Tag: critical role

mothfluff:

my biggest WHAT IF though: WHAT IF Liam had mentioned, during his talk with the Raven Queen, that Vecna was trying to become a god? Not just being shell-shocked and talking about how angry he was

Everything Matt says as the RQ is CLEARLY guiding Liam in that direction. He must’ve had a very clear plan how the RQ would react to hearing of Vecna’s plan. Maybe there would’ve been no need for Vax’s deal at all, maybe the RQ would’ve been far more help in their fight.

Just goes to show that it’s really not scripted, and/or Matt keeps his plans and stories very much to himself so the players can’t anticipate anything. Either Liam literally forgot about Vecna’s plan during that episode, or he absolutely wanted a more dramatic turn for Vax? (he is a big goth drama queen let’s be fair) He seems pretty intent on getting Vax to this horribly sad ending no matter what, he constantly mentions it after the deal. Scanlan’s wish might’ve thrown a pretty big wrench into that, I wonder how Liam would’ve actually reacted to that happening instead of just being emotional over losing the Wish.

Liam said on Talks he meta-gamed himself into thinking the RQ is omniscient and knows what’s going on. He’s, ah, not the best with context clues occasionally 😀

And here Matt Colville shows us all why the players being invested in each others’ characters is a climax to him, rather than the status quo.

(Which, I feel the need to stress, is not discounting the emotional significance the moment between Liam and Sam had. Not at all. It is just a disservice to the series and the players to consider it a climax to anything, in addition to Colville showing favoritism towards Liam and/or Vax. Again.)

Why, oh why did I scroll down into the comments on the first Raishan fight. I know there was no intelligent life to be found there. I know the youtube fanbase would totally have let the genocidal egomaniac go on to be a more effective and stronger genocidal egomaniac because MUH DEALZ. I know they wilfully ignore the fact that the entire party had been PLANNING to fight Raishan preeeetty much as soon as Thordak was down. They said so. Explicitly. Ever since Raishan first showed up. Timing maybe wasn’t the best, but come on.

Ah well. What are facts when you can shit on Marisha (who didn’t even really have anything to do with this) and Liam instead.

jouleys:

WHAT IF the new campaign starts off with Matt telling the story of how Vox Machina became these established figures in Exandria, but one day they all mysteriously disappeared at the same time. Some of the most powerful people of the planet, just gone without a trace. And it stays a mystery for most of the campaign until the new party reaches a high enough level to find/rescue these legendary (but somewhat elderly) heroes. All while the players have no idea what happened to their old PCs.

Alternative ending: The new party finally finds VM drinking mimosas on the beach of a remote tropical island; they just wanted to retire without making a big fuzz.

They could turn this into a reverse Persephone thing! One day, the surviving member of VM just decided to spend half their year or so with Vax at the Raven Queen’s domain. Keep in mind half a year in-game is about twice the length of the Chroma Conclave arc.

About Matt Colville, the finale, and the comics

Sooo, Matt Colville just posted a video about the CR finale. I was dreading this because during this finale, he annoyed me with posts about how one day, he’d tell us how he’d have run Vecna, but that that would have been unsportsmanlike to do at the moment.

It was unsportsmanlike to even bring it up, I’d say. Pouring gasoline on the garbage fire that is people yelling about how the fight was too easy on other platforms than this one, and quite frankly also contrary to what he is saying in this video now.

For the good things: Having Matt Colville tear up about an emotional moment and admitting this would never happen in the kind of game he runs was great. It is something on the long list of many things I appreciate about Colville, along with his very progressive views and politics and the way he goes about sticking to those convictions.

Not to get into too much detail here, but he is a very vocal ally when it comes to including women and minorities in gaming and the community, and I am very much into that.

I’m also into men getting emoional and crying on the internet about other men getting emotional and crying on the internet. No, really. Seeing that Colville is not above emotional sincerity and genuinely touched by things despite the smug attitude he usually has and the smug attitude that is so popular in general at the moment was pretty powerful.

Kudos to you, good sir. Well done.

And yeeeet. He uses the video to hyperfocus on Sam, Liam, and Sam giving up his 9th level spell to beat Vecna rather than save Vax, calling it the emotional climax of the entire game and saying something this powerful can never happen again.

And I’m not saying it wasn’t a powerful moment. I’m not saying it didn’t move me. I’m not saying Sam isn’t a genius or that his and Liam’s friendship isn’t extremely touching, or anything like that. I’d never.

I just don’t like to apply terms like “climax”, especially in the context of this game which IS NOT OVER YET and which was FULL of emotionally sincere and touching and moving moments, to something that just involves two characters at the time. I believe the true emotional climax of Vax’s arc is going to come next session when the entire group deals with the fall out – or finds a way to foil it. I’m not entirely sure why bending reality with a wish spell is supposed to be time sensitive.

This is also symptomatic of something I have been critical of previously. Colville went on to basically say that the entire game led up to Vax’s death, and imply that this was the one true arc of the one true main character or something like that. And yeah, sure, if this was a conventional story, narrative, or, hell, anime adaptation of the thing, Vax would very easily be the protagonist.

But the beautiful thing about CR is that this is not the case. It’s a group effort. Every single character in that group is as important as the next; there is no pre-designated protagonist. It’s why I recoil every time the fanbase, here and elsewhere, goes out of its way to deify certain players or their characters why completely discounting others. That are usually Marisha. Anyway.

The problem is, though, that Matt Colville is not just another fan voicing his opinions here. His perception of the characters matters at this point, as he is also the writer of the comic book series. So if he thinks Vax is the main character, as a writer, he will – whether consciously or not – structure his story around that.

I already feel like Vax’s portrayal in that first comic book issue was a little too morally superior for a character who started out on stream, so like a year after the comic takes place, as a very shady and morally questionable individual and whose on-screen development led him to be more on the righteous spectrum or moral alignment within the party.

In fact, one of the key aspects about Vax was that he was willing to keep any and all of his second thoughts to himself just to go along with his sister. Which is why I felt that being strongly argumentative and almost hostile towards each other about things as important as their mother was kind of out of character for both characters. And why I fear that Vex will be nothing but a foil to Vax in these comics, at the expanse of her own characterization and development, which is already a very common fandom dialogue anyway.

The fact that Colville is closest to Liam out of the entire cast isn’t exactly helping there, either. Leaves me uneasy and frustrated, is all.

pagerunner-j:

Reddit acting ready to hand the credit for EVERYTHING last night to Scanlan: a very Reddit sort of thing to do.

(didn’t you guys notice)

(at all)

(who finished)

(the job)

Y’know, looking at the tag here on tumblr, it doesn’t look that much better. Sure, some people are willing to acknowledge that other people peripherally existed during that fight, but nah. Scanlan did it all on his own against all odds after nobody thought he could do it. That is totally what happened.

Also, just as a note, Zahra said “at least the baby is safe.” And like, if she was referring to a pregnancy, that baby definitely wasn’t safe. But if they do in fact have an already born baby stashed away somewhere…

I’m also massively side-eyeing Matt Colville for what he did on twitter. Yes, explaining how you would have run Vecna differently would be unsportsmanlike. But so is bringing that up in the first place.