The unpredictability of new players point goes far beyond games like D&D and poker. It actually reminds me of a saying I heard of from fencing. Very roughly, it goes "The best duellist in France is not afraid of the second-best duellist in France; he is afraid of the WORST duellist in France."
I've been waiting from episode 1 to some one address the Schreck stuff... XD Always going about the swamp and no one said anything... it was driving me insane hahaha
Matt Mercer: "Your players will surprise you. You can plan out this increadibly deadly encounter and they will do something you hadn't anticipated.." Mighty Nein: *polymorphs the huge scary gribbly into something tiny and harmless*
These characters were so loveable. The failed and redeemed dark knight (laughed like mad with the final chapter and Mercer´s ideas), the learning soon to be mother leaving the father´s shadow (hell yeah, freefall birth!), the beautiful animal caretaker (so cute and human)... loved them, all and every one...
Having recently described ice age 3, as '2 ice, 2 age... 3' leaving my friend reeling with hysterical laughter (it's not like you had to be there... It was as not funny in real life as it is in print). I fully appreciated this joke.
I commented basically this in episode 6, but i have a theory on the fairy dust on extemporaneous NPCs. Because PCs *always* do that, in my experience; latch onto the most random NPCs - ones you just had nothing for. My theory is that it's because it's something that can only happen in D&D. And they just *sense* that those NPCs had this genuine spontaneity to them. It gives them such joy to go, "I can literally talk to anyone, and I can choose to make them important because they're important to me." Something you can't do in a video game, or a novel, or a movie - you're collaboratively writing fanfic, so exploring the cracks and niches and weird bits is just so magical; so unique to the medium. It's so awesome.
Speaking of evil: One of my DMs had a character in his setting that slaughtered a bunch of people and brought their heads to an orphanage and gave them to the children. Not because he wanted to traumatize them, but because he genuinely wanted good things for the children and thought that bringing them the heads of racial enemies would make them happy.
Ha holy shit. Accidental evil is a really interesting version of lawful/neutral evil. Or maybe like... maybe their chaotic good? And just have a very different definition of good......
@@teacooper6485 thats why i don't always love the alignment charts. I got in this whole arguement with someone over the Cubbys of Fantasy high because theyre clearly good, they're clearly righteous, the clearly actually like order but they arent a fan of the law becauseof how immoral law is. So many complexities
I mean my cat leaves birds and mice on my door because she thinks it makes me legit happy. It is messed up but endearing in a way. Evil is largely a spectrum/perspective and is in the eye of the beholder more often than not.
@@Rosy2468 Yeah I like it a lot for the cosmic parts, when you're dealing with high-concept things like interplanar wars and deities and other cosmic forces, but I really don't like it for much else.
Seeing this I could not be happier at how the scene after falling out of the ship turned out, because I think it was so much more rewarding for me to see a guy like Leiland just get supported by the group than having him actually going off because he lost everything. Like, sure, that would have made sense but I like that Rehka heard that and was like 'nah, I should turn that around, I don't need to be all bad to him'. Also, yes Avanash was great, but honestly the librarian was absolutely my favorite NPC in the series. Just, straight-up. Love the behind the scenes glances and opinions btw, this is great :D
Rewatching this about a year later and I’m still shocked at how well Brennan balanced the damage dealt to the players because they all got very low at some points. Also the risk he took for possibly just killing the players to lava and what not.
Everyone just LOVING Avanash and John Feathers just reinforce my theory that improvised things tend to be WAY better and organic and fun for everyone in the table than idk full encounters you just planned ahead for several hours and made a shit ton of notes for... Sometimes it's hard for me 'cause I can't entirely detach myself from my creations... so sometimes there's a couple places and enemies set up... but the rest I just wing it... and sometimes I do try to make everyone lovingly and subtly keep on the main track... almost never works but yee... players have fun and that's the whole point XD
Okay so that actually struck a spot I never thought would be struck. When I was a kid I got in lots of trouble and was always labeled a bad kid, and over time that rep got out of hand (like, nuns would say I was a devil, teachers being afraid to scold me and guys trying to mess with me to prove their bravery) and by then I had just accepted it and was like: fuck it, I'm evil, I must be. And then, knowing I had this terrifying reputation I would just approach a outcast or a bullied kid and be kind to them and just being a all around good little boy (I would still take advantage of that rep to like, skip classes and to sleep in the play yard and stuff without repercussions tho) when I was alone with someone because they'd be baffled I wasn't a straight up baby eating monster and that was so funny to me. What would they do? Tell someone about it? Best case: no one believes you. Worst case: I'd lose the evilness. I made some really good friendships that way. Anyways, to this day I hold on to the belief I'm bad and this belief almost "forces" me to be good cause I either redeem myself in my own eyes or just help ppl on need and that's really swell I think. That was my Ted talk, thanks for anyone who (for some reason) read it all, have a lovely life.
I also feel like when it comes to on the spot NPC's most of the time players can tell that the DM is improving this character and that makes it all the more endearing to the players. Not only because they are witnessing the characters backstory being created on the spot but also because their characters and the choices they make are quite often heavily influencing how this new character turns out as well.
Heavily depends on the situation for the players to know. There are a lot of situations where a character that seems integral to the campaign only exists because the players randomly decided to go somewhere unexpected. Sometimes it's obvious, but it really depends on the situation
The inevitable end of the Daffy Duck sketch (30:00) is Daffy taking a gun, putting it up against his head, pulling the trigger... And his bill flying around to the other side of his head.
Uuuummm, is there any real reason we can't have these interviews be, like, 2 or 4 hours long? These Adventure Academy videos are great and always end waaaaaaay too soon. I want more! ;-)
refer to pt 1 where brennan mentioned he has to email people at 3am so often because of deadlines that its a regular occurrence for people to feel the need to ask if he is still okay
I need 4 more hours of this. This was an incredible sidequest!! I wish Trapp spoke up a bit more, his straight man act was honestly my favorite parts of the campaign, And i really wanted to hear more aboot his thought process. Anyways, These vile villans kick so much ass and are what got me to buy into dropout!
I don't think I'd put it like that. Mercer gives the impression that he really loves DMing. A nice change of pace, maybe, but I don't think DMing makes Mercer unhappy, far from it.
@@WellBattle6 As the DM of a long-running campaign, I'd have to disagree. For a chef, cooking is their passion and they enjoy the hard work involved. For a DM, shaping a world and preparing adventures is their passion.
Its not a matter of being happier or not... its not “as opposed to DMing”... they are in the same field, but different things. He obviously loved playing... same as he loves the CR one shots, or Deadwood... but it is fun in and if itself.. Obviously. 😁
I love to cook and I love to be the GM, and I got to say, it's truly glorious now and then to be taken out to a restaurant... but mostly because I know the food is going to be at least as good as mine. I really like to play role-playing games, but I get very impatient with games not at least as well but together as mine.
Oh gods, the part where they talked about the ‘cost of death’ part had me howling. Just the image of someone slapping them in the face was too much for me to take.
On playing evil characters: the best evil character a player has played in one of my campaigns was/is (when back from hiatus) a lawful evil paladin who legitimately thought he was serving the goddess of truth and justice by coercing the evils he encountered to repent before horribly murdering them (swiftly, to be fair). In his eyes, these people would inevitably fall back on their evil habits and then their souls would once again be damned. So, before that could happen, he would end their lives, ensuring that they would make it to a good afterlife. The party didn't realize he was evil aligned until they took an object that was keeping a blight from being unleashed on this small farming village and were accosted on their way out by a farmer. He swung at the paladin with a makeshift club, missed horribly (because he had almost a zero chance of success), and then was summarily executed for the crime of assault. There was a lovely RP session that took place the next week when that player couldn't make it where the entire party had a collective breakdown and tried to decide what they were going to do, whether they should confront him about it or turn him in to the local government, whether they could even consider looking the other way. It ended with one character permanently leaving the group as she just couldn't handle the situation (the player brought a new character the following session) and the others agreeing to watch the paladin with a close eye, forming a plan to turn him over to authorities when they got to the capital. It didn't work out that way, because I'm a DM and therefore love creating more drama, but the plan was well thought out.
Escape from the Blood Keep was my gateway drug to watching live play-especially seeing Matt and Rheka sit together and play off each other both in improving story and in rules for creative combat. Thank you for that.
The least important skill in D&D is rules knowledge. I absolutely love playing with new players and kids, and often those groups make the best plays, story-wise and power-wise, because they aren't set in their ways of thinking of the rules as written and the battlemap; they just... imagine. People who are brand new to roleplaying can struggle with that aspect a bit sometimes, which does way more to diminish the fun, but honestly, even that is so rare, even with Jasons; sulky teenage boys. People are natural storytellers. Obviously trained and experienced improvisers are just amazing, and no random kid should hold themselves to those standards, but anyone can do this stuff. Can tell cool stories. The only times i've seen it fail were when people were just being jerks. Anyone who *wants* to be there, will do great. I have a vague hope that someone nervous about playing or DMing will see this and it will get them past that anxiety. You care, so you'll have a great time, and so will everyone else! Promise!
What a lovely set of interviews. This game really was a triumph full of amazing PC and DM moments, and I could listen to you guys talk about your favorite moments and the fanart and ships you've seen on the internet FOR HOURS.
I completely agree with new people to RP think outside the box. I just finished my first ever campaign and my character was literally a guy who attacked with watermelon flavored mints. My stats were so out of blue and unexpected I managed to 1v1 one of the main bosses just by jumping up and down. The party beat the final boss and one of the characters in the party tried to kill him behind our backs. Unfortunately for my character and his, I saw this and set off the bomb I had prepped two sessions before. My character went out exactly how he always wanted, in a fiery explosion that destroyed half a city, made all the other PCs go down to like less than 10 hp, and the news coverage of the explosion suggested a new villain had risen. It was my first ever real campaign (aside from one session in a canceled campaign) and I am happy with my RP cos I think I played it perfectly.
Personally I feel the love for ‘on the spot’ NPC’s also comes from how the players are almost responsible for their creation and they feel a special connection and responsibility for them. They’re the players NPC in a way
When they were talking about evil characters in a straight campaign Percival in CR comes to mind. He would get his goal at pretty much at any cost and slowly grew as a character through the campaign.
The closed captions on this episode could *really* use some work. There's a lot of [INAUDIBLE] captions over words which I can hear and make out perfectly fine, and usually this isn't too big of a deal, but there are some severe instances of it here that I imagine would make this a frustrating experience for hard of hearing viewers. For example, in one instance Avanash's entire name just gets removed from a sentence and makes most of Mike's answer to the favorite npc question really tough to parse from the text alone when he's speaking nicely and clearly in the video. It could really use some work
Brennan: "Oh Working on '2 There 2 Back again'?" Also Brennan: _"I don't apologize for that joke."_ Me: "Wait, why is that funny?" Also me: *suddenly gets it* 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
@@DeathnoteBB the book the Hobbit is also called There and Back Again. So 2 There 2 Back Again would be a Fast and Furious style sequel. Also I think only Mercer caught the joke.
Matt’s chess comment really registered with me. I was in my high school chess club but I also have ADD, so I was difficult to play against because I did not have the attention span to have a cohesive strategy. My opponents would be like “I do not know how to respond to you moving your knight right now. Why on earth would you do that?”
Yeah on the balancing thing, even at a lower level my friend just finished a campaign that I was in and he said every time when balancing he would use dnd beyond and just use very difficult and dangerous rated encounters because we would just stamped through everything.
A lot of incredible stuff here, but if you're still reading these comments, I want Brennan to know that he should never feel an obligation to apologize for "2 There 2 Back Again". Hilarious as always!
They say so many interesting and true things, even though I never really played D&D. So far, I only played one adventure at Lv2 and it kinda sucked. There was NO world what-so-ever so the DM (also first time being DM and only had rather bad D&D experiences as a player), had to pull half of the dialogues and atmosphere out of his a**. The adventure was built like: You get to a town during some festival. You either drink some of their apple-wine or not. If you drink some, you get unconscious (no matter if you immune to magical sleep as an elf, or had immunity to poisons which a monk would have get at Lv3 I think, but yea, being Lv2 that's out of the way anyway) If you didn't drink, you'll get lured into a side alley and beaten unconsicious. Either way, you'll wake up in a prison cell. Yada-yada-yada getting out of the cell, you'll end up finding a Portal, which you had to open somehow. After succeeding, you'll get confronted with a psycho Mage who had a spell from e3.5 (it was a e5 Adventure) which instantly killed my colleague and left me with 1 HP (because of my successed dex-save). Somebody "dying" triggered the summon of a Demon who in turn killed the mage, and you had to battle it instead. Now, the real solution would have been to take away the amulet the Mage was wearing, but we didn't even had the chance to do that. After the demon being summoned, it would have been the option to destroy the amulet, but I thought the demon ate it when he bit of the mage's head. So, when trying to simply dodge through the encounter with my AC17 Monk, I roled a Nat-1 Attack on the Demon. So I guess, even if the DM had mentioned that the amulet was dropped on the floor, trying to destroy it with a Nat-1 wouldn't had worked either, so, doesn't change much. The funny thing is, this adventure was reviewed as being good/great, for 1-3 players (at 3 Players, we would have been Lv1 instead of Lv2)., but to me, it was just trash. No real narrative. Just 1-2 real encounters, and the first one could one-hit the whole team.
what i found is the best mantra for playing an evil character and still cooperate with the rest of the party is: show your evilness with NPCs. At worst, be rude to the PCs
48:03 it's pretty fun to watch this after seeing the most recent episodes of crit role's campaign 3 (episodes 49-52ish) where they have aligned themselves with the nightmare king, Ira Wendagoth
Bouncing off what Trap said, it reminds me of Drunken Boxing and that time a Professional CSGO player cued up in the bottom tier of competitive play and got STOMPED because no one played “the right way”
@@DeathnoteBB well in that particular situation people would make suicidal pushes that you had no way of predicting because they had no skill or internal rule set determining their actions. In Silver CSGO people with do nothing or act with absolutely no plan. When you’ve become accustomed to making plans on the fly and countering teams who are also making plans it throws you off when someone is acting erratically. Imagine someone running away in a boxing match and then turning around for a jab while their opponent is puzzled- not technically against the rules but absolutely absurd. _But sometimes that absurdity can let you pull of things you shouldn’t be able to_ such as a Silver 1 player- one of the objectively worst players of CSGO- being able to dominate a literal professional CSGO player.
Well haste and slow were already there. And Brennan put it in his first D20 campaign. Also are Matt's sourcebooks and dunamancy canon? I've been unsure.
@@EsquilaxM they are canon. Btw, because of the campaign book Descent into Avernus, Arkhan the Cruel and Exandria were canon even before Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount was published.
@@deathfury4039 well they’re canon if you want it to be, baseline existing worlds(ignoring exandria for a bit) like Toril, Eberron, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc. don’t have dunamantic spells in their canon unless the dm you have is cool with their existence
My group has just encountered their first openly evil aligned ALLY they could recruit. It is a young girl that has an uncontrollable desire to learn new things that she encounters. Regardless if they fit her class. She simply must know about all magic types and ways they are used. She is overly literal on purpose, as in, she was instructed to not harm any people who are clearly good, her race allows her to sense a creatures alignment when conversing with them for at least five minutes, yet all bets are off when people are evil aligned so long as no innocents can get drawn into her violence. The girl is young as stated, she did save the party at the roll of a 11% of a divine intervention of a cleric and was guided there by a deity that resides within the forest they are. The group is outlandishly uncertain of what to do. They enjoyed their interactions and the girl holds a large amount of knowledge due to her studious nature. They are scared of the ramifications of allowing the girl to travel with them. They run into a large amount of "Gangs", cults and other things that are normally aligned to the villainous side. They have been debating on it for a few days after our game sunday.
I remember QuintonReviews said something similar in regards to pretend violence, where writers have to be careful not to be real enough to be imitable. Something along the lines of "zapping someone with a raygun & disintegrating them is fine, but you wouldn't show someone getting stabbed with a pair of scissors."
Oh my god please just tell me what happened to matt feathers i have been dying to kow for so long like i'm 100% ready to accept that he died but just give me closure
@@jetajiranuntarat I have, it was glorious, having some mixed feelings about who the "best" CR DM is now, pushing those thoughts down because they're messy, lol
![[Part 1] ทารกน้อยถูกทิ้ง👶 หญิงชราเก็บขวดขายเลี้ยงดูเขาจนโต #โลกการละคร](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nPTDvFCExks/mqdefault.jpg)
The unpredictability of new players point goes far beyond games like D&D and poker. It actually reminds me of a saying I heard of from fencing. Very roughly, it goes "The best duellist in France is not afraid of the second-best duellist in France; he is afraid of the WORST duellist in France."
You can’t trade favorably with a man who can’t calculate odds
That's literally just a reworded description of "the best swordsman" Just replace duelist with swordsman and France with "the world".
Brennan’s off-the-cuff description of Sokhbarr as a “lizard-monster-Shrek-Hagrid” made me laugh so fucking hard
I've been waiting from episode 1 to some one address the Schreck stuff... XD Always going about the swamp and no one said anything... it was driving me insane hahaha
Excelent profile pic
I think one of my favorite comedic parts of Bloodkeep was the dark lord going "FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT GOD DAMNIT FUCK" before dying
I dont know why nobody remembered. But the Librarian was hilarious.
So awesome
I agree! That Librarian was really weird. XD
A STORM GIANT?!?! I thought she was like a lvl18 fighter or something!
Do you know the timestamp so I can show this to my bf? He doesn't believe me
@@ezrathorne928 Explanation begins around 17 to 19 minutes in. About 18?
19:11
Matt Mercer: "Your players will surprise you. You can plan out this increadibly deadly encounter and they will do something you hadn't anticipated.."
Mighty Nein: *polymorphs the huge scary gribbly into something tiny and harmless*
or using the dust of delicenses on a witch to modify memory
*attacks Fjord*
The funniest thing about that is that both trickster domain cleric AND transmuter wizard just HAVE it in their spell list. It’s always there.
These characters were so loveable. The failed and redeemed dark knight (laughed like mad with the final chapter and Mercer´s ideas), the learning soon to be mother leaving the father´s shadow (hell yeah, freefall birth!), the beautiful animal caretaker (so cute and human)... loved them, all and every one...
"you could be with the forces of good, protecting wild things!"
"...but you dont like my wild things D:"
I like how Pt1 was "veteran players tell war stories" while this is "two DMs, two noobs"
beautiful
Do not question a Tiefling when she's intent upon finding an acceptable father for her baby/future evil godking.
2 There 2 Back Again was the best joke I've heard all month
I don’t get it
@@tardersauce3578 It's a reference to "2 Fast 2 Furious" the movie sequel to "The Fast and the Furious".
Having recently described ice age 3, as '2 ice, 2 age... 3' leaving my friend reeling with hysterical laughter (it's not like you had to be there... It was as not funny in real life as it is in print).
I fully appreciated this joke.
I commented basically this in episode 6, but i have a theory on the fairy dust on extemporaneous NPCs. Because PCs *always* do that, in my experience; latch onto the most random NPCs - ones you just had nothing for. My theory is that it's because it's something that can only happen in D&D. And they just *sense* that those NPCs had this genuine spontaneity to them. It gives them such joy to go, "I can literally talk to anyone, and I can choose to make them important because they're important to me." Something you can't do in a video game, or a novel, or a movie - you're collaboratively writing fanfic, so exploring the cracks and niches and weird bits is just so magical; so unique to the medium. It's so awesome.
"Jeffery Dahmer was chill, some of the time"
-Brennan 2019
25:47
that remark left me slightly ajar
Speaking of evil:
One of my DMs had a character in his setting that slaughtered a bunch of people and brought their heads to an orphanage and gave them to the children.
Not because he wanted to traumatize them, but because he genuinely wanted good things for the children and thought that bringing them the heads of racial enemies would make them happy.
Ha holy shit. Accidental evil is a really interesting version of lawful/neutral evil. Or maybe like... maybe their chaotic good? And just have a very different definition of good......
@@teacooper6485 thats why i don't always love the alignment charts. I got in this whole arguement with someone over the Cubbys of Fantasy high because theyre clearly good, they're clearly righteous, the clearly actually like order but they arent a fan of the law becauseof how immoral law is. So many complexities
I mean my cat leaves birds and mice on my door because she thinks it makes me legit happy. It is messed up but endearing in a way. Evil is largely a spectrum/perspective and is in the eye of the beholder more often than not.
stealing that go brrrr
@@Rosy2468 Yeah I like it a lot for the cosmic parts, when you're dealing with high-concept things like interplanar wars and deities and other cosmic forces, but I really don't like it for much else.
I love that 2 minutes of this was just a bunch of improv based on "what if kids cartoons were maliciously violent instead of humorously violent."
Seeing this I could not be happier at how the scene after falling out of the ship turned out, because I think it was so much more rewarding for me to see a guy like Leiland just get supported by the group than having him actually going off because he lost everything. Like, sure, that would have made sense but I like that Rehka heard that and was like 'nah, I should turn that around, I don't need to be all bad to him'.
Also, yes Avanash was great, but honestly the librarian was absolutely my favorite NPC in the series. Just, straight-up.
Love the behind the scenes glances and opinions btw, this is great :D
Rewatching this about a year later and I’m still shocked at how well Brennan balanced the damage dealt to the players because they all got very low at some points. Also the risk he took for possibly just killing the players to lava and what not.
Everyone just LOVING Avanash and John Feathers just reinforce my theory that improvised things tend to be WAY better and organic and fun for everyone in the table than idk full encounters you just planned ahead for several hours and made a shit ton of notes for...
Sometimes it's hard for me 'cause I can't entirely detach myself from my creations... so sometimes there's a couple places and enemies set up... but the rest I just wing it... and sometimes I do try to make everyone lovingly and subtly keep on the main track... almost never works but yee... players have fun and that's the whole point XD
“No one’s fucking waughing.”
*everyone proceeds to waugh out woud*
Okay so that actually struck a spot I never thought would be struck.
When I was a kid I got in lots of trouble and was always labeled a bad kid, and over time that rep got out of hand (like, nuns would say I was a devil, teachers being afraid to scold me and guys trying to mess with me to prove their bravery) and by then I had just accepted it and was like: fuck it, I'm evil, I must be.
And then, knowing I had this terrifying reputation I would just approach a outcast or a bullied kid and be kind to them and just being a all around good little boy (I would still take advantage of that rep to like, skip classes and to sleep in the play yard and stuff without repercussions tho) when I was alone with someone because they'd be baffled I wasn't a straight up baby eating monster and that was so funny to me. What would they do? Tell someone about it? Best case: no one believes you. Worst case: I'd lose the evilness.
I made some really good friendships that way.
Anyways, to this day I hold on to the belief I'm bad and this belief almost "forces" me to be good cause I either redeem myself in my own eyes or just help ppl on need and that's really swell I think.
That was my Ted talk, thanks for anyone who (for some reason) read it all, have a lovely life.
I also feel like when it comes to on the spot NPC's most of the time players can tell that the DM is improving this character and that makes it all the more endearing to the players. Not only because they are witnessing the characters backstory being created on the spot but also because their characters and the choices they make are quite often heavily influencing how this new character turns out as well.
Heavily depends on the situation for the players to know. There are a lot of situations where a character that seems integral to the campaign only exists because the players randomly decided to go somewhere unexpected. Sometimes it's obvious, but it really depends on the situation
I can't animate but I fucking adore that Elmer Fudd sequence. I've rewatched this video so many times entirely for that section
The inevitable end of the Daffy Duck sketch (30:00) is Daffy taking a gun, putting it up against his head, pulling the trigger... And his bill flying around to the other side of his head.
I would listen to 10 hours of this cast chatting about this campaign. I want to know allll the secrets.
"No one's fucking waughing" is the reason Daffy thlammed his penith in the car door.
Uuuummm, is there any real reason we can't have these interviews be, like, 2 or 4 hours long? These Adventure Academy videos are great and always end waaaaaaay too soon. I want more! ;-)
Respect schedules of people
These people have jobs and lives too
refer to pt 1 where brennan mentioned he has to email people at 3am so often because of deadlines that its a regular occurrence for people to feel the need to ask if he is still okay
I need 4 more hours of this. This was an incredible sidequest!! I wish Trapp spoke up a bit more, his straight man act was honestly my favorite parts of the campaign, And i really wanted to hear more aboot his thought process.
Anyways, These vile villans kick so much ass and are what got me to buy into dropout!
I wonder how happy Matt is to not be the DM for once
I don't think I'd put it like that. Mercer gives the impression that he really loves DMing. A nice change of pace, maybe, but I don't think DMing makes Mercer unhappy, far from it.
It’s like cooking for your family vs going out to a restaurant with them. Campaigns are more fun when you don’t have to put in all the work.
@@WellBattle6 As the DM of a long-running campaign, I'd have to disagree.
For a chef, cooking is their passion and they enjoy the hard work involved.
For a DM, shaping a world and preparing adventures is their passion.
Its not a matter of being happier or not... its not “as opposed to DMing”... they are in the same field, but different things.
He obviously loved playing... same as he loves the CR one shots, or Deadwood... but it is fun in and if itself..
Obviously. 😁
I love to cook and I love to be the GM, and I got to say, it's truly glorious now and then to be taken out to a restaurant... but mostly because I know the food is going to be at least as good as mine.
I really like to play role-playing games, but I get very impatient with games not at least as well but together as mine.
Oh gods, the part where they talked about the ‘cost of death’ part had me howling. Just the image of someone slapping them in the face was too much for me to take.
I love how often they just start plain up improv scenes out of the blue in this episode
cr spoilers but the way matt is highkey thinking about essek at like 25:10
I am so incredibly happy with the audio clarity and loudness for these videos. I listen in the shower and not every TH-cam channel is loud enough!
I’m loving getting a glimpse of Mike Trapp’s mind.
On playing evil characters: the best evil character a player has played in one of my campaigns was/is (when back from hiatus) a lawful evil paladin who legitimately thought he was serving the goddess of truth and justice by coercing the evils he encountered to repent before horribly murdering them (swiftly, to be fair). In his eyes, these people would inevitably fall back on their evil habits and then their souls would once again be damned. So, before that could happen, he would end their lives, ensuring that they would make it to a good afterlife.
The party didn't realize he was evil aligned until they took an object that was keeping a blight from being unleashed on this small farming village and were accosted on their way out by a farmer. He swung at the paladin with a makeshift club, missed horribly (because he had almost a zero chance of success), and then was summarily executed for the crime of assault. There was a lovely RP session that took place the next week when that player couldn't make it where the entire party had a collective breakdown and tried to decide what they were going to do, whether they should confront him about it or turn him in to the local government, whether they could even consider looking the other way. It ended with one character permanently leaving the group as she just couldn't handle the situation (the player brought a new character the following session) and the others agreeing to watch the paladin with a close eye, forming a plan to turn him over to authorities when they got to the capital. It didn't work out that way, because I'm a DM and therefore love creating more drama, but the plan was well thought out.
Escape from the Blood Keep was my gateway drug to watching live play-especially seeing Matt and Rheka sit together and play off each other both in improving story and in rules for creative combat. Thank you for that.
The least important skill in D&D is rules knowledge. I absolutely love playing with new players and kids, and often those groups make the best plays, story-wise and power-wise, because they aren't set in their ways of thinking of the rules as written and the battlemap; they just... imagine.
People who are brand new to roleplaying can struggle with that aspect a bit sometimes, which does way more to diminish the fun, but honestly, even that is so rare, even with Jasons; sulky teenage boys. People are natural storytellers. Obviously trained and experienced improvisers are just amazing, and no random kid should hold themselves to those standards, but anyone can do this stuff. Can tell cool stories. The only times i've seen it fail were when people were just being jerks. Anyone who *wants* to be there, will do great.
I have a vague hope that someone nervous about playing or DMing will see this and it will get them past that anxiety. You care, so you'll have a great time, and so will everyone else! Promise!
I love that in the subtitles of this video everytime Sokhbarr's name is mentioned it just translates to "soap bar"
What a lovely set of interviews. This game really was a triumph full of amazing PC and DM moments, and I could listen to you guys talk about your favorite moments and the fanart and ships you've seen on the internet FOR HOURS.
Just because you are Bad Guy doesn’t mean that you are bad guy.
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Is final battle dropout exclusive?
I completely agree with new people to RP think outside the box. I just finished my first ever campaign and my character was literally a guy who attacked with watermelon flavored mints. My stats were so out of blue and unexpected I managed to 1v1 one of the main bosses just by jumping up and down. The party beat the final boss and one of the characters in the party tried to kill him behind our backs. Unfortunately for my character and his, I saw this and set off the bomb I had prepped two sessions before. My character went out exactly how he always wanted, in a fiery explosion that destroyed half a city, made all the other PCs go down to like less than 10 hp, and the news coverage of the explosion suggested a new villain had risen. It was my first ever real campaign (aside from one session in a canceled campaign) and I am happy with my RP cos I think I played it perfectly.
Really surprised how few veiws this has with all the die hard MM fans out there.
Personally I feel the love for ‘on the spot’ NPC’s also comes from how the players are almost responsible for their creation and they feel a special connection and responsibility for them. They’re the players NPC in a way
I think on some level John Feathers narrative arc reminds me most of James Wilson from House MD.
JOHN FEATHERS/MAGGIE FOREVER!
When they were talking about evil characters in a straight campaign Percival in CR comes to mind. He would get his goal at pretty much at any cost and slowly grew as a character through the campaign.
The Storm Giant stats explain so *damn* much XD It was great to see a part of the group again and listen to their talks, I could do it for hours ^_^
"Some of the most chaotic evil I've known in life are class A manipulators." So that's where Trent came from
The closed captions on this episode could *really* use some work. There's a lot of [INAUDIBLE] captions over words which I can hear and make out perfectly fine, and usually this isn't too big of a deal, but there are some severe instances of it here that I imagine would make this a frustrating experience for hard of hearing viewers. For example, in one instance Avanash's entire name just gets removed from a sentence and makes most of Mike's answer to the favorite npc question really tough to parse from the text alone when he's speaking nicely and clearly in the video. It could really use some work
You mean “soap bar” wasn’t one of the character’s names?
I can't tell you how many times I've yelled at the screen for bad subtitling on *all* of their videos.
It's in like every video too.
I'd like to second that.
Omg the cast of undeadwood and escape from blood keep should have a big game
Brennan: "Oh Working on '2 There 2 Back again'?"
Also Brennan: _"I don't apologize for that joke."_
Me: "Wait, why is that funny?"
Also me: *suddenly gets it* 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
I dont get it
@@DeathnoteBB the book the Hobbit is also called There and Back Again. So 2 There 2 Back Again would be a Fast and Furious style sequel. Also I think only Mercer caught the joke.
@@obviousalias132 Ohhh, dang! Thanks. I knew it was a 2 Fast 2 Furious joke but had no clue what the other half of it was
I love Matt's spot on Arin Hanson impression at 09:07
I did not realize episode 5 was supposed to be PvP! I'm going to have to rewatch that.
Matt’s chess comment really registered with me. I was in my high school chess club but I also have ADD, so I was difficult to play against because I did not have the attention span to have a cohesive strategy. My opponents would be like “I do not know how to respond to you moving your knight right now. Why on earth would you do that?”
In a series with all MVPs, Mike and Rekha really brought it. Nice one, all. This is up there with EXU: Calamity
how are these videos not more popular.
Everyone involved in this campaign did great. Thanks for a good time.
Peace.
P.S.
I just want to keep my bones.
Rekha inspired me, in the first game that I got to play as not a dm for years- I turned my spear into a goblin hammer after the first death.
Two there two back again is the PERFECT joke. Thank you Brennan.
Yeah on the balancing thing, even at a lower level my friend just finished a campaign that I was in and he said every time when balancing he would use dnd beyond and just use very difficult and dangerous rated encounters because we would just stamped through everything.
A lot of incredible stuff here, but if you're still reading these comments, I want Brennan to know that he should never feel an obligation to apologize for "2 There 2 Back Again". Hilarious as always!
I loved how Matt called for them to cut the chain and the party just did it.
Man. If we ever get a return to the bloodkeep sequel, that would be something.
i loved traps character
Timestamp: 10:23 Perfect timing!
Hamhead beeing a storm giant is great and im here for it
Best Movie for "misunderstood Evil" ... Tucker and Dale vs. Evil ;)
Quick, someone write "Two There, Two Back Again"!
Burn towns, get money.
That whole situation was hilarious.
They say so many interesting and true things, even though I never really played D&D.
So far, I only played one adventure at Lv2 and it kinda sucked.
There was NO world what-so-ever so the DM (also first time being DM and only had rather bad D&D experiences as a player), had to pull half of the dialogues and atmosphere out of his a**.
The adventure was built like: You get to a town during some festival. You either drink some of their apple-wine or not.
If you drink some, you get unconscious (no matter if you immune to magical sleep as an elf, or had immunity to poisons which a monk would have get at Lv3 I think, but yea, being Lv2 that's out of the way anyway)
If you didn't drink, you'll get lured into a side alley and beaten unconsicious.
Either way, you'll wake up in a prison cell.
Yada-yada-yada getting out of the cell, you'll end up finding a Portal, which you had to open somehow.
After succeeding, you'll get confronted with a psycho Mage who had a spell from e3.5 (it was a e5 Adventure) which instantly killed my colleague and left me with 1 HP (because of my successed dex-save).
Somebody "dying" triggered the summon of a Demon who in turn killed the mage, and you had to battle it instead.
Now, the real solution would have been to take away the amulet the Mage was wearing, but we didn't even had the chance to do that.
After the demon being summoned, it would have been the option to destroy the amulet, but I thought the demon ate it when he bit of the mage's head.
So, when trying to simply dodge through the encounter with my AC17 Monk, I roled a Nat-1 Attack on the Demon.
So I guess, even if the DM had mentioned that the amulet was dropped on the floor, trying to destroy it with a Nat-1 wouldn't had worked either, so, doesn't change much.
The funny thing is, this adventure was reviewed as being good/great, for 1-3 players (at 3 Players, we would have been Lv1 instead of Lv2)., but to me, it was just trash.
No real narrative. Just 1-2 real encounters, and the first one could one-hit the whole team.
what i found is the best mantra for playing an evil character and still cooperate with the rest of the party is: show your evilness with NPCs. At worst, be rude to the PCs
48:03 it's pretty fun to watch this after seeing the most recent episodes of crit role's campaign 3 (episodes 49-52ish) where they have aligned themselves with the nightmare king, Ira Wendagoth
lol @ the one frame of zoom in on Matt and Trapp at 1:02:38 before going back to the group shot
Bouncing off what Trap said, it reminds me of Drunken Boxing and that time a Professional CSGO player cued up in the bottom tier of competitive play and got STOMPED because no one played “the right way”
How do you play a video game “the right way”
@@DeathnoteBB well in that particular situation people would make suicidal pushes that you had no way of predicting because they had no skill or internal rule set determining their actions.
In Silver CSGO people with do nothing or act with absolutely no plan.
When you’ve become accustomed to making plans on the fly and countering teams who are also making plans it throws you off when someone is acting erratically.
Imagine someone running away in a boxing match and then turning around for a jab while their opponent is puzzled- not technically against the rules but absolutely absurd.
_But sometimes that absurdity can let you pull of things you shouldn’t be able to_ such as a Silver 1 player- one of the objectively worst players of CSGO- being able to dominate a literal professional CSGO player.
I love dnd and I may just get my party to watch this
Brennan talking chronomancy to the guy who introduced time magic into d&d canon
Well haste and slow were already there. And Brennan put it in his first D20 campaign.
Also are Matt's sourcebooks and dunamancy canon? I've been unsure.
@@EsquilaxM they are canon. Btw, because of the campaign book Descent into Avernus, Arkhan the Cruel and Exandria were canon even before Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount was published.
@@deathfury4039 well they’re canon if you want it to be, baseline existing worlds(ignoring exandria for a bit) like Toril, Eberron, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc. don’t have dunamantic spells in their canon unless the dm you have is cool with their existence
Ugh. Cute lil ginger man.
im so gay for his talent
Lesson learned; enunciate the characters, locations, and spells for the closed captioning.
Or don't hire a closed-captioner who's deaf. The number of times where I read [INAUDIBLE] while clearly hearing what they said is ridiculous.
My group has just encountered their first openly evil aligned ALLY they could recruit. It is a young girl that has an uncontrollable desire to learn new things that she encounters. Regardless if they fit her class. She simply must know about all magic types and ways they are used. She is overly literal on purpose, as in, she was instructed to not harm any people who are clearly good, her race allows her to sense a creatures alignment when conversing with them for at least five minutes, yet all bets are off when people are evil aligned so long as no innocents can get drawn into her violence. The girl is young as stated, she did save the party at the roll of a 11% of a divine intervention of a cleric and was guided there by a deity that resides within the forest they are. The group is outlandishly uncertain of what to do. They enjoyed their interactions and the girl holds a large amount of knowledge due to her studious nature. They are scared of the ramifications of allowing the girl to travel with them. They run into a large amount of "Gangs", cults and other things that are normally aligned to the villainous side. They have been debating on it for a few days after our game sunday.
I like how whoever subtitled this can understand "dubledoreesque" but "paladins" is inaudible.
I also do the random hess thing. I did it so much that i went into shop class and made my own version on a 14 by 14 board.
I remember QuintonReviews said something similar in regards to pretend violence, where writers have to be careful not to be real enough to be imitable.
Something along the lines of "zapping someone with a raygun & disintegrating them is fine, but you wouldn't show someone getting stabbed with a pair of scissors."
1:21:48 on episode 5 is when Brenden breaks down a bit.
can't believe they missed the chance to call the suburban eagle society subirdban
@6:57 rambling discussion around the power and chaos of “beginner’s mind”
“Even if I don’t win, I win” 🤪😅😅🤓😎
Oh my god please just tell me what happened to matt feathers i have been dying to kow for so long
like i'm 100% ready to accept that he died but just give me closure
Anyone else think of Henry Crabgrass when they were talking about awesome improv NPC's? Just me?
It's nuts, but I really wish Rekha and Trapp switched mics. 💚💙💛
220 hit points!? The spell FINGER OF LITERAL DEATH cannot kill a player with that many hit points!!!
1 hour in and I realise trapp has braces
30:05 this whole exchange
THE MIGHTY MONARCH!
2 there, 2 back again. LOL!
Those mics are picking up the air conditioners or something. Video's great otherwise!
EDIT: We demand Brennan on Critical Role ASAP. Obviously.
Hello from the future. Have you watched ExU: Calamity yet?
@@jetajiranuntarat I have, it was glorious, having some mixed feelings about who the "best" CR DM is now, pushing those thoughts down because they're messy, lol
Damn it, I didn’t notice it until now. Now I can’t unhear it
Mercer!
Just wait till Kristen jumps off the tower in Dimension 20 live
Ribbon dancing is an art
Oof. Here I was thinking I'd have tried to kill the Frodo expy at the start of that combat. Apparently that would have gone... Poorly.
Yeah, knowing LOTR it felt expected Leiland would go after the halflings. So it’s hilarious to find out they were meant to be ignored, basically.
what was the third effect of that mystery potion that Mike Trappp drank?
Vulnerability to piercing damage
I see Alphonse I click
Shipping Maggie x John Feathers rn