The Secret That Can Make or Break Your DND Character

[@ColtNomad]

In one of my current games I am playing a gloomstalker ranger and I spend a lot of sessions quiet. My character is not charismatic, so I let the party face take care of many conversations. I am also playing into the rough and abrasive stereotype of rangers. When my character speaks, it is meaningful, but I am often being rude because being nice to the npcs has failed. The other people in the party often ask me if I'm bored being quiet but I am not bored. And when I do talk, they have told me they enjoy it because its different from the normal that I've established. I normally play charismatic characters so this definitely is new to me.

[@Bokmoh]

One of my players did this. Was consistently "the voice of the party" and so decided he'd play the quiet type. He barely ever spoke, but when he did it was always EPIC. We will never forget when he succeeded on a perception check to spot our enemy, and just pointed and yelled "CHOSEN OOOOOOONE!!!". God that was funny 😂

[@manuelmialdea5127]

The face of the party in DMing now is s Gloomstalker ranger, he's the spoiled son to s Whaterdhuvisn family. We took the ranger as a "profesional city dweller" which has been cool so long.

[@nadirgirl]

My gloom stalker was quiet as well though I always chimed in describing her actions or what she was focusing on.

[@angrytheclown801]

I usually play the trickster type, or ultra intelligent bruiser. So I play up the mental part of my characters as much as their muscle. But when we played in an official Dark Crystal world and I played a bruiser that wasn't intelligent I made him meek, quiet. He wasn't mentally disabled but because I've seen Dark Crystal, I knew such a character is going to be tragic and pitiable but also warm and heartfelt, so I played into that. They others at the table were thrown so hard but we got to share a powerful campaign when....I.....spoke.....slowly.

[@Mimo-ye5pm]

The jumpscare right when it went silent was the ad that suddenly popped up 😂

[@andydoran267]

Glad I’m not the only one that got that

[@mr.imjustgood7318]

Got that as well haha!

[@BoredTAK5000]

My favourite moment where silence is used is during the bard lament. Everyone else is laughing and joking whereas scanlen is silent. Also throughout the speech Sam stops and lets the lines really land.

[@thesaltybeard1793]

5:24 i was on the toilet. I was not brave. I knew that jump scare would only help me with my task if it came. It didnt. And so now i must continue.

[@Kestas_X]

Ghibli often has Panorama shots of silence. Complete and unbreaking It's super relaxing.

[@briandaaranda9735]

One of the most intense moments in a campaign I played in long ago happened when my character got zapped to another dimension, where she was happily married and with a baby on the way. When she got zapped back, she returned with her memories of that happy dimension; she was in a cold, dark cave, with dead monsters all around her, and her belly was flat. I remember I just locked eyes with another player, who was playing the noble woman my character was a guide/servant for, and silence. It was such an intense moment of just my character freaking out, lost and confused and terrified, and her character understanding that, beyond a guide and servant, my character was her friend, and she was hurting, and she needed help.

[@AuntLoopy123]

Ooooooh! The silent freak-out! VERY good. My sister once played (in an actual play) the part of a woman who was almost always silent. She spoke only four lines in the play (each one started the same way: "I hate everything, but most of all, I hate..." and a new list each time.) Yet, she communicated SO MUCH with her silence. She was on the stage a LOT and just the business she had, by herself or with other characters, added an awful lot to the show. Much of it was comedy. However, my sister made a lot of a silent freak-out, building up to her BIG "I hate everything" line, where she directly told a character that she hated HIM. Mostly, I remember her scratching her palms. Just standing there, glaring, and scratching one palm, then the other, then the first, then the second, until the scratching wasn't enough, and she blew. It was powerful body language. She told me she got that from watching real people have silent freak-outs. I later realized, she had been watching ME! When I looked down, and realized I was scratching my palms, when I was upset, just like I always do... DANG IT! I wasn't trying to INSPIRE YOUR PERFORMANCE! However, apparently, I'm not the only one who does that, because other people have commented on that performance, and how she nailed it with the palm scratching.

[@DParkerNunya]

Fjord and the sword in ep 72. Yeah, there's dialog in that scene, but everytime Travis is quiet, its this heavy quiet. It makes the things he says feel more powerful, more intimidating.

[@theadventuresguild6514]

I'm loving the recent format of your videos. They feel so natural and it's very entertaining watching you be yourself. Thank you for your efforts and your knowledge, my friend.

[@liadouglas6914]

Great video, great explanation on how sometimes the story is in what is NOT said rather than what is. Also, I love seeing how you and your wife interact in the videos, you both just sound like you're having so much fun together

[@trevorwilliams6362]

The IT Crowd has so many examples of silent dialog that end up being so amazingly hilarious! 😅 I love the beauty of knowing when to speak!

[@AuntLoopy123]

You mean, "Why are you giving me the secret signal to shut up?"

[@AuntLoopy123]

DANG! I love that show SO MUCH! I have re-watch the entire thing, at least once a year. And speaking as a disabled person, the episode where he says, "I'm disabled, in my legs," just makes me laugh my butt off, every time! Real life - He could have saved SO MUCH TROUBLE, if he had just said, "I'm sorry. I pulled the assistance cord, because I thought it was a pull-flush toilet, like the old one at my Gran's house. I'm not that kind of disabled. I have an invisible disability." He doesn't have to specify what it is, but invisible disabilities DO exist, and some of them DO require using the handicap stall (ONE example, and there are so many others, is struggling with sudden vertigo, and needing the grab bars to get up and down safely). They're not supposed to pry into your personal life and demand to know specifics about your invisible disability. Just, "Oh, well, I'm glad it wasn't an actual emergency, then. Perhaps we should put the assistance cord on the side wall, close to the toilet paper dispenser, instead, to avoid this confusion in the future." BUT, that's real life, and this was a show, and they had to go for the funniest thing they could, and it worked, because we knew that those two fools would be hoist by their own petard, being too embarrassed to confess that they MADE A MISTAKE, so they'd rather just go with the consequences of being confused with someone in a completely different situation. Pride goeth before a fall, and all that. And then, once they committed to the bit, they were too committed to ever get out, no matter how embarrassing and painful it was. It basically set it up for Maurice to get stuck in the crane game, later on, showing his commitment to solving problems HIS WAY.

[@trevorwilliams6362]

@AuntLoopy123 I absolutely loved your reply! Jenn always breaks me in that episode! When she's just baffled as he's silently rising into the van breaks me to bits!

[@trevorwilliams6362]

@@AuntLoopy123 "Oh! You meant *that* story!!"

[@machomandalf2893]

I always love your deep dives man. Excellent work again.

[@risperdude]

One of the challenges I find building tension is that I play predominately on line. Silence often ends up giving permission my players space to disengage. The past few sessions I have experimented with lowering my head and wait for someone to notice, and then suddenly it turns in to an "Oh No!" moment. With film, often silence is filled with non-verbals. The example from Civil War with Cap and Tony, Chris Evans' eye shifts, mouth twitches and seeming involuntary jaw contractions said so much. Much of that subtlety is hard to observe without the kind of extreme close-ups achievable in that media. Around a table or online sometimes silence might need to be described or be missed.

[@AuntLoopy123]

If you're going to commit to using silence, but you're worried about subtlety being ineffective, maybe just embrace the bit, and make signs? "You see something in the distance. It starts walking toward you." Silence for two seconds, then you hold up a sign: "You may respond now." They may be confused as to how they should respond, but they'll do something. And you can use it again, any time. ALSO, if you train them to get used to signs before they are allowed to respond, you can really DRAW OUT a silence, when you really want to punch it, such as before a BBEG entrance or a boss fight. Or maybe a long silence during a cinematic description. I don't do a lot of cinematics, but I use them, sometimes (for dreams and visions, mostly), and they know when I bring out a script, it's time to listen, because it's info-dump time, in the form of some dramatic moment I pre-wrote and edited for maximum effect. And if I pause, while still holding the script in front of me, they know the silence is part of the show. Alternately, if you don't like signs, you can go for hand-motions, like Jay did.

[@mentalrebllion1270]

One thing I use, when cameras aren’t being used during online play like how you describe, is that I say something like “(character’s name) observes you quietly with a searching look” or something to that effect and then pause before saying the dialogue I intend. The table usually cues in and waits to hear what’s on my character’s mind and why they are being assessed. It lets me land those punctuations of silence that really sell my stoic and introspective characters.

[@tawelwchgaming8957]

yea... it seems all my characters are kinda like this... just uh, silent strong types

[@mentalrebllion1270]

The irony here in seeing this video after the party laughed in today’s session about our stoic pair of frontlines on watch together having a silent quality time is absolutely palatable to me. So hilarious and I am loving the world’s humor on my laugh and it’s coincidences today! By the way, the entire party found it hilarious. The pair did talk about things, cleared some air and got some questions answered they were curious about, but yeah, these two vibe best in silence or a spar. Oh and, recently we learned, buying sweets and pastries lol.

[@mentalrebllion1270]

I used the silence tactic again. This time during a reveal to the other stoic character I mentioned before. Just us two, feeding wolves at the animal sanctuary. We had a tense moment where they asked my character something that if my character admitted to it, could have made it easy for anyone to turn my character in for treason (wildemount, my character had connections to the kryn). I had my character quietly observe him, waited a bit before sighing in character and handed over a covered sword to him. This is when I revealed to him I carried a kryn sword, one that belonged to my character’s late fiancé. The speed of the typed side chat (rest of the party’s players) blew up with that reveal. I think I did amazing with that moment and got lots of compliments after the session wrapped up. Silence really can be an amazing skill in one’s arsenal for dnd. Definitely recommend it. Use it people!

[@kyokonightstorm5844]

It's the same idea behind the person who is usually quiet, who speaks very little, when they speak up or they start yelling, it hits harder. The usual silence (or quiet) being suddenly broken is super impactful.

[@searchforsecretdoors]

Great video. I DM one game and play in three more. All are online. Silence takes on a different place in online gaming since you're never sure if it's due to a delay or what. Would love to see you discuss the difference with online tables sometime.

[@mentalrebllion1270]

One way I get around that issue is by describing that my character observes some quietly, searchingly, etc. and then give a silent pause before saying the dialogue I intend. This usually draws enough attention for the table to give me the space to instill the gravity of what I will have my character say. It doesn’t work with all tables, but I have been able to use it to great effect for a majority of the ones I have played at, especially for my more stoic characters.

[@nappahughes4274]

This is hard to do online, but ill give it a shot

[@whitestoneandy797]

10/10 for the Gilmore Girls intro alone 👏👏

[@SuperGoose42]

When I DM'd for my last group, my problem with being silent is that if I don't butt in, my players would RP or tabletalk for our entire 7-8 hour session and nothing would progress.

[@zixserro1]

One of the best examples in all of media hands-down of the effectiveness of silence is the Ed Edd n' Eddy Big Movie Picture, the finale movie of that cartoon. The entire show is filled to the brim with weird memorable sound effects and music constantly going at all times. It's rare that any moment of action doesn't have any sort of audio playing. The opening of the movie, however, is entirely silent. Panning through a destroyed neighborhood without a person in sight. The unusual silence lends to the fact that whatever happened here wasn't just normal shenanigans, but something far more severe and with actual consequences that play out throughout the movie. It's an incredibly well-done part of an amazing movie.

[@fitnessavarice8065]

My first session with the group I am currently playing with had a moment where we had to swim down to the bottom of a cold lake. Stayed silent while the rest of the group was panicking about having to try and eventually the dm had to tell them that it was actually possible for the characters. As they were wrapping up their discussion my character jumped up and yelled “alright times up let’s do this, Volruuuuuund Mooooooooorketh!” And then proceeded to dive into the lake. Had the whole group dying and have been playing with them since

[@AuntLoopy123]

You pulled a Leeroy Jenkins? AWESOME!

[@Mary_Studios]

The hand thing is cool only problem is that if you'r online and not using cameras that's kinda hard to do

[@pepijnwijmenga494]

From the title/thumbnail I was pretty sure you were gonna mention Matt's iconic using of silence in C2e98, but you didn't xD

[@Vgy1592]

It'd be interesting to hear if you have any suggestions to try and create this effect *without* use of body language. Many play over Roll20 and don't make use of video. Some games I've been in primarily use text, even.

[@mentalrebllion1270]

For text, all you can do is state that you pause or quietly wrestle with something before saying what you intend. To be honest, my best tactic so far for giving silence space to punctuate what I’ll say is by saying my character is quiet for a moment, pause, and then say my piece, sometimes with halting silences in between. This usually cues the other players into giving my character the space to punctuate their dialogue with the needed gravity of the silence. You really only need a pause sometimes. Of course, this doesn’t work at all tables and learning the timing for it is a learning curve, but I say it’s a skill worth giving a shot.

[@drinkwater1917]

The 11 minutes part was so sweet and so funny 😭

[@cardboardcreationsart]

Jay you said you weren't going to jumpscare us. I got jumpscared by an ad xD

[@kipuskipus3262]

your videos really help me, thank you so much for your content!

[@bradfordlindsey9781]

'You gotta play the rests, too, not just the notes'

[@hawktalon7890]

The problem with my current game is that my Yuan-Ti assassin rogue is already mostly silent and it's hosted online with limited camera usage since half of us have subpar webcams. He's very expressive face-wise and yet I can't like...actually show that and often forget I'm supposed to be describing things for other people. He's not even trying to be mysterious or anything, he just gets so invested in conversations he completely forgets that responding is a thing normal people do.

[@bessiehadley3497]

lol - I enjoyed this one for the "silent" grins.

[@beansmccoy4921]

I love the new spoiler warnings!

[@akiramusson2146]

When the Advert comes in to be the jumpscare

[@thesaltybeard1793]

You and your partner (i think?) Have such good chemistry and are a joy.

[@Aetherking1477]

Wife segment was the best part lol

[@hadows6936]

In one of my games the party traveled to the void between realms. Not space, the lack of anything, pure nothingness. When they stepped through, I turned off the music, put down the dice, and just looked at them. I waited for at least ten seconds before finally describing what happened

[@azurantoleon7003]

Silence is also a great spell from the Illusion school of magic ☝🤓

[@silvertheelf]

10:50 “…Did you guys feel the silence and the tension in that silence there? *wheeze* The next thing on my script says ‘are you proud of me?’” *more laughter* Wholesome insanity.

[@austrociking4345]

Your wife DIRECTLY CONFRONTED THE ISSUE OF SPOILERS AND DECLARED THERE SHALL BE NONE! How dare you spoil us, sir!

[@NSPresbyterian]

How does this work in VTT though, when most people don't use cameras??

[@mentalrebllion1270]

I do it like this “(character name) looks at (other player character) quiet and searchingly before replying” and then you pause before saying anything. If you announce a pause, most people will give you that pause when playing it out. This is how I have done it when playing online and not using camera, just microphones.

[@Kevin-fe4kp]

Those fishes are fighting

[@GeekMasterGames]

Fitting, because now she's going to give you the silent treatment for baiting her

[@yharleththegrandobserver236]

Mfw I see another advice video that doesn't apply to online play lololol (love you man )

[@ThatGamerCher]

DEMON-itized

[@srvfan17]

This is AB's channel, it's true, you know it as well as we do

[@albinocyclopse9952]

Your wife is awesome!

[@trevorwilliams6362]

I love their dynamic so much! 😅

[@JacobHeaton-tx4gd]

You should have warned me about the spoilers.

[@demitrischoenwald1436]

You can use this technique in texts and comments on videos too. You just gotta place sentence spacers with your enter key (make sure you don't accidentally use the enter key to confirm the sending)

[@Unbid581]

Your wife is absolutely amazing, lucky dog XD; thanks for the amazing videos!

[@CoffeeSorcerer69]

The only time silence happens at my table is when the DM casts it on me.

[@FenixFeniks]

Gotta at least give him an updoot for that one.

[@koreanbbq2376]

Cute intro

[@Wilmete1]

need more fish content!

[@elenexxenele8443]

there is a missing puzzle piece. otherwise great video.

[@Sacredsnow2]

The best actors know how to utilize the dramatic… PAUSE

[@AuntLoopy123]

"You see something in the distance. It starts walking towards you." Silence. Players do not respond. "You see something in the distance. It starts running towards you." Silence. Players do not respond. "You see something in the distance. It is still running towards you." Silence. Players do not respond. "You SEE something in the distance. It is RUNNING TOWARDS YOU." Silence. Players do not respond. "And Sir Lancelot arrives before you, kills you both with one sudden stroke, and then charges in to kill all the wedding guests, including the bride's father!" If Monty Python were a LiveStream.

[@Ekigane]

I can't believe Jay didn't give us a spoiler warning for all those times he went silent /j

[@tomesofawesome8041]

At 0:30, if you need, if you need, me to BE WITH YOU, I WILL FOLLOW, WHERE YOU LEAD ME....

[@caileancampbell7498]

You spoiled the silence😂

[@FablesD20]

Not sure if this spoiler warning was warning enough...😏

[@curtisholsinger6023]

My favorite thing is when your wife swears at you. Don't know why

[@spongemanhere]

why was there no spoiler warning omg so spoiled on the ending 😭

[@justinhess2747]

Silence. Something about silence makes me sick..

[@EilonwyG]

Oh yeah, Spoiler Squirrel! Do we need to give him a name?

[@BastrdGod]

By the Thumbnail and Title, I 100% thought this video was going to be about not opening yur mouth just to say something funny and accidentally leave a huge opening for a death. As much as I love watching d20, its not only lucky that the first TPK for d20 was the horror season, it's drastically unrealistic. Just the number of times Brennan had to not just bend the rules, but either break them or conveniently forgot them to not kill a player is incredible.

[@Castheknotted]

Spoilers for what!?!? I need to know if i should avoid

[@eldiandevil]

I know the video didn’t have one, but there are spoilers in here! Be careful 😂

[@giudalberto]

I only watch these videos for the spoiler warnings at this point 😂😂😂😂

[@ForeverWog]

Spoiler Warning: Your wife is hilarious in these.

[@stripedpolkadots8692]

Watching you continue to escalate your spoiler game is like watching a descent into madness. Good job I just wish the spoiler warnings were more obvious tho : ( - /j

[@TitoMcFadden]

Way to spoil every silent moment in Critical Role and D20 history... At least you remembered to include a single subtle, short, and simple spoiler warning this time... Also, that silence from your wife was deafening. I don't joke about such dark magicks. That's dangerous. Be careful, bro.

[@KhaoticKatarin]

Spoiler warning not obvious enough. Needs more confetti and kazoos.

[@cairoherrlinger4429]

Hey man. No biggie this time, but this video could have used a spoiler warning. Maybe next time you could think about adding one?

[@DParkerNunya]

I can't believe you didn't put a spoiler warning in this video :(

[@mlarowe]

Algorithm

[@Bodharas]

I can't believe you spoiled that someone locked some stuff in a room on purpose on critical role. Rude.

[@clownworld641]

You can honestly take out all the parts with your girlfriend and it would make the videos better. I wish you'd stay on track more instead of having these stupid digressions

[@PlayYourRole]

It's my wife, and no. We do this to enjoy ourselves and have fun. Anyone who enjoys the content we happen to make is just a bonus!