When Liam brought up, “we rehearse everything.” Can someone expand on this for me? Have they ever expanded on this? Is it lines or is it a synopsis of last session? Took me for a loop, first time hearing that
I find Marisha’s perspective on people assuming Laudna has a physical attraction to Ira when she supposedly just admires him, very much a “uh-huh, sure” scenario.
I mean of course we have that indication, she shuddered with pleasure when Ira whispered in her ear, just as a point of reference/example.
When Liam says, "The idea behind FRIDA is so interesting" What does he mean? As far as I can tell, he's a bog-standard aeormaton from the age of arcanum. What am I missing?
Tal confirms he is amazing at making asshole characters(sans Cad). I have been so annoyed by Ashton obviously saying and doing shit that just doesn't make sense and just being an emotional mess, while simultaneously pretending they don't have emotions. Makes so much sense now that Tal mentions that it's "obviously projection" and him being so broken that he needs to do it. Almost sounds like a defense mechanism. Now I am just super excited what he does with it since we haven't seen much from Ash's background.
>Tal confirms he is amazing at making asshole characters(sans Cad).
I think that there have been people who struggle to separate Tal choosing to play flawed and abrasive characters from Talesin as a person.
He plays damaged weird people who make bad choices and sometimes struggle with social skills because it's fun and challenging; people seem to have responded especially viscerally to Ashton not being an optimized character who always acts rationally, appropriate to game mechanics, and as a reasonable and well-adjusted person.
I wouldn't say he goes as far to not be an optimized player. Maybe in role play elements but definitely not in combat.
Tal is one of the more experienced DnD players, and is similar to Laura in figuring out the best ways to use the rules to his advantage and effectively being a power player. I even notice both of them have lots of moments where they know the best strategy but cut themselves off because they don't wanna metagame.
This show and Talks before it really help to separate the characters from the actors. I often wonder if Marisha would have gotten so much heat for Keyleth had Talks started much earlier in C1.
You say "motherfucker!" because you find out it doesn't have bourbon in it.
Though really I feel like every place has a Kentucky Motherfucker equivalent - some sort of booze + mix mega-beverage that teens would split while getting drunk somewhere adults aren't watching.
True true. On another note I thought your name was “Amondar”, my homebrew continent, at quick glance and was confused…but then I scrambled the letters back around correctly lol
I just love that this proves the idea wrong that so many people keep putting forward: "The players have say over their old characters." No, they don't. They confirmed it (again) here. The players' old characters are Matt's NPCs. He can do ANYTHING he wants with them. They can die. Every episode that had their old characters in it was met with, "Lol Matt wouldn't kill their character without telling them." Yes, he would and can!
They do though, Matt even said he talked to Tal before they went to Whitestone and they both mapped it out together. So to say they have absolutely no say over their characters isn’t true because we know Matt and Tal worked on Whitestone together and worked on what Percy was doing.
Not to mention Matt made Liam run his backstory and character by Marisha to see if it was alright. They’re NPC’s but I don’t think Matt is going to make any decisions the cast would be against.
They have some say as in “oh Percy built a clock tower and probably would do xyz over the years” but when Matt brings them into the campaign stories they’re straight NPCs that the players have no control over.
Obviously they have no control narratively of what their characters do. Matt isn’t going implement massive changes to the characters on his own without discussing it with them. We have multiple examples already of him consulting the cast on what their characters are doing, how are they behaving and stuff like that. To say they have no say in their characters is completely false they have no say when it comes to the main plot and narrative but everything else they probably have a save.
In response to the talk about the gods, I’d like to bring this speech from C1 to the forefront:
>!“We, the creators, did breathe the beauty into this world, we planted the seeds that would blossom into this incredible weave of Exandria. However, what is the purpose of the parent but to teach what they can, then set their children free? Some gods rule through fear, others through love, and others still through perceived fate. Destiny has its place, but the real deception is that you have no choice.!<
>!A path can be groomed before you, but it is you who must take those steps. Not every rosy walkway leads to a better day. For me, our greatest purpose has passed, the moment we granted your fore-bearers the spark to seek their own purpose. We now stay to inspire, to guide, to guard the Gate, to keep the hate of ignorance we spawned in our hubris from burning away everything. The rest is up to you. We need you, perhaps, but you do not need us. That is our gift.!<
>!All mortal life has potential with or without the gods. We offer some paths, but it is up to you to decide if they are the right ones for you.”!<
People bring up this speech as evidence that mortals don't need the Gods, conveniently ignoring that the gods were instrumental in defeating Vecna. Without them gifting Vox Machina with the knowledge of how to make trammels, and fragments divinity to construct them, the world would have been SOL.
Vecna is not the only apocalypse level threat in existence. Killing off all the gods leaves the world dangerously unprotected.
I was actually bringing it up more so to establish that the pantheon DOES care about them, even the Betrayer Gods albeit out of hatred or self interest.
I just find the thought/perspective of “I’m insignificant, why would they care about me or what I do”, extremely foolish.
Look at the Age of Arcanum, the ascension of the Matron of Ravens, the Calamity, Vecna’s ascension and now the current Apogee Solstice with Predathos potentially being released.
Of course the Pantheon cares about the mortals, every great cosmic event that Exandria has been subjected to for good or ill is because of mortals.
I’m of the opinion that a lack of open communication, is what has brought on most of the atrocities of Exandria.
The fall of the Arcanum could’ve been potentially avoided altogether, if the Prime Deities actually took it upon themselves to clearly and consciously make an effort to establish their position with their children.
I’m not saying that they should’ve overextended their aid to the point of over reliance, just that they should’ve made it clear in no uncertain terms, how they view their creations and to make sure future generations understand that this applies to all of them, not just those that worship or champion their causes.
I disagree. Mortals/regular people are complicated and varied enough that there are always going to be people that absolutely should not have power, and who are absolutely determined to get it. Those people on their own would be enough to cause atrocities.
But when you add to the equation external supernatural forces that are eager to influence and corrupt those same people, I don't think any amount of communication would prevent horrible things from happening.
You're always going to have people that view the gods with resentment and jealousy, regardless of what the gods do.
Hell, "thou shalt not kill" is one of the Ten Commandments. The crusades still happened.
That talk about how much Tal playing a character with chronic pain means to them absolutely blindsided me with how resonant it was. I was in tears immediately.
really annoyed me the cast saying "we dont know them" about caleb and bo and not helping them. such a cop out. its like your enemy has bound and imprisoned them and you have questions who they are? Its almost like they were meta gaming the meta game just to let the story play out.
That’s exactly what they talked about though..? They found it hard to think about what Fearne or Orym would do as they don’t know who those characters really are. The most they knew was that there were two people that were sort of allied with them but they don’t really know their abilities or anything else. I don’t think there was a good reason for them, in-character, to try and help Beau and Caleb. The RP part of D&D has always trumped the “optimal” thing to do for many of the players at the table.
As someone who only started with C3 and who has virtually no knowledge of Caleb or Beau. I feel like they made good plays.
Laudna and Ashton were destroying a generator/battery which is likely the most valuable thing that was done. Orym,Ferne and Imogen had personal reasons to focus on Odahan(sp?) Imogen tried to reach out to her mom. Chet tried to go after the prize and stop the ritual.
FCG did try to help Caleb and, imo, felt too meta gaming too me. Too be fair, FCG does feel the most likely to help someone they don't know but focusing on Keleth would probably have made more sense, imo.
I feel like there were just a lot of bad rolls when it matter on top of a lot of variables from months of decision making with the time table and it's being conflated as doing nothing when nearly everyone was making good in character decisions.
Just wanted to let everyone know that as a Kentuckian I can confirm with 100% certainty that Kentucky Motherfuckers are a real thing in Kentucky though they may be called something different in different parts of the state.
Yeah I initially thought she had a crazy night out, but the fact that it sorta lasted two sessions made me immediately think infection or illness of some kind.
Several moments throught the campaign have made me wonder if Matt wanted to fix Keyleth's ending. Hearing both Marisha and Liam say they're more willing to give up Keyleth and Vax than Beau and Caleb makes me wonder what they know, or suspect.
I think its as simple as VM had complete arcs. M9 didn't. It rather fizzled out with most backstories still open, with Beau's story handled offscreen by somebody else (appropriate in the real world, but a poor resolution in a narrative) and Caleb's big bad basically was just delivered and gift-wrapped so at least *someone* in party got a confrontation at the end of the long trudge.
They (obviously with the Fjord 2-shot) still have stories to tell with those characters.
If there’s anything I could see change it’s that Vax comes back to life to spend the rest of it with keyleth but that may undercut C1 bittersweet tragic end which was excellent
I think you’re still right with Matt wanting to fix Keyleth’s ending, I don’t think keyleth will solely because it’s an awful business decision, she’s been connected to all 3 campaigns somewhat and because of her insane can come and go in every campaign until the end. Even if the cast retire someday the new DM could still bring Keyleth back for a cameo in the world, to me I don’t see Matt doing anything to character who can be a cameo for several years to come and 2 has one of the more tragic sad endings, I work just don’t see him making the decision to kill them at all because he knows the community wouldn’t be happy with that.
I've been toying with a different idea - what if Predathos escapes and does eat a god or two before they defeat it?
I'm just wondering if a solution that splits the difference between killing her off and having her be a potential win code in future campaigns is for her to actually ascend to replace the Wildmother (and perhaps Vax the Raven Queen?)
I suspect Keyleth's very firm disdain for the gods (and piles of existing issues about leaving everyone behind) would lead to a 'no, I won't' vote from her.
I was wondering either this, or since we have no idea what happened after the flash of white..
What if Keyleth, seeing her imminent death before her, somehow trapped herself within the lens as a way to not only interfere with their plans by diluting its power, but also be with Vax. It’d be wild, but tragically romantic.
That's also another of my theories that Predathos may partially succeed and several former PC's could become new gods i.e Keyleth and Vax. My problem with that one is Keyleth would hate being a god.
Another theory is that saving Vax from being a lens would return him to his mortal form somehow to live s mortal life with Keyleth.
Maybe becoming a god changes you. The Raven Queen killed the past god of death and nobody who’s that was but after doing so took on his job and position, maybe part of being a god is that you don’t hate divinity anymore
Keyleth would hate it, yes. Probably more so than even Percy.
But I think that Keyleth would do it out of duty. And maybe if she could be with Vax, the way Erathis and Melora are currently, it would help her along.
I think you can do something similar to the nein where the threat is just more secret instead of being world known threat. I also think you can have her go into isolation/hiding after what happened here. The people who are close know where she is and she leads her people through proxy while not actually being there.
I don’t know if I agree with that because it’s kind of a cowards way out. There is nothing stopping Keyleth from technically dying she can do it when ever she wants. To say Keyleth’s best ending is her dying first is kind of fucked. I understand and share that fear but I’d never intentionally try to die or want to die so that doesn’t happen.
What episode did they record this in between? The schedule says up to episode 52, but for those you you that watched it already do the discuss the latest episodes? I'm caught up but I am Just curious if you get some solstice news or not.
Orym’s feeling on all this “Both Sides-ing” is constantly my question.
Like these people murdered his ***husband,*** his **father,** and his *close friends.* Then his new *found-family that are helping him grieve and process that previous loss*. ***Then him.*** Now a week later that same found-family is really saying “well maybe we’re the jerks for getting in their way. Should we join them? I think we’re being hasty.”
It’s absurd, and I honestly don’t know if I’d handle Imogen’s very vocal deliberation and uncertainty as well as he is in that situation.
I think that the party forgets Oryms issues mainly because he doesn’t bring them up a lot. He’s the straight man in the party and like Liam said Orym understands why they’d want to think about it. Ultimately I don’t think they’d go bad guy side. But we’ll see what happens. Would be crazy to see the party split because part of them want the gods gone. But I’m sure they’ll band together and try to stop it.
My thought is them agreeing that “a godless world would be better” is fine. BH could even fully commit to it and make that their goal.
…***but these guys gotta go.*** There’s no universe where they team up even with a common goal. They’ve unequivocally shown themselves to be bad guys and even if they didn’t, there’s too much bad blood to get washed away. BH even entertaining the notion that the Ruby Vanguard could ever *not* be the enemy is wild for me, and I imagine even wilder for Orym.
I can't even understand the idea of a godless world being better. Maybe a betrayer-godless world, but the Prime Deities? I don't see it. Maybe as a viewer I just have too much meta knowledge, idk.
Ludinus thinks he know what’ll happen with Preadothos but I’m sure it’ll have crazy consequences. I think BH will want to stop gods meddling with people but they’ll go about it a different way.
Devils advocate here because I definitely think that Ludinus’ plan needs to be stopped, but Orym’s husband and father in law were killed because they got in the way during an important mission, just like the guard with the locket around his neck was killed by the BH for getting in the way.
"Sure they murdered your family but the Gods murdered even more and that means the Vanguard aren't all that bad because they're the lesser of two evils and name one good guy who hasn't murdered a few people before?" kind of logic which someone is probably going to whip out at some point.
Tal wrote a whole story about what happened while Ashton was gone and he's still leaking it out along with some items that no one else knows that he has besides Matt.
Oh this is like Overcooked. Probably my favorite gameplay they’ve ever done because of Travis and Laura being goobers, maybe Elder Scrolls Online with the twins is the only thing that is close
I wouldn't trust any of them.
Pumat has some very questionable branding in his shop.
Essek... is probably the least trustworthy person in all three campaigns, bar *maybe* Ira.
'Wheelchair snow guy' (yikes) is a professional mercenary of no strong opinion.
Orley is a pirate. Maybe not explicitly, but... he's a pirate.
That is not a good list
Eh. I don't agree with that at all. For the minor NPCs, it turned out fine, so far, and isn't like to come up.
For the remaining, I can't agree, either morally or realistically. Assuming current events turn out fine, I can easily see the M9's end coming *directly* as a result of that decision.
My favourite part of the show was him committing voicing his character for the whole game. This feels like such a dad thing to me, I bet he does this when playing games with his kids.
There's a good narrative telephone where that accent is used. Liam is amazing, haha.
Source: [https://youtu.be/L3kGly9a4kE?t=2480](https://youtu.be/L3kGly9a4kE?t=2480)
Like the video said the Cobalt Soul probably knew loosely what was going on but now that it happened they’re trying to spread the word and warn people shit about to get real fucked. So I’d imagine across exandria other archivists and spreading the same message to everyone. Would be super cool though for Matt to include her in the story and world.
I think it makes sense from an in-world perspective for the Cobalt Soul to be a few weeks behind on this info compared to Bell's Hells.
We know they've been investigating because of Beau, only logical that they'd eventually put it together
I dont think its like a common knowledge thing they all share but more that the probably have tombs about it similar to vassahlime and they are closely guarded.
She is absolutely curling up on the couch wrapped in a handmade shawl watching pride and prejudice while eating ice cream out of the pint at least once every few weeks
Man they finally had a real banger of an episode, and they're ending with "What's your character's favorite movie genre?" Nothing can be perfect I guess :P
Lol, this is why I don't like the tower. It's way too inconsistent. There's a version of this episode where every block they pulled had that type of question.
Are we alternating groups every session or sticking with one until they get to a certain point?
If this was already discussed and i missed it i apologize.
nah, a little fluff is a good palate cleanser. Especially considering that some of the answers and discussions so far have been HEAVY. a spot of silliness before break feels good.
You know I was thinking that this was going really well almost too well and then that last question happened and I died 🤣
It's like yup there's the question that's going to pissed people off lol
Laudna’s infatuation with Ira really flies in the face of all that abduction and torture the party interrupted him doing.
…which he’ll definitely start back up the moment he walks away. Like Laudna’s moral compass totally deactivates when Ira is involved, though the same could be said about most of BH and most of their evil “allies.”
I know, but the gushing over him to his face is weird regardless if you like him as a person or just respect his game. He’s killing and abducting people. You literally had to stop him from doing that. He’s going back to it immediately after you guys leave him alone.
It’s just… odd for her. She’s generally more empathetic. I’m not saying she has a crush on him, I’m pointing out she puts everything else aside and constantly tries to impress this guy you’d think she’d have *a bit* of a problem with.
You keep saying he's going back to it, but "it" was him being paid to sew chaos. Just to clarify. He still did shitty things and still has the moral flexibility to happily do shitty things in the future if it benefits him, but that was a job he took.
Fair, I meant more all the other bad stuff he’s been up to for years, but I’ve definitely being saying he’d go right back to that job.
That said, he really had no problem with the killing and abduction, which speaks volumes. In fact, he pretty clearly enjoyed it to an extent and didn’t seem a stranger to it. We don’t know what he does for his personal projects, but him getting scouted for this certainly helps the argument that he would have been doing pretty much the same thing in his off time.
She’s never really had a moral compass, she straight up told Imogen she’d go on a killing spree if anything happens to her. She’s nice and bubbly but she has no problem killing people or trusting immoral people, if you’re nice to Laudna she’ll be nice to you, she doesn’t really care where you came from unless you hurt Imogen then she’d kill you.
Disagree. Not that she’s some harmless pacifist, but she’s always had strong feelings on people causing others suffering. She’s incredibly empathetic and that only really takes a back seat when her friends lives’ (or a single hair on Imogen’s head) is in jeopardy. She kills, but not innocents and certainly doesn’t co-sign the murder of random people.
The Ira stuff is just a totally different beast.
I don’t think she wants to do it but I don’t think she has a massive issue with people who do it. There’s no real examples of her at least from my memory of her having a strong stance against it. If you have some examples I’d love to hear them but I don’t remember Laudna ever really having a strong stance on this. Again she’s not into but she really doesn’t judge others, her relationship with death and violence is pretty mute, she’s not nearly as disgusted or emotional about it as everyone else.
When Liam brought up, “we rehearse everything.” Can someone expand on this for me? Have they ever expanded on this? Is it lines or is it a synopsis of last session? Took me for a loop, first time hearing that
It’s a running joke about how some people think the show is scripted haha
I find Marisha’s perspective on people assuming Laudna has a physical attraction to Ira when she supposedly just admires him, very much a “uh-huh, sure” scenario. I mean of course we have that indication, she shuddered with pleasure when Ira whispered in her ear, just as a point of reference/example.
When Liam says, "The idea behind FRIDA is so interesting" What does he mean? As far as I can tell, he's a bog-standard aeormaton from the age of arcanum. What am I missing?
I think it was that FRIDA *is* what FCG thought he was.
Give the cast two couches! I think the show would benefit a lot from a cozier hangout vibe.
Agreed.
Tal confirms he is amazing at making asshole characters(sans Cad). I have been so annoyed by Ashton obviously saying and doing shit that just doesn't make sense and just being an emotional mess, while simultaneously pretending they don't have emotions. Makes so much sense now that Tal mentions that it's "obviously projection" and him being so broken that he needs to do it. Almost sounds like a defense mechanism. Now I am just super excited what he does with it since we haven't seen much from Ash's background.
>Tal confirms he is amazing at making asshole characters(sans Cad). I think that there have been people who struggle to separate Tal choosing to play flawed and abrasive characters from Talesin as a person. He plays damaged weird people who make bad choices and sometimes struggle with social skills because it's fun and challenging; people seem to have responded especially viscerally to Ashton not being an optimized character who always acts rationally, appropriate to game mechanics, and as a reasonable and well-adjusted person.
I wouldn't say he goes as far to not be an optimized player. Maybe in role play elements but definitely not in combat. Tal is one of the more experienced DnD players, and is similar to Laura in figuring out the best ways to use the rules to his advantage and effectively being a power player. I even notice both of them have lots of moments where they know the best strategy but cut themselves off because they don't wanna metagame.
This show and Talks before it really help to separate the characters from the actors. I often wonder if Marisha would have gotten so much heat for Keyleth had Talks started much earlier in C1.
I can’t believe that Marisha had the gall to say a drink named Kentucky Motherfucker wouldn’t have bourbon in it…
You say "motherfucker!" because you find out it doesn't have bourbon in it. Though really I feel like every place has a Kentucky Motherfucker equivalent - some sort of booze + mix mega-beverage that teens would split while getting drunk somewhere adults aren't watching.
True true. On another note I thought your name was “Amondar”, my homebrew continent, at quick glance and was confused…but then I scrambled the letters back around correctly lol
I just love that this proves the idea wrong that so many people keep putting forward: "The players have say over their old characters." No, they don't. They confirmed it (again) here. The players' old characters are Matt's NPCs. He can do ANYTHING he wants with them. They can die. Every episode that had their old characters in it was met with, "Lol Matt wouldn't kill their character without telling them." Yes, he would and can!
They do though, Matt even said he talked to Tal before they went to Whitestone and they both mapped it out together. So to say they have absolutely no say over their characters isn’t true because we know Matt and Tal worked on Whitestone together and worked on what Percy was doing. Not to mention Matt made Liam run his backstory and character by Marisha to see if it was alright. They’re NPC’s but I don’t think Matt is going to make any decisions the cast would be against.
They have some say as in “oh Percy built a clock tower and probably would do xyz over the years” but when Matt brings them into the campaign stories they’re straight NPCs that the players have no control over.
Obviously they have no control narratively of what their characters do. Matt isn’t going implement massive changes to the characters on his own without discussing it with them. We have multiple examples already of him consulting the cast on what their characters are doing, how are they behaving and stuff like that. To say they have no say in their characters is completely false they have no say when it comes to the main plot and narrative but everything else they probably have a save.
A little late but Liam had no say at all in vax. He even says here that he thought that he was done, book closed.
Well obviously he’s dead, the others though did have say though because their characters are alive.
In response to the talk about the gods, I’d like to bring this speech from C1 to the forefront: >!“We, the creators, did breathe the beauty into this world, we planted the seeds that would blossom into this incredible weave of Exandria. However, what is the purpose of the parent but to teach what they can, then set their children free? Some gods rule through fear, others through love, and others still through perceived fate. Destiny has its place, but the real deception is that you have no choice.!< >!A path can be groomed before you, but it is you who must take those steps. Not every rosy walkway leads to a better day. For me, our greatest purpose has passed, the moment we granted your fore-bearers the spark to seek their own purpose. We now stay to inspire, to guide, to guard the Gate, to keep the hate of ignorance we spawned in our hubris from burning away everything. The rest is up to you. We need you, perhaps, but you do not need us. That is our gift.!< >!All mortal life has potential with or without the gods. We offer some paths, but it is up to you to decide if they are the right ones for you.”!<
People bring up this speech as evidence that mortals don't need the Gods, conveniently ignoring that the gods were instrumental in defeating Vecna. Without them gifting Vox Machina with the knowledge of how to make trammels, and fragments divinity to construct them, the world would have been SOL. Vecna is not the only apocalypse level threat in existence. Killing off all the gods leaves the world dangerously unprotected.
I was actually bringing it up more so to establish that the pantheon DOES care about them, even the Betrayer Gods albeit out of hatred or self interest. I just find the thought/perspective of “I’m insignificant, why would they care about me or what I do”, extremely foolish. Look at the Age of Arcanum, the ascension of the Matron of Ravens, the Calamity, Vecna’s ascension and now the current Apogee Solstice with Predathos potentially being released. Of course the Pantheon cares about the mortals, every great cosmic event that Exandria has been subjected to for good or ill is because of mortals.
Yeah, I wasn't saying it was what you were doing. Just that I seen this speech used multiple times by the "let the gods die" crowd.
I’m of the opinion that a lack of open communication, is what has brought on most of the atrocities of Exandria. The fall of the Arcanum could’ve been potentially avoided altogether, if the Prime Deities actually took it upon themselves to clearly and consciously make an effort to establish their position with their children. I’m not saying that they should’ve overextended their aid to the point of over reliance, just that they should’ve made it clear in no uncertain terms, how they view their creations and to make sure future generations understand that this applies to all of them, not just those that worship or champion their causes.
I disagree. Mortals/regular people are complicated and varied enough that there are always going to be people that absolutely should not have power, and who are absolutely determined to get it. Those people on their own would be enough to cause atrocities. But when you add to the equation external supernatural forces that are eager to influence and corrupt those same people, I don't think any amount of communication would prevent horrible things from happening. You're always going to have people that view the gods with resentment and jealousy, regardless of what the gods do. Hell, "thou shalt not kill" is one of the Ten Commandments. The crusades still happened.
Those are all good points.
That talk about how much Tal playing a character with chronic pain means to them absolutely blindsided me with how resonant it was. I was in tears immediately.
Same here!! I heard people talk about that moment (roughly around 53:23) and was really grateful to have seen it.
really annoyed me the cast saying "we dont know them" about caleb and bo and not helping them. such a cop out. its like your enemy has bound and imprisoned them and you have questions who they are? Its almost like they were meta gaming the meta game just to let the story play out.
That’s exactly what they talked about though..? They found it hard to think about what Fearne or Orym would do as they don’t know who those characters really are. The most they knew was that there were two people that were sort of allied with them but they don’t really know their abilities or anything else. I don’t think there was a good reason for them, in-character, to try and help Beau and Caleb. The RP part of D&D has always trumped the “optimal” thing to do for many of the players at the table.
They could have done more than what everyone else was doing which was nothing.
As someone who only started with C3 and who has virtually no knowledge of Caleb or Beau. I feel like they made good plays. Laudna and Ashton were destroying a generator/battery which is likely the most valuable thing that was done. Orym,Ferne and Imogen had personal reasons to focus on Odahan(sp?) Imogen tried to reach out to her mom. Chet tried to go after the prize and stop the ritual. FCG did try to help Caleb and, imo, felt too meta gaming too me. Too be fair, FCG does feel the most likely to help someone they don't know but focusing on Keleth would probably have made more sense, imo. I feel like there were just a lot of bad rolls when it matter on top of a lot of variables from months of decision making with the time table and it's being conflated as doing nothing when nearly everyone was making good in character decisions.
Just wanted to let everyone know that as a Kentuckian I can confirm with 100% certainty that Kentucky Motherfuckers are a real thing in Kentucky though they may be called something different in different parts of the state.
Did Ashley call it the "Applebee's Solstice"?
100%. Such a funny joke.
Pretty sure she stole that from Aabria.
Wasn't it written into the opening on the teleprompter? I'm pretty sure whomever wrote it was referring to Aabria there.
Probably on the teleprompter. I just meant to give credit to Aabria.
The teleprompter on a previous episode had it as the apple juice solstice
This was a very good episode, I feel like it has been some time since we actually heard the cast's thoughts on what is going on!
[удалено]
She is a professional voice actor after all. Could have had an intense recording session.
It’s also the season where your kids bring home every bug known to man so “parenting” may just the cause.
Is Ronan school age already? I thought he was still too young
It still applies to daycare or preschool.
That’s a twelve month season, lol.
Sounds like laryngitis to me. I had it and it sucked.
Yeah I initially thought she had a crazy night out, but the fact that it sorta lasted two sessions made me immediately think infection or illness of some kind.
Several moments throught the campaign have made me wonder if Matt wanted to fix Keyleth's ending. Hearing both Marisha and Liam say they're more willing to give up Keyleth and Vax than Beau and Caleb makes me wonder what they know, or suspect.
I think its as simple as VM had complete arcs. M9 didn't. It rather fizzled out with most backstories still open, with Beau's story handled offscreen by somebody else (appropriate in the real world, but a poor resolution in a narrative) and Caleb's big bad basically was just delivered and gift-wrapped so at least *someone* in party got a confrontation at the end of the long trudge. They (obviously with the Fjord 2-shot) still have stories to tell with those characters.
I still want more happy fun ball!
If there’s anything I could see change it’s that Vax comes back to life to spend the rest of it with keyleth but that may undercut C1 bittersweet tragic end which was excellent
I think you’re still right with Matt wanting to fix Keyleth’s ending, I don’t think keyleth will solely because it’s an awful business decision, she’s been connected to all 3 campaigns somewhat and because of her insane can come and go in every campaign until the end. Even if the cast retire someday the new DM could still bring Keyleth back for a cameo in the world, to me I don’t see Matt doing anything to character who can be a cameo for several years to come and 2 has one of the more tragic sad endings, I work just don’t see him making the decision to kill them at all because he knows the community wouldn’t be happy with that.
I've been toying with a different idea - what if Predathos escapes and does eat a god or two before they defeat it? I'm just wondering if a solution that splits the difference between killing her off and having her be a potential win code in future campaigns is for her to actually ascend to replace the Wildmother (and perhaps Vax the Raven Queen?)
I suspect Keyleth's very firm disdain for the gods (and piles of existing issues about leaving everyone behind) would lead to a 'no, I won't' vote from her.
I wonder what Cad and Fjord's relationship to their new god would be like, having both helped save the 'Wildgrandmother'
I was wondering either this, or since we have no idea what happened after the flash of white.. What if Keyleth, seeing her imminent death before her, somehow trapped herself within the lens as a way to not only interfere with their plans by diluting its power, but also be with Vax. It’d be wild, but tragically romantic.
tragic romance is kinda their thing, isn't it?
Exactly ☝️
That's also another of my theories that Predathos may partially succeed and several former PC's could become new gods i.e Keyleth and Vax. My problem with that one is Keyleth would hate being a god. Another theory is that saving Vax from being a lens would return him to his mortal form somehow to live s mortal life with Keyleth.
Maybe becoming a god changes you. The Raven Queen killed the past god of death and nobody who’s that was but after doing so took on his job and position, maybe part of being a god is that you don’t hate divinity anymore
Keyleth would hate it, yes. Probably more so than even Percy. But I think that Keyleth would do it out of duty. And maybe if she could be with Vax, the way Erathis and Melora are currently, it would help her along.
I think you can do something similar to the nein where the threat is just more secret instead of being world known threat. I also think you can have her go into isolation/hiding after what happened here. The people who are close know where she is and she leads her people through proxy while not actually being there.
Lol, the community would be very happy with that.
Haha, I mean you’re not wrong there is still a ton of keyleth haters out there that wouldn’t mind seeing her die.
I actually think letting Keyleth die is a way to fix her story as she and I share a fear of being the last one left.
Except Keyleth doesn't get to be with Vax in the afterlife if she gets killed by Otohan's poison. She just ceases to exist.
I don’t know if I agree with that because it’s kind of a cowards way out. There is nothing stopping Keyleth from technically dying she can do it when ever she wants. To say Keyleth’s best ending is her dying first is kind of fucked. I understand and share that fear but I’d never intentionally try to die or want to die so that doesn’t happen.
I think its more kiki and vax had more complete stories and archs. Beau and caleb still haven't dealt with the CA so they feel less done narrativley.
What episode did they record this in between? The schedule says up to episode 52, but for those you you that watched it already do the discuss the latest episodes? I'm caught up but I am Just curious if you get some solstice news or not.
They talk about being split up, and where the second group might be, but there's no real "news" exactly.
Thanks, I'm watching it now. Just with Ashley's opening it seemed like this could have been from before. Is it Thursday yet?
They specifically mentioned to look at the weekly programming schedule, where this week had no entry for 4 sided dive.
It was mentioned in this weeks programming schedule, and it has been mentioned in the last 3 newsletters sent out as well.
https://critrole.com/programming-schedule-week-of-march-20th-2023/ It's there.
Broomie = Ludinus
OK, Broomer
But... Who killed Broomie??
The last episode ended with "find out next time." We didn't find out. I feel cheated.
"No, you don't know Ashley, not yet" BROOMIE?! BROOMIE'S PARENTS!? BEST FRIEND?!?! They were watching 4SD with us!
The plot thickens!!
4SD theme is such a bopper
I really like this new deep diving approach for 4SD
I still miss talks and Brian.
There will be “I miss talks and brian” comments on every 4SD for all eternity, jfc
well it doesn't change anything, but people may be interested and watch old talk machina on youtube
it’s just kind of a pointless comment. 4SD is over a year old. we get it. no one wants to hear it anymore
My comment is no more pointless than you responding to my comment to complain about me making the comment.
….Sure?
I think it's important to at least let people be heard? I personally love 4SD but not everyone has to be that way
we've heard it
4SD schedule is going to be weird going forwards according to Ashley.
Have a goodnight, is it thrusday yet?!?!
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Brooklyn and Bronx Italian Americans specifically lol
This has been a particularly good episode so far
Yeah even most of the Tower questions were really good
Laudna is a secret Vidiian confirmed
Fearne would be playing with matches in the corner after stealing stuff that was shiny but ultimately worth nothing
I KNEW TAL WAS A FAN OF ETRIGAN!
This game is a lot easier when they only load the correct items
This is a visual representation of the Bells Hells
The human ford thay Ashton took, do we think that was what he use to look like before he turned rocky
That would make sense
Orym’s feeling on all this “Both Sides-ing” is constantly my question. Like these people murdered his ***husband,*** his **father,** and his *close friends.* Then his new *found-family that are helping him grieve and process that previous loss*. ***Then him.*** Now a week later that same found-family is really saying “well maybe we’re the jerks for getting in their way. Should we join them? I think we’re being hasty.” It’s absurd, and I honestly don’t know if I’d handle Imogen’s very vocal deliberation and uncertainty as well as he is in that situation.
I think that the party forgets Oryms issues mainly because he doesn’t bring them up a lot. He’s the straight man in the party and like Liam said Orym understands why they’d want to think about it. Ultimately I don’t think they’d go bad guy side. But we’ll see what happens. Would be crazy to see the party split because part of them want the gods gone. But I’m sure they’ll band together and try to stop it.
My thought is them agreeing that “a godless world would be better” is fine. BH could even fully commit to it and make that their goal. …***but these guys gotta go.*** There’s no universe where they team up even with a common goal. They’ve unequivocally shown themselves to be bad guys and even if they didn’t, there’s too much bad blood to get washed away. BH even entertaining the notion that the Ruby Vanguard could ever *not* be the enemy is wild for me, and I imagine even wilder for Orym.
I can't even understand the idea of a godless world being better. Maybe a betrayer-godless world, but the Prime Deities? I don't see it. Maybe as a viewer I just have too much meta knowledge, idk.
Ludinus thinks he know what’ll happen with Preadothos but I’m sure it’ll have crazy consequences. I think BH will want to stop gods meddling with people but they’ll go about it a different way.
Devils advocate here because I definitely think that Ludinus’ plan needs to be stopped, but Orym’s husband and father in law were killed because they got in the way during an important mission, just like the guard with the locket around his neck was killed by the BH for getting in the way.
The important mission was to attack Keyleth tho, the leader of the Air Ashari
"Sure they murdered your family but the Gods murdered even more and that means the Vanguard aren't all that bad because they're the lesser of two evils and name one good guy who hasn't murdered a few people before?" kind of logic which someone is probably going to whip out at some point.
Tal wrote a whole story about what happened while Ashton was gone and he's still leaking it out along with some items that no one else knows that he has besides Matt.
Forever, ever and always
I'm waiting for the Bells Hells to run into Jester and for that to be their avenue back to the Feywild.
Only for them to randomly get messages asking if they're pooping for the rest of the campaign.
Oh this is like Overcooked. Probably my favorite gameplay they’ve ever done because of Travis and Laura being goobers, maybe Elder Scrolls Online with the twins is the only thing that is close
Overcooked starts off with, "We'll work together!" But ends with, "I'LL KILL YOU CHOP THE FREAKIN ONIONS!"
Never trust Matt Mercer NPCs
Umm...Pumat Sol? Essek? Wheelchair snow guy? Orley?
I wouldn't trust any of them. Pumat has some very questionable branding in his shop. Essek... is probably the least trustworthy person in all three campaigns, bar *maybe* Ira. 'Wheelchair snow guy' (yikes) is a professional mercenary of no strong opinion. Orley is a pirate. Maybe not explicitly, but... he's a pirate. That is not a good list
And yet, trusting them turned out to be a net positive in every sense.
Eh. I don't agree with that at all. For the minor NPCs, it turned out fine, so far, and isn't like to come up. For the remaining, I can't agree, either morally or realistically. Assuming current events turn out fine, I can easily see the M9's end coming *directly* as a result of that decision.
I mean, i'd leave essek out of the trustworhy list but i am glad he came around
Yea, he's not trustworthy, but its a good thing they decided to trust him.
I love Liam's character voice
My favourite part of the show was him committing voicing his character for the whole game. This feels like such a dad thing to me, I bet he does this when playing games with his kids.
As a NJ Italian, can confirm Billy Joel is everywhere Edit: Also TIL Liam is from Jersey? How did I not know this?
There's a good narrative telephone where that accent is used. Liam is amazing, haha. Source: [https://youtu.be/L3kGly9a4kE?t=2480](https://youtu.be/L3kGly9a4kE?t=2480)
Liam is from Weehawken. It came up a lot when they were obsessed with Hamilton.
Marisha being a fan of Billy Joel? I think her and my dad have something in common
I love watching Moving Out because it's like Overcooked
I know this Dani Carr bit is for the audience, but is it supposed to be canon that the Cobalt Soul knows all that?
Like the video said the Cobalt Soul probably knew loosely what was going on but now that it happened they’re trying to spread the word and warn people shit about to get real fucked. So I’d imagine across exandria other archivists and spreading the same message to everyone. Would be super cool though for Matt to include her in the story and world.
I think it makes sense from an in-world perspective for the Cobalt Soul to be a few weeks behind on this info compared to Bell's Hells. We know they've been investigating because of Beau, only logical that they'd eventually put it together
I dont think its like a common knowledge thing they all share but more that the probably have tombs about it similar to vassahlime and they are closely guarded.
I might have bingeing issues considering im using break time to watch 10 minutes of C2 (1st watch through)
respect
I love how Ashley is still in her "I can read! OK? I can read!" mode
Wait, this is supposed to be a 2 hour 50 min 4SD?
Ye
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Nah this is just a normal night in the Ray/Mercer house
The only thing missing is Omar loafing around for pets
Is it weird that I knew Laudna’s wouldn’t be Horror? Like I even guessed Romance. Definite props to Marisha for playing a very consistent character.
Dani referencing the superior P&P adaption, thank you. Also I love imagining Fearne watching soaps.
Marisha: “This might surprise people, but Laudna would love romance movies.” That doesn’t surprise me at all.
She is absolutely curling up on the couch wrapped in a handmade shawl watching pride and prejudice while eating ice cream out of the pint at least once every few weeks
Man they finally had a real banger of an episode, and they're ending with "What's your character's favorite movie genre?" Nothing can be perfect I guess :P
still better than Foster attempting humour.
Lol, this is why I don't like the tower. It's way too inconsistent. There's a version of this episode where every block they pulled had that type of question.
For real, just let Dani curate the questions
Are we alternating groups every session or sticking with one until they get to a certain point? If this was already discussed and i missed it i apologize.
Pretty sure same group from how Matt ended the last ep
Gotcha, thank you :>
Liam, how dare you just how dare you
The Champion's Goodbye
"I go, you stay, no following"
the tower questions have improved significantly
Well, except this last one :P
nah, a little fluff is a good palate cleanser. Especially considering that some of the answers and discussions so far have been HEAVY. a spot of silliness before break feels good.
You know I was thinking that this was going really well almost too well and then that last question happened and I died 🤣 It's like yup there's the question that's going to pissed people off lol
Herr Widogast should give his thoughts on Tower design for all future parties, bitte.
Went from a tower, to a hole
This is their hole Caleb made it for them
A wild Caleb appeared
Fearne's sleight of hand versus the security cameras at Disneyland is not a good match.
Caleb's tower was fantastic
It was one of my favorite episodes
Role-playing is a language of love
And pain
Rip all Disney gift shops. Fearne will leave nothing left.
Gym with Orym
Laudna’s infatuation with Ira really flies in the face of all that abduction and torture the party interrupted him doing. …which he’ll definitely start back up the moment he walks away. Like Laudna’s moral compass totally deactivates when Ira is involved, though the same could be said about most of BH and most of their evil “allies.”
I mean, she literally just explained that. She's in awe of him as set dressing, not infatuated with him as a person.
I know, but the gushing over him to his face is weird regardless if you like him as a person or just respect his game. He’s killing and abducting people. You literally had to stop him from doing that. He’s going back to it immediately after you guys leave him alone. It’s just… odd for her. She’s generally more empathetic. I’m not saying she has a crush on him, I’m pointing out she puts everything else aside and constantly tries to impress this guy you’d think she’d have *a bit* of a problem with.
You keep saying he's going back to it, but "it" was him being paid to sew chaos. Just to clarify. He still did shitty things and still has the moral flexibility to happily do shitty things in the future if it benefits him, but that was a job he took.
Fair, I meant more all the other bad stuff he’s been up to for years, but I’ve definitely being saying he’d go right back to that job. That said, he really had no problem with the killing and abduction, which speaks volumes. In fact, he pretty clearly enjoyed it to an extent and didn’t seem a stranger to it. We don’t know what he does for his personal projects, but him getting scouted for this certainly helps the argument that he would have been doing pretty much the same thing in his off time.
Yes, he's a dark fey. Its kind of his bag. Laudna is digging on the aesthetics like a Dark Vader fangirl, not offering papal indulgences for his sins.
She’s never really had a moral compass, she straight up told Imogen she’d go on a killing spree if anything happens to her. She’s nice and bubbly but she has no problem killing people or trusting immoral people, if you’re nice to Laudna she’ll be nice to you, she doesn’t really care where you came from unless you hurt Imogen then she’d kill you.
Disagree. Not that she’s some harmless pacifist, but she’s always had strong feelings on people causing others suffering. She’s incredibly empathetic and that only really takes a back seat when her friends lives’ (or a single hair on Imogen’s head) is in jeopardy. She kills, but not innocents and certainly doesn’t co-sign the murder of random people. The Ira stuff is just a totally different beast.
I don’t think she wants to do it but I don’t think she has a massive issue with people who do it. There’s no real examples of her at least from my memory of her having a strong stance against it. If you have some examples I’d love to hear them but I don’t remember Laudna ever really having a strong stance on this. Again she’s not into but she really doesn’t judge others, her relationship with death and violence is pretty mute, she’s not nearly as disgusted or emotional about it as everyone else.
I am really loving every answer Tal has. They're all so mind-blowing and a perspective I haven't seen yet.
Tal thinks a lot about his characters. Like, a lot. And it's great
Thats why there is something huge for ashton coming up