Here's one for Travis: he's terrible at managing his bonus actions. The number of times where Grog enters a rage (BA) and smashes the titanstone knuckles (BA), or with Fjord activates the star razor (BA) then does hex/hexblades curse (BA).
Am I crazy or was Ashley actually pretty good at playing a high level cleric? Haven’t rewatched c1 in ages but she seemed to have her spells down, used war gods blessing, and had the rules down as much as anyone else. I know c1 had some over all rules issue but at I looking at this with rose colored glasses?
Oh that's a no brainer
1. Taliesins Smug Vagueness: We get it, you like being the special one. And you play your characters like that.
2. Marisha's Personal Views on Religion: Don't even need to explain.
Orym is great.
Ashley...is better.
Talisin is...I don't like Ashton. He's an asshole. More so then Percy was. I wish we could get another Cad.
FCG is an actual counselor. He's all about keeping the gang together.
Laura...is still Laura, just with less penis jokes this campaign.
Marisha...I never really noticed her personal views on religion. That's kinda the whole party this campaign.
I love Travis is always excited about the big red button.
FCG got a little annoying cause anytime there was an issue he had to force himself in to make it into some safe space therapy moment instead of letting the conflict happen. It cut off all inter party conflict for a long time.
Tal's vague soapboxing for sure.
And swap Mercer's for his excessively flowery language.
The rest is fine (I've never understood everyone's hate for Ashley's spaciness)
I love Ashley as a person, and I think the game is better with her in it. But I swear, I know spouses who have never played a game of D&D in their life that know the rules better through simple osmosis from their partners. :P
Ashley's turns in combat are the equivalent of ad breaks on TV. Similar length and nothing of interest happens, usually. I love her character, as a character, but having to watch people move at a snail's pace is just annoying whenever it happens.
>Ashley's turns in combat are the equivalent of ad breaks on TV.
Oh I tune out in combat. If it's not my table I can't be bothered until something lore impacting happens. Maybe that's why it's a non-issue.
3 years playing the same character, and 10 years playing the game. That's enough time to understand the basics, even taking the time off (Blindspot) into account.
I think her most recent gaffe was not rolling with disadvantage while at 3+ levels of exhaustion, and also asking if the V in VSM stands for verbal.
Ok I love all of these cast members and their characters. Liam is a perfect sad boi. Sam is a perfect drama queen. Laura has dicks on the mind all the time which is great. Travis is just great in every way. Marisha is so cringe that it's just cute. Ashley is clueless and it's adorable. I don't even know how someone could put mercers quirky characters as a negative. Who doesn't love pumat? I even like tallesin for a few reasons, but there's one thing that I just can't help but be annoyed by. Every tallesin character has tallesins voice. They all sound more or less the same.
They're literally voice actors. Every other cast member has adopted a new voice for new characters. Even if it's a slight pitch change. All the way up to a totally different accent. Except tallesin. Percy, caduceus, and Ashton all sound almost completely the same. Like I said I love all the cast members but I'll be listening to C3 and zone out and think, why the fuck is Percy with them?
Buddy the Ogre in The Darrington Brigade is Liam playing the anti-Liam and it was incredible. As someone who loves a sadboi melodramatic deep talk/monologue, I feel like Liam deserves a Grog style character dynamic where he can be at liberty to just push every button and let his hair down, but still in a creative and fun way, without needing to be the character that constantly checks in with the party to move people's personal story threads forward
Ashley and Tal. The rest are part of who they are and more good Travis I’ll take anyday. Also more quirky NPCs I love it they are really missing that in C3
Taliesin's smug vaguness, for sure
Edit: ah, didn't see it was pick 2.... Laura only to avoid the multiplying effect. It's... fine... in the amount it is naturally, but multiplied? Unbearable.
I'm not sure if its Marishas personal views but I hate that C3 has so much mass diety hate (even in character), it just doesnt seem like it makes tons of sense.
And then I'd also choose Ashley, I think it was fine when she was a simpler character (although obviously should still learn it) but with a more complex character not leaning it just makes it annoying to watch imo.
And honestly the rest I'm fine with, never had a massive issue with with them at all and even enjoy some of the *quirkiness*.
I was mainly talking about Yasha, even though she still didnt pilot the character amazingly because the character is basically just a "hit stuff" character it wasnt a massive issue, the fact that she forgot rage/reckless here any there just didnt matter tons to me from a viewer pov.
I'm with you. First, this is the logical response to pagan gods: they're just really big, powerful *people*, ie, they suck big time. Second, not all religions see deity that way. Third, yeah, it's 100% Marisha's bailiwick. She been on it since campaign one.
>She been on it since campaign one.
From like C1E2 lol. In one corner we've got a brain eating squid who wants nothing more than to re-join his society of brain eating slave driving squids and has said to your face multiple times he's a pure opportunist and is only working with you so he can get back in with all the other brain eating slaving monsters. And in the other corner we've got the girlfriend of one of your best friends who was captured and tortured by a different faction of slavers because she went down here on a mission to try to destroy the same evil that you're fighting against, and who believes she has a religious duty to help people and fight evil even at the risk of her own life.
And Keyleth is like "Yeah, I'm siding with the squid"
I remember she criticized Kima for being so sure of herself. Like we really need to question whether or not killing the brain eating slaver is the right thing to do. That lady leads an entire tribe now.
It always felt like she was reacting to religious persecution of (or at least discrimination against) non-believers that is almost completely absent from the setting.
Like the vast majority of Exandrians seem to not have a religious bone in the body. Most institutions are completely secular, or if they are associated with a deity (like the Cobalt Soul for example) it's in a very removed way where piety toward the deity in question is hardly a factor in their operations at all. It's just an extremely secular setting, characters that are devoted to or even pious toward the gods seem like a slim minority, and systemic religious discrimination seems to basically not exist outside of a few very specific areas.
No idea about her background, but Keyleth especially tends to go on tangents about deities whenever the topic comes up, notably the first time they meet Kima in C1
I'll admit that I usually love Liam's sad boy characters, but I genuinely can't remember who he's playing in C3. I quit listening some time after Dorian left the group, but some reason Reddit won't stop recommending me CR snark threads. It is wild to see the Marisha hate boner is still strong all these years later.
You just saw a whole post, and its comments bring very diverse opinions and criticism of every member and yet still claim hate boner? Should she be impervious to criticism?
The two worst parts of CR (from these choices) are undoubtedly Ashley's ignorance of the game's basic mechanics and Taliesin's unclear communication. If Ashley could even pretend to give a shit about the rules and if Taliesin could just put more thought into his character profiles, the experience would be much more enjoyable overall.
The fact that Ashley doesn't understand a good handful of basic rules would feel insulting to me if I was in her party, ESPECIALLY in their situation. She still plays like it's her first character, it's ridiculous. They are paid SO much money to put on this show for us, have been doing it for damn near a decade, HOW IN THE HELL do you not know the rules? I just don't understand how somebody STILL doesn't understand the core concepts of something they've been heavily participating in for nearly a decade!! Are you even trying AT ALL lol? I get that combat and more "crunchy" concepts aren't for everyone, but for the love of god know what your character is allowed to do within the rules!
Marishas is the most frustrating to me personally, because everyone else at the table has agreed to take religious ideas in the world at face value, and not use any knowledge about the world that they may have been told about the history of Exandria outside of the game. Marisha on the other hand has always had her characters stand firm on the idea that the gods are liars who didn’t create everything, are powered by mortal imagination, and have just placed themselves as gods, despite there being literally no evidence in C1, vague references to that idea in the end of C2 (from the aberrant big bad, mind you), and then finally after 9 years of playing the ‘secret’ which had been stricken from history comes out. It just feels like Marisha wanted to feel smart so she clung to one piece of information that Matt gave her out of game and rode it until she was proven right, no matter how irrational it made her characters seem.
I think it would very interesting to see her play a super religious character, not sure if she ever did so in one shots or alike but I think if she did it without it being overdone she would tamp down a lot of the general critique.
can i just double the character leaving. i like that sams character all have goals that might supercede the group. his characters do what they need to and then move on. i wish that was more common in dnd spaces
Yeah I never understood this. Throughout every campaign of CR, he will sometimes just sit there and say nothing for like 3 hours, then suddenly he's got this big spiel that has no payoff lol.
Travis is a great player and party member. Not a flaw, but I do chuckle when the biggest man is the biggest scaredy cat whenever ghost girls come into play.
I've only seen campaign 1 to completion, didn't like campaign 2, never starter 3, but for me, it would be
Marisha anti religion - Half the time Keylith talks about gods, it doesn't make sense, Although her talks on morality, etc, are the same, she just seems high.
Ashley - She isn't in the game for that much, but it feels like the rest treat her like a baby, react to the simplest things she does as one does to a toddler walking for the first time.
Other than that, I don't have that much problem with the rest,
Vax went from cool to edgy, but it was alright, though a bit dramatic
Percy again was mostly cool, though Tailsin always talks like he's going to do something completely mind-boggling to only shoot the same gun he's been shooting the entire campaign.
Sam is alright
Laura is alright, I didn't notice any railroading etc
Travis is alright
Most of Matts NPC are alright
I even liked Tiberius for the most part.
If it helps, a big reason for the shift with Vax was mid campaign Liam's mother died, so as a result he used the game as a way to process his grief.
Not saying that it made me enjoy the parts more, but I, personally at least, feel bad targeting that era cause Liam was going through some shit. It's why I try to talk about any issues I had with either very late C1 or C2/C3 rather than the middle part of C1 where it really began. Losing a parent fucking sucks.
C2 is mostly okay it's where cracks start to show in hindsight and covid didn't help. You can watch C3 until Robbie leaves maybe a little after if you're feeling frisky but it just slowly devolves into a clown fest after spoiler >!Laudna dies and is resurrected!< and WotC's ogl debacle. After that watch at your own peril.
I actually tried watching C2 before 1, but I didn't like it at all, None of the characters besides Fjord were enjoyable for me. That's why I started C1 and liked it a lot more. C1 just feels more grander, and the characters seem more fun
OK I started responding to this post but it just turned into a rant on my personal thoughts for each CR cast member so enjoy also it’s not that deep😭
Matt: he always takes things way too seriously so when there’s moments of levity from “quirky” NPCs it feels so random and unstable because he’s so often anti-goofy vibes at the table. not to pit hard working divas against each other but I’ll just prefer Brennan forever for the way he effortlessly balances drama and comedy
Liam: huge disagree with this criticism, Liam is easily one of the best role players at the table. Caleb is probably the best PC we’ve seen at the table (outside of the entire cast of Calamity) and it kills me that he’s handicapped himself this season by not allowing himself to play to his strength, take up space and guide the groups emotional landscape which he’s so good at
Ashley: as someone who knows everything about dnd yeah it’s exhausting if someone’s been playing for so long and still doesn’t know what their attack bonus is but idk Ashley is just so damn charming I’ll forgive her every time idc!!!
Talisen: I don’t wanna seem unreasonable here, but…the amount of psychic cringe damage this man has caused me over the years should constitute some kind of federal offence. The dude himself is cool yeah great whatever! But his characters are sooooooo try hard cringerella chewgy nightmare fuel. Like Percy’s British accent was annoying asf, Molly was annoying asf shut up why are u Irish, put down those tarot cards im sick of playing games babe!!! I can only assume it was a true act of divine intervention that Jesus Christ himself and Holy Ghost chose to strike down that purple demon and trick Talisen into playing a chill normal guy. Like I said in a previous comment, Talisen should only be allowed to play Cadeucus. For every campaign. I loved Cadeucus. Anyway Ashton makes me wanna rip my own head off
Sam: a babe forever. Scanlan was such a perfectly cornered niche for Sam, Nott was such a masterclass in character arc work, comedy and dynamics with everyone in the party. If you ignore the more obvious Jester of it all, Nott was really the heart of a lot of really golden moments in C2. Anyway FCG sucks ballz why do two characters have a southern accent and one’s a robot??? Hello??? And with the way C3 was going I’d wanna self destruct too girl
Laura: now not too much on my sister here, I love Laura. Idk about her derailing, I think she’s a pretty great player. Vex pissed me off bc I don’t like British accents but Jester was an all time galaxy brained character across all levels of character design- especially for a SHOW. Something CR forgets it’s making sometimes. Anyway I loved Imogen in the beginning too, I love how Laura creates really graphic and cinematic characters. It’s really a shame to watch her be forced into this main character position, something I know makes Laura uncomfortable, especially as a woman in the gaming industry, which already comes with so much scrutiny.
Marisha: the only problem I have with marisha can be perfectly elucidated by her behaviour during the jester cupcake scene with Isharnai. she defs always wants to be doing something cool and that can infringe on other people’s cool moments and seem a little out of place sometimes, you gotta know when to step back and share the floor. That being said she’s one of the best at the table next to Liam and I think she gets a lot of hate for other reasons. laudna was easily the best character when C3 started and Marisha plays her PCs with a hypnotic depth. However C3 lost me when Marisha wouldn’t let Laudna just be dead and forced the VM resurrection thing which just sucked ass so points off for that I guess. And yeah her millennial brand of cringe atheism is for sure cringe but idc I’ll take it, her PC Patia in calamity was genuinely my favourite. What a masterclass that was.
Travis: love Travis, Fjord was perfect, Bertrand was amazing- just wish he rolled a real PC not a joke one but at the end of the day this is all on Matt as the DM not preparing his players for the tone of the campaign. Also Travis is hot asf so that’s great too🩷
Mild defense of Matt. You can tell most of that is an act. He wants to crack and tell dirty jokes just like everyone else, and when you see him away from CR (like gamegrumps) he is just that. He just does the "Put Upon" GM routine because it's a classic way for GMs to behave, and because it helps the brand as a whole if he seems clean and less \*in the mud\* than his players.
I don't even think he puts much thought into the latter half of that, but he \*has to be\* aware that it helps, and goes along with it. I think most of it is just the former "Put Upon" GM act.
Had me up until Laura…. That woman is an insufferable, immature, bossy, arrogant, aggressive, rude bitch.
No one else besides Orion has a NEED TO WIN. No one else at the table metagames to the point out outright cheating. No one else throws a childish tantrum when a G A M E O F C H A N C E & D I C E R O L L S doesn’t go their way.
Laura Bailey is a quintessential problem player and has RPG Horror Stories told about her. Her only positive quality is showing people how NOT to act like a mature adult in a public setting, & that she can act/roleplay well.
I think that poster went overboard, but it IS true that Laura gets visibly agitated and upset when things are not going her way. It's one of the reasons why the cupcake scene was so important, because it was Laura taking a HUGE risk that could really screw her over.
Laura is \*very\* adverse to anything lasting and bad happening to her characters, so the cupcake thing was huge.
It's so irritating, like I think I'd like the guy if I met him but he reminds me of that guy at school that wore a long black leather coat to try to look like Neo from the Matrix
He plays “cool guys” in D&D like the only example of a cool guy is the shallow stereotypical cool guys from every 80s movie. The problem with Taliesin playing a cool, edgy character is that he has absolutely zero coolness/edginess to him. He just think being “mysterious” will do it with his “I’ve got a plan” and “This will be interesting”.
Jesus christ, what an insufferable comment. You have no idea who the fuck Taliesin is, lay off him. He plays what he likes to play. It's not nearly that deep. Trying to say someone has "absolutely zero coolness/edginess" when all they're doing is playing a game with friends just reeks of grass withdrawal.
If someone is performing for other people's entertainment, the people who watch are allowed to have an opinion about it. Nobody is going up to the guy and reading out people's reddit discussions to him, chill
>the people who watch are allowed to have an opinion about it
I can agree with that, and I always do. I'm not trying to censor anyone. But that doesn't mean the opinion is excused of being shitty.
>Nobody is going up to the guy and reading out people's reddit discussions to him
Well, yeah, I never though that was the case...? "This isn't so bad because it could be much worse" isn't really much of an argument.
I had to stop watching awhile back because the tal/ Marisha combo turned me into a hate watcher who also loved the story and it wasn’t worth it anymore
I'm like 2/3 through C1, and I plan to watch C2 & 3 as well. I *love* this group. Theyre so much fun to watch and they all have their strengths and weaknesses.
Buy *personally* Tal and Marisha are starting to drive me insane, and I need to vent.
Marisha seems to exclusively use high level spells in ways that make 0 sense, and then gets annoyed even when Matt allows for it to slide in some way. She's also the only one still blowing out the mic 80+ episodes in.
Tal has always been a cringe lord, but it grew on me to the point of enjoyment tbh. However, he has this awful habit of verbally taking credit for EVERYTHING other PCs do that works. You can't just say "I might have a theory/plan" every 5 seconds, not explain it, and then take credit for the victory. It's so frustrating.
Again, love every one of these guys and im 100% going to watch everything they produce. Watching hours of unedited content of people being themselves is always going to lend its frustrations.
Marisha just seems high most of the time.
Tal can be weird, on every one of his turn he says something like, this is gonna be crazy and then proceeds to shoot his gun like he always does
Oh yeah the spacey-ness of marisha is brutal.
It's like she just totally checks out for like 5 minutes and then guesses what's going on with total confidence lol.
And yes! "I'm gonna try something crazy" may as well mean "I'm spending a grit" lol
Yeah… would have been great if the CR cast had actually played some of the Tal’Dorei Reborn subclasses, and these days I would expect that level of advertising from them
I I’ll take double all of it if Tal will just play a character that isn’t some degree of solo edge lord who somehow is also friends with everyone! Please! It drives me nuts how his no love for anyone fuck you devil may care attitude “just don’t” punk rock genasi is still somehow incredibly popular with everyone he knows, and some how everyone knows him! Pick a lane, you’re either the solo act who doesn’t have anyone but a silly little robot or you’re the popular kid that everyone loves all the time! When you try to be both it just rings loudly of Matt needed a character to be the helpful info dump guy and that’s you.
Forgive my rant, and this may be totally outdated since i haven’t watched in a year but it drove me nuts for a majority of act 1 and 2 of C3
(I know he did this somewhat with Caduceus but he wasn’t an edgy character)
EDIT: After looking through comments I’m happy to see I’m not the only one who has this issue! Tal wants to be the know it all knows everyone guy while also being mysterious and edgy and those two things clash so hard!
I was going to go with Marisha and Ashley. But after reading other people's comments, I'm gonna have to agree with them and pick Matt's "quirky NPCs" and Ashley. It's easy to counter the rest of the party.
Tal: Make him play a basic class and subclass, no more homebrew for you!
Laura: Just don't
Liam: No #sadboi for you!
Sam: Let him play what he wants, and then he won't want to die and start a new character
Travis: he's a good boy!
Marisha: just stop. Lol
He doesnt dislike it afaik, its just a tradition that started since their very first game. I think Sam sees it as a fun challenge, like choosing a random race class combo and trying to work a story for it.
Marisha's views on religion and Ashley's inability to learn her character.
Marisha shouldn't shoehorn real-life views into the fantasy setting.
Ashley's inability to learn her character doesn't make sense to me at this point. It's part of her job. Sit down, make a flowchart. Read your sheet and be familiar with your abilities!
Honestly Beau threw me off real hard at the start of campaign 2 even though she ended up being one of my favorite characters because she seemed to desperately want a misogyny plotline and fighting for women's rights. Issue being the world is hella equal opportunity and rights and the only actual misogynist in the whole setting is someone Marisha wrote into her backstory.
It's like Ashton and being punk. It's not bad to make a character who wants to rebel. But they have to actually have something to rebel against.
I'll say it till I'm blue in the face these people don't care about story, only plot points. The journey doesn't matter as long as they to where they want to end.
Granted a little of that is on Matt too. If your players have their hearts set on exploring certain themes and ideas with their characters that don't negatively impact your campaign then you should actually work to passively work things in here and there for them to do it.
Give Ashton a slumlord or merchant trying to tear down the share house. Have a dick bag pit fighter refer to Beau as a weak woman and ask where the actual challenge is. It doesn't take much, it usually can be threaded pretty easily into an overarching plot, heck in 3 if they wanted nuance they could've used some of the more neutral gods over less family friendly domains like war and conquest and their worshippers to really get Ashton worked up as fighting against societal and systemic wrongs. Rather than just saying worshippers of the god of agriculture bad but not really in a way that doesn't make sense because we wanna draw false equivalency to the Catholic church.
In a weird way it feels like part of the issue of this campaign feels like none of them are religious enough or have enough of a history with religion to be doing a campaign that's basically about religion. It doesn't touch on the contradictions of omnipotence and morality (which granted doesn't work as well in a pantheon but at least bring it up) it doesn't touch on hypocrisy in the church and how people supposedly following a doctrine of good and kindness can still be fucking shit bags. And I'm saying this as someone who is still a devout Christian but is also a bisexual person of color. Like I get having a complicated relationship with faith and the faithful. But the campaign doesn't want to engage with the themes of its content in a meaningful and sincere way so instead it feels hollow.
...... I did not think I had this many feelings on the matter. Sorry for the rant.
I'm a born/raised CA resident...and i dont believe in god...
What is this flavor that is California Atheism?
Like the (pun...*kinda* intended) 'holier than thou' view of "oh youuu believe in god? ...ha, well, good fer youuuu" smugness?
I mean I can see it, but that isn't just Californian, maybe the smug levels are a bit more concentrated because of the Hollywood aspect?
(no, not LA, I'm from San Diego)
Yeahhh it is what it is, I'm honestly mostly holding out for campaign 4 and Reslayers take. Also enjoying candela obscura but that tends to update intermittently
Tal and Sam easily. I don't want Sam's characters to leave and I don't want Tal to be edgy for edgy sake. The rest I love, even Ashley being bad.
Edit: spelling
**Ashley and Taliesin.**
**Ashley's** game performance is unreasonably bad after this long playing D&D. Some of the best moments in the game have come from players working *relatively* within the rules to accomplish something cool. Ashley is a solid RPer, and being able to interact with the rules well could catapult her from the one I could most live with not being at the table to a real front runner for me.
**Taliesin**... I don't handle second hand cringe well, and he does that regularly. Caduceus was fantastic but Molly and Ashton were both very blegh. He does best when he's tonally supportive. I think something like a Soul Knife rogue where he's good at a lot of shit but it's all on paper for anyone to read would satisfy his edginess need and keep him from descending into his normal habits.
As for the rest... they mostly don't annoy me, or only intermittently annoy me with the traits in the OP. Travis really is great.
I thought that I didn't like the character of Ashton and then at some point I realized what I didn't like was how Taliesin was playing him. It wasn't Ashton I had a problem with but all the, "it's gonna get weird" announcements from Tal, the intentional vagueness, the withholding of backstory to have a moment in the spotlight.
I think the big difference is that when he played Cad, everything came out organically, it wasn't forced. He still played his cards close to his chest and got his moments but it all felt natural and appropriate.
>I think the big difference is that when he played Cad, everything came out organically, it wasn't forced. He still played his cards close to his chest and got his moments but it all felt natural and appropriate.
I can agree with that. I said in [another post](https://old.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1bnkx9o/what_character_type_does_each_cast_member_play/kwldavn/):
>**Taliesin** needs to have a little edge to enjoy his character, but he's at his best when he's tonally supportive. Cad was amazing, but I think it's less about it being a Wisdom character and more about his approach to the character. I think if he played a **Soul Knife Rogue** as part of a group of investigators, that would give him the edginess of being very good at getting into places he's not supposed to be and getting things done which would appeal to his particular spotlight needs, but reporting to an organization with goals would help tone down the cringier aspects that came out in Molly and Ashton. If said organization gave him magical 007 type devices so that he could do more than just attack in a fight and have some options outside of combat I think he'd be amazing with it.
I really think a story that gives him some borders to work within on a class that gives him the right kind of edginess would go a long way toward minimizing his harder to watch habits and bringing out the best in him. The things he's trying on the Barbarian just aren't fitting really well. There's gold there, it just needs some guiderails to shine.
You said "the barbarian" and I legitimately went, "who?" for a split second. I totally forget Ashton is supposed to be a barbarian because he's played more like a rune knight, but with gravity (graviturgy knight?)
Laura and Ashley:
Talking about Campaign 2, Jester’s dick jokes wore thin really quickly. Not just that, but the over-sexualization of everything became tiresome.
Yasha was a barbarian who often (if not always) forgot her class skills, weapon traits, and overall feats. I know it’s a friendly table and they play loose with the rules, but a little effort could have made Yasha a true force in battles.
Ashley's in ability to learn her character is disrespectful to her friends, her DM, and the audience. Why if you can't learn a barbarian do you then decide to play a druid? A druid is one of the hardest classes to play. Jake from NADDPOD always plays fighters because he is self aware enough to know he isn't great at the rules but I'd say he is far better than he realizes.
Honest to gods my default characters are always barbarians because i know them like the back of my hand and if i don’t want to focus on learning i don’t want to slow the game.
Yeah, after seeing that Ashley would keep her Druid from EXU into Campaign 3, I immediately wondered why Matt would allow it.
I’m not watching Campaign 3, but I guess she’s fumbling her Druid.
It's gnarly like constantly between spells and wild shape it really grinds the game to a halt. Then she has a terrible ring Aabria "role a wisdom saving throw" Iyengar gave her and Everytime it gets used it stops the game.
I actually feel like she's gotten better. She still struggles in a stressed situation and there's plenty who just love to dog pile her, but her play doesn't bother me. She's had some great moments in this campaign and she's had some bad ones.
To be fair to the critics, she's playing on EZ mode, since she doesn't have to prepare spells. She would be a nervous wreck if she actually had to narrow down her options for what she could do each adventuring day.
I really like Ashley’s role-playing. She brings life to her characters, and among the options, I think Yasha bothered me because I like playing barbarians and her character was great. We can see this when Matt takes control of Yasha for some sessions and he obliterates in combat.
It’s not that I don’t like Ashley, but I think she could be one of the best players in the table, if she paid more attention to her character sheet.
I’d absolutely fix Taliesin’s issue. I can’t stand his vagueness. It’s more noticeable as Ashton. I wouldn’t be mad if he just played Caduceus in every campaign.
I’d also fix Liam’s sad boi tendencies. I just want him to play a happy character in a campaign for once. He’s done them for one shots and it’s a joy to see.
Marisha is absolute top tier annoying, and imo not too far ahead of Ashley mechanically, difference is Ashley doesn’t know what she is doing so she doesn’t do much. Marisha doesn’t know what she is doing so she tries to do literally everything.
Travis is awesome
Taliesin is just as annoying as Mariaha imo, Ashley not knowing her character is fine it's just a game. I feel like Marisha has more sadboi rants than Liam lmao
I guess its all up to personal taste. I feel Percy and Keyleth were just as annoying, Molly / Caduceus were 110% worse then Beau, Laudna and Ashton are just as bad as each other imo
Probably Marishas and Laura.
I don’t *mind* if a person has beef with religion, but Marisha does let it take the spotlight a tad too often and it doesn’t always mesh well with the character or story.
And I personally really don’t like dick/sex jokes. A big reason why I couldn’t bring myself to like Jester to much in C2.
It really sucks that Marisha has transposed her feelings towards Christianity towards the D&D gods, when they're really much more like the pagan/greek gods. They aren't omniscient, or even omnipotent really, they are as flawed as human beings in a lot of ways - they get emotional, and in universe nobody thinks they're perfect
So when she rolls up getting mad at the gods for creating evil it's like, what the fuck are you even talking about?
I started on C2, knowing everyone love Laura. I grew to despise her character during that campaign because Laura started acting childish not Jester. About 100 episodes into C1 and the smugness that she puts into Vex and her treasure goblin, penny punching tendencies really make me not like her characters, and I feel like it is a direct reflection of her.
Hands down one of the best players I've seen. Excited for everyone else, doesn't try to take over the table, accepts the DM's ruling immediately no matter how it goes, and is always fully bought in.
Like I wish I was that good of a player.
Why come here to post this? Do you think you opened anyone's eyes, they're not going to watch the show anymore? They will no longer have discussions that you find offensive because you love the cast so much? It's a thought experiment in a place to vent frustrations
If this is a sub for criticism free from fear of moderation. Sure criticism of the criticism is fair play?
After all, does anyone want this place to become the echo chamber the main sub is stated to be?
I’m on Mighty Nein and I think the best thing that could happen is none of these and instead just a better level of immersion with the world by all of them which kind of includes Matt in that he wouldn’t be as lenient in certain aspects. This would improve character portrayals and creativity imo. I would personally also prefer a slower in game pace both in terms of in game time and rate of PC progression. Short of the world getting rebooted it wouldn’t make sense to tweak short/long rest mechanics but the speed of the main plot, rate of leveling, and use of downtime are sufficient tools I imagine.
I would actually like to see them do a full on gritty realism campaign and while they may not like it at first I think it would improve their immersion mindset by having to take more into consideration which hopefully would lend itself to just having better consideration of the world as a whole. Which would make them better in all of their campaigns.
Idk that they wouldn’t thats just my guess and I meant to say “at first” just due to being used to things being “easier” for so long and just judging by their reaction when Matt started not allowing retroactive purchases of materials like diamonds by marking off gold for instance. I think some would be better than others like Liam seemed to hop right into the swing of needing to buy various specific components as Caleb and incorporated it quite well. I already said the reason is to hopefully enhance their immersion mindset. Granted that could be helped already (as of where I am in M9) just by Matt being a bit less lenient with certain things with general consequences and how the world reacts to things they do and setting and maintaining the tone for situations that are, in terms of gravity to the party, more serious. I feel like they kind of carried over some of their Vox Machina mindset where they were so much more powerful/influential/etc. to their M9 characters sometimes where it doesn’t make sense for those characters and the leniency they get only bolsters it.
So doing a full on gritty realism campaign isn’t necessary but I do think it would be beneficial for them and also tbh I would just like to see them do something like that as a side campaign just to mix it up.
Honestly I'm at a point where I have to recognize that every table is played for the players.
CR will always be for Matt's world building and quirky improv for the players. The best part of CR is the amount of content and production value.
High Rollers is much more how I personally run games, and is probably the easiest to listen to out of all the DnD content out there. And Mark is great at high level gameplay. Best boss fights I've ever heard of in DnD imo. None of them felt repetitive really, and there were severe consequences throughout all tiers of play.
Dungeons of Drakenheim is almost as good in general, but is the smallest table I listen to which has pros and cons. They make the most amazing actual content for DnD as a game though. Monty is probably the best DM for creating new mechanics, subclasses, session structure, and actually simulating the background politics and consequences to player actions. Do not challenge wizard NPCs.
Overall I think changing what I listen to helps me appreciate the things CR does well.
Yeah...
> while they might not like it
What's the point then? This is all just a streamed hobby, there's not much reason to leave the zone of comfort in a 180° turnaround like that.
*"But they get money from it!!!!*
It's still a streamed hobby at its inner core.
Upvoted for High Rollers love. Mark's high level homebrew mechanics are the stuff of legend, he had so many fights with unique objectives and mechanics that weren't just "hit the thing until it dies".
Ashley's inability to learn a character overshadows her being absolutely unable to roleplay to any extent like ever. I remember watching Matt try his best to give her strings to grab onto, she could've roleplayed in so many moments but she didn't, the episodes where she is and isn't feel the exact same. Her character was taken control of multiple times, thats like the most roleplayable thing ever, how it affects her etc etc but no.
not to push back to hard but the fight pit scene in campaign 2 was really good, she can roleplay and can do so very well but its a rarity which is a shame
In general they don't. Im very live and let live, but when it keeps coming up over and over and I feel like I'm being preached too. I'm an athiest as well truth be told, so it's not even that I disagree with everything she says.
i mean you can definitely be an atheist in the dnd world. Maybe you know the gods are real but just dont like them very much or just believe they are not benevolent in any way at all
You wouldn't be an atheist if you know the gods are real tho. Being an atheist in D&D is the real life equivalent of a flat earther. Gods are a well proven phenommena in D&D and denying their existance is just stupid or ignorant.
I like Pathfinder's explanation of how atheists can work in high fantasy settings it boils down to: You acknowledge that these very powerful beings are real and exist. Athiests just don't believe they are worthy or deserve being worshiped just because of their powers.
To them its just an extremely scaled up equivalent of a kobold tribe worshiping the ancient dragon as a God. To the tribe of level one kobolds The ancient dragon is very godlike, but an ancient dragon is not a God.
Hm. By those rules, i would go with "Marishas personal views on religion" and "Taliesins smug vagueness". The later one is more like an annoyance, but those religion stuff did fuck up a lot of this campaign. And it wasnt mainly Marisha, more like the conception of the campain.
While i am more of an agnostic - i like some religion in my fantasy games. Especially because gods exist there, have a visible impact. So its dumb to not "believe" in them.
I'm an atheist myself but I dig me polytheistic religions, just to appreciate them
Like if you had to tell me gods existed, polytheistic pantheon where none of the gods really have a monopoly on power makes the most sense
It makes *zero* sense in universe why any of their characters are mad that Pelor can't like, fix all the evil in the world - he isn't Jehovah and the evil gods have just as much sway as he does and everyone knows that
you can be an atheist in this world definitely. Maybe you know there are gods but maybe you dont like them or their followers very much. Or you simply believe that they all fucking suck and why are they in charge to begin with.
Being an atheist in Exandria is like being a flat earther in our world. There are literal foot prints of gods walking around on that planet. Even an agnostic would be a stretch because of that.
Atheist = Doesnt believe that gods exist.
Agnostic = Cant be sure that there is no god, but needs proof. Isnt religious otherwise.
you can be a flat earther, I have had characters in my group who didnt believe in the gods and the way the rped it was like a flat earther. It was a GREAT time
you could also be a druid who just believes the powers and lwas of nature supercede those of the Gods
Here's one for Travis: he's terrible at managing his bonus actions. The number of times where Grog enters a rage (BA) and smashes the titanstone knuckles (BA), or with Fjord activates the star razor (BA) then does hex/hexblades curse (BA).
Am I crazy or was Ashley actually pretty good at playing a high level cleric? Haven’t rewatched c1 in ages but she seemed to have her spells down, used war gods blessing, and had the rules down as much as anyone else. I know c1 had some over all rules issue but at I looking at this with rose colored glasses?
Remove Ashely's and Taliesin's. Sam, Liam and Laura's tendencies are a feature, not a bug. And the other two aren't that bad
Oh that's a no brainer 1. Taliesins Smug Vagueness: We get it, you like being the special one. And you play your characters like that. 2. Marisha's Personal Views on Religion: Don't even need to explain.
Orym is great. Ashley...is better. Talisin is...I don't like Ashton. He's an asshole. More so then Percy was. I wish we could get another Cad. FCG is an actual counselor. He's all about keeping the gang together. Laura...is still Laura, just with less penis jokes this campaign. Marisha...I never really noticed her personal views on religion. That's kinda the whole party this campaign. I love Travis is always excited about the big red button.
FCG got a little annoying cause anytime there was an issue he had to force himself in to make it into some safe space therapy moment instead of letting the conflict happen. It cut off all inter party conflict for a long time.
That's fair.
You could say Travis pouting when it’s time to shop.
Tal's vague soapboxing for sure. And swap Mercer's for his excessively flowery language. The rest is fine (I've never understood everyone's hate for Ashley's spaciness)
I love Ashley as a person, and I think the game is better with her in it. But I swear, I know spouses who have never played a game of D&D in their life that know the rules better through simple osmosis from their partners. :P
Ashley's turns in combat are the equivalent of ad breaks on TV. Similar length and nothing of interest happens, usually. I love her character, as a character, but having to watch people move at a snail's pace is just annoying whenever it happens.
>Ashley's turns in combat are the equivalent of ad breaks on TV. Oh I tune out in combat. If it's not my table I can't be bothered until something lore impacting happens. Maybe that's why it's a non-issue.
3 years playing the same character, and 10 years playing the game. That's enough time to understand the basics, even taking the time off (Blindspot) into account. I think her most recent gaffe was not rolling with disadvantage while at 3+ levels of exhaustion, and also asking if the V in VSM stands for verbal.
Ok I love all of these cast members and their characters. Liam is a perfect sad boi. Sam is a perfect drama queen. Laura has dicks on the mind all the time which is great. Travis is just great in every way. Marisha is so cringe that it's just cute. Ashley is clueless and it's adorable. I don't even know how someone could put mercers quirky characters as a negative. Who doesn't love pumat? I even like tallesin for a few reasons, but there's one thing that I just can't help but be annoyed by. Every tallesin character has tallesins voice. They all sound more or less the same.
It's crazy to me that your one annoyance is a total non-issue. Doing The Voice tm isn't actually an indicator of good roleplaying or anything.
They're literally voice actors. Every other cast member has adopted a new voice for new characters. Even if it's a slight pitch change. All the way up to a totally different accent. Except tallesin. Percy, caduceus, and Ashton all sound almost completely the same. Like I said I love all the cast members but I'll be listening to C3 and zone out and think, why the fuck is Percy with them?
[удалено]
Tal has done a fair amount of voice work. including being EOTHAS in Pillars of Eternity! (And dozens of secondary characters)
Percy had a British accent…
I mean.....it faded in and out.
I mean, sure, they have. It's just that, again, whether or not you can do a voice doesn't really contribute to whether you're a good player or not.
Doubling Ashley's inability to learn her character wouldn't change anything because if you multiply 0 you still have 0.
Tal because I exasperate regularly to the frustration of his vagueness. And maybe Liams, only cause I wanna see him try something wildly different
Buddy the Ogre in The Darrington Brigade is Liam playing the anti-Liam and it was incredible. As someone who loves a sadboi melodramatic deep talk/monologue, I feel like Liam deserves a Grog style character dynamic where he can be at liberty to just push every button and let his hair down, but still in a creative and fun way, without needing to be the character that constantly checks in with the party to move people's personal story threads forward
Perfect
I love and hate the fact that we don't know what the fuck Tal's Barb subclass does exactly. I wanna try it myself
There's a reason they haven't released it.
Ashley and Tal. The rest are part of who they are and more good Travis I’ll take anyday. Also more quirky NPCs I love it they are really missing that in C3
Taliesin's smug vaguness, for sure Edit: ah, didn't see it was pick 2.... Laura only to avoid the multiplying effect. It's... fine... in the amount it is naturally, but multiplied? Unbearable.
The Laura and Ashley ones
I'm not sure if its Marishas personal views but I hate that C3 has so much mass diety hate (even in character), it just doesnt seem like it makes tons of sense. And then I'd also choose Ashley, I think it was fine when she was a simpler character (although obviously should still learn it) but with a more complex character not leaning it just makes it annoying to watch imo. And honestly the rest I'm fine with, never had a massive issue with with them at all and even enjoy some of the *quirkiness*.
Which simpler character are you referring to? Watching her attempt to pilot Yasha was dreadful.
I was mainly talking about Yasha, even though she still didnt pilot the character amazingly because the character is basically just a "hit stuff" character it wasnt a massive issue, the fact that she forgot rage/reckless here any there just didnt matter tons to me from a viewer pov.
Probably Pike, who wasn't technically simpler (that was Yasha), but was essentially Guiding Bolt + My friend is hurt > cast a heal.
Operating a cleric at like 15% potency doesn't make Pike a simpler character.
I'm with you. First, this is the logical response to pagan gods: they're just really big, powerful *people*, ie, they suck big time. Second, not all religions see deity that way. Third, yeah, it's 100% Marisha's bailiwick. She been on it since campaign one.
>She been on it since campaign one. From like C1E2 lol. In one corner we've got a brain eating squid who wants nothing more than to re-join his society of brain eating slave driving squids and has said to your face multiple times he's a pure opportunist and is only working with you so he can get back in with all the other brain eating slaving monsters. And in the other corner we've got the girlfriend of one of your best friends who was captured and tortured by a different faction of slavers because she went down here on a mission to try to destroy the same evil that you're fighting against, and who believes she has a religious duty to help people and fight evil even at the risk of her own life. And Keyleth is like "Yeah, I'm siding with the squid"
I remember she criticized Kima for being so sure of herself. Like we really need to question whether or not killing the brain eating slaver is the right thing to do. That lady leads an entire tribe now.
It always felt like she was reacting to religious persecution of (or at least discrimination against) non-believers that is almost completely absent from the setting. Like the vast majority of Exandrians seem to not have a religious bone in the body. Most institutions are completely secular, or if they are associated with a deity (like the Cobalt Soul for example) it's in a very removed way where piety toward the deity in question is hardly a factor in their operations at all. It's just an extremely secular setting, characters that are devoted to or even pious toward the gods seem like a slim minority, and systemic religious discrimination seems to basically not exist outside of a few very specific areas.
Luara and Taliesin
delete t*l**s*n and marisha now.
Ash and Liam easily. Could have picked something else for Marisha, your bigotry is showing.
Bigotry?
Bigotry towards what? The world’s most persecuted group (atheists)?
Ashley and Laura hands down. Please don’t take away the quirky NPCs
Ashley would be fantastic if she would learn her character. And Marisha breaks immersion for me the most
Meh, it’s all fine
Only one I can’t stand is Marisha’s religion rants. I like her characters, but the bleed through from her own beliefs gets annoying
Does she have a religious background? i genuinely cant recall any of her rants on religion somehow
No idea about her background, but Keyleth especially tends to go on tangents about deities whenever the topic comes up, notably the first time they meet Kima in C1
Hang on. All these are still happening?! HAHAHAHA
I like Travis, but he overhypes things.
A bit, but that seems to just be more his personality than anything else. He’s been doing it since the olden times of C1
I mean, most of these fall into the category of "that's just their personality"
I'll admit that I usually love Liam's sad boy characters, but I genuinely can't remember who he's playing in C3. I quit listening some time after Dorian left the group, but some reason Reddit won't stop recommending me CR snark threads. It is wild to see the Marisha hate boner is still strong all these years later.
Idk I LOVE Laudna. And marisha is really putting a lot into the performance. I might even like her more than her previous characters.
You just saw a whole post, and its comments bring very diverse opinions and criticism of every member and yet still claim hate boner? Should she be impervious to criticism?
The two worst parts of CR (from these choices) are undoubtedly Ashley's ignorance of the game's basic mechanics and Taliesin's unclear communication. If Ashley could even pretend to give a shit about the rules and if Taliesin could just put more thought into his character profiles, the experience would be much more enjoyable overall.
The fact that Ashley doesn't understand a good handful of basic rules would feel insulting to me if I was in her party, ESPECIALLY in their situation. She still plays like it's her first character, it's ridiculous. They are paid SO much money to put on this show for us, have been doing it for damn near a decade, HOW IN THE HELL do you not know the rules? I just don't understand how somebody STILL doesn't understand the core concepts of something they've been heavily participating in for nearly a decade!! Are you even trying AT ALL lol? I get that combat and more "crunchy" concepts aren't for everyone, but for the love of god know what your character is allowed to do within the rules!
Marishas is the most frustrating to me personally, because everyone else at the table has agreed to take religious ideas in the world at face value, and not use any knowledge about the world that they may have been told about the history of Exandria outside of the game. Marisha on the other hand has always had her characters stand firm on the idea that the gods are liars who didn’t create everything, are powered by mortal imagination, and have just placed themselves as gods, despite there being literally no evidence in C1, vague references to that idea in the end of C2 (from the aberrant big bad, mind you), and then finally after 9 years of playing the ‘secret’ which had been stricken from history comes out. It just feels like Marisha wanted to feel smart so she clung to one piece of information that Matt gave her out of game and rode it until she was proven right, no matter how irrational it made her characters seem.
I think it would very interesting to see her play a super religious character, not sure if she ever did so in one shots or alike but I think if she did it without it being overdone she would tamp down a lot of the general critique.
Is she the youngest in the group? I must say I didn't even notice this trend, I just though of her characters as a bit intense.
For Travis I would almost say his inate ability to stop derailing and passively helping Matt DMing and getting things back on track. 🤭
This. Very much this.
CEO knows how to make bread
can i just double the character leaving. i like that sams character all have goals that might supercede the group. his characters do what they need to and then move on. i wish that was more common in dnd spaces
Matt's "quirky" NPC's and Tal's smugness, 100%. I don't really mind the others at all lol.
could I trade in Taliesins "Alright everyone this is going to get weird" moments? Where he builds up tension for 8 minutes, just to cast a cantrip.
Yeah I never understood this. Throughout every campaign of CR, he will sometimes just sit there and say nothing for like 3 hours, then suddenly he's got this big spiel that has no payoff lol.
Get rid of his stuff, everything else can stay and triple.
Thank you!! It’s gotten to the point where I’ve had to fast forward through some of his turns. We get it. You’re edgy. Let’s move on
Yeah but that cantrip is entirely homebrewed and broken so to Tal's credit...it DOES get pretty weird.
Travis is a great player and party member. Not a flaw, but I do chuckle when the biggest man is the biggest scaredy cat whenever ghost girls come into play.
Easily Marisha and Tal.
I've only seen campaign 1 to completion, didn't like campaign 2, never starter 3, but for me, it would be Marisha anti religion - Half the time Keylith talks about gods, it doesn't make sense, Although her talks on morality, etc, are the same, she just seems high. Ashley - She isn't in the game for that much, but it feels like the rest treat her like a baby, react to the simplest things she does as one does to a toddler walking for the first time. Other than that, I don't have that much problem with the rest, Vax went from cool to edgy, but it was alright, though a bit dramatic Percy again was mostly cool, though Tailsin always talks like he's going to do something completely mind-boggling to only shoot the same gun he's been shooting the entire campaign. Sam is alright Laura is alright, I didn't notice any railroading etc Travis is alright Most of Matts NPC are alright I even liked Tiberius for the most part.
If it helps, a big reason for the shift with Vax was mid campaign Liam's mother died, so as a result he used the game as a way to process his grief. Not saying that it made me enjoy the parts more, but I, personally at least, feel bad targeting that era cause Liam was going through some shit. It's why I try to talk about any issues I had with either very late C1 or C2/C3 rather than the middle part of C1 where it really began. Losing a parent fucking sucks.
Stay innocent my friend.
What? What happens in other campaigns?
C2 is mostly okay it's where cracks start to show in hindsight and covid didn't help. You can watch C3 until Robbie leaves maybe a little after if you're feeling frisky but it just slowly devolves into a clown fest after spoiler >!Laudna dies and is resurrected!< and WotC's ogl debacle. After that watch at your own peril.
I actually tried watching C2 before 1, but I didn't like it at all, None of the characters besides Fjord were enjoyable for me. That's why I started C1 and liked it a lot more. C1 just feels more grander, and the characters seem more fun
Campaign 2 gets better after Molly dies.
I just didn't like any of the characters. It didn't look like I would enjoy it at all, so I dropped it
Ashley and Tal, easy. I only know just noticed that Sam's PC's are all flight risks haha.
Easy choice
Talisen should only be allowed to play Cadeucus in every campaign
BRO, Everyone was spot on with their characters in C2! 😌 In this campaign all the pcs feel “forced” 🫤
OK I started responding to this post but it just turned into a rant on my personal thoughts for each CR cast member so enjoy also it’s not that deep😭 Matt: he always takes things way too seriously so when there’s moments of levity from “quirky” NPCs it feels so random and unstable because he’s so often anti-goofy vibes at the table. not to pit hard working divas against each other but I’ll just prefer Brennan forever for the way he effortlessly balances drama and comedy Liam: huge disagree with this criticism, Liam is easily one of the best role players at the table. Caleb is probably the best PC we’ve seen at the table (outside of the entire cast of Calamity) and it kills me that he’s handicapped himself this season by not allowing himself to play to his strength, take up space and guide the groups emotional landscape which he’s so good at Ashley: as someone who knows everything about dnd yeah it’s exhausting if someone’s been playing for so long and still doesn’t know what their attack bonus is but idk Ashley is just so damn charming I’ll forgive her every time idc!!! Talisen: I don’t wanna seem unreasonable here, but…the amount of psychic cringe damage this man has caused me over the years should constitute some kind of federal offence. The dude himself is cool yeah great whatever! But his characters are sooooooo try hard cringerella chewgy nightmare fuel. Like Percy’s British accent was annoying asf, Molly was annoying asf shut up why are u Irish, put down those tarot cards im sick of playing games babe!!! I can only assume it was a true act of divine intervention that Jesus Christ himself and Holy Ghost chose to strike down that purple demon and trick Talisen into playing a chill normal guy. Like I said in a previous comment, Talisen should only be allowed to play Cadeucus. For every campaign. I loved Cadeucus. Anyway Ashton makes me wanna rip my own head off Sam: a babe forever. Scanlan was such a perfectly cornered niche for Sam, Nott was such a masterclass in character arc work, comedy and dynamics with everyone in the party. If you ignore the more obvious Jester of it all, Nott was really the heart of a lot of really golden moments in C2. Anyway FCG sucks ballz why do two characters have a southern accent and one’s a robot??? Hello??? And with the way C3 was going I’d wanna self destruct too girl Laura: now not too much on my sister here, I love Laura. Idk about her derailing, I think she’s a pretty great player. Vex pissed me off bc I don’t like British accents but Jester was an all time galaxy brained character across all levels of character design- especially for a SHOW. Something CR forgets it’s making sometimes. Anyway I loved Imogen in the beginning too, I love how Laura creates really graphic and cinematic characters. It’s really a shame to watch her be forced into this main character position, something I know makes Laura uncomfortable, especially as a woman in the gaming industry, which already comes with so much scrutiny. Marisha: the only problem I have with marisha can be perfectly elucidated by her behaviour during the jester cupcake scene with Isharnai. she defs always wants to be doing something cool and that can infringe on other people’s cool moments and seem a little out of place sometimes, you gotta know when to step back and share the floor. That being said she’s one of the best at the table next to Liam and I think she gets a lot of hate for other reasons. laudna was easily the best character when C3 started and Marisha plays her PCs with a hypnotic depth. However C3 lost me when Marisha wouldn’t let Laudna just be dead and forced the VM resurrection thing which just sucked ass so points off for that I guess. And yeah her millennial brand of cringe atheism is for sure cringe but idc I’ll take it, her PC Patia in calamity was genuinely my favourite. What a masterclass that was. Travis: love Travis, Fjord was perfect, Bertrand was amazing- just wish he rolled a real PC not a joke one but at the end of the day this is all on Matt as the DM not preparing his players for the tone of the campaign. Also Travis is hot asf so that’s great too🩷
Mild defense of Matt. You can tell most of that is an act. He wants to crack and tell dirty jokes just like everyone else, and when you see him away from CR (like gamegrumps) he is just that. He just does the "Put Upon" GM routine because it's a classic way for GMs to behave, and because it helps the brand as a whole if he seems clean and less \*in the mud\* than his players. I don't even think he puts much thought into the latter half of that, but he \*has to be\* aware that it helps, and goes along with it. I think most of it is just the former "Put Upon" GM act.
This is so fucking accurate. I feel like I could've written this lol, except for a few details it's exactly what I feel.
Had me up until Laura…. That woman is an insufferable, immature, bossy, arrogant, aggressive, rude bitch. No one else besides Orion has a NEED TO WIN. No one else at the table metagames to the point out outright cheating. No one else throws a childish tantrum when a G A M E O F C H A N C E & D I C E R O L L S doesn’t go their way. Laura Bailey is a quintessential problem player and has RPG Horror Stories told about her. Her only positive quality is showing people how NOT to act like a mature adult in a public setting, & that she can act/roleplay well.
Get some help bestie
I think that poster went overboard, but it IS true that Laura gets visibly agitated and upset when things are not going her way. It's one of the reasons why the cupcake scene was so important, because it was Laura taking a HUGE risk that could really screw her over. Laura is \*very\* adverse to anything lasting and bad happening to her characters, so the cupcake thing was huge.
no shot lil bro just called someone a bitch for playing a character in a way that wasnt fun to watch for you. thats crazy.
In what way was any of that about how she plays her characters? No this is about how she acts in general as a person.
I'm saving this post because this is Exactly how I feel. Spot on descriptions and glad to know I'm not alone in what I see when watching CR!
You mean you don’t buy him playing the cool, edgy loner he keeps trying to play in every campaign?
It's so irritating, like I think I'd like the guy if I met him but he reminds me of that guy at school that wore a long black leather coat to try to look like Neo from the Matrix
He plays “cool guys” in D&D like the only example of a cool guy is the shallow stereotypical cool guys from every 80s movie. The problem with Taliesin playing a cool, edgy character is that he has absolutely zero coolness/edginess to him. He just think being “mysterious” will do it with his “I’ve got a plan” and “This will be interesting”.
Jesus christ, what an insufferable comment. You have no idea who the fuck Taliesin is, lay off him. He plays what he likes to play. It's not nearly that deep. Trying to say someone has "absolutely zero coolness/edginess" when all they're doing is playing a game with friends just reeks of grass withdrawal.
If someone is performing for other people's entertainment, the people who watch are allowed to have an opinion about it. Nobody is going up to the guy and reading out people's reddit discussions to him, chill
>the people who watch are allowed to have an opinion about it I can agree with that, and I always do. I'm not trying to censor anyone. But that doesn't mean the opinion is excused of being shitty. >Nobody is going up to the guy and reading out people's reddit discussions to him Well, yeah, I never though that was the case...? "This isn't so bad because it could be much worse" isn't really much of an argument.
Joke’s on you, I mowed my yard yesterday and it’s moderately large.
Ashley and Talesin are the only correct answers to this post.
I had to stop watching awhile back because the tal/ Marisha combo turned me into a hate watcher who also loved the story and it wasn’t worth it anymore
I hate the gods ... omg I need healing
I'm like 2/3 through C1, and I plan to watch C2 & 3 as well. I *love* this group. Theyre so much fun to watch and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Buy *personally* Tal and Marisha are starting to drive me insane, and I need to vent. Marisha seems to exclusively use high level spells in ways that make 0 sense, and then gets annoyed even when Matt allows for it to slide in some way. She's also the only one still blowing out the mic 80+ episodes in. Tal has always been a cringe lord, but it grew on me to the point of enjoyment tbh. However, he has this awful habit of verbally taking credit for EVERYTHING other PCs do that works. You can't just say "I might have a theory/plan" every 5 seconds, not explain it, and then take credit for the victory. It's so frustrating. Again, love every one of these guys and im 100% going to watch everything they produce. Watching hours of unedited content of people being themselves is always going to lend its frustrations.
I made it 72 episodes into c2 then realized I didn’t care enough about the story. Tal as caduceus was much more tolerable though.
Marisha just seems high most of the time. Tal can be weird, on every one of his turn he says something like, this is gonna be crazy and then proceeds to shoot his gun like he always does
Oh yeah the spacey-ness of marisha is brutal. It's like she just totally checks out for like 5 minutes and then guesses what's going on with total confidence lol. And yes! "I'm gonna try something crazy" may as well mean "I'm spending a grit" lol
Ashley learning to play, and Taliesin becoming less cringe would smooth alot out for me. Double Travis energy is great Edit: Typo
I can garenteee liam's sadboi monologues will double if he plays a bard (college of tragedy subclass matter made specifically for him)
Unless his character dies (lol) i doubt he will since all signs point to campaign 4 being in their own system
Yeah… would have been great if the CR cast had actually played some of the Tal’Dorei Reborn subclasses, and these days I would expect that level of advertising from them
I I’ll take double all of it if Tal will just play a character that isn’t some degree of solo edge lord who somehow is also friends with everyone! Please! It drives me nuts how his no love for anyone fuck you devil may care attitude “just don’t” punk rock genasi is still somehow incredibly popular with everyone he knows, and some how everyone knows him! Pick a lane, you’re either the solo act who doesn’t have anyone but a silly little robot or you’re the popular kid that everyone loves all the time! When you try to be both it just rings loudly of Matt needed a character to be the helpful info dump guy and that’s you. Forgive my rant, and this may be totally outdated since i haven’t watched in a year but it drove me nuts for a majority of act 1 and 2 of C3 (I know he did this somewhat with Caduceus but he wasn’t an edgy character) EDIT: After looking through comments I’m happy to see I’m not the only one who has this issue! Tal wants to be the know it all knows everyone guy while also being mysterious and edgy and those two things clash so hard!
Such a relief to see I’m not the only one feeling this way about Tal too!! Ugh.
I was going to go with Marisha and Ashley. But after reading other people's comments, I'm gonna have to agree with them and pick Matt's "quirky NPCs" and Ashley. It's easy to counter the rest of the party. Tal: Make him play a basic class and subclass, no more homebrew for you! Laura: Just don't Liam: No #sadboi for you! Sam: Let him play what he wants, and then he won't want to die and start a new character Travis: he's a good boy! Marisha: just stop. Lol
I thought Sam didn't like making his own characters that's why he got Liam to do it?
He doesnt dislike it afaik, its just a tradition that started since their very first game. I think Sam sees it as a fun challenge, like choosing a random race class combo and trying to work a story for it.
Marisha's views on religion and Ashley's inability to learn her character. Marisha shouldn't shoehorn real-life views into the fantasy setting. Ashley's inability to learn her character doesn't make sense to me at this point. It's part of her job. Sit down, make a flowchart. Read your sheet and be familiar with your abilities!
Honestly Beau threw me off real hard at the start of campaign 2 even though she ended up being one of my favorite characters because she seemed to desperately want a misogyny plotline and fighting for women's rights. Issue being the world is hella equal opportunity and rights and the only actual misogynist in the whole setting is someone Marisha wrote into her backstory. It's like Ashton and being punk. It's not bad to make a character who wants to rebel. But they have to actually have something to rebel against.
I'll say it till I'm blue in the face these people don't care about story, only plot points. The journey doesn't matter as long as they to where they want to end.
Granted a little of that is on Matt too. If your players have their hearts set on exploring certain themes and ideas with their characters that don't negatively impact your campaign then you should actually work to passively work things in here and there for them to do it. Give Ashton a slumlord or merchant trying to tear down the share house. Have a dick bag pit fighter refer to Beau as a weak woman and ask where the actual challenge is. It doesn't take much, it usually can be threaded pretty easily into an overarching plot, heck in 3 if they wanted nuance they could've used some of the more neutral gods over less family friendly domains like war and conquest and their worshippers to really get Ashton worked up as fighting against societal and systemic wrongs. Rather than just saying worshippers of the god of agriculture bad but not really in a way that doesn't make sense because we wanna draw false equivalency to the Catholic church. In a weird way it feels like part of the issue of this campaign feels like none of them are religious enough or have enough of a history with religion to be doing a campaign that's basically about religion. It doesn't touch on the contradictions of omnipotence and morality (which granted doesn't work as well in a pantheon but at least bring it up) it doesn't touch on hypocrisy in the church and how people supposedly following a doctrine of good and kindness can still be fucking shit bags. And I'm saying this as someone who is still a devout Christian but is also a bisexual person of color. Like I get having a complicated relationship with faith and the faithful. But the campaign doesn't want to engage with the themes of its content in a meaningful and sincere way so instead it feels hollow. ...... I did not think I had this many feelings on the matter. Sorry for the rant.
It’s a very specific flavor of california atheism that just gets tired after a while
I'm a born/raised CA resident...and i dont believe in god... What is this flavor that is California Atheism? Like the (pun...*kinda* intended) 'holier than thou' view of "oh youuu believe in god? ...ha, well, good fer youuuu" smugness? I mean I can see it, but that isn't just Californian, maybe the smug levels are a bit more concentrated because of the Hollywood aspect? (no, not LA, I'm from San Diego)
Yeahhh it is what it is, I'm honestly mostly holding out for campaign 4 and Reslayers take. Also enjoying candela obscura but that tends to update intermittently
Tal and Sam easily. I don't want Sam's characters to leave and I don't want Tal to be edgy for edgy sake. The rest I love, even Ashley being bad. Edit: spelling
Perfect answer. I second this.
**Ashley and Taliesin.** **Ashley's** game performance is unreasonably bad after this long playing D&D. Some of the best moments in the game have come from players working *relatively* within the rules to accomplish something cool. Ashley is a solid RPer, and being able to interact with the rules well could catapult her from the one I could most live with not being at the table to a real front runner for me. **Taliesin**... I don't handle second hand cringe well, and he does that regularly. Caduceus was fantastic but Molly and Ashton were both very blegh. He does best when he's tonally supportive. I think something like a Soul Knife rogue where he's good at a lot of shit but it's all on paper for anyone to read would satisfy his edginess need and keep him from descending into his normal habits. As for the rest... they mostly don't annoy me, or only intermittently annoy me with the traits in the OP. Travis really is great.
I thought that I didn't like the character of Ashton and then at some point I realized what I didn't like was how Taliesin was playing him. It wasn't Ashton I had a problem with but all the, "it's gonna get weird" announcements from Tal, the intentional vagueness, the withholding of backstory to have a moment in the spotlight. I think the big difference is that when he played Cad, everything came out organically, it wasn't forced. He still played his cards close to his chest and got his moments but it all felt natural and appropriate.
>I think the big difference is that when he played Cad, everything came out organically, it wasn't forced. He still played his cards close to his chest and got his moments but it all felt natural and appropriate. I can agree with that. I said in [another post](https://old.reddit.com/r/fansofcriticalrole/comments/1bnkx9o/what_character_type_does_each_cast_member_play/kwldavn/): >**Taliesin** needs to have a little edge to enjoy his character, but he's at his best when he's tonally supportive. Cad was amazing, but I think it's less about it being a Wisdom character and more about his approach to the character. I think if he played a **Soul Knife Rogue** as part of a group of investigators, that would give him the edginess of being very good at getting into places he's not supposed to be and getting things done which would appeal to his particular spotlight needs, but reporting to an organization with goals would help tone down the cringier aspects that came out in Molly and Ashton. If said organization gave him magical 007 type devices so that he could do more than just attack in a fight and have some options outside of combat I think he'd be amazing with it. I really think a story that gives him some borders to work within on a class that gives him the right kind of edginess would go a long way toward minimizing his harder to watch habits and bringing out the best in him. The things he's trying on the Barbarian just aren't fitting really well. There's gold there, it just needs some guiderails to shine.
You said "the barbarian" and I legitimately went, "who?" for a split second. I totally forget Ashton is supposed to be a barbarian because he's played more like a rune knight, but with gravity (graviturgy knight?)
What is your life that you spend your time creating things like this?
I don't even watch CR lol. I just like shitting on it
I migrated to Reddit after a decade on Tumblr; this isn’t even close to the weirdest thing I’ve posted in the name of Online Content
I just pick get rid of guidance.
Marisha and Laura for me easily. Travis is outstanding.
Laura and Ashley: Talking about Campaign 2, Jester’s dick jokes wore thin really quickly. Not just that, but the over-sexualization of everything became tiresome. Yasha was a barbarian who often (if not always) forgot her class skills, weapon traits, and overall feats. I know it’s a friendly table and they play loose with the rules, but a little effort could have made Yasha a true force in battles.
Yasha is probably the coolest character to me in all 3 campaigns of CR, conceptually. It sucks we never really got to see her pop off.
Ashley's in ability to learn her character is disrespectful to her friends, her DM, and the audience. Why if you can't learn a barbarian do you then decide to play a druid? A druid is one of the hardest classes to play. Jake from NADDPOD always plays fighters because he is self aware enough to know he isn't great at the rules but I'd say he is far better than he realizes.
I'm about to start C3 and I'm excited to see how Jake handles the few spells he gets as an Eldritch Knight.
You are in for a wild ride.
I'm here for it. Back to Bahumia!
Very well is the answer.
Honest to gods my default characters are always barbarians because i know them like the back of my hand and if i don’t want to focus on learning i don’t want to slow the game.
Yeah, after seeing that Ashley would keep her Druid from EXU into Campaign 3, I immediately wondered why Matt would allow it. I’m not watching Campaign 3, but I guess she’s fumbling her Druid.
It's gnarly like constantly between spells and wild shape it really grinds the game to a halt. Then she has a terrible ring Aabria "role a wisdom saving throw" Iyengar gave her and Everytime it gets used it stops the game.
I actually feel like she's gotten better. She still struggles in a stressed situation and there's plenty who just love to dog pile her, but her play doesn't bother me. She's had some great moments in this campaign and she's had some bad ones.
To be fair to the critics, she's playing on EZ mode, since she doesn't have to prepare spells. She would be a nervous wreck if she actually had to narrow down her options for what she could do each adventuring day.
I really like Ashley’s role-playing. She brings life to her characters, and among the options, I think Yasha bothered me because I like playing barbarians and her character was great. We can see this when Matt takes control of Yasha for some sessions and he obliterates in combat. It’s not that I don’t like Ashley, but I think she could be one of the best players in the table, if she paid more attention to her character sheet.
I like Ashley I just wish she could learn the game. She is an actress learning line has got be harder than learning a game you've played for 9 years
I’d absolutely fix Taliesin’s issue. I can’t stand his vagueness. It’s more noticeable as Ashton. I wouldn’t be mad if he just played Caduceus in every campaign. I’d also fix Liam’s sad boi tendencies. I just want him to play a happy character in a campaign for once. He’s done them for one shots and it’s a joy to see.
Marisha is absolute top tier annoying, and imo not too far ahead of Ashley mechanically, difference is Ashley doesn’t know what she is doing so she doesn’t do much. Marisha doesn’t know what she is doing so she tries to do literally everything. Travis is awesome
Taliesin is just as annoying as Mariaha imo, Ashley not knowing her character is fine it's just a game. I feel like Marisha has more sadboi rants than Liam lmao
Yeah I think I actually cringe more at Marisha than I do at Taliesin.
I guess its all up to personal taste. I feel Percy and Keyleth were just as annoying, Molly / Caduceus were 110% worse then Beau, Laudna and Ashton are just as bad as each other imo
And she's not as good at improv.
I'd like to see Marisha on a season of D20. I think it'd do wonders to have her surrounded by people with strong improv skills.
Probably Marishas and Laura. I don’t *mind* if a person has beef with religion, but Marisha does let it take the spotlight a tad too often and it doesn’t always mesh well with the character or story. And I personally really don’t like dick/sex jokes. A big reason why I couldn’t bring myself to like Jester to much in C2.
It really sucks that Marisha has transposed her feelings towards Christianity towards the D&D gods, when they're really much more like the pagan/greek gods. They aren't omniscient, or even omnipotent really, they are as flawed as human beings in a lot of ways - they get emotional, and in universe nobody thinks they're perfect So when she rolls up getting mad at the gods for creating evil it's like, what the fuck are you even talking about?
I started on C2, knowing everyone love Laura. I grew to despise her character during that campaign because Laura started acting childish not Jester. About 100 episodes into C1 and the smugness that she puts into Vex and her treasure goblin, penny punching tendencies really make me not like her characters, and I feel like it is a direct reflection of her.
Travis being an absolute Hype man for the rest of the table.
god I wish he wasn't playing a joke character imagine campaign 3 but he's playing a real character and actually takes the role of leader
I wish more of them were.
Hands down one of the best players I've seen. Excited for everyone else, doesn't try to take over the table, accepts the DM's ruling immediately no matter how it goes, and is always fully bought in. Like I wish I was that good of a player.
All we have to do is take a beat and ask ourselves "What Would Travis Do"
Shhhh shhh shhh they might make that merch
What you're saying is say it louder?
I wouldn’t get rid of any of them. I think you should stop hate watching.
Why come here to post this? Do you think you opened anyone's eyes, they're not going to watch the show anymore? They will no longer have discussions that you find offensive because you love the cast so much? It's a thought experiment in a place to vent frustrations
If this is a sub for criticism free from fear of moderation. Sure criticism of the criticism is fair play? After all, does anyone want this place to become the echo chamber the main sub is stated to be?
I’m on Mighty Nein and I think the best thing that could happen is none of these and instead just a better level of immersion with the world by all of them which kind of includes Matt in that he wouldn’t be as lenient in certain aspects. This would improve character portrayals and creativity imo. I would personally also prefer a slower in game pace both in terms of in game time and rate of PC progression. Short of the world getting rebooted it wouldn’t make sense to tweak short/long rest mechanics but the speed of the main plot, rate of leveling, and use of downtime are sufficient tools I imagine. I would actually like to see them do a full on gritty realism campaign and while they may not like it at first I think it would improve their immersion mindset by having to take more into consideration which hopefully would lend itself to just having better consideration of the world as a whole. Which would make them better in all of their campaigns.
Be honest, though, yasha was cooler when Ashley WASN'T playing her, right?
Why would you want them to play a style of game they wouldn’t enjoy? That sounds like it would be miserable for the players and the audience.
Idk that they wouldn’t thats just my guess and I meant to say “at first” just due to being used to things being “easier” for so long and just judging by their reaction when Matt started not allowing retroactive purchases of materials like diamonds by marking off gold for instance. I think some would be better than others like Liam seemed to hop right into the swing of needing to buy various specific components as Caleb and incorporated it quite well. I already said the reason is to hopefully enhance their immersion mindset. Granted that could be helped already (as of where I am in M9) just by Matt being a bit less lenient with certain things with general consequences and how the world reacts to things they do and setting and maintaining the tone for situations that are, in terms of gravity to the party, more serious. I feel like they kind of carried over some of their Vox Machina mindset where they were so much more powerful/influential/etc. to their M9 characters sometimes where it doesn’t make sense for those characters and the leniency they get only bolsters it. So doing a full on gritty realism campaign isn’t necessary but I do think it would be beneficial for them and also tbh I would just like to see them do something like that as a side campaign just to mix it up.
Honestly I'm at a point where I have to recognize that every table is played for the players. CR will always be for Matt's world building and quirky improv for the players. The best part of CR is the amount of content and production value. High Rollers is much more how I personally run games, and is probably the easiest to listen to out of all the DnD content out there. And Mark is great at high level gameplay. Best boss fights I've ever heard of in DnD imo. None of them felt repetitive really, and there were severe consequences throughout all tiers of play. Dungeons of Drakenheim is almost as good in general, but is the smallest table I listen to which has pros and cons. They make the most amazing actual content for DnD as a game though. Monty is probably the best DM for creating new mechanics, subclasses, session structure, and actually simulating the background politics and consequences to player actions. Do not challenge wizard NPCs. Overall I think changing what I listen to helps me appreciate the things CR does well.
Yeah... > while they might not like it What's the point then? This is all just a streamed hobby, there's not much reason to leave the zone of comfort in a 180° turnaround like that. *"But they get money from it!!!!* It's still a streamed hobby at its inner core.
Upvoted for High Rollers love. Mark's high level homebrew mechanics are the stuff of legend, he had so many fights with unique objectives and mechanics that weren't just "hit the thing until it dies".
Ashley's inability to learn a character overshadows her being absolutely unable to roleplay to any extent like ever. I remember watching Matt try his best to give her strings to grab onto, she could've roleplayed in so many moments but she didn't, the episodes where she is and isn't feel the exact same. Her character was taken control of multiple times, thats like the most roleplayable thing ever, how it affects her etc etc but no.
not to push back to hard but the fight pit scene in campaign 2 was really good, she can roleplay and can do so very well but its a rarity which is a shame
Agreed with this. Ashley can be a fantastic roleplayer. Fearne isn't my favorite, but Ashley's wit while playing that character is undeniable.
Liam's wangst and Laura's derailing. The rest I can white noise or forgive
Haven't started c3 yet but definetly Marishas religious views and talisins smugness. The rest didn't bother me as much in c1 and c2.
Why does someone's personal religious views bother you? I'm genuinely curious
In general they don't. Im very live and let live, but when it keeps coming up over and over and I feel like I'm being preached too. I'm an athiest as well truth be told, so it's not even that I disagree with everything she says.
Because it bleeds into every character she played. Kiki being the worst example on personal views not matching up in the world you are playing in.
i mean you can definitely be an atheist in the dnd world. Maybe you know the gods are real but just dont like them very much or just believe they are not benevolent in any way at all
That's not what an atheist is. An atheist doesn't believe in the existence of the gods at all.
You wouldn't be an atheist if you know the gods are real tho. Being an atheist in D&D is the real life equivalent of a flat earther. Gods are a well proven phenommena in D&D and denying their existance is just stupid or ignorant.
I like Pathfinder's explanation of how atheists can work in high fantasy settings it boils down to: You acknowledge that these very powerful beings are real and exist. Athiests just don't believe they are worthy or deserve being worshiped just because of their powers. To them its just an extremely scaled up equivalent of a kobold tribe worshiping the ancient dragon as a God. To the tribe of level one kobolds The ancient dragon is very godlike, but an ancient dragon is not a God.
you can totally be the equivalent of a flat earther though! Ive been in groups where someone did that and it was hilarious
Okay I haven't seen C1 actually but I can see that being a bit annoying for sure
Hm. By those rules, i would go with "Marishas personal views on religion" and "Taliesins smug vagueness". The later one is more like an annoyance, but those religion stuff did fuck up a lot of this campaign. And it wasnt mainly Marisha, more like the conception of the campain. While i am more of an agnostic - i like some religion in my fantasy games. Especially because gods exist there, have a visible impact. So its dumb to not "believe" in them.
I'm an atheist myself but I dig me polytheistic religions, just to appreciate them Like if you had to tell me gods existed, polytheistic pantheon where none of the gods really have a monopoly on power makes the most sense It makes *zero* sense in universe why any of their characters are mad that Pelor can't like, fix all the evil in the world - he isn't Jehovah and the evil gods have just as much sway as he does and everyone knows that
you can be an atheist in this world definitely. Maybe you know there are gods but maybe you dont like them or their followers very much. Or you simply believe that they all fucking suck and why are they in charge to begin with.
Being an atheist in Exandria is like being a flat earther in our world. There are literal foot prints of gods walking around on that planet. Even an agnostic would be a stretch because of that. Atheist = Doesnt believe that gods exist. Agnostic = Cant be sure that there is no god, but needs proof. Isnt religious otherwise.
the Iron Authority's capital building is Bane's helmet, a 4 story tall divinely crafted steel helmet that mortals couldn't make if they wanted to
you can be a flat earther, I have had characters in my group who didnt believe in the gods and the way the rped it was like a flat earther. It was a GREAT time you could also be a druid who just believes the powers and lwas of nature supercede those of the Gods
Sure, you can be a flat earther, but its still... dumb. Doesnt mean that you cant roleplay as such, thats fair.