Tag: critical role

vicious-molly-maukery:

In Response to Travis’ Between the Sheets

So that whole interview made me super emotional but I particularly relate to Travis’ initial feelings about D&D, like, a lot. Pretty much all I knew about role playing games until college I learned from that one episode of Lizzie McGuire where Gordo gets addicted to it and Lizzie and Miranda have to stage an intervention. It’s made out to be weird, kinda cult-ish and just not portrayed in a very positive light.

Fast forward to college: I’m a theatre major and a group of my very closest friends were like “Hey, we’re gonna start a D&D campaign, do you want to join?” And my answer was a super resounding “NOPE.” Even as someone who adores reading and movies and different ways to tell stories, I was genuinely put off by the medium at first. So my friends were like “That’s okay, you can always come watch if you want!” (Matt Mercer, you were right about “no one watches D&D,” we’ll get there in a second) And again I said “Yeah probably not, kinda weirds me out! Thanks but no thanks.”

And then. And then it happened.

The majority of my close friends were involved in this campaign, so I was facing a day of hanging out alone when the invite was offered again: “Hey, just come watch! If you’re bored or you hate it you can leave.” So I went.

I have no clue if the DM was doing a home brew or a guide based campaign or what. I sat down on the floor and I was a little skeptical, I was listening to everyone plan stuff out and trying to figure out the character sheets and what all the dice were for, I was just so lost. And then they sailed to an island where the people had velociraptors as pets. And someone in the campaign said “I’m gonna try to pet one.” He rolled for it, didn’t do so hot, and the DM said “She hisses at you.” And without even thinking, I just kinda hissed under my breath to my friend on the left thinking we’d just have a laugh.

IMMEDIATELY, the guy that just tried to pet the velociraptor looks at me and dangles his hand out with an imaginary fish and said “Okay, I’m gonna try to feed her then!” And held out a fish. To me. And I sat there thinking “Ok dude running the show, you can jump in any time now and take over!” until I realized he was looking at me, too. He had given me total control over that dinosaur and was waiting to see what I was gonna do.

And I GOT IT.

In that moment, playing a dumb dinosaur in a narrative I didn’t even half understand, I got it.

And then I ate the fish.

mikkeneko:

Arcane Familiar: a spell that allows the caster to send out his mind beyond the boundaries of the material plane to make contact with an alien being from the far reaches of the netherscape, communicate with them, and enter into a dark pact offering their life-force, in exchange for the being to come to this world in the form of an amorphous, immortal, magical trickster being who will obey the caster’s every dark and dire whim

Caleb: I command Frumpkin to do a blep

Frumpkin: :p

grayzerkreinir:

Travis, 10 months ago: *choosing the sailor background because it adds a nice flair and goes really well with this new character he wants to create, expecting to be landlocked for the majority of this new campaign*

Travis, now: *elected captain of a stolen ship that has to order and interact with other, experienced, sailors and crew with everyone looking up to him expectantly even though he doesn’t really know anything about sailing because why the fuck would you its dnd but of course here he is in this new pirate au arc*

faierieprince:

personally, i really love how morally grey the mighty nein are. it’s refreshing compared to how good vox machina tried to be, and for the most part were. it creates really deep characters who develop and change over time, rather than being static. like seeing caleb have his own feelings about right and wrong but trying to fit that into his normal strategy of “i’m in the right, i had to do it, it’s not my fault” and struggling so much with himself along the way. seeing beau shift to being more trusting and dropping her walls, which leads her to confront the morals of what they’re doing in a bigger sense. seeing nott, who started out all stealing and murder, move towards “you guys are really screwed up, i don’t know that i want to be a part of this.” fjord, shifting almost in an opposite direction – starting out much more good and cautious and now moving into a ruthless calculating confidence when he needs to and not caring about the morals involved. jester covering things in jokes and lollipops but really being concerned about accidentally killing someone and feeling real guilt. caduceus realizing that he is not travelling with Good people and having to come to terms with knowing that many of his actions since he left home were fundamentally Not Good. 

i just think it makes for really interesting characters. not that this didn’t happen with vox machina, but we didn’t see this development as fully as we are with the mighty nein. these characters are much more raw and conflicted. we don’t have a guiding character, like keyleth. we have a bunch of people who do something and then have to come to terms with their actions and the consequences together. it’s really kind of beautiful and emotional. i just really love these characters and their moral issues.