Critical Role Fangirl Fails To Copy Jester, Ends Horribly

Critical Role standom cringe
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[@dannietea]

I think what a lot of Critical Role fans miss is that not only are they all voice actors, but everybody on the show are all friends who’ve been playing D&D together for almost a decade. You can’t force that in a few sessions.

[@armata_strigoi_0]

Yeah, that's a key factor that often goes unsaid on all sides. The cast can only play off one another so well because they know each other so well. They know one another's personalities, likes and dislikes etc. so they know how to interact with one another on a deeper level when roleplaying. You're never going to have the melodramatic acting sequences they do if you're not 100% comfortable with everyone at the table; even then, your interests have to align. I GM for my friends and can safely say, they're never going to roleplay like the CR cast haha. And there's nothing wrong with that, we still greatly enjoy ourselves and have a good time playing.

[@jeremiahyoung7591]

Most of those who do the Actual Play fully be it Critical Role, Dimension 20 or Pixel Circus...all have improv and theater/acting experience

[@jonsturgill6508]

And that they're performing for a viewing audience, the enjoyment of the group is secondary. How they play off camera is probably different.

[@seanchan4478]

Very well said, just play the game, make friends naturally, and the magic will happen eventually.

[@doms.6701]

Don't forget that it's all scripted. That's the biggest thing they forget the most

[@yung710]

"Doesn't matter, hes a guy" Oh she's one of THOSE

[@SpringDavid]

Ah yes, the classics, the "why guys don't like me" girl or the "kill all men" girl for newer players.

[@spectrelead]

Yep, a fifth-wave femin***

[@TrueChaoSclx]

I don't know why it has to be said, but cock and ball torture is still sexual violence, ladies

[@kentonbaird1723]

@@SpringDavid alternatively named, the "i'm 40 and still single!" girls.

[@impartialthrone2097]

Yeah I would've had to stop right there to say "so is that what you actually believe in real life? Because you, the *player* just used that argument to justify your *character's* sexual violence"

[@Logan_Baron]

"You really need to watch Critical Role. We're trying to have fun here" I'm confused at how Matt, Laura, Ashley, Marisha, Liam, Sam, Travis, and Talisin were able to have fun playing Dungeons and Dragons without having been able to see episodes of Critical Role.

[@mrtomo1856]

You forgot about Travis... Also, I think it's spelled "Taliesin" If I remember correctly, during a TalksMachina episode, some of the cast were baffled when they realised his name included the words "lie" & "sin"

[@Logan_Baron]

@@mrtomo1856 Thanks. I always have trouble remembering how Taliesin spells his name. Don't know how I missed Travis.

[@williamwhitney5266]

Any DnD group that say this to me when I'm DMing.....oh hell to pay and I the DM open a Gate of Hell swarms of Demons slaught the Group and while I the DM with Eradicating this flith of a Group proceeds into Oof myself, Thanks the Only 1 Nice person in the Group for inviting me, and Exit Stage Left .DM has Died. Never to Return

[@kentonbaird1723]

Because this is the introduction that a whole lot of newbies have had to tabletop RPGs.

[@Rated314]

Okay... protonoob here. I have yet to participate in my first game of DnD. I can easily wrap my head around the sentiment. Why? Because the amount of rules and minutae that exists within DnD... I can see how I could burn out before getting to a functional level of understanding. Right now, I've got a pretty good grasp on the rules as written, what is unique to CR and likely not to exist in a home game... Consuming streaming games, covered a lot of what would inevitably growing pangs.

[@Leith_Crowther]

I appreciate CR players and Matt Mercer being publicly vocal about their position, which is essentially, “Do not attempt to mimic Critical Role. It will not be good for your game.”

[@LevidelValle]

It has taught me a lot about dming and building better backgrounds.

[@wirelessg18]

@@LevidelValle oh it's great for learning how to do a way of dm and background for sure, what they meant was more don't try to be us, trained voice actors with years of experience, lots of improv and being able to dedicate 10's of hours a week to DnD both on and off session .

[@Logan_Baron]

I watched CR from the start, and I caught a lot of comments (you could actually read the comments back then it wasn't so flooded) of newbies saying it made them want to get into D&D. I encouraged them to do so, but told them their games would not be like this. Not even just the professional talent, but that every gaming table is different. Different themes and styles. I've been playing and mostly DMing for almost 40 years. I still learned a lot from CR, and from Matt. Learned, but I don't try to or want to emulate him. I have my own style and try to improve it instead.

[@Enclavefakesoldier]

That disclaimer alone says more than anyone else could.

[@LevidelValle]

@@wirelessg18 that is what I got from CR, Dimension 20 and other TTRPG streams. How to plan, how to roll with the chaos and deal with problems that come up.

[@fluidwolf]

DM: "No sexual violence" Sasha: "But he a guy!" Fun fact, grabbing a guy's nuts and twisting them is both sexual AND violent. Therefore don't do it. I legitimately don't know what she thought that argument would accomplish.

[@wuvbandit1657]

Two words: *Testicular tortion.*

[@shuheihisagi6689]

Its like if a male PC grabbed a female NPC's tits and twisted. Its so sexist and hypocritical when a girl enables or commits sexual violence on a guy. Don't we want to end toxic masculinity? We shouldn't think its okay for men to be sexually abused.

[@psychosiskahn5952]

@@wuvbandit1657 That's how I lost a testicle, I was in a shit tonne of pain for hours

[@finnmchugh99]

@@wuvbandit1657 or epididymal cysts... Those may be more minor compared to torsion but yeah not pleasant. I experienced a few too many hits in dodgeball so that sort of pain I know too well and each time I almost throw up from the pain.

[@Chaogod1233]

It comes from resentment towards men, since a lot of men have done some extremely shitty things to women, it is perfectly okay to do the same. Neither is okay.

[@legomaniac213]

"A Tiefling who is half Genasi, but Fire instead of Water." So, a regular Tiefling then? Because Jester being half Water Genasi was a justifications for her Hellish Rebuke doing Ice damage instead of Fire.

[@ollllj]

yeah it sounds like a small modification, but its a huge change to the character design.

[@wels2342]

It would be cool to see a half earth or air genasi but the only reason to have a fire would be to completely negate fire damage which is completely over powered for early levels

[@ulvemann43]

huh, i never actually watched the second season, so i had no idea she had actual gameplay changes with that, neat.

[@wels2342]

@@ulvemann43 yeah that's why she's blue. Her dad is a water genasi and a criminal.

[@Pundae]

Well technically there's still a difference between a fire devil and a fire elemental, but yeah there's not much point in having the bloodline if it's just being redundant

[@SolrSurfr3]

God I hope OP in the first story isn’t friends with Sasha anymore. Her terrible RP aside, she’s just a genuinely bad person if she thinks sexual violence doesn’t matter when the victim’s a guy.

[@AzureKyle]

Exactly. I hate blatant sexism toward men like that. You know if someone said they were going to slap the ass of a barmaid, she'd be up in arms about it. But it's okay for her to twist the balls of a guy.

[@maxime2445]

It's Way more common than it should be. to The point that some extreme feminists will call looking in the general direction of her rape and later brag that they raped a guy. Or if they get cheated on that they think it's justified to run them over with a car. And post it to Twitter to get a ton of positive feedback from other sociopaths. it sadly is a relatively common occurrence, people thinking killing men isn't that bad, and thinking that it's impossible to rape a man and this is due to feminists. Not normal ones, but the loud minority. This isn't new. More people need to realize that this is the reality we live in and to call this bullshit out.

[@TheAres1999]

@@AzureKyle even if for some reason you don't think it counts as sexual violence (even though it does) why would you attack a high ranking government official in his own home? If you are parleying with a Duke, you don't punch him in the face to get what you want.

[@twilightsparkle75]

at that moment id have kicked her out of the game

[@AzureKyle]

@@TheAres1999 Because in her head, that's what Jester would do.

[@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308]

Critical Roll isn’t to blame. It’s the lunatics and weirdos who think that liking the show makes them a good role player or professional dndologist. Their standards are too high and they still don’t meet them themselves. All must be critical roll and if you don’t match up to it or copy it or use it your doing in wrong. These same kind of people will complain about human fighters being boring and generic while playing the same character all the time.

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY HE WILL NEVER COME BACK

[@anon_serenade]

oh my god, bruh this bot comment

[@Cheetahgirl_Studios]

@@anon_serenade No worries my man I reported the bot.

[@Nerobyrne]

if people complain about human fighters being boring, it's very clear they should be playing World of Warcraft instead, because to them, character depth stops at the race/class combo.

[@drunkbillygoat]

i strictly only play humans because no one ever plays them and theres the fun for me

[@ULTIMATZEKROM]

"It really doesn't matter since 'he's a guy'" I feel sorry for Sasha's boyfriend, if they have one and/or if they get one, if that's Sasha's attitude regarding sexual violence...

[@spectrelead]

And that shows Sasha as being close to what the MGTOW movement calls a "feminazi"

[@Overlord99762]

If she had one

[@thebaron2277]

Amber Turd moment

[@Nogardrol]

I don't think Sasha have a BF, and i'm sure she´ll never have one hahaha

[@ULTIMATZEKROM]

@@Nogardrol She definitely won't with that attitude lol

[@Mightymajin]

As much as Sasha is a Jester Stan, she doesn't understand what made Jester work as a character

[@ArkhamVI]

This is one of those moments where it warrants that clip of Laura Bailey dressed up as Jester screaming "FUCK!!!"

[@ComXDude]

Funny how often this happens. Any time you have a popular character which requires you to actually pay attention to their motivations for their actions to make sense, you have an overwhelming number of people who remove all of the interesting subtext and completely misconstrue that character. We had a lot of that for Arthur Fleck after "Joker" (2019) came out. Or literally every Batman writer ever since "The Killing Joke" (1988).

[@WarmLusamine]

The My Hero Academia fandoms view on everyone (ESPECIALLY Bakugo & Deku) in a nutshell.

[@grey8288]

@@WarmLusamine IKR, if you're an ass like Bakugo is so much of the time but without any of the reasoning and especially without learning the boundaries of the PCs and players around you so you can still work as a team (as even Bakugo puts effort into improvement to do), the character is simply a powerful ass who no one will like.

[@bag-manbaron2547]

Ayo a Jack Frost in the wild

[@WladcaPodziemia]

To explain it with best analogy (as Event Horizon showed) - porn. If you would expect your sexlife be like porn - you will be disappointed. If you act like in porn - you are cringey Porn itself and actors in it are not to blame, since they didn't invite you to attempt to reproduce what they did irl.

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY HE WILL NEVER COME BACK

[@unluckyone1655]

Also, the editing, the coordination, the make up, etc. People don't realize just how much work goes into making porn. It's not just people randomly having sex in front of the camera. Same thing with CR and other ttrpg shows on twitch. CR has thousands of dollars in equipment, staging, lighting, fancy cameras, etc. To say nothing to the actors themselves having years if not decades of experience with performance, as well as having connections within the show biz industry itself. It's more than just a bunch of friends playing dnd around a table together on camera

[@grey8288]

@@unluckyone1655 One of their average battlemaps costs just as much as I personally have spent on physical map tools and supplies. I put a lot of love and care into my maps, as does Matt, but oof his budget is NICE. Tbh, I do slightly miss the old days with hand drawn and cobbled maps as well as him having his sizeable but still occasionally "lacking" mini collection. That's the level I enjoy. Having a mini for everything can be fun, especially because Matt's side hobby is painting minis, but I could aspire to early CR materials.

[@unluckyone1655]

@@grey8288 I hope to one day dedicate most of my free time making minis and terrain. I enjoy doing that stuff for fun, but I don't have the space to do so right now. But one day, one day...

[@Fyreflier]

@@grey8288 not to mention all the sponsorships from the likes of dwarven forge and steamforged which means he gets lots of free stuff to use to show off on camera

[@sadvec6328]

Another case of "You have a whole roleplaying game to be whoever you want, and still, you pick to copy someone's else character"

[@Ghostie____]

Exactly, the closest thing I copied was CR character molly's skin color for my teifling. But that was only because I like purple lol

[@Logan_Baron]

Most of my character designs start off being "INSPIRED" by some character in tv, movie, or literature, or some combination (usually combination) but then grow from that into a completely different character before I've even finished completing the character sheet. And I do help new players create characters using the same concept of "think of a tv/movie character you want to play" and even then it's a jumping off point and they've changed major aspects and the personality is pretty unique by the time they play. But yeah, to just copy someone else's character sounds boring and pointless.

[@borger298]

My proudest creation is a warlock who became a warlock by accident on his path to becoming a paladin, basically tried to be a paladin but fumbled the holy rites he was practicing and summoned the fiend and just rolled with it.

[@NopeNaw]

It's because they don't care about the rpg itself at all, they just want to be on Critical Role.

[@TheLevantin]

@@Logan_Baron I think everyone uses different characters for inspiration. I think it's extremely hard to come up with something that's never been done before. Mankind is a nation of storytellers. Every story has been told. The only thing you can do is combine things. When I look at books and movies of the last 30 years, I see that every story has been told and we can only rehash old ones.

[@FishofMuu]

As a guy that's been sexually assaulted, that girl can pound sand

[@BlueTressym]

...and as a woman who has been as well, I agree with you 100%. I would hazard a guess that she thinks that women hurting men is 'Payback'. Ugh, wrong on so many levels.

[@denmarkball7728]

@BlueTressym nice self-insert, straight into a projective assumption 9/10

[@swishfish8858]

​@@BlueTressymI don't think so, everything in the story suggests that this Sasha person is a puddle-deep media sponge with few genuine opinions of her own. Her "but he's a guy" line most likely comes from the way our culture portrays the gender divide when it comes to sex - "men want it, women shouldn't". Without the drive to come to her own conclusions, it doesn't surprise me that she'd arrive at "grab man sack okay and funni".

[@BlueTressym]

@@denmarkball7728 as you do exactly what you've incorrectly accused me of.

[@BlueTressym]

@@swishfish8858 thanks for the info. I just hazarded a guess based on ways I've heard and seen such behaviour being justified.

[@francofernandes2006]

I'm not that patient of a person, so if I were the DM things would go like: "No sexual violence of any kind." "Come on, it doesn't really matter because he's a gu..." *banned from the server * In Private Message: "Don't bother showing up anymore."

[@jesterssketchbook]

i like your style

[@Mediados]

You just have to know the people you let into your campaign. Any decent person knows the general rules of how to not be creepy weird.

[@Leith_Crowther]

When I’m the DM, you will respect my players’ time, dignity, and boundaries. Otherwise - well, there is no “otherwise.”

[@theredscum4202]

@@Mediados this right here. I haven't played since highschool and a younger friend I have has been trying to get me and a few of our friends to play. But I was picky because I want to play the game with people I know will be enthusiastic about playing and won't try to derail the experience

[@pippo17173]

This is how it should of went.

[@gothicavictoria1341]

In regards to that one player wanting to use sexual violence to get her way, Laura Bailey would NEVER. Neither Laura Bailey or any of her characters would EVER use or justify that kind of gameplay. Disgusting.

[@eternallylearning2811]

Actually that's something the most evil villian would do

[@Necrodancer1312]

As someone who has loved Critical Role since campaign 1, this show deserves a better class of fandom.

[@Micras08]

Most "critters" I've encountered have been total assholes, toxic as all hell, even sometimes directed at the cast. I think that most fans (of anything really) are reasonable enough people, they don't tie their whole identity to what they are fans of tho and because of that don't feel the need to communicate a whole lot about it (with strangers at least). So we only really get to see/hear/experience the asshats 😕

[@dracawyn]

I'd say that, on a whole, the CritRole Fandom is actually pretty great. Unfortunately, every Fandom has a percentage of extremely annoying, toxic people. And you're always more likely to hear about (and from) that crappy percentage of people because they're the ones that create horror stories.

[@Necrodancer1312]

@@dracawyn that's a fair assessment, and I know plenty of great CR fans. But these kinds of horror stories are more than enough to make me avoid most online fandom culture in general.

[@doms.6701]

@@dracawyn the worst games I've ever been in were players or DMs who were CR fans. From my experience, the fandom is shit. I have and will continue to turn down games to play or DM for if they say that they wanna try because of CR. It's not fair to paint them with such a wide brush but I'd rather not have to leave after a session or two

[@JacksonOwex]

@@dracawyn The bigger issue with these kinds of fans are 1) That this seems to be pretty common behavior among younger kids today(even some of the ones in MY generation, and that pisses me off to no end) and 2) These are pretty much the only people we hear about today! "Normal" behaving people don't get talked about because it's "normal", we hear about the idiots and wackos because that's what gets the clicks and the purchases(gotta throw that in there because there ARE still some PHYSICAL forms of media out there)!

[@ZedMazaus480]

Yeah...no.. Jester wouldn't just twist a guys family jewels because she got impatient. Jester never physically harmed anyone that didn't deserve it. The Traveler's teachings was to spread a little chaos, BUT never do harm and always leave a place better than you found it. She often played pranks, but never assaulted someone like that. Let alone a gentle soul that did nothing to deserve getting hurt. If she was trying to go for a evil Jester well done. Since we know she wasn't she is only being a bad copy cat and player.

[@tawesssoabbox]

Now Yasha or Nott on the other hand.... Very much would have.... Not to mention most of the characters from C1....

[@ccouch713]

@@tawesssoabbox I don't think Not would do THAT, but she could definitely come up with some kind of extortion.

[@Fyreflier]

@@ccouch713 Nott/Veth wouldn't I agree. Beau on the other hand....

[@xFlareLeon]

Leaving a place better than she found it? Like when she defaced an goddess' effigy in a temple? Oh, and of course she'd not bring harm to someone like when she helped maim a man who was just a little too persistent, even when her mother EXPLICITLY told her not to hurt him.

[@ZedMazaus480]

@@xFlareLeon In comparison those 2 events are minor vs this wanabee. The temple defacements were fixable ment to stir up chaos of stuffy clergymen of big faiths. And as for the person you mentioned that she went after later. All she did was lock him on a balcony at a big party. This mind you this is the guy that wanted to do more than just banish Jester for a prank when she was still a little girl that could argueably didn't know better. And the fact that her mom sent her off in agreement to the banishment was for Jester's safety against any possible harmc the polatician would have most have certanly done at any moment she left their home away from her mom's protection. That man is no innocent bystandard by any means.

[@pugking4518]

Critical Role was what got me into finally playing D&D but I did not came into D&D expecting my game to be like Critical Role people need to remember that the stars of the show are professional voice actors if you are not on the same level as the stars of the show you should not expect your group to be like Critical Role or your DM to be like Matthew Mercer

[@jacoblyman9441]

CR also has a lot of polish that is never put into your table top games. I think they have due to how the show is set up, script writers and people aiding Matt and the players in plotting the story especially in the later campaigns. Its probably behind the scenes a bit more railroad-y than people like to admit, but its par the course for the cast because they are all professional actors. Not saying there aren't moments of improv or bad dice roles that can take things on a wild left turn like an authentic D&D game, but its worth noting that via the show's own design its got elements no table would dare mimic in a home game. Even then their ability to go quickly from the planned to the unplanned on the CR table has a lot to do with years of improv training coming out of the players and DM, and its something a lot of home games also completely lack.

[@Konpekikaminari]

@@jacoblyman9441 there's also the fact alot of people mention this group of nerdy voice actors have been playing together for over a _decade_ the polish and professionalism come ontop of the foundation of a 10-y.o friend group dynamic that you simply can't force on session 1 of a fresh group

[@JacksonOwex]

Outside of being able to do different voices, being "professional voice actors" has LITTLE to NOTHING to do with being a good roleplayer!

[@mysticwizard1943]

Just wanted to say that, while I know that it's not exactly what you meant, them being professional voice actors has nothing to do with whether they can be good players or DM's. It comes down to trust and practice, and a million other things. But I just say this because I've seen that phrase in "horror stories" before - "[problem player] does [x] voice and it's like dude stop you aren't a professional voice actor" or "I didn't come to do improv at the local theater"... and that's kinda shitty. Don't like doing voices in DnD? Don't do them, but don't be an asshole to those that do. Some people do voices and sound effects to help with theater of the mind, others because it helps them get into their character's mindset (almost like it's a roleplaying game or something). It's been a part of the game since the beginning. Yes, nobody should expect the game to be like Critical Role, but on the flipside you shouldn't be trying to make anyone feel ashamed for bringing things like voices into their game. If it's too "cringe" for you... loosen the hell up!

[@randomlygeneratedname]

@@jacoblyman9441 this dude it is that it's a show, not exactly DND, so I think it does give newbies who have only seen the show to think it's like that

[@TheSkullivan12]

For someone so completely obsessed with Jester, this player doesn't seem to understand a single thing about the character at even the most fundamental level. There was a huge amount of time and forethought, from both her player and DM, put into creating who Jester is and why she does what she does. But somehow this player only managed to get "funny accent" and "lul random" from that and decided to base their entire personality around it.

[@Specsboy1999]

That seems to be a recurring factor in these stories, people who take characters they like in media but pick and choose certain attributes they like while inserting parts of their personality to fill the gaps (not saying that giving an established character some shared interests is 100% bad as long as it makes some sense) and then they act like this is how the character is make any fan of the character with better or equal understanding be disgusted at this person cosplaying as the character as an excuse for their actions. While I understand fanon versions of characters are a thing and it can lead to some misconceptions of the canon character, it seems like they are using it to attempt to excuse their actions and all but saying the dreaded "It's what my character would do!"

[@thebigidea9659]

"Who cares?He's a guy." For some reason some women dont believe it's possible for men to go through sexual abuse.That its solely something that can happen to a woman.

[@berserkerciaran]

Men don't realize that either. See all those dudes saying they envy the victim anytime a female teacher assaults a male student

[@TheLevantin]

I experienced it myself once. I was harassed by a group of women. They were heavily intoxicated and have touched me and harassed. They have also reach into my pockets and steal from me (I think). I had to use my physical superiority to escape this situation. I bench press 180 kilos, but I don't want to be in a situation where I HAVE to use my physical strength to escape. When I tell how bad I found the situation I am only laughed at and people tell me that they would have gone with the women. That I was lucky. Men want to be grabbed by women. I do not want to be grabbed and harassed by anyone. Men can also be victims and not always perpetrators.

[@Nomadik]

@@berserkerciaran Yup, that's because of good old-fashioned American toxic masculinity. It's honestly almost as harmful to men as it is to everyone else.

[@insertianameia2224]

@@TheLevantin yeah, men can be harassed too. Like my dad, after my Mom passed away, he started to do things like the grocery shopping and what not all the time and he told me how he kept having women come up and touch him. Nothing sexual, but still like just coming up to him and say, fixing the tag of his shirt and other small things like that. My dad was not the touchy feely kind of person, especially with random people in the supermarket that couldn't even say "hi" first.

[@Fyreflier]

Everything in this comment and its replies are the reason the sexual assault and abuse of men is one of the most underreported crimes. They're either told that they're "lucky" if a woman assaults them, accused of being gay if it's a man, made to feel like only the weak get assaulted in the first place, or just plain told that assault of men doesn't exist. What a bullshit society we live in.

[@Mediados]

It seems most people with negative D&D experiences don't have the wrong group, they have the wrong friends.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

"Local Crab KZbinr was found beaten to death. 'The murder weapons appears to be a Jester Lavorre bodypillow filled with 4-sided dice', says police chief. Investigations are still going on."

[@atinyevil1383]

The opening of this hit so hard. The YA book fandom is rabid. They actively call people stupid for not being able to finish their favourite book in less than a week because “it only has X amount of pages, it shouldn’t be that hard”, even though learning disabilities exist. Not to mention heaps of racism, homophobia, and (oddly enough) commodifying gay men.

[@karaoconnoraliasraidra]

Since some people are fast readers, I wonder what their response would be to someone who read the book in a shorter time than expected. Would they be excited or would they get upset by that too and make some claim like, “Oh, well, you must not have read it properly!” Another reason people might be slow to get through a book: issues with eyestrain and/or headaches. One time I checked out a book that (if I recall correctly) was 484 pages long. I read (if I recall correctly) 286 pages in two days and got so sick it was hard to keep down water. That’s how we realized I needed a new eyeglass prescription. I shouldn’t have been reading with glasses anyway since I’m nearsighted and not farsighted, meaning I only need glasses for far-away stuff, but in any case reading so much in so short a time with an outdated prescription was bad for my health. I didn’t read the book at all while I recovered, and in the days following I only read short amounts at a time. It’s not worth damaging your health just to try to appease some fanboy or fan girl who probably won’t be happy even if you do finish the book in the allotted time.

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

OMG. I have never heard of rapid fan boys calling other people stupid because they didn't finish a book in a week or less. I will hate myself for reading your comment for a while because it will take a while to forget this. And to top it all off I'm out of Jack Daniels. Oh God it's going to be hard to go to sleep tonight as my brain echoes the questions, What? Why? Are You Kidding Me? How? I'm not really that naive. But there are times I wish I was.

[@PlaceBotox]

@@davidtherwhanger6795 touch grass jfc

[@LiterallyScarecrow]

@@karaoconnoraliasraidra in my experience, book kids like those get upset when you finish the book faster than them. Happened to me when one of those lent me Pet Sematary and my autistic ass stayed up all night and finished real quick. Mans was really angry that I beat his one week record.

[@CalKale]

Then there's the ones who lash out at you for not liking their favorite author. The SJM group is ruthless.

[@AzureKyle]

The funny thing is, they expect the DM to be like Matt Mercer, but if they were to ever play with Matt as the DM, they would probably just sit there in silence, or annoy the hell out of him with crazy antics. The reason why Critical Roll is so entertaining, is not because they're a group of professional voice actors, but because they are a group of great friends IRL who just get together to have fun. They know each other well and can get away with some of the crazy antic they do because of that. But the people that play DnD expecting it to be Critical Roll don't understand that, and just think it's all Matt's work. Most of the time, it's actually the others and their interactions with each other, while Matt sits there and laughs. I have a great group I've been playing with for a year now, and some of us watch and like Critical Roll, and may have even been inspired by it a few times, but we know what to expect, and have been having so much fun together. And I think that's far better than having a Critical Roll campaign, because it's our world and our story, not theirs. Hell, my Storm Sorcerer recently told off a god because he was pissing him off, and succeeded persuasion check with a Nat 20, then tanked a Lightning Bolt from the god when he retaliated.

[@Nionivek]

People also RARELY pick up on WHY Matt is a great DM. They look at his sweeping storytelling and plotting... But what Matt does best is the basics... He listens to the players.

[@Victor-mm2jb]

@@Nionivek Nailed it.

[@akrumvatum1627]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't most of their relationships not formed as an actual friends, but aquitances from work, or friends from work rather than the level of friendship outside of work? Because the story that's told about Liam's Birthday party implies that some relationships were like: "This guy I know from work", add to that Liam was more of a boss to some of them at that time. So I think the group friendship in general came out during the game. Games bring people together 😊

[@AzureKyle]

@@akrumvatum1627 What I gathered was that they were a group of friends who met through their VA work, and started getting together to play DnD regularly. Vox Machina started as a birthday one-shot for Liam at his request, that blew up into a full campaign because they were all having too much fun with the characters. Also, it was Sam Riegel's first ever foray into DnD, to the point where he asked what the worst class and race were, used a random name generator, and we got Scanlan.

[@tymoore2117]

Yup, my own group finally started to get great just because we fianlly broke through the awkward phases and have started have alot of fun, jokes and shenanigans happen just due to the players

[@santino7470]

Damn, trying to copy Jester is impossible, you can’t have that same level of chaos trickery and make it entertaining unless you’re specifically Laura

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

TÈÇHNÒBŁÁDÉ IS RÖTTIÑG ÏN HE|| LOL

[@flaminyawn]

Ashley's definitely taking her shot at being the C3 chaos gremlin with Fearne, but is putting a very different flavor on it.

[@luciferandassociates9255]

Meh. It's not that hard as long as you have a group that's cool with it. I've played one that was Chaotic Good and one that was Chaotic Evil, both were great but I never disrupted the game to a level we're people had to stop, I did get us into some trouble in game though. Good times.

[@Piemasta9000]

@@flaminyawn but is still managing to pull of making everyone love her. which is fantastic

[@Nerobyrne]

I never watch CR simply because I don't want to be influenced by anyone on there ^^ I'm sure it's great though!

[@TigerW0lf]

Wait, CR had a 'that guy?' Is that what happened to Tiberius!?😨

[@raffaeledeluca3631]

Basically yes

[@barryallen2240]

Yes

[@jordanwilliams1447]

Heavy drug use and drama outside of the game that he brought to the game. He’d often metagame, lie about his rolls, then bitch about the fans when they called him out on it. Thankfully, most of this took place off screen, but Campaign 1 Episode 27 is particularly hard to watch. Travis is particularly annoyed, and Matt looks like he regrets ever starting the show. Everyone else at the table looks pretty defeated, and Orion is just doubling down and making everyone uncomfortable. He would also be very passive aggressive, be it towards the other players or fans (i.e. showing the camera his dice roll so the fans can’t say shit).

[@Nomadik]

What Jordan said. It destroyed his friendship with Matt & the others, too. Matt actually considered not running another campaign afterward.

[@BlueTressym]

@@Nomadik Oof.

[@icantchange.youtubesaysine7338]

Confession: Critical Role got me into D&D BUT after getting into it, I bought the books, the starter pack and watched other campaigns to see how things differ between groups. You do not need to be a voice actor to be a good DM. You just need good story telling skills and need to be consistent (Not all the time but most the time). Then again, I’m still a new DM with new players (They’re only just getting into it) and I’m not at a good level yet. But me and my players are all learning together. I just hate it when some players think everything needs to be like Critical role to be fun. And it’s not even critical roles fault. They’re just a group trying to have fun. Like all D&D groups.

[@randomlygeneratedname]

I don't think you even need to be good, just what works for your group. I don't really like crit role due to it being more of a fantasy TV show in my opinion, I'm also a pretty poor DM but we tend to spend a lot of time joking around or being a bit silly, which is where a lot of the issues come from I think. Some people want the big super dramatic campaign and some a Aren't able to do that and b don't want to.

[@icantchange.youtubesaysine7338]

@@randomlygeneratedname My campaign at the moment has gone from silly and joking to something serious. Some of the players were getting bored, so the change in atmosphere has made them intrigued again. Especially when we've just had our first character death (My player was almost crying.) Where I have the most trouble is time management, as well as managing my campaign. I can get where you are coming from. I can also get why some don't like Crit Role but it will always have a special place in my heart as it got me in D&D. I think as long as the campaign is fun for everyone, you don't have a big epic campaign, just something that's fun. (I just can't wait to become a player. I haven't even played myself. I just got shoved into DMing because I was the only one to have the books and watch D&D campaigns.)

[@emmathepony1992]

"it doesnt matter because its a guy" OOF

[@BlueTressym]

Yup, wrong on so many levels.

[@carolynwilliams5918]

For both of these stories, I wonder if its' an age/engagement thing. My husband and I opted to take the plunge into playing D&D 5e after watching CR Campaign 1. Neither of us have ever really had any desire to copy exactly what CR does, we just like playing the game and telling stories with the people we've become good friends with over the years. Same with all of our friends, most of whom are Critters to some degree. All of us are between 22 and 34, and a bit too busy to actively engage in 'fandom' beyond occasionally going to cons or live shows.

[@Nomadik]

I think it's more of a maturity thing. I've definitely met late-30s man-children who acted like the Wannabe Jester did. Anyone with a level of maturity beyond the average 12-year-old, however, is usually fine.

[@MiraTheWarlock]

Now...I love Critical Role I stan Critical Role My favorite show is ....Critical Role However....If I wanted a campaign being like Critical Role I'd just freaking go on twitch to watch Critical Role Good lord those guys it's FREE

[@LiteraryDM]

Critical Role, specifically the Vox Machina campaign, helped me get through hours of course work in just writing papers. I appreciate they've introduced, and brought, so many people to the hobby. However, I won't lie many of the fans like the OPs described started to turn me off to the show. Nothing against the cast, or their success. Wish them all the best! Matt has even stated these stories break his heart. Which honestly sucks to hear. Well, here's hoping these players learn that not every table will be like CR, or other streamed shows. Every table is different and that's the best part of this wonderful hobby.

[@chriswhittington5790]

I would have laughed at the suggestion of the testicular torsion, but I agree with the DM's ruling out that form of violence, but the laughing would die immediately at her remark "he's just a guy." ....... Yeah no, get out Karen.

[@carloreneeventura8714]

"Its okay coz he's a guy" Sasha's Sexist is showing

[@jbar85jb22]

Yeah she also Can't Understand Normal Thinking either

[@Pundae]

"It doesn't count because it's against a man" this one, this one right here officer

[@eebee8052]

i'll admit, i got an interest in D&D because of critical role. i was hoping to get an experience similar to what i saw from their campaigns and one-shots. i dreamed to play a character as similar to Jester and Molly, as i loved the idea of being a mischievous, flirtatious trickster. when a friend of 3 years of mine decided to start a campaign (he has a few years of experience being a Player for one-shots) and DM it, i was ecstatic. as we go into character creation, he helped me with building my Hexblade Warlock Tiefling- after a year of playing, i can definitely say that i've stopped trying to aim for a Laura/Taliesen level of roleplay. What I hoped to be a flirtatious and charismatic tiefling is instead, changed to a nervous, anxious caregiver who works at an orphanage her adoptive mother established in a small town. fantasies or being mischievous and sly turn to clever Deception and lots of Persuasions, getting enemy NPCs to become our ally. dreams to have a budding romance story instead has my character regaining the trust and favour of my patron, building a strong sense of Perseverance in my warlock who is more confident in wielding the powers bestowed onto her. i am so, so very glad that youtubers like you are speaking out about people's expectations to live out a full Critical Role experience and the Matt Mercer effect. as much as my party altogether look up their quality of RP and story telling, the stuff we've accomplished is so special in its own way and we are very proud with how far we've come.

[@ocarinachic76]

I had almost the opposite experience happen to me. I got asked to join a campaign right around the time Critical Role Campaign 2 had started. I decided to make a tiefling and while scrolling through Google Images, I came across fanart of Jester. I didn't know who she was at the time, but I liked the blue hair, blue skin deal she had going on and decided to make my tiefling have blue hair/blue skin. Other than that, my character hardly had any other similar traits to Jester. Her clothing and hair style were totally different, different colored eyes, she was a ranger not a Cleric. And since I've never seen Critical Role when I started playing her, she had no similar personality traits or backstory with Jester. Even still, because she was a blue haired blue skinned tiefling woman, everyone assumed I was just copying Critical Role and no one believed me when I said I had never seen Critical Role before. It really killed the enthusiasm I had for the character, which sucked because I genuinely got really attached to her and her backstory. I hope I can someday play her again, but with how even more popular Critical Role has gotten since then, I doubt I will any time soon.

[@danpoon3901]

I think it might help to change to change your character’s skin colour to some shade of red/purple which is more typical of tieflings. Jester’s skin is blue because she’s also a half water genesi, so I could understand the other player’s confusion. That said, it was still unfair of them to just assume and I’m sorry that ruined your experience. The blue hair is fine tho

[@Nomadik]

@@danpoon3901 Honestly, the skin colour isn't even an issue now that the tiefling subraces have been released. (Not that it mattered before, anyway.) I have a midnight-blue tiefling that I've played in various iterations since 3.5; the only time it's ever been compared to Jester was at a game shop, and it was just a "oh, a blue tiefling like from Critical Role? Cool," sort of comment. Anyone who isn't willing to actually pay attention to how the character is described is probably not someone worth playing with.

[@Fyreflier]

Will you tell us more about her? I'd love to hear her story

[@ocarinachic76]

@@Fyreflier thank you! It's been a few years since I played her, but her story is she was the daughter of a rich artist. When she was 17, her father wanted to marry her off to the son of a neighboring rich family. Her being so young and also not attracted to men, she ran away from home to avoid marrying him. She spent years doing odd jobs, always on the run as her father sent men to try and locate her to bring her back home. When she was in her early 20s, she met and fell in love with an elf woman who taught her archery and survival skills. The two traveled together until they were ambushed by a group of men hired by her father, an attack she escaped from but her lover perished in. In the campaign itself, she was much older and no longer was being tracked down by her father, who had finally given up trying to track her down. She fell in love with an NPC sometime during the campaign and swore to protect her. She was a very fun character to play and I am still holding on to hope that I can play her again someday.

[@CertifiedCoolDude]

@@ocarinachic76 that's so cool!!! I can see where your attachment to her comes from, hope ya get to play her soon :)

[@euchiron]

"Make me feel important, like I belong on the show I love!" There isn't enough therapy for these types

[@LegoAssassin098]

Critical Role is to Dungeons and Dragons like Porn is to sex, like WWE is to wrestling, and like reality TV is to reality. There's nothing wrong with enjoying it, having fun around your love of the subject, but you need to realize that you are using a suspension of disbelief. Those things are not good examples of what the greater subject is about. They are a specific subculture of that broad topic that has similarities only in a cursory glance. People believe that they are representive of the greater topic because they are popular. They are fun entertainment, by professionals. That's it. And that's not to suggest that those things haven't done any good, but it's important remember that they are there to put on a show. Enjoy it. Have fun with it. But you need to assume that the entertainment is likely not representive of the broad activity - or at least be open minded when you realize you were wrong.

[@berserkerciaran]

The WWE part really depends on what you mean by "wrestling"

[@Micras08]

While I pretty much agree with everything you say here, there's a lot of examples of what "good" D&D is (or at least can be) in CR, RollPlay, Dimension 20 etc. It's just not something that is stated explicitly (ofc not, it's entertainment ffs, not a tutorial :P) and that's where a lot of these people go wrong imo. I think CR, with context, is a pretty good example of how to manage a table fairly (as a DM), how to include other characters when you have the spotlight and how to step back to let the spotlight move on. There's ofc a lot of times where this doesn't happen, but anyone who've watched it the whole way through should be able to pick up on these common themes. Unfortunately I think the hobby attracts a lot of "single player" players (god that sounds stupid, can't find a better way of putting it tho) who aren't really looking for inspiration about how to manage expectations, playing as a group and such, but way more interested in how THEIR character can be cool/powerful/broken/interesting etc. etc. - That's probably the only mindset you just CAN'T step into a game with - most other irritating niches should be manageable if you find enough people interested in the same thing as you. But a group of "single player" players just can't and never will work imo.

[@sylvan-the-necromancer]

@@Micras08 I think the terms for those players who are only interested in their character, not any other PCs or any of the NPCs, are "Main Characters", but they are often referred to as having "Main Character Syndrome". On the topic of the rest of your comment, yeah I agree, how to manage a table and the spotlight are very important to learn as a player in the case of the latter, or both in the case of a DM.

[@yuvalgabay1023]

@@berserkerciaran theater whit violence.so batter theater

[@bellamychae]

Having hate-watched every episode of Critical Role so I can yell my critiques into the void, I can tell you Jester (a) does not engage in sexual violence and (b) is a lot more complex than a shallow read of "manic pixie dream girl Harley Quinn".

[@milli5968]

Why would you hate watch every episode of critical role💀 how much time do you have on your hands

[@jamesmilner9564]

You "hate" watched a few hundred or more hours of DnD? Right...

[@Nomadik]

I'm curious as to what your critiques are, since it seems to be a decent (if extravagantly funded) game that doesn't have any major objective flaws. But hey, at least you understand that Jester isn't a compilation of r/notlikeothergirls posts, despite what the wannabe thought.

[@steelydan1]

Bruh, what kind of time do you have on your hands to hate-watch over 200 episodes with an average runtime of 4 hours? lmao

[@maddieb.4282]

So you hate watched it but you’re complimenting one of the characters… cool

[@demod2080]

I love the added visuals at the intro and the little feet sound effects. Gives your videos more life and enjoyability. Thanks for the content, CritCrab

[@TheCrypto34]

I guess i got lucky with my intro into dnd as i hadnt ever heard of Crit Roll before, though admittedly i was getting into dnd about the same time they were midway through campaign 1 so they weren't AS big then. I just learned of a group in my dorm playing and kinda managed to wriggle my way into playing an NPC a couple times before eventually joining the group. Still play with them to this day just over discord and table top sim now.

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 BURNING 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟ISH FLAMES LMFAO 😂😂

[@diveblock2058]

@@eatingscharredcorpse3423 hellish? Mate I think your bot broke

[@ComXDude]

@@diveblock2058 Just report it and move on.

[@diveblock2058]

@@ComXDude wanted to see if it was a bot or not

[@ComXDude]

@@diveblock2058 Fair enough

[@Ghostie____]

CR isn't the issue, it's players expecting every DnD game to be all the same. I have played a few games, even with the same group of people, and they are never alike. Never blame CR, blame people who have too high of expectations from seeing professional productions.

[@Shanks612]

I personally never feel bad using images of characters already made but make them your own. On Paladin I use is the Knight Commander piece from HeroQuest. Yeah the image and piece is from another game but his back story, his goals, how he fights is all me. No one should ever feel bad bout doing such things but if you are just copy pasting everything about a character and doing nothing to change them or make them your own ruins it.

[@FentonHardyFan]

Most of my characters are loosely based off of Yu-Gi-Oh characters and it’s never been a problem with my group. But nearly everything about D&D comes down to an individual’s group. I think there are some groups who would be fine with someone trying to perfectly replicate a specific fictional character, and others who wouldn’t allow even loosely modeling a character after an existing one.

[@blackwell4701]

Tbh, as an artist I don't enjoy when people rip images off of Twitter or something of someone else's characters and uses their art to play their character :/ More often than not it's made for personal use and it's considered disrespectful in the art community and generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's fine if it's from official media like LoL or WoW or Fable or something, but taking someones dnd art they might've even paid money to have done never feels justified imo.

[@SodaPopBarbecue]

Lemme put it this way...you want to be a CR character/player/DM? You need to... 1. be a naturally, actually talented and trained actor and improviser, voice or otherwise. 2. have extensive resumes 3. be recognized in your field 4. plenty of cash, experience in both Pathfinder & D&D and connections 5. Do oodles of research beforehand 6. Know when to kick problem players 7. have a PR team to address bigotry, intended or otherwise, in your games, among other things 8. respect the KZbinr/Podcaster/Twitch scene 9. know when to admit you effed up 10. Not be a jerk

[@netkat7486]

You forgot; have a budget purely for purchasing required materials.

[@Center-For-I.E.D.Mismanagement]

11. Don't be a misandryist cunt or a racist/bigot.

[@sergioguzman9736]

Your line delivery of the "Ok? What the fuck?" Was superb. Lol

[@crocodilerock4662]

Oh so we’re doing the crazy bot spams again huh

[@santino7470]

Apparently

[@kidvega0450]

I do wonder if these bots ever actually work.

[@michaelvonerzfeind4688]

@@kidvega0450 since their goal is to annoy, and spam, I guess that "work"

[@ShitpostingJoJo]

"Sexual Violence doesn't matter if it happens to men" *_-The FemCel 👹💅_*

[@blazaybla22]

To be “”fair”” that was the perspective of basically all of pop culture (ofc mainly from male senses of humor) until very very recently. Of course she still doesn’t really have an excuse at this point (or I mean ever but especially not now)

[@coriolass]

"CR is to D&D what porn is to sex", what an outstanding analogy.

[@zipcc]

If players want the DM to be Matt Mercer, then the players need to be like the cast on Critical Role. Matt has a great story, but the players tell a good 50% of it without his input.

[@Dragon_Lair]

It's more like they tell 75% of the story without his input because they make choices that he clearly had not planned on them making. It's funny watching him pick up a sheet of paper and just ripping it in half when it becomes clear that what he planned is not happening.

[@psychosiskahn5952]

As a DM myself, I get annoyed at players asking me to write their backstory or a reason to be an adventurers. If you want us DMs to be the story teller, tell us about your character not just " Rogue edgy as kid killed my parents" or " my grandad had sex with a dragon so now I have powers" or my favourite " 40s something human with no family because said person or creature killed them so now it's revenge time and I've got a white beard clearly not like geralt or snake or Liam Neeson but I have the skills"..

[@Dragon_Lair]

@@psychosiskahn5952 Then there's the player who is "that guy". That player who has this story he/she wrote out in their head and absolutely hates it when the dice, the DM or the other players, do not follow the script that "that guy" had in mind for "their" story.

[@psychosiskahn5952]

@@Dragon_Lair I had the one guy at my table.. I had to politely ask him to leave a couple of times because he tried to railroad my campaign to fit his samurai champlooish backstory.

[@benjamingolden8498]

Not even just Critical Role, if you spend a lot of free time watching explanation and tip videos from good folks like Ginny Di and DavvyChappy, hell even CritCrab, and shape your expectations around them without actually playing, it really warps your perception of an actual game. I've had people get really upset over a minor mistake in DMing someone made because a D&D KZbinr said not to do that, and they focused on making the game "perfect" over having fun. I love to watch TTRPG content and it's been such a huge help to me personally, but always take even excellent, informative D&D content with a grain of salt because your own perception and experience are going to be very, very different, and if you put your unpaid DM or players in action to standards in a vacuum you're going to be extremely disappointed.

[@xFlareLeon]

This is why I constantly asl my players if they like having my paladin NPC in the party after seeing so many GMPC horror stories, and aleays ask if they're having fun or want some changes.

[@comet9864]

@@xFlareLeon I remember having this archaeologist npc that was helping the party read languages they can't understand crit three times in a row against this big bad boss thing. Everyone was jumping up and screaming because this frail old man just dealt 16 damage with one shot lmfao

[@ajr97]

As a person who just started watching Critical Role this year and only started playing dnd a month ago, I absolutely LOVE my GM's style! He's far from Matthew Mercer(because he's his own person and whatnot), but I knew that going into the game. My GM is brand new to leading a campaign by himself too, but we're just there for the fun, bad accents, and good story telling. So please be patient with baby GM's and GM's in general, everyone has room to grow!

[@CappyK]

DM isn't a cinema where you sit back in your chair and get entertained. DM is a stage with props for you give a performance on. Players demanding an entertaining DM is like a theatre performer who gets on stage and stands there in costume while waiting for the audience to perform for them.

[@REfan2002]

It's what Jester would do. - Sasha, 2022, probably. Well, Sasha, let me tell you....I don't watch Critical Role, I don't know who this character is but you need to turn down the Mercer effect.

[@fellith4295]

I do watch Critical Role and this is 10000% NOT what Jester would do,Jester is chaotic good,not a sexual predator,if anything she's one of the more sympathetic PCs

[@REfan2002]

@@fellith4295 Ah ok. I got ya.

[@chickenknights8863]

"...The worst of them show up at the table immediately expecting a million dollar franchise and get mad when the DM doesn't provide it to them on a silver platter." All the D&D books the DM brought: Are we a joke to you?

[@tehilagrunebaum-lake6982]

The first story reminded me of a tale my husband told me. My husband is our groups forever DM but before that he was a player in a different campaign with some close friends (note the group had changed when I met my husband for the first time and joined his campaign, the group changed again when i invited my best friend. Some people left some new people joined and we've been playing my husbands campaign for 3 years now). Anyway so when my husband was a player he and his party were in a small town. Two of the other players i think the one was a ranger and the other a female monk with a female player (this will make sense soon). So the ranger and the monk are going around town doing the usual dnd errands when a theif decides to try and pickpocket them. The theif fails his stealth and the ranger and monk are instantly aware of him the ranger grabbing the theif so he cannot escape. Then....well...the female monks player decides that the correct response to being robbed is NOT to take him to jail but to rather....derail his passengers there and then on the street. My husband to this day doesn't know why the dm allowed her to do this but needless to say EVERYONE except her was very uncomfortable

[@BlueTressym]

I'm just here going "WTAF???" at that.

[@Heavenlyhounds96]

It's one thing to try and be Deadpool, a character anyone has heard of but is still random, mad as a hatter, and written and "performed" (comic page or films & TV), by MANY people...almost all of which know what Wade is supposed to be like). And then there's "trying" to be a character crafted and molded by a professional voice actress who knows her character in-n-out, who has no doubt gone through various changes over the campaign (I haven't watched S2 admittedly), and who actual respectful fans of the show may know what the character can be like...but might not know the character 100% with all respect to those who appreciate Jester or other CR characters. AND THEN there's the fact she plainly ignored the rules set out, or the fact that the DM doesn't know Critical Role and this is his own crafted story, (granted her and her friends did that but her especially quite clearly).

[@tawesssoabbox]

What is the difference once it hits the table? Both are very much fictional characters. Both would most likely annoy the fuck out of the group if played poorly and be a constant source of joy if played right. Now players are new players... Most will be unhinged, make for shit players and fully be able to derail even a small task such as buying a apple. Most of us have been there and most of us grew out of it with the help of a patient and understanding DM. The DM in the Jester story... Not sure there was the right mindset there.

[@raistlarn]

I remember my first time DMing. I had a couple people who watched Critical Role. Luckily they weren't judgemental like these ones were, but one of them would always pop off with the line secret ingredient. Thankfully he mostly stopped when I told him to knock it off and think up his own tag line instead of copying someone else's...then I found out he was cheating and trying to co-DM (the bad way) when I didn't need or want one on top of holding the game hostage for a while due to the party exploring his ancestral homeland during that part of the campaign. Best time was when I found out he quit followed by me feeding his character to a false hydra (the party thought it was funny.)

[@tobak6652]

What is the secret ingredient line?

[@raistlarn]

@@tobak6652 Honestly I don't know where its from. The player just said it was from Critical Role, and would use it all the time. Then again said player was a cheater. So I take whatever he said/says with a grain of salt.

[@Slendysis]

Honestly, a lot of these stories make me both very nervous to play DnD as someone who has very little knowledge of how to actually play the game. However, I at least have picked up on not doing some of the things I keep hearing about Critical Role players tend to do. I also don't remember a single episode of Critical Role despite seeing it years ago

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY HE WILL NEVER COME BACK

[@kidvega0450]

The best advice I can give is try not to be, even if you have little knowledge of the game that’s what the DM and fellow players are for, to help you out at the table. Horror stories are obviously the extremes and if you learn from these, you should be fine.

[@KimParkkinen]

As a DM for pretty much exclusively new player groups, you're not alone thinking that. It may be really daunting to jump in with all the rules and books and such, but as @KidVega 04 said, no DM who is worth their salt is going to turn away from questions and more often than not fellow players are really willing to help. Session 0es (Session 0 stands for a session that means many things depending on the DM, but for me it is the time when the group rolls the characters, gets acquainted by the campaign setting and other more technical things which may be difficult to fit in on actual campaign itself.) are great since they can be used as sort of "tutorials" and are pretty much the time for questions and trying things out. If you have a chance, I very much recommend trying TTRPG's out if you have any interest in them. It is easy to say that one should not feel nervous, but I think that is kinda wrong. I think being *little* nervous is a good thing, no matter what one does! That's the great thing when it comes to overcoming that and turning the nervousness into comfort and fun doing things one really likes. Even professional actors or folks taking in school plays feel nervous. It is the same with TTRPG's. Whenever I have a new group, I feel nervous and pretty much only calm down when the game gets properly underway.

[@charlesvanzee4879]

Give adventurers League a try. It's much easier to find a group, and in my experience, much less low stakes than a regular campaign. And since DMs are often paid, you get way less creepy dudes, because they'd just be fired. Also, they literally let you redesign your characters as much as you want instead of having to start a new one from level one every time you wanna try out a new class.

[@duolingo0552]

These sort of people give the rest of the D&D community more ammo to stoke up hostility toward the critical role fandom

[@jaycraw6978]

I'm a massive fan of CR... I own a bunch of the merch, I want to meet the cast so freaking bad because I admire their ability to create a world so rich and engaging. But for the life of me i cannot wrap my head around super fans that demand the impossible (from normal people or even the cast themselves)

[@jacrispy1150]

As a DM myself who loves introducing people to the game I usually find that almost everyone's first character tends to be a self insert in some way. There's nothing wrong with this as learning the rules comes before advanced role-playing. I would only be worried if a player told me they were basically just inserting a character from another story. Use other characters as templates, not end goals

[@southron_d1349]

I haven't watch CR since fairly early in their second campaign thanks to some personal events. But I know that some fans have not actually absorbed what the CR players do. The CR players listen to Matt, they discuss, and try to find the clues he drops for them, all the while managing to stay mostly in character. When monsters attack, they never take it personally and if there's failure they accept it as part of the game. Sadly, it's not limited to those fans with weird and toxic behaviour. There are people who have played for 20 years without ever watching a D&D stream and still haven't understood the game.

[@duskgaming18]

Aye, another case of "You're merely copying a popular character in media that you like, and yet are also butchering everything about them" Jester is Chaotic, yes. She is a bit random and does jokes and magical pranks and everything else you would expect. But the thing is, there's a difference between a Chaotic Prankster and Chaotic Stupid. Jester only really pulls pranks and jokes about whenever the situation leaves room for it isn't an important moment. She might go casting some minor illusions or whatever if the party is just held up at an Inn or aren't really doing anything of value. But she won't go cracking jokes if the Party is like, talking to a king and trying to negotiate. Jester as a Character, much like their player, knows "There is a time and place for jokes. And that isn't all the time." And just as another point, I don't think Jester IC or their Player OoC would enjoy making a joke out of Sexual Har@$$ment or @$$ault against men. That's just...no Edit: Forgot to mention, the Cast of Crit Role have also been playing together for years now, and they are all probably very familiar with the humor that is universally accepted by the people in the group. Most likely, a brand new group won't have the same level of familiarity with each other's preferences in comedy. Even if you want to try to crack jokes, it should be a slow escalation of pushing the line to see where the line is. If you make a bad a joke that doesn't stick well with everyone, apologize and draw the line before that joke. Thus you discovered the threshold of the group's acceptance of particular jokes. You shouldn't dive all the way into the deep end so early on

[@Shay_Mendez]

One of the reasons I prefer to watch Lanipator's D&D campaign. The Role With Me fandom understands D&D has many ways to play it and there is no real wrong way to play. The Ties that Bind isn't aggressive, and Nick's DM style is good to help understand how D&D works while also maintaining an atmosphere of creativity. He doesn't try to make Role With Me the be all, end all of D&D rules and structure.

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY HE WILL NEVER COME BACK

[@Mightymajin]

I like The Unexpectables myself

[@bigbugabuu]

His storyline and plot hooks are pretty good as well.

[@davencabrera4379]

The first campaign I saw of dnd and made me want to try was TFS the natural wonders Chris Zito ran and when I tried to run a campaign for my friends poorly copied him 😂😂

[@kidvega0450]

@@davencabrera4379 SAME

[@TheDerpyDeed]

"I get it, you're a new player, you need to rely on other people's characters, everybody does it" ...really? was I the only original noob that goes "can I do this? what about this?" and harrass my dm for way too long as I learn what can- and can't be done?

[@sethtruesdale1848]

Honestly stories like this make me glad most of my party was introduced to the game through puffin forest

[@Phant0mmm_Jaiden]

As a critical role fan and a new player who does want to play DnD more often, stories like this make me scared to look for DMs because it seems like none of them wanna be associated with us to avoid situations like this. ha ha.

[@joelrobinson5457]

I gonna guess the mercer effect is involved

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY LMFAO 😂😂

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY LMFAO 😂😂

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY LMFAO 😂😂

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗡𝗢𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗗𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟 FOR ALL ETERNITY LMFAO 😂😂

[@Logan_Baron]

I don't even understand wanting to play someone elses character. The greatest part of D&D to me is playing your own complete character. I enjoy watching the CR crew play and develop theirs, but that's the fun is watching them in that case, but playing my own or watching my friends play and develop their own. However I've still gotten accused of copying Liam's Vax. Because I played a Rogue who was into daggers. But it was actually a rebuild of a character I created back in the 80s, and have basically reused/rebuilt with various editions or new groups. Rogue (originally it was Thief) who primarily uses daggers. Not even a similar back story or personality.

[@gabrielmajere8852]

When anyone asks me as the DM if I can bring the game as well as Matt Mercer? Of course, just as long you can pay me the same amount he would get.

[@thetableofelements4472]

So are we not gonna talk about how she said "it doesn't really matter because he's a GUY"?

[@possiblyfulgrim3995]

Personally: Critical Role is what got me into D&D a bunch of voice actors who have voiced characters that I love was the perfect recipe. Did it rose-tint my first ever experience with a friend who DMs and is nothing like Matt? Absolutely not. That first session will stay with me forever as one of my best first experience where me and a bunch of friends were against the odds and came out on top and holy SHIT that was a rush.

[@Logan_Baron]

One of the problems of playing someone else's character (rather than just be inspired by it) is playing out of character. "This is what Jester would do" Well many would argue it is not. Unless you've got Laura on the phone telling you, you're probably wrong. Same goes for accents. I'm also bad at accents and voices. So it's important not to peg down what accent you are doing. If you aren't playing Jester you can't be told "That's not what the character sounds like". And since it's a fantasy world people can't complain "That's a terrible Russian accent" because it's not a Russian accent, it's my character's accent from wherever they are from (even if indeed I am basing it on a russian accent I did badly).

[@dead_vibes]

It's impossible to be Matt Mercer, because your not Matt Mercer. Just like how there's never going to be another Crit Crab because there's only one Crit Crab.

[@thekaiser3815]

And for All DM's who are worried there not Matt Mercer, Another way of looking at it is, Matt Mercer is not you either be your own story teller, and can draw inspiration from people like Tolkien, Jim Henson, even Matt Mercer or others, even steal some of there tricks, as long as it it's you doing being the DM and not you trying to do a poor man's impersonation of theses story tellers, you will be fine 😉

[@musicalsystem927]

I found out about CR about 2 to 3 months after I started playing. I was intrigued, but also determined to have fun like they do. NOT TO BE THEM.

[@unamed1142]

Mood, some admirable traits I try to learn, but that's mostly how good they are at facilitating other players fun and working with the DM. I'd love to be as fun to play with as them, but in my own way, not as a bad copy

[@FreedomAndPeaceOnly]

D&D is essentially about freedom. Expected patterns are unavoidable - but no holy scriptures that needs to be followed.

[@StateBlaze1989]

Those girls from the first story are the type to constantly bombard their friends with the one thing they like, and then get confused as to why their friends don't want to watch or engage with it.

[@hiro4344]

What got me out to the game store to look for some dnd was "The Third Wheel" actually. I had trouble getting into critical role because of not having four hours to sit and watch, but the third wheel's "Thrilling Intent" recorded in smaller segments at a time so I could handle it. Only later I started on Critical role.

[@willlikescheese1297]

Bro who the hell is this eating technoblade guy

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

TÈÇHNÒBŁÁDÉ IS RÖTTIÑG ÏN HE|| LOL

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

thats me lol

[@BloodyCountessBathory]

I have asked them directly so we will see.

[@sawanth1018]

Pls don't bot spam

[@TheKoriKasai]

I'm glad at the path I took to get into DND. I can't remember what version it was I got in at as I only did one session. But back in highschool when I Was about 15-16 one of my friends talked about getting out group into DND. We were all for it and did our best to plan while most of us didn't have easy access to talk outside of school. So when I was actually able to do a game, I was the only one able to show up to the friend who had the ideas house that day. So we did a one person session and it was fun. But we never were able to meet up again and the idea faded. I was still holding onto the idea for a while until It was clear this wasn't happening. Then years later when I'm like 19 or 20, I had met a fellow nerd at work. He had eventually convinced me to joining DND with him as I had expressed some interest in it when asked. He invited me to his group and we had some sessions with them before they went in hiatus and never actually did anything more. I eventually found another group through discord on accident (and another after that) and that's where i am now. These same two groups. I invited my friend who got me into it to the first group and we play pretty regularly. I'm actually the current GM for that group. Second group technically didn't work but it was a server I was invited to and eventually a few people in that server, including a few from the other group that invited me ngot together and that's where I am now with them lol. What made me think of this was because I was thinking about how I was lucky not to have gotten into DND due to critical roll (because of how toxic these two stories make it seem or whatever). I actually didn't know what that was for a while into my time playing. Still haven't watched it and doubtfully will, mostly due to not actually interested and not anything malicious or judging the series based on the fans. Just not into watching others play a ttrpg is all, not as fun as Playing yourself

[@LordSvzklx]

That feeling when you want to be like Critical Role but can only manage being like Orion…

[@sheschaos5679]

This is why I didn't watch more then short clips of CR. I would like to try D&D someday and don't want anything but the books to influence me. Why would you want to play a role playing game but insist on playing someone else's character? feels like a red flag

[@eatingscharredcorpse3423]

true true I agree with that statement that I totally just read

[@armata_strigoi_0]

As long as you have some self awareness there's nothing wrong with watching other games. I think what it comes down to is that some people watch a show (mostly CR, it seems to attract these sorts) and think "that looks fun, I want to have that kind of fun" and go into their own game with that mindset, rather than appreciating TTRPG's for what they are in and of themselves. I'm also not saying you _should_ watch CR haha, just that it won't do any harm if you want to. I stumbled upon it a long while before I played and eventually GM'ed my first games and it didn't affect me in the slightest because I actually wanted to, you know, roleplay in my roleplaying game and possess a modicum of creativity haha You're correct about people trying to play someone else's character though, never a good sign.

[@Surikoazimaet]

In a way it sounds like "I don't read books because I want to become a great author with no influences". (Or a musician.) You can always takes bits and pieces from everything around you, but in the end you are the one doing the molding of your creation through influence in one way or another by experiencing and experimenting to find what works for you.

[@GarkKahn]

It's okay to be influenced by other characters for your own The really important part is knowing the difference between inspiration and copy-paste someone else's character YOU are playing YOUR character in the end

[@Vanitas42]

it’s interesting hearing how this crazy fan interpreted Jester. I always felt that Jester was somewhat based on Star from Star vs The Forces of Evil because that chaotic energy felt exactly the same (and could have been something Laura turned on one day and liked). But THAT interpretation from the fan…just…no.

[@apocalypticfarce413]

As a DM there are many times where i have told my friends I play with this should be livestreamed or podcasted because what we were doing was really entertaining. There are so many times when my friends have player on player conversations and i literally sit there quiet eating my snack cause that is funny and i don't want to stop it. But this is just how our group dynamic is. The best way to have a game like critical role is to have a game with a DM who creates an interesting world/story, players willing to have in game conversations with other players and even NPCs. And just a group there for fun and laughs.

[@Dookieman1975]

“This is what Jester would do” At least some people used “it’s what my character would do” correctly cuz that’s just sad

[@pleasehelp2446]

My first dm taught me that for your first few characters you should base their personality on aspects of yourself so it's easier to understand your character and the motivations. My first character ended up being a druid who was somewhat indecisive (like me) and can't stand the sight of children in danger or getting hurt (like myself). This made things so much easier because I didn't have to think to much about what my character would do it was a simple checklist. Is a child in danger? Are forest spirits/animals being harmed? Is an innocent in need? If the answer is no then ignore it and don't get involved unless one of the others in the party needs help.

[@Lord_Lambert]

I watched about 50 episodes of C1 before I played my first session of DnD... my character was a wood elf assassin Rogue, in build but not personality modelled on Vax. I love DnD, and I love CR, but I also know that my DM wasnt Matt Mercer and I am not Liam O'Brien, and neither of those facts made my first campaign any less fun than it was. For the people (I know theyre a minority but they exist) who curse Critical Role for the fans it has brought into DnD that make your space worse, please know its not all of us. Some of us are amazed at the spaces you've created and are thankful to CR for introducing us to them, but that is as far as that goes. We're not all stans :)

[@charliejones7512]

I’m just glad I watch other KZbinrs play DND and never heard much of Matt Mercer or bothered to watch Critical Role before now. Might’ve made our first one shot session a lot more simpler and more fun.

[@devinhargrave4723]

Critical Role is dope, but sometimes I feel like it did more harm for the community than good(note: THIS ISNT THEIR FAULT). They do a great job at creating interesting characters and hooking people in, however as pioneer's of a new wave of people interested in the craft I think a better job could have been done in terms of emphasizing the core aspect of creativity. So many players just rip them off its kinda sad.

[@GarkKahn]

Golden rule When something becomes popular it'll eventually receive a wave of "those guys" no matter what

[@EmissaryofWind]

I think it's kind of the curse of any media that gets way more popular than its original audience and brings new people in who aren't familiar with the real thing. No piece of media can accurately encompass every aspect of something, and to make it work even for people who aren't familiar you have to simplify or gloss over some parts.

[@grubbsthebugbear]

I don’t know if it gets any appreciation but your skittering sound when crab comes and goes is great.

[@zarielin8110]

I'm really happy that I found my awesome group. They were my first exposure to d&d, and while they are Critical Role fans and do quote it during certain events, that's not their entire personality. We try to create unique and creative encounters and just have fun. When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I love being able to say something off the wall like "I found a way to fight off a golem using pestilence." or "we fought David Bowie!"

[@Sophia-vk5bq]

You know what would be funny? DM yelling “critical roll” everytime someone rolls a natural 1. 😂

[@berserkerciaran]

Ah, the Symbaroum style of crits

[@Ailobyte]

So, full disclosure: I've only seen clips of CR and not full episodes (I dont really watch shows to begin with) Ball-Busting seems like a horribly out-of-character thing for Jester to do lol

[@greatazuredragon]

Smart DM there at the end getting out of dodge before the implosion.

[@Venusaur05]

Lol one of my players started watching CR after catching me watching it and was given "I want our games to be more like that" I just replied "they're all professional actors and DND players we will probably never be on their level" and left it at that

[@PestilentAllosaurus]

My only true knowledge of DnD was of fan-animations of Critical Role, and a episode or two. I _finally_ got to join a DnD afterwards. I had the knowledge you make your character. The fantasy world I was going in was one which seemed *average at first glance* but Dragonborn's were a dying or extremely rare race. I didn't want the sake race or class as any other of the five party members. So with the tiny bit of knowledge I had, I went with a half-elf and a rouge for my class. I knew the stereotypes of routes being awful for stealing parties loot, being edgy or brooding. That's all. I didn't want that. Instead I wanted to *try* to escape some of the stereotypes; but funny enough made my character a orphan as a older child. So failed there. I made instead a chaotic neutral short but spunky half-elf rouge. She was simply obsessed with _anything_ shiny is all. Didn't matter the value of it. And being overall friendly, but very stubborn. Sure, I could've used more inspiration from the sources I seen before. But I wanted to learn DnD with all my trial and errors. Vera my first character has developed a LOT. I'm proud of her. I can officially say she's only pick-pocketed once. Against a shady merchant who was likely a pick-pocket himself.

[@0Bonaparte]

So, thoughts on the first story, if you want to mimic Jester (or any of the characters from CR) you also have to mimic Laura. The entire cast of CR pay very close attention to boundaries and respect one another and the rules that have been laid out by Matt as the DM and the group as a group. If you do not respect that everyone is there and everyone there is not just allowed but encouraged to have their moments, then any Jester you pull off will just be cruel and not quirky.

[@Dragonemmy]

I left a great curse of Strahd campaign early because of a new player we recruited who’d never played D&D before, ADORED Jester and Crit Role (which, don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a big fan myself). She wanted her character to seem cute and chaotic, but she totally lacked Laura Bailey’s self awareness and roleplay etiquette. Other players’ character development moments were interrupted, cool new locations to explore were set on fire (her character was a pyromaniac for no good reason), local children were hurt and terrorised, MULTIPLE NPCs had her trying to poop in their shoes which was only kinda funny the first time around. Through so many games she either could not sense or did not care about another player’s growing exasperation, and our (new) DM wanted his players to RP freely. I should have had an adult and calm conversation with the player about her maybe needing to be a little more conscientious about the chaos and how it was affecting other players… but due to my fear of IRL conflict, the fact the player had been feeling super down IRL, it was her first ever game and she always so looked forwards to it and adored her chaos baby… Yeah, I sadly excused myself from that game. Next time I will be braver. Chaotic characters can be great fun, but care should be taken not to constantly trample on other player’s moments, plans and actions in the pursuit of “being zany”.

[@fallnplays]

i havent watch this yet but the title makes me worried and immediately made me anxious im 3 min in and already seeing major red flags as a fan of crit role but before that i was always obsessed with fantasy style rpg video games and having never had enough friends instrested in fantasy games in general not just dnd groing up even ik you cant expect crit role to be the only way to play. their style is unique to them because theyve all been friends for ever and do this for a living even out side of the crit role setting its scary to know their people that watch the show and still think that especially after the opal incident

[@JuniperDenn]

About that unhinged Jester stan: I'll bet you a 100 bucks that Laura Bailey would be fuming at the thought that someone would play her character as a sexually violent person. A. The character would never. B. Have you seen the sexually threatening shit Laura had to put up with bc of her role as in the Last of Us 2?? "It's what Jester would do" give me a damn break.