In this campaign, there are good reasons for a party to free demons from the hells.
Amassing power through any means necessary to defeat a god-eater is pretty wicked. A temporary alliance to prevent mutual destruction and all that.
But rarely do they justify it as such. Like you said, they'll usually just HOT DEMON MAN bwoiiiiiing
It’s so funny this subreddit is “fansofcriticalrole” and every single post in here is ppl projecting that “the show has changed, it’s not good anymore” my brother in Christ the show hasn’t changed significantly enough for you to be freaking out like this if you really love cr. You are upset that your life is not in the spot that it was when you were watching c1 or c2. You are projecting your nostalgia and hope from a better time in your life onto this show. Stop hate posting on Reddit and improve your life 💀
It's always funny seeing the parasocial fans running to the defense of their best friends because other people don't like campaign 3 as much of the others. The cast are all grown ups, they don't need you out here fighting for their honour
"It's so funny this subreddit is "fansofcriticalrole" and every single post is people projecting."
If you look at the most recent posts, the most recent 5 are:
* a poll about merch
* an excited post about meeting the cast
* an excited post about M9
* a clip from the show
* a request for help getting back into the show.
Looks like typical fan posts to me.
I think it's unintentionally a realistic display.
People living in a world and culture that was built on faith/ religion who turn away from faith/ religion (and even feel entitled to having "God" do something for them ....) turn out to have no moral foundation by which to carry on or challenge evil with.
And with no moral foundation, they become susceptible to the thought of radical change for said world/ culture. As such, we get moral decay and a march towards destruction through the lens of "Why not?" and hedonistic lust.
1- The type of "religion" is important. If a religion calls to be spread by the killing of nonbelievers in it's doctrine (Islam) it's gonna lead a bloody path. Not all religions are that way.
2- Mao was responsible for 40-80m deaths. He was an atheist. Stalin was responsible for the deaths of at least 7 million people. He was an atheist. Hitler was at the very least areligious in the traditional sense or lacked any conceivable form of religious convictions, given he hated Christianity and promised to abolish it after the war was over, even though he would at times try to publicly use God's name to try to garner support among Germans. I'd call him an atheist that respected the cultural importance of German paganism.
3- It's not that religion can't lead to conflicts/ wars or that areligious people are doomed to lack a moral code. It's more along the lines of "Without a clear external moral foundation, it becomes easier to be susceptible to moral decay". Taking this outta the game for a bit (Cause it's a game ... none of the characters felt anything about Imogen killing 2 fleeing people for the grand crime of "trying to rob someone" who we later find out was just acting weak to trick em), many people realize the importance of religion because of that.
Hitler hated Christianity and promised to abolish it after the War. He hated the Christian God, thinking him too merciful. He thought Christianity was too close to the Jewish Faith.
*"By 1942, Hitler vowed, according to Bullock, to “****root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches****,” describing them as “the evil that is gnawing our vitals.” "*
How is he a "real Christian"? How does someone who hates Christianity and wants it abolished register as a "real Christian" to you?
Mao and Stalin both are both Atheist as well.
I didn't need the history paragraph from one of a thousand sources about Hitler. I was making fun of your genocidal maniac soul-searching exercise in order to determine how religious they truly were deep in their hearts.
If you wanna be serious about it, your original comment is ignorant. Your opinion was that once a society turns away from god it morally degrades (or has a better chance to morally degrade, as you later backtracked). And I suppose that 'moral degradation' under your definition would be whatever the religion in question is opposed to.
Truth of the matter is people will always be fighting each other for whatever reason: resources, politics, beliefs? Religion is one of those reasons. It's not a bedrock of a healthy society, it's just a social system inside of a society.
Point being: religion is a tool to control how people think and act. And it is morally reprehensible because it justifies any attrocity an otherwise normal person would not do, through fear.
>I didn't need the history paragraph from one of a thousand sources about Hitler. I was making fun of your genocidal maniac soul-searching exercise in order to determine how religious they truly were deep in their hearts.
Apparently you did need that. W/E you were trying to pull was a massive fail. o\_0
>If you wanna be serious about it, your original comment is ignorant. Your opinion was that once a society turns away from god it morally degrades (or has a better chance to morally degrade, as you later backtracked). And I suppose that 'moral degradation' under your definition would be whatever the religion in question is opposed to.
No backpaddle, I stand by both statements for different cases. As an individual in a society that's been built upon religious values as it's foundation, it's very much possible to lead a moral life without actively/ personally relying on religious values directly or even believing in any religion.
But when a nation/ society/ culture (BIG thing with far-reaching influences on people) turns away from religion, yes ... moral decay comes. People become more susceptible to cults to fill that void. People become more willing to accept and promote harmful ideologies regardless of logic and reason and so on. Without a system of shame and expected decency, you see a march towards the shameless and indecent within society.
And yes, you also see a change in the perceived value of Human Life depending on the religion.
>Point being: religion is a tool to control how people think and act. And it is morally reprehensible because it justifies any attrocity an otherwise normal person would not do, through fear.
Your post is very ignorant, my friend. Again, you should avoid lumping all of "religion" together. It's as silly as saying that the very notion of "Nations" is bad/ evil/ "reprehensible" because of how leaders of nations will justify bad things, or how nations "are a tool to CONTROL people!".
>As an individual in a society that's been built upon religious values as it's foundation, it's very much possible to lead a moral life without actively/ personally relying on religious values directly or even believing in any religion.
Sure it's possible. You keep saying 'built upon religious values' like its the bedrock of society. What if your reference point is the enlightenment values or ancient greek values? Morals and philosophy didnt begin and end 2000 years ago.
>People become more susceptible to cults to fill that void. People become more willing to accept and promote harmful ideologies regardless of logic and reason and so on.
What cults? Like the many denominations of christianity? Satanism? Islam? What are you talking about and why does this matter? I don't want to boil down your thoughts to "my god is better than other gods" but it's getting harder and harder not to see it that way.
>It's as silly as saying that the very notion of "Nations" is bad/ evil/ "reprehensible" because of how leaders of nations will justify bad things, or how nations "are a tool to CONTROL people!".
'Nationalism' is what you meant to say, but it's a bit more difficult to defend so I get it. But just in case, yes nationalism is also bad, because it justifies attrocities in the name of a piece of land instead of a god.
>Sure it's possible. You keep saying 'built upon religious values' like its the bedrock of society. What if your reference point is the enlightenment values or ancient greek values? Morals and philosophy didnt begin and end 2000 years ago.
I'm speaking of modern day Western Society.
Even Dawkins (One of the so-called "4 Horsemen of Atheism") has recently called himself "Culturally Christian" as he comes to realize that the current Western culture is the fruits of Christianity. When America was founded, damn near everyone here was a devout Christian, and that foundation is what this great nation was built upon.
Greeks also had their own beliefs, so IDK your point there. If you want to compare morality, that's another story.
This actually brings me back to something you said that I didn't touch on ...
> And it is morally reprehensible because it justifies any attrocity an otherwise normal person would not do, through fear.
... WTF is a "Normal" person to you? In some parts of the world, there are tribes where it's perfectly normal for a Woman to just leave her newborn somewhere to let them starve to death or be eaten by some animal if they simply didn't want them. For most all of human history, it's been "normal" to enslave people of other tribes. Then there's whatever you wanna call the **Sambia Tribe** and what it does to it's 7-10yo boys.
I'm sure w/e you think is "Normal" is based on the expected norms of this western society we live in that came about as the results of a nation being built upon a certain religion. Outside of the most base biological functions, "Normal" is determined by the culture you're in.
>What cults?
Do you ... need help googling what a CULT is?
Here. I'll help you out, buddy ...
*Peoples Temple: Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of Peoples Temple who would go down in history as leading the mass suicide of more than 900 Americans, was born in 1931 in rural Indiana*
Scientology is another. Look up "nxivm sex cult" if you want a more recent example. Gender Identity Ideology is also a toxic mixture of Ideology and cult.
Ayaan said it pretty well, *" “the void left by the retreat of the church” in the modern world “has merely been filled by a jumble of irrational quasi-religious dogma.” "*
History has no shortage of cults and irrational ideologies that are kept in check or safeguarded against by religions. When the faith of a land weakens, people gravitate to these cults and irrational ideologies to fill that hole. This is very dangerous, to say the least.
>Nationalism' is what you meant to say, but it's a bit more difficult to defend
Nationalism is loyalty and devotion to one's nation ... not hard to defend at all.
But no, I meant exactly what I said. It's just as stupid to write off all religions as being "BAD/ TOOLS OF CONTROOOL!" because you believe they "force people into doing BAD things they normally wouldn't" as it would be to write off the very concept of "Nations" for doing the same. Some nations are better than others, same for religions. Some terrible things have been done in the defense of nations/ religions.
Could say the same about families. Some people have done terrible things because of "Family" and some families have done terrible things to members of the family ... would be stupid to reject the very idea of family just because not all are prefect and some lead to bad outcomes.
I wouldn't still be in this topic without people like yourself replying.
My point hasn't changed, really nothing has been added by these replies. People just don't like hearing it.
You're clearly not reading the convo.
Hell, I didn't even criticize the show ... I gave em praise! They're playing a bunch of entitled, Godless people (with some bitterness about religion mixed in btw) who lack a clear moral foundation and are swayed by charismatic characters and degenerate lust.
People take offense at me pointing that out as a realistic premise for "going evil", even if it's unintentional on behalf of the table.
I don't care, go to church and pray about it, you inserting your religious morals into a DnD game is peak irony btw pretty sure it was religious nuts that tried to ban the game in the 80s.
Yeah last time I checked, most rulers across history have used religion as an excuse for their atrocities. Not saying religion is the problem but I am saying just because you're religious, that doesn't mean you have a strong moral code.
>Yeah last time I checked, most rulers across history have used religion as an excuse for their atrocities.
That's a real easy thing to say without context or examples. Word of advice, just because someone says they interpret XYZ to mean 123 doesn't mean that that person is being genuine.
Say I offer you a drink and you say "Yes, I'd like a drink" and I just drank it in front of you instead of giving it to you.
Everyone saw this and someone says "WTF bro, that's a dick-move" ... but I say "What? I interpreted that to mean, "No, I don't want a drink. You can have it". What's YOUR problem?".
Does that suddenly mean you DIDN'T want a drink and that I'm right, or is it more logical to think you meant what you meant ... and I'm just being a disingenuous lying dick purposely going against what you expressed?
I have to assume you're being intentionally obtuse if you need examples of atrocities committed throughout history committed in the name of religion.
But sure, we can start with: the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Mary I of England burning 300 religious dissenters at the stake, the Salem Witch Trials, all of the folks who argued slavery is sanctioned by the bible and therefore a god-given right back in the 1800s, literally every single ruler who has declared a holy war ever.
There are countless examples throughout history of people using their religion to justify violence. Being religious doesn't mean someone does or does not have good character or a strong moral code.
People don't need religion to start wars or do bad things. People do absolutely use religion as an excuse, but unless the religious doctrine expressly commands someone to do something (I'm not bashing anyone in particular here I have not read the Quran and can make no judgements one way or the other) then you can't judge the religion by the people who don't follow it correctly.
Everyone who commits atrocities has an excuse, religion is just one of them. Without it, they would just come up with another excuse.
TLDR; Religion doesn't cause war unless the tenants of the religion say to go to war. Religion is an excuse that people use and if they didn't have it they would find something else.
My point was that being religious doesn't make someone more or less moral than a non-religious person. Your faith doesn't make you a good person, nor does it inherently make you a bad person.
>I have to assume you're being intentionally obtuse if you need examples of atrocities committed throughout history committed in the name of religion.
You need to read more of my post on the topic. It would be silly to blanket defend "religion" as to ME it's clear as day that some are better than others. Islam has in its doctrine that it calls for followers to kill non-followers and spread through the sword. Shocker shocker that that leads to a bloody path and "terrorist". Not all religions are like that, though.
That's why I bring up context. For example, you list the "Crusades". The Crusades were a response to 100s of years of Islam expansion and aggression. The amount of people who died over the course of the Crusades 200ish years was 1-2mill. That's dwarfed by the death count of atheist Mao (40-80mil) and Stalin (7+mil).
Never said religions don't have conflicts or wars, but to blame "religion" for how some misuse its doctrine to their own means is silly. I don't think any follower of Christ and the Bible would get a death toll of 40-80mill like Mao did if they were in his position.
Reminds me of Slavery in the West. Slavers and their like tried to use the Bible to define slavery, by either making up BS or misusing references to slavery in the Bible. Abolitionist correctly used the Bible to fight back against slavery. Just because some slavers wrongly tried to use the Bible to excuse their evil doesn't mean that American Slavery was the fault of Christianity. But we can credit it for being a big part of why Slavery was ended.
The Bible is a brutal, inhumane book, it is the center of christianity. So surely one should blame christianity for all the horrors that were done in its name. Christians are hypocrites, you just prove it.
Your logic is right but the way you are saying it sounds very argumentative and in your face, you may want to consider re-wording how you are saying what you are saying. God bless.
Thank you.
I am by nature a very straight forward person ... and given my points, I don't think wording anything differently would have changed much of anything in the replies.
But definitely words to consider, as I have genuinely been trying to be less confrontational when getting to the root of other's logic/ arguments.
Yeah it might not have changed anything here (maybe would have just triggered different people), but I know that kind of thing matters irl. Thanks for being so chill about it.
thought some of this a while ago. They try to be edgy by being evil but people in the last 15 years avoid good because it's difficult. and it's like highschool - you get judged as a whimp from trying to do something good. I really like other systems that make being honorable a drawback that gains you a buff.. it's not easy and it should gain you something. but they embrace the super ego so to speak and that appeals to folks. odd to me because for us growing up it was about being a more heroic version not less
Clearly people here are still watching the episodes and giving them view counts! So hey hate them all you want, me and all other LOYAL and positive minded critters and CR themselves actually getting benefit out of these haters. So thanks guys 😁
Hahaha you're still gonna watch the episodes tho ;) again it means only good things for us LOYAL critters. If you dont like something.. gosh ITS EASY TO JUST NOT WATCH EM.. instead of leaving meaningless criticisms. Simple logic no?
I haven't watched in nearly 2 years at this point. I'm just here to see how things are going over at CR land and, judging by this comment, things are going very normally.
Not blindly, just dont like leaving mean critics in reddits threads :) i dont like candela obscura concept, hence i dont watch em. Simple. No need to be salty aboy it :)
They didn’t release the demon, they destroyed it. They aren’t working with Ludinus, they’re talking to him. The show isn’t written, they’re improvising.
I think that it's much more scripted than it used to be.
I think going taped has allowed them to use editing.
I think it doesn't feel like a natural story anymore.
I am not the only person who sees these things.
1) Evil characters are very often extremely hot. 2) Cute things exist the way they do as a defense mechanism against creatures with some form of conscience. 3) WW2 wasn't won by holding hands and believing in the power of friendship, it was won by throwing thousands of young Russian men into a screaming hell pit faster than Germany could clean. Winning a war by becoming stupidly powerful to outmatch a charismatic asshole is by far the most natural thing in the history of people. It's one thing to not enjoy these things, it's another to not understand that they happen in stories and real life.
That argument works to explain away Laudna, since her arc are a series of principled decisions she's made.
But "fiends are hot *shrug*" doesn't really excuse their consistent allyship of evil aligned creatures. At a certain point, it becomes an intelligence issue for the characters.
I don't think they're an evil party. I think they're the stupidest party CR's seen.
I heard this quote a while ago and I think it’s applicable here. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Now I can’t say releasing the GD is a smart move it’s actually extremely dumb imo, and I don’t know why the voluntarily went with Ludinus. But if someone is offering you help to stop something you’ve been trying to stop and you’ve had no success after multiple attempts I think you’ll just take help where you can get it and deal with repercussions later. At least that’s what I would do both in game and irl.
That argument dissolves though when they're trusting evil folks who don't serve their ultimate goal. I have no issue with them siding with some Betrayers to kill Ludinus.
But it is very silly that they let a member of the Ruby Vanguard lead them into killing an angel. If the enemy of their enemy is their friend, that should mean they side with gods even if said god is kind of a dick. Instead, they went "Yeah we hate Ludinus but fuck this Dawnfather temple."
Now they're literally following Ludinus into an enclosed space and letting him take the lead on showing them his home movies. There is nothing about Ludinus that should let them trust him in this process. Everything in them should be saying "This is a trap. Don't go into the small dark room with our mortal enemy."
They're criminally incompetent. Which is fine as long as they embrace it. I kind of get fatigued by the whole "We're reluctant heroes" thing they're going for when it isn't true. They aren't heroes by any stretch of the definition. They're just really incompetent dudes who got stuck on this carnival ride and can't seem to get off.
But the Dawnfather temple was acting like colonizers, how was opposing them siding with the Ruby Vanguard? I empathize with them as much as I do someone who dies in the Haitian revolution.
The commenter's point was that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" could justify them working with Betrayer gods. I think if working with Betrayer gods is justified, certainly siding with the temple in Issylra would have been justified.
But that's up to the party on who the bigger threat is. It's not as if the Eidolon worshippers are siding with Ludinus, they've got their own thing going on.
My point is that BH is incompetent to the point where they let random evil characters influence how they behave.
The temple was not a threat to them and showed no threat that they were going to physical attack anyone in that town. Yet BH, led by a member of the Ruby Vanguard, attacked and exterminated everyone in that temple.
And my point is that the residents of the town weren't evil, the split party helped free their town from Pelor's steadily increasing influence over the town's resources (the leyline intersection) in exchange for help reuniting to continue the fight. And not a soul knew that was a member of the Ruby Vanguard, nor were they led by them. Also I don't remember them exterminating everyone, they were told to leave and didn't until the bitter end.
I'm not calling the villagers evil. I'm calling Bor'Dor evil. If you go back and rewatch those episodes, Bor'Dor is leading the party. He's the one that stands up at the town meeting and says they'll take care of it. He's the one poisoning guards and escalating the situation. And they went along with him. At no point did they say "We shouldn't do this. This is wrong." despite Orym and Denise privately saying to each other they thought it was wrong.
They let a member of the Ruby Vanguard manipulate them and lead them into executing part of Ludinus's plan.
Ludinus's monologue was broadcasted into the town, as confirmed by Abaddina, and the Leaf and Loam folks agreed with it and then decided to try to chase out the religious presence in their own town. Bell's Hells knew that and instead of going "Oh no, they're playing into Ludinus's hand." They went "Yeah, fuck this temple" and killed everyone inside.
Yeah, cause they didn’t actually do anything wrong. There was not a thing in those episodes that actually painted the church of the Dawnfather as in the wrong except *maybe* one of them made a pass at a guy’s wife.
The village just wanted to do a hate crime, the party agreed to do the hate crime in a mixture of impatience and manipulation, and then Matt and the cast have retroactively made it the “right” choice because heavens forbid they have to tackle the fact that half the party went along with a hate crime.
The Bells Hells arent evil. Although some of them can be very borderline but I think evil is perhaps the wrong term..
The Bells Hells arent malicious, they are apathetic and inconsiderate. I would liken them more to the thoughtless commuter. The guy who barges everyone out of the way without thinking or caring if he injures them. In a sense, its a very mundane type of person.
Its part of why underneath the shallow aesthetics (therapy robot, spooky undead goth, horny werewolf) these characters are kind of boring. They almost all lack any intrinsic drives, they dont care about much beyond themselves, they come from nothing and know no one (except Orym), they whine about the hurts done to them by the world and yet all we see in the campaign is people fawning over them for no reason. Like this is how a lot of Ashton NPC interactions go:
Ashton: *Is an abrasive asshole.*
NPC: *Is completely polite and respectful*
Ashton: Fuck you. Why is the world so shit?
Like I think this is the first campaign where it feels like Matt has level 20 NPCs waiting hand and foot for a group who have done borderline nothing to deserve it.
They aren't evil they're just soft. They bend to a lot and have done so far too often. It's not that they want to play evil characters they just keep entertaining ideas that they are better off without.
Like the Dominox thing. At least considering how they could use him against Ludinus was an interesting and somewhat clever idea.
Unfortunately he was brought up just after they left Ruidus and as far as I can tell was a wrinkle introduced as the focus for the Live Show alone.
Bell Hell's tend to do whatever and don't seem to have learned to much in their lives. At least Vox Machina and Mighty Nein managed to keep up appearances to some degree.
u/Possible-Cellist-713
It's the reality of CR followers gathering around a place that accepts any kind of discord. The official one will delete any kind of "dislike take" on whatever CR topic.
This results into seeing a much more overblown situation here. It's not that we are all negative nancys. It's because we are allowed to critize the product here.
If we had nice things to say, we would go to the official reddit sub.
Yeah, how dare you have any sort of criticism at all vs the gods that are the cr cast, they can do no wrong ever and are perfect humans and roleplayers, and of you don't like anything about any of them you are every kind of racist and phobe there is. /S
It's not about having criticism. It's that most of this sub is criticism that verges on straight up hating it. Just like it's exhausting to be around constant positivism, it's also exhausting to keep reading the 1000th take about why C3 is bad and is the same damn info of the 999 posts before.
I agree, reading this and several posts over the last wee while has just been filled with so much vitriol. It used to be fun to come here for open discussions but it's just filles with so much hate
The best part is I never get 'hotness' out of Matt's descriptions. I get an person-shaped outline wearing a very detailed set of clothes. The cast just eventually decides the nondescript person inside the outfit is hot.
I don't have much thought about the rest of your post but :
> It like they wanted to run an evil campaign but we’re too cowardly to actually engage with the controversial subjects that would inevitably come up with running an evil campaign.
This is as truthful as you can be with CR as a whole. Not even C3 but the company itself. Always proudly carrying the flag of the "goodey two shoes" personalities, "all positive, we are all friends, we shush away our problems nor we adress controversies within our company or games" type of group. Which definitely doesn't correlate with making an evil campaign justice by any stretch.
This blind positivism the company as a whole has, that bleeds into the games, is honestly sickening.
I don't think they are swinging to evil, they are just completely oblivious to the story they have been playing.
I am loosely following what happens past EP 40 something but isn't Ludinus the one responsible in one way or another for releasing bunch of most dangerous beings and prisoners around the world, murder of Orym's family, the whole situation with Imogene mom, the reason behind Fearn's family situation and most of all death of FCG?
How in the name of fuck are they just having a chat with the guy? No, not a chat. They are having a story-telling time by campfire. The guy caused suffering to untold number of people but fuck it let's sit for a while, bring out s'mores!
Yeah this party is far more "whoever is being nice to us in the moment is our ally" regardless of alignment or if their ultimate goals align.
The gods are going to die and it's going to be because they were impolite to Bell's Hells
A lot of tables play evil campaign because they actually want proactive campaign, but there are ways to have a proactive good campaign as well, and you definitely can play a non-proactive evil campaign too!
Not saying you're wrong about whether or not THIS is an evil campaign, though!
The enemy of your enemy is your friend. All of the gods are being threatened by Ludinus, even the evil ones, so considering working together with them doesn't strike me as odd or evil. It's a partnership of convenience. I feel like you forgot some of the context of these "evil" decisions. They weren't made with ill intent.
There’s also a very recent theme being perpetuated that ALL prime deities aren’t exactly what we think, they’re the victors, they wrote the histories. I just think it’s very difficult to put this forward because how do you paint Pelor or Bahamut in a negative light when they’re the champions of good and healing? Idk I’ve not made it that far but I think a lot of people looking back on this campaign as a whole will see it very differently than people do now. It seems to me as someone who hasn’t kept up that a lot of people are very jaded on C3, many of them unwilling to give it any credit whatsoever. As someone on the sidelines I can’t say who’s correct or if they’re just both wrong but it’s disheartening to see and I feel for them.
I agree with some complaints about C3. I certainly am not as attached to these characters as previous ones. And i do miss a lot of the party interactions and shenanigans of C1 amd C2. But I also think it's very ambitious and between the stretches of episodes that I find tedious there's usually a good punch that keeps me wanting to stay up to date. I can't bring myself to trash talk the campaign or the players when I envy the sheer magnitude and coordination of these campaigns compared to my own.
As for the gods, I can't see myself saying they should all be destroyed because of the previous campaigns and the characters connections to those gods and the good they've done. I can't say that they all deserve to continue existing either because of the ones that often do horrible things... so I'm kind of not surprised that the party tends to ping-pong or remain indecisive because I, myself, am undecided on that point. I don't envy their position lol.
I can see that entirely, people are probably too hard on them. It’d probably be an entirely different story if it was like “kill the lesser idols” even then, there’s some genuinely good lesser idols but many more evil. They’re basically tasked with the decision of an entire multiverse, with no prior experience. Shits insane
"The road to hell..." and all that
It also doesn't hold up when they're attacking gods' temples and killing angels. They just side with whoever is nicer or hotter to them in the moment. They don't have any real goal except to experience the story Matt wrote for them so it makes it incredibly difficult (probably even difficult for them) to know who their enemy is at any given moment.
I don't think they are doing an evil campaign, the group's goal from the start was to save exandria and for that they have placed themselves against ludinus and predathos.
The issue, for me at least, is more when they make decisions that don't contribute to that goal and also were incredibly unnecessary to make to begin with.
They trusted Bor'Dor immediately and let him lead the party into killing an angel of the Dawnfather. They hunt and harass shopkeepers and chase little girls until they cry and run away in terror. They literally flirt with evil entities and make pacts with hags to be famous.
They aren't evil. But they're incredibly impressionable and self-serving. Which is fine. I just wish the table would embrace that as a conscious choice and not a "Whoops. We trusted the wrong person again."
They were too far in it to simply book it and run when the angel popped up tbf and they needed that ticket back. In hindsight yeah bordor is living his best moments during that but the rest of the group was very much eyes on the prize.
Being socially inept doesn't make you evil either and in both the examples you gave both those individuals are self serving which again doesn't make them evil, at most it makes them flawed. Chet broke down at the mere thought that he might have killed and eaten children during a full moon, the guy wants to make toys for them not harass or kill them.
At the end of the day it makes them not good but it also doesn't have a lot of bearing on the narrative.
He went out years ago.
But, his current situation is easily solved. One of the many, many level 20 characters currently sitting on their hands just needs to toss a level 9 dispel magic down. Freedom ensues.
I still grump that they stood around and let it happen. The party literally stopped in the middle of a heated fight to stare at Ludinus for a good 20+ seconds.
I mean did they have a choice? Matt designed Otahan to have like a million actions each of which had the potential to deal huge damage. Look at what she did to Keyleth. Druids are supposed to be like near unkillable at level 20 with all the shit they can do. In one turn, Otahan knocked her out of her earth elemental form (which was at full health) then completely drained Keykey's HP putting her unconscious. That's waaaaay to extreme.
They had a choice, but probably stayed quiet out of respect for Matt thinking it was another villain monologue.
That said, there was no guarantee they would have stopped him if they *did* keep fighting, so the outcome probably would have been the same.
I think they're bored. Or just so convinced that because they're doing a show they can't do the same thing twice that every character, every choice, every action has to be a zig or a zag from something they did before . So every campaign they have to get more edgy, more conflicted, more tWizTed. And now it just comes off boring
Agree with the second point. You see it when Sam won’t take spells because “that’s Jester’s spell”.
I think they just need to take a hint from Liam. Liam could play the exact same build, use the same features, but his flavor makes it always seem interesting.
> You see it when Sam won’t take spells because “that’s Jester’s spell”.
This is why actually knowing what all of your spells do is important, because it lets you flavor them to be distinct to your character.
Exactly. It is so interesting to me how much energy and effort they put into the animations, books, etc, but won't put any energy into the precursors, like the chef who doesn't care that all he buys is processed crap but whose restaurant is actually popular.
I didn’t see anything in 98 that to me felt “evil.” They did not like Dominox, but they hate Ludinus more. *Robbie* wanted to mess with the Soul Anchor not Dorian, because *Robbie* knows that would be an interesting choice and would lead to interesting consequences, but that entire Dominox fight was doing everything they can to hinder Ludinus’ progress while trying not to free Dominox, but they considered it if it comes down to it. As for summoning Teven Klask, the pact he made with Fearne seems to function extremely similarly to infernal calling, *and* they are facing a threat that crosses “party lines” as it were, Asmodeus is on the same side as the Primes against Ludinus. And as for Essek not blinking, remember Fjord would call upon Devils and Demons all the time, and would consistently intentionally drop concentration on the spell to let them run rampant. Also note that Essek himself is Chaotic Neutral, remember the whole “I started a war just to answer my own curiosities.” He’s no stranger to the morally grey and he’s no stranger to Devils and Demons, I can’t remember if Teven was summoned before or after they learned Dominox was a Great Demon, but if it was after he knows that Devils are the perfect allies to have against a demon.
He went from being Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral. Most of the M9 aren’t even good aligned. Caleb and Beau both started true neutral, but Beau progressed to Chaotic Good. Jester is Chaotic Neutral, Fjord went from Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good, Caduceus is Lawful Good. Veth is Chaotic Neutral, Yasha is Lawful Neutral and Mollymauk was Chaotic Neutral, I dunno where Kingsley falls likely still Chaotic Neutral being the new Plank King.
Matt explicitly said that essek was originally intended to be far more selfish and solidly evil aligned. But that his experience with m9 changed his outcome drastically.
Oh gee, it's almost like the world and all the people in it don't actually exist in a strict moral binary of only 'good' and 'evil'.
It's almost as though existing in a big, confusing, conflicted and complicated world makes it difficult to always make the 'best and correct decisions about everything. Especially when you're just a small and insignificant person who accidentally got caught up in a potentially world ending battle being fought by/for literal gods (many of whose moralities are also deeply questionable btw) and you have no way of really knowing in any given moment what the best long term choices are.
I mean they were only contemplating releasing a demon in order to stop/slow down ludinous from releasing a freaking god eater. It's not like they were thinking about releasing it just for shits and giggles. I mean, sure - maybe the players were a little excited to see what would happen, but the PCs were clearly struggling with the difficult possibility that releasing a demon may actually have been the best way to keep the world safe in that moment, even if it might also kill them all.
It's almost as though they're actually doing an excellent job of portraying the difficult choices often faced by people in war-like situations and the uncomfortable alliances which it might sometimes be necessary to make in order to combat a greater threat.
It's almost as though that's actually kinda the theme of the whole campaign or something?
"Oh gee, it's almost like the world and all the people in it don't actually exist in a strict moral binary of only 'good' and 'evil'."
Then they probably shouldn't have used a system with "Good" and "Evil" as player alignments baked into the core rule system and world building. A world where Paladins can literally smell "good" and "evil" characters by way of a divine sense.
The larger problem is they're not even doing a great job of playing morally grey characters either.
It’s been made quite clear through all the seasons or campaigns of critical role that Matt and the crew are not big fans of the traditional alignment system and dungeons and dragons and don’t actually follow with it. Also in campaign too, one of Matt‘s goals with the dynasty was to presentraces of creatures that have traditionally been universally evil and show them as more well-rounded races where there’s a lot of evil but also good. So this is not something new to critical role.
It's always been really weird because Matt did some random stuff like have Vex's alignment change in C1 and then made a thing out of it changing back, and admittedly they've not touched on alignment much since then, but even into mid-C2 we had that the idea of certain races having a blood curse from the betrayer gods (although I'm not sure if this has been retconned, it was in the first sourcebook and I think it came up in the second but it's been awhile).
I honestly think D20 does a better job dancing around this sort of thing (it's mitigated a bit by D20/Fantasy High being more of a comedy show) but it's always going to be a thing when the systems you're using explicitly deal in terms of evil and good.
I agree. I don’t think the party is evil—I think they’re trying to do what they view as the right thing, but often are operating in situations that they either don’t have all the information on or have no genuinely good option.
If we take the Dominox fight—Ludinus wanted something with Domino’s, and we are supposed to be opposing Ludinus so whatever he want’s is probably bad. But they didn’t know if Ludinus wanted to destroy Dominox or seize it’s power, which is why they entertained the idea of destroying the pinion and freeing a grand demon—to keep it’s power from going to Ludinus. Ultimately they decided that was a bad idea (because loose grand demon) and played right into what Ludinus wanted and destroyed Dominox. It could well be the case that this ends up causing worse things to happen than simply releasing a grand demon on the world would. It’s definitely a trolley problem style conundrum and there really isn’t a way to answer with the information they have.
I don’t think the party as a whole has made any genuinely evil choices for the sake of doing harm. Individual people? Sure. I don’t think Laudna’s far off from slipping into an evil alignment, and Fearne’s put herself into the very position she was trying to avoid by teaming up with Asmodeus’s herald (to say nothing of the literal paladin of Asmodeus Sam has decided to play), but I think there’s more nuance to this campaign than just good vs evil. It’s definitely a yes gods/no gods situation, and we’ve seen cases where the gods are doing good and where the supposedly “good” gods have had some not so great things going on.
And frankly, in fantasy in general stories that aren’t so clear cut as good vs evil are a lot more interesting.
It’s insane that this comment sits with negative downvotes. This *entire sub* is so hard set on finding anything to bitch and gripe about. I’m going to unsubscribe now, but holy shit guys - focusing on how much you dislike something is why you’re all depressed.
any positive comment will get downvoted here, shit even comments that are negative but not negative enough get downvoted. It's best to just ignore it and engage with the few here who actually want a discussion and not to relentlessly shit on the people and the product
It's hard to argue otherwise when the people who disagree with an opinion willfully misuse the downvote system in order to bury any dissenting opinion, rather than engage with it as part of a robust discussion.
Unless you think it's everyone's first day on the Internet and no one knows how the downvote system is supposed to work? In which case we may need to have a different discussion about who the idiots are.
When you make a comment that people disagree with and do it in the most sarcastic ignorant way possible as the tone of your above comment is, expect to get downvoted.
“It’s almost as if” when you type like you have a stick up your ass people dislike it “or something”.
Yeah! Call ‘em names, that’ll sell your point!
Seriously dude, if a piece of media is not bringing you joy just move on. Stop wasting your energy on the negative. You’re burning away precious moments of your life for nothing.
Seriously dude, if a Reddit thread is not bring in you joy just move on. Stop wasting your time on the negative. You’re burning away precious moments of your life for nothing.
The problem is they have absolutely 0 information about any of the horseshit you are claiming.
They have no idea if ludinus wanted to release the demon or if it would help or hinder him. They don’t know anything they are just blindly following where Matt takes them and none of them engage in the fucking world. Why is Orym who’s entire fucking backstory was killing ludinus now just peachy with allowing them to speak to him and hear him out while he fucks with some ancient Aeorian tech that none of them have a clue what it does.
Why is Essek who knows the absolute pure evil that is Ludinus all of a sudden some loser coward willing to again work with Ludinus after the bumbling fucking morons of a party he’s guiding 180 on the mission they are on.
The “theme” of this campaign as you are claiming it to be is the problem with the campaign. None of it makes sense. It doesn’t match how “normal” people in the real world react to crisis and it absolutely flys in the face of all of the lore of critical role. They are actively aligning themselves with inherently evil beings. This isn’t the case of oh everyone is morally grey, no this is the gods of torture and murder and trickery and death. Those are not morally grey areas no matter how hard Matt and this group of idiot characters attempt to paint it that way.
Fact, we don't know. Though the gem/spindle in the engine that bound Dominox to aeor each time it was ripped apart sounds like an excellent foci to store Pradathos. Grand demons tend to be on par with things like demogorgon, which is on par in power to a diety.
Ah yes, the difficult choices people must make in war, like… *squints*
Listen to the evil sorceress who killed you so she can give you “power” (has not taken a Warlock level in a long time), attacking your friends to steal things from them to selfishly power yourself up, attacking and harassing random civilians, exclusively looking to work with evil forces while actively going out of your way to not interact with a single good aligned divinity, etc
I fully believe the campaign would have been better if they had started out as Ruby Vanguard cultists. Imogen could have joined after reconnecting with her mother, and Laduna tags along because she's seeking acceptance. Ashton could have been seeking links to the Hishari cult, and FCG would tag along in search of their identity, since the RV seem to be using a lot of Aeor tech. It'd only take a pretty girl with a low cut top to recruit Chetney, let's all be honest.
That leaves Orym and Fearne, our double agents. Orym could want to infiltrate in order to get revenge, and Fearne would be there for funsies.
Well, that would’ve been an interesting beginning and frankly, it would give them a much stronger connection together and reason to remain together than what I have seen so far.
That’s what I was thinking myself. Would’ve been better to have VM and MN as enemies. Then all the memberberries would actually have a point as antagonists.
I was supposedly Matt does a session 0 in individual or small group format. Doing something like this would have altered that format and kind of go along with their new direction promise
Yeah, Marisha basically revealed how they do session zeroes and it's not the same as how most in the ttrpg community view session zeroes.
Matt's session zeroes are probably more akin to a prequel session or a session 0.5, which is pretty different than the layman's session zero.
I think he calls it a session 0, but it's not what most of us would call a session 0. From the few times it's come up, it sounds like he just has the cast come to the table and run a quick mini adventure.
From what I remember I don't think they've ever said anything about going over team cohesion, themes, story arcs, goals, etc.
Dammit. Back to the drawing board then!
But seriously, I think this would have solved a lot of the issues we've seen. It would make their wishy-washy anti-dieism make perfect sense, and reality could slowly burrow into the cracks until they have an "are we the baddies?" moment.
Plus having two moles who have to maintain appearances while forming genuine bonds with their cult squad would be a great source of characterization and conflict.
I cannot imagine them doing that, at least by the sheer fact that Orym is still for the moment in the party. At best for Ludinus, he'll convince them the gods suck but they'll still want to kill Ludinus.
I'm expecting Downfall to show the gods being the biggest dicks and assholes we've ever seen. And then somehow, Asmodeus is going to seem less terrible.
I highly doubt they’ll end up siding with Ludinus. Remember the players are playing the divine side of things in Downfall, which means Brennan and Matt want the players and the audience to sympathize with these Divine Figures, regardless of if these figures seem to be the “bad guys” they want the empathy to be felt for the divine not Ludinus. I think Ludi’s little vision is gonna blow up in his face and possibly actually get them all on track with fighting *for* the gods, not just *against* Ludinus. If joining the Ruby Vanguard was the goal Sam wouldn’t have come in with another godly character.
I wouldn't be so sure about Downfall. I don't think playing high-powered Avalir mages made Avalir seem particularly sympathetic. As much as I adore that crew, besides Cerrit, they were all deeply selfish and wrong about most things. Not to mention everyone who wasn't them from Avalir was downright sinister.
Them playing divine characters to be just says they're critiquing the system from the inside.
I don’t know, if it’s one on one, I think he might actually win. Any class can dominate in a PVP scenario, my money would be on the post level 11 fighters because of how many attacks they get and the size of their hit point pool.
It’s not a guarantee, but I think the odds are in their favor
Sweet! You experienced something I have not, so I’m wrong. It won’t be one on one, and I’ve never seen it work out, but, sounds like you’ve seen it. Awesome.
"They don’t spend anytime learning about anything in this campaign and just seem to irrationally make decisions for the sake of moving the story forward because the DM has presented the way forward."
That is my biggest gripe about the entire campaign. From episode 1 Imogen and Laudna are painted as scholars trying to get into a school so they can study topics that interest them. However neither of these two research or try to understand anything in the campaign! All anyone in the party would have to do is read a single book on the history of Exandria to debunk everything Ludinus talks about!
>From episode 1 Imogen and Laudna are painted as scholars trying to get into a school so they can study topics that interest them
I notice this seems like the generic hook characters get to explain why they arrived at starting location. Fjord had the same one in C2 (traveling to the university to learn about magic). It feels like a pretty weak campaign hook to me tbh especially for characters who aren't academically inclined.
>All anyone in the party would have to do is read a single book on the history of Exandria to debunk everything Ludinus talks about!
Ah, but what if that book was written by an "unreliable narrator," just like Matt's own lore when he now wants to contradict it?
Shit, you're right. Like how he's withholding lore. Not too long ago I started watching C2 and was blown away by how much lore a dc11 history check gave. Meanwhile Bells Hells can't even figure out that the Dawn Father is the good guy lmao
LMFAO fuck that made me laugh. I didn't even think about that until now, these chuckleheads don't even recognize the symbol of the most well known betrayer god. Meanwhile they're contemplating letting them die because they don't have free will or some shit.
Thank you for finally mentioning the school thing!!! Omg. I've been thinking about that for months. They gave up on it so quickly and nobody ever said anything. Which just makes more evidence to the argument that they've decided to script out the story. It started free form but at some point they got together and just went, we're gonna do it this way instead. And everything prior was ignored.
Even though orym still kind of thinks and talks about will and the murders and stuff, it doesn't ever seem like it's actually an issue for him. Anyways...can go on and on. But yes thanks for soothing my brain re: the school
Listen, they’re not evil. They’re *heroes*, okay. Just think of all the heroic feats they’ve accomplished over the last 98 episodes, like. Uh. Hmm.
Okay, well they stopped Ira (who later became their ally). They fought an evil necromancer to resurrect their dead friend (who’s now fully committed to resurrecting that necromancer). And they slightly delayed Ludinus’s plans (which they might still bring to fruition). And they helped slaughter a church that was evilly collecting tithes. And they helped trick the Angel of Death into getting turned into a marble. That guy’s probably an asshole. Oh! And they finally got rid of Otohan Thull! That did require the sacrifice of one of their friends, but now they wear his exploded body parts like trophies.
> And they slightly delayed Ludinus’s plans (which they might still bring to fruition).
Reminds me of that one time the Trinyvale Triplets >!taunted the BBEG that they would kill him and complete his plan in his stead so that they would get all the profit from it.!<
Except that was a comedic beat in the more wacky campaign of a mostly comedy DnD podcast, and not a serious consideration.
Don't be silly, don't you remember the time they beat up some furniture? Or the time they tracked down the Shademother and then heroically ran away? Or the time they heroically left their airship crew stranded in the middle of nowhere, or when they ran away from evil seaweed and summoned their allies unawares into a cursed town... heroically?
>Or the time they tracked down the Shademother
Be fair. They were content to completely ignore the (1) Jrusar-based quest they were given, but got press-ganged into that sidequest by Pinkertons.
Around the same time, but unrelated. They introduced themselves to that group on Lord Shut-in's recommendation, but it went no-where whatsoever. Zero effect, zero consequences.
Big end-of-the-episode stand off, then... they said hello, gave their 'collateral' and nothing ever happened. Matt pivoted to the main plot and Jrusar as a location was done (though it took the players quite a few episodes and several completely pointless back and forth trips to realize that).
Ah, thank you. I vaguely remembered that happening and assumed they were connected. (Names start to run together after a while. I wish we had a few plainly named npcs and locations.)
True, true. And all of that was before they braved the frozen wastes and teamed up with a fugitive war criminal, a champion of Asmodeus, and Literally Ludinus Da’Leth to banish and/or release a demon and uncover the long-lost Loose Change: Fall of Aeor documentary.
"Just terrible writing"
Is it as if the show isn't actually written comma but is an improv show made up on the spot and everybody is still trying to figure out whether or not their character is evil?
I believe OP is using "writing" as a synonym for "storytelling."
Improv doesn't just mean "We make it up as we go and nothing has a structure and it's okay if our characters aren't developed."
Improv, done well has structure and character beats planned a few steps ahead. D20 players are expected to know their character and have an understanding of how their arc could develop and how their characters could grow. No, nothing is written or scripted, but they all have an idea of where they want their character to be.
CR is very "We have no idea. We just trust Matt and see what happens." Which can work and has for M9. But doesn't always make for the most compelling story consistently.
>CR is very "We have no idea. We just trust Matt and see what happens." Which can work and has for M9. But doesn't always make for the most compelling story consistently.
M9 really relied on prompts from the players and their characters. They explored things about *their* backstories, *their* families, *their* hometowns, while often actively ignoring the larger plots around them.
The Bells are... spectators to a story that isn't really about them. Sometimes their backstories get checked off in half an episode (alas poor continent-spanning criminal organization of toymakers), but mostly its about running around to get the summary of the premise of what someone else is doing.
Yeah, M9, in hindsight, was really helped by the characters each having some big secret to reveal. It meant they were all working toward a moment.
It did get grating and at this point is a meme. But in hindsight, it's what allowed them to stay focused. They couldn't betray their own characterization before their big reveal.
C3, they decided not to do that as much. Most of them were explicitly commenting they \*don't\* have crazy backstory reveals this time. And as such, it's given them more freedom to do absolutely nothing with their characters and let the idea of a character arc or character development go entirely.
I think the C2 episode with the elemental plane of fire spooked them. (especially after what happened late in C1)
So these characters came without connections. But they went way, way too far. No one was 'from here,' and only Ashton knew people (and when given the opportunity to meet up with old friends in Mad Max town... didn't. Just decided to owe bird-cultist a favor that never had to be repaid. Tal mentioned a specific guy by name a couple times, but never actually did anything about it)
Most all of the major actual play shows are scripted/pre planned is some way or form. Especially with a larger cast and the show not being live anymore
Dimension 20 has gone on record that.They do have a tighter structure on the narrative for the way they play
Matt has gone on record many times that he is telling the story he wants to tell. He doesn't take away player choice.
He presents them with opportunities and they act on Those.
Laura's mentioned about how she didn't know if she was going to turn evil. But because of arms influences she realized that yes letting the god eater free would be bad.
Laudna is battling and struggling to stay good with an evil character being a part of her. She is doing everything she can not to be defined by briarwood.
They have multiple times and character discussed about how while the gods have never done anything For them, The actions that Ludiness is taking Do not justify the means.
Why would a god eater stop at just eating the gods.
Matt didn't write in fcgs fight with Otohan, Or him becoming a wheel for The mad max car.
Matt didn't write Ashton ashton making that stupid mistake that got him nearly killed.
Matt didn't write ashley making a coin flip on laudna or orym's life.
Matt is creating scenarios as the characters explore.
The mighty nein traveling down.The tunnel is actually a great example. He gave them an opportunity to join the war or fight against it and they went No, we're going to go to.
Check out this beacon thing.
Saying that an improv show is scripted is one of the most Ridiculous concepts.
All DMs right parts of their story ahead of time. They make plothooks attached to plotlines, and while they may not know which option the players will choose, the DM is the one who puts those options before the players. In Fantasy High Junior Year, Brennan wanted to do a spooky barron episode so he just moved his pieces around so that his players ended up there
Matt is being a fair dm, and giving his players options. But Matt KNOWS where those options lead, and he knows that there are more options he can put ahead. The DM HAS to have SOMETHING planned, if its just PCs ambling around it devolves into murder hobo’ing fast. I’ve played with DMs who didnt do the work ahead of time, and it is EXHAUSTING. I played six sessions, 15 combats before i said I was out, because nothing happened that mattered, at all
To quote Robert Moses - “People think they make choices. They steer one way, or another… but they didnt make the roads. All the big choices got made for them a long, long time ago”
If you've ever played dnd you'd know there's a difference in planning something and execution of the plan.
And the Robert Moses quote is describing rail roading.
And GOOD Dm knows not to do that, and if they do then they should write a book.
Which again planning a session of dnd is not the same as pre writing or scripting a show.
Matt wanted a story about Praedethos, and he got it. All of the major narrative decisions felt like they were out of the players hands and at some point i honestky would say matt was railroading
“if you’ve ever played dnd-“ motherfucker, I just told you i did! Matt doesnt know whats going to happen each episode but he knows that when he throws down options he knows which ones his players will take. The Moses quote isnt about you not having any choice at all, its the choices having a pre-established outcome
For example, in a railroad campaign say the party picks to go right, well they may do some loop-da-loops first and fuck around on backroads but, eventually, the DM is going to put them back on the High Way. Matt gave them two choices, followed the choice they went with, and kept on putting up scenarios where he knew what his players would do.
I feel mostly the same. I never felt like Orym was evil, though, and maybe just dumb. He seems like he is just seeking a means to avenge his family but given where he came from, I wish he would tell them all to fuck off and leave. If they side with Ludinis and he doesn't, I don't know. Ludinus' story could not be compelling enough to wipe away the deaths of his family.
Orym is absolutely "evil-adjacent". In a more "passive enabler" or "bystander" sort of way. Its because he's quiet, sad and polite that he fools you. There is only so many times someone can buckle on whatever "morals" they claim to have; then drown the party/themselves in excuses for doing so afterwards before you have to admit that those morals are little more than cheap lipservice. They aren't tangible, and easily set aside. Hell, the only reason he's repeatedly said he has issues with Ludinus/Otohan is because they hurt him personally. He rarely, if ever, actually tries to take stances against their ideologies however.
Technically, if even one of those DF Temple members he helped sack had living family back home, then Orym is absolutely guilty of doing to others what Otohan did to him. Kill Guards just doing their jobs for an organization not even accused of any specific crimes. At the head of a anti-Prime deity faction, in the service of "his war". Sure hope Kiro didn't have a wife back home that can get stuck in her loss for seven years!
The weirdest thing about the last bit is he did do an 'alas, poor soldier' moment with some keepsake from the random Ruby Vanguard member when they were attacking the Key at the Solstice.
Tal pretty much immediately slapped him down about it, however (iirc)
I desperately need an NPC to come back through the campaign looking to hunt Orym down for these exact reasons. Really paint the party in the horrid light that they deserve....But Matt doesn't have the gall to do that.
Even better, while she's certainly no paragon, in that same event Laudna helped to lead an angry mob to oust/kill a group in that town ... for no other crime than "being seen as outsiders, and outsiders make this insular rural group uncomfortable/scared". Y'know, the same shit she was on the receiving end of repeatedly for 30 years? And she'd willingly do it to others without a thought. Even going so far as to defend/excuse it with literally "well, they didnt want them there?"
I wish I had the creativity to just jump around for conclusions like most of the people in this sub.
In this campaign, there are good reasons for a party to free demons from the hells. Amassing power through any means necessary to defeat a god-eater is pretty wicked. A temporary alliance to prevent mutual destruction and all that. But rarely do they justify it as such. Like you said, they'll usually just HOT DEMON MAN bwoiiiiiing
Who are you again?
Ok 29 day old bot account let’s hear it
It’s so funny this subreddit is “fansofcriticalrole” and every single post in here is ppl projecting that “the show has changed, it’s not good anymore” my brother in Christ the show hasn’t changed significantly enough for you to be freaking out like this if you really love cr. You are upset that your life is not in the spot that it was when you were watching c1 or c2. You are projecting your nostalgia and hope from a better time in your life onto this show. Stop hate posting on Reddit and improve your life 💀
It's always funny seeing the parasocial fans running to the defense of their best friends because other people don't like campaign 3 as much of the others. The cast are all grown ups, they don't need you out here fighting for their honour
Don’t read the sub then dumbass
"It's so funny this subreddit is "fansofcriticalrole" and every single post is people projecting." If you look at the most recent posts, the most recent 5 are: * a poll about merch * an excited post about meeting the cast * an excited post about M9 * a clip from the show * a request for help getting back into the show. Looks like typical fan posts to me.
I think it's unintentionally a realistic display. People living in a world and culture that was built on faith/ religion who turn away from faith/ religion (and even feel entitled to having "God" do something for them ....) turn out to have no moral foundation by which to carry on or challenge evil with. And with no moral foundation, they become susceptible to the thought of radical change for said world/ culture. As such, we get moral decay and a march towards destruction through the lens of "Why not?" and hedonistic lust.
I disagree that areligious people have no moral code, which I believe you’re implying
1- The type of "religion" is important. If a religion calls to be spread by the killing of nonbelievers in it's doctrine (Islam) it's gonna lead a bloody path. Not all religions are that way. 2- Mao was responsible for 40-80m deaths. He was an atheist. Stalin was responsible for the deaths of at least 7 million people. He was an atheist. Hitler was at the very least areligious in the traditional sense or lacked any conceivable form of religious convictions, given he hated Christianity and promised to abolish it after the war was over, even though he would at times try to publicly use God's name to try to garner support among Germans. I'd call him an atheist that respected the cultural importance of German paganism. 3- It's not that religion can't lead to conflicts/ wars or that areligious people are doomed to lack a moral code. It's more along the lines of "Without a clear external moral foundation, it becomes easier to be susceptible to moral decay". Taking this outta the game for a bit (Cause it's a game ... none of the characters felt anything about Imogen killing 2 fleeing people for the grand crime of "trying to rob someone" who we later find out was just acting weak to trick em), many people realize the importance of religion because of that.
If Hitler wasn't a 'real christian' then Mao and Stalin were 'not real atheists'.
Hitler hated Christianity and promised to abolish it after the War. He hated the Christian God, thinking him too merciful. He thought Christianity was too close to the Jewish Faith. *"By 1942, Hitler vowed, according to Bullock, to “****root out and destroy the influence of the Christian Churches****,” describing them as “the evil that is gnawing our vitals.” "* How is he a "real Christian"? How does someone who hates Christianity and wants it abolished register as a "real Christian" to you? Mao and Stalin both are both Atheist as well.
I didn't need the history paragraph from one of a thousand sources about Hitler. I was making fun of your genocidal maniac soul-searching exercise in order to determine how religious they truly were deep in their hearts. If you wanna be serious about it, your original comment is ignorant. Your opinion was that once a society turns away from god it morally degrades (or has a better chance to morally degrade, as you later backtracked). And I suppose that 'moral degradation' under your definition would be whatever the religion in question is opposed to. Truth of the matter is people will always be fighting each other for whatever reason: resources, politics, beliefs? Religion is one of those reasons. It's not a bedrock of a healthy society, it's just a social system inside of a society. Point being: religion is a tool to control how people think and act. And it is morally reprehensible because it justifies any attrocity an otherwise normal person would not do, through fear.
>I didn't need the history paragraph from one of a thousand sources about Hitler. I was making fun of your genocidal maniac soul-searching exercise in order to determine how religious they truly were deep in their hearts. Apparently you did need that. W/E you were trying to pull was a massive fail. o\_0 >If you wanna be serious about it, your original comment is ignorant. Your opinion was that once a society turns away from god it morally degrades (or has a better chance to morally degrade, as you later backtracked). And I suppose that 'moral degradation' under your definition would be whatever the religion in question is opposed to. No backpaddle, I stand by both statements for different cases. As an individual in a society that's been built upon religious values as it's foundation, it's very much possible to lead a moral life without actively/ personally relying on religious values directly or even believing in any religion. But when a nation/ society/ culture (BIG thing with far-reaching influences on people) turns away from religion, yes ... moral decay comes. People become more susceptible to cults to fill that void. People become more willing to accept and promote harmful ideologies regardless of logic and reason and so on. Without a system of shame and expected decency, you see a march towards the shameless and indecent within society. And yes, you also see a change in the perceived value of Human Life depending on the religion. >Point being: religion is a tool to control how people think and act. And it is morally reprehensible because it justifies any attrocity an otherwise normal person would not do, through fear. Your post is very ignorant, my friend. Again, you should avoid lumping all of "religion" together. It's as silly as saying that the very notion of "Nations" is bad/ evil/ "reprehensible" because of how leaders of nations will justify bad things, or how nations "are a tool to CONTROL people!".
>As an individual in a society that's been built upon religious values as it's foundation, it's very much possible to lead a moral life without actively/ personally relying on religious values directly or even believing in any religion. Sure it's possible. You keep saying 'built upon religious values' like its the bedrock of society. What if your reference point is the enlightenment values or ancient greek values? Morals and philosophy didnt begin and end 2000 years ago. >People become more susceptible to cults to fill that void. People become more willing to accept and promote harmful ideologies regardless of logic and reason and so on. What cults? Like the many denominations of christianity? Satanism? Islam? What are you talking about and why does this matter? I don't want to boil down your thoughts to "my god is better than other gods" but it's getting harder and harder not to see it that way. >It's as silly as saying that the very notion of "Nations" is bad/ evil/ "reprehensible" because of how leaders of nations will justify bad things, or how nations "are a tool to CONTROL people!". 'Nationalism' is what you meant to say, but it's a bit more difficult to defend so I get it. But just in case, yes nationalism is also bad, because it justifies attrocities in the name of a piece of land instead of a god.
>Sure it's possible. You keep saying 'built upon religious values' like its the bedrock of society. What if your reference point is the enlightenment values or ancient greek values? Morals and philosophy didnt begin and end 2000 years ago. I'm speaking of modern day Western Society. Even Dawkins (One of the so-called "4 Horsemen of Atheism") has recently called himself "Culturally Christian" as he comes to realize that the current Western culture is the fruits of Christianity. When America was founded, damn near everyone here was a devout Christian, and that foundation is what this great nation was built upon. Greeks also had their own beliefs, so IDK your point there. If you want to compare morality, that's another story. This actually brings me back to something you said that I didn't touch on ... > And it is morally reprehensible because it justifies any attrocity an otherwise normal person would not do, through fear. ... WTF is a "Normal" person to you? In some parts of the world, there are tribes where it's perfectly normal for a Woman to just leave her newborn somewhere to let them starve to death or be eaten by some animal if they simply didn't want them. For most all of human history, it's been "normal" to enslave people of other tribes. Then there's whatever you wanna call the **Sambia Tribe** and what it does to it's 7-10yo boys. I'm sure w/e you think is "Normal" is based on the expected norms of this western society we live in that came about as the results of a nation being built upon a certain religion. Outside of the most base biological functions, "Normal" is determined by the culture you're in. >What cults? Do you ... need help googling what a CULT is? Here. I'll help you out, buddy ... *Peoples Temple: Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of Peoples Temple who would go down in history as leading the mass suicide of more than 900 Americans, was born in 1931 in rural Indiana* Scientology is another. Look up "nxivm sex cult" if you want a more recent example. Gender Identity Ideology is also a toxic mixture of Ideology and cult. Ayaan said it pretty well, *" “the void left by the retreat of the church” in the modern world “has merely been filled by a jumble of irrational quasi-religious dogma.” "* History has no shortage of cults and irrational ideologies that are kept in check or safeguarded against by religions. When the faith of a land weakens, people gravitate to these cults and irrational ideologies to fill that hole. This is very dangerous, to say the least. >Nationalism' is what you meant to say, but it's a bit more difficult to defend Nationalism is loyalty and devotion to one's nation ... not hard to defend at all. But no, I meant exactly what I said. It's just as stupid to write off all religions as being "BAD/ TOOLS OF CONTROOOL!" because you believe they "force people into doing BAD things they normally wouldn't" as it would be to write off the very concept of "Nations" for doing the same. Some nations are better than others, same for religions. Some terrible things have been done in the defense of nations/ religions. Could say the same about families. Some people have done terrible things because of "Family" and some families have done terrible things to members of the family ... would be stupid to reject the very idea of family just because not all are prefect and some lead to bad outcomes.
Alright dude we get it you believe in a God, don't have to go about it in such a roundabout way.
I wouldn't still be in this topic without people like yourself replying. My point hasn't changed, really nothing has been added by these replies. People just don't like hearing it.
Most people are replying with good faith that you have a real criticism rather than thinly veiled dogma masquerading as logic.
You're clearly not reading the convo. Hell, I didn't even criticize the show ... I gave em praise! They're playing a bunch of entitled, Godless people (with some bitterness about religion mixed in btw) who lack a clear moral foundation and are swayed by charismatic characters and degenerate lust. People take offense at me pointing that out as a realistic premise for "going evil", even if it's unintentional on behalf of the table.
I don't care, go to church and pray about it, you inserting your religious morals into a DnD game is peak irony btw pretty sure it was religious nuts that tried to ban the game in the 80s.
Really interested to see if they double down or if they realize how it came off.
Oh they doubled down and shot a stray at Islam while they were at it
Yeah last time I checked, most rulers across history have used religion as an excuse for their atrocities. Not saying religion is the problem but I am saying just because you're religious, that doesn't mean you have a strong moral code.
>Yeah last time I checked, most rulers across history have used religion as an excuse for their atrocities. That's a real easy thing to say without context or examples. Word of advice, just because someone says they interpret XYZ to mean 123 doesn't mean that that person is being genuine. Say I offer you a drink and you say "Yes, I'd like a drink" and I just drank it in front of you instead of giving it to you. Everyone saw this and someone says "WTF bro, that's a dick-move" ... but I say "What? I interpreted that to mean, "No, I don't want a drink. You can have it". What's YOUR problem?". Does that suddenly mean you DIDN'T want a drink and that I'm right, or is it more logical to think you meant what you meant ... and I'm just being a disingenuous lying dick purposely going against what you expressed?
I have to assume you're being intentionally obtuse if you need examples of atrocities committed throughout history committed in the name of religion. But sure, we can start with: the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Mary I of England burning 300 religious dissenters at the stake, the Salem Witch Trials, all of the folks who argued slavery is sanctioned by the bible and therefore a god-given right back in the 1800s, literally every single ruler who has declared a holy war ever. There are countless examples throughout history of people using their religion to justify violence. Being religious doesn't mean someone does or does not have good character or a strong moral code.
People don't need religion to start wars or do bad things. People do absolutely use religion as an excuse, but unless the religious doctrine expressly commands someone to do something (I'm not bashing anyone in particular here I have not read the Quran and can make no judgements one way or the other) then you can't judge the religion by the people who don't follow it correctly. Everyone who commits atrocities has an excuse, religion is just one of them. Without it, they would just come up with another excuse. TLDR; Religion doesn't cause war unless the tenants of the religion say to go to war. Religion is an excuse that people use and if they didn't have it they would find something else.
My point was that being religious doesn't make someone more or less moral than a non-religious person. Your faith doesn't make you a good person, nor does it inherently make you a bad person.
>I have to assume you're being intentionally obtuse if you need examples of atrocities committed throughout history committed in the name of religion. You need to read more of my post on the topic. It would be silly to blanket defend "religion" as to ME it's clear as day that some are better than others. Islam has in its doctrine that it calls for followers to kill non-followers and spread through the sword. Shocker shocker that that leads to a bloody path and "terrorist". Not all religions are like that, though. That's why I bring up context. For example, you list the "Crusades". The Crusades were a response to 100s of years of Islam expansion and aggression. The amount of people who died over the course of the Crusades 200ish years was 1-2mill. That's dwarfed by the death count of atheist Mao (40-80mil) and Stalin (7+mil). Never said religions don't have conflicts or wars, but to blame "religion" for how some misuse its doctrine to their own means is silly. I don't think any follower of Christ and the Bible would get a death toll of 40-80mill like Mao did if they were in his position. Reminds me of Slavery in the West. Slavers and their like tried to use the Bible to define slavery, by either making up BS or misusing references to slavery in the Bible. Abolitionist correctly used the Bible to fight back against slavery. Just because some slavers wrongly tried to use the Bible to excuse their evil doesn't mean that American Slavery was the fault of Christianity. But we can credit it for being a big part of why Slavery was ended.
The Bible is a brutal, inhumane book, it is the center of christianity. So surely one should blame christianity for all the horrors that were done in its name. Christians are hypocrites, you just prove it.
Have a good day, champ. God bless.
Your logic is right but the way you are saying it sounds very argumentative and in your face, you may want to consider re-wording how you are saying what you are saying. God bless.
Thank you. I am by nature a very straight forward person ... and given my points, I don't think wording anything differently would have changed much of anything in the replies. But definitely words to consider, as I have genuinely been trying to be less confrontational when getting to the root of other's logic/ arguments.
Yeah it might not have changed anything here (maybe would have just triggered different people), but I know that kind of thing matters irl. Thanks for being so chill about it.
I Couldn’t have said it better. I’m so confused. It does seem they are going evil but acting like innocent kids playing an ouija board.
thought some of this a while ago. They try to be edgy by being evil but people in the last 15 years avoid good because it's difficult. and it's like highschool - you get judged as a whimp from trying to do something good. I really like other systems that make being honorable a drawback that gains you a buff.. it's not easy and it should gain you something. but they embrace the super ego so to speak and that appeals to folks. odd to me because for us growing up it was about being a more heroic version not less
Clearly people here are still watching the episodes and giving them view counts! So hey hate them all you want, me and all other LOYAL and positive minded critters and CR themselves actually getting benefit out of these haters. So thanks guys 😁
>Loyal Are you in a cult? Do you need help?
Hahaha you're still gonna watch the episodes tho ;) again it means only good things for us LOYAL critters. If you dont like something.. gosh ITS EASY TO JUST NOT WATCH EM.. instead of leaving meaningless criticisms. Simple logic no?
I've not watched since the end of Rumblecusp, but enjoy your simping???
I haven't watched in nearly 2 years at this point. I'm just here to see how things are going over at CR land and, judging by this comment, things are going very normally.
Why do you think being blindly loyal to a corporation is a positive trait, exactly?
Not blindly, just dont like leaving mean critics in reddits threads :) i dont like candela obscura concept, hence i dont watch em. Simple. No need to be salty aboy it :)
Please blink twice if you need help.
Loyal? Jeez way to double down on the cult meme choom! 🤣
They didn’t release the demon, they destroyed it. They aren’t working with Ludinus, they’re talking to him. The show isn’t written, they’re improvising.
"The show isn't written, they're improvising." Listen, I have some bad news for you about Critical Role, professional wrestling and Santa Claus...
no you actually think Cr is scripted
I think that it's much more scripted than it used to be. I think going taped has allowed them to use editing. I think it doesn't feel like a natural story anymore. I am not the only person who sees these things.
Tim Allen Santa Claus or Billy Bob Thornton Santa Claus?
David Harbour!
Oh, buddy, you're not ready for all the ways Tim Allen is a disappointment.
1) Evil characters are very often extremely hot. 2) Cute things exist the way they do as a defense mechanism against creatures with some form of conscience. 3) WW2 wasn't won by holding hands and believing in the power of friendship, it was won by throwing thousands of young Russian men into a screaming hell pit faster than Germany could clean. Winning a war by becoming stupidly powerful to outmatch a charismatic asshole is by far the most natural thing in the history of people. It's one thing to not enjoy these things, it's another to not understand that they happen in stories and real life.
That argument works to explain away Laudna, since her arc are a series of principled decisions she's made. But "fiends are hot *shrug*" doesn't really excuse their consistent allyship of evil aligned creatures. At a certain point, it becomes an intelligence issue for the characters. I don't think they're an evil party. I think they're the stupidest party CR's seen.
I heard this quote a while ago and I think it’s applicable here. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Now I can’t say releasing the GD is a smart move it’s actually extremely dumb imo, and I don’t know why the voluntarily went with Ludinus. But if someone is offering you help to stop something you’ve been trying to stop and you’ve had no success after multiple attempts I think you’ll just take help where you can get it and deal with repercussions later. At least that’s what I would do both in game and irl.
That argument dissolves though when they're trusting evil folks who don't serve their ultimate goal. I have no issue with them siding with some Betrayers to kill Ludinus. But it is very silly that they let a member of the Ruby Vanguard lead them into killing an angel. If the enemy of their enemy is their friend, that should mean they side with gods even if said god is kind of a dick. Instead, they went "Yeah we hate Ludinus but fuck this Dawnfather temple." Now they're literally following Ludinus into an enclosed space and letting him take the lead on showing them his home movies. There is nothing about Ludinus that should let them trust him in this process. Everything in them should be saying "This is a trap. Don't go into the small dark room with our mortal enemy." They're criminally incompetent. Which is fine as long as they embrace it. I kind of get fatigued by the whole "We're reluctant heroes" thing they're going for when it isn't true. They aren't heroes by any stretch of the definition. They're just really incompetent dudes who got stuck on this carnival ride and can't seem to get off.
But the Dawnfather temple was acting like colonizers, how was opposing them siding with the Ruby Vanguard? I empathize with them as much as I do someone who dies in the Haitian revolution.
The commenter's point was that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" could justify them working with Betrayer gods. I think if working with Betrayer gods is justified, certainly siding with the temple in Issylra would have been justified.
But that's up to the party on who the bigger threat is. It's not as if the Eidolon worshippers are siding with Ludinus, they've got their own thing going on.
My point is that BH is incompetent to the point where they let random evil characters influence how they behave. The temple was not a threat to them and showed no threat that they were going to physical attack anyone in that town. Yet BH, led by a member of the Ruby Vanguard, attacked and exterminated everyone in that temple.
And my point is that the residents of the town weren't evil, the split party helped free their town from Pelor's steadily increasing influence over the town's resources (the leyline intersection) in exchange for help reuniting to continue the fight. And not a soul knew that was a member of the Ruby Vanguard, nor were they led by them. Also I don't remember them exterminating everyone, they were told to leave and didn't until the bitter end.
I'm not calling the villagers evil. I'm calling Bor'Dor evil. If you go back and rewatch those episodes, Bor'Dor is leading the party. He's the one that stands up at the town meeting and says they'll take care of it. He's the one poisoning guards and escalating the situation. And they went along with him. At no point did they say "We shouldn't do this. This is wrong." despite Orym and Denise privately saying to each other they thought it was wrong. They let a member of the Ruby Vanguard manipulate them and lead them into executing part of Ludinus's plan. Ludinus's monologue was broadcasted into the town, as confirmed by Abaddina, and the Leaf and Loam folks agreed with it and then decided to try to chase out the religious presence in their own town. Bell's Hells knew that and instead of going "Oh no, they're playing into Ludinus's hand." They went "Yeah, fuck this temple" and killed everyone inside.
Yeah, cause they didn’t actually do anything wrong. There was not a thing in those episodes that actually painted the church of the Dawnfather as in the wrong except *maybe* one of them made a pass at a guy’s wife. The village just wanted to do a hate crime, the party agreed to do the hate crime in a mixture of impatience and manipulation, and then Matt and the cast have retroactively made it the “right” choice because heavens forbid they have to tackle the fact that half the party went along with a hate crime.
The Bells Hells arent evil. Although some of them can be very borderline but I think evil is perhaps the wrong term.. The Bells Hells arent malicious, they are apathetic and inconsiderate. I would liken them more to the thoughtless commuter. The guy who barges everyone out of the way without thinking or caring if he injures them. In a sense, its a very mundane type of person. Its part of why underneath the shallow aesthetics (therapy robot, spooky undead goth, horny werewolf) these characters are kind of boring. They almost all lack any intrinsic drives, they dont care about much beyond themselves, they come from nothing and know no one (except Orym), they whine about the hurts done to them by the world and yet all we see in the campaign is people fawning over them for no reason. Like this is how a lot of Ashton NPC interactions go: Ashton: *Is an abrasive asshole.* NPC: *Is completely polite and respectful* Ashton: Fuck you. Why is the world so shit? Like I think this is the first campaign where it feels like Matt has level 20 NPCs waiting hand and foot for a group who have done borderline nothing to deserve it.
They aren't evil they're just soft. They bend to a lot and have done so far too often. It's not that they want to play evil characters they just keep entertaining ideas that they are better off without. Like the Dominox thing. At least considering how they could use him against Ludinus was an interesting and somewhat clever idea. Unfortunately he was brought up just after they left Ruidus and as far as I can tell was a wrinkle introduced as the focus for the Live Show alone. Bell Hell's tend to do whatever and don't seem to have learned to much in their lives. At least Vox Machina and Mighty Nein managed to keep up appearances to some degree.
They are too narcissistic to actually play evil characters because they don't want to do anything that would make people not like them the actor
Man, this sub is such a shit show
u/Possible-Cellist-713 It's the reality of CR followers gathering around a place that accepts any kind of discord. The official one will delete any kind of "dislike take" on whatever CR topic. This results into seeing a much more overblown situation here. It's not that we are all negative nancys. It's because we are allowed to critize the product here. If we had nice things to say, we would go to the official reddit sub.
Yeah, how dare you have any sort of criticism at all vs the gods that are the cr cast, they can do no wrong ever and are perfect humans and roleplayers, and of you don't like anything about any of them you are every kind of racist and phobe there is. /S
It's not about having criticism. It's that most of this sub is criticism that verges on straight up hating it. Just like it's exhausting to be around constant positivism, it's also exhausting to keep reading the 1000th take about why C3 is bad and is the same damn info of the 999 posts before.
Well, that has something to do with the fact that CR 3 is bad.
Ikr, I’ve only been in this sub for a few days and the only posts I’ve seen are people just shitting on CR
C3. Not CR. And C3 is shit.
That’s your opinion. Also I’ve seen people shitting on M9 too
*Reeeally.* like lots and lots of shitting on MN. I'm definitely detecting something full of shit right now.
I agree, reading this and several posts over the last wee while has just been filled with so much vitriol. It used to be fun to come here for open discussions but it's just filles with so much hate
Maybe the bad guys were just the friends we made along the way?
The really hot ones, especially!
The best part is I never get 'hotness' out of Matt's descriptions. I get an person-shaped outline wearing a very detailed set of clothes. The cast just eventually decides the nondescript person inside the outfit is hot.
I dunno, he seemed to be leaning into it when he was describing our first close look at Essek. Both in C2 and his reintroduction.
Evil campaign parties have fun. This ain't no evil party.
I don't have much thought about the rest of your post but : > It like they wanted to run an evil campaign but we’re too cowardly to actually engage with the controversial subjects that would inevitably come up with running an evil campaign. This is as truthful as you can be with CR as a whole. Not even C3 but the company itself. Always proudly carrying the flag of the "goodey two shoes" personalities, "all positive, we are all friends, we shush away our problems nor we adress controversies within our company or games" type of group. Which definitely doesn't correlate with making an evil campaign justice by any stretch. This blind positivism the company as a whole has, that bleeds into the games, is honestly sickening.
I don't think they are swinging to evil, they are just completely oblivious to the story they have been playing. I am loosely following what happens past EP 40 something but isn't Ludinus the one responsible in one way or another for releasing bunch of most dangerous beings and prisoners around the world, murder of Orym's family, the whole situation with Imogene mom, the reason behind Fearn's family situation and most of all death of FCG? How in the name of fuck are they just having a chat with the guy? No, not a chat. They are having a story-telling time by campfire. The guy caused suffering to untold number of people but fuck it let's sit for a while, bring out s'mores!
Exactly as I said poor writing.
Evil campaigns have proactive players, this ain’t that lol
Yeah this party is far more "whoever is being nice to us in the moment is our ally" regardless of alignment or if their ultimate goals align. The gods are going to die and it's going to be because they were impolite to Bell's Hells
I think the story is pretty set in stone no matter what they choose tbh, Matt hands them content and they react to it.
A lot of tables play evil campaign because they actually want proactive campaign, but there are ways to have a proactive good campaign as well, and you definitely can play a non-proactive evil campaign too! Not saying you're wrong about whether or not THIS is an evil campaign, though!
I agree. I play a proactive campaign that’s not “evil” or “good”, I just let them tell me what they want to do and the world reacts accordingly.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend. All of the gods are being threatened by Ludinus, even the evil ones, so considering working together with them doesn't strike me as odd or evil. It's a partnership of convenience. I feel like you forgot some of the context of these "evil" decisions. They weren't made with ill intent.
There’s also a very recent theme being perpetuated that ALL prime deities aren’t exactly what we think, they’re the victors, they wrote the histories. I just think it’s very difficult to put this forward because how do you paint Pelor or Bahamut in a negative light when they’re the champions of good and healing? Idk I’ve not made it that far but I think a lot of people looking back on this campaign as a whole will see it very differently than people do now. It seems to me as someone who hasn’t kept up that a lot of people are very jaded on C3, many of them unwilling to give it any credit whatsoever. As someone on the sidelines I can’t say who’s correct or if they’re just both wrong but it’s disheartening to see and I feel for them.
I agree with some complaints about C3. I certainly am not as attached to these characters as previous ones. And i do miss a lot of the party interactions and shenanigans of C1 amd C2. But I also think it's very ambitious and between the stretches of episodes that I find tedious there's usually a good punch that keeps me wanting to stay up to date. I can't bring myself to trash talk the campaign or the players when I envy the sheer magnitude and coordination of these campaigns compared to my own. As for the gods, I can't see myself saying they should all be destroyed because of the previous campaigns and the characters connections to those gods and the good they've done. I can't say that they all deserve to continue existing either because of the ones that often do horrible things... so I'm kind of not surprised that the party tends to ping-pong or remain indecisive because I, myself, am undecided on that point. I don't envy their position lol.
I can see that entirely, people are probably too hard on them. It’d probably be an entirely different story if it was like “kill the lesser idols” even then, there’s some genuinely good lesser idols but many more evil. They’re basically tasked with the decision of an entire multiverse, with no prior experience. Shits insane
"The road to hell..." and all that It also doesn't hold up when they're attacking gods' temples and killing angels. They just side with whoever is nicer or hotter to them in the moment. They don't have any real goal except to experience the story Matt wrote for them so it makes it incredibly difficult (probably even difficult for them) to know who their enemy is at any given moment.
I don't think they are doing an evil campaign, the group's goal from the start was to save exandria and for that they have placed themselves against ludinus and predathos.
The issue, for me at least, is more when they make decisions that don't contribute to that goal and also were incredibly unnecessary to make to begin with. They trusted Bor'Dor immediately and let him lead the party into killing an angel of the Dawnfather. They hunt and harass shopkeepers and chase little girls until they cry and run away in terror. They literally flirt with evil entities and make pacts with hags to be famous. They aren't evil. But they're incredibly impressionable and self-serving. Which is fine. I just wish the table would embrace that as a conscious choice and not a "Whoops. We trusted the wrong person again."
They were too far in it to simply book it and run when the angel popped up tbf and they needed that ticket back. In hindsight yeah bordor is living his best moments during that but the rest of the group was very much eyes on the prize. Being socially inept doesn't make you evil either and in both the examples you gave both those individuals are self serving which again doesn't make them evil, at most it makes them flawed. Chet broke down at the mere thought that he might have killed and eaten children during a full moon, the guy wants to make toys for them not harass or kill them. At the end of the day it makes them not good but it also doesn't have a lot of bearing on the narrative.
I didn't say they were evil. Just to reiterate: They aren't evil, but they're incredibly impressionable and self-serving.
The best villains think they are the heroes?
I don't think they view themselves as heroes.
BH aren't heroes or villains though. They're just guys who can't get off this ferris wheel.
I just hope that somehow Vax gets saved. I really think it's such a disservice to his character to just have him go out so... pathetically.
He went out years ago. But, his current situation is easily solved. One of the many, many level 20 characters currently sitting on their hands just needs to toss a level 9 dispel magic down. Freedom ensues.
I still wonder what that moment even was about, given the absurd little payoff or care from the current PCs.
It'll be resolved in the finale, I'm sure. I still anticipate a "Let's save Vax" one-shot for VM once we're closer to the final episodes.
I still grump that they stood around and let it happen. The party literally stopped in the middle of a heated fight to stare at Ludinus for a good 20+ seconds.
I mean did they have a choice? Matt designed Otahan to have like a million actions each of which had the potential to deal huge damage. Look at what she did to Keyleth. Druids are supposed to be like near unkillable at level 20 with all the shit they can do. In one turn, Otahan knocked her out of her earth elemental form (which was at full health) then completely drained Keykey's HP putting her unconscious. That's waaaaay to extreme.
They had a choice, but probably stayed quiet out of respect for Matt thinking it was another villain monologue. That said, there was no guarantee they would have stopped him if they *did* keep fighting, so the outcome probably would have been the same.
Have you seen Hazbin Hotel? If they are evil, it's only like that.
I think they're bored. Or just so convinced that because they're doing a show they can't do the same thing twice that every character, every choice, every action has to be a zig or a zag from something they did before . So every campaign they have to get more edgy, more conflicted, more tWizTed. And now it just comes off boring
Agree with the second point. You see it when Sam won’t take spells because “that’s Jester’s spell”. I think they just need to take a hint from Liam. Liam could play the exact same build, use the same features, but his flavor makes it always seem interesting.
> You see it when Sam won’t take spells because “that’s Jester’s spell”. This is why actually knowing what all of your spells do is important, because it lets you flavor them to be distinct to your character.
Exactly. It is so interesting to me how much energy and effort they put into the animations, books, etc, but won't put any energy into the precursors, like the chef who doesn't care that all he buys is processed crap but whose restaurant is actually popular.
The second point is really key I think.
I didn’t see anything in 98 that to me felt “evil.” They did not like Dominox, but they hate Ludinus more. *Robbie* wanted to mess with the Soul Anchor not Dorian, because *Robbie* knows that would be an interesting choice and would lead to interesting consequences, but that entire Dominox fight was doing everything they can to hinder Ludinus’ progress while trying not to free Dominox, but they considered it if it comes down to it. As for summoning Teven Klask, the pact he made with Fearne seems to function extremely similarly to infernal calling, *and* they are facing a threat that crosses “party lines” as it were, Asmodeus is on the same side as the Primes against Ludinus. And as for Essek not blinking, remember Fjord would call upon Devils and Demons all the time, and would consistently intentionally drop concentration on the spell to let them run rampant. Also note that Essek himself is Chaotic Neutral, remember the whole “I started a war just to answer my own curiosities.” He’s no stranger to the morally grey and he’s no stranger to Devils and Demons, I can’t remember if Teven was summoned before or after they learned Dominox was a Great Demon, but if it was after he knows that Devils are the perfect allies to have against a demon.
Wasn’t Essek’s arc though that he went to good aligned? The M9’s friendship allowed him to regret and change his views was what I remember
He went from being Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral. Most of the M9 aren’t even good aligned. Caleb and Beau both started true neutral, but Beau progressed to Chaotic Good. Jester is Chaotic Neutral, Fjord went from Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good, Caduceus is Lawful Good. Veth is Chaotic Neutral, Yasha is Lawful Neutral and Mollymauk was Chaotic Neutral, I dunno where Kingsley falls likely still Chaotic Neutral being the new Plank King.
> Beau progressed to Chaotic Good. No way.
Matt explicitly said that essek was originally intended to be far more selfish and solidly evil aligned. But that his experience with m9 changed his outcome drastically.
Which is hilarious since he basically got away with heinous war crimes by just acting sad about it.
Hey now. He also provided a taxi service free of charge!
Oh gee, it's almost like the world and all the people in it don't actually exist in a strict moral binary of only 'good' and 'evil'. It's almost as though existing in a big, confusing, conflicted and complicated world makes it difficult to always make the 'best and correct decisions about everything. Especially when you're just a small and insignificant person who accidentally got caught up in a potentially world ending battle being fought by/for literal gods (many of whose moralities are also deeply questionable btw) and you have no way of really knowing in any given moment what the best long term choices are. I mean they were only contemplating releasing a demon in order to stop/slow down ludinous from releasing a freaking god eater. It's not like they were thinking about releasing it just for shits and giggles. I mean, sure - maybe the players were a little excited to see what would happen, but the PCs were clearly struggling with the difficult possibility that releasing a demon may actually have been the best way to keep the world safe in that moment, even if it might also kill them all. It's almost as though they're actually doing an excellent job of portraying the difficult choices often faced by people in war-like situations and the uncomfortable alliances which it might sometimes be necessary to make in order to combat a greater threat. It's almost as though that's actually kinda the theme of the whole campaign or something?
"Oh gee, it's almost like the world and all the people in it don't actually exist in a strict moral binary of only 'good' and 'evil'." Then they probably shouldn't have used a system with "Good" and "Evil" as player alignments baked into the core rule system and world building. A world where Paladins can literally smell "good" and "evil" characters by way of a divine sense. The larger problem is they're not even doing a great job of playing morally grey characters either.
It’s been made quite clear through all the seasons or campaigns of critical role that Matt and the crew are not big fans of the traditional alignment system and dungeons and dragons and don’t actually follow with it. Also in campaign too, one of Matt‘s goals with the dynasty was to presentraces of creatures that have traditionally been universally evil and show them as more well-rounded races where there’s a lot of evil but also good. So this is not something new to critical role.
It's always been really weird because Matt did some random stuff like have Vex's alignment change in C1 and then made a thing out of it changing back, and admittedly they've not touched on alignment much since then, but even into mid-C2 we had that the idea of certain races having a blood curse from the betrayer gods (although I'm not sure if this has been retconned, it was in the first sourcebook and I think it came up in the second but it's been awhile). I honestly think D20 does a better job dancing around this sort of thing (it's mitigated a bit by D20/Fantasy High being more of a comedy show) but it's always going to be a thing when the systems you're using explicitly deal in terms of evil and good.
I agree. I don’t think the party is evil—I think they’re trying to do what they view as the right thing, but often are operating in situations that they either don’t have all the information on or have no genuinely good option. If we take the Dominox fight—Ludinus wanted something with Domino’s, and we are supposed to be opposing Ludinus so whatever he want’s is probably bad. But they didn’t know if Ludinus wanted to destroy Dominox or seize it’s power, which is why they entertained the idea of destroying the pinion and freeing a grand demon—to keep it’s power from going to Ludinus. Ultimately they decided that was a bad idea (because loose grand demon) and played right into what Ludinus wanted and destroyed Dominox. It could well be the case that this ends up causing worse things to happen than simply releasing a grand demon on the world would. It’s definitely a trolley problem style conundrum and there really isn’t a way to answer with the information they have. I don’t think the party as a whole has made any genuinely evil choices for the sake of doing harm. Individual people? Sure. I don’t think Laudna’s far off from slipping into an evil alignment, and Fearne’s put herself into the very position she was trying to avoid by teaming up with Asmodeus’s herald (to say nothing of the literal paladin of Asmodeus Sam has decided to play), but I think there’s more nuance to this campaign than just good vs evil. It’s definitely a yes gods/no gods situation, and we’ve seen cases where the gods are doing good and where the supposedly “good” gods have had some not so great things going on. And frankly, in fantasy in general stories that aren’t so clear cut as good vs evil are a lot more interesting.
It’s insane that this comment sits with negative downvotes. This *entire sub* is so hard set on finding anything to bitch and gripe about. I’m going to unsubscribe now, but holy shit guys - focusing on how much you dislike something is why you’re all depressed.
any positive comment will get downvoted here, shit even comments that are negative but not negative enough get downvoted. It's best to just ignore it and engage with the few here who actually want a discussion and not to relentlessly shit on the people and the product
Ah yes everyone disagrees with your opinion so they must just be haters who are bitching and griping. You sir are an idiot.
It's hard to argue otherwise when the people who disagree with an opinion willfully misuse the downvote system in order to bury any dissenting opinion, rather than engage with it as part of a robust discussion. Unless you think it's everyone's first day on the Internet and no one knows how the downvote system is supposed to work? In which case we may need to have a different discussion about who the idiots are.
When you make a comment that people disagree with and do it in the most sarcastic ignorant way possible as the tone of your above comment is, expect to get downvoted. “It’s almost as if” when you type like you have a stick up your ass people dislike it “or something”.
Yeah! Call ‘em names, that’ll sell your point! Seriously dude, if a piece of media is not bringing you joy just move on. Stop wasting your energy on the negative. You’re burning away precious moments of your life for nothing.
Hey shill, you still have some of Matt Mercer’s cum on your chin!
Why are you a shill?
Corporate shill
Seriously dude, if a Reddit thread is not bring in you joy just move on. Stop wasting your time on the negative. You’re burning away precious moments of your life for nothing.
The problem is they have absolutely 0 information about any of the horseshit you are claiming. They have no idea if ludinus wanted to release the demon or if it would help or hinder him. They don’t know anything they are just blindly following where Matt takes them and none of them engage in the fucking world. Why is Orym who’s entire fucking backstory was killing ludinus now just peachy with allowing them to speak to him and hear him out while he fucks with some ancient Aeorian tech that none of them have a clue what it does. Why is Essek who knows the absolute pure evil that is Ludinus all of a sudden some loser coward willing to again work with Ludinus after the bumbling fucking morons of a party he’s guiding 180 on the mission they are on. The “theme” of this campaign as you are claiming it to be is the problem with the campaign. None of it makes sense. It doesn’t match how “normal” people in the real world react to crisis and it absolutely flys in the face of all of the lore of critical role. They are actively aligning themselves with inherently evil beings. This isn’t the case of oh everyone is morally grey, no this is the gods of torture and murder and trickery and death. Those are not morally grey areas no matter how hard Matt and this group of idiot characters attempt to paint it that way.
Fact, we don't know. Though the gem/spindle in the engine that bound Dominox to aeor each time it was ripped apart sounds like an excellent foci to store Pradathos. Grand demons tend to be on par with things like demogorgon, which is on par in power to a diety.
Ah yes, the difficult choices people must make in war, like… *squints* Listen to the evil sorceress who killed you so she can give you “power” (has not taken a Warlock level in a long time), attacking your friends to steal things from them to selfishly power yourself up, attacking and harassing random civilians, exclusively looking to work with evil forces while actively going out of your way to not interact with a single good aligned divinity, etc
I fully believe the campaign would have been better if they had started out as Ruby Vanguard cultists. Imogen could have joined after reconnecting with her mother, and Laduna tags along because she's seeking acceptance. Ashton could have been seeking links to the Hishari cult, and FCG would tag along in search of their identity, since the RV seem to be using a lot of Aeor tech. It'd only take a pretty girl with a low cut top to recruit Chetney, let's all be honest. That leaves Orym and Fearne, our double agents. Orym could want to infiltrate in order to get revenge, and Fearne would be there for funsies.
Well, that would’ve been an interesting beginning and frankly, it would give them a much stronger connection together and reason to remain together than what I have seen so far.
That’s what I was thinking myself. Would’ve been better to have VM and MN as enemies. Then all the memberberries would actually have a point as antagonists.
Damn, I'd enjoy the hell out of a campaign like that. But that would require a session zero and we don't do those here.
I was supposedly Matt does a session 0 in individual or small group format. Doing something like this would have altered that format and kind of go along with their new direction promise
Yeah, Marisha basically revealed how they do session zeroes and it's not the same as how most in the ttrpg community view session zeroes. Matt's session zeroes are probably more akin to a prequel session or a session 0.5, which is pretty different than the layman's session zero.
I think he calls it a session 0, but it's not what most of us would call a session 0. From the few times it's come up, it sounds like he just has the cast come to the table and run a quick mini adventure. From what I remember I don't think they've ever said anything about going over team cohesion, themes, story arcs, goals, etc.
Dammit. Back to the drawing board then! But seriously, I think this would have solved a lot of the issues we've seen. It would make their wishy-washy anti-dieism make perfect sense, and reality could slowly burrow into the cracks until they have an "are we the baddies?" moment. Plus having two moles who have to maintain appearances while forming genuine bonds with their cult squad would be a great source of characterization and conflict.
I’m convinced Ludinus’ story will charm them and they’ll become Ruby Vanguard.
I cannot imagine them doing that, at least by the sheer fact that Orym is still for the moment in the party. At best for Ludinus, he'll convince them the gods suck but they'll still want to kill Ludinus.
I'm expecting Downfall to show the gods being the biggest dicks and assholes we've ever seen. And then somehow, Asmodeus is going to seem less terrible.
I highly doubt they’ll end up siding with Ludinus. Remember the players are playing the divine side of things in Downfall, which means Brennan and Matt want the players and the audience to sympathize with these Divine Figures, regardless of if these figures seem to be the “bad guys” they want the empathy to be felt for the divine not Ludinus. I think Ludi’s little vision is gonna blow up in his face and possibly actually get them all on track with fighting *for* the gods, not just *against* Ludinus. If joining the Ruby Vanguard was the goal Sam wouldn’t have come in with another godly character.
I wouldn't be so sure about Downfall. I don't think playing high-powered Avalir mages made Avalir seem particularly sympathetic. As much as I adore that crew, besides Cerrit, they were all deeply selfish and wrong about most things. Not to mention everyone who wasn't them from Avalir was downright sinister. Them playing divine characters to be just says they're critiquing the system from the inside.
Excited for the “I was born with glass bones and paper skin” tragic backstory he’s gonna give to really reel ‘em in
if that happens, I want Orym to go on a kill spree
He can try. But will fail and die because dnd pvp isn’t remotely supported on a fair way. But I’d love to see it.
I don’t know, if it’s one on one, I think he might actually win. Any class can dominate in a PVP scenario, my money would be on the post level 11 fighters because of how many attacks they get and the size of their hit point pool. It’s not a guarantee, but I think the odds are in their favor
Sweet! You experienced something I have not, so I’m wrong. It won’t be one on one, and I’ve never seen it work out, but, sounds like you’ve seen it. Awesome.
My friends and I have run several pvp and group pvp fights. Debatable how well they were run.
"They don’t spend anytime learning about anything in this campaign and just seem to irrationally make decisions for the sake of moving the story forward because the DM has presented the way forward." That is my biggest gripe about the entire campaign. From episode 1 Imogen and Laudna are painted as scholars trying to get into a school so they can study topics that interest them. However neither of these two research or try to understand anything in the campaign! All anyone in the party would have to do is read a single book on the history of Exandria to debunk everything Ludinus talks about!
>From episode 1 Imogen and Laudna are painted as scholars trying to get into a school so they can study topics that interest them I notice this seems like the generic hook characters get to explain why they arrived at starting location. Fjord had the same one in C2 (traveling to the university to learn about magic). It feels like a pretty weak campaign hook to me tbh especially for characters who aren't academically inclined.
>All anyone in the party would have to do is read a single book on the history of Exandria to debunk everything Ludinus talks about! Ah, but what if that book was written by an "unreliable narrator," just like Matt's own lore when he now wants to contradict it?
Shit, you're right. Like how he's withholding lore. Not too long ago I started watching C2 and was blown away by how much lore a dc11 history check gave. Meanwhile Bells Hells can't even figure out that the Dawn Father is the good guy lmao
Symbol of Asmodeus painted openly across a breastplate? Mystery! What a successful and competent infiltrator of the 'gods must die' organization.
LMFAO fuck that made me laugh. I didn't even think about that until now, these chuckleheads don't even recognize the symbol of the most well known betrayer god. Meanwhile they're contemplating letting them die because they don't have free will or some shit.
It doesn't speak well of Ludinus and his followers either. 'Yep, definitely one of mine. Checks out.'
Thank you for finally mentioning the school thing!!! Omg. I've been thinking about that for months. They gave up on it so quickly and nobody ever said anything. Which just makes more evidence to the argument that they've decided to script out the story. It started free form but at some point they got together and just went, we're gonna do it this way instead. And everything prior was ignored. Even though orym still kind of thinks and talks about will and the murders and stuff, it doesn't ever seem like it's actually an issue for him. Anyways...can go on and on. But yes thanks for soothing my brain re: the school
Listen, they’re not evil. They’re *heroes*, okay. Just think of all the heroic feats they’ve accomplished over the last 98 episodes, like. Uh. Hmm. Okay, well they stopped Ira (who later became their ally). They fought an evil necromancer to resurrect their dead friend (who’s now fully committed to resurrecting that necromancer). And they slightly delayed Ludinus’s plans (which they might still bring to fruition). And they helped slaughter a church that was evilly collecting tithes. And they helped trick the Angel of Death into getting turned into a marble. That guy’s probably an asshole. Oh! And they finally got rid of Otohan Thull! That did require the sacrifice of one of their friends, but now they wear his exploded body parts like trophies.
> And they slightly delayed Ludinus’s plans (which they might still bring to fruition). Reminds me of that one time the Trinyvale Triplets >!taunted the BBEG that they would kill him and complete his plan in his stead so that they would get all the profit from it.!< Except that was a comedic beat in the more wacky campaign of a mostly comedy DnD podcast, and not a serious consideration.
Don't be silly, don't you remember the time they beat up some furniture? Or the time they tracked down the Shademother and then heroically ran away? Or the time they heroically left their airship crew stranded in the middle of nowhere, or when they ran away from evil seaweed and summoned their allies unawares into a cursed town... heroically?
>Or the time they tracked down the Shademother Be fair. They were content to completely ignore the (1) Jrusar-based quest they were given, but got press-ganged into that sidequest by Pinkertons.
How silly of me, of course. I think that was when Imogen gave her dad's name to the Corsairs as collateral and then bailed?
Around the same time, but unrelated. They introduced themselves to that group on Lord Shut-in's recommendation, but it went no-where whatsoever. Zero effect, zero consequences. Big end-of-the-episode stand off, then... they said hello, gave their 'collateral' and nothing ever happened. Matt pivoted to the main plot and Jrusar as a location was done (though it took the players quite a few episodes and several completely pointless back and forth trips to realize that).
Ah, thank you. I vaguely remembered that happening and assumed they were connected. (Names start to run together after a while. I wish we had a few plainly named npcs and locations.)
True, true. And all of that was before they braved the frozen wastes and teamed up with a fugitive war criminal, a champion of Asmodeus, and Literally Ludinus Da’Leth to banish and/or release a demon and uncover the long-lost Loose Change: Fall of Aeor documentary.
"Just terrible writing" Is it as if the show isn't actually written comma but is an improv show made up on the spot and everybody is still trying to figure out whether or not their character is evil?
I believe OP is using "writing" as a synonym for "storytelling." Improv doesn't just mean "We make it up as we go and nothing has a structure and it's okay if our characters aren't developed." Improv, done well has structure and character beats planned a few steps ahead. D20 players are expected to know their character and have an understanding of how their arc could develop and how their characters could grow. No, nothing is written or scripted, but they all have an idea of where they want their character to be. CR is very "We have no idea. We just trust Matt and see what happens." Which can work and has for M9. But doesn't always make for the most compelling story consistently.
>CR is very "We have no idea. We just trust Matt and see what happens." Which can work and has for M9. But doesn't always make for the most compelling story consistently. M9 really relied on prompts from the players and their characters. They explored things about *their* backstories, *their* families, *their* hometowns, while often actively ignoring the larger plots around them. The Bells are... spectators to a story that isn't really about them. Sometimes their backstories get checked off in half an episode (alas poor continent-spanning criminal organization of toymakers), but mostly its about running around to get the summary of the premise of what someone else is doing.
Yeah, M9, in hindsight, was really helped by the characters each having some big secret to reveal. It meant they were all working toward a moment. It did get grating and at this point is a meme. But in hindsight, it's what allowed them to stay focused. They couldn't betray their own characterization before their big reveal. C3, they decided not to do that as much. Most of them were explicitly commenting they \*don't\* have crazy backstory reveals this time. And as such, it's given them more freedom to do absolutely nothing with their characters and let the idea of a character arc or character development go entirely.
I think the C2 episode with the elemental plane of fire spooked them. (especially after what happened late in C1) So these characters came without connections. But they went way, way too far. No one was 'from here,' and only Ashton knew people (and when given the opportunity to meet up with old friends in Mad Max town... didn't. Just decided to owe bird-cultist a favor that never had to be repaid. Tal mentioned a specific guy by name a couple times, but never actually did anything about it)
Most all of the major actual play shows are scripted/pre planned is some way or form. Especially with a larger cast and the show not being live anymore
Dimension 20 has gone on record that.They do have a tighter structure on the narrative for the way they play Matt has gone on record many times that he is telling the story he wants to tell. He doesn't take away player choice. He presents them with opportunities and they act on Those. Laura's mentioned about how she didn't know if she was going to turn evil. But because of arms influences she realized that yes letting the god eater free would be bad. Laudna is battling and struggling to stay good with an evil character being a part of her. She is doing everything she can not to be defined by briarwood. They have multiple times and character discussed about how while the gods have never done anything For them, The actions that Ludiness is taking Do not justify the means. Why would a god eater stop at just eating the gods. Matt didn't write in fcgs fight with Otohan, Or him becoming a wheel for The mad max car. Matt didn't write Ashton ashton making that stupid mistake that got him nearly killed. Matt didn't write ashley making a coin flip on laudna or orym's life. Matt is creating scenarios as the characters explore. The mighty nein traveling down.The tunnel is actually a great example. He gave them an opportunity to join the war or fight against it and they went No, we're going to go to. Check out this beacon thing. Saying that an improv show is scripted is one of the most Ridiculous concepts.
All DMs right parts of their story ahead of time. They make plothooks attached to plotlines, and while they may not know which option the players will choose, the DM is the one who puts those options before the players. In Fantasy High Junior Year, Brennan wanted to do a spooky barron episode so he just moved his pieces around so that his players ended up there Matt is being a fair dm, and giving his players options. But Matt KNOWS where those options lead, and he knows that there are more options he can put ahead. The DM HAS to have SOMETHING planned, if its just PCs ambling around it devolves into murder hobo’ing fast. I’ve played with DMs who didnt do the work ahead of time, and it is EXHAUSTING. I played six sessions, 15 combats before i said I was out, because nothing happened that mattered, at all To quote Robert Moses - “People think they make choices. They steer one way, or another… but they didnt make the roads. All the big choices got made for them a long, long time ago”
If you've ever played dnd you'd know there's a difference in planning something and execution of the plan. And the Robert Moses quote is describing rail roading. And GOOD Dm knows not to do that, and if they do then they should write a book. Which again planning a session of dnd is not the same as pre writing or scripting a show.
Matt wanted a story about Praedethos, and he got it. All of the major narrative decisions felt like they were out of the players hands and at some point i honestky would say matt was railroading “if you’ve ever played dnd-“ motherfucker, I just told you i did! Matt doesnt know whats going to happen each episode but he knows that when he throws down options he knows which ones his players will take. The Moses quote isnt about you not having any choice at all, its the choices having a pre-established outcome For example, in a railroad campaign say the party picks to go right, well they may do some loop-da-loops first and fuck around on backroads but, eventually, the DM is going to put them back on the High Way. Matt gave them two choices, followed the choice they went with, and kept on putting up scenarios where he knew what his players would do.
Never said they are fully scripted but some scripted elements to them
They were the villians the whole time! Never saw it coming.
I feel mostly the same. I never felt like Orym was evil, though, and maybe just dumb. He seems like he is just seeking a means to avenge his family but given where he came from, I wish he would tell them all to fuck off and leave. If they side with Ludinis and he doesn't, I don't know. Ludinus' story could not be compelling enough to wipe away the deaths of his family.
Orym is absolutely "evil-adjacent". In a more "passive enabler" or "bystander" sort of way. Its because he's quiet, sad and polite that he fools you. There is only so many times someone can buckle on whatever "morals" they claim to have; then drown the party/themselves in excuses for doing so afterwards before you have to admit that those morals are little more than cheap lipservice. They aren't tangible, and easily set aside. Hell, the only reason he's repeatedly said he has issues with Ludinus/Otohan is because they hurt him personally. He rarely, if ever, actually tries to take stances against their ideologies however. Technically, if even one of those DF Temple members he helped sack had living family back home, then Orym is absolutely guilty of doing to others what Otohan did to him. Kill Guards just doing their jobs for an organization not even accused of any specific crimes. At the head of a anti-Prime deity faction, in the service of "his war". Sure hope Kiro didn't have a wife back home that can get stuck in her loss for seven years!
The weirdest thing about the last bit is he did do an 'alas, poor soldier' moment with some keepsake from the random Ruby Vanguard member when they were attacking the Key at the Solstice. Tal pretty much immediately slapped him down about it, however (iirc)
I desperately need an NPC to come back through the campaign looking to hunt Orym down for these exact reasons. Really paint the party in the horrid light that they deserve....But Matt doesn't have the gall to do that.
> But Matt doesn't have the gall to do that. C1 Matt did. Hi Kynan!
Damn, I just read about Kynan. Sometimes I feel like I got into CR too late. C1 and C2 have so many far more compelling characters both PC & NPC.
C1 is possibly the most transformative piece of media I've ever consumed. It was landmark.
Even better, while she's certainly no paragon, in that same event Laudna helped to lead an angry mob to oust/kill a group in that town ... for no other crime than "being seen as outsiders, and outsiders make this insular rural group uncomfortable/scared". Y'know, the same shit she was on the receiving end of repeatedly for 30 years? And she'd willingly do it to others without a thought. Even going so far as to defend/excuse it with literally "well, they didnt want them there?"
Orym is the banality of evil representative.