Critical Role!
Jun. 3rd, 2016 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeI got home yesterday and, knowing Critical Role was starting around 22:00 (it airs at 19:00 Pacific), I decided a nap was in order. Due to landlady shenanigans and other, less vital things, I didn't get enough sleep the previous two nights, and Critical Role often keeps me up well past 1:00. So I curled up for a nap, and slept right up until 21:50. Not quite my intent, but I definitely needed the sleep, and then CritRole ended up lasting until nearly 3:00, so it worked out for the best.
It also means I didn't write the promised post, but never fear, here it is now!
Okay, again, for the new people, there is something you should know about me:
Hi, my name is Phnee*, and I am a giant geek. :)
So what exactly makes Critical Role so great, you ask? It's a combination of things. The first is that all of the players, and the Dungeon Master (the one who sets the scene, moves the story along, plays all the NPCs, etc.), are professional voice actors. They all take what they're doing seriously without taking themselves seriously. They dive right into the roleplay aspect of it, and partly because of their acting background, they have a great sense of dramatic timing. They don't run roughshod over each other, allow time for dramatic scenes to develop, don't interrupt or try to keep all the attention focused on themselves. Not only are the players friends, but the characters have incredibly close bonds as well. They laugh together, they cry when other characters are sad, they cling to each other when things get tense. They're all so emotionally invested in the game that it's impossible not to get sucked in right alongside them.
The second thing that makes Critical Role great is the Dungeon Master (or DM), Matthew Mercer. Now, I have had the rare privilege of having fantastic Game Masters throughout my time roleplaying, but not everyone is as fortunate as I. Matt reminds me of everything I loved about my DMs. He's extraordinarily creative, and dedicated to his game and his players. He's eschewed that ridiculous notion that the relationship between players and DM is an adversarial one, and has wholeheartedly bought into the "shared storytelling" aspect of roleplaying, which is the part I love most. He visibly celebrates when the Player Characters (PCs) do well, but he doesn't pull his punches, either. He gives them very real challenges, and knows how to tell a dramatic, compelling story, while giving everyone their chance to shine. He juggles six players (and often guest players on top of that) with ease, which is no mean feat, let me tell you. He's been DMing for over 20 years, and in that time he's become damned good at it.
I will confess that it helps that he's pretty adorable when he gets excited about things.
And third, there's the story itself. This is epic fantasy, and high magic. The stakes are incredibly high, and incredibly personal. Vox Machina have been adventuring for a very long time now. The campaign was a private one for a few years before it began streaming on Twitch. When the show went live, they were in the underdark, trying to save a paladin who'd been taken prisoner down there, and in so doing uncovered and foiled a plot that would have put the entire surface world in peril. Now, over a year and nearly 60 episodes later, the world is once again perilously close to perishing, and the stakes have never been higher.
The characters have undergone a ton of growth in the past year, which is mostly what makes it compelling for me. Don't get me wrong, I love that the outside stakes are high, but I love that the stakes are also personal. We got to watch Percy work through his traumatic past, and learn that maybe the path to revenge doesn't fix anything, once you've attained your objective. We watched as Vax went from not knowing who he was or what direction he ought to take, to slowly learning that he can be a force for good and a force for change in the world. Each character is following their own arc, their own destiny, and it makes me so happy to watch.
Of course, there are also dick jokes, poop jokes, and characters turning into cows and spending half a session running around that way, and eventually having a "fly" spell cast on them, so that they look like a small herd of cows flying against the night sky. These are not just great dramatic actors, but also fantastic comedic actors, and they know how to bring the slapstick as well as the verbal humour. They often make me laugh hard enough that I can't breathe and tears pour down my face. They are a delight to watch.
I should also say, in the spirit of full disclosure, that my Twitter friends who got me into Critical Role also somehow managed to persuade me to run a D&D game for them. Now, I ran a couple of games when I first got into roleplaying. The last time I ran was, if memory serves, back in 2002. I was terrible at it. I didn't understand the first thing about how to run a game, and how being a GM differed from being a player. My games were not good, with the exception of a single one-shot I ran at a convention, which was a straightforward shoot-'em-up requiring very little planning or improvisation once it was underway. So, being me, I filed it under the heading Things I Am Not Good At, and figured I just wasn't meant to do that.
I agreed to give it another go and, fourteen years later, I've apparently learned a few things. I've run two sessions for a bunch of new players, and so far it seems to be going okay. I'm not the best DM out there (so many rules to look up, holy shit), but it's also not the unmitigated disaster I remember it being. I've become more flexible, and am better able to roll with whatever my players throw at me, instead of getting flustered that they're veering away from the fairly strict plot I had in mind. Due to my schedule we're playing only about once a month, but that's turning out okay so far, because it gives me plenty of time to prepare for the next session. Here's hoping I can keep it up!
*"Phnee" is the nickname given to me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fearsclave many years ago, since I dislike having my real name, "Daphne," shortened to "Daph." So picking the last syllable of my name instead seemed like a good compromise.
It also means I didn't write the promised post, but never fear, here it is now!
Okay, again, for the new people, there is something you should know about me:
Hi, my name is Phnee*, and I am a giant geek. :)
I got introduced to the wacky world of tabletop roleplaying when I was twenty and was still in my first year of university. It was a revelation, and I have never looked back. Most of my really good friends I met because of roleplaying, or I met through other friends who roleplayed. Roleplayers are a phenomenal, fun, creative community, and I can't imagine my life without them. I spent all of my free time at university either gaming (12-14 hour marathon sessions of D&D and Deadlands), or hanging out at the university's Gamers' Guild (I eventually became the president in my last year). All of my leisure time was consumed by roleplaying, and it was glorious.
About nine years ago my life started getting a bit more complicated, work-wise. I got a great job at the RCMP, but it also meant that I started working rotating shifts. Soon my schedule changed again to include 12-hour shifts, and weekends suddenly became a distant memory. I started working every second weekend, often night shifts. Currently I work two weekends out of every four (two weekends on, two weekends off). It makes scheduling any kind of regular activity next to impossible (no classes, no games, nothing). My friends' lives also became more complicated. They got jobs, got married, had kids, moved to different cities. There was no longer the time to spend 12 hours on a Saturday pretending to fight the undead in a post-apocalyptic, steampunk wild west. For a while we squeezed in games where we could, but after a while the games petered out, and stopped altogether. I was very sad, but chalked it up to Life™ being an ever-changing thing, and figured that was that.
About nine years ago my life started getting a bit more complicated, work-wise. I got a great job at the RCMP, but it also meant that I started working rotating shifts. Soon my schedule changed again to include 12-hour shifts, and weekends suddenly became a distant memory. I started working every second weekend, often night shifts. Currently I work two weekends out of every four (two weekends on, two weekends off). It makes scheduling any kind of regular activity next to impossible (no classes, no games, nothing). My friends' lives also became more complicated. They got jobs, got married, had kids, moved to different cities. There was no longer the time to spend 12 hours on a Saturday pretending to fight the undead in a post-apocalyptic, steampunk wild west. For a while we squeezed in games where we could, but after a while the games petered out, and stopped altogether. I was very sad, but chalked it up to Life™ being an ever-changing thing, and figured that was that.
Until March of this year, apparently. Leaving roleplaying, for me, coincided also with discovering fandom and fanfiction. Yes, I am one of those terrifying people who writes fanfic, and—gasp—slash fanfiction! Yeah, I know, most of you probably don't actually find that shocking. ;) Anyway, I met a ton of like-minded fangirls, and they proceeded to get me into fandoms I might never otherwise have discovered, which is phenomenal.
Somewhere around March, my Twitter feed suddenly came alive with chatter about something called Critical Role. At first I didn't really pay attention, until I worked out that it was about D&D. So I kept an ear out, and finally worked out that it was a weekly D&D game that streamed on Twitch TV, hosted by Geek & Sundry. Let me tell you, dear readers, I resisted. I resisted hard. I mean, have you ever watched other people roleplay when you're not in the group? It's boring as all hell. I assumed this would be the case with Critical Role, too. Also, at over three hours an episode (sometimes up to five!), it was a huge time commitment for me. I assumed I would be bored and would have wasted several hours of my life. Boy, was I wrong! I finally caved and watched the first episode, and was instantly smitten. Granted, some of that was nostalgia, because I recognized in Critical Role all the great games I was involved in over the years.
Critical Role tells the story of Vox Machina, a group of adventurers out fighting the good fight, sometimes for the thrill of it, sometimes for the sake of adventure, and sometimes for all the really cool treasure. There's Grog, a goliath barbarian, who reads like a cliché and yet somehow isn't. Scanlan, the gnome bard, who also manages to be a cliché and not. Vax and Vex, the half-elven twin brother and sister, rogue and ranger respectively. Pike, the gnomish war cleric, Keyleth, the eleven druid, and last but not least, Percival Frederickstein von Mussel Klossowski III (but you can call him Percy), the human half-mad gunslinger. (For a time there was also Tiberius Stormwind, the dragonborn sorcerer, but the player was forced to leave due to conflicting committments, alas.)
Somewhere around March, my Twitter feed suddenly came alive with chatter about something called Critical Role. At first I didn't really pay attention, until I worked out that it was about D&D. So I kept an ear out, and finally worked out that it was a weekly D&D game that streamed on Twitch TV, hosted by Geek & Sundry. Let me tell you, dear readers, I resisted. I resisted hard. I mean, have you ever watched other people roleplay when you're not in the group? It's boring as all hell. I assumed this would be the case with Critical Role, too. Also, at over three hours an episode (sometimes up to five!), it was a huge time commitment for me. I assumed I would be bored and would have wasted several hours of my life. Boy, was I wrong! I finally caved and watched the first episode, and was instantly smitten. Granted, some of that was nostalgia, because I recognized in Critical Role all the great games I was involved in over the years.
Critical Role tells the story of Vox Machina, a group of adventurers out fighting the good fight, sometimes for the thrill of it, sometimes for the sake of adventure, and sometimes for all the really cool treasure. There's Grog, a goliath barbarian, who reads like a cliché and yet somehow isn't. Scanlan, the gnome bard, who also manages to be a cliché and not. Vax and Vex, the half-elven twin brother and sister, rogue and ranger respectively. Pike, the gnomish war cleric, Keyleth, the eleven druid, and last but not least, Percival Frederickstein von Mussel Klossowski III (but you can call him Percy), the human half-mad gunslinger. (For a time there was also Tiberius Stormwind, the dragonborn sorcerer, but the player was forced to leave due to conflicting committments, alas.)
So what exactly makes Critical Role so great, you ask? It's a combination of things. The first is that all of the players, and the Dungeon Master (the one who sets the scene, moves the story along, plays all the NPCs, etc.), are professional voice actors. They all take what they're doing seriously without taking themselves seriously. They dive right into the roleplay aspect of it, and partly because of their acting background, they have a great sense of dramatic timing. They don't run roughshod over each other, allow time for dramatic scenes to develop, don't interrupt or try to keep all the attention focused on themselves. Not only are the players friends, but the characters have incredibly close bonds as well. They laugh together, they cry when other characters are sad, they cling to each other when things get tense. They're all so emotionally invested in the game that it's impossible not to get sucked in right alongside them.
The second thing that makes Critical Role great is the Dungeon Master (or DM), Matthew Mercer. Now, I have had the rare privilege of having fantastic Game Masters throughout my time roleplaying, but not everyone is as fortunate as I. Matt reminds me of everything I loved about my DMs. He's extraordinarily creative, and dedicated to his game and his players. He's eschewed that ridiculous notion that the relationship between players and DM is an adversarial one, and has wholeheartedly bought into the "shared storytelling" aspect of roleplaying, which is the part I love most. He visibly celebrates when the Player Characters (PCs) do well, but he doesn't pull his punches, either. He gives them very real challenges, and knows how to tell a dramatic, compelling story, while giving everyone their chance to shine. He juggles six players (and often guest players on top of that) with ease, which is no mean feat, let me tell you. He's been DMing for over 20 years, and in that time he's become damned good at it.
I will confess that it helps that he's pretty adorable when he gets excited about things.
And third, there's the story itself. This is epic fantasy, and high magic. The stakes are incredibly high, and incredibly personal. Vox Machina have been adventuring for a very long time now. The campaign was a private one for a few years before it began streaming on Twitch. When the show went live, they were in the underdark, trying to save a paladin who'd been taken prisoner down there, and in so doing uncovered and foiled a plot that would have put the entire surface world in peril. Now, over a year and nearly 60 episodes later, the world is once again perilously close to perishing, and the stakes have never been higher.
The characters have undergone a ton of growth in the past year, which is mostly what makes it compelling for me. Don't get me wrong, I love that the outside stakes are high, but I love that the stakes are also personal. We got to watch Percy work through his traumatic past, and learn that maybe the path to revenge doesn't fix anything, once you've attained your objective. We watched as Vax went from not knowing who he was or what direction he ought to take, to slowly learning that he can be a force for good and a force for change in the world. Each character is following their own arc, their own destiny, and it makes me so happy to watch.
Of course, there are also dick jokes, poop jokes, and characters turning into cows and spending half a session running around that way, and eventually having a "fly" spell cast on them, so that they look like a small herd of cows flying against the night sky. These are not just great dramatic actors, but also fantastic comedic actors, and they know how to bring the slapstick as well as the verbal humour. They often make me laugh hard enough that I can't breathe and tears pour down my face. They are a delight to watch.
I should also say, in the spirit of full disclosure, that my Twitter friends who got me into Critical Role also somehow managed to persuade me to run a D&D game for them. Now, I ran a couple of games when I first got into roleplaying. The last time I ran was, if memory serves, back in 2002. I was terrible at it. I didn't understand the first thing about how to run a game, and how being a GM differed from being a player. My games were not good, with the exception of a single one-shot I ran at a convention, which was a straightforward shoot-'em-up requiring very little planning or improvisation once it was underway. So, being me, I filed it under the heading Things I Am Not Good At, and figured I just wasn't meant to do that.
I agreed to give it another go and, fourteen years later, I've apparently learned a few things. I've run two sessions for a bunch of new players, and so far it seems to be going okay. I'm not the best DM out there (so many rules to look up, holy shit), but it's also not the unmitigated disaster I remember it being. I've become more flexible, and am better able to roll with whatever my players throw at me, instead of getting flustered that they're veering away from the fairly strict plot I had in mind. Due to my schedule we're playing only about once a month, but that's turning out okay so far, because it gives me plenty of time to prepare for the next session. Here's hoping I can keep it up!
*"Phnee" is the nickname given to me by
fearsclave many years ago, since I dislike having my real name, "Daphne," shortened to "Daph." So picking the last syllable of my name instead seemed like a good compromise.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-06-05 02:05 pm (UTC)That said, in case you didn't know and hadn't thought to go looking, there is a fair based of fic for Critical Role on Ao3 ;)
no subject
Date: 2016-06-05 11:33 pm (UTC)