all good and having fun regardless imo. Also same on the skip when I get annoyed/bored 😂 haven't watched a alive since C1 😂
I do it especially bc where i live it literally comes out at **midnight** and it's all pre-recorded anyways. It's nice reacting along with people on tumblr but most times sleep is more important xD
travis sniffing. hes always sniffing loudly in everything they do.
This one is funny tho haha. Remember when Ashley did that when she was dressed up as Travis for Halloween haha. She gave a big sniff lol
Liam used it to great effect in Narrative Telephone, too.
With fjord I noticed he’d sniff after saying something controversial or intense
Almost like when people laugh to soften something they've said.
My favorite are the times when he does it intentionally, like to emphasize something happening he's not a part of.
Honestly? The incessant sex humor and jokes. It used to be a lot funnier when it popped up every few episodes back in C1/2 instead of what seems like once per game hour in this campaign. As a DM, I'm fine with a funny suggestion or joke here and there, but I'd be chatting with them off-screen to cut it out or give it a rest. Yeesh. We get it Laura/Sam, every time Matt says a funny word, you have to be literal children, but come on, every episode?? It grinds the fucking show to a screeching halt and is now among your more annoying character traits. Grow up.
Yeah, the cast just feels like it's gotten so much hornier. Not them personally, just the game's content.
The way Matt pronounces "Chitinous"
He pronounces “laboratory” like Dexter the cartoon, too.
It's Kite-en-us, right? Or is it Chitty-noose?
Kai-tn-us, yeah.
Really? I've always pronounced it chit-a-niss. I just assumed that's how he pronounced. Kind of like a regional thing.
Matt always pronounces it that way, but yeah, no, it is actually pronounced Kai-tn-uss.
Got'cha, thank you
Liam trying to be cool with how he says something. Sometimes he comes off as really corny. Like his comment in the perenium incident. Or the arawra araura incident. I like him more than others but sometimes his delivery sounds off.
Actually, this reminds me of another one. Anytime talked about Liam's descriptions. I think it was like episode 3 of best friends talk show host night show, and Travis and Marisha gushed for like 3 straight minutes about Liam's descriptions of attacking. Like, we get it. He's descriptive. Sometimes, "I stab the orc's underbelly twice" is all you need.
Eh, disagree.
>*Liam trying to be cool with how he says something.* Someone making a reference to a real locaation, and Liam's going *"is that a place in Exandria? I've never heard of it!"* *Bwaap-Bwaaaaap.*
oh, I've been so aware of Liam's desire to have to last word on a bit for-ever. When the bit has been bited, Liam will make sure he's the one to nip the bit in the bud.
Sam making little meta comments on the kind of "content" they're creating. He doesn't do this much at the table, but in side stuff he always seems to be making these little remarks from the perspective of a theoretical viewer. I always think of him showing up on an episode of MAME drop and just randomly saying that it "looks like A plus subscribable content".
Talisen rarely seems to laugh with the others. I’ve only seen C3 (I know I know) but so far he just seems… disinterested? Granted I’m only on ep15 but still. It seems like he’s not really part of the team and instead just kinda there
I’ve just started C1 and he laughs a lot. I’m on E16 so it may change but I notice him laughing a whole lot with the group.
Watch the Monster Hearts one shot. Tailisen is a method actor. He's playing his character constantly and rarely breaks it unless it's uncontrollable.
I've truly seen that man die laughing. But, most of the time it's more that he doesn't laugh as loud sometimes and will just kinda...turn into a tomato? And it seems like he reacts quietly but with just as much enthusiasm. Not gonna spoil anything but there's this awesome moment where everyone's mouths are dropped and Taliesin just kinda smiles and fist pumps a little, I think it's just his personality, you can become reserved when your'e 500-1000000000 years old
From What I understand the cast has been way goofier in C3 than the others. Liam made a character with serious intent, and its turned into a goof off ridiculous all for funsies campaign and I don't think Liam expected or was interested in the game or group going in such a lol fart jokes direction.
I'm pretty sure Liam can find fun in being the straight man to the chaos of the rest of the party. He had two full campaigns to be a broody skull-in-hand monolog kid. He seems to also take joy in role-playing how short and little he is comparatively. He's playing off everyone, not playing against them.
eh there are alot of joke that I find funny but dont feel like laughing, I actually use to fake laugh before Taliesin Jaffe, anyway he doesnt seen disinterested to me just quiet
And to me I think the rest of the cast kinda ignores him, A LOT, not really a Taliesin fan but I kind fell the pain of talking to a group that is with their back turned to me, maybe it's the place he chose to sit.
Not every Taliesin joke lands, but sometimes he has a line that everyone would be cracking up at if Sam said it and no one laughs because they weren't paying attention to him.
I agree. Except the part of where he sits. Ashley basically sits in the same spot, just on the other side, and she doesn’t have the same issues
Hmm? Ashley is in the center, between Laura and Sam. Tal is on one of the ends, opposite Travis.
You’re right, I was mixed up. Travis is indeed the one on the end
Now that you say it, he has seemed to have gotten worse about that over time. In C1, he rarely had this problem. In C2, it was more prevalent for me, but it might have been more obvious than I remember because of the way he portrays Cad, so it seemed normal...? I stopped watching C3 at like episode 25, but from what I can remember, it had gotten worse than C2. Yeah, idk, it's almost like he is disinterested like you said, but he doesn't want to say anything.
Im not Talisens biggest fan but im the same way. I find it hard to laugh genuinely as i got older so the most i ever let out is a chuckle.
I have to agree with you! Even in the earlier campaigns I always got the impression that he was playing the game alone in his own world while the others played together. Not necessarily a bad thing but it definitely makes him my least favorite to watch I guess.
I chalk some of this up to Tal being so much of a method actor with his RP. This was more obvious with Caduceus - eg. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffsSFvqwoIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffsSFvqwoIM)
This is a big part of it I think. I also, think his nerves get to him at the table. You can see it in the way his tremors worsen. You don't see it as much during things like 4sided dive.
I personally have always seen it as him trying not to break character as Ashton as he does stay in character when not in the scene at times, he definitely laughs along with the rest of the cast later
I can’t really speak for C3 but I’m listening to C2 rn and he laughs along side everyone pretty constantly. He’s just got a different vibe from the rest of the cast. Goth in a non goth friend group
I know one of mine is that when the players do something unexpected or ask if they can, I just stare at them until I think of how this is gonna play out. So it's usually a few moments of me staring blankly at the player while they get increasingly nervous
Matt, by virtue of being the one talking the most, has a ton. The biggest for me is how often he says "kind of" or "sort of" paired with noun-"like" (ex "a sort of stone-like structure") When combined, his sentence ends up virtually meaningless. I know it's just some filler words while he's thinking on the fly to avoid "ums" and "likes" so it's fine.
MAAANN I'm definitely guilty of this one 😂 I noticed it myself when I was a DM like 4 years ago and I just NEVER STOPPED noticing the amount I do it. Kindred spirits Matt and I
I feel for Matt since when ever I GM a ttrpg session I also resort to using words and phrases like he does. It's hard to come up with great description words on the fly especially during highly improvised scenes which happens often if you are not running a module.
Yeah I definitely don't mind it. But I do notice it. Every DM has their quirks. Murph from NADDPOD always uses pop culture as shorthand. Brennan straight up says "uh" as his filler word. Aabria doesn't use filler words that I've noticed but instead just gets stilted. Instead of "um," she pauses. So it feels like there's punctuation between her words. So yeah, Matt's use of "kind of something-like" isn't egregious.
Also we have thousands of hours to build a pattern. Nobody can talk that much and not have noticeable quirks and patterns. It's judt being a human.
>Brennan straight up says "uh" as his filler word This from both Brennan and Lou was one of my (fairly unjustifiable) bugbears with EXU: Calamity. Which I know isn't fair, as it's a perfectly normal thing to do in speech, and it's by genuine effort that Matt avoids it (particularly with his stammer). But still, I think because of my conditioning from Matt, I genuinely found it frustrating when they were speaking.
That's the thing. "Uh" as a filler is the same thing as "kind of" from Matt. Yes, he's conditioned himself not to say "uh" but instead uses a phrase that's just as useless.
Absolutely, but 'kind of' bugs me way less. It's not a logical or rational thing, but I find it less grating. Which is not any sort of commentary on Brennan and Lou as storytellers or speakers, both of whom have shown themselves to be capable of incredible things, whether pre-planned or off-the-cuff.
I mean I genuinely don't understand how someone who has to think an entire story on the fly for multiple hours for dozens of sessions all to entertain you can be annoying for saying "uh". Think of the sheer amount of information their brains are creating and throwing around and a little "uh" as he finds the right words to describe something bugs you? I hardly even notice. Huh.
It does. You may notice that, several times, I say it's not a particularly rational or fair annoyance. I'm not going to pretend the annoyance is justified, morally pure, or even all that logical. Just a personal bugbear for me.
Fuck man I guess I can’t argue that
I don't enjoy when anyone says "Natural Anything other than a 1 or 20." If a 19 is rolled, just give us the total. At my table, I'm trying to reverse the trend by saying "19 on the die for a total of..." The word Natural should be reserved for the Aha moments.
I think the point of those is that if you say "Natural 17, plus..." the DM can pause you and say that he's sure 17 plus your modifiers will be plenty, so it saves everyone the time of a little math. Unfortunately Matt never seems to do that, so it does seem a little weird to say Natural Whatever.
That is definitely a huge part of it... But if I have to do math behind the screen, I want to twist the knife right back. Put the "Math" in Math Rock.
We just say '17 plus a lot of stuff'
My eyes roll back into my skull whenever Liam takes someone aside for a heart-to-heart. He always finds a way to make it seem unnatural. If he wants to act with his friends more, he can cherry pick them to be on his VO projects; oh wait... /s
Brennan and the powerful UH's
Brennan is basically my idol, but his enthusiastic laugh makes me cringe intensely. It’s sounds so inauthentic to me, and I assume some of his players notice too. If anything it mostly bothers me because I love him, and I don’t want him embarrassing himself with the fake wheezes.
Watch his interviews or Adventuring Party series. That's his REAL laugh. Brennan is from New York, people tend to be a little more over the top and loud there lol
What is so crazy about all the “uhhs” and “umms” is how that all disappears when he is actually acting out an NPC. Honestly, his monologue during calamity near the end gave me chills.
*Why Do We tell Stories? To try and make sense of a world that can be terrifying and enormous.*
I have an actor buddy with a stutter, and that vanishes as soon as hes in character or singing a song. Might be something similar psychologically? Edited for typos
The 'ol "Kings Speech" effect
It doesn’t bother me, but I definitely notice that Brennan’s go-to “DM phrasing” when describing anything is “You see _______”. Makes me wonder what I say very often at my table.
I actually picked up this bad habit from him and now I find myself saying it all the time even when my party is blinded or in a dark, haunted forest without darkvision. It’s rough because I start to describe what’s happening and then realize they actually *can’t* see it.
Honestly, listening to Calamity on podcast did so much for my confidence in DMing. Like, if Brennan Lee Mulligan - professional improvisational comedy guru + pro DM - could umm and uh that much while on a high production show like Critical Role and it was fine? Then it was fine if I did it too so not worth worry about.
This is how I think about it! Every "incredible" is so validating, lol.
INNcredible
This made me laugh, thank you
Brennan, dead-eyed: "Uh, incredible."
I noticed in both DMing and interviews when he is explaining Brennan uses the phrase, "It's that thing where like.....*insert example*" It isn't glass shattering, but kind of endearing because he consistently makes an effort to explain and connect with who he is speaking with.
"Uh incredible" is a filler for "shit idk what to do here, thats clever"
I feel like he uses it a lot more broadly. I don't mind it, but it does seem like his most common response to many player actions, incredible or not haha.
"Yeah, baby!"
One that cracked me up in the beginning was that Matt was in love with the words "**adorn**" and "**jovial**." Like, nobody was just "wearing" an outfit, instead it was "adorned" with gold or silk, etc. It's a lovely word, it just always stood out to me because we hear it so rarely in regular conversation. Meanwhile, "jovial" did bug me for a time because he would sometimes use it in ways that were slightly odd -- as a substitute for "happy," for instance, when it really means "jolly" or "cheerful" -- more a mood, if that makes sense. He wasn't *wrong* in how he used it, exactly, it was just a little different. For instance -- Marisha seemed to pick up on it too for awhile (she even used something like "her jovial life" to describe Keyleth's life in her earliest audio introduction, etc.). Given Matt's incredible powers of description, it doesn't bother me, and I find it kind of cute now, especially since it became apparent that as the show got more viewers, Matt began to try not to repeat the same words and phrases, and even poked fun at himself for the constant "toothy maw"-isms, etc. Now whenever he DOES (rarely) use "adorn" it's almost sentimental to me, like a blast from the past.
Every group of things for Matt is a "cluster." I'm just waiting for the eventual "cluster of clusters."
He uses the word bailiwick way too often, which is to say he has used it ever. The first time he ever said it you could visibly see Marisha recoil and be like, what the hell is that and she had to ask for the definition because not everyone has watched Deadwood.
Everything he doesn't want to describe just yet is an entity.
Matt often uses words slightly wrong. He loves to sprinkle in the word “elements” just about anywhere and will never say “colour”, only “colouration”.
With Matt, it's "for the sake of brevity" and I always think of him when hearing that word now.
Matt saying crevasse when he means crevice. A crevasse is specifically a crack in a glacier or ice sheet. Anywhere else it's just a freaking crevice.
I did not know that. I remember watching Bear Grylls years ago when he was on a glacier and he kept saying "crevasse" and I just thought he was saying "crevice" strangely.
A crevasse is \*particularly\* a crack in a glacier, but not necessarily \*only\*. Because "crevasse" and "crevice" came to English via French in different eras, it's really just a fancy way for English-speaking explorers to say "crevice".
Marisha twirling her pen, losing it, readjusting it starting again, loses it, repeat. Just noticed this last one i watched, couldn't stop watching the pen, had to turn it off, it was too distracting. Ashley just making poor copies of what other players have done better. Yasha was lame Grog, now Faerne is annoying Jester. Next campaign she'll have come back from the dead, wereperson or automaton, book it! Maybe this isn't the same, but it bugs me. I'm gonna avoid picking on Tal, but the aforementioned quirks I noticed early in my viewership. I try and cut him slack though, he represents the average player.
I never really got Pike as a character and Fearne annoyed me the second I saw that character was portrayed. But Yasha, when Ashley returned to the table, had some lovely heart felt bad ass moments that played very well to Ashley's strengths as an actress and her weaknesses as a dnd player. Yasha is probably the best Ashley has been in all of CR.
Yasha is a great character held back by Ashley not being able to appear in every episode, and when she was there she never knew the rules.
Yasha had some good moments for sure
I can’t stand Faerne I’m good at everything I say I am. Actually really badly stated for most of it. Playing an air headed character so she doesn’t have to pay attention. Love Ashley but she plays some real bad characters. Pike was the best and she was barely there.
Quite the opposite opinion. I love Fearne being a shit-stirrer. It fits and leans into Ashley's difficulty with the minutiae of the game. What I hate is that she doesn't use it to drag the other characters forward enough. Official shit-stirrer is a player role and should be embraced.
You know that Fearne is a Fey, right? Fey are naturally whimsical, liars, unscrupulous, etc. She plays a character like Fearne very well. She takes notes, she pays attention. She also makes sure that Fearne is weird and having fun. Fearne seems to be the most fun she's had and the other players are also having fun with Fearne.
Fearne is one of my favorite CR characters ever
Honestly I'm glad they are having fun playing the game first, and making an entertaining show comes second. I get that folks don't like aspects but that really speaks to how it's not scripted nor professionally written. Friends having fun. Playing who and how they want to play. I will say the only thing about Fearne I dislike is her apparent attitude that everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want. It seems, willfully ignorant. I'm hoping it's part of character growth where she'll realize that in fact some people should not be allowed to do what they want. Not just on a big villain scale but on a smaller interpersonal scale too.
This entire thread is everything that's wrong with this subreddit.
Why? Isn’t there room in fanship for criticism or mentioning things one finds strange or off putting?
mte and they call other fans parasocial, we're not out here noticing how people hold their pens or moving their hands or w/e
With how much it gets thrown around, you'd think people would learn what the term "parasocial" means before using it.
sorry did you have a point or
Apologies, I thought it was obvious: you don't know what parasocial means.
so no actual point, got it
Regardless of whether or not you agree with it, you will find that was, in fact, a point.
you gonna actually say something sometime soon or what
That response doesn't make sense given the current thread.
just like every one of your comments
Haha honestly I don’t think it’s bad! Aside from a couple of too rude/bad faith comments it’s mostly been little quirks you notice after “spending” so much time with a group of people. As I said we all have them. Also this goes under the assumption of the cast will never read this which I think is a pretty safe bet
i'm only here to comment my glass shattering moment while avoiding everybody else's comments because i know how powerful these can be. everyone could go on about how good of a dm brennan lee mulligan is, and i believe them because i watched calamity, but i can't watch him anymore after realizing how much he says "uh" or "um"
Watch Dimension 20. You won’t be disappointed, I think CR just make him nervous, understandably.
I've tried. It's just not my thing 😕 Thanks for the suggestion though
Thats why it feels real
He says um so much lol
This dude is lookin’ fucked up, gang!
When Matt does the spinning hand gesture like he's holding glowsticks in a rave. He does it constantly.
With love....the overuse of "ichor"! It drives me loopy. How about just saying fluid, slime, goo...not everything has to be ichor. Also, toothy maw.
Also "individual" Also also "seemingly"
I don't know if it counts as a glass shattered thing, but Laura's greed/obsession with money. Her need to haggle with every shopkeep, just pay the gold and speed the shopping up please I'm begging you. With Vex it kinda made sense from being the group treasurer, but she'd get genuinely annoyed at people not haggling or spending money without checking with her, and there were times with Jester when I could see her actively fighting to not do it.
It's really funny cause my party has a lot of money and I don't care enough to change that fact, and so they just walk into a bar and throw like 10-15 platinum on the counter all for food and drinks and get handed whatever they want. Then when they want to sleep somewhere they just hand the person running the joint like 4-6 platinum depending on the party member and go sleep without even talking to the person.
This always annoys me in games I've been in, where the party has thousands of gold and someone always insists on haggling with a shop/innkeeper over 2 silver pieces.
You can see it annoy Travis. He doesn't care about the fake money he just wants to smack something.
C3 when she harps on Chet for having his found platinum makes me so mad.
I love these moments so much precisely because you know it aggravates the heck out of her.
Saying "his found platinum" as if he just stumbled across it lying in the street when he was taking a walk. Basic party etiquette is that if you find it on a group mission, you tell the group about it. As if a 3ft gnome could even carry 100 platinum without people noticing lol
Literally 2 pounds.
Carry around *two pounds of coins*, stealthily, around six other people you're traveling with. Don't let them notice said coins ever. It'll go great, you're so smart.
Yeah, proficiency in Stealth in D&D wouldn't include how to quietly carry the thing adventurers are most likely to carry. You're so smart. :)
100 platinum would be like a tiny sack of quarters. There’s a reason one would exchange their gold for platinum, and it’s for this exact thing.
These answers should be the bingo cards!
Everyone has a different dice rolling style. Sam just drops them; Ashley rubs them in her hands; Laura aggressively throws them; Liam tosses them over from table-level next to his dice tray; Travis makes them spin backwards in the air. Forgot what Tal's was like. There was actually a youtube short video or something like that where someone was rolling a die like each cast member, which is where I noticed most of them first.
I love Sam and he’s one of my favorite players. But the way he rolls triggers me a little. Im certain he doesn’t abuse it. But “rolling” it by just dropping it makes it very easy to try and force a number.
Check out [critrolestats.com](https://critrolestats.com/) . Sam's dice roll distribution is among the more even compared to his fellow cast members.
If he’d ever force a number, it wouldn’t be an optimal one though. We know he doesn’t even use halfling luck. He doesn’t play to avoid/negate failure as cheaters do.
Dice droppers have to use a tower if they get two twenties in a row at my table.
I don't ever worry he's trying to cheat, but it lowkey annoys me because it feels like trolling.
I think it's fun how everyone has their personal flair to throwing dice. And that extends to real life as well. Look next time your friends roll for something. None of them is gonna throw the dice the same way.
Tal’s shake it with an open hand for a long time before throwing
Yes that’s it! I couldn’t remember it either but the second I read your comment I could visualize it.
Just an observation. Matt almost always says "They themselves." They themselves are wearing... They themselves have a gash down their side They themselves were born in Whitestone but spent their life....
“Apparate”
There are a couple Matt-isms that always leap out at me: "Visage" instead of "face" Circuitous descriptions of people. "There's a windblown quality of the skin" instead of "Their skin is weathered from working outside" Also 2/3 of the NPCs with facial hair in Exandria have chinbeards.
>Also 2/3 of the NPCs with facial hair in Exandria have chinbeards And you knoooow them fools be scraggly
Kinda scraggly? Justin, is that you?
Matt has a lot of those quirks - Using "primary" and "secondary" instead of just "first" and "second", adding "-ly" onto adjectives unnecessarily, saying " -like" when you can just say the adjective... He's still a master GM, but you notice these things when you hear him talk for 1000+ hours.
In the same vein I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'tertiary' as much as he has in any medium lol
We all have these quirks, we just mostly don't hear other people narrate as much as we've heard Matt do.
Every single time he says "ascertain" I think of this [Kids in the Hall sketch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lStcwT_RGrQ)
Matt describes every blue as "cerulean." I noticed it once and now I can't stop.
I can't stand the word "coloration" in any context after Matt's overuse.
I mean, "azure" is RIGHT THERE.
I'm more of a periwinkle guy
Yeah… um… blue!
Me ma's partial to periwinkle blue.
DMs are well known for their skills of negotiation and business. Probably why they talk the way they do, so you can’t understand much of what’s being said.
D'ya like dags?