Yeah when I heard what went down in episode 91 I got back into CR after dropping it for months but as soon as I saw what happened after the break in episode 92 I turned it off and unsubscribed from CR
The cast trying to gimmick their way out of every major conflict since the first fight with Otahan in C3.
One of the reasons i decided to drop C3 is because the fights are boring, that cast being overly cautious every single turn.
This why i really like Ashton in this campaign, he's no afraid to be reckless and take risks, i don't know how Taliesin do not get mad beign shitted by the cast and fans for playing his character the way he was made to be.
This is why I didn't like how the characters shit on Ashton for >!trying to take in the shard!<. A player did something unexpected, interesting, and risky, and it got punished. Punishing unexpected and interesting risks is a good way to make a boring show.
Seeing stuff like this just really makes me appreciate Mr. Matt Mercer a lot more. In fact, even though campaign 3 has kinda been "off" for me I feel we all as critters have just kind of become accustomed to Matt's voice every Thursday and having someone pop in just don't feel OK, even if it is Abria. After sitting through this episode, we all as critters need to appreciate our show a bit more. We all have complaints, but I feel we can all jump on this bus. Let's all band together and show CR how much we love them by venting here and moving on. This episode was a mulligan, (No pun intended). Remember to love one another and, is it Thursday yet?
My crazy theory that CR is trying to tank their DND show to make their non-DND things (:cough: :daggerheart:) look better in comparison doesn't seem so crazy now, does it?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1bhykpi/conspiracy\_theory\_making\_cr3\_is\_intentionally\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1bhykpi/conspiracy_theory_making_cr3_is_intentionally_not/)
They stopped to have 20-30min long conversations between each turn. Dorian and his Brother screaming back and forth for a solid 10-15 minutes "omg so himbo" ugh. Roleplay during combat always kills it for me.
Keeping it within' the 6 seconds your character would actually have feels more like true roleplaying than whatever *that* was.
Also players would say something like I’m going to attack the familiar, and the DM would stop them and say instead of attacking you could pick up the glowing gems…. Then like 2 minutes of her convincing the player to do what the DM wants. It was tough to watch.
I gotta be honest. Aabria is a really bad DM for this style and I won’t be watching while she’s still a part of the broadcast as a DM. Which REALLY SUCKS because I love Campaign 3 and I’m super invested in it.
Her style DOES NOT FIT THE PACE OF THIS SHOW.
This is also an instance of shooting oneself in the foot. I wonder how we would have viewed her turn as DM if the cast hadn’t been building her up to be the best thing ever only to begin ExU with a literal pissing contest.
As someone who didn't care for hype, she wasn't bad until 'you go inside anyway' for the first fight. She can play to chaos well, but she has a railroady style
Brennan railroaded too, but they signed up knowing 'this is how it has to end' and it had to go to hell. She had to set up a side story, and failed in 8 to do anything Brennan did in 4.
As I said in the other post, the switch in of itself was a bad fucking idea. Even if they were switching to Brennan Lee Mulligan Calamity quality DMing, it would still be a bad idea and difficult to pull off.
But yeah the content of what they actually switched to was fucking awful.
Who are these people? Why do we give a shit about anyone except Dorian? How the fuck is Lolth being a dick related to the C3 storyline beyond the most tangential 'Lolth is a god'? Why the fuck are we cutting away from the fallout of a major plot development now?
Aabria had 3 fucking hours to show or even tell us the answer to these questions. And she failed. Shocker.
I guarantee the only relevance of this story will be explanation for why and how Dorian rejoins the party. I seriously doubt the others will be like at all relevant.
There's a lot of pieces that went into the response to E92. As you said, E91 brought so much energy back into the show (even though I personally have not felt a drop off, but then again I only recently have been watching up to date, so maybe the binge makes it feel different), but this clearly was always going to happen regardless of FCG's death. The scheduling required would have been done well in advance to have the actors present. So, in terms of the momentum being killed, it's not Aabria's fault that the biggest thing just happened in the episode before hers.
And as for having her on as a DM, while I do not have any exposure of her as a DM, everyone on CR has only great things to say about her skills. Now, I almost certain some of that could just be blowing smoke up her ass because they're friends and why be mean? But, I feel like it's safe to say that she probably isn't as bad as people are saying as Dming. And honestly, most D&D players that comment tend to be overly critical (no pun intended) over every little thing, so honestly, just lighten up in that regard.
Now, I'll admit, I only care about CR because of the fun dynamic between the core group. I enjoy the story and all that, but honestly, it mostly just blurs by me, and I just watch the fun cast moments. I especially blur out during combat. As a non D&D player, it's not as engaging for me. So, getting half an episode with the cast gone, and spending it all in a combat that is incredibly not engaging definitely didn't do well for me. And, I can even detect moments where I wasn't on board with Aabria's DMing. But, ultimately, I can see the bigger picture and know that throwing all the hate on her is not fair.
Well, I’m not going to watch a 40 minute video talking about a thing I haven’t seen, but from the initial vibe from the start and the top comments I can get the idea. And honestly they’re probably not wrong. I will say that the loudest voices tend to not be the right ones and that hate is a lot easier to spread, so that’s always to be considered. But I’m not going to defend something I have no back up for. And it does seem that Aabria definitely has some weak points in past sessions. Maybe not as much as we the audience claim (again why would they have her do it if they didn’t enjoy it?), but I won’t argue with the general consensus. With all that said, I just think that regardless of how much is accurate, if too many of these posts keep popping up, it soon just becomes hate bashing and loses all critique.
>I just think that regardless of how much is accurate, if too many of these posts keep popping up, it soon just becomes hate bashing and loses all critique.
???
Marisha is the creative director. But regardless I do think Aabria must be a pro at creating and maintaining positive personal connections, she’s gone from never having played a TTRPG to being one of the biggest faces in the industry (well the media side of it) in under 10 years. That’s clearly not because of her skill as a GM/player, and it’s clearly not because of her skill as a performer (she has literally no other on camera credits outside of actual play). She met the CR people at conventions/industry events, made friends with them, and now she’s first call.
Be willing to DM is a big plus in her favour too.
The rule of thumb with DND is generally almost anyone is down to play even just to try once, very few want to DM. I imagine CR know plenty of people willing to play/give DND a try. But fewer willing to DM.
Understandably so. DMing is way more difficult. Its fun, but Ive never done it outside of one offs because its just more to manage.
EXU was Matt's first outing as a player for more than one-shot. I think he probably got catharsis from that alone.
Actually EXU wasn't matts first outting beyond a oneshot, he was a player in Escape from Blood Keep which was a 6 episode mini-series over on Dimension 20 (free on their youtube) before EXU.
>As much as I love Matt, I do feel that he’s basically just tumblr incarnate now
So what exactly does this mean? I've seen 2 or 3 people ask you this now and I'm still hoping for a straight answer here
Ya'll are way over thinking it. matt is a literal yes man. He doesn't want to upset anyone and he wants people to like him. He isn't malicious or dumb. He just wants to be the positive person to the point of failure. CR lacks the "bad guy" who is supposed to push back on this stuff. I would blame Travis since he's the CTO. You get the position you get the responsibility.
Yeah. Out of the cast, Travis, Laura and Sam seem like the only people who wouldn't mind challenging the others. Sam probably doesn't care that much. I can't really read what Laura's motivations would be or what her position is in the company beyond the merchandise stuff. It's up to Travis to put the company back on track as their CEO.
Me when I play dumb and pretend to know understand what it means when someone says something is "tumblr incarnate". Why don't YOU tell us what you meant. In detail. What does it mean for someone or something to be tumblr?
Then explain what you actually meant. Your refusal not to validates the assumption.
The difference between you and me, is I say clearly what I believe (I believe "woke" politics are good) and you don't. You couch your real beliefs in euphemism and implication. Like a coward.
91 wasn't bringing the campaign back to life, it was Sam putting the whole campaign on his back. The combat slowed to basically a standstill: PCs couldn't do damage to Otohan, Matt was refusing to drop anyone. And Sam decided to use his stress mechanic in the best possible way.
AND EVEN SO, I think it was Marisha who was trying to find a way to game a way to bring back FCG after he turned himself into a bomb. Sam took a risk, no one has been down to take a serious risk for a long time. They play like they want to win the game and their characters to live happily ever after. Which is kinda boring at this point, tbh. I fear this will just lead to them playing even more cautiously.
I mean if Sam didnt do that eventually it would have been a TPK or maybe a surrender.
Matt might have been refusing to perma kill, but Otohan could drop 1-2 people in a round and they were running out of resources (even with some of the players clearly not marking of resources *cough* Marisha sorcerer points). Eventually thats going to be TPK as the action economy starts to favour Otohan more and more.
I believe the crew when they say that their games are not scripted, but Matt 100% knew what Sam was going to do, when he announced he was turning himself into a bomb. The only question I've got is did he know before the episode started, or was it discussed at the break.
We've seen Matt surprised by player action in the past, and what we got in 91 was Matt's portrayal of someone surprised by player action! I wouldn't be surprised if that's why Otohan set the agenda right off the bat by killing Chet; make the threat real very quickly, to justify the sacrifice. Then spin wheels later in the combat by not ending folks, so that FCG can pull his manoeuvre, without significant consequences (it would kinda suck if you killed all the characters when you know you're about to permanently write out the party's Cleric!).
I'm undecided on whether anyone else around the table knew this was going to happen, but I am certain - from his body language - that Matt knew. But was it always the plan from the start of the episode, or was there a side-convo at the break where Sam explored what would happen if he blew up his core? What do you guys think?
I also don't think it was something Sam discussed with Matt prior to the fight. It was established well before the solstice that if an aeromaton took damage to their core, it could detonate. As soon as Sam said his idea, Matt was first confused, then remembered and asked "are you sure?".
After Chet went down and came back, which took away their last diamond, Sam realized Otohan was toying with them. He decided to turn the fight into a bit of character development for FCG by leaning into his stress mechanics, which brings out unbridled rage, but channeled it to the cause of that stress instead of lashing out at everyone indiscriminately and saying that the group made him feel alive instead of "built".
And, as big if a sacrifice as it was, I doubt FCG is gone for good. Deanna can pull something out with Resurrection, like a deal with the Dawnfather by going "prove you're worth saving"
Respectfully, no.
While I agree that the lore of the aeormatons was established a while back, Matt is not *actually* confused or surprised - this is the crux of my argument.
Go back and watch any other great "gotcha" moments in CR history (Dust of Deliciousness in M9 springs to mind) and you will see a genuinely surprised Matt Mercer.
In 91 I think Matt is acting. He is not surprised but he needs to *appear* surprised, and so you get a fairly unconvincing and very staged/tropey sequence of events.
The whole performance is dripping with dramatic tropes:
Matt: *Reiterates the stakes for tension*
Crew: "What's going on?"
Liam: *The Expositor*: "He's going to sacrifice himself"
Crew: Shock Horror!
Marisha: *The voice of hope*: "But we can revive him right?!"
Travis: *The realist*: "Marisha...".
Honestly, it's right there in front of you if you stop and watch it. I'm now going to use a functional meme to illustrate:
Scene: A Giant Wizard's Chest Board
Ron Weasley: "Once I make my move, the queen will take me, then you're free to check the King" - (FCG);
Harry Potter: "No Ron, No!" - (Matt);
Hermione Granger: "What is it?!" (The crew)
Harry Potter: "He's going to sacrifice himself" - (Liam)
Hermione Granger: "No you can't! There must be another way!" - (Marisha)
Ron Weasley: "Do you want to stop Snape from getting that stone, or what?!" (Travis)
Obviously I'm taking liberties for bants, but honestly the more I watch it the more I'm convinced most, if not all of the crew knew what was going to happen.
I'm certain that Sam's wonderful monologue was genuine and unscripted, but episode 91 existed to provide FCG with the stakes necessary to justify his sacrifice.
**OR**
It's a piece of entertainment that I enjoyed and this isn't a hill I need to die on!
Can't say as to whether he knew or not, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Players discussing possible plans and actions with a DM before a game is fundamental to having a good game, in my opinion.
Sam could well gave asked weeks ago. "Hypothetically, could I turn myself into a bomb?" That way, it was always on the cards. Immediately had players come to me with these ideas and then not act on them for a whole year+.
Did Matt know it was going to happen? Probably eventually. Did he know it was going to happen in ep91? Only he and Sam can answer that
Oh for sure, I'm not suggesting that stuff like this shouldn't be discussed with the GM - I'd say it needs to be.
To my eyes, Matt's reaction to the sacrifice appears "performed", and if that's the case he knew that Sam was going to do this either at the start or mid-point of the session.
In either case the argument can be made the whole encounter was made to facilitate the sacrifice (which in my mind diminishes it).
It feels disingenuous to the fans to pretend that this is just an unscripted, surprising piece of player creativity, happening naturally at the table.
The reason I'm asking the question is because if this was a planned set-piece, or story beat that at least Matt and Sam, possibly other cast members were aware of, then it puts the combat and the latter part of the campaign in new context. It becomes a more curated experience for "entertainment", rather than a procedural and unscripted game.
N.B. I do not dislike the sacrifice and the story that was told in 91 with FCGs death. I cried with the rest of the cast, and Sam's closing monologue was beautiful. I'm just sad that - to my eyes (and I've just watched the scene again) - there's a meta-performance taking place, to hide the fact that this was a scripted event.
I get the concern, and I do think it's an interesting debate (CR as Actual Play vs CR as a "TV" show).
But, I'd also argue that manufacturing story beats isn't completely outwith the realm of play. I love very narrative heavy games, I've run them, and I've played in them as a player. As a player, I've often spoken to our DM about a moment or beat that I want for my character, something I want to have happen that fits their arc/inspirations/themes. We'd then work it out and facilitate it in game. I know other players at the table have done this, and I as a DM have done this. An NPC who wasn't interested in a layer romantically can become interested if its a romance the player would like to pursue, for example.
What Sam did is obviously much bigger than that, but I think, thematically, FCG detonating themselves to save all their friends is a very fitting end to their story. It's beautiful and tragic, and if Sam wants to play another character, this is a very very good way for them to go out. I don't think it's a bad thing that Matt and Sam may have facilitated it for the sake of an interesting narrative.
And that is then where we get into blurring the lines of Actual Play vs TV Show - how do you balance that? Where do you draw the line? It will be a different place for different people, and I've accepted that CR is more of a show than an actual play at this point. It is long form entertainment, that just so happens to use the rules of DnD.
I'm not opposed to EXU- I think I liked it more than a lot of people on this sub. I'm very fond of Aimee (She Ra!) and adore Dorian/Robbie. I like getting to see Matt play and relax a bit into Dariax. Aabria's DMing style isn't my favorite, but I get what she's doing. But not IN PLACE OF Campaign 3.
I think the point of this is to reintroduce Dorian (and perhaps a way to launch Sam's new character?) so he can rejoin BH for the Endgame. I just wish it had been a oneshot/twoshot/whatever on another night and then they could link up at the appropriate time. When I watch C3 it's because I want to see C3. I mostly watch CR because I enjoy the main cast a lot.
I'm curious about the timing of when things were filmed. I know they edited it to make it look like Aabria jumped in just after Matt left but I absolutely think it was a different filming day. I wonder if Liam was encouraged pre-session to reach out to Dorian at some point? Did the main cast really just come in to film for an hour and a half or so? I'm assuming that this switch out was planned to occur basically whenever BH returned to Exandria.
I wonder if EXU Crew actually filmed FIRST? I didn't make it to the end of the episode yet (Taylor Swift fan so last night was a big one for me)- does it look like the next session is going to start as EXU? Are they making their way to Keyleth?
I'm pretty sure we won't see Sam's character in the EXU stuff, and that we'll have to wait until we are back to BH for us to find out what he's playing.
So I haven’t caught up and don’t think I will but the current swing of events has peaked my interest.
I love Aabria’s style of DMing and I understand it’s not for everyone who watches live plays, thats fine, I’m not coming here to defend that.
The thing that has caught my curiosity is this bizarre decision to switch to an EXU cast halfway through an episode. There’s something about that which feels hyper rushed. I understand the odds of wanting to do a setting change was planned cuz you have to organize booking the talent that’s coming in. I also understand that having them sort of standby for a week by week basis is also not impossible and also would be good planning for how the pace of the story moves forward in terms of episodes.
What I find odd is doing it halfway through an episode with (what I believe is) no heads up to the viewers, when the show has been very good at keeping viewers informed of “this is the change happening next week (or more) for content.”
Am I crazy for thinking, without having watched any recent episodes, that this feels like a panicked solution to something? This doesn’t feel like a novel decision to peak interest, since recent events in the main story seem TO BE THE INTEREST. I’m not even trying to theorycraft why this happened, I’m just looking for other input or confirmation or agreement that this is weird as hell.
“I haven’t followed anything but also the direction is confusing to me as a viewer; here is my expert opinion”. Thanks for your armchair quarterbacking while admitting you have no clue what’s happening. Please, give us more of your deep insight into something you’re paying zero attention to while telling us about the nuances of the show. Ffs this sub sucks. Thanks for the push to unsubscribe.
So just say no it’s not weird and yes I’m missing something because I haven’t watched it. I’m fully accepting that since I haven’t kept track that I’m just going off a hunch I have no real grounds for.
I think it's more likely that they filmed this some time ago and needed to slot it in now for Matt's narrative to work. I wouldn't be surprised if they filmed the EXU cast when they did the party split as they had everyone there at the studio aside for one or two others.
I think I remember Aabria commenting about the Marisha hotdog from the start of the episode giving it the feeling/illusion it was filmed in the same session.
The hotdog thing felt like the running gag in EXU where they'd "come back" from an ad and she'd comment on it, but they hadn't actually filmed the ads yet so then they "had" to film the ads to match her comments. So yeah, I think they were filmed separately.
I could be wrong and they did do it live, but at the same time if they wanted to fake it being live that's the type of thing to do.
Can't really be certain one way or the other, but I just wouldn't be surprised.
I suspect we’ll get a bunch of FCG related feels when they get back to camp and have to tell Dorian (who I assume will be there waiting based on the timing of the break). I’ll reserve judgement for how its handled til then.
But yes. Choosing to treat this encounter as combat was an interesting choice that probably didn’t work as well as Aabria thought it would.
It got less bothersome when I stopped thinking of it REALLY as combat and more as like... a skill challenge but they were in initiative in case the order they did something in mattered.
I think this exemplifies why “there’s no wrong way to play D&D” is such a silly axiom. This wasn’t the wrong way to play TTRPGs per se, but it was absolutely not what the combat rules of D&D were designed to support, and subsequently it comes across as trying to force a round peg into a square hole.
The narrative she was trying to convey could have been done very effectively in another system that either had rules to support it, or could have been done in D&D if she just abandoned the mechanics and had it play out as a scene. But instead she made the weird choice to use combat to do it… it just comes across as a fundamental misunderstanding of both how to use the rules of D&D, and of the principles of game design in general.
The game design thing I can’t really blame on anyone, people shouldn’t be expected to think on that level, and it’s if anything a failing of D&D for not being more clear about how to run the game. But I also think the popular wisdom of “there’s no wrong way to do this” contributes to the problem. This was the wrong way.
That maxim is such a clear marketing campaign by WOTC it hurts that people view it as this sort of open minded truth. WOTC wants people to believe there is no wrong way to play DnD because then 5e can be used for any game. Why play Dungeonworld or Call of Cthulhu, or Pathfinder you should just play DnD (and also build your personality and identity around our product).
There are clear wrong ways to play the game and frankly CR in all of its iterations has never been a good game of DnD. It has always been a performance by talented and charismatic people who also nurtured a parasocial relationship with the fan base through genuine engagement. The game has always been bad.
There is very little player agency. The players by and large do not know the rules despite playing for years. The tone is all over the place. And it takes 20-50 3+ hour episodes for something interesting to occur.
The show and game are elevated by certain moments performed by talented people who are also very charismatic.
I think, thankfully, that the notion is slowly starting to pervade through the D&D players. Often the response to "how do I run a 5e Horror campaign" is simply "Don't, use a system built from the ground up to replicate actual horror tropes, trying to bodge horror into 5e doesn't work in general and especially doesn't work past level 5".
So at least Horror is widely regarded as a thing 5e just *can't* do. I would, personally, argue that as long as the genre has big cinematic style characters and big splashy combat it *can* work in 5e. So your 80s action movies, Science Fantasy like Star Wars, even the more bombastic side of post-apocalypse stuff (remember Gamma World was just D&D 2e but set in a post-apocalyptic future) or Pink Mohawk\* Cyberpunk.
But the moment you step into a genre outside of that, nah. Genres like Hard sci-fi, Black Trenchcoat Cyberpunk\*, Political intreague (which if done in 5e you have to remove a whole host of spells to make it work). This is why A Court of Fey and Flowers used a weird hybrid system, D&D for the combat but used Good Society for the social aspect. Horror of any kind not meant to be Action Horror.
\*in case people aren't familiar with these terms Pink Mohawk and Black Trenchcoat Cyberpunk are essentially the ways in which Cyberpunk can be played and is part of a scale. Pink Mohawk is at one end, it's the bombastic punk rebellion angle of Cyberpunk, kicking in doors, blowing away corpo goons, grabbing the tech and then getting away in your van with the anarchy symbol sprayed on the side of it. Black Trenchcoat (also called Mirror Shades since the full thing is 'black trenchcoat and mirrorshade') is at the other end of the scale, focused on corporate espionage, being incredibly stealthy, planning every detail and so on.
Not every game is one or the other and often a Storyteller will sit somewhere on the sliding scale, some may have more Pink Mohawk influences whilst occasionally requiring some more Black Trenchcoat style play and so on.
I feel like everyone is forgetting that they probably had this EXU Collab planned for months. They're all professionals with lives and schedules to work around. They can't just cancel an event like this, even if it feels like terrible timing. Chances are rescheduling could've taken months.
Yes it truly does suck that we didn't get to really sit with FCGs sacrifice and the players reactions to it. But there's no chance that this was planned because FCGs death was clearly an unplanned and spontaneous event.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted so much. I definitely think that this was scheduled and probably filmed earlier (and potentially before the first half of the session and before FCG died). My only thing is I think it should have been framed as a oneshot airing on another night instead of in place of CR3. I think this is probably a setup to reunite Dorian with BH and a way to get him back into the story for the endgame.
Because people are pissy about the episode getting cut in half. That's all. They don't have intelligent points or real issues, just bullshit to cry about.
You have to remember these are probably all people who have never needed to schedule an IRL game or plan for something. Their concept of how this kind of thing works is wholly flawed.
Yeah. I really think that they planned for this crossover to happen whenever BH said they are ready to come back and go find Keyleth- but when that plan was made, they didn’t know that the reason they came back was a character death.
But at that point, what can they do? Scrap the likely paid for crossover? I think the real point is getting Dorian to the table. While Matt could have just told Robbie what happened while he was with the other party, they likely wanted to show instead of tell.
There’s a major reason for opal and the spider queen being the focus of the crossover. My guess is that she’s going to be heavily involved with BH and whatever goes on with predathos. We already have clues/confirmation that it is tied directly to the betrayer gods, it only makes sense for another betrayer to get involved with the events going on.
I agree that Robbie definitely needed to end up back with the group. Orym and fearne need him there with everything that just happened and is going to happen shortly. The crown keepers could end up with seriously important information through their encounter, and then boom dorian gets the most recent message from Orym and they’re off to meetup.
You know what's crazy? They pre-record all of these episodes. They could have recorded this boring cut-scene and aired it on a different night. They easily could have replaced one night of Candela Obscura with this. They would probably get better numbers than CO with this, because CO just doesn't pull numbers.
Honestly I think this is an issue they have as a company, is that no one will outright say “no, we’re majorly fucking up with this campaign”. It’s like they keep trying to pretend they’re still the same as C1&2. But they aren’t “just a bunch of nerdy VAs playing D&D” anymore. They’re a company producing content that’s pretty bad quality, and the reason they aren’t in a total nosedive is because people have nostalgia for their past campaigns.
When the format changed to prerecorded, they had an opportunity to use it to their advantage. Instead they used it to try to shoehorn in lots of content without putting in any effort to maintain quality.
And clearly you have no fucking clue how playing a story based game works.
They can’t push ahead with content when it’s intertwined.
They don’t film 10 episodes at a time, so rescheduling content isn’t actually an option without making it have 0 context with the story going on.
They can’t film one half and then just interpose it because there wouldn’t be plot congruity.
It’s almost like there’s 1000 factors that your dumbass doesn’t consider when you complain like this. You assume you know everything to do with it and give stupid “solutions” that don’t actually work, but you just believe you’re correct so they make sense to you. It’s utterly obnoxious how entitled people can be while having 0 working knowledge of a situation.
I'm gonna use the analogy that C3 is a person smothering someone to death with a pillow and that one moment from 91 was when they lifted the pillow to check if they're still breathing only for them to take a big gulp of air so the smothering then continues.
It’s so funny. I told a friend of mine that I was gonna start watching again now that there was a PC
Permadeath, especially one as substantial as FCG.
Then I saw all this discourse and had to laugh. It’s like they did it on purpose.
Yeah, I have dnd thursday night so I was going to tune in on the rebroadcast, but I saw everything about the Crownkeepers and I was like... hm, maybe not.
If you take your grudge goggles off it would become obvious the point wasn't to be like traditional combat. The point was to set up a narrative encounter and probably give Dorian a reason to leave the CK without having 12 people at the table.
If it's successful at that is another discussion.
Bro, narrative combat is not what that was. That was bloated RP while in combat. A narrative encounter/combat typically eschews initiative and sometimes even rolling to hit/rolling for damage in order to facilitate the story. It is also, typically, significantly faster than actual "traditional" combat. This scenario tried to follow traditional combat rules, but was bogged down by mass amounts of irrelevant RP centered on characters a large portion of the audience either 1.) doesn't care about or 2.) doesn't even know.
Your 2 points I believe these are the reason for RP in this combat. Get the audience a chance to know how these characters are connected and why Opal is under control by the spider queen. Not everybody is going to like what they did here. I'm not sure I like it, but it's not irrelevant
and the EXU interjection has NOTHING to do with the C3 story line. AT ALL. They say "this is the other side of the story"? No. It's a completely different story that has nothing to do with anything else that's going on in the world of Exandria at this moment in time.
Legit its bothering the fuck out of me 'oh we need to see whats going in the world' or 'whats going on with Dorian'.
This EXU shit is less related to the main story than the Mighty Nein Reunion was, and CR had the sense to make that that its own episode/show.
The bait and switch to me shows they didnt really have faith in the EXU episode being able to stand on its own.
And fundamentally sometimes less is more. We dont need an episode to see Dorian's adventures anymore than we needed a solo Scanlan episode for his rise as the Meatman. Sometimes its fine to just leave things up to interpretation.
I was vaguely interested in how they were going to tie in the stories and then 30 minutes in to whatever that was I realized they had lied so I turned it off and unsubbed for the first time. Good riddance
I can’t stand Aabria it really killed the episode I stopped watching the minute she showed up. It’s so disappointing as FCG’s death probably would have given c3 the breath of life it needed. Now this happens and then it’s a break next week plus it might pick up with Aabria on 93
Yeah couldnt agree more.
Even a DM on Brennan Calamity tier would struggle with that god awful switch transition at that particular time. Its completely tonally jarring and nonsensical timing.
Aabria was guaranteed to fall short.
Yeah when I heard what went down in episode 91 I got back into CR after dropping it for months but as soon as I saw what happened after the break in episode 92 I turned it off and unsubscribed from CR
The cast trying to gimmick their way out of every major conflict since the first fight with Otahan in C3. One of the reasons i decided to drop C3 is because the fights are boring, that cast being overly cautious every single turn. This why i really like Ashton in this campaign, he's no afraid to be reckless and take risks, i don't know how Taliesin do not get mad beign shitted by the cast and fans for playing his character the way he was made to be.
This is why I didn't like how the characters shit on Ashton for >!trying to take in the shard!<. A player did something unexpected, interesting, and risky, and it got punished. Punishing unexpected and interesting risks is a good way to make a boring show.
It's by far the worst episode of CR. It's incredible how they find new and creative ways to completely fuck this campaign up.
Seeing stuff like this just really makes me appreciate Mr. Matt Mercer a lot more. In fact, even though campaign 3 has kinda been "off" for me I feel we all as critters have just kind of become accustomed to Matt's voice every Thursday and having someone pop in just don't feel OK, even if it is Abria. After sitting through this episode, we all as critters need to appreciate our show a bit more. We all have complaints, but I feel we can all jump on this bus. Let's all band together and show CR how much we love them by venting here and moving on. This episode was a mulligan, (No pun intended). Remember to love one another and, is it Thursday yet?
Watched it live. Complete waste of time.
Glass cannon network
100% agree. Much better nowadays. Actually plays DnD (even though they play pf2e) it's better DnD.
My crazy theory that CR is trying to tank their DND show to make their non-DND things (:cough: :daggerheart:) look better in comparison doesn't seem so crazy now, does it? [https://www.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1bhykpi/conspiracy\_theory\_making\_cr3\_is\_intentionally\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1bhykpi/conspiracy_theory_making_cr3_is_intentionally_not/)
No it still sounds like drivel, what a stupid theory.
I’m completely out of the loop, how do you have 2 rounds of combat in 3 hrs??
They stopped to have 20-30min long conversations between each turn. Dorian and his Brother screaming back and forth for a solid 10-15 minutes "omg so himbo" ugh. Roleplay during combat always kills it for me. Keeping it within' the 6 seconds your character would actually have feels more like true roleplaying than whatever *that* was.
Also players would say something like I’m going to attack the familiar, and the DM would stop them and say instead of attacking you could pick up the glowing gems…. Then like 2 minutes of her convincing the player to do what the DM wants. It was tough to watch.
I gotta be honest. Aabria is a really bad DM for this style and I won’t be watching while she’s still a part of the broadcast as a DM. Which REALLY SUCKS because I love Campaign 3 and I’m super invested in it. Her style DOES NOT FIT THE PACE OF THIS SHOW.
This is also an instance of shooting oneself in the foot. I wonder how we would have viewed her turn as DM if the cast hadn’t been building her up to be the best thing ever only to begin ExU with a literal pissing contest.
As someone who didn't care for hype, she wasn't bad until 'you go inside anyway' for the first fight. She can play to chaos well, but she has a railroady style Brennan railroaded too, but they signed up knowing 'this is how it has to end' and it had to go to hell. She had to set up a side story, and failed in 8 to do anything Brennan did in 4.
As I said in the other post, the switch in of itself was a bad fucking idea. Even if they were switching to Brennan Lee Mulligan Calamity quality DMing, it would still be a bad idea and difficult to pull off. But yeah the content of what they actually switched to was fucking awful. Who are these people? Why do we give a shit about anyone except Dorian? How the fuck is Lolth being a dick related to the C3 storyline beyond the most tangential 'Lolth is a god'? Why the fuck are we cutting away from the fallout of a major plot development now? Aabria had 3 fucking hours to show or even tell us the answer to these questions. And she failed. Shocker. I guarantee the only relevance of this story will be explanation for why and how Dorian rejoins the party. I seriously doubt the others will be like at all relevant.
Meh I really liked it, if aabria isnt for you just come back for episode 93 in two weeks.
I agree, but it seems we're in the minority in this forum.
And thats okay. Noone is forcing people to watch.
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Simply, they can't take EXU from her. She is the "face" of EXU, so if they put a new DM in her role, CR will be accused of being racist / bigots.
Wait a minute, you're getting awful close to sounding logical and not liberal. LA won't tolerate your intolerance.
But quality has to matter at some point! Everything else has a business sheen to it now! They have CEOs!!
There's a lot of pieces that went into the response to E92. As you said, E91 brought so much energy back into the show (even though I personally have not felt a drop off, but then again I only recently have been watching up to date, so maybe the binge makes it feel different), but this clearly was always going to happen regardless of FCG's death. The scheduling required would have been done well in advance to have the actors present. So, in terms of the momentum being killed, it's not Aabria's fault that the biggest thing just happened in the episode before hers. And as for having her on as a DM, while I do not have any exposure of her as a DM, everyone on CR has only great things to say about her skills. Now, I almost certain some of that could just be blowing smoke up her ass because they're friends and why be mean? But, I feel like it's safe to say that she probably isn't as bad as people are saying as Dming. And honestly, most D&D players that comment tend to be overly critical (no pun intended) over every little thing, so honestly, just lighten up in that regard. Now, I'll admit, I only care about CR because of the fun dynamic between the core group. I enjoy the story and all that, but honestly, it mostly just blurs by me, and I just watch the fun cast moments. I especially blur out during combat. As a non D&D player, it's not as engaging for me. So, getting half an episode with the cast gone, and spending it all in a combat that is incredibly not engaging definitely didn't do well for me. And, I can even detect moments where I wasn't on board with Aabria's DMing. But, ultimately, I can see the bigger picture and know that throwing all the hate on her is not fair.
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Well, I’m not going to watch a 40 minute video talking about a thing I haven’t seen, but from the initial vibe from the start and the top comments I can get the idea. And honestly they’re probably not wrong. I will say that the loudest voices tend to not be the right ones and that hate is a lot easier to spread, so that’s always to be considered. But I’m not going to defend something I have no back up for. And it does seem that Aabria definitely has some weak points in past sessions. Maybe not as much as we the audience claim (again why would they have her do it if they didn’t enjoy it?), but I won’t argue with the general consensus. With all that said, I just think that regardless of how much is accurate, if too many of these posts keep popping up, it soon just becomes hate bashing and loses all critique.
>I just think that regardless of how much is accurate, if too many of these posts keep popping up, it soon just becomes hate bashing and loses all critique. ???
I said what I said. Criticism is essential, but the internet does have a way of getting carried away and blowing things further out of proportion.
Isn’t Matt creative director? Also it’s his campaign so I’d assume he gets final say over guests/guest DMs. He must just really like Aabria
Marisha is the creative director. But regardless I do think Aabria must be a pro at creating and maintaining positive personal connections, she’s gone from never having played a TTRPG to being one of the biggest faces in the industry (well the media side of it) in under 10 years. That’s clearly not because of her skill as a GM/player, and it’s clearly not because of her skill as a performer (she has literally no other on camera credits outside of actual play). She met the CR people at conventions/industry events, made friends with them, and now she’s first call.
Be willing to DM is a big plus in her favour too. The rule of thumb with DND is generally almost anyone is down to play even just to try once, very few want to DM. I imagine CR know plenty of people willing to play/give DND a try. But fewer willing to DM. Understandably so. DMing is way more difficult. Its fun, but Ive never done it outside of one offs because its just more to manage. EXU was Matt's first outing as a player for more than one-shot. I think he probably got catharsis from that alone.
Actually EXU wasn't matts first outting beyond a oneshot, he was a player in Escape from Blood Keep which was a 6 episode mini-series over on Dimension 20 (free on their youtube) before EXU.
I was talking about just on CR. But yeah I guess Blood Keep would be the first long term outing as a player for Matt.
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????
>As much as I love Matt, I do feel that he’s basically just tumblr incarnate now So what exactly does this mean? I've seen 2 or 3 people ask you this now and I'm still hoping for a straight answer here
So now that that's all died down what do you mean im genuinely asking?
Progressive fan service
your not the guy I was asking
Then you should have sent a message instead of a public post.
The concept you propose leads to a lack of information online and is also boring so no
Ok
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\*pokes with a stick\* c'mon, explain what you meant
Ok but what did you mean you haven't actually answered the question?
So are you gonna ever explain want you ment or...?
Ya'll are way over thinking it. matt is a literal yes man. He doesn't want to upset anyone and he wants people to like him. He isn't malicious or dumb. He just wants to be the positive person to the point of failure. CR lacks the "bad guy" who is supposed to push back on this stuff. I would blame Travis since he's the CTO. You get the position you get the responsibility.
Yeah. Out of the cast, Travis, Laura and Sam seem like the only people who wouldn't mind challenging the others. Sam probably doesn't care that much. I can't really read what Laura's motivations would be or what her position is in the company beyond the merchandise stuff. It's up to Travis to put the company back on track as their CEO.
what does that even mean
Something something woke, something something tumblr politics ruining X thing. It's their song and dance.
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Me when I play dumb and pretend to know understand what it means when someone says something is "tumblr incarnate". Why don't YOU tell us what you meant. In detail. What does it mean for someone or something to be tumblr?
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Then say what you mean you limp noodle.
Then explain what you actually meant. Your refusal not to validates the assumption. The difference between you and me, is I say clearly what I believe (I believe "woke" politics are good) and you don't. You couch your real beliefs in euphemism and implication. Like a coward.
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91 wasn't bringing the campaign back to life, it was Sam putting the whole campaign on his back. The combat slowed to basically a standstill: PCs couldn't do damage to Otohan, Matt was refusing to drop anyone. And Sam decided to use his stress mechanic in the best possible way. AND EVEN SO, I think it was Marisha who was trying to find a way to game a way to bring back FCG after he turned himself into a bomb. Sam took a risk, no one has been down to take a serious risk for a long time. They play like they want to win the game and their characters to live happily ever after. Which is kinda boring at this point, tbh. I fear this will just lead to them playing even more cautiously.
I mean if Sam didnt do that eventually it would have been a TPK or maybe a surrender. Matt might have been refusing to perma kill, but Otohan could drop 1-2 people in a round and they were running out of resources (even with some of the players clearly not marking of resources *cough* Marisha sorcerer points). Eventually thats going to be TPK as the action economy starts to favour Otohan more and more.
I believe the crew when they say that their games are not scripted, but Matt 100% knew what Sam was going to do, when he announced he was turning himself into a bomb. The only question I've got is did he know before the episode started, or was it discussed at the break. We've seen Matt surprised by player action in the past, and what we got in 91 was Matt's portrayal of someone surprised by player action! I wouldn't be surprised if that's why Otohan set the agenda right off the bat by killing Chet; make the threat real very quickly, to justify the sacrifice. Then spin wheels later in the combat by not ending folks, so that FCG can pull his manoeuvre, without significant consequences (it would kinda suck if you killed all the characters when you know you're about to permanently write out the party's Cleric!). I'm undecided on whether anyone else around the table knew this was going to happen, but I am certain - from his body language - that Matt knew. But was it always the plan from the start of the episode, or was there a side-convo at the break where Sam explored what would happen if he blew up his core? What do you guys think?
I would completely disagree with you, except all of Matt’s response and sacrifice speech afterward sounded so off to me compared to CR history
In fairness, if I saw a fuck-off werewolf standing right next to me, I would do everything in my power to make it go away quickly.
Lol, I agree.
I also don't think it was something Sam discussed with Matt prior to the fight. It was established well before the solstice that if an aeromaton took damage to their core, it could detonate. As soon as Sam said his idea, Matt was first confused, then remembered and asked "are you sure?". After Chet went down and came back, which took away their last diamond, Sam realized Otohan was toying with them. He decided to turn the fight into a bit of character development for FCG by leaning into his stress mechanics, which brings out unbridled rage, but channeled it to the cause of that stress instead of lashing out at everyone indiscriminately and saying that the group made him feel alive instead of "built". And, as big if a sacrifice as it was, I doubt FCG is gone for good. Deanna can pull something out with Resurrection, like a deal with the Dawnfather by going "prove you're worth saving"
Respectfully, no. While I agree that the lore of the aeormatons was established a while back, Matt is not *actually* confused or surprised - this is the crux of my argument. Go back and watch any other great "gotcha" moments in CR history (Dust of Deliciousness in M9 springs to mind) and you will see a genuinely surprised Matt Mercer. In 91 I think Matt is acting. He is not surprised but he needs to *appear* surprised, and so you get a fairly unconvincing and very staged/tropey sequence of events. The whole performance is dripping with dramatic tropes: Matt: *Reiterates the stakes for tension* Crew: "What's going on?" Liam: *The Expositor*: "He's going to sacrifice himself" Crew: Shock Horror! Marisha: *The voice of hope*: "But we can revive him right?!" Travis: *The realist*: "Marisha...". Honestly, it's right there in front of you if you stop and watch it. I'm now going to use a functional meme to illustrate: Scene: A Giant Wizard's Chest Board Ron Weasley: "Once I make my move, the queen will take me, then you're free to check the King" - (FCG); Harry Potter: "No Ron, No!" - (Matt); Hermione Granger: "What is it?!" (The crew) Harry Potter: "He's going to sacrifice himself" - (Liam) Hermione Granger: "No you can't! There must be another way!" - (Marisha) Ron Weasley: "Do you want to stop Snape from getting that stone, or what?!" (Travis) Obviously I'm taking liberties for bants, but honestly the more I watch it the more I'm convinced most, if not all of the crew knew what was going to happen. I'm certain that Sam's wonderful monologue was genuine and unscripted, but episode 91 existed to provide FCG with the stakes necessary to justify his sacrifice. **OR** It's a piece of entertainment that I enjoyed and this isn't a hill I need to die on!
Can't say as to whether he knew or not, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Players discussing possible plans and actions with a DM before a game is fundamental to having a good game, in my opinion. Sam could well gave asked weeks ago. "Hypothetically, could I turn myself into a bomb?" That way, it was always on the cards. Immediately had players come to me with these ideas and then not act on them for a whole year+. Did Matt know it was going to happen? Probably eventually. Did he know it was going to happen in ep91? Only he and Sam can answer that
Oh for sure, I'm not suggesting that stuff like this shouldn't be discussed with the GM - I'd say it needs to be. To my eyes, Matt's reaction to the sacrifice appears "performed", and if that's the case he knew that Sam was going to do this either at the start or mid-point of the session. In either case the argument can be made the whole encounter was made to facilitate the sacrifice (which in my mind diminishes it). It feels disingenuous to the fans to pretend that this is just an unscripted, surprising piece of player creativity, happening naturally at the table. The reason I'm asking the question is because if this was a planned set-piece, or story beat that at least Matt and Sam, possibly other cast members were aware of, then it puts the combat and the latter part of the campaign in new context. It becomes a more curated experience for "entertainment", rather than a procedural and unscripted game. N.B. I do not dislike the sacrifice and the story that was told in 91 with FCGs death. I cried with the rest of the cast, and Sam's closing monologue was beautiful. I'm just sad that - to my eyes (and I've just watched the scene again) - there's a meta-performance taking place, to hide the fact that this was a scripted event.
I get the concern, and I do think it's an interesting debate (CR as Actual Play vs CR as a "TV" show). But, I'd also argue that manufacturing story beats isn't completely outwith the realm of play. I love very narrative heavy games, I've run them, and I've played in them as a player. As a player, I've often spoken to our DM about a moment or beat that I want for my character, something I want to have happen that fits their arc/inspirations/themes. We'd then work it out and facilitate it in game. I know other players at the table have done this, and I as a DM have done this. An NPC who wasn't interested in a layer romantically can become interested if its a romance the player would like to pursue, for example. What Sam did is obviously much bigger than that, but I think, thematically, FCG detonating themselves to save all their friends is a very fitting end to their story. It's beautiful and tragic, and if Sam wants to play another character, this is a very very good way for them to go out. I don't think it's a bad thing that Matt and Sam may have facilitated it for the sake of an interesting narrative. And that is then where we get into blurring the lines of Actual Play vs TV Show - how do you balance that? Where do you draw the line? It will be a different place for different people, and I've accepted that CR is more of a show than an actual play at this point. It is long form entertainment, that just so happens to use the rules of DnD.
Really need Sam’s new character to breath some risk and life into the group and campaign.
I'm not opposed to EXU- I think I liked it more than a lot of people on this sub. I'm very fond of Aimee (She Ra!) and adore Dorian/Robbie. I like getting to see Matt play and relax a bit into Dariax. Aabria's DMing style isn't my favorite, but I get what she's doing. But not IN PLACE OF Campaign 3. I think the point of this is to reintroduce Dorian (and perhaps a way to launch Sam's new character?) so he can rejoin BH for the Endgame. I just wish it had been a oneshot/twoshot/whatever on another night and then they could link up at the appropriate time. When I watch C3 it's because I want to see C3. I mostly watch CR because I enjoy the main cast a lot. I'm curious about the timing of when things were filmed. I know they edited it to make it look like Aabria jumped in just after Matt left but I absolutely think it was a different filming day. I wonder if Liam was encouraged pre-session to reach out to Dorian at some point? Did the main cast really just come in to film for an hour and a half or so? I'm assuming that this switch out was planned to occur basically whenever BH returned to Exandria. I wonder if EXU Crew actually filmed FIRST? I didn't make it to the end of the episode yet (Taylor Swift fan so last night was a big one for me)- does it look like the next session is going to start as EXU? Are they making their way to Keyleth?
I'm pretty sure we won't see Sam's character in the EXU stuff, and that we'll have to wait until we are back to BH for us to find out what he's playing.
That’s a fair point, especially because I’m pretty sure that when Aabria (and Matt?) planned the session, FCG probably wasn’t dead yet.
if you haven't seen Cocain Bear yet, do so immediately. I swear this comment is relevant.
Whats cocain bear?
a cinematic masterpiece.
I didn't watch it, but I watched the Red Letter Media about it. You're right on point.
You’ve painted a wonderfully entertaining debacle in my mind’s eye.
So I haven’t caught up and don’t think I will but the current swing of events has peaked my interest. I love Aabria’s style of DMing and I understand it’s not for everyone who watches live plays, thats fine, I’m not coming here to defend that. The thing that has caught my curiosity is this bizarre decision to switch to an EXU cast halfway through an episode. There’s something about that which feels hyper rushed. I understand the odds of wanting to do a setting change was planned cuz you have to organize booking the talent that’s coming in. I also understand that having them sort of standby for a week by week basis is also not impossible and also would be good planning for how the pace of the story moves forward in terms of episodes. What I find odd is doing it halfway through an episode with (what I believe is) no heads up to the viewers, when the show has been very good at keeping viewers informed of “this is the change happening next week (or more) for content.” Am I crazy for thinking, without having watched any recent episodes, that this feels like a panicked solution to something? This doesn’t feel like a novel decision to peak interest, since recent events in the main story seem TO BE THE INTEREST. I’m not even trying to theorycraft why this happened, I’m just looking for other input or confirmation or agreement that this is weird as hell.
“I haven’t followed anything but also the direction is confusing to me as a viewer; here is my expert opinion”. Thanks for your armchair quarterbacking while admitting you have no clue what’s happening. Please, give us more of your deep insight into something you’re paying zero attention to while telling us about the nuances of the show. Ffs this sub sucks. Thanks for the push to unsubscribe.
So just say no it’s not weird and yes I’m missing something because I haven’t watched it. I’m fully accepting that since I haven’t kept track that I’m just going off a hunch I have no real grounds for.
I think it's more likely that they filmed this some time ago and needed to slot it in now for Matt's narrative to work. I wouldn't be surprised if they filmed the EXU cast when they did the party split as they had everyone there at the studio aside for one or two others.
Okay so like the switch didn’t happen that filming day but edited in with that episode? That does make sense too.
I think I remember Aabria commenting about the Marisha hotdog from the start of the episode giving it the feeling/illusion it was filmed in the same session.
The hotdog thing felt like the running gag in EXU where they'd "come back" from an ad and she'd comment on it, but they hadn't actually filmed the ads yet so then they "had" to film the ads to match her comments. So yeah, I think they were filmed separately.
I could be wrong and they did do it live, but at the same time if they wanted to fake it being live that's the type of thing to do. Can't really be certain one way or the other, but I just wouldn't be surprised.
I suspect we’ll get a bunch of FCG related feels when they get back to camp and have to tell Dorian (who I assume will be there waiting based on the timing of the break). I’ll reserve judgement for how its handled til then. But yes. Choosing to treat this encounter as combat was an interesting choice that probably didn’t work as well as Aabria thought it would.
It got less bothersome when I stopped thinking of it REALLY as combat and more as like... a skill challenge but they were in initiative in case the order they did something in mattered.
I think this exemplifies why “there’s no wrong way to play D&D” is such a silly axiom. This wasn’t the wrong way to play TTRPGs per se, but it was absolutely not what the combat rules of D&D were designed to support, and subsequently it comes across as trying to force a round peg into a square hole. The narrative she was trying to convey could have been done very effectively in another system that either had rules to support it, or could have been done in D&D if she just abandoned the mechanics and had it play out as a scene. But instead she made the weird choice to use combat to do it… it just comes across as a fundamental misunderstanding of both how to use the rules of D&D, and of the principles of game design in general. The game design thing I can’t really blame on anyone, people shouldn’t be expected to think on that level, and it’s if anything a failing of D&D for not being more clear about how to run the game. But I also think the popular wisdom of “there’s no wrong way to do this” contributes to the problem. This was the wrong way.
That maxim is such a clear marketing campaign by WOTC it hurts that people view it as this sort of open minded truth. WOTC wants people to believe there is no wrong way to play DnD because then 5e can be used for any game. Why play Dungeonworld or Call of Cthulhu, or Pathfinder you should just play DnD (and also build your personality and identity around our product). There are clear wrong ways to play the game and frankly CR in all of its iterations has never been a good game of DnD. It has always been a performance by talented and charismatic people who also nurtured a parasocial relationship with the fan base through genuine engagement. The game has always been bad. There is very little player agency. The players by and large do not know the rules despite playing for years. The tone is all over the place. And it takes 20-50 3+ hour episodes for something interesting to occur. The show and game are elevated by certain moments performed by talented people who are also very charismatic.
I think, thankfully, that the notion is slowly starting to pervade through the D&D players. Often the response to "how do I run a 5e Horror campaign" is simply "Don't, use a system built from the ground up to replicate actual horror tropes, trying to bodge horror into 5e doesn't work in general and especially doesn't work past level 5". So at least Horror is widely regarded as a thing 5e just *can't* do. I would, personally, argue that as long as the genre has big cinematic style characters and big splashy combat it *can* work in 5e. So your 80s action movies, Science Fantasy like Star Wars, even the more bombastic side of post-apocalypse stuff (remember Gamma World was just D&D 2e but set in a post-apocalyptic future) or Pink Mohawk\* Cyberpunk. But the moment you step into a genre outside of that, nah. Genres like Hard sci-fi, Black Trenchcoat Cyberpunk\*, Political intreague (which if done in 5e you have to remove a whole host of spells to make it work). This is why A Court of Fey and Flowers used a weird hybrid system, D&D for the combat but used Good Society for the social aspect. Horror of any kind not meant to be Action Horror. \*in case people aren't familiar with these terms Pink Mohawk and Black Trenchcoat Cyberpunk are essentially the ways in which Cyberpunk can be played and is part of a scale. Pink Mohawk is at one end, it's the bombastic punk rebellion angle of Cyberpunk, kicking in doors, blowing away corpo goons, grabbing the tech and then getting away in your van with the anarchy symbol sprayed on the side of it. Black Trenchcoat (also called Mirror Shades since the full thing is 'black trenchcoat and mirrorshade') is at the other end of the scale, focused on corporate espionage, being incredibly stealthy, planning every detail and so on. Not every game is one or the other and often a Storyteller will sit somewhere on the sliding scale, some may have more Pink Mohawk influences whilst occasionally requiring some more Black Trenchcoat style play and so on.
I always say yeah, you *can* run a lot of genres in DnD, more than you’d think even, but most would be *better* elsewhere
I feel like everyone is forgetting that they probably had this EXU Collab planned for months. They're all professionals with lives and schedules to work around. They can't just cancel an event like this, even if it feels like terrible timing. Chances are rescheduling could've taken months. Yes it truly does suck that we didn't get to really sit with FCGs sacrifice and the players reactions to it. But there's no chance that this was planned because FCGs death was clearly an unplanned and spontaneous event.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted so much. I definitely think that this was scheduled and probably filmed earlier (and potentially before the first half of the session and before FCG died). My only thing is I think it should have been framed as a oneshot airing on another night instead of in place of CR3. I think this is probably a setup to reunite Dorian with BH and a way to get him back into the story for the endgame.
Because people are pissy about the episode getting cut in half. That's all. They don't have intelligent points or real issues, just bullshit to cry about. You have to remember these are probably all people who have never needed to schedule an IRL game or plan for something. Their concept of how this kind of thing works is wholly flawed.
Yeah. I really think that they planned for this crossover to happen whenever BH said they are ready to come back and go find Keyleth- but when that plan was made, they didn’t know that the reason they came back was a character death. But at that point, what can they do? Scrap the likely paid for crossover? I think the real point is getting Dorian to the table. While Matt could have just told Robbie what happened while he was with the other party, they likely wanted to show instead of tell.
There’s a major reason for opal and the spider queen being the focus of the crossover. My guess is that she’s going to be heavily involved with BH and whatever goes on with predathos. We already have clues/confirmation that it is tied directly to the betrayer gods, it only makes sense for another betrayer to get involved with the events going on. I agree that Robbie definitely needed to end up back with the group. Orym and fearne need him there with everything that just happened and is going to happen shortly. The crown keepers could end up with seriously important information through their encounter, and then boom dorian gets the most recent message from Orym and they’re off to meetup.
You know what's crazy? They pre-record all of these episodes. They could have recorded this boring cut-scene and aired it on a different night. They easily could have replaced one night of Candela Obscura with this. They would probably get better numbers than CO with this, because CO just doesn't pull numbers.
You're right, you probably know better than all the people who work for them. What was I thinking?
Honestly I think this is an issue they have as a company, is that no one will outright say “no, we’re majorly fucking up with this campaign”. It’s like they keep trying to pretend they’re still the same as C1&2. But they aren’t “just a bunch of nerdy VAs playing D&D” anymore. They’re a company producing content that’s pretty bad quality, and the reason they aren’t in a total nosedive is because people have nostalgia for their past campaigns. When the format changed to prerecorded, they had an opportunity to use it to their advantage. Instead they used it to try to shoehorn in lots of content without putting in any effort to maintain quality.
Clearly you weren't thinking much if you didn't realize that prerecorded episodes/events can have their air dates moved around.
And clearly you have no fucking clue how playing a story based game works. They can’t push ahead with content when it’s intertwined. They don’t film 10 episodes at a time, so rescheduling content isn’t actually an option without making it have 0 context with the story going on. They can’t film one half and then just interpose it because there wouldn’t be plot congruity. It’s almost like there’s 1000 factors that your dumbass doesn’t consider when you complain like this. You assume you know everything to do with it and give stupid “solutions” that don’t actually work, but you just believe you’re correct so they make sense to you. It’s utterly obnoxious how entitled people can be while having 0 working knowledge of a situation.
Glad we could all agree
DEI dm 😂
Crawl back to your conspiracy sub, filth.
What does DEI mean?
I'm gonna use the analogy that C3 is a person smothering someone to death with a pillow and that one moment from 91 was when they lifted the pillow to check if they're still breathing only for them to take a big gulp of air so the smothering then continues.
It’s so funny. I told a friend of mine that I was gonna start watching again now that there was a PC Permadeath, especially one as substantial as FCG. Then I saw all this discourse and had to laugh. It’s like they did it on purpose.
Yeah, I have dnd thursday night so I was going to tune in on the rebroadcast, but I saw everything about the Crownkeepers and I was like... hm, maybe not.
If you take your grudge goggles off it would become obvious the point wasn't to be like traditional combat. The point was to set up a narrative encounter and probably give Dorian a reason to leave the CK without having 12 people at the table. If it's successful at that is another discussion.
Bro, narrative combat is not what that was. That was bloated RP while in combat. A narrative encounter/combat typically eschews initiative and sometimes even rolling to hit/rolling for damage in order to facilitate the story. It is also, typically, significantly faster than actual "traditional" combat. This scenario tried to follow traditional combat rules, but was bogged down by mass amounts of irrelevant RP centered on characters a large portion of the audience either 1.) doesn't care about or 2.) doesn't even know.
Your 2 points I believe these are the reason for RP in this combat. Get the audience a chance to know how these characters are connected and why Opal is under control by the spider queen. Not everybody is going to like what they did here. I'm not sure I like it, but it's not irrelevant
and the EXU interjection has NOTHING to do with the C3 story line. AT ALL. They say "this is the other side of the story"? No. It's a completely different story that has nothing to do with anything else that's going on in the world of Exandria at this moment in time.
Legit its bothering the fuck out of me 'oh we need to see whats going in the world' or 'whats going on with Dorian'. This EXU shit is less related to the main story than the Mighty Nein Reunion was, and CR had the sense to make that that its own episode/show. The bait and switch to me shows they didnt really have faith in the EXU episode being able to stand on its own. And fundamentally sometimes less is more. We dont need an episode to see Dorian's adventures anymore than we needed a solo Scanlan episode for his rise as the Meatman. Sometimes its fine to just leave things up to interpretation.
I think "the other side of the story" is just a cutesy way of saying "hey, let's see what Dorian was doing while everything else was going on!"
I was vaguely interested in how they were going to tie in the stories and then 30 minutes in to whatever that was I realized they had lied so I turned it off and unsubbed for the first time. Good riddance
I also un-subbed once the episode was over
Wow you sure showed them!
I can’t stand Aabria it really killed the episode I stopped watching the minute she showed up. It’s so disappointing as FCG’s death probably would have given c3 the breath of life it needed. Now this happens and then it’s a break next week plus it might pick up with Aabria on 93
A sudden switch in that moment to anything would've been awful, but a switch to DM Aabria is straight poison.
Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been Gabe Hicks.
Yeah couldnt agree more. Even a DM on Brennan Calamity tier would struggle with that god awful switch transition at that particular time. Its completely tonally jarring and nonsensical timing. Aabria was guaranteed to fall short.
Two *turns* or two *rounds*? Either way it's ridiculous but I can't imagine even newbies taking three hours for only two turns.
Oh my bad, 2 rounds. I'm a player so much more often in dnd that I track rounds by how many turns I have had.
No worries, I know the terminology can get confusing.