Critical Role
"Is it Thursday Yet?"
Community to discuss anything Critical Role related.
Drop by our welcome post and share any feedback/suggestions if you have any. The FAQ post is also a thing.
What is Critical Role?
Critical Role is a group of nerdy-ass voice actors who sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.
Streams every Thursday at 7pm PT and then rebroadcasts the following Friday at 12am and 9am PT on Twitch.
trigger warning
Due to the improv nature of Critical Role and other RPG content on our channels, some themes and situations that occur in-game may be difficult for some to handle. If certain episodes or scenes become uncomfortable, we strongly suggest taking a break or skipping that particular episode.
Your health and well-being is important to us and Psycom has a great list of international mental health resources, in case it’s useful: http://bit.ly/PsycomResources
Current shows
- Critical Role Campaign 3: Main D&D 5e campaign, streamed every Thursday at 7pm PT, except last Thursday of each month
- Candela Obscura: Horror drama campaign using their own game system, live streamed every last Thursday of each month at 7pm PT
- 4-Sided Dive: Talkshow with a roundtable discussion of 4 guests, to talk about recent episodes and answer fan questions. Streams every first Tuesday of the month at 7pm PT
- Midst: Sci-fi fantasy radio drama, airs every Wednesday on Midst.co
- Re-Slayer's Take: podcast about a lesser-known band of heroes updates Mondays 5am PST
Basic Rules
- Follow server Code of Conduct
- Be kind to others
- No spoilers in titles
- For spoiler posts, mention the episode number in the title (e.g.
[Spoiler C3E61]
) - The post body can contain any spoiler up to the episode in title
- Comments should not spoil any episode after the tagged episode
- For spoiler posts, mention the episode number in the title (e.g.
Links
- Critical Role's official website
- Critical Role on Twitch
- Critical Role on YouTube
- Critical Role Podcast C1E0 - C2E19
- Beacon
Resources
- Interactive Map of Exandria
- Interactive Timeline
- Episode Transcripts
- Encyclopedia Exandria
- Critical Role wiki (fandom)
- Critical Role Stats
- Official Daggerheart Toolset
- The Omen Archive
- Episode Discussion Index
- CR Funny Moments (TVtropes)
- CR ABridged Art Archive
- Other Live Play TTRPGs
- CR Bibliography
(google docs spreadsheet)
(TY Dr Friedman!)
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♪Episode Song References♪
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Highlights
reference
Liam referring to Jesse McCree, from the Overwatch games, a character that Matt voices.Clarota:"We have not the power to shut this down. It is how they overlap."
Vex:"Is it safe to be near it?"
Clarota:"I don't know."
context
The delivery of this line is one of those moments where it is easy to break character; an alien thought stream is difficult enough to produce, let alone a confused one. Matt produces emotion convincing enough for the players to empathize with him as a damn mind flayer. A good example of his talent on display.Matt:"You can make an insight check."
Laura:"I know. I'm just checking to see if he's a misunderstood guy."
Sam:"That was the stoner-est thing you've ever said."
Q & A
Matt:"So, over the course of the first major arc of their campaign, every town they went to, there seemed to be this recurring theme of children disappearing, so they kept trying to follow this thread and asking around, and these kids kept vanishing, and the one common thread they were discovering was, shortly before each kid disappeared, they began playing with a new kid who had long black hair and golden eyes. And then they would disappear within a week of playing with that child. And towards the end of the campaign, during a celebration, after they managed to save the city of Emon, they looked over and found that the Sovereign Uriel's child was talking to this black-haired golden-eyed child. So the party, in the middle of a platform, grandstand, bowing before the townspeople, they all just pulled their weapons out and jumped off after this child, who grabbed the sovereign's son and pulled him into this pocket dimension. And what it turned out to be was this entity, which is a variation of the Dread Emperor, for those who are familiar with that character. The Dread Emperor essentially had created this pocked dimension world, this giant bramble forest that surrounded a gothic castle, where it existed. This weird, messed-up individual that brought children there because it loved to be around their innocence and their naivety, their sense of play."
Marisha:"So basically, a sorcerer Neverland Ranch."
Matt:"Yeah. It was kinda messed-up. But once the children got too old, they were no longer useful, so he just killed them and put them in a basement. So, the party gave chase, they fought their way to the castle, and they discovered that whas was dangerous about fighting this Dread Emperor in his library was it was wearing golden armor, and attached to this armor via four chains were four children by collars, and if anyone attacked him directly, he shared the damage he took with the children."
Marisha:"And we actually found these clippers for the chain."
Laura:"Like, big golden scissors, but we put them in our pocket and forgot that we had them."
Marisha:"We were like, 'sweet clippers!'. Pocket. Keep going.' And then we get to this emperor with these giant gold chains and we're like, 'Augh! How do you break these gold chains? If only we had like, clippers. Oh well, we don't.'"
Matt:"However, you guys started attacking the chains with your weapons, and you were doing enough damage during the first few rounds to save most of the kids."
Laura:"But there was one kid left..."
Marisha:"So there was one. So, we were trying to get these kids away from us because we dont want to hurt them, but we wanted them away, so I used a Grasping Vine, and I was trying to yank the kid away, but the Grasping Vine attached to the chain instead of the kid, and so with the chain at the collar around his neck, when the vine yanked...it kind of, uh..."
Matt:"You broke the kid's neck."
Laura:"I thought you grabbed around the kid's waist and like he got pulled towar the thing, but the chain was still around his neck."
Matt:"That's what happened. The vine wrapped around his body and it broke his neck, and it pulled him, because he was still attached to the armor."
Laura:"That's maybe a little worse."
Marisha:"Oh, that's right. I should've grabbed the chain."
Liam:"On a related note, somebody wants you to say, 'fuck you, Dylan' for some reason."
Ashley:"FUCK YOU, DYLAN!"
Travis:"That was amazing, actually! That had a lot of conviction behind it."
Taliesin:"This is how everything goes wrong."
Matt:"Yeah. This is Liam's fault."
Matt:"Yeah, he [Yuri] guested once before the show. As Ghost Fist, the dwarven monk."
Matt:"Yeah, there's no pre-planning."
Liam:"Matt's writing plot points, but he's improvising too and we have no idea what the hell's going to happen."
Sam:"I write all my songs from scratch." (all laugh)
Travis:"What's that?"
Matt, Sam, and Orion:"Total Party Kill"
Matt:"Because in some rule sets, when you roll a one, it's a serious-- In old campaigns I used to run, if you rolled a one attacking somebody, your weapon would go flying across the room and you'd fall on the ground. Or, like, if you were trying to life a boulder, the boulder would then fall and crush you and you're dead."
Travis:"Why do you want us to die? What a shitty question."
Laura and Taliesin:"A beholder."
Matt: [laughs and looks directly at the camera and grins]
Taliesin:"We've never really discussed what I was doing down there. That's a story for another time."
Ashley:"I had already taken some hits, and then I realized at a certain point, because, in the Pathfinder edition, if you're negative your constitution, and then I wasn't keeping track, and I looked down and it was way past my constitution, and I was like, 'Oh, Matt? So what does it mean if you're this?' The look that he gave me, he was like, 'Oh.' And he just paused because he was like, 'Oh, that. You're dead.' He was trying to figure out a way to say it."
Matt:"It was awful."
Ashley:"And I instantly started crying. I was like, 'No! No no no!'"
Travis:"There's video of it."
Laura:"All of us are crying."
Sam:"He's coming back soon."
Matt:"That's one of my favorite deterrents. You avoided essentially what would have been a throwdown with the entire Thieves' Guild of Emon by bluffing your way by pulling out a silver star and a fake moustache and convincing them that you were part of the customs department."
Liam:Yeah, we didn't want it to turn into a reality TV show."
Laura:"Isn't that crazy that it's instantly Clarota and it's instantly Kima? It's not Matt anymore, as soon as it's that character."
Orion:"So it is that sense of, like, realistic magic that exists every single game."
Taliesin:"(imitates the Swedish Chef)"