Ahh Pandemic fans. Truly the worst things to have happened to entertainment from the pandemic. Also entering through Essek. Should have been another clue where this was going. He's an NPC. Not a PC. He should have very limited impact on the story. Anyway I have not watched the entire thing as yet but I will say, it's not the Caleb Widowgast story, the season was not actually about the war (it's really about Matt wanting to play test his new dumanacy spells). You dismissed Fjords story outright because it's not about the war. You seem to want the players and characters to make some strong hero type story which they were clear they did not want to do. A helpful tips for you. You seem fairly young. But I've been in fandoms for a LONG time, that thing you said about theory crafting before the show, rewatching and discussing more. That is what kills enjoyment. It seems fun. But I have never seen a fan like this leave the media they liked satisfied. They spend the week living in theories and "fanon". So much fanon that it starts to actually conflict with the Canon and then they get mad when they story being told is not what they expected. I've seen people believe so hard their own made up shit (like alot of what you seem to have), that the actual contents on the show seem shocking to them. I hope you create your own stories and find a way to share with them with like minded people. Stop watching things and then continue to get mad about it 3 years later.

I appreciate you are allowed your opinion on things and i do agree with some of your points. But it really feels you have put alot of your own personal feelings onto something that is just a form of entertainment escapisim. You keep saying 'why tell a story at all if youre not willing to be transformed by it', you keep talking as if this should have been a masterpiece of storytelling. Its just a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors playing dungeons and dragons. Its unfair if you to expect perfection from human beings. There all humans trying to play a game. And pressure from the audience makes that harder and harder to do. Sometimes storys just end.

1:43:24 ok ur whining is annoying me, I think you could have cut down on a lot of that for a better video. You definitely have points but it feels entitled. I can't watch any more of this rn but I shall return. Thanks for taking the time to make this video, you organized a lot of my feelings towards the last bit of the campaign.

1:30:20 ok you are getting real mad about this. while I agree with all your points, It seems like you feel entitled to their story? Regardless of how bad it was, its DND. It was their home game. Home games go sour all the time. I think it would be dishonest NOT to air an episode that did happen for the sake of the story.

1:11:30 😔

1:02:10 do you have any good fanfic recommendations that continue from 97, that solve some of these issues? I want to rewatch but i dont think i could go through rumblecusp and onward

55:48 i will never forgive covid for what it did to cr

51:38 The Characters are so real. Unlike other media, they have feelings, they have thoughts. Real ones, although being hosted in the minds of players, they are so much more existing than any other media's characters could be.

49:25 ur making me wanna rewatch the entire campaign

43:18 and then they fuck off to have a cult party on a volcano

41:40 OH MY GODS I NEVER MADE THE CONNECTION. DND LIVE SHOWS ARE MY SPORT

39:37 The rest of the nein cared because Caleb and Beau cared. Where once they were individuals, now they are more of a Unit. They began to think about how to accomplish everyone's goals. This is where I wanted Cad's character to be more fleshed out. He had such a strong sense of morality, but found himself in the middle of a self centered hivemind. I think he should have explored his adoption into the group, his morality mattering less to him compared to the goals of the group as he went on, having a realization that he had lost his way, and maybe his way wasn't all he thought it was to begin with. But they didnt do anything with that. wish i was a good writer so i could write a banger fanfic to fix all these issues lol

38:14 Completely agree with you here.

36:40 i think you're right that the angel of irons, knolls, devil toad, primordial stuff should have been followed up on. It felt like it ought to have been the mighty nein's Vecna, while aeor was the mighty nein's conclave. It felt unresolved, but part of me thinks that specific bit was alright to be unresolved, as it was the world, not a loose end in a character. The world advances without the notice of characters sometimes, and if our guys lose focus, the background becomes a mystery.

32:45 i loved how they didn't even have a political reason to do the beacon thing. saving their own asses as always. Maybe i just like the chaos of it lol

32:12 It seems like Molly didn't even know what he was saying with the "leave things better than you found it.", and it followed through to the nein after he left them. It makes sense for mollymauk, it made less sense for the rest of the nein. I liked when the characters were making these wishy washy choices and they accepted that they weren't taking a stance. It became a problem to me when they still had the same behavior they always did, but pretended to have more direction.

30:51 the thing about stories going anywhere. To me the possibility that sometimes things don't go anywhere, sometimes things DONT have a bigger purpose made it feel so much more realistic to me, in a way I enjoyed. Maybe its a flaw, but in real life guns are just guns and sometimes they are completely irrelevant. I think it kept me guessing. Who knows what seemingly innocuous things will turn out to be chekhov's, and vice versa. It gave the feeling of, the story does not revolve around these characters. There is not a narrative guarantee.

27:35 Huh. To me their story is very much, a group of people who stayed together for the good of their own person, oops they accidentally care about eachother, ok now they are still in it for themselves, but their unit had grown to be all of them. If that makes sense? The only politics they truely aligned to was themselves and those they care about, hiding in the shadows around power, manipulating where they could to get the outcome best for their group. I think really the only hard stance they ever took was Against the War and Against the Assembly. And even then it stemmed from War hurting Nott's family and Assembly hurting Caleb's, again looking out for their own and making things safe for their own.

26:03 I personally loved this about the Nein. Bumbling around every which way just wherever they felt like. They were so self centered, doing what they found interesting rather than choosing to get into politics. And they DID get into politics, but kinda just skirted around without aligning themselves to any cause. (at first)

23:38 I love Caduceus, and disagree with you about the feel like the mighty nein thing. He has wisdom, but he's also naive and completely sure of his morality in a way that is flawed. He had never seen the world, and had a much more black and white view of things than the rest of the Nein. I think it's a shame they didn't explore the way his views clashed with the rest of them more, and how his views were never really challenged. I agree with you about the, his wisdom didn't have much effect on the story. I think there are times where he challenged the Nein and the Nein should have challenged him back? but he kinda just went along with it, with a sort of arrogance if that makes sense?

19:42 I loved Jester's false naïvety. She is Naive in some areas, but she also plays it way up to her advantage. There are a lot of times where she understands a great deal more than she lets on, hiding behind her "im just a girl" thing to manipulate things into happening her way.

12:54 I feel you so much man. I felt so connected to every one of the M9. VM was entertaining, but M9 felt so real to me that the way they ended was devastating.

6:27 I miss these things. I think they fell off during covid, when stuff stopped being live. C3 there is no art reel.

Before Watching this, My thoughts on campaign two are: The Characters are great, the story was great, until Aeor. Then things were dragged out, causing trent's thing to be smooshed at the end. There were left a bunch of untied ends, Where vox machina tied everything together nicely, it felt like the characters went their separate ways while they still needed each other. The exception being Veth and Caduceus, the rest of them just didn't seem ready to split up? Idk. I am unsure what to feel about Kingsley. I think it would have been better for Molly to be completely dead, or to have come back. Or even for Molly and Lucien's soul to be mended back together. What originally caused Molly to shatter off from Lucien wasnt there, so it was odd that Kingsley was a new person? When the resurrection was specifically reaching for Mollymauk? Idk. At the end of the day it was Tal's choice and narratively fitting for him to get a fresh start again, even if it didn't make sense lore wise. I shall watch your video now that I have my own thoughts recorded.

I love it when someone says "It's not a typical fantasy," because it proves they have very little knowledge of the fantasy genre except Harry Potter Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, and probably haven't opened a fantasy book written by a still writing author. I think a structured, written story with a known beginning middle and end would help you and I strongly urge you to read some Robin Hobb or Brandon Sanderson.

I wanted to give this a watch, even though at a surface level and preliminary info- I knew I would disagree fundamentally. And I made it just over an hour into this before I have to pause watching, and I might revisit this another time. But my main frustrations and critiques comes to a couple points. It seems you have treated c2 as a story where Beau and Caleb are the protagonists, and its a story about Wildemount and the War. And I think that's a narrow viewpoint that takes away from the story. No dnd campaign has protagonists, and to boil a whole campaign to a "most important moment" is minimizing to the rest of the story. And my other issue, and is one that I have with lots of other aspects of the CR fan community as well- entitlement. Feeling like we as the viewer are owed something. Its an aspect of this community that irks me like no other. This is their story to tell. Just like a movie or a novel, the writers have a vision and are telling me the story they want to tell. And I have full right to dislike choices made, and disagree with actions taken. But that's not how the story was written/told, and there's a reason for that. But to let that dissatisfaction stew into entitlement, that we as viewers are in control of the direction the narrative should take is extremely frustrating. And that leads to what I saw from this video- which is "when the narrative doesn't do what I want it do, I will devalue it and only see the faults in it" I think your point about COVID impacting the campaign is totally valid, there was a definite tone shift after the hiatus. But there are some beautiful and profound moments that happened post hiatus that you don't see and don't acknowledge, because you are so tunnel-visioned on the version of the story you wanted to see happen. And I think to step back from that viewpoint, and approach the final arc of C2 with a more light-hearted nature, and an appreciation for the story these people want to tell, will help you enjoy it. M9 is a beautiful story, you just have to be willing to enjoy it

Man... How does one discuss the story of an improvisational show with 500 hours of runtime? You sure made a herculean effort in this video. Colour me impressed at your dedication to your craft. The comment section here is blend: which is to be expected. I'll repeat some nitpicks regarding the delivery, such as the attacks on people's taste in stories and the assumption that the show was designed for anyone else but the players around the table. Saying what "should" happen in a story is generally a losing battle for the viewer. But there are other (more thoughtful) comments you've already read on this matter, and you show in your reflections that you've thought about these things beforehand: even if finding this out about one of your favourite stories felt like a betrayal. Now, to the good parts! I was hoping to learn something new by watching this video, and I was not disappointed! I rarely try to lessen my enjoyment of the stories I experience, but enjoyment was not at the center of this thesis. Instead you illustrated the strengths of setting, of thematic consistency, and how specific character dynamics can both make and unmake each other. With 500+ hours of examples to draw from, the environmental behemoth of Wildemount springs to life, and then slowly fades into the background. As someone who frequently runs campaigns (as a game, not a show), the focus this video puts on the tone shift in the setting made me much more aware of what the major themes and truths of the settings I use are. It also made me aware of what our story might lose if that ever changes. Thanks for that! Story themes in roleplaying games can be difficult to set up, because no one knows ahead of time how the characters will eventually succeed (or fail). What this video taught me is that even though success can come in many forms, it's the convenience and the longevity of those successes that dictate what the story is actually saying. Anyone can get lucky; that's fine. However, true success can only stay uncorrupted as long as [story theme] agrees with it. Does that diminish player agency? Or does it enhance them by showing how someone is pushing against the current of the story? I guess that will depend on the people telling around the table. I'll be honest: playing NPCs can be challenging. Most of the time you are playing a somewhat superficial character that is either a decoration to develop the setting, or a tool to progress the plot. Most of these characters will never be seen again. However, some of the time you get to fill the shoes of characters that can individually impact the whole narrative: allies, antagonists, or those in-between. These characters get to come to life with their own ideals, agendas, thoughts, and feelings, and yet the player controlling them is still in the possition of servitude. There is a fundamental reflex to withdraw these character's influence on the narrative, because the medium (a roleplaying game) is ultimately not designed to be about them. And so they sit and wait for the other characters to engage with these ideas, to see if they are willing to adapt to them and let the narrative be shaped by it. And in this waiting, potential is absolutely lost. Perhaps it is natural that the medium's biggest strengths and weaknesses both come from the fact that it requires collaboration. Only via connection can the story created throught it be meaningful, but by using said connection the end result can be far greater and more genuine than what any of its contributors could have imagined by themselves. I hope you get to live your story to the fullest. May your rolls be plenty, and your heart true.

It sounds like you have a problem with the medium more than anything. Matt couldn't just tailor the entire campaign to Liam's character, the Nien had to agree on their direction as a party.

Also I just remembered a tweet that I think about a lot but cannot for the life of me find now, "the mighty nein feel like they should be anarchists but they're played by liberals"

How was this three years ago.... i still love this so much.

Im so here for the vox machina slander. And i love some of the things you said here so much i think I'll remember them forever gsdfs. You just said it was 5 AM and the birds are singing and thats exactly whats happening to me rn, feels oddly parallel, but anyway I honestly agree so much especially about the sanitorium incident. That was the first live episode i ever watched, i caught up the day it came out roughly. I loved it, i was cheering for caleb and then to check CR twitter for the first time ever and see the absolute mess... well. it changed me.

CR2's ending was so terrible that I stopped watching CR altogether because I realized I no longer trusted them to follow through with plots/characters in a satisfying way, so my heart was no longer willing to love the characters like it had before. Edit1: The 1 hour mark. YES. THAT was THE moment. THE moment that caused me as a watcher to double-take and say "wtf Beau and Veth?" Episode 98 gave me a really, really bad feeling, not because of the setup, but because of what the characters were saying. Jester is treated like both an idealized love interest and a child at the same time and it's disgusting. It soured me on EVERY Jester ship. Caleb was the one who seemed to respect her skills and try to just flat-out support her the most (he's the only one who allowed her to be sad on Rumblecusp though she still tried to hide it, and he tried hard to support her with spells) but even Liam ended up agreeing that she was "like a child." Ugh. The Trent dinner. The party members were too busy trying to be antagonistic or shoot off one-liners to actually do anything of substance through most of it. Aeor was an absolute mess and it should have been amazing. It doesn't help that the whole time you're wondering when it is that Caleb's story is going to get addressed like everyone- EVERYONE- wanted it to be. Character relationships/dynamics outright regressed after 97. Heck, CHARACTERS regressed after 97. I WOULD say that Liam should have had Caleb talk openly about his goals BEFORE the final episode, but he was obviously waiting to do that until "Caleb's arc," which... NEVER HAPPENED. So you get all the party members shaking their heads in disapproval about him wanting to save his parents... without even ever hearing him out. The players/party members did not help Liam/Caleb AT ALL ANYWHERE. They didn't support during the asylum, they didn't support properly during the dinner, they didn't support during Aeor, it was infuriating. And frankly, it was incredibly disrespectful to Liam. . Edit2: (at fire plane) That's incorrect, there are dead kids in video games a lot, especially in JRPGs. But that's beside the point, I agree that their behavior was ridiculous. Just like Vergesson, they just weren't taking anything seriously anymore. They couldn't be bothered. 140 was fantastic, 141 is my least favorite CR episode. It's garbage. It's so bad. I remember watching it live and viewers were horrified. Shocking how bad it was compared to how strong CR1's ending was. And the thing about the camera rolling is this. EVEN IN HOME GAMES, PEOPLE RET-CON STUFF IF PLAYERS ARE UNHAPPY. Liam VERY OBVIOUSLY HATED THE ENDING. I do NOT understand why Matt didn't make sure his players were satisfied with the ends their characters got. As a fan of the media, it was trash. As a D&D player/DM who is also RP-heavy? It was inexcusable to leave someone at the table that unhappy with their character's path. 1:37:00 Yes. As someone who knows a LOT about "justice" systems, I was infuriated that the CR team decided that the courts of a corrupt authoritarian government (Empire) would wrap up all the characters' problems for them. It was absurd. ABSURD. And let's be very clear here. EVERYONE with even half a brain predicted that Trent would break out because they chose to let him live. Stupid. . Edit3: On Beau, I will defend the "my accomplishments" thing, because I think it was heavily implicated that all her life others took credit for things she did, but she's finally in a position where she can knock that shit down. At the same time, there was absolutely regression there. In the final episode she's just outright talking about using her position to pull strings for her friends (corruption). Unbelievable. Why, Marisha? Why would you do that? On Veth, one of the big shames about her is that if Caleb had ACTUALLY GOTTEN AN ARC, maybe she could have actually gotten some relevance in the late-game! ARGH! I realized they were projecting onto each other when they got back to Felderwin and she immediately started blaming Caleb and saying "fuck him." It was obvious that he was a surrogate to her for both her husband and her son, and that was just... gross. Caduceus was a lovable doofus they did NOTHING with and I was weirded out that he was so unhelpful to Caleb and Yasha, the two most heavily grieving people in the party, when he's the grave cleric. Molly's most interesting act was dying, it's true. But if Caduceus was going to roll to try and resurrect him, then WHY did Tal choose to switch him with Kingsley? Just keep him dead, Tal! Jesus! WHY?! What a slap in the face 141 was! I didn't even like Molly but I was (and am) still baffled by this. . Edit4: Caleb teleports them all home, and he is left homeless and alone with a dead family, just like he was before he met Veth. What a great ending. Oh also he gets old and because he gets old his "friend" leaves him and then he dies. The end. Thanks 141. Thanks Matt and Liam. Great ending. Fantastic... He should have gone back in time instead. The Trent stuff makes my lip curl. Genuinely atrocious, I don't know what Matt was thinking. 2:22:00 Yes to all of this. Apparently it's okay to bend reality to your will for any reason... except to save Caleb Widogast's parents )or find Mollymauk Tealeaf's soul for some reason?) because he has to learn a lesson about hubris, which is much more important than those people's lives. Because apparently in order for Caleb to be redeemed/to atone, he can't take back the payment of his parents' blood, even though Caleb argued against redemption requiring a price earlier. Instead, Caleb starts training up new empire mages. Oh, he teaches them to "think differently." They're still assembly mages. They're still working for the authoritarian state that is the Empire. Why didn't he establish his own school if he wanted to teach so badly? Why? Because the show ended. There was no time for anything actually creative and thought-out apparently. The ending is supposed to be about how Caleb's parents had to stay dead so Caleb could swallow his hubris, but it's the height of hubris to insert yourself into a system, contribute to it, and then pretend that you've managed to protect EVERY SINGLE CHILD IN THE SCHOOL just because you are ONE TEACHER IN IT. Nonsense. The Volstrucker program continues... just maybe not in Caleb's classroom. The Trent one-shot was almost as dog-shit as 141, NOTHING of interest happened except that Trent was ACTUALLY incapacitated like he should have been years before during the main story... except it was STILL badly done. It's true. Liam supported all the other players so much and then they dropped him HARD. It was awful to watch. Caleb trying to break the pact with feympkin makes sense. Feympkin accepting it after Matt having just said on that little spinoff "I happen to love my wizard" did not. . Liam said the reason Caleb didn't bring his parents back via time travel was "logistics." Fine. The risks were too great, he thought. Fine. THEN RESURRECT THEM. THIS is the problem with Caleb's ending. If he's not going to time travel, he has TWO, count them, TWO friends who can cast 7th level Resurrection spells, that is GUARANTEED TO WORK. Jester EVEN OFFERED TO DO IT AT ONE POINT. And you can SEE LIAM REALIZE THAT JESTER IS RUINING HIS "WILL HE WON'T HE" QUESTION AND SO HE JUST HAS CALEB STARE AT HER IN SILENCE, REFUSING TO RESPOND. The most, MOST interesting thing that could have been done with Caleb? Was to resurrect his parents, have Caleb look him in the eye, and force him to admit to them that it was HIM. He was the one that BURNED THEM. Can you even imagine the scene that would follow? My god. We were robbed. Robbed. . I remember reading your post on Reaping Potential when you first wrote it. It made me cry. I was so frustrating. . Liam liked Essek right up to the point he learned Essek was the traitor. Liam recognizes that *Caleb* still likes Essek, but LIAM does not, and it shows. Badly. You can see it every time Liam tries to get Caleb to reach out to Jester or Astrid after 97. He's looking for an out, but he couldn't find it. . EXU Calamity is magnificent. The CR2 reunions follow 141, they were doomed from the start. CR3, my god, ugh ugh ugh. I tried so hard. I TRIED. No. I'm done. If you want to watch ttrpg shows, try something else. . That clip with Brennan talking about giving people half an ending is a massive condemnation of how Matt handled CR2. Wow. . The CR cast likes to simultaneously talk about how special their stories are and then claim that they're just silly guys playing a game! I don't understand why the fans are okay being jerked around like that. It's so disrespectful. . "Is she going to recommend Hard Mo- HAHAHAHA, yeah. There it is." :) Beautiful fanfic. I had to put it down a few times because it was a TOUGH read, especially as someone who was hospitalized from a sleep deprivation-induced seizure. I already see too much of myself in Caleb, so that was... a lot. . 4:00:25 Oh no, you turned my waterworks on. That's it, isn't it? That's why it still makes me so sad.

Final Edit: The lesson you took out of that is so valuable and actually was a big part of the therapy I went through after ... stuff happened. Yes, we are the protagonists of our own lives and in our own lives choices will have consequences. Yet that shouldn't discourage us from taking a chance, rolling the dice and see what life has to offer us. That milady is just a beautiful thing to take out of your entire grieving process. I'm going to restructure my comment now that I watched the entire video and fully understand where you're coming from. First of all: I have the upmost respect for your commitment to put that much effort in a video which really shows how much you cared about all of this and I'm sorry you went through this entire big disappointment. I didn't experience it with CR but with some other media that just was ... bad. #GameOfThrones. I myself started watching CR over the duration of 2023 and since I'm living in Germany CR is pretty much a friday thing for me, so this entire lifestyle you describe isn't really happening for me. On the other hand, I can pretty much say that I avoid it on purpose because I had this entire experience before. Sharing my thoughts on upcoming episodes with people and being let down with the results. For me that was a lesson learned. If you enjoy something there are people on the internet that will ruin it for you, one way or the other. I won't go into much detail of the things you describe that were bothering you with the ending of C2 because I feel like there is no common ground to gain here between the two of us. But there are many interesting points you made in the video and I feel like we're fighting on the same hill with a lot of topics. The storytelling in some media is right out bad and I don't get why people actually enjoy some stuff that is out there being hyped over the moon. MARVEL movies that are just rated in their own cosmos and not being compared to actual good movies. TV series that just narrow down into irrelevancy after a promising start, yada yada yada. I myself started a writing project last year and actually pulled through with it and after writing the ending, I was like "Huh, how would that have ended it was a Netflix production." That entire process actually made me realize something: People just might have a different taste in stories than I do and THAT IS FINE. One of my best friends doesn't like stories with unhappy endings. That's just not for him and eventhough I think he's missing out on a shitload of good movies/series/books, THAT IS FINE. We're all different people with different taste in media. Yes, I sometimes think that is frustrating especially with repetitive 4-chord music while there is actually music with depth and creativity behind it - sometimes I just wanna scream when listening to the charts but that's just how it is. Attacking people for their taste in media just isn't fair and won't do anything good in the long run. Yes, we can show the stuff we enjoy to other people but have to accept that it might not be for them. To me Lorna Shore's Pain Remains Album might be the best album of all time, while other people listen to it and for them it's just noise. It's sad but I have to accept that ... like you have to accept that there are people out there - me included - who actually enjoy watching CR. I don't have to watch the episodes life and sometimes I don't watch them until monday the next week. My life doesn't depend on watching some nerdy ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons&Dragons, yet I really enjoy to do so. And that's all what it is to me, people telling a collaborative and with 7+ people telling one story, there will always be parts that are not completely discovered. A big part for me is actually watching the cast do this. I like those people. Another thing we agree on is EXU: Calamity. That shit is the best actual play out there and will be for a very long time, if not ever. Point blank. The entire cast is presenting their absolute S-Game (gamers will understand) and it absolutely rocks. I'm pumped to see what Brennan+cast will put us through during the Downfall Fewshot that will happen over the next weeks. Since I couldn't find it through google, would you mind to put the link to the fanfics in the video description or a pinned commet? Would be lovely. And while you're at it put the novel recommendations in it to please. Thanks in advance. With all that being said: I'd really love to have an actual chat with you about media and stuff. As I said, I think we're fighting on the same hill to an extend and just pushing walls of text onto eachother isn't my preferred way of having conversations. So again: Great video eventhough we don't agree on everything but eh ... discussions are important, right? :D

Def agree that episode 141 was Bad and also that c2 never felt quite right again after the hiatus. Partly for general reasons and partly because i am a sad beaujes shipper and all i want nowadays to see my blue girls stand next to each other or maybe even interact. I do like c3 but my expectations havent been super high. At least Essek gets to be a bitch again lol

After listening with an open mind for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, it is very clear to me that you just did not resonate with how the cast changed and how they needed the story to change once the pandemic hit. You wanted it to stay the same and were not happy with the adaptations made by the cast to escape from reality in the way that THEY wanted to. You even say it yourself, that the Rumblecusp arc was the beginning of the end for you. On the point that a lot of story threads didn’t lead to anything is completely and utterly false. Another commenter mentioned it as well, but just because they didn’t resonate with you or impact you, does not mean they didn’t impact the cast, the story, or other viewers. Additionally, with the suspicion around the Vess Derogna death and the statement that the world stopped having consequences for the Nein is so weird, because at some point, either before or after, I am not 100% sure, it is stated that the Assembly is not a part of the Empire, and not all the mages get along. And why would the Empire or King care about one of the mages of the Assembly, a near autonomous group, that happens to reside in and work with the Empire? He would really only care about Ludinus or Trent, because they actually deal with the protection of the Empire to a large degree. It’s perfectly fine to criticize and have opinions, but a lot of the opinions you have are stated as fact, which is my main problem with this video essay. And I’m not saying you didn’t have valid points, but it’s important to remember that Cr has always been clear that this show is for them first. It’s THEIR game, they will tell the story and play it how THEY want, and if people resonate with it and enjoy, then they are happy, and if people want to support it monetarily, they are grateful. It has always been their business model to do it the way that THEY see fit. And if that isn’t something you can get behind any longer, then it’s just that simple. I personally loved the ending of C2. I think it kept to the thread of Mollymauk and his importance to the Nein, all while adding new magical lore to the world, and really hammering home that family is who you choose, and their is nothing more important than that. I even took a almost a 6 month break from the current campaign because I just wasn’t feeling it anymore, but now I’m back, almost caught up, and am continuing to love and support the stories that they want to tell, flaws and all.

I disliked the lack of personal arcs and the rushed ending. And so many things were hidden behind deep lore. And as you said, the players all tried to put more meaning into their characters but just managed to make them less understandable. The plot just became more and more lore dependent. Part because Matt had to make sure he stuck to his worldbuilding from the officially released stuff. Part because he wanted to be more clever and drop more long cons. The end was just a mess. Mostly because of the players having problems making decisions when the goals are more gray. Also, it was really disappointing that C2 was a similar kind of "open" world game to C1. A change to a survival, intrigue or dungeon crawl would have been nice. The outspoken sensitivity politics attracted just the most toxic crowd

I am so here for this omg i had such an experience bingeing CR C2 over a few months in 2020... and then catching up and experiencing the ending and having whiplash. it would take me so long to describe it so im just gonna keep watching for now gsdfsd

Yeaaah, I picked a random spot in the video to see what was what and it was the point where you were talking about the T-Dock and how it didn’t make sense… yeah, sorry bruv, don’t agree with that in the least. I totally understand not wanting that to be where that storyline ended up and I support your right to vent about it, but just because you didn’t want to go to Albuquerque doesn’t mean there weren’t signs telling you that’s where the road was headed. Peace ✌🏽

This is a good video and I totally understand the disappointment but in the end I'm still glad c2 exists because I will never be over Caleb Widogast.

I do feel like there is a disconnect with the understanding of the layers in the rumblecusp arc. Artagan wasn't let go because of the power of love. The Moonweaver is a trickster god who uses trickery and deception to take the corrupt down a peg. The whole play about taking Artagan away was to show Artagan that choices can have consequences and if he stays on the path he is on, it will not end well. His actual punishment is staying and tending to his flock, because he tried to push his followers onto the moon weaver.

I thought about 2/3 of this video were pretty good criticism, and then the final 1/3 was a trauma dump. I too was disappointed at the ending of Campaign 2 and felt like it needed more time with the characters to fully develop their arcs. I don't know why they decided to end the campaign when they did, but I don't think it was the right decision. That being said, you make many personal attacks on the cast and people who like the Vox Machina show... which was a pretty random shot at people. You talk about disengaging from Critical Role, and maybe you should.

The biggest mistake Liam did with Caleb was making him end Caleb's story with him working within a system in which HE KNOWS is fundamentally flawed. Like come on, man! there is no fixing a corrupt system from within!

I was disappointed when they removed the art reel from the beginning and middle of the show. The lack of Critical Role artwork now feels significant, and I believe the community has slowed its growth because of it

Curious, are you running or playing in your own games now? You can easily get what you're looking for with a receptive party, although in the interim it can be really terrible as you pick out the best rp group for it. I feel that you are putting a *lottt* of weight on people building a story as the players when a core part of games as a storytelling device vs other media is that it can be terribly random and at the end of the day the gm/players are all humans who dont have foresight; think a cartoon train barreling ahead on twin tracks but a group of people are quickly putting down planks in between. Maybe during a crucial scene they'll hit a fantastic characterization beat but it's also likely that they completely miss the opportunity and flub the moment. More experienced roleplayers can catch those moments more often but at the end of the day, everyone is still human you know?

I disagree with doing it for an audience. They got asked to bring their home game to streaming and it took off.

“The separation between how I feel the characters are and what I see onscreen is what boggles my mind” 3:19:20 I think you got it here. I think you had a much different idea of what was going on than the cast did. I hope you can feel better about this show going forward

I really hated when they removed the art wheel before shows.

The audience is the reason it is successful. They don’t do it for us, they do it for money, for themselves. It is that narcissistic. That is the tragedy of CR. That it was lightning in a bottle. That it was entertaining and meaningful. But they refuse to consciously make it meaningful.

In DND mechanics the cupcake was bullshit. Laura deceived the DM. That is Player vs DM behaviour, not cooperative storytelling. A good example of that twist is Sam’s counter spell in C1

You list some great moments and it was interesting to recall them in dense format. It's obvious how passionate you are about some very important topics and themes. That's beautiful to see and you should definitely express them in your own works and writings. However, expecting others to write the stories exactly how you want to see them is in my opinion a hope that will always be disappointed. But I also think that's not a bad thing... It's just the space for you, to fill with your own voice. And to get inspired to pick up threads and pieces that other people (in your opinion) left on the floor. To critisize "hey this wasn't the perfect/best/completed arc" in an improvised setting mostly told through the intuition of the players is unfair. Most films and book series do not manage to create a decent arc with a writers room and 1,5 years development time for a single protagonist. Doing this for a room of ideally equal protagonists is insanely difficult. And yet, what we got is still incredibly high tier storytelling despite most of it being improvised, keyword being "despite". Expecting more or expecting this to be consistently the same is unrealistic. They never promised more than to be voice actors, friends that play D&D. They bring serious themes, vulnaribility and personal stories into it if they feel like it, but if they don't (anymore) or withdraw from things for whatever reason at any point that is a choice any human being in the public eye should have. As you also pointed out, we don't know what was going on behind the scenes. Liam repeatedly said that he needed something lighter for campaign 3, so maybe this is the reason why some aspects of Caleb's arc were a bit rushed towards the end. And I am quite sure that there were phases where the actors would talk about things between episodes and some stressful times where they only thought about CR during the recording - of course, this will create some dips in "quality". You make most of your critique points sound like some decision or push to mainstream fluff, when I think there a dozens of other reasons why it happened this way (one of them is the totally valid "the players weren't feeling it that day"). We don't know. This makes me think about the classic "the band's latest album is their worst". Idols cannot fullfill what you project onto them forever or at all. Sport fans always know better how the players should have played. If you want ultimately satisfying stories for you checking all the boxes you need in the current phase of your life, tell them yourself. It's more satisfying than hoping that others will do it for you. Thank you for sharing, I hope this venting brought you some closure!