Critical Role's Forgotten Player | DND Horror Stories

[@a.agrayson6253]

The problem with Orion making a sexual remark directed at Laura was not that she was married and Travis was there, it was that it was clearly unwanted and made her feel awkward. If Laura has been single it would still have been weird.

[@namtellectjoonal7230]

yup this.

[@Kantilvih]

Also, way to make people do LESS of what you seemingly like them doing, ie planning.

[@kat021171]

He'd made similar, but more subtle, comments to Marisha, the DM's girlfriend, as well. And they were (awkwardly) laughed off. I think that Matt let those pass because he didn't want to be seen as favoring Marisha. And I think Travis' deathglare "I will break you" look may have presaged some sort of confrontation that took place off-stream. And one wonders how many times he may have been confronted off-stream about things like cheating and inappropriate table talk. But you're right; the comment would have been just as awkward, gross, and weird whether Laura was married or not.

[@CJMGalaxy]

As proven by her having a full on, pretty horny, romance with Taliesin's character in game. The difference between Tal and Orion is that Tal played off of and with Laura, Orion ignored Laura to be a creep. I remember how painfully uncomfortable those streams were.

[@surfinchemist1]

The problem is Orion was a creep. Sam routinely says way worse, but he’s genuinely funny.

[@evanpb]

The palpable change in vibe in the first session after Orion left is so noticeable. It's like everyone can finally just relax and have fun and enjoy the game.

[@blockoholics8330]

I've watched through C1 three times and it's absolutely noticeable. Like, they knew at that moment he was never coming back, even though they presented to the audience that he was simply missing a couple episodes

[@Snulge]

That was the first thing my wife mentioned when we were watching. Just the way everyone is relaxed.

[@peterevans6480]

@@blockoholics8330 what episode does he stop being in for good? Just started c1 and wanna skip all of that

[@blockoholics8330]

@@peterevans6480 i wanna say 27 or 28. On rewatches i start at 24 because it initiates the Whitestone arc. It's minimal Orion with maximum story

[@rwhellborn669]

​@@peterevans6480I know theres still some legalites with the first campaign (and the beginning of C2) with G&S (why they're still on the G&S channel I suppose) but oh what i would give to have a cut of those first episodes with him just completely removed. Re-frame the video to have each character in their own box (like during the pandemic) and you *could* completely remove him and it honestly would likely be barely noticable

[@20catsRPG]

Just a few things to add: 1. After he left the show, Acaba started a Kickstarter to fund his own show. He led people believe he was working on a D&D show, what he produced was more a radio show where he got to talk to himself in several voices, before cancelling the show after just a few episodes. It was so bad people started asking for their money back, which of course he never did, along with never delivering any promised perks. That show is now back on YT, and it’s at a level suitable for 6 yo kids, which he now claims is what he was aiming for. Of course, he never mentioned that during the Kickstarter. 2. Acaba organised a fundraiser for a critter whose parents tragically died in a car crash, without telling her. She only found out when others asked her how the donations are going. She had to reach out to him and he of course never send her any money; it turned out he was using it to buy various things for himself, and after almost a year of various excuses, she gave up on him and published their whole email conversation on the CR forums. Naturally, people who donated started asking for their money back. Of course, he never returned it. 3. Acaba’s ex-girlfriend left him after he asked her to give him a lift from somewhere, but he was 6 hours late, so she just drove home. After said 6 hours, he called her and screamed at her on top of his lungs, and she ended it. The voicemail can still be found online, and it’s awful. She consequently revealed that Orion never had cancer, and that it was just an excuse he used to explain his gaunt appearance, which was in fact the result of heavy class A drug abuse and to incite attention from others. Orion subsequently never provided any evidence of cancer or treatment, despite numerous calls to do so. 4. Acaba eventually released a video in which he admitted to drug abuse and asked for money to finance a rehab. Due to all the above, it didn’t go down well. The general reaction was ‘I don’t support junkies’ or the hilarious’I already gave you money for your Kickstarter and charity collection, tell you what - you can keep it’. When it became obvious he won’t collect any money yet, he released another video, only 24 hours later. Gone was the calm and open manner, he was abusive, rude, screaming and calling the critters all names under the sun. The video was took down by YT so he continued his offensive rant on the forums, until he was permanently banned. Yep, you read that right - a founding member of Critical Role was banned from the Critical Role forums. This concludes the story of Orion Acaba. Don’t do drugs, kids!

[@rosenrot234]

And now he gets to just watch Critical Role succeed and seethe. They FLOURISHED after he left and I bet he's still in big baby denial about it

[@RabidDogma]

Also - just to be clear - he's not a bad person because he was an addict, and it wasn't the drugs that made him do bad things. He was already a bad person who happened to get addicted to drugs. The problem was his awful, awful personality.

[@LAnimeMaster]

I had no idea he lied about having cancer. Dang.

[@ozpin8329]

@@rosenrot234 Reminds me of how Edward Norton was such a prick to work with, they replaced him with Mark Ruffalo in the MCU.

[@TheLegPumpkin]

Drugs aren't to blame, I am a fentanyl addict with very good credit and several friends who trust me to loan money and not commit identity fraud upon them. Drugs make people with no set morals have an excuse to rob and betray people but if you value loyalty before drugs you can value loyalty in between overdoses.

[@PlayPodOG]

orion being there is the only time i ever seen critical roll players actually argue in earnest. characters arguing is one thing. its good for story. but PLAYERS is different and orion was always the source of it

[@Wanttowrite]

Just how the others dealt with interacting with Matt was/is a world of difference. Taliesin wants to craft something, there's a few minutes of discussion, but he's willing to use what's in front of him, and they can talk about the rest off camera. Marisha screws up a spell, she acknowledges the mistake, and they moved on. Liam misses a reveal, and he laughs at himself about it later. Sam and Travis will stop a bit if Matt pushes back hard enough. Only Orin would refuse to drop it. Only he would keep going for over ten minutes to try and get his way.

[@NinjaMonkey774]

@@Wanttowrite*remembers the mirrors incident*

[@eshbena]

@@Wanttowrite That's because Taliesin is a nice guy. I've met him several times and he's always been decent. Orion was a jerk from start to finish. We had to ban him from our home because he would show up at our house drugged up.... and we had kids.

[@rubyriches]

@@eshbena Oof.

[@DaMuss-e2w]

I have never watched this show, but I noticed he was playing a character with 4 wisdom? If he really thought it was an antagonistic relationship, Did mercer ever throw any Wisdom based save spells at him? there are a lot and they are very delibetating

[@Daedricsoulslayer]

One of my favorites was when Travis broke character and said "no youre done" during a market scene

[@jamesrobin2857]

Which episode?

[@colintimberlake9213]

@@jamesrobin2857 I think 10. It is an entire episode of them shopping for three hours.

[@jamesrobin2857]

@colintimberlake9213 ahh yeah I know the episode. Think I watched that on like X2 the first time 😂

[@crisisOstrich]

"I will leave the campaign" isnt a compelling threat when you DM for 9 players

[@Jaguarhunter22]

I run an online roll20 game and I layed out all expectations they should expect from me and what I would like to see from there players (deeper backstories to promote world interaction and a few select classes or archetypes that were banned for logistical reasons. For example if guns don’t exist you can’t be a gunslinger ect. But I say that before game so people know what they are signing up for had 12 people want to play and in the first session a player brought a character that was banned and said well I went on Reddit and they said your a bad gm and I should be able to play the game how I want and if you don’t like it I’ll leave. They were absolutely shocked and appalled when I said “okay that’s perfectly fine looks like this game isn’t the one for you and that’s okay I hope you find a game that suits you in the future see ya” people forget if you gm for a lot of people that whole I’m gonna leave thing means nothing

[@crisisOstrich]

@@Jaguarhunter22 and in your case it was early in the campaign so investment in their character isnt there, it was online so not as awkward, and sounds like they werent a personal friend You disregard my house rules, insult me and think i wouldnt want you to leave?

[@Jaguarhunter22]

@@crisisOstrich that’s a fair assessment and we were friends that had to go to online cause we live away from each other now but this player in particular was a partner of one of our players so still akward to some extent but I see the differences

[@rubyriches]

@@Jaguarhunter22 In all TTRPG boundaries are essential. From no romance to fade to black to "no blood drawn" to my character is X, even if controlled by another-in game & piloted by another human both-I never want them to do Y.

[@Sabamonster]

@@Jaguarhunter22 I consider myself extremely lucky, I've actually never been part of a group where this was a problem. Of course, I come from a different era and not to diminish anyone, but what was considered faux-pa then, is drastically lower then what it is now. Most people hear something, if they didn't like it, they'd call it out and it's never an issue again. Having said that - I genuinely can't remember a time that someone had to leave because they made people uncomfortable or because they were running their mouth to the DM. It was implied that if you DID talk shit to the DM, you were just gonna get killed off anyway, so maybe that had something to do with it, lol.

[@joanacastanheira]

the way matt tries to diffuse the situation and marisha stayed on the attack oh she hated that man

[@chimchimbiasedwreckedbyjin4056]

One thing I love about Sam he never avoids confrontation

[@notusingmyname4791]

@Vesta_the_Lesser that sounds like ... personal experience..

[@SchlauSchafe]

nah this is actually more common than one would think; ive seen it blow up friends relationships (tho not my own, luckily) ​@@notusingmyname4791

[@Gerald-of-Riviera]

​@@notusingmyname4791glad someone said it lol

[@VisibleName00]

​@Vesta_the_Lesser nah, that's just being scummy

[@bad-people6510]

Sam didn't have to commission that statue of Tiberius. Though he may have only done that for the joke.

[@maxbaker3370]

Every time I watch the half chub clip I take 1 psychic damage

[@ViviBuchlaw]

Only 1? Dang, you must have resistance 😂

[@TheMem3Man]

Bro’s a Kalashtar

[@jackwriter1908]

When I started watching Critical role I wondered why he wasn't in it anymore since I had clips of Critical Role from later on without him... and the more I watched the more I realized why he wasn't in it anymore

[@bad-people6510]

Doesn't bother me as that Telltale Batman game Travis and Laura are in. Probably because it's a major plot point and not just a comment that can be moved on from, and it still feels really gross.

[@Eleglas]

I completely bleached that moment from my memory I think, I don't remember it at all. I remember the time Travis looked like he was going to murder Orion for shopping for mirrors though.

[@jamesh2363]

I started CR this year as I wanted to see it from the start. Orion ALWAYS brought the game to a halt and was clearly wanting to be the main character. I was SO happy when he went

[@laurenh3559]

I started watching right as Campaign 2 was starting and went back to watch the first campaign. I gave up watching it because I could not deal with his nonsense any more. Glad I finally went back to it, since he was gone an episode later.

[@Wanttowrite]

I'm not the biggest fan of Sam. I can find him annoying at times and only really liked Loquatis Seelie, his Calamity character. But I would rather deal with his multi-part ad sagas, strange drink holder gags, and weird wardrobe choices than deal with Orin again. Because at least Sam can read the room and stop doing what he's doing. I doubt Orin can or would.

[@tattoodude8946]

@@Wanttowrite Yeah, Sam can be distracting, but his is goofy and, as you said, can read the room. If a joke flops, I've seen him apologize or humbly back down, though the awkward smile usually stays. Orion had no table awareness or even self-awareness. He was desperately trying to do everything everyone else at the table was doing, but more and bigger! He needed to have a pet because of Vex's bear. He had to get a gruesome weapon to outshine Grog. He had to flex his royal connections and even try to take over Percy's character arc. But when he tried to be the comic relief for the group, taking over Sam's role (I mean - that's just Sam's personality...), things backfired hard. His constant aggression toward Matt didn't help either. He often acted like Matt was the bad guy.

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

Campaign 1 is...a bit of a strange beast TBH. It definitely starts out with the cast all being friends and, not to excuse any of the shit Orion does, but they were _all_ guilty (to various degrees) of doing the same kind of stuff Orion would do on a regular basis, especially in the earlier episodes. Though, towards the end of Orion's tenure with the show there was definitely some kind of shift and I suspect that, at some point, they looked at the numbers they were doing, realised they could make a proper business of this, and decided to start being "more professional". Only Orion either didn't get the memo, or just wanted to keep treating it as a "home game" instead of a professional production. As I said, he did a lot of crap, but it wasn't anything the other players weren't already doing themselves, and there are reasons beyond "the misogyny" (though, that _was_ a factor) as to why Keylith and Marisha became the focus for the toxic fan hate after Orion was gone.

[@donkeyteethbites]

@@dungeonsanddobbers2683the thing with Orion is he used up any good will he had quick. When his time came around on episodes it ground to a halt and was painful to sit through. Everyone had clearly grown tired with him so his leash was much shorter than Sam’s or anyone else’s. The cheating, stealing people’s moments, ludicrous play (confronting a swarm of mind flyers all alone Matt should have killed him straight off, summoning a draconian army, etc) personally I don’t think the chub comment in and of itself was awful but the awful timing combined with the fact everyone was sick of him by that point made it worse than it would have been.

[@tomatobruv76]

Oh god, let's not forget the time when the Briarwoods were introduced too and Orion tried to powergame his way to just straoght up cancelling the entire arc. He tried to contact his dad and try to get an ENTIRE FUCKING ARMY to try and deal with the Briarwoods. like dude wtf

[@stephanieb5614]

then got pissy when Matt in game response was "no"

[@DanielMcGillis-f3w]

I think a part of this was Orion wanted to do some quests to find artifacts that Tiberius was looking for. He didn't want to go to Whitestone and deal with the Briarwoods, he wanted to take them on his quest (Main Character Syndrom) so just call in some giant eagles and fly to Mordor and drop the ring in, its done with one phone call, and an afternoon's drive.

[@MrPuenguin]

left out tiberious teleporting to his home city to buy a bag of holding between sessions without telling mat

[@cFull_Rtrd]

So? Is that why Orion should be bullied for almost 10 years now?? “oMg hE bOuGhT mIrRoRs tOo!!”

[@UgyBoogie]

@@cFull_Rtrd Most definitely. If you're a liar, a cheater, a fraud, and also sexually harass people (who are supposed to be your friends, to top it off) - You definitely deserve the negative backlash. Contrary to popular belief, there are no second chances.

[@cFull_Rtrd]

@@UgyBoogie I never saw any sexual harassment, I saw a guy who was trying to be like Sam and made a poorly timed boner joke. Now people label him as some kind of rapist. This is all ridiculous. Online people can turn into a mob and all agree they see the same delusions like sexual harassment or fudging dice rolls. Neither happened but the hive mind of the critters made it real for you. He literally was trying to copy Sam's schtick and be funny.

[@BB-848-VAC]

@@UgyBoogie lets be honest here, the entire cast takes laura baileys lead on EVERYTHING (watch how they make decisions in the campaign) and she just didnt care for him so then everyone else (but mostly Travis) acted like everything he did was such a problem. He wasnt innocent but they were not being nice people either.

[@SophiaAphrodite]

@@BB-848-VAC did you just blame the woman for a mans awful behavior? Like seriously?!

[@harpoonlobotomy]

It's strategically worse to be disgusting to a married woman with her husband present, sure, but the comment wouldn't have been any better if the woman in question had been single.

[@skullcrushermaggie]

Came here to say this

[@PlayPodOG]

the thing is, they all make sexual comments to each other all the time. the live show that JUST happened (spoiler) sams character wanted to fuck everyone. its not that orion did it. its HOW he did it was weird and cringy

[@SweetDeath777]

I agree but I also think realistically it shows an even more intense level of disrespect. Like you thought her own husband would agree with you saying that? Ew.

[@unicornpower2292]

I think you are right. It’s just with Travis Willingham present, it proves he has more than no shame. He has no fear of being put in his place. The comment is disgusting, the presence of the couple and still going through with it is delusional and dangerous

[@1Morphed]

100% agree, like its one thing to allow the option for romancing and the like, but he went overboard with a statement and all his idiocy got him removed from the show

[@morganabernathy-warner5904]

I'm surprised you didn't include the moment when Matt revealed that Allura and Kima had a romantic tie and Orion's response to that was "Really, Matt?!" as though he was being denied a reward.

[@RijackiTorment]

That was absolutely gross.

[@ThePrestonMN]

That absolutely killed me. Just crazy entitled behavior.

[@jt808ful]

His response was story of my life

[@Mordaedil]

I didn't even catch on any prior implication that Tiberus wanted a relationship with Allura or Kima, so I was very confused about what we were seeing.

[@rwhellborn669]

@@Mordaedil oh yeah, I can't remember which epidoe it was but he was blatantly trying to hook up with Allura

[@talleywa5772]

"I use my last three sorcerer points." -Tiberius x11

[@johnmackelvey]

One Tiberius moment that I remember is when he interfered with shot Vex was taking with her bow. She rolled high enough to successfully make the shot but Tiberius still had to use his telekinesis to "make sure"

[@ephemispriest8069]

It was called helping. Everyone gave him crap about it at the time. Not sure why uninvolved people are still bitching about it a decade later. People just like to pile on. How about stealing a guest character's wondrous item and then changing the lore about how it was acquired later on?

[@NeonNuanceGaming]

​@@ephemispriest8069 Vex taking the broom was Vex being Vex. She even asked Matt if she could try to steal it. While Chris was upset about it, he ended up telling Matt he was gonna get the broom back. Tiberius was trying to play hero the whole time and argued with Matt about the rules constantly. And he was the only person who actively cheated. Laura never cheated. She rolled for the broom fair and square.

[@ephemispriest8069]

@@NeonNuanceGaming The gymnastics on display here are amazing.

[@NeonNuanceGaming]

@@ephemispriest8069 Believe what you want man. You have that right.

[@Velanaris]

⁠@@ephemispriest8069while I agree that it might be against ttrpg etiquete to take a guest’s item, if you “help” someone after their success you’re just taking their achievement from them. It’s not that big of a deal, but if it’s repeated in multiple times it just kind of sucks. Everyone needs to have their moments.

[@mcmutty680]

I often think of Orion. I wonder how I would handle messing up so publicly and losing my spot as a founding member of Critical Role before they took off to such a degree. Like what must he have been thinking as he watched that Critical Role Kickstarter hit 11 million dollars?

[@tomesofawesome8041]

Or the fact that almost a decade later, your screw up is STILL, being used with you as the poster child for everything wrong with ...

[@stayslapped1568]

Agony

[@francoisdumont4105]

The Pete Best of Critical Role

[@kwith]

Don't forget you trying to start up your own thing and have it crash and burn.

[@ShyyGaladriel]

So much regret. Amazing.

[@NINJAfries07]

“Welcome to the one shot where I narrate your horrific death and don’t allow you to leave.”

[@TalesStahl]

If it is literally the first 5 minutes it could be the start for a "You wake up and their is an x standing next to your bed" Start the Session by fighting a Monster that creates and feeds of Nightmares But just narrating nah you are fucked is bad

[@TheMickus]

And not a single saving throw in sight

[@tattoodude8946]

Yeah - bro just wanted to write a horror scene and force people to listen to it. You can write a book or short story - it doesn't have to be a D&D campaign!

[@authoranonymous8892]

@@TalesStahl Right, the one time I had it happen and it worked was when our characters got killed in a gas explosion. It was just how we got isekaied into the fantasy world where the *actual* game took place.

[@ZenDoggie]

I would have left at "your intelligence is now 12." No way would some moron gets to bully me like that. I don't play D&D to be a part of some loser's sick maggot fetish.

[@caetywithac7969]

I had the pleasure of meeting Marisha and Taliesin and playing games with them RIGHT after Orion left the game. They strongly insinuated that the number one problem with Orion was his drug issues that led to impulsive behavior.

[@JnEricsonx]

As of yesterday I have met all of them! Hell, 4 of them I met for a second time yesterday!

[@custom.-4545]

I had never heard of Orion and from the Sam vs Orion clip i could tell that guy is on amphetamines or coke for sure lol

[@AdderTude]

@@JnEricsonx I had a political debate with Liam in 2015 when X was still Twitter. We had strong disagreements with the topic at hand but we both understood where the other was coming from. Before things started to go out of hand, I said I still thought he was a great guy despite not agreeing with him on some IRL things. He was really cool with it and wished more people would have civil debates like we had. I've had nothing but high respect for him ever since. Legitimately an awesome dude.

[@CourageousNobody]

The stark difference in reactions to 21:50 vs the freaking bath scene with Vex, Vax and Percy, which even had Scanlan being a perv, really shows him being a creep vs having a funny story moment with your friends.

[@FuzzyKayna]

The thing that never sat right with me about Orion's argument that he thought of D&D as an adversarial relationship between the DM and the players where the DM is trying to kill you, is that he had been playing this game with them for two years pre-stream. He would have known that's not the kind of game Matt was running. He just didn't want to get nerfed in the fight. He'd rather sulk on the sidelines than risk looking ineffective. And the main character syndrome was really just confirmed by his audio show "Knights of Draconia", where Tiberius is literally the main character and the best most awesome person around. Heck, the first thing he did in the first episode (I tried to give it a listen out of curiosity once) was immediately get the magical upgrades that Matt had said would cost too much and take too long, get handed to him swiftly and freely, even though those mechanical upgrades didn't really matter now that he had abandoned actual mechanical play for scripted narrative.

[@sneakypenguin2861]

People saying "Sam gets away with sexual comments all the time, it's no different" - to me that says the cast feel comfortable around Sam, that he doesn't give off creepy or harmful vibes. When comments are made by someone you trust and feel safe around it is easy and funny, which suggests that on and off camera there was a disconnect with Orion, that he made cast members feel uncomfortable or gave off harmful or creepy vibes (which personally I think comes through on cam too, I felt my skin crawl when he was on screen)

[@The_Noobsito]

Exactly, this is like comparing getting a random hug from your best friend, maybe unexpected but appreciated. To getting randomly hugged by a coworker. Just because its ok when one person does it doesn't mean its ok for you, even if there was no bad intentions. You gotta read the room and context behind the interaction.

[@sneakypenguin2861]

@@The_Noobsito thats a really perfect analogy for this situation. An identical interactionbut the intent and comfort level is completely different depending on the person doing the hugging.

[@ginster458]

it‘s also just charisma. It’s not a stat in dnd for nothing. Sam is extremely charismatic and knows when and how to land even the lewdest of jokes. Orion does not have that kind of charisma and faceplanted. It’s like when Matt immitates accents perfectly and when Marisha tries it, she sounds like an almost offensive caricature of scottish or italian 😅. Literally a skill issue (but probably ALSO what you said, we just can’t say that for sure) But yeah some people just don’t have the vibes to say this kind of stuff and have it land, its timing and nuance and he rolled a Nat 1 with even a negative modifier

[@bloodwolfgaming9269]

Not only that...Sam knows when to back off when a joke starts to get to be a bit much. Yea, his jokes can get a little outta hand and walk that line. But when it's clear that it might cause a bit of an issue, Sam backs off. He's even had a few moments where he's apologized for getting a little carried away with some of his jokes. He knows when he is going too far and knows when to back off or apologize for such.

[@tomgray8156]

I started watching critical role in campaign 2, and I’ve only watched a couple episodes from campaign 1 but, even the little I’ve seen of Orion, I got major creep vibes from him, like everything he says or does feels like it has a sleezy, nefarious intent behind it. And I agree fully with your comparison to Sam. When he makes comments, it definitely feels like it’s in a light tone, and that he knows where the boundaries are, unlike Orion.

[@euanthompson]

I get the feeling thay Orion was affected by the change to the livestream more than anyone else. There is footage of them playing in the home game before and the main character syndrome doesn't seem to be there. I think he felt like he needed to be a cool guy for the camera in a way he didn't before, and had to make Tiberius cool for the Tiberius fans. In the end it resulted in Tiberius being largely forgotten and lost to time. Ironic really. I get the feeling the innapropriate jokes came from the same place as he kept trying to one up other players and Sam pulled that crap all the time, but Sam framed the jokes differently and so got away with it.

[@Vigsol]

I would agree that it extrapolated it, but I remember hearing sam or liam mentioning orions behaviour...in a polite way on one of their old podcasts. It was their impressions after the first time they all played together. That little mention would make me lean toward that they were already there, perhaps to a much lesser degree.

[@ssfbob456]

Sam gets away with it because he makes it clear he's playing a character when he does it and it's not on top of a bunch of other creepy behavior/unwelcome touching.

[@AngryEwok]

Sam is self aware, he makes stupid jokes to make a fool of himself, not to make himself look cool. And this what makes him...cool. And that's why actually cool shit that Sam does as his characters works even better because of this contrast. With Orion it reversed. He tried to be cool, better, but the lack of self awareness, taking himself too seriously is by irony made him a fool.

[@treyrobertson7187]

Way to make your own story over 2 min clips, you don’t know what your talking about, stop acting like u do

[@ssfbob456]

@@treyrobertson7187 I've watched every episode he was in a few times through, and there are plenty of videos out there going over everything that went down. The dude acted like a creep, no need to defend that.

[@NeonNuanceGaming]

Orion always had "that kid" vibes to me. Ya know, nobody really likes him but he's friends with the DM, always says and does weird shit at the table... I remember getting really mad that he completely abandoned the beholder fight but took the horn for himself. Scanlan had every right to call him out. Tiberius was very selfish. I found it hilarious when Tiberius got mad when Kima hugged Alura because he was trying to get with Alura, after Orion was gone for good, Matt had Kima and Alura get together like he probably intended.

[@slvaltva1392]

Actually I think it was mentioned somewhere that Matt originally was willing to go with Tiberius/Allura thing, and the hug was meant to be platonic, but then Tiberius fucked up and he decided it would make sense for her to get over him and date her friend, so even now fans assume Matt planned her being lesbian originally, but it's not true, as long as I remember he just wanted to do something interesting with her

[@tjridgeway26]

Incase people forget, travis is legitimately 6'4 200something pounds of pure dad muscle and old boy still said it...all im saying is grog is real

[@TheBottegaChannel]

Yeah, Travis probibly had a nice " chat" with Orion to remind him about those facts just before they parted ways.

[@JnEricsonx]

Having met Travis....yeah. There's a reason when you see him in the OG cosplay intro-he legit LOOKS THE PART AS GROG.

[@QuolashMCDuck]

travis is not only strong af he is also one of the kindest and gentlest (that a word?) persons on critical role.

[@JnEricsonx]

@@QuolashMCDuck those I have met were all great.

[@kaijutrainer2913]

Bc people, largely, don't know- Travis was also on Season 1 Punisher. Instantly knew I recognized that Death Scream lol

[@WTFisTingispingis]

I'm just remembering how Tiberius cut an old lady in half for some reason and Lady Allura, who up until then was being set up as a possible love interest decided MAYBE this guy wasn't so good after all and Orion got piiiiiiissed. Like, god forbid a lady not overlook you randomly murdering someone.

[@Siphlex]

I remember that part. She was part of a bandit gang or something and decided to run away. He used Telekinesis on some sort of semi table-saw blade and used it as a weapon on her, then when she was down and had already yielded he just basically table-sawed her in half. So yeah. Tiberious Stormwind, everyone!

[@MaxxCoyote]

Well it wasn't really "Random". The woman had been trying to kill VM only moments before. To be perfectly honest, I don't know many players that would have put up with the complaint. Though the difference is, the players I know would have had their character tell the DM's character to piss off for complaining about it. My current group, that I DM'd for not that long ago, actually kicked out their long time DM because they were so sick and tired of him complaining about them killing enemies.

[@sherlockbones8446]

​@MaxxCoyote She was still running away and made it clear she wasn't an active threat. This also wasn't his only offense of being over the top violent for no real reason. Pardon Matt for not condoning war crimes on his live streamed D&D show lol

[@MaxxCoyote]

@@sherlockbones8446 Gotta die chief. Don't come at me with your "War crimes" bullshit. Ain't no war, we be murderin' up some baddies, and there is EXP in them thar bodies.

[@jackwriter1908]

He got angry with Matt when Matt later revealed that Allura was in a relationship...

[@OPgamingstyle]

I had a player who tried to do some similar fetish stuff in one of my campaigns and I straight up said "dude don't make me do this man it's too weird for me". At least the party agreed but the player did not return for future sessions.

[@bad-people6510]

You talking about the horse part? Not something I'd have been comfortable participating in but I'd have probably let him do it. Just keep it off the page. But if he's the kind of guy who doesn't want to be friends over it, I don't think it's that big a loss.

[@RogaineForEwoks]

@@bad-people6510 Yeah, depending on how far he wanted to push it, I might push back. The people of the city can have morals. Heck! The people in the "Fun" house can have morals. To them what they do is totally acceptable, as it probably should be. But when you bring in animals that totally changes things 100%. It's not the same as "fun" between two consenting sentient beings. Those things aren't willing they're just obeying. There is a huge huge huge difference. But if it was just a little thing like, "I will work there and I'm willing to do Conjure anything for it." I'd laugh and say, "Well you can work there and you make 5 gold a day, which is a really good living." But it wouldn't be that weird stuff is where they were making their coin, just the normal business that goes on there. If they pushed it I'd say that it doesn't matter what his Charisma roll is, the owner is against it. If he pushed further I'd say, maybe you'd get 1 person but most of the patrons leave because they don't want to be in a place where this is happening, so the owner kicks you out.

[@bad-people6510]

@@RogaineForEwoks Okay, you probably put more thought into it that I was willing to.

[@RogaineForEwoks]

@@bad-people6510 LOL! Story of my freaking life.

[@johnnywakeup5515]

@@bad-people6510 They're definitely a DM.

[@1Kapuchu100]

"It's okay to kill your players as a Dungeon Master." I... I think you mean "players' Characters".... The law might have issues with the other one.

[@bradleyhall1815]

Police show up. DM: Give me a perception roll.

[@shayllow8833]

​@@bradleyhall1815Roll for Investigation 🤣

[@freshrot420]

It says right here the DM has final say in all rules, your laws do not apply in here.

[@RobStark282]

​@@freshrot420this thread is awesome

[@spykewyn8395]

"Officer, he brought Puffy Cheetos, ate the whole bag himself, and then touched everyone's miniatures." "Understandable, have a good day."

[@rapturesrevenge]

No, you NEVER give people like Orion Acaba the benefit of the doubt. His behavior was atrocious. His behavior toward Marisha in C1E26, when Vax got Tibs drunk, was vile. AND MARISHA AND MATT WERE DATING AT THAT POINT. And he raised money for a gal whose father died, then kept the money? AND that fanart fiasco? The fan was just selling their fanart, which is kinda what fanartists do. Laura and Travis had to step in on that to defend the fan. Orion wasn't just bad for the show, he was bad for the rest of the cast and for Geek & Sundry on a professional level. He's pretty much been blacklisted from voiceover roles because no one wants to work with him, particularly Liam, Laura, and Travis, who are veteran voice actors and heavyweights in the anime and video game worlds.

[@bensdreamatorium8315]

But at the same time, he’s never announced that he’s officially resigned from VA work. And there’s no records of him being fired, either. Nobody knows anything about his life after all the things he did following his departure.

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

@@bensdreamatorium8315 Not only has he never resigned from VA work, but he _still_ gets regular gigs in the industry. In fact, a quick check of his IMDB listing shows that he's had _more_ named roles in VA gigs than he did pre-CR, which puts a lie to the statement that he's "been blacklisted"

[@eshbena]

@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 Orion has friends who help him get gigs. But, you will notice that he doesn't do anything major. He's doing bit roles and is not doing nearly as much work as other major VAs. That said, as much of a terrible person as he is, I do hope that someday he gets better and has a moment of clarity.

[@SingingSealRiana]

There is no room for benifit of a doubt when someone harrases soneone on lifestream!!!

[@evasesh6585]

I remember figuring out something was up with Orion when I watched the episode where he went away to take care of things in the Dragonborn city then when he came back he said he picked up a new bag of holding and some other rare items and didnt clear it with Matt and just said he did all this to Matt at the table. I know it was close to the last couple of episodes but I cant remember which one.

[@mbg4681]

I think that was C1E27, his final appearance. In addition to all that, he sent a letter to his father telling him to send the army to Whitestone, and Matt smacked him down with obvious (and thoroughly justified IMO) OOC frustration.

[@Slingblade420]

It was ep 14. I just finished watching it again. Sam was out that game. He also wanted to make a trade with Sam that forced Matt to speak for him and said he had to think about it and he might give him an answer when he felt more present lol. Tibbs was a real piece of work.

[@bad-people6510]

Wrong thing to do, yes. But as a DM, I've been there, not something I hold a grudge over. Also the ring of storing thing, I've had genuine misunderstandings over that sort of thing before, so it's PLAUSIBLE that was genuine confusion. The die fudging I can absolutely understand people being upset with. I have less of an issue with it being done against ME as the DM. If a player wants to be adversarial with the DM, I can accommodate that so long as it's not going against the other players.

[@M4RC311U5]

For me it was right before that (SPOILERS AHEAD), when he tried talking to the mindflayers, did nothing to help tje fight, refused to get involved, then made the killing blow, amd didnt credit anyone. The dragonborn home town segment was the nail in the coffin

[@erinjoyner3739]

I will also add that Orion's inappropriate comment was considerably worse because the girls had already made it abundantly clear they were uncomfortable with Orion's touching/comments outside of the show.

[@ssfbob456]

I always felt really bad for Marisha, Laura, and Ashley with hey they were constantly leaning away from him and making it very clear they were uncomfortable and he just never stopped.

[@smilingbear7430]

@@ssfbob456 actually marisha pretty much did the opposite, it was pretty obvious she was clsoe to him, early on she was constantly laughing with him, hanging on him, arm around his shoulders, etc.

[@ssfbob456]

@@smilingbear7430 In the beginning, sire, but not toward the end. Just look at the "half chub" clip. They're forced to be close due to the seating, but she's doing everything she can to be small so as not to touch him, and in earlier episodes when he gets all touchy you can see her visibly tense every time. Then there was the other content that they were making for Geek and Sundry where he was doing creepy stuff. There was one where they were all playing DDR where he spent basically the entire show staring at Marisha, like never looking away staring.

[@trianglekitty]

​@ssfbob456 when Orion is pretending to be drunk and won't stop touching her, I remember feeling such a visceral sense of secondhand uncomfortableness. Marisha looks like she wants to climb out of her skin to escape

[@jonathandefoy6376]

@@ssfbob456 poor Marisha, especially considering what happened to her in College.

[@cloudstone123]

I loved the fact that not only did the party succeed against the beholder but they also used magic against it during the battle which Orion was clearly afraid of not being able to use.

[@BlueHero45]

Ya if he knows about the anti magic eye he should have also known you can work around it.

[@britnicox3929]

There were a lot of other factors going on in Orion’s life that made him act this way, but I truly believe that the fundamental difference in opinion about the point of D&D gameplay what would have led to their fallout regardless. He saw Matt as an enemy when playing and that would have an impact on their friendship and the game for the rest of the party inevitably. I am kind of glad it happened when it did instead of much later when things were really starting to pick up, though I am sad for them to lose a friend

[@ephemispriest8069]

TBF Matt wasn't his friend. The falling out would have happened either way. The man was going through stuff and made an effort and the group gave him nothing but toxicity. I'm not blaming them, but both sides are at fault and NO ONE ever acknowledges the rest of the cast do not belong on pedestals.

[@buragi5441]

@@ephemispriest8069 Made an effort?? Ok I am really starting to belive that the 2-3 accounts blindly defending Orion are his alt accounts. The absolute lack of awareness over his actions and using his life situation to EXCUSE said actions is mind boggling.

[@kat021171]

@@buragi5441 If these comments were made in the last five days, it would be especially galling since we now know that Sam was dealing with cancer and still chose to sacrifice his PC for the good of the party while "going through stuff".

[@Isaaaa_Belle]

@@ephemispriest8069 what did he go through? lying about having cancer? ab*sing his girlfriend? drugs aren't an excuse here.

[@Ayeee155]

@@ephemispriest8069sexually harassing women in front of their partners is not making an effort, I’ll be 100 with you.

[@jordannew3803]

The way Sam repeats "Half chub" gets me every time

[@ephemispriest8069]

The irony that the guy who gets away with his sketchy antics says it the "right way" to elicit a positive response.

[@fluxshaman8251]

​@@ephemispriest8069When Scanlan is acting horny, it's Scanlan, not Sam. You can see this by how entirely non-sexual Taryon Darrington was. When Tiberius made that comment, it wasn't Tiberius, it was incredibly out of character, it was Orion. There was no reason for him to make that comment.

[@ephemispriest8069]

@@fluxshaman8251 It never ceases to amaze me how much you weirdos make assumptions you have no way of proving and then treat as fact. Like you can just watch something and talk out your ass and everyone else should nod their head as if you were some kind of expert.

[@Whispersmith646]

​@@ephemispriest8069yea, it's the difference between being funny and being creepy

[@kat021171]

By the way he is looking off to the side when saying it, I think he is repeating what Orion said in response to Travis' "what???". And his voice is just dripping with disbelief.

[@SelwynForde]

I watched the beholder episode fight live and believe me it was awkward for everyone watching....

[@ThylMane]

As someone that never watched DnD, and decided to just rawdog Critical Role form C1 Ep1 without any context after playing BG3, THAT was the only moment i was very confused about his actions. (i'm assuming the Beholder was that fight where he literally did nothing, just stayed out of range until the fight was over) I will be honest, i never noticed any Main Character Syndrome or anything else, i'm an idiot probably, but at the time i remember thinking "the dude has 4 Wisdom... it seems a very low score it's probably because of that", especially because i remember at some point some sort of conversation/episode, where Orion kinda apologized for some behaviour he had, i think it was something along the line of ,he thought Matt was playing/DMing to kill them, i don't 100% remember the context, but i remember him apologizing for something and Tailesin jumping in like "Nah dude i love the way you play your character" Soo some of the moments people complain from him, i never really "noticed" until i searched for the reason of his leaving But that fight, i was very confused, at the start i understood that he didn't want to fight in it's lair, didn't really get why tbh, was still learning how the game worker, but i understood, Tiberius doesn't want to fight there. However, after the fight started and well, finished! i was just asking to myself "why tha fuck didn't he help? I mean. i get it, you don't want to fight there, but your party already started, you are a magician.. just get closer and fire your Firebolts or Fireballs or wtv it is and deal some dmg"

[@DarkAngel40]

Because, quite simply, Orion thought the game should be all about him when it became popular. He fudged dice rolls to the point that Matt had to get Taliesin and Marisha to watch his rolls and give a signal that he was rolling correctly, he started Metagaming fights (such as the Beholder one) to the point where Matt had to stop him on a couple of occasions by shutting him down in game, and he would try to one up things that other players were doing to make it about his character (such as using Telekinesis to “help” Laura’s character make a shot that she had already rolled high enough on to make. And that’s not even getting into the “incident” that creeped everyone out. But his behavior didn’t improve even after he was let go. It’s probably talked about in here, so I won’t rehash it. Needless to say, Orion tried to turn a fun game of people playing DnD live and turn it into the Orion Show exclusively. And for his part, he was fired and his character pretty much wiped from any future projects (The VM Origins comic has him briefly in it, but he’s removed a few chapters later and he’s not even in the animated series).

[@hawkblade613]

​@carlosari5222 I think some of the main character stuff came from instances like when he was going to ask his father to send troops to Whitestone basically trying to solve percy's backstory and be the hero in that regard. I may be wrong

[@steinarbergstl5799]

@@hawkblade613 Yeah, that one was just dumb as hell. I seem to recall Laura calling him out on that as well after he claimed he could get Tiberius' father to send an army. She was obviously very annoyed by his behavior judging by the tone of her voice.

[@haladmirknowsbest]

The fact that Travis has that level of restraint is very impressive

[@SingingSealRiana]

We all know laura is the dangerous one

[@AdderTude]

@@SingingSealRiana The one clip where Laura just drops one F-bomb after another after a certain failed roll, and Travis starts counting fingers for each time she says it in frustration, was hilarious. Especially when his eyes get wider each subsequent time.

[@Moesie0822]

The channel SupergeekMike has made a video or two about Orion, and what sort of went on after he left CR. I can't remember what the title is, but it's there.

[@thedogmaticdirector]

That would be "Let's Talk About Tiberius" and "Why We Talk About Tiberius".

[@elbruces]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/norFdp-YaM6Fe9E

[@thescowl6971]

Finn already knows about Mike, he even reacted to Mike's first video on Tiberius.

[@princeblackelf4265]

I don't like Mike but those videos are good admittedly

[@SuperWaistcoat]

He made three videos on it, the third being a justification of the second and one of his dislikes of it was he brought on a hat made by a fan. People really love milking what little Orion had to do with CR before it got big

[@burrhunter1992]

One of the reasons that Travis dislikes shopping/ sorts or prep because Orion spent real time 17 minutes trying to metagame magic items that cost thousands of gold and days worth of game time. He also kept persuasion checking his friends to give him more gold. Meanwhile Travis very clearly asks "are we done yet" after every question/ failure to buy the items. On Tiberius' body there was a flask of holy water and like 300 gold worth of mirrors. Which were never seen again.

[@cFull_Rtrd]

Wasn't a good enough reason for the entire fanbase to bully him.

[@ephemispriest8069]

Oh no, 17 minutes shopping in a role playing game. How terrible. Guess that justifies bullying the man. Glad no one ever spent that much time shopping ever again in future campaigns. -_- I swear you clowns have no self awareness.

[@Quandry1]

​@@cFull_Rtrdhe wasn't bullied. You are turning it into that. Those mirrors were yet another attempt at metagaming that didn't manifest for example.

[@cFull_Rtrd]

@@Quandry1 Like i said earlier, if Travis had a problem with metagaming he needs to let the DM handle it. Matt is more than capable of telling players what they can and can't do. Or he needs to wait til the game ends and talk to the DM. You do not yell at other players in the middle of a game. Can we all agree on that or are we uncivilized animals? The mob is just joining Travis.

[@Quandry1]

@@cFull_Rtrd No. You are looking for a mob and looking for every reason to create a mob out of anything going on. The players are human. What should be done is not always what happens. You need to accept that. And if you think it wasn't talked about with Matt Previously that is on you and your assumptions to create a situation that fits what you want to rail against. You have a real tendancy to fit anything that doesn't fit your personal design about the situation. Which i have addressed in my previous post using Marisha as an example. There are many many others.

[@DrMemeD302]

So about that first story, I actually have a funny Druid brothel situation in my first ever campaign that gave us all a good laugh. The druid in the party had never been in the city before and exclaimed to the party he wanted to visit a brothel as he heard they were fun places to go. The party agrees, they go there and the druid gets pulled to a back room with one of the workers there. She tries to talk a little dirty, and I as the DM decide she'll keep making jokes like "Show me your wild side" and "Are you an animal in the bed?". Finally, the druid's like "Alright, I guess I'll do this, lady." and wildshapes into a cat that jumps on her head, and she freaks out and runs around screaming. Chaos ensues, the brothel shuts down (over one cat might be ridiculous but give me a break fellas) and the guards are about to execute the cat until the party convinces them they'll go take care of it elsewhere (knowing that "killing" the cat would just make the druid pop out and get them in trouble). We all had laughs, and it was a short enough detour from the story/quest that it didn't feel like we wasted time there.

[@SophiaAphrodite]

TBH this seems like a great introduction to a virgin druid in the city for the first time.

[@Goldy-Bear88]

see i think thats funny,

[@RoninXDarknight]

This worked because everyone was on board with it.

[@davidcurry5240]

Right before the “half-chub” he also tried to make the whole Briarwoods arc about him too. Because they were rude to him. Made it about him right in front of Percy.

[@herz5159]

Just to note, the focus shouldn't be on Travis when Orion was practically harassing Laura with sexual comments. It's wrong regardless of if she was married or not or if Travis is there or not.

[@ghunzor]

Travis was about to enter Hulk mode. Mad respect he kept his composure as much of possible

[@cFull_Rtrd]

he yelled at Orion for shopping... I watched CR in order so I instantly disliked Travis in the beginning after he yelled at Orion. That was so out of line and the critical role mob mentality that loves to bully Orion and has blinded you all to how immature of Travis that was. He was buying mirrors, let the guy have some fun. Critical Role fans are super toxic.

[@ephemispriest8069]

@@cFull_Rtrd Glad to see someone else who could notice the bad behavior directed toward Orian. People like treating the guy like a villain. Like the rest of the cast are innocent little angels. Fucking hell.

[@cFull_Rtrd]

​@@ephemispriest8069 I appreciate there are Critical Role fans that don't follow the mob mentality to bully Orion, a founding member of Critical Role who was dealing with an unfortunate situation. And like all these Critical Role fans are perfect little angels too. They all throw their stones from their glass houses of delusion.

[@Velanaris]

⁠@@cFull_RtrdWhile he shouldn’t have done that, isn’t it kinda blind support to be pro Orion too? We don’t know the guy, we don’t know the CR cast either.

[@cFull_Rtrd]

@@Velanaris I don't support Orion but I recognize the victim of bullying when I see one. It's unacceptable. The Critical Role cast was super respectful about Orion's departure and for that I thank them but regardless the Critters just want to belittle Orion and punish him for all their perceived slights against them. It's mob behavior, it's gross, people acting like animals.

[@nlmod]

He'd also use the fact that fans of the show, gifted them things. He'd mention specific things that he wanted, saying it'd be perfect for his character, and wait for a fan to gift it to him. After that, CR didn't allow fans to buy them stuff anymore.

[@Azo_AE]

One crazy thing to me is Orion knew the game well enough to metagame a lot of encounters but not well enough to understand a basic ring Icon of spell storing

[@namtellectjoonal7230]

he probably did understand it, but tried use it incorrectly to his advantage anyways, hoping nobody would notice and when he got caught, he tried pretending that he honestly thought it worked that way

[@Azo_AE]

@@namtellectjoonal7230 yeah that’s what I meant by “one crazy thing” I just didn’t word it very well

[@bad-people6510]

That in and of itself is not implausible. Either interpretation of the event is possible. I wouldn't feel safe condemning people for maybe misreading or misunderstanding a rule. It's the patterns where the probability shows through so I wouldn't make any judgement based just on these clips alone.

[@MFWolfman]

He looked high AF during the incident with the ring of spell storing. It's no excuse, but dude clearly had some shit going on outside the game that the rest of the group wasn't willing to put up with any longer

[@mickidoesmedia]

His acumen for D&D could have just decreased over time. It happened to me as well.

[@ZoeBellCake]

Orion has gone on record admitting to a heavy drug problem at the time all this went down. Not excusing his behavior, but dude was having all kinds of issues at the time outside of the game and for all we know kicking him off the air and out of the group is why he finally got the help he needed.

[@ProbieKnox]

The guy was horrible + he probably thought he was gonna die from cancer too... And yet people keep talking about this as if it had happened yesterday... This behavior is annoying and mildly disgusting. I don't know why this community can't move on from this. It was almost a decade ago and the critters just can't leave him alone... ffs...

[@brianbarrett6316]

​@@ProbieKnox something tells me you wanna get rid of age of consent laws

[@GBS4893]

@@brianbarrett6316 This is not fighting for equality and a healthier society, this is pitchforks. Everyone needs to relieve some stress now and then, and finding someone who gives a good reason to be criticized from the safety of a keyboard is an often tempting one

[@brianbarrett6316]

@@GBS4893 while I do think it's kinda odd that even mentioning Orion in certain spaces is taboo, I don't agree that this is pitchforks. Toxic behavior at the table is unacceptable especially when everyone plays to have fun together and escape from the stresses of everyday life. Toxic behavior is even worse at the table when you are livetreaming to thousands of people. Do I think Orion is beyond redemption or something?? Nah I really don't, but it's ultimately on him to fix shit, but he's only doubled down on his narcissistic behavior.

[@ProbieKnox]

​@@brianbarrett6316 , So because I don't have the same opinion as you I'm now one of those monsters?! Wow! You'll be very surprised to know that I was the victim. Someone in my family did things to me nobody should do to a kid. Thanks for triggering me. You're not a good person.

[@JuiceMandem]

Damn those discord notification sfx really made me check multiple times 🤣🤣

[@Crocogator]

Don't even get me started. I've defaulted to Do Not Disturb for at least two years, and the sound still makes my heart jump. "WHO DARES?"

[@Xylarxcode]

Fucking same. I kept checking my Discord to see who tf kept pinging me. My Discord is set up in a way that keeps most ping alerts from reaching me, but there are a few exceptions so I was super annoyed that it kept happening, even though it wasn't my Discord, lol

[@viastephtop]

Same though, I kept tabbing over lol

[@Stuck313]

Yeah, the half-chub was odd. Scanlan gets away with it because he is in character. But Orion's deadpan delivery was very off.

[@BookwyrmEDS]

Sam also got away with it because it was a long established thing between Scanlan and Pike, going back to the home game. Orion's comment about Vex came out of nowhere.

[@leonqubick7716]

@@BookwyrmEDS he made it sound like he orion had a half chib for laura, not vex. thats the fkkd up part

[@SingingSealRiana]

Sam also gets consent for his antics, he respects set bounderies and apologises if a joke goes out of hand and backs of. Orion on the other hand excused touching narisha adter she told him not to with his character being drunk, made comments about laura despite having explicitly told not to etc

[@higglybiggly1174]

In the "sacred texts" (the vines posted of the home game before CR was ever a thing, on Liams Vine account) Orion seems 100% more chill. They all played with him for years at the home game prior to CR with no incidents, or at least nothing to kick him out. The big fan theory is the amount of eyes and attention CR got, as well as the real life drug abuse Orion was going through, changed him to develop the main character syndrome. He wanted to be the star of the very literal show as it could turn out to be extremely lucrative if he was the fan favorite main hero. Turns out, nope. By doing what he did he ruined his future opportunities with what could have easily made him very rich, but worst of it - he ruined real friendships. Him and Liam were very close irl and you can see the pain of Liams face in *SPOILER* the episode where they find the body of Tiberius and bury him. It's like in the moment Liam is saying goodbye to the friend he knew, not a D&D character.

[@steelhert4363]

To be honest, I don't think I quite liked Orion since the first episode I watched of critical role. He had this strange vibe about him right from the start - almost like he wasn't in sync with the rest of the party at all. The others naturally bounced off each other in interesting ways, and Tiberius/ Orion always felt a little strange around them. He was usually disinterested when it wasn't his turn, and more than half of the time that he wasn't directly involved, he was busy preoccupied with something else. I can remember so many moments where the others would burst out in laughter or cheers or would just be goofing about something, and the only person on the table not listening in was Orion. I know he was probably struggling but it doesn't remove the fact that he just wasn't a good fit for that table.

[@warspaniel]

For me, one of the biggest issues with Orion was not understanding his spells and items. I sometimes wonder if at one point he watched the movie "Krull" and wanted to effectively recreate the "glaive" from the movie using telekinesis and a bunch of daggers. On the one hand, I like to encourage my players to find creative ways to use their spells, but what Orion always tried to do was find abusive ways to use the spells, usually by completely ignoring any limitations stated explicitly in the spells.

[@JnEricsonx]

I believe so. TBH, I love that weapon since I was a kid. Playing Dark Sector where you pretty much HAVE that awesome. But I don't see a magic user using something like that unless its in a way meant to get around enemies immune to elemental magic or something.

[@ephemispriest8069]

Glad I'm not the only one who saw what he was trying to do. Would have like to see Matt roll with it and see where it went. I like to think Tibs having that in his pocket would have satisfied him to the point he reigned in some of his antics. Matt always enables the players, but always fought Orion. Definitely didn't help anything.

[@JnEricsonx]

@@ephemispriest8069 I just read about it, I've barely watched any of C1. Im halfway through C2 currently.

[@warspaniel]

@@ephemispriest8069 I understand your thinking, but there's also a significant risk. If you "roll with it" and let him have it, it could also encourage him to do more of the same or even worse rather than reigning in the antics. I think Matt generally does a good job of letting his players be creative and try things that aren't necessarily covered by the rules, or even allowing them to "bend" the rules in certain situations without it becoming abusive. In this case, what you have to look at is the power level of the spell being employed. In this case, it's a 5th level spell (telekinesis) which is capable of moving/manipulating a single creature (Huge or smaller) or object that is up to 1000 lbs. So the first limit is that it would need to be a single object, not several independent daggers...Now, have a weaponsmith craft a single multi-bladed object, and you'd have something to work with. I would make it require an attack roll (using the caster's spell attack modifier), and do damage comparable to or slightly less than other 5th level spells...basically, using the "glaive" is more a "flavor" thing than an effect thing. Of course, you have to worry about the possibility of glaive eventually being enchanted to be able to effect creatures resistant / immune to non-magical weapons, the potential to have poison applied to the blades, etc...which is why I would suggest it do slightly LESS damage than a standard 5th level attack spell...but that's just me.

[@ephemispriest8069]

@@warspaniel No more risk than the other players getting to do that. It's always a risk when you enable a player's fantasies, the only one he ever shut down was Orion.

[@zac8084]

Their reactions to “half chub” was priceless. The three of them all in sync gave the same look

[@themanhimself6620]

What's a half chub?

[@MelodyofCelts]

​@@themanhimself6620you can Google it mate 😂

[@KittyKatt_Luna80s]

​@themanhimself6620 I believe it refers to 🍆. Orion was saying via Tiberius that was getting a big 🍆 for Laura, and that he was hiding half his 🍆 under his robes, hence half-chub. It's fecking gross, as you can see Laura is uncomfortable.

[@SingingSealRiana]

​@@themanhimself6620erection on halfmast

[@neptuneplaneptune3367]

Orion was lucky, Travis looked like he was about to see if he can be Grog outside of DnD as well with how angry he looked.

[@JnEricsonx]

After finding out how Ashley was treated by BWF last year, Im suprised he didn't wanna do that again.

[@Grinnar]

​@@JnEricsonxscary things she had to go through. I hope she's doing well after all that.

[@JnEricsonx]

@@Grinnar Having met all of CR within the last year, I am guessing so.

[@SingingSealRiana]

Orion is way more lucky, that laura did jot end him

[@tarkatta8470]

If you know the stat block of the beholder, you would know the weakness of it also. There is no reason to sit out.

[@DxReaper120]

The half chub line was actually taken from Sam or Liam earlier in the season. They said it and everyone laughed Orion just has horrible timing and can't read a room lol.

[@vyshnavreddy9201]

In addition, he was already on thin ice with everybody.

[@DamianRogue]

Consider the fact that Sam used it as a joke between scanlan and pike.... Orion used it as a disgusting remark about Vex, in turn OOC-ing the line towards Laura.

[@SingingSealRiana]

What makes it ok, when Sam said it was, that it was very clearly in character, he had the parties and especially Ashley's consent and it was well timed. Orion saying it was out of character for tiberius, ill timed and he had already been told of for boundery crossing behavior. He had nobconsent and kept on going anyways. Sam is trusted to keep jokes as jokes, cause he always makes sure to not make anyone uncomfortable and if he misses, he immediately apologises and backs down... Orion on the other hand kept on going alao evident in the scene where tiberius is drunk and orion takes that as an excuse to keep touching marisha who very nuch tels him no and is so obviously uncomfortable with it. Context mattersx but mostly consent matters!

[@StereoShogun]

We had a player with huge main character syndrome because he put the group together. He was a friend of mine from work and told me he wanted to get a group together and that he’d found a dm. As a fairly new player who only had part of a short campaign under his belt due to life getting in the way of the game a few years back, I was very down for the chance to play again. This was fine for a while, some people left, some more people joined to fill their spot, and we always had a solid group. Eventually problem player moved away, and I invited a pal from my new job to come and join since we had become friends pretty quickly. Shortly after, new friend also brought his brother in law. At this point the group had only three of the original members: the dm, coworker from old job, and myself, plus the two members I had brought on a couple months after problem player moved away. Nearly a year later though, problem comes back. And the vibe is drastically different this time. He all of the sudden is a very selfish, mother hobo who wants to threaten every npc. “That’s just how Balthazar is. He’s very headstrong and snobby.” Bruh straight walked up to an ancient CR20 wizard, the headmaster of a magic college with centuries of history, while we were level 11, and said “tell me what I want to know or I will burn your college down.” Our dm asked him to make an intimidation check, to which he rolled a 26 or something really high. DM then proceeded to turn problem player’s character into an iguana. It made him furious, and he got up from the table yelling “but I intimidated him! He’s just an old man!” The dm replied, “you did in fact successfully intimidate him. He is senile and past his prime, which is precisely why you were just true polymorphed into an iguana.” Campaign carried on this way for a few more months, everyone kinda slogged through it and tried our best to be kind and courteous to one another. Dm always made sure that everyone had fun, but that problems fun didn’t derail anything. He always found very creative punishments. At the end it seemed like problem player actually kind of learned something. We decided as a group to give him a second chance as long as he was willing to sit and listen to what we all thought about his behavior and how his play style and and selfishness upset the group at times. Rouge never got to stealth, bard didn’t get to persuade, etc. The talk seemed to go well, until session 0 for next campaign came around, at which point he built pretty much the same character, except with a different class and race. So we just started the next game without him and moved on. Only lasted for a few sessions, and then the players realized the dm was a little bit of a creep. As of today, the group consists of the friend from the second job, his brother in law is our dm, and his sister in law is our third player. Trimmed down quite a bit but it’s 3 years after the end of the initial game, but we have become quite close friends even outside of our game sessions. I made some friends for life and even got to be best man in a wedding. D&d can provide amazing friends, and angry creeps but I wouldn’t trade it for a thing. Good luck out there, nerds. I hope you find your chosen family like I did. Thanks for reading - Shogun

[@ricmthegm]

I love how Sam takes care of Orion. Scanlon rocks

[@Logan_Baron]

One thing that I realized about Orion, which goes to the main character syndrome, which CR being a show that took off becomes more of an "I'm the star of the show" syndrome, was that in order to be the star of the show, he started to try to take the parts of the other PCs that the audience liked. Vax's pet bear Trinket was popular, Tiberius got his own pet. Grog was known for being the brutal weapons fighter. Tiberius created melee and ranged weapons that he used brutally, which didn't really suit his class. I think that "Half chub" comment was "people like Scanlans sexual jokes, so I'm going to do that now too" when it didn't fit his characters previous portrayal. He really did want the show to be "TIberius and his friends". Though also with the friends being pretty much useless next to him. Another part of that that I just remembered, was as each character has their own moments and their own spotlight with the right GM and right group, the Briarwood arc was obviously Percy's moment. After their first battle with the Briarwoods Percy was talking about how terrible the Briarwoods are, and Tiberius says "I hate them most of all". Trying to steal Percy's story arc moment as his own. Because everybody else is a side character.

[@Grinnar]

So you're saying he's Edward Norton in The Italian Job.

[@SingingSealRiana]

Thing is, he tried stepping into sams turf with no understanding of why scanlans jokes are funny or at least ok. Sams jokes are almost always targetting himself or his character, he got the partues consent for scanlans antics, he keeps character and hinself seperated, he never pushes when someone makes clear, that they set a boundery. Sam earned so much leeway through proving he is safe and will back of the moment someone is unconfortable. Orion felt entitled to the same reaction without ensuring consent, keep on going without consent etc, they are very much not the same thing

[@elbruces]

With the "half chub" thing, this might seem like a minor detail, but it's important: Orion made the saucy joke in third person, as a player. Some folks might point out that some episodes back, Scanlan had made nearly the exact same joke in first-person. It's one thing to have your character say something inappropriate, which Scanlan often did, but if it's in-character, they can have their characters react to it, should they choose. But it's another thing to say it out-of-character, because that leaves the other players with no way to react to it except for extreme awkwardness at the table.

[@erinjoyner3739]

He also doubled down on it after it was abundantly clear Laura was uncomfortable. He could've just let it roll off and moved on, but he literally had to dig deeper until everyone was pissed.

[@mech0p]

sam knows when to push and when to pull back which is why hes so beloved. I do wish that they wouldnt have restrained his comedy so much but i get it happens to please as many people as possible and offend no one.

[@tomesofawesome8041]

No it's not. They played with Orion for almost five years before they ever started streaming their games. They knew what his personality/sense of humor was like. Everyone needs to stop piling everything on this one guy.

[@ArchReverend]

@@tomesofawesome8041 Yeah that's one thing that sticks out in my head when considering him as a player. I think his personality was tolerable in a home setting when it was just all of them playing in private, but once things went live i think the cast became more aware of what he was saying because of twitch ToS and perhaps he got worse because they were live. It is a phenomenon the whole live thing. I have seen people change in weird ways once they start streaming and gain an audience, the prospect of fame and the gathering of attention can change a person in a bad way sometimes. Its a shame really, he pushed himself out of an amazing friend group and a growing media empire, if he's still out there i'm sure he regrets his actions every day, i know i would.

[@paulchavez3039]

Yeah there's a difference between being like, "lol my character has a boner because of you..." ... Versus, as the character, "I'm going to remain seated..." please laugh.

[@Laisiriana]

I wonder that Orion‘s behaviors didn’t fully manifest (or manifest so vividly) until there was an audience watching. Goofing and chilling with friends at home is one thing. Playing the same game with lots of people watching is a whole new level of

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

As much as I think the Critters are _far_ too negative and hypocritical when it comes to Orion's behaviour, the guy _is_ a perfect example of why playing a streamed game like it's a home game is a bad idea.

[@ZttackFrmBhind]

A good line from Episode 717 of Stargate SG1 "Cameras don't just record things; they change what they record simply by being there."

[@Logan_Baron]

He didn't exactly try to sue someone selling Critical Role merchandise. Someone had posted a shirt they made for THEMSELF with a "my name is" tag with his long introduction with from Draconia. A personal project that they were showing off to the group not even trying to sell. Orion blew up at them on Twitter about how Tiberius was his intellectual property. Extremely rude and insulting especially to a fan that was just trying to show their love for a character.

[@AcePlaysTCGs]

As a DM who loves sharing the story with my players, that melting intelligence story breaks my heart to no end. That's not D&D. That's just someone reading a story in second person perspective to someone. There was no agency for the players in that exchange at all. That Tiberius chub comment is cringe enough as it is, but the fact he pointed out verbally that no one could see it yet still felt the need to describe it for the table actually manages to make a bad thing even worse. I've seen a lot of people bring up how it's more on-brand for Scanlan, which is true, but the delivery would've been way more tasteful like the table shifting or tilting and Scanlan apologizing and muttering something about loving when a woman takes charge. I've always felt like Orion kinda felt some of the animosity or maybe he had a conversation or two with some people, and he saw Sam as someone who could cut tension with a knife and whose character makes sexually charged jokes, so he tried to emulate that as a way to try to make up for his own self-inflicted tension at the table but only made things worse because he wasn't on his brand. There is no doubt in my mind he was just as bad at the home games, but turned it up to 11 on stream. It's ironic how having a vocal audience also likely motviated his depature especially once he tried suing someone over merch.

[@nathanwilkins6107]

I think a lot of Orion’s issues ultimately boil down to main character syndrome. He pushed to be the center of attention as often as possible. He tried to be a part of all the big moments. He tried to match everyone’s jokes. He had no identity of his own to shine because he was constantly trying to outshine everyone else. Even the sexual jokes, I don’t think those came from Orion- I think he was trying to mimic Sam’s humor without understanding the difference between where a joke is directed and how to have some tact.

[@mblackwl]

Lockheed. That was a "Hey! Pay attention to me!" moment that caused me to cringe

[@SingingSealRiana]

Main character syndrom, a complete lackbof respect for the otger players and sexual harrasment. Yes, the joke was trying to steal the brownie points from Sam, but that does not change that in effext his unwillingness to back down after getting toldnof made it sexuall harrasment, same goes for keeping on touching marisha after she told him not to. That he didbthose thibgs again andnagain makes it not ine ill recived joke, but sexual harrasment

[@quincyking010]

Honestly the messed up perverted joke wasn't the worst he did to Laura imo. I think it had a bigger effect on travis than Laura but the worst was trying to steal a massive success from her. When he did that i Honestly thought by the expression on her face she was going to quit. Fortunately matt saw this and basically made what he tried not work

[@JnEricsonx]

And having met Laura, she's a goddamn sweetheart. At one point I praised "the cupcake moment" and all of a sudden for the next half minute I am talking with Jester. Pretty sure my face went bright red.

[@SingingSealRiana]

Have to disagree repeated sexual harrasment in and out of gane is way more damaging in my eyes, then achievment stealing in game

[@bridey8666]

I'm honestly so thankful that my group of friends introduced me to dnd and we went on to have a phenomenal 4 year campaign. Been playing for about 7 years now and actually just finishing up my own campaign as a dm and I've now been creating my own world for the last 6 months, I feel so bad that people have bad experiences with what should be nothing but a pleasurable experience.

[@briantieken6718]

For reason of accuracy the campaign they came from was originally Pathfinder. They went to 5th Edition for ease of mechanics.

[@lvlHive]

Wow, i dont know why but i always thought the transition was from 3.5 to 5E

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

@@lvlHive It's basically the same thing. Pathfinder 1e was literally just a reprint of 3.5 with a few balance tweaks.

[@lvlHive]

@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 Ah that explains the confusion, never played Pathfinder before but might make the switch if WotC decides to play around one more time...

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

@@lvlHive I mean, WotC fuck around a bit too much, which is why I refuse to financially support them. But Paizo don't exactly have the best track record either, especially when it comes to paying their freelancers.

[@lvlHive]

@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 Damn, Rock and a hard place huh.

[@jakefisher3328]

Laura: Feels the need to hide. Travis: I...would like....TO RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡!!!!!!!!!!

[@markdasaro9045]

The crazy thing is is that they Laura Bailey had a very respectable husband and Travis willingham who was it wasn't bothered by the flirting he was bothered by the unwanted advances.

[@markdasaro9045]

The real crazy part is that Travis willingham basically Fanboys over it was shipping Vex and Percy

[@jakefisher3328]

@@markdasaro9045 It's clear that it's unwanted. I think this is an example of Laura and Liam having a much different relationship than Laura and Orion.

[@Ares99999]

@@markdasaro9045Taliesin is entirely being in character the whole time about this, and Laura as well. This is very different from Orion’s actions. Travis could tell the difference in intent and so shipped the characters.

[@Crusader327]

When I found crit role, they were mid campaign 2 but I started with campaign one… Orion almost made me quit watching. I felt the last of my patience leaving my body after the “shopping” episode and I almost didn’t come back for more, but I did and I’m so glad I did.

[@coranbaker6401]

I was laughing my head off at that shopping bit he did. To be honest he was one of my favorite characters and it really confused me when he disappeared. But knowing what he did it was definitely for the best. I usually listened to the podcast in the background while driving, so I didn't actually see the reactions players were having most of the time.

[@Crusader327]

@@coranbaker6401 fair point; the shopping scene just drove me mad because it was essentially 2 and 1/2 hours of him spotlight hogging and figuratively jerking himself off. Bloody boring. I wanted Travis to shut him down and was so pumped for it when he started to, but Laura stopped him lol

[@phoenixjklin]

I had to stop watching C1 for about two years after working my way through it sooo slowly. Then I got sick with Covid at the end of 2020 and was so bored out of my mind that I searched up the episodes again and found where I left off. I was immediately hit with that awkwardness and tense feeling at the table and suddenly remembered why I stopped. Turns out I stopped watching halfway through the episode that was his last appearance. I knew he wasn't in future Campaigns, but I thought he was still in the entirety of Campaign 1. It was only because of the top comments that I pushed through, because they mentioned him leaving in the following episodes. I had no clue that other people felt similarly about Orion until then. I just thought "I guess that's what people think is fun" and almost left it entirely, because it definitely wasn't fun to watch. I'm so glad I kept watching, but man. I never could've imagined one player affecting the entire group so much.

[@ephemispriest8069]

@@coranbaker6401 Yeah, it was rough seeing the harsh way they shut down some of his antics. They didn't help him or collaborate anymore than he did. The hostility made it pretty clear he was going to be gone soon, and it would just be him. They were a click and he wasn't in it.

[@thesleepingpower]

To me, regardless of the rest of the circumstances, the fact that Matt formally announced his departure while wearing full Geralt Cosplay will always be one of my top ten moments of CR

[@bralacphelanwolfmightynein2625]

It should be said that most of Critical Role, Geek and Sundry and by and large most critters have opted to not critique and revisit this part of their history. There was closure that was moved on from, similar to the situation with BWF.

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

Critical Role, G&S, and Orion definitely seem to have moved on from the situation. The Critters definitely haven't.

[@Grinnar]

​@@dungeonsanddobbers2683Orion tried hard to make his own version, and didn't even produce something similar. It was weird.

[@TappedOutCY]

I did not know any of the background info at the time. I was watching CR live during VM and I recall most episodes that had Orion in them having some kind of awkward moment due to him

[@carlscavino4080]

I can confirm. Watched the whole season two and a little bit of three. I never knew who this guy was until now

[@majones117]

I remember when C2 started, I had just finished Orion's last episode and didn't know he was kicked off the show yet. "I texted my friend saying Orion didn't return for C2, I wonder why?" As I listened to the episodes so I never picked up on the body language.

[@RichardRedmon]

i remember watching those moments and cringing back to people ive had like that in my games. when orion gloated about getting the deathblow on the beholder and floating the horn around with telekinesis you could see how pissed the group was. they had just spent so many rounds of scraping by with clever tactics, use of environment and amazing heroic and story moments...all the while orion spends every round on a flying carpet frustrated he is doing nothing but unwilling to join until he metagames the beholder is almost dead. so glad he was booted because there is no excuse to treat friends like that.

[@ChemicalVelocity]

in the first game i ever ran i had a player --playing a dragonborn goddamn sorcerer, no less-- ask to "purchase a bestiary" at the first shop the party entered, meaning he wanted me to hand the literal Monster Manual over the screen, in order to allow him to metagame in any potential encounter i may have thrown their way. I'm glad I had the good sense to make that difficult DM choice to hard No him at the time, having recently watched Orion's blunders play out and realize this was an adversarial play on his part

[@Vahktang]

Not every thin in the bestiary is correct. And run with that. Trolls do not regenerate from cold and poison. Have fun.

[@FuzzyKayna]

Or you could have said yes and handed him something with listing for some actual D&D creatures but full of supposition and inaccuracies, lots of "the stories say" kind of stuff. Make it a maddening mix of actually useful and wildly unhelpful that they have to pick through. Then make other listing for things that fully don't exist in the world you're playing in. Just made up shit. Look at real ancient and medieval bestiaries and encyclopedias, like Pliny the Elder's "Natural History", which were trying to be accurate collections of knowledge but were collected second, or third, or fourth-hand and full of some wild stuff.

[@MelonTartVA]

The fact Travis didn’t shout at Orion for making that comment towards Laura shows his control. I would’ve lost it

[@davidstutz9893]

I wondered why his character was never included in the Vox Machina prime series.

[@Anddq]

My first dm actually made a point of antagonizing the players and stated that his view was us versus him. That campaign messed me up for years with other campaigns as that was my first experience playing

[@Samael1113]

While a lot of it may have been overlooked, or was not yet an issue in the 3-4 years of home campaigns before the livestream really caught on, I'm pretty sure Orion's getting kicked from CR comes down largely to addiction. I believe he even made note of it a few years after leaving the group - that in-game was a lesser issue, but out of game the Meth and alcohol use was a definite stress point for the group. It likely also contributed to the odd actions and situations stream observers noticed - Not to mention, could you imagine the press and twitch reaction if Orion started having slip ups and hit the pipe live on stream? You can't really start a business on Twitch when one person is a real danger of getting you suspended/banned every week. And where's the "fun for all" when the meta is "Concern for this person's health"?

[@ephemispriest8069]

I doubt that was even the main issue. He got othered out of the group.

[@RichterScale-oz5pp]

This is your game. And this is your game on Moon Sugar

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

"Not to mention, could you imagine the press and twitch reaction if Orion started having slip ups and hit the pipe live on stream? You can't really start a business on Twitch when one person is a real danger of getting you suspended/banned every week." My exact thoughts on what went down. They saw how popular the show was and decided to turn it into a brand but, unfortunately, Orion at the time would have been too toxic for the brand they wanted to build, so he had to go.

[@theambientsoundsproject3276]

In the game I am presently DMing we had a character death in session 2, definitely not something you want to happen as DM and we had so much backstory built into the character I had to devise a way for them to bring him back in spite of only being lvl 4. It wound up kicking off a story arc that has been one of the most well received at my table, but as DM I was panicking at how the dice were rolling in that encounter. Now the party owes a huge favor to a high-priestess of Lolth and I get to torment them with some Drow shenanigans going forward. For context, my party goes really hard on backstories. We typically do 2-3 individual character sessions prior to the moment that the party meets, and this campaign is “the big one” that we plan on running for 100 sessions or more so a lot of work went into getting started

[@Caramelletje]

I remember liking him in the beginning and it slowly getting worse and worse. Especially since i noticed the cast being uncomfortable or annoyed. The moments that stick out the most in my memory are: making laura uncomfortable, taking away vexhalias shine after she rolled insanely high, him rerolling rolls because he wanted a better role and him trying to cast 100 spells and adding sorcery points. He pissed me off

[@AnimeDino73]

Having read The Vox Machina Origins, it was hard to see Tiberius portrayed, knowing how much of a problem player Orion was.

[@ColdGamersProdutions]

I still think the group after their home games being they haven't played in months and just spent 7 hours playing. Would leave and go "god Orin is really hard to he around" but then would forget until they hung out again in 9 weeks. And then shifting to once a week and it was just obvious and they got their fill. I'm surprised they lasted that long

[@WinterFaery84]

There was one episode where Vax got Tiberius drunk, and Orion kept putting his arms around Marisha, to which she replied "If you don't stop touching me...", and Matt looked like he was about to get out of his seat and beat him down. I cannot remember the episode number, but oh man, it was awful.

[@TheRealDerohneNick]

Just had to make sure, it's episode 26 from around 2:15:00. That scene is very different than you describe, I see the the players and Matt having fun about a played out scene. There are definitely moments where Orion is acting badly, but that one is not one of those at all! If you don't believe me, consider rewatching it. The mind can change memories, but the VOD is still the same after all those years.

[@SingingSealRiana]

It was really gross, using his characters drunkenness to be handsy with anothet player and he just kept going.

[@SingingSealRiana]

​@@TheRealDerohneNickthe scene I saw had marisha telling him of again and again, and orion kept on touching her, thats not ok

[@RoninXDarknight]

The amount of control Travis had to not leap over that table and beat the ever loving shit out of Orion for that comment was nothing short of God Tier.

[@bad-people6510]

You must love Will Smith then. Oh boy, I love when people use jokes to justify criminal battery.

[@gabrielcruz4071]

I'll say this as someone who is about Travis's size and quite strong: You can't just lose your shit and start beating on people in the first place, but also, big, strong people have to consider that they are high-stakes gambling with someone's life when they do so. Travis knows that, made the correct decision, and in that wisdom, got to have a hand in getting Orion removed from a staggeringly lucrative career opportunity, which is a much, much better punishment. Orion's a sack of shit, but he's not worth a manslaughter charge (or worse).

[@bad-people6510]

@@gabrielcruz4071 I think in any case we're making way too much of a big deal about making unpopular jokes and fudging dice rolls in a board game everyone insists isn't competitive to begin with. Looking through these comments you'd think the man burned down an orphanage. Let's all relax a little shall we?

[@gabrielcruz4071]

@@bad-people6510 There's a lot more to it than that, but your reductive take seems like bad faith anyway when the details have been available for years. Maybe shut up?

[@bad-people6510]

@@gabrielcruz4071 Yeah, I'm the one who's being bad faith. Keep telling yourself that.

[@TappedOutCY]

The half chub comment was not inappropriate bc Laura was married or bc Travis was there. It was inappropriate bc Orion is a creep.

[@casablahca]

it’s weird for me it’s always felt like the group has been missing someone after orion left but good lord i did not like him. i was so glad when he left, and i’m glad we have robbie to fill that 8th seat.

[@Hieronymus82]

As I was a G&S moderator on twitch at the time...... It was an interesting time.... and oh my lord the shopping spree it was terribad.

[@Dhaygames2162]

I remember the endless shopping scene with Tiberius too. And when he randomly bought a baby dragon

[@KingGurke98]

It's not really fair tying the cheating behaviour to "playing dnd like a video game". Video games are fun, and cheating generally makes them less fun, yet there are still people who do it just to feel powerful. Those people exist regardless of the medium, just as there are people who just wanna have fun with their friends regardless of the medium.

[@RecklessFables]

Yeah, cheating aside, it is frustrating how Finn keeps basically saying "There is only one way to enjoy D&D" when the game, from inception, was very much a dungeon crawl to be won. Gold = XP back then. Even 3.5 leaned heavily into combat simulation.

[@ChaosReacon137]

In fairness, that's usually where that mindset comes from. Especially when a player tries to game the system, there's a chance they are also doing it in other games. It's surprising what some people will do to seem like a celebrity even when they have a metaphorical stadium full of eyes watching their every move, and then you also have the other end where some will openly cheat for whatever reason. I like to try and get the most out of the games I play, explore the different RPGs to find most, if not all the items and beat all the bosses. But it does make me worried if I over-level and cheapen the game for myself (this being more towards Elden Ring's DLC), but makes me happy when I can take my maxed leveled character and still find challenge in said games. Yes, I do agree that there's no "only one way to enjoy D&D." It comes down to the table and what they enjoy. I personally love going through the stories of my other party members as well as my own, that being the greatest benefit to these games the collaborative storytelling, even if you play a module with a set story

[@buragi5441]

The point still stands, you can't play DnD like you are playing a videogame. In videogames, unless you specifically go out of your way, you don't roleplay, you see the numbers and adjust to have those numbers be in your favor, that's metagaming and an absolute buzzkill in a DnD game all about roleplaying.

[@ChaosReacon137]

@@buragi5441 Not quite as you also detailed how most people view leveling their character in any TTRPG. Yes, in most videogames you aren't roleplaying. But when you're playing an RPG like Baldur's Gate, unless you are playing for a specific ending you know how to trigger or do things that you wouldn't normally do to gain an item, you are usually roleplaying as your character or your version of a character (as limited as the latter can be). Metagaming is taking outside knowledge and applying it when the character most likely wouldn't have known about it/breaking character. An example being, another PC picked up an item without the party being around, and having your character do something as if they knew the PC had it. Metagaming also gets called out in some games, like in South Park's The Fractured But Whole when you already knew the password in the introduction before your character finds the password. And in games like D&D, discussing with the other players who has a better stats/items for an upcoming encounter they know about is generally seen as appropriate metagaming. But it generally depends on the DM how often that even comes up. And no, this is not excusing what Orion did (avoiding the Beholder encounter, trying to create something when Tiberius would've known better/wouldn't work or something that the character wouldn't have even thought of), and it's a good general rule that you want to avoid metagaming as it can ruin the moment. However, it's not a big deal if a player(s) ask out-of-character how to try and approach a situation/who would be appropriate or more suited to take the lead, or ask a DM if they think their character would know something when the player is lost

[@bad-people6510]

I can understand the power fantasy bit anyway. I actually don't principally have a problem with it. In fact I don't hold it as a universal truism that cheating makes games less fun. I think that's entierly opinion. If you want to boot up a gameshark and steamroll the AI, feel free. You want to play strictly on the lowest difficulty, that's your choice. But in multiplayer it get a little more complicated. If I was the DM I wouldn't so much mind him fudging thigs just with me, because if that's what he wants to do, that's what he wants to do. It's only when it compromises what the other players want that it becomes a problem.

[@86roogrl]

The first 27 episodes were so hard to get through

[@kaysaballard8761]

There's so much contention and bossiness! I understand growing pains and all that what with a new stream. I rewatched those episodes recently and wowowow I had forgotten just how difficult he was. He was a big reason for almost every single uncomfortable situation, every player (including DM) getting upset, just. Everything wrong happened when he was around 😂 this video gets it

[@demogorghon]

"It's ok to kill your players as a Dungeon Master" - wow... that's kinda extreme playstyle. I'd say killing off their characters is punishing enough ;P

[@indyboy1959]

Can you credit me for using my edit? It's not like I own the content (all I did was clip it from the stream and add some edits in), but just like a "Credit to Indy Boy for the Half-Chub edit" in the description with a link. I spit out my drink when you screen recorded yourself playing the entire vid on my channel. 21:44

[@jeissanascimento]

Concordo com você,amigo.

[@rooknado]

Your halo dub is hilarious lol

[@indyboy1959]

@@rooknado That's not mine, it's a clip from Teh Spearhead's "Halo Dubs" series. I say so in the description.

[@charliebaker1427]

Orion is honestly the only reason i haven't gotten inti watching campaign 1 after watching tlovm cause what ive experienced so far I gonna make so many cool moments suck. Like i tried to start listening and man is craighammer jard to listen to with him in it

[@annormal1414]

Bro, how in the world will people forget about it if every youtuber who discovers CR makes a video about Tiberius at some point? I watched first season knowing what's going to happen and was very hostile towards him, judging his every step because people on the internet are still giving him shit after all this years. And you know what? I was disappointed. He wasn't the worst player ever by any means. Just an average player: 20% of wholesomeness, 40% pain in the ass and the rest somewhere in between. 50% of players who were calling him out through the years are play EXACTLY like him, they just don't record it so nobody cares about them. P.S. The fact that CR cast NEVER badmouthed him and always stayed professional, even payed their respect to his character at some point just adds up to their reputation as awesome players and decent people. If only their fans would follow their example and stop beating a dead horse already.

[@heatherlayne8533]

My biggest issue with Orion in the early eps isn’t even his blatant disregard for everyone else’s game, but how absolutely angry he gets over every little thing. Like you can see him sitting there SEETHING after Scanlan counter spells his silence, and then again when Keyleth calls him out for not listening to them. He just seems like one of those roid rage bros who’s seconds away from starting something. And everyone else in the game tries very hard to keep it a game, no matter how upsetting it goes. That’s why he never worked, he wasn’t a team man player. He wanted to be the top dog, and when he couldn’t, he got mad at everyone who stopped him

[@14canucked66]

This video was helpful. I watched those episodes back when I was very new to D&D. I never understood the hate/dislike for Orion, especially because I actually really enjoyed Tiberius. But now I understand. Thanks.

[@connormacdonald3061]

The horse brothel is why session 0s and safety rules are critical.

[@slvaltva1392]

I mean it was obvious they didn't care about safety and consent, even Matt, considering he at least once forced a sexual assault situation on his player before streams and found the story about it funny

[@Grinnar]

​@@slvaltva1392you're not speaking about the same thing that the dude above is. Those are separate games and groups.

[@shallendor]

The Story of Tiberius continued with a full cast audio drama in his home country after separating from Critical Role!

[@DJWidget]

I didn't make past the first few episodes because of how many side characters often had lines akin to, "Oh, I'm so proud of Tiberius!" and "Isn't Tiberius amazing?".

[@mech0p]

and then matt killed him off lol

[@ssfbob456]

@@mech0p him _and_ his country

[@ultrabigfella]

​@@mech0pand that was a far better ending that what Orion wrote for himself lmao.

[@DarkAngel40]

It also didn’t help that Orion was embezzling money from his livestreams that was for other purposes.

[@Buzzcook]

Orion had main character syndrome bad. While he had other problems, not being able to share the stage was his biggest fault.

[@SingingSealRiana]

My main issue was the sexual harrasment, which was enabled by his main character syndrom but also is its own issue. If he where just a bad player ok, but he harrassed the women, thats no longet a game issue, thats a real world issue

[@andrewpeterson3302]

I recently finished CR campaign 1 and homie was kinda wild. It got way better when he got booted.

[@Josh.Proctor]

The second horror story sounds like one of those people who were misled to believe that "as a DM, your job is to try to kill your players". Luckily, I haven't played with many people like that. There was one campaign I jumped into where it felt like this DM had something personal against me, I didn't even know the guy prior to gaming with him, so I'm not sure what it was, but just about every game session felt like I was being targeted. The only relief were sessions where it was mostly roleplay. But the moment monsters or enemy creatures came into play, it seemed I was the focus of their attacks. 3 dudes on me, 1 dude on everyone else. I tried several different tactics to see if he just preferred to see a different play style. Gung-ho, versus being more careful. That sort of thing. But it didn't change anything. I was in that game for maybe 10 sessions before leaving. This might sound bitter, but I really hope his game fell apart, or that people saw him for who he was and stopped playing with him. Some sort of "justice". I don't like bullying and hate being bullied. So I wish this sort of justice on him. I won't wish him hurt, or dead. But definitely wish players stop playing his games and he can't find people to play with. That would be sufficient in my mind.