I’m loving your critical role german breakdowns ( I’m getting back into learning german and they are handy reminders) , do you think Liam will increase the amount of actual german he slips in as he goes along or do you think this about is it Deutsch-wise?

Thank you so much!

Well, for my good deed of the day, I just made him happy by sharing news about his German teacher actually being quite proud, albeit confused. So if anything, I think he’ll kick it up a notch now.

What’s your opinion on PC/PC vs PC/NPC or PC/Guest romance? Cause I know that Vax’ilmore and Kashleth are adored in fandom by many, but in the game where players have to travel a lot to do dangerous things and might never come back, do those relationships have a chance to have the same development as PC/PC? Because if Vax’ilmore was canon, Vax would have to constantly go back to him to have a moment. And that could’ve taken a tragic turn really fast, for example during the Vecna arc.

My opinion is go for whatever feels natural. And like, people hooking up within a tiny circle of other people sharing their trauma is a thing. Developing a romance is a lot easier with other player characters because of the sheer amount of time and experiences the characters share by default.

Romancing a guest character is harder because it would be either very brief, or the guest would get prefetential treatment one way or the other. That can be awkward. Romancing an NPC can be awkward because especially when the NPC is enough of a fighter to go toe to toe with an ancient red dragon twice, finding reasons to conceivably keep them out of the narrative without it feeling forced can become awkward. Otherwise, the risk of DM!PCs happens.

I dunno, I personally will take PC/PC over all the other options any day, but that’s just because I thirst for all of the content. But the logistical issues are a thing!

Do you think they will have preexisting relationships in the new campaign? Siblings like Vex and Vax, or longtime friends like Pike and Grog, maybe something else entirely?On one hand I really liked these relationships in Vox Machina, because RP was so layered because of that, it gave them motivation to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. But also it would be very fun to see how 7 strangers form these connections before our eyes. I will miss twinsies though.

I kinda hope we get 7 stand alone characters growing together as a family without any blood relation, anything that feels like a blood relation, or any double pack deals. Chances are they will know each other a little because of the pre-stream one shots they’re doing, but unless Taliesin and Marisha are playing the warlock little brother getting into trouble all the time and the monk older sister who has to punch them out of trouble all the time, I’d rather do without these close relationships at the beginning.

Like. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the twinsies as much as the next person, but, ah. Framing issues. Caused one of them to get the shaft. Over and over and over again. And I could seriously do without that.

so called “constructive cr criticism on youtube” really bothers me. these people don’t see how misogynistic and hateful they are. they claim being fair, but in reality they set impossible high standards for women, Marisha especially. it’s not criticism when week after week someone analyzes every single Keyleth’s action and points out every mistake she ever made, but never praises her. Yet everything Sam or Travis do is amazing, and their mistakes go unnoticed or easily forgiven.

Seriously, 9 times out of 10, “constructive criticism on youtube” is already an oxymoron. Claiming constructive criticism in general unfortunately tends to be the pseudo-intellectual’s “it’s just a joke”.

And like. I find the concept of criticizing how someone plays their D&D character to be a bit of a grey area from the get go. There’s stuff like pointing out that some aspects of Taryon’s character and backstory are uncomfortable (calmly and politely without making Matt cry, please) or that maybe Marisha shouldn’t be using Maori designs for Keyleth’s tattoos when the character has no Maori heritage. There’s calling out misogynistic tendencies and the genral creepiness of early game Scanlan. Hell, I even have some sympathy for maybe the first ten people pointing out that rogue/paladins do not get 5 attacks per round, but also calmly, politely, and maybe not with 20k people at once.

But when it comes to playing a character beyond rule violations or the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes or whatever, I dunno. Of course you will always like or dislike certain characters more than others. But the thing is, demanding someone change their character’s most basic traits not because of some meaningful development, but because YOU don’t like how they play, that’s… You know. Kind of a dick move, considering you’re getting free entertainment out of this.

And of course the women are hit especially, butas soon as you bring up misogyny, you are a crazy SJW or whatever and the argument is over. Even though the patterns are obvious to anyone paying attention. Marisha gets the worst of it, but there’s also this funny little trend where Vex gets hate as soon as she does something just because she wants to, and not for anyone else’s benefit.

Every single player gets their spells and abilities wrong. Marisha gets actually less slack from Matt than anyone else does. And usually, when something goes horribly wrong, it’s because Marisha, Taliesin, AND Matt ALL misinterpreted the spell. The wind walk disaster was also partially Matt’s fault. When Marisha got upset that her 8th level spell apparently didn’t affect Thordak at all, MATT was the one who made the wrong call. As he admitted. Like. Two minutes later at the most.

Meanwhile, Travis has lost and Sam started entire encounters from not remembering their abilities. But hey, who cares about that?

There are many speculations who will plays what, but I hope Marisha chose something she really wanted and felt connected to. Because those assholes in the comments keep saying that she should play barbarian because she’s dumb and doesn’t learn spells or leave the game altogether. And I hate this. Critical role lasted this long not because they chose classes that they would be good at. And if she wants to play a bard or a monk or whoever, fucking let her.

Always remember: Marisha got the final how do you want to do this, and Marisha is the one with the perfect attendance record. We know what the show is like with literally any other player missing. She never has. Sam is gone, Travis is gone, the world keeps on turning.

On a related note, if she wants to play a Barbarian, more power to her. They’re not even dumb by default, it’s just that point buy forces you to dump certain stats. Did you see the stats Keyleth and Percy rolled last time? If there’s enough high numbers in the mix, there’s no need for a dump stat at all. I’ve seen smart Barbarians. I’ve played one. And some of the totem abilities especially require strategic and tactical thinking. So if she wants to play one, she’ll be fucking great at it.

(My money is still on monk, though)