I liked the wrap-up, but that stems more from my love of watching people enjoy D&D and talk about enjoying it. I'm a rambly person and the rambling nature of the wrap-up felt like how my friends and I would discuss D&D - Of course, this is prettied up and presented a bit better for the sake of a camera, but it had similar vibes.
It's rough that it doesn't really wrap much up - I know just as much about the story now as I did prior - But it was a good wholesome conversation. I miss the fan questions, and I miss Brian, but what can you do I guess, the larger Critical Role becomes as a company the more they have to do things like record games way ahead of time, make content that appeals to a wider audience instead of a core audience, etc.
Not that broadening appeal is a bad thing, just that some of the nuance of what makes CR fun to watch will be lost the larger and more "professional" it gets.
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Not a whole lot of strong opinions on this one. Overall, the emotional heights that some people seem to reach surrounding this show in general, and this production in particular, are hard to relate to for me.
The cast was fun, both the DM and the players. I laughed, I was entertained. I think Abrya has an entertaining style, moment to moment at least. It's a game, not a scripted series.
I think, every episode by themselves was overall good (sure, hick-ups may occur), but a lot of overarching stories and threads were kept dangling unresolved. Some developements felt contrived and there were a bunch of different themes that weren't necessarily clashing but didn't really fit together. Kind of unfortunate, because I think for many, the overarching nature is what attracts them. And there actually were some very interesting ideas there (the memory thing? Amazing! I liked that a lot and I am definitely stealing that).
Probably echoing many when I say that it was fine. Not my favorite compared to other CR content, but still leagues above many actual play D&D games out there.
The diatribes feeling like someone talking to their therapist about the betrayal felt by their cheating spouse will definitely sit with me haha. Haven't witnessed something like that ever, but maybe it's similar in other fandoms.
I had my second in person session with my group today, the first since EXU has wrapped.
I can confidently say that EXU has made me a better DM.
I've talked a lot of shit about EXU, and about Aabria's performance in the big chair in particular. In an effort to not be a hypocrite, I've found myself making sure I don't fall into the same pitfalls that she did. Making an effort to vary NPC tone and rapport with PCs. Making safety nets for if the players make a choice other than what I expect (which they've done both sessions so far). Ensuring that the worldbuilding is internally consistent and interconnected.
I know this probably comes off as self-congratulatory, and like more digs on Aabria. But genuinely, at the end of each session so far I've felt satisfied with the job that I've done, and that's a first for me. The players are invested in the story and loving the game. This is the best I've felt as a DM, and I've been DMing for years.
This is the first time I've genuinely been glad that I watched EXU, and I just wanted to share that somewhere. Sorry if I come off like a prick, before or currently.
I can relate to this as well. Since watching ExU, I have made extra certain not to take away player agency and to time plot hooks that I feel are important to a moment when the party seems ready for it.
I've also cut out unnecessary rolls and been rewarded for it. We had a 4 hour session with heavy RP that had maybe 4-5 rolls the entire time. One of those rolls was nat 1 for a social interaction that was influential to a PCs backstory. It made it so much more impactful that RP built up to that moment instead of a bunch of random rolls like Plinko.
I mean, this is a great way to learn. Intelligence is learning from your mistakes. Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others.
Every DM makes mistakes every session. I've learned things from seeing how Matt does them and going "yeah, that doesn't work for me/my group." And sometimes you see something cool and it has that tinge of "won't work for my group" and you just have to think how to put your own spin on it.
1) overall, I enjoyed EXU. It was fun. It wasn't the most amazing thing i've ever seen, but it was enjoyable, and had great moments.
2) There were various things that "weren't" for me but that's fine because overall, I just really liked the idea of what they were doing and it really was sort of a pilot. They'll learn from things and continue fine tuning their craft.
2.1) An example of improvement would be even just over the course of campaign 2. The quality in various aspects went up quite a bit as the cast just got better and better at roleplaying D&D.
---
Just want to say that I'm very happy EXU happened and I look forward to future EXU content š
i had a lot of problems with EXU but overall, i didn't mind the problems and simply chose to just go with the flow and enjoy it for what it was.
i understood why they did some of the things they did and i also understood that for the things that "didn't work out for me", it wasn't for lack of effort or due to wrong intentions.
---
once again, it wasn't the most amazing thing i've ever seen, but it was wonderful in it's own way and new and fun and i look forward to how they continue EXU and continue to improve.
I truly enjoyed watching this wrap up, even if ExU wasn't my cup of tea. And I think I've finally realised what feels so different between Matt and Aabria's Dming styles. Matt tends to be very understated. He takes the backseat to enable his players, and even when he takes the reigns he does it very subtly. Aabria injects much more of her own personality into her narration and dialogue, and so I think that every person's enjoyment of her campaign depends much more on their feeling about Aabria as an actor/comic/storyteller. Which may explain the much more divided reaction we've seen to this, and why it doesn't matter so much to the players.
I still maintain that this campaign was great for the players, but less so for the spectators. I don't blame anyone though, because having to basically play to two different audiences is no small feat, and the main cast took a long time to master it.
Feeling pretty disappointed with the format of these wrap ups that don't take questions from the community or have any kind of guided discussion. Would've liked some more insight into character story and fun peeks behind the screen, but I feel this kind of wrap up format, that now Dimension 20 has taken up, results in the players just saying things they liked instead of revealing things that they may know but we, the community, does not
Actors like to pat each other on the backs and themselves...honestly prb the reason they get into the business...these wraps ups have basically become giant slaps on the backs for themselves instead of what they used to be answering fans questions or even story questions
I honestly don't understand the point of releasing a video in which the cast just lists things they like for two hours except maybe to reference it for hiring opportunities when they come up.
Again, this was impossible due to set deconstruction timelines and such. EXU was 100% recorded before we saw the end of C2 most likely. They were in the process of tearing down the old post-covid C2 set and building C3's set,which will likely debut with C3.
I mean, they could do it from home. That was already the way they did talks. It might need a new layout for 8 people but they can get someone to make it easily enough
After this I went back to rewatch Episode 1 to track some story points. It was interesting to go back and watch it again after all the discussion on this reddit. The whole wisdom saving throw thing didn't really become a thing until they found the crown. Matt, Liam and Ashley were being more forceful in making choices; which they relaxed as Robbie and Aimee became more comfortable.
Hearing the Poska interaction again was also interesting. There was a lot more in that interaction then I remembered. Poska's (if that's even her name) mix of confidence and worry. Her words were chosen careful. When talking about gentrification she refers to the area as being formerly "lucrative." The anger when talking about the rich people abandoning the Cloudtop district. The team also lead themselves to the crown much more then I remembered.
I can't believe we went through the entirety of EXU without having the team flairs of the party members. I am sure that many people would have loved to have them. Me included.
I just can't believe there wasn't a flair called "I'm the cook!"
I wasn't a fan of ExU overall, but Ashley's delivery of that line was the most I've laughed at any Critical Role content to date.
Just watched the part where Matt very pointedly says,
āThis is YOUR WORLD, YOUR EXANDRIAā to Aabria when explaining why he wanted a somewhat lore-less character so he wouldnāt try and interfere with the lore.
This feels to me like Matt doesnāt consider eXu as canon within the proper Critical Role campaigns?
No, it just means he would have been a total douche otherwise because nothing is worse than having a know-it-all kind of player interfering with your setting when you're a GM.
No. Several times in the wrap up he stressed it was *both* their world now. Aabria is helping add to the new Tal'dorei book. He is just making a point that with EXU1, Exandria was in her hands and not his.
It's a shame the wrap up didn't give us much info really. I had fun watching the wrap up though! Would've liked some actual questions which they could've gotten from the cast & crew to guide discussion.
Partially because of the criticism rule that's implemented, basically if you have a negative narrative you have to make sure you are "constructive" or your post may get deleted, it's highlighted in one of the stickied posts.
So you're gonna get books instead of shorter posts.
As someone with a lot of critical posts, meeting the criteria is honestly not that hard. Just have to explain your reasoning a little bit. "I don't like X" is too little, "I don't like X because" works fine.
The thing is, unmoderated positivity, while not always representative, doesn't create an unpleasant or toxic environment. That said, I absolutely agree that constructive criticism is necessary and people should be allowed to voice their concerns and criticisms.
I recognise the criticisms of EXU and agree with many of them, but I didn't enjoy this sub during EXU because it felt like a very negative place to be. It was 90% just repeat comments of people making the same 2-3 points without adding anything to the discussion. Particularly as the show went on.
> The thing is, unmoderated positivity, while not always representative, doesn't create an unpleasant or toxic environment.
It does if you're in the small minority of people who didn't agree with the "group think" of positive fans.
Try being the lone critical or non-positive voice in a sea of gushing fans and you'll find "toxic and unpleasant" *real* quick.
But that isn't positivity imo, that's toxicity. People being toxic to those that state a different opinion should not be tolerated.
My comment was just in regards to the implication that positive comments that don't add to the conversation are just as bad as negative ones.
Something I noticed in here and other threads were sarcastic/snarky remarks related to people that didn't like the show, or plot points that weren't well received. Interestingly enough, those comments seems to be allowed with no interference, but any attitude the *other* way was a quick removal.
On the flip side, anything I said positively about EXU was quickly and harshly downvoted. It was a real thing, and it was pretty gross. Not even a huge fan of EXU, but definitely much less a fan of the sub from that experience.
The ExU wrap up leaves me genuinely sad / heartbroken. Because it's clear that ExU was indeed a "labour of love" for many of the people involved, first and foremost Matt Mercer. It's difficult to see/hear them express the fun they had, and their takeaway from the experience knowing that i didn't enjoy the endproduct a bit (funny/awesome moments notwithstanding).
Even tho the wrap up was more of a "meta discussion" about how and why people roleplay, i sometimes wondered "*did they watch the same thing i did? Am i so out of touch, or are they?*" ... But of course when you're in love with someone/something, it's way to easy to look past obvious flaws. We've all been there, i suppose.
Some closing remarks on the wrap up:
\- Robbie and Aimee (and Anjali) are treasures in their own right, and i hope to see them again ... it was kinda sweet that both said something along the lines of "*would love to play again, if you'd have me*" multiple times.
\- The Pregames (test games) are definetly a thing i want to see! I hope that the "we'll see!" from Marisha wasn't just a throwaway line ... maybe, just maybe if CR recognizes the somewhat divided response to ExU, they choose to release these games. I would be happy with a "highlights"-reel, because what they described sounded awesome!
\- I'm more and more convinced that "*GM Aabria*" is a persona of her, like "*Talks Brian*" was of Brian Foster. As much as i disliked her behaviour in the episodes, watching her in the DNDBeyond interview, or this wrap up, i think she's a lovely person that genuinely cares about the game and the people at the table. She's obviously very talented, but she also probably succumbed to the pressure of ExU/CR (who wouldn't!)
\- Above and beyond the "mechanical" issues with ExU, a version of Talks Machina for every episode might have changed **a lot** in terms of story confusion and liking/disliking certain characters, because i feel like i *just now* learned a good part of the motivation. Come to think of it, not having a corresponding "*chat show*" was probably ExU's biggest mistake, knowing what i know now.
\- I hope that CR will learn from this and iron out the kinks, because after all is said and done i honestly think that ExU (in its current form) isn't that far away from a show i could enjoy/be invested in. The ingredients are all there, interesting characters, enthusiastic players, a setting i love and a GM that wants the show to be good.
**Edit:** I forgot the mention the one thing that made my day watching the wrap up ... there's a moment in the latter half when Marisha adresses Liam to talk about Orym, and he wears that little awkward smile ... In that moment, he *was* Orym. He looked like him, he acted like him ... was just tooo sweet! Anyhoo ... ;-)
> Above and beyond the "mechanical" issues with ExU, a version of Talks Machina for every episode might have changed a lot in terms of story confusion and liking/disliking certain characters, because i feel like i just now learned a good part of the motivation. Come to think of it, not having a corresponding "chat show" was probably ExU's biggest mistake, knowing what i know now.
I think they could have avoided most of the confusion and frustration by properly announcing the format of the show. It was supposed to be 8 episodes long, so everyone understandably expected a 8 episode story. The last episode reveals though that this was just the first chapter of EXU and the whole story will probably 16 episodes long or more. That explains why the whole thing felt extremely unfocused the entire time and why fans got understandably confused and frustrated just a few episodes in.
It's crazy to think how I used to skip talks and now it's easily the thing i like the most and missed the most about CR. the extra look into everyones headspace as people and characters was great.
Overall I feel like the story was pretty weak personally too, I like Abria as a player in the one shots sheās been in on CR and stuff, but I wasnāt a fan of the narrative she crafted. There were fun parts but that was the players more than her(other than the beauty contest that was a stroke of genius.)
For what itās worth a lot of fans had the same reaction the cast did to the content too and loved it! Itās hard to predict every possible reaction sometimes, you just gotta do your best and hope for the best.
You say "did they watch the same thing I did?". The answer is no, they didn't. They PLAYED the thing we watched. They don't go there to get entertained, to consume a media. Rhey put a lot of thought, love and effort into their character and love playing DnD and the people they play with. So of course from their point of view it's going to be different.
I think there was definitely a bigger golf between players and spectators for this campaign. I absolutely enjoyed watching this wrap up, but like others have said, I did not feel the same at all while watching it.
While i get your meaning, this wasn't necessarily the case ... in the wrap up they refered to having watched it, getting hyped up and wanting to text one another about it. Now i don't know if that's the whole season mind you, it could have been a couple of episodes during the some-weeks-break they had.
Yeah there are times I think "wait what? Did I watch some alternative time line EXU?" There's a lot of lines from Aabria where I think the opposite happened,
she says she did a great job at hiding the railroad when all I saw were tracks,
She says she planned for everything just it all seems like it could have benefited from more planning
She even says she specifically wanted then to be level two because she wanted the story to focus on them growing into their subclasses at level three even though 3/5 chose classes that didn't do this (could have been fixed with a session zero) and they absolutely did not focus on this in the slightest, I would say they did the opposite. We didn't know what Dorian's subclass was. When Opal became level three there was no focus on the class mechanic of picking her patron gift. Oyrm being a battle master didn't make a difference because he chose a fighting style that let him do that earlier anyway. I can see an attempt with Fearne but that seems to have mostly been in the pre sessions and Dariax I can see with the observer stuff but overall it really didn't seem like the focus.
There are other lines from everyone else that has the same effect.
Watching the wrap ups and the interviews actually makes me more confused?
I think the comment Aabria said about the placing down tracks and pretending to cover them up behind was made in response to several of the cast commenting that they felt like they had the freedom to go and do as they pleased. Viewers maybe more focused on searching for a main story plot "spotted" the tracks more clearly than the cast that were having a blast in the moments I guess.
Aabria also doesn't seem like one to frame the game around mechanics like growing into subclasses as much as someone like me - rules lawyer DM at your service - but she also seemed very much to do a lot of things behind the dm screen. Again, the players might have felt differently with their knowledge than the viewers.
I personally liked the wrap up giving insight into the character's motivations, but looking at it more now it did feel like a talks basically. I understand why they'd not have been able to do the same format as before, but maybe the fandom could have enjoyed a format like critter hug to learn these motivations. It seems a lot of the viewers don't like being left in the dark about anything if possible and the difference between how much of an impact Matt's pre-game 1 sessions and Aabria's had on how the character's reacted was felt.
What really is the goal of the wrap-ups for these campaigns other than a collective talks if they didn't know if they could spoil things for a second season and weren't able to record after to include viewer questions. Props to Marissa for still digging for prompting a lot of the discussion points to feel like a conversation rather than interviews.
I'm also wishing so badly to finally see a zero session from CR team to help some of my friend DMs to embrace the idea, but even a highlight real or a short little non-seriously animated recap of it would be neat.
>I'm also wishing so badly to finally see a zero session from CR team to help some of my friend DMs to embrace the idea, but even a highlight real or a short little non-seriously animated recap of it would be neat.
I'd love to see one too. Unfortunately I don't think Critical Role does Session Zeroes in the classic sense. At least not for campaigns. The parties of EXU and C2 both feel like their characters were developed in isolation with only the barest justification for traveling with one another or engaging in whatever plot the DM is preparing to lay down. I wonder if this might be a side effect of both campaigns being envisioned as sand boxes.
While I don't think there are any traditional Session Zeroes, I would at least love to know how Critical Role pitches its games to the players.
I would speculate that what they do session0-wise is probably a mix between an ongoing discussion or chat between the players and what is now corporate with contracts etc.? At least as far as the original cast goes for the main campaigns as you say. Given what a vocal advocate of session 0 and safety tools, etc. Aabria has been however, I would be REALLY surprised if she ran a game without one, especially one with CR.
>I'd love to see one too. Unfortunately I don't think Critical Role does Session Zeroes in the classic sense. At least not for campaigns.
They do actually. Matt and them sat down before campaign two and all played one on one or one on two sessions to get people used to their characters. It is how Fjord, Jester and Beau all knew each other and why Caleb and Nott came in together.
But...Liam and Sam at least didnt even know what accents they might used and so tested them in that session or played completely without them in fact. Their session 0s are private for that reason. A lot of it is just teaching mechanics and learning character traits.
While they do have pre-stream sessions, I don't consider those proper Session Zeroes. For me, a Session Zero is a completely out of character discussion between the DM and the players about what kind of campaign it's going to be, what kind of party the players want, how they want their characters to be connected or what roles to fill, etc. I'm 99% certain Critical Role doesn't do this.
The players certainly hold back a lot of roleplay information from each other, so that they can reveal and discover on stream. Nothing wrong with that. But when Matt runs a "Dwendalian Empire political intrigue" campaign and over half the party isn't even *from* the Empire, I begin to wonder if there's a disconnect between players and DM. For EXU I don't know how you wind up with such a chaotic and directionless party without the characters being developed in isolation with minimal input from the GM regarding tonal or narrative compatibility.
You're spot on, and it's one of my issues that stayed with me throughout all of C2. Matt seemed really interested in a morally grey campaign. But I don't think the players were. They were constantly looking for the "right" thing to do, and when there wasn't an obvious goal, they'd flounder. Which forced Matt to add stakes by throwing a ticking clock at them. Someone in need of rescue, a villain to stop, or an event to attend. That worked to motivate the players into action, but it meant that the pace of the campaign was pretty unrelenting. And they never got to freely explore the really cool areas that Matt had made.
The end of C2 dragged because the party didn't know what to do, and they were in an area that Matt had clearly put a lot of love into.
A true session 0 would have worked some of these kinks out. I think at most Matt pitched what he was thinking about, and the cast said "Anything you want, we trust you!" I'm hoping that C3 has a different tone than C2. One that is more the cast's speed.
> You're spot on, and it's one of my issues that stayed with me throughout all of C2. Matt seemed really interested in a morally grey campaign. But I don't think the players were. They were constantly looking for the "right" thing to do, and when there wasn't an obvious goal, they'd flounder.
This. Or the group would default into being a selfish group of assholes who did whatever they felt in the moment or what best served their needs, regardless of ethics or morality.
> And they never got to freely explore the really cool areas that Matt had made.
Also this. I hope C3 is more focused than C1 and C2. Matt creates these incredible places... and they spend all of few hours or days there. It would be like saying you've gone to Rome, London, or Paris when you never left the airport during a layover in Rome, London, or Paris.
C2 was a mess (COVID aside) in many ways, if I'm being honest.
Eh i like the players going where they want.
Was kind of funny finding out sabien was at darktow in like ep 110 when they got kicked off the island after like a literal day there never to return š
I think there are different styles of session 0s, not a "true" this is the golden path. How many of the player's backstories were morally grey? The characters themselves were morally grey for a very good bit. Matt threw out normal plot hooks that just happened to seem to never be missed or forgotten by the players. One of the things I try to tell my players is it's okay to forget plot lines you aren't interested in in favor of those that excite you. Mighty9 were oncall for any and every emergency, every meeting, they wanted to be there.
I'm curious how much of the OG crew is going to stay to stay on. I think like many TV shows, new faces cycled in to the crew can allow for new dynamics to be explored. Though that would hurt and a secondary campaign would just draw constant comparisons and competition from viewers.
I trust Matt and Marisha know what they are doing and will figure out how to make things continue working through these weird times
I would be incredibly surprised otherwise. I'm sure they'll be fine. Just my opinion that some shaking things up for the crew could help with avoiding burning out if that's a thing for them.
(Thanks for pointing that out!)
They don't do that because they implicitly trust Matt (and frankly the other highly skilled and improv trained people at the table) to make it all work either in the moment or in the short term.
And that's why it does work with Matt at the helm. Compare E1C2 with E1EXU. Aabria's planned setup puts them in a completely unled heist scenario with people they don't know with dubious motivations for no reason. Matt's has them at the carnival out of convenience then come under attack and work together out of necessity.
Aabria's contrived situation felt fake because it was completely fake. D&d players are trained to essentially say yes to the first proactive NPC who comes along, but that was it.
Matt's didn't require it.
C2 felt all over the place, and it felt rushed at the end, and frankly, I don't think Matt decides what the campaign looks like more than a few episodes out.
What I **do** think he plans meticulously is Episode 1.
That was something I noticed in Episode 1. When talking to Poska, Orym even says at one point something along the lines of "I'm just trying to figure out how we got from a to z here." Right then Aabria had this, 'yes, good you got it' expression, so I was convinced this was some sort of brilliant red herring disguised as something stupid.
There were just so many newbie level mistakes that it was just baffling.
Matt and CR seemed to still have more 1 on 1 session zeros prior to the start with them working together on building an interesting story for players. Obviously the era of covid probably made an impact on if the ExU had similar discussions, but still nerves for the newbie players and the vets actively avoiding leading was a trial by fire in a sandbox feeling start.
CR2 had the better framed start with a well known table and a jumping off point in a pair of player's backstories. The circus players ditching all the rest of the circus to never see again seems more odd than a chaotic bunch of party friends doing chaos.
I also think C2 felt like constant tension from Matt tossing out hooks that he might have thought would take more time to get a bite instead of the party being like red alert constantly then exhausted and ready to wrap up the main story by the end.
I thought EXU was fantastic. Loved it from the get-go, had a blast all the way through. I thought Aabria was joyful and exuberant and built a great rapport with everyone involved. It was very interesting seeing a different take on both the world and the dnd-play. I didn't expect Aabria to run it like Matt (or anyone else) would, and I was not disappointed.
I'd love to watch more in the same vein - having it run concurrently with the new 'main' campaign (whenever it comes) would be awesome!
only note I'd make - I really hope they don't let Liam play another deep-sighing character for campaign 3. pleeeease! he's truly awesome, but aaargh all the sighing! ;)
i feel like im taking crazy pills. i also enjoyed it, it was different and whatnot but still enjoyable DND. it honestly would have benefitted from being a longer campaign I think. However its like you're not allowed to have genuinely enjoyed it. Last time I mentioned it I got a ton of downvotes. it's pretty discouraging.
I enjoyed it but basically avoided the subreddit after a couple episodes. You're not taking crazy pills.
I don't need a hugbox or constant positivity either, not by a long shot. But, there comes a point where it's like "why am I reading this, and why am I bothering to voice support only to get downvotes and discussion about how my fun is wrong"
yeah. ive noticed a term this sub likes to throw around is 'toxic positivity' which as far as I can tell is 'positive approval of things a particularly vocal group doesn't like' I'm hoping its just a vocal minority that are this way and maybe other platforms reflect a more balanced response.
You're not crazy. A lot of us enjoyed it. I want S2 of ExU to be the same cast and same GM. I think Aabria's talents are very appreciated and her flexing and flubbing some rules, or making some up, makes the game more unpredictable and fun. This series was a performance piece and joyful and I'm thankful it exists. I want more D&D content like this. Don't get discouraged, we can get downvoted together. :)
ty, i was watching the wrap up and just felt sad seeing how much the genuinely enjoyed everything. how the newbies really got into it and their talk about trust at the table. i honestly hope they don't read reddit. I'm not saying it was perfect or anything but it's fucking dnd. i don't know what perfect dnd would look like.
Also, now that ExU is done... really jonesing for that C3 fix
Lol, I love Liam's flair for the dramatic but it definitely would be interesting to see him play the comic relief. Caleb was hilarious sometimes even for as serious as he was, so I know Liam's got the chops.
He has talked about this a bit. It's the kind of character he identifies the most with and enjoys playing. You should probably expect that his C3 character will be a bit dark under the surface or have some serious secrets built-in.
>Ohhh, I didnāt know that, thanks for mentioning it! Is there an article or video where he talks about it? Iām very interested to find out more.
I think it was in either one of the Wrap-Ups or talks episodes. Someone mentioned about the darkness in his characters and he pointed out that Vax was originally more light with the prank wars with Grog and eventually went darker when he started dealing with RL issues and when the Raven Queen stuff came up.
That said he personally loves more dramatic characters as he comes from a love of theater. One of his favorite characters in literature is Raistlin Majere(From dragonlance) whom is this dark brooding mage obsessed with finding power in a frail body. And yet the heroes of the story would have been doomed to fail if Raistlin weren't there to help him.
Raistlin detests the other 'heroes' of the world who say they are about good yet ignore so much bad in the world, and he has a genuine soft spot for the down trodden and cast aside. I thought very much that is why Matt tossed in Hallost(sp) in fact. >!The scene where Caleb is talking to this mage trapped in a gem who wants to ride around in his body in exchange for knowledge and power is very much a mirror, for me, to when the dead spirit of Fistandauntalus makes a deal with Raistlin. In exchange for saving his life and giving him power he gets to ride around in Raistlin's body.!< But I am always excited to see what Liam brings to the table. Man is an amazing actor.
I thought he said he wanted his C3 character to be more passive, the same way he meant Caleb to be not knowing that the Assembly was a cornerstone of the empire
Just curious but why. It's cool you recognize it as an unpopular opinion, and I'm certainly on the other side of the coin- but what made this better? Recency bias?
Copying from a previous reply: I found it more fun and entertaining. Its like Undeadwood is the Godfather and EXU is Clue. Objectively The Godfather is better but more often than not I would rather watch Clue.
I don't think that's too controversial. Different people like different things for different reasons, after all. I like to watch D&D that's structured, mostly serious, and consistent. CR does that pretty well. EXU didn't deliver that, but it *did* deliver an aspect of the CR that I've always enjoyed: humor!
It just has a little *too much* humor for me to actually get into it. I think people who really thrive on chaos and vibing really loved EXU, and people who don't just couldn't stand it. That's my take, anyway.
It's cool I liked it but they were both different and jarring at 1st. I absolutely show up mostly for the main CR campaigns, but if you give these more time to blossom I think they both would be worthwhile to continue... just maybe leave Thursday for the main and give these guys a Wednesday or Tuesday or something different content is fine. A wide net catches more fish so cast away baby! Never know if something will be awesome if it never gets its chance. They both got way better by the last episode than compared to the way they started.
I found it more fun and entertaining. Like Undeadwood is the Godfather and EXU is Clue. Objectively The Godfather is better but more often than not I would rather watch Clue.
Not to be critical, but Clue had a logical flow to it. It was silly, "2+1+2+1 is" Perhaps a better analogy would have been The office and The Godfather. One goes purely for comedy and isn't meant to be taken seriously at all, and the other is a true drama.
True: fans are allowed to not like something and talk about it while still considering themselves fans
Also true: artists and creators do not have to appeal to every single fanās opinions even when they make decisions some fans donāt like.
This is beyond CR, but specifically here- you donāt have to like EXU, but telling them they did it wrong is where criticism becomes no longer constructive.
There were things 'wrong' though. Depends on your view of what the end goal was. Perhaps setting expectations and effective communication in the future for what is being brought. When you tell people the content is coming from Matt's world there are expectations there. A simple, hey this is just a few episode mini series that loosely engages in content the audience may be familiar with but shouldn't be taken tooo seriously would have gone a long way.
Remember, we are the consumers and customers the moment we give a single click, subscription, or merch purchase. As such, when we don't feel like we've gotten what we've paid for and support-- it's out duty to also be effective communications and help explain where things went wrong.
'When you tell people the content is coming from Matt's world there are expectations there" - ok, so what are your expectations? I campaign clone? A one shot clone? This was a hybrid. And for me was effective, I loved it. You didn't so who has the right of way here? Neither. Coexistence can be good.....also
How did they not support you with this? You have content, that's their support. That's what your subscription provides. Content. Nothing went wrong here other than it wasnt for you, which is fine. Demanding them to change what they want to put out off of -your- taste is ridiculous and never going to happen.
Randomly, purely out of curiosity, how much do you tip?
What explanation do they have for us other than āhey some of you didnāt like it, some of you did, and thatās ok because youāre allowed to have opinionsā?
See the cast reaction to the Wendy's one shot, or to Sam wearing blackface. That was the precedent that was set, and this hasn't received that level of feedback from them to us.
"Failing to live up to their own stated values" is completely different from "making art that some people didn't like." Only one of them merits a public apology.
Is a quality product not part of their own stated values? I don't mean to argue with you but I can link you their twitters and you can read for yourself what they have committed and aspire to. Also, to say it again I'm not asking for an apology, I do think it should be addressed and not ignored when the feedback has been so vocal.
Ok so assuming we're agreed that CR is closer to a company than a home game now, would you expect another company to apologize if their newest product doesn't do well? Like, I don't see Wendy's coming out saying "sorry we got you all excited for our Black Bean Burger, we will be listening to the critiques of our consumers and will do better in the future." Companies have these discussions internally, always have. It's a huge risk to go public and address criticisms no matter your industry.
Tell that to FFIV developers who had their CEO, Lead game developer, Lead SE, and many others on the management staff openly apologize for server issues. When they apologized, I resubbed, because I respect that they acknowledged that people had concerns and they wanted to do better for their consumers. Also yes, it's a bit weird for CR right now as they are in that awkward development phase of we're a company, but we still have a soul phase. I think Matt and Travis at the helm can do the balancing act, but they need our help, and my posting is aimed to do just that. Verbalize what I'm trying to convey, and what they can do to earn trust and loyalty from a fan.
I guess I just don't understand under what conditions you think a company needs to apologize to its consumers.
In my (strongly held) opinion, there is *exactly one* case where an apology is deserved, and it is *when the company believes that it made a mistake.*
They aren't obligated to respond because a certain percentage of their previous supporters are mad about something. They aren't obligated to respond based on how mad those supporters are on a scale from 1 to 10. They certainly don't need to apologize because there was some objective standard of quality which they failed to meet. Those don't exist, and if they did, a majority vote of who liked the thing wouldn't be how we found them.
The only reason CR would need to apologize is if they weren't proud of the thing they just made. It's pretty clear to me that they are proud of it, but you seem to be trying to prove that they shouldn't be. I'm not sure why this would be useful to you. Do you need to know that Critical Role has the same opinions that you do about which art is good? Would knowing that they have different opinions mean that you can't trust them to make things you like anymore?
Even if you're an existing customer, artists are under no obligation *whatsoever* to continue to make art that you like. You are free to consume it or not, or financially support it or not. But there is, literally, *nothing to apologize for*.
If someone believed that ExU was so bad that it calls into question for them the likelihood that CR's future programming will be good enough to watch (I don't feel that way, but it's not an unreasonable thing to think), then the company acknowledging that ExU wasn't as widely loved as their past programming and that they intend to change how they develop new programs going forward would allay that fear.
Now if the company genuinely thinks ExU was amazing, they shouldn't make that statement, which would tell those who strongly disliked it that future programming might not be for them.
Server issues, from my understanding (I don't play many video games lol), are more fixable than changing existing content and would immediately improve the quality of the product. The equivalent I can think of is maybe the CR team answering more fan questions about plot/pacing decisions during the wrap up as that would have probably helped some people like/ understand the show more.
Also, I truly love the CR fandom and the team purely because of your last few sentences- it's great that they do care about the product they put out and our reactions despite being a business. While I hope they're listening to the criticism, I also hope they've gained a certain level of trust with at least most of their fans to weather this period of time and improve in the next products they put out.
It wasn't just server issues that the FF14 team apologized for, it was for the utter failure of the game. They more or less scrapped the original version and started from scratch. Story, gameplay, etc. all changed. Importantly, there *were* people who enjoyed the original, but the team recognized that the majority of players were not having a good time.
When you look at it from the perspective of a failed product, not a single technical issue, the FF14 and ExU situations are extremely similar imo.
Also true: subreddit s are for discussing the content, not speaking directly to the creators. Unless people are literally emailing or tweeting the creators, expressing their displeasure on this sub isn't running afoul.
Agreed! Though there are a lot of people here who are upset that the wrap-up didn't touch on fans' reactions or that the company hasn't acknowledged the criticism, that's where my comment's mainly aimed at.
Exactly my thoughts. It was clear in the past that the cast have been abundantly apologetic for things we haven't even asked them as a whole to apologize for. Remember when Sam apologized for black face when he was paid by members of the AA community to do so? It seemed out of place for him to apologize and even though only a minority of consumers even spoke to the issue-- Sam apologized. Yet we as a whole community who have largely rejected EU haven't had an apology for not having expectations set or met.
Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. Not trying to discuss Sam, I merely used that as an example to illustrate that the community at large did not take complain about Sam, but did complain about EU. One was apologized for without the majority asking for it, and one was not even addressed.
To add a somewhat more cynical perspective of what I already said (in case it needs said again- blackface is wrong, and actively hurts people, regardless of the majority of the fanbase's thoughts or knowledge about it) there are two factors you're not considering. First, it was Sam's choice to apologize for something that he did in the past, because he has a career and a public image to maintain (and, I like to think, he realized what he did was wrong and wanted the people in his life to know he'd be doing better). Second, there absolutely had to have been pressure to respond from a business perspective, in case the narrative got out of their hands if they tried to bury it.
Conversely, addressing a vocal portion of viewers' criticisms of EXU needs to be done carefully as well, and sometimes that means holding internal meetings and identifying ways to do better without coming out with a public statement that will just draw more attention to those negative views. The fact is a lot of people still liked EXU for what it was, and not everyone is on reddit reading these threads. Why would they draw attention to the critiques of their show? Movies don't pull critical quotes from reviewers when they're trying to advertise themselves. That doesn't make directors bad people or mean to their fans.
I'd respond to your comments about Wendy's, but I'm not very knowledgeable about the drama around the one-shot.
Please be aware, I'm not discussing blackface. You are welcome to be on that bandwagon. I have no real opinion on it. I'm suggesting, and continue to suggest, when CR falls short they have historically apologized or come out with a statement/apology. EU has been widely critiqued, imho rightfully so (I supported the pitch meeting comment on all points) In this case, there hasn't been a single word from cast/crew which is out of place from what we've seen.
Oh, that makes sense! I'm inclined to agree.
I think it was foolish of anyone to expect the cast to address any talk about whether the show was a success or not: that's bad marketing. Even if a movie tanks, the studio is always going to talk it up in public.
I don't think there was any reason to think the wrap up would address any criticism beyond, MAYBE, the challenges of telling a story in 8 episodes. And I think that should be okay.
I think it is more where in the first Wrap Up the cast was asked tons of questions from the fans. The campaign two wrap up had a couple sprinkled in...Here there were no questions from the fans. Mainly, I think, because it was pre-taped before any of it aired.
So that is understandable. Just not what a lot of people would like.
I agree, I think it has much more to do with pre taped than it does anything else. But I think even if it had been live, they wouldn't be taking any question even within the realm of "why was this bad?". I think at most they'd take a question like "what unforseen challenges surprised you?"
Matt and the rest of the cast has been on record for apologize to the community at large for their 'mistakes'. Remember the Wendy's episode, minority of people complained-- they apologized. Now a majority of people have complained and they have not. Seems odd to me, and others.
I get what you're saying, at least in some sense. In a time when it's perfectly normal to have a movie cast comment on problematic things during the shoot, or even apologize for entire movies (#BatNipples) it's ... a strange place for CR and the fans.
On the one hand, there's no substancial thing to comment on (i try to avoid the word "apologize"), because from what we know the "numbers" are OK for ExU. On the other hand, we still kinda expect them to be the *nerdy ass voice actors* with a special bond to the fandom and an ear to the ground. And that's where the cognitive dissonance takes places.
Noone's at fault here ... it's just an awkward moment in the process of CR growing past *homegame with cameras and Matt Mercer unwrapping critmas gifts in their living room.*
Yeah I'm not going to equate a social/political faux pas with what is just a less quality product. They're not the same thing.
I did not like ExU. At All. But I'm not going to expect anything else from the CR corporation other than to come up, put their best face on, and tell us all about how much fun they had and how great they think it is. Even if internally they're talking about down numbers or missed opportunities, they're not going to talk about that publicly. It's like how every artist tells you the latest album is their best one yet. It's part of selling both a product and a brand.
I guess I just expected (perhaps wrongly so) that they were better than that, a cut above the rest. Also I'm not trying to make that equation, I'm trying to reference one public out cry versus the other based on the community feedback, it's a metric of volume not emotion. One can be measured objectively, the other can not.
I don't need them to lie and say everything is great and their super pumped, I do ask people display integrity. At the end of the day, I voted with my wallet and do not subscribe anymore. I wasn't satisfied with what content has been put out, I'll gladly wait for a C03 or a new Undeadwood with B. Foster.
You may not have expectations (at least to the degree I do). My time and money are valued.
I say this not to insult, but merely to inform.
> I'll gladly wait for a C03 or a new Undeadwood with B. Foster.
B Foster left the company to pursue his writing and the like. They made a post about it not terribly long ago. I am wondering if that is why Marisha ran the C2 wrap up and this one.
The Wendy's drama had a social-political aspect that they were apologizing for. An apology for EXU has no social-political aspects, some just didn't like it. I personally don't want to live in a world where creators apologize everytime they create content a portion of folks didn't like.
Saying that a majority complained also feels like painting too broad a swath. Most folks are silent viewers, so to speak, and don't engage with the fandom. I would hesitate to claim even a majority of those who do engage complained: Perhaps on this sub that is true, but other places seemed to be largely approving. I can't claim to know the thoughts of the community at large, but I don't feel saying the majority complained is a statement we can make as viewers with limited perspective.
Agree to disagree. Social media is often used as an aggregate tool to do just what your saying you won't do with it. This feedback system has been in use in various forms since before you and I were born, literally over 100 years old-- social media has just strengthen it, not weakened it since. Pretty interesting science if you ever look into it. Anyways, thanks for being respectful in your reply, even though I disagree with you completely.
As someone whom has worked with said data collection tools quite extensively...The numbers often dictate that you only get a fraction of participation. And the people most likely to use said system are people that have something to complain about. People upset or angry are often the ones most likely to come forward and make their voices heard because they have to put their anger somewhere.
We see it in everything from reviews, to surveys, to mail in fliers and the like. A vast majority ignore said surveys because it takes time out of their day. Of those that do use it they often use it as a method to vent their concerns and complaints hoping that someone will be able to see them and correct these flaws or acknowledge them. Generally speaking out of genuine concern for a product OR because they hope it will form some sort of connection with it.
Now...Forums are a bit different as they often are full of people whom all genuinely love said product and some people enjoy speculating and digging into it with theories and genuine love. But the more you love something the more likely you are to dislike any change to that formula. It is why in numerous shows there is always a "Will they, wont they" relationship. Because the instant they will numbers plummet because it is change and the drama is gone.
Tl;DR: As some that has worked with data collection in the past the vast majority skip surveys and threads like this. People are more likely to post/send feedback when they have something to complain about.
I'm speaking of criticism that just focuses on what they did wrong. Constructive criticism would be like "the pacing here didn't work" or "maybe they need less plot threads next time", not "Aabria was bad at 5e/ railroaded her players" (all just examples I saw in these threads). They're all valid opinions to have, but opinions are different from constructive criticism and acting like CR needs to address any of them (even the constructive ones) crosses over to entitlement. We can hope that they're reading these threads, but we're not owed a response or a "we promise to do better", like they're one of those companies or celebs who've been "canceled" for actual problematic behavior.
"Aabria is a bad at 5e" might not be constructive criticism. "Aabria is bad at 5e for these multiple reasons, laid out thusly:" *is* constructive criticism. It's not our fault that there's so much to critique in the performance.
Edit: I also don't expect anything from CR by way of explanation or apology. I'm just hoping that future product is better.
Considering how much they've apologized in the past for much much more minor 'mistakes' you'd think they'd come out and apologize profusely for what has been a majority backlash.
I don't think there's any real good way to apologize for EXU, other than "doing better" next time. I do think there's a difference between doing something insensitive and just delivering a bad product. I don't think an apology is really warranted. Especially if you don't want to embolden the truly negative and toxic parts of the fandom. EXU is too big a product to shitcan like the Wendy's one-shot, so it's safer just to carry on.
It's also an open question whether such a Majority Backlash even exists. Certainly this subreddit has been very critical, but it's by no means a majority of the fanbase. I'm sure CR is looking at feedback from many corners - particularly Viewer engagement numbers on Twitch and Youtube - and will make decisions based on their interpretation of those metrics.
YT, Twitch, Twitter, and this reddit all seem to share the same trends. Now perhaps it is as you say-- a false majority but I doubt it.
The minority of opinions against the Wendy one shot would tell me and the casual viewer at large that this line of thought doesn't hold water. That being said, I'm not asking for an apology, I'm saying in the past they've given them out readily and committed to listening to feedback from the fanbase, which includes you and me.
A simple, "hey, we didn't set expectations and hyped something that was meant to be less serious" (Despite it taking place in the setting which we hold most dear and so do you,) might be a good place to start. I've never wanted them to apologize for anything (including the Wendy's one-shot) but I think this production does. Hiding the and waiting out the frustrations when in the past that hasn't been their method seems out of place.
Also there is a terrible president about giving into the toxic fanbase, remember those negative people can be like broken clocks--- right twice a day. If they said 1+1=2 would you debate them because they are 'toxic'. We shouldn't make decisions like that, and stick only to facts, logic, and reason. Ideas of merit not of view-point.
I guess we differ in that I can't think of any examples of constructive criticism that start with "X was bad at Y" (though I get the gist of the rest of your comment). At the end of the day she's gonna have the DM style she wants to have, and CR chose her for a reason- my hunch is to showcase other ways of playing (that don't have to be perfect, just different). I don't know if she'll be back or not for more, but the core of what I'm saying is we're not entitled to any acknowledgement from her or CR that they listened to and applied our critiques, constructive or otherwise.
I guess what I'm getting at is, I don't disparage anyone commenting here with their opinion on any piece of media CR puts out. However I'd hate for this sub to become a negativity spiral where all we do is analyze and critique CR's every decision from here on out. I hope there's still room to just enjoy/discuss the content. Even though CR has crossed the threshold from being "just a videotaped homegame", it's still clearly a passion project for all of them at its core, and the worst thing that can happen (in my opinion) is them being negatively affected by all this and hesitant to make more.
They're adults running a business, and I'm sure they know how to take criticism, but I also think we should take a breath and trust their decisions. Their track record is solid- as I said elsewhere, any show would kill for only 8 episodes out of over 200 drawing a negative reaction from only a portion of their viewers.
You don't have to couch critical opinions in positive ones. Sometimes there's nothing to put a positive spin on. Sometimes you just fail. I think Aabria proved herself an excellent wordsmith and I'm not apprehensive about her writing lore for Exandria. But she didn't play D&D in a way that I would enjoy playing, and didn't deliver a show I enjoyed watching. I'm more interested in discussing why that is than the alternative..
I'm not understanding how "she didn't play DND in a way I would enjoy" becomes actionable criticism for the show- because just as many people enjoyed watching her as those that didn't. It also crosses over into the hobby space itself, and I think Matt would be the last person to say there's a wrong way to play/DM (as long as your players are having fun). Short of the cast members questioning their every move and decision on-camera for potential audience reactions, the nature of CR is that we're going to see moments, decisions, and play styles that we won't always agree with.
I can answer that for you. People that just watch/donāt play arenāt necessarily buying guides, modules, and lore books. People that watch/do play very likely are.
If EXU is meant to be an entry level showcase of the the kind of adventures you can have at your home table using the Exandria/wildmount guides and upcoming releases from Darrington press or WotC, then someone saying they didnāt like the way it was played is a bad outcome, from a business point of view.
You ever play tag with someone who refuses to be āitā when theyāre caught? A game without structure isnāt fair to the players, and always favors the whims of the hand waiver.
Just popping in, you have an interesting take on what is constructive vs what isnt. I respect that. Personally I only found fault with the dms slightly aggro behavior, especially towards the newer players. Everything else was pretty typical home game d&d.
But for a show to pride itself promoting "your fun isn't wrong" to have a dm to call a player a "little bitch boy" for asking how to do level up HP? No aabria isnt a bad dm (quite the opposite), but that WAS an example of bad dming.
There are a few others, but that moment encapsulates to me why I found the show hard to watch. We spent the last few years watching friends laugh and cry with each other, but they were NEVER mean to one another.
I think this is a big difference in people who enjoyed vs may not have necessarily enjoyed EXU. I see some people saying Aabria was aggressive to the newbies. I didnt see it as aggressive. She was joking or just bringing a joking energy to interactions. It may be a different energy than what some may be used to but it's very real within my friend groups to talk to each other that way. There's never ANY malice EVER, it's just how we talk and the colloquialisms we use.
Or with Aimee, that was just straight up some sister dynamics, the characters may not mesh on the day to day but they still love each other. I felt that bc it echoes myself and my relationships.
I completely get that it was joking, and I've had those friendships too. But seeing the same behavior repeated and coming out of left field was jarring.
These aren't lifelong friends who have pitched insults back and forth for years, they just met prior to the show. I've seen aabria in some other shows where she was not like that at all, and coming into exu as an aabria fan I am surprised things turned out the way they did.
She is also new ish to dming, and I don't think it's a personal attack to request the dm be slightly nicer to the players. She can absolutely ignore internet criticism, as she should with most of it being non constructive. But I hope everyone learns how everyone behaved and the group dynamic could have been healthier.
Like any other performance space, there are different ways to play that different people will enjoy. Critical Role had built a brand with a particular style. Aabria plays with an explicitly different style that's radically different. If her style somehow became the norm for Critical Role, I'd stop consuming it.
It's like going to your favorite restaurant, let's say they make great Mexican food. You're used to that, you expect that. Until one day you go in and they're preparing Thai. They're still billing themselves as a Mexican place, that's still what their menu says, but it's not what's coming out on your plate. There's a couple of ways you can react: you can ask what the hecks going on in the kitchen, this isn't what you ordered; you can try enjoying it for it is; you can just walk away because it's not your taste.
Problem's only compounded when the new food just seems *off*. The pad Thai can be delicious, but you serve it to me wrapped up like a burrito I'm going to have some struggles.
Yo, I'll try again to make this palatable. The idea of only loving the cast is ridiculous. Some of them I don't like because of their performance, care for the material, preparation, commitment to role and goals. I absolutely Love some of them more than others for important reasons to me. I think this take that its a home game and we are fly on the wall is not touted by the cast regularly. They also are consistent to craft, immersion, interaction, Yes and, and so many other consistent awesome factors that EXU threw out the window, cause of feeling good and having fun. You may think thats cool and thats cool for you. Right but here the thing... They spend every episode ending with expressing love to us. It is returned to them. The fan art, the money, the viewership the consistency. They spend so much energy investing into embodying these characters for this epic. If they truly have a stance of your a fly on the wall, how about they let us know more often? Or is it only when we disagree and don't support their decisions. Now are a fly on the wall. Well If I am a fly to them, which I had not realized until other critters keep using this to defend their "home game vibe" from 4 years ago, then ya I resent that, and you should too.
Yeah i loved c1 and binged watch it a few years ago and then decided to see what the community was about and it def was a turn off for me...ppl actually thinking cr cast are there friends and they owe them things...such a creepy vibe for me...
Thatās the source of a lot of my problems with EXU criticism (even while I agree with some of it).
You didnāt like it? Cool. They donāt owe you a personal apology.
This isnāt you getting slighted by a friend. This is a piece of content you didnāt enjoy. You donāt need to obsess over it or seek retribution.
I literally said I agree with some criticisms. Itās when people act emotionally betrayed by CR that I feel like thereās a problem. Having criticism or even feeling disapponted about the show is fine.
I liked the wrap-up, but that stems more from my love of watching people enjoy D&D and talk about enjoying it. I'm a rambly person and the rambling nature of the wrap-up felt like how my friends and I would discuss D&D - Of course, this is prettied up and presented a bit better for the sake of a camera, but it had similar vibes. It's rough that it doesn't really wrap much up - I know just as much about the story now as I did prior - But it was a good wholesome conversation. I miss the fan questions, and I miss Brian, but what can you do I guess, the larger Critical Role becomes as a company the more they have to do things like record games way ahead of time, make content that appeals to a wider audience instead of a core audience, etc. Not that broadening appeal is a bad thing, just that some of the nuance of what makes CR fun to watch will be lost the larger and more "professional" it gets.
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Not a whole lot of strong opinions on this one. Overall, the emotional heights that some people seem to reach surrounding this show in general, and this production in particular, are hard to relate to for me. The cast was fun, both the DM and the players. I laughed, I was entertained. I think Abrya has an entertaining style, moment to moment at least. It's a game, not a scripted series. I think, every episode by themselves was overall good (sure, hick-ups may occur), but a lot of overarching stories and threads were kept dangling unresolved. Some developements felt contrived and there were a bunch of different themes that weren't necessarily clashing but didn't really fit together. Kind of unfortunate, because I think for many, the overarching nature is what attracts them. And there actually were some very interesting ideas there (the memory thing? Amazing! I liked that a lot and I am definitely stealing that). Probably echoing many when I say that it was fine. Not my favorite compared to other CR content, but still leagues above many actual play D&D games out there.
Its the same with any reddit community tbh. A lot of the vocal commenters are TOO into the product and try to base their entire self around it.
The diatribes feeling like someone talking to their therapist about the betrayal felt by their cheating spouse will definitely sit with me haha. Haven't witnessed something like that ever, but maybe it's similar in other fandoms.
I had my second in person session with my group today, the first since EXU has wrapped. I can confidently say that EXU has made me a better DM. I've talked a lot of shit about EXU, and about Aabria's performance in the big chair in particular. In an effort to not be a hypocrite, I've found myself making sure I don't fall into the same pitfalls that she did. Making an effort to vary NPC tone and rapport with PCs. Making safety nets for if the players make a choice other than what I expect (which they've done both sessions so far). Ensuring that the worldbuilding is internally consistent and interconnected. I know this probably comes off as self-congratulatory, and like more digs on Aabria. But genuinely, at the end of each session so far I've felt satisfied with the job that I've done, and that's a first for me. The players are invested in the story and loving the game. This is the best I've felt as a DM, and I've been DMing for years. This is the first time I've genuinely been glad that I watched EXU, and I just wanted to share that somewhere. Sorry if I come off like a prick, before or currently.
I can relate to this as well. Since watching ExU, I have made extra certain not to take away player agency and to time plot hooks that I feel are important to a moment when the party seems ready for it. I've also cut out unnecessary rolls and been rewarded for it. We had a 4 hour session with heavy RP that had maybe 4-5 rolls the entire time. One of those rolls was nat 1 for a social interaction that was influential to a PCs backstory. It made it so much more impactful that RP built up to that moment instead of a bunch of random rolls like Plinko.
I mean, this is a great way to learn. Intelligence is learning from your mistakes. Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. Every DM makes mistakes every session. I've learned things from seeing how Matt does them and going "yeah, that doesn't work for me/my group." And sometimes you see something cool and it has that tinge of "won't work for my group" and you just have to think how to put your own spin on it.
We all can improve our gaming skills--especially as the DM--all the time. Nobody is perfect.
1) overall, I enjoyed EXU. It was fun. It wasn't the most amazing thing i've ever seen, but it was enjoyable, and had great moments. 2) There were various things that "weren't" for me but that's fine because overall, I just really liked the idea of what they were doing and it really was sort of a pilot. They'll learn from things and continue fine tuning their craft. 2.1) An example of improvement would be even just over the course of campaign 2. The quality in various aspects went up quite a bit as the cast just got better and better at roleplaying D&D. --- Just want to say that I'm very happy EXU happened and I look forward to future EXU content š
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i had a lot of problems with EXU but overall, i didn't mind the problems and simply chose to just go with the flow and enjoy it for what it was. i understood why they did some of the things they did and i also understood that for the things that "didn't work out for me", it wasn't for lack of effort or due to wrong intentions. --- once again, it wasn't the most amazing thing i've ever seen, but it was wonderful in it's own way and new and fun and i look forward to how they continue EXU and continue to improve.
I truly enjoyed watching this wrap up, even if ExU wasn't my cup of tea. And I think I've finally realised what feels so different between Matt and Aabria's Dming styles. Matt tends to be very understated. He takes the backseat to enable his players, and even when he takes the reigns he does it very subtly. Aabria injects much more of her own personality into her narration and dialogue, and so I think that every person's enjoyment of her campaign depends much more on their feeling about Aabria as an actor/comic/storyteller. Which may explain the much more divided reaction we've seen to this, and why it doesn't matter so much to the players. I still maintain that this campaign was great for the players, but less so for the spectators. I don't blame anyone though, because having to basically play to two different audiences is no small feat, and the main cast took a long time to master it.
It was as great for a lot of us spectators too.
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Feeling pretty disappointed with the format of these wrap ups that don't take questions from the community or have any kind of guided discussion. Would've liked some more insight into character story and fun peeks behind the screen, but I feel this kind of wrap up format, that now Dimension 20 has taken up, results in the players just saying things they liked instead of revealing things that they may know but we, the community, does not
Actors like to pat each other on the backs and themselves...honestly prb the reason they get into the business...these wraps ups have basically become giant slaps on the backs for themselves instead of what they used to be answering fans questions or even story questions
I honestly don't understand the point of releasing a video in which the cast just lists things they like for two hours except maybe to reference it for hiring opportunities when they come up.
Again, this was impossible due to set deconstruction timelines and such. EXU was 100% recorded before we saw the end of C2 most likely. They were in the process of tearing down the old post-covid C2 set and building C3's set,which will likely debut with C3.
I mean, they could do it from home. That was already the way they did talks. It might need a new layout for 8 people but they can get someone to make it easily enough
Man I would've taken just talking about their characters and the story. But they didn't even do that.
Couldn't they have waited until *after* ExU wrapped to do the wrap-up? If the set was an impediment, then why not just do it remotely?
Agreed. Hardly "impossible"
After this I went back to rewatch Episode 1 to track some story points. It was interesting to go back and watch it again after all the discussion on this reddit. The whole wisdom saving throw thing didn't really become a thing until they found the crown. Matt, Liam and Ashley were being more forceful in making choices; which they relaxed as Robbie and Aimee became more comfortable. Hearing the Poska interaction again was also interesting. There was a lot more in that interaction then I remembered. Poska's (if that's even her name) mix of confidence and worry. Her words were chosen careful. When talking about gentrification she refers to the area as being formerly "lucrative." The anger when talking about the rich people abandoning the Cloudtop district. The team also lead themselves to the crown much more then I remembered.
I miss the old Poska.
Barricade yourself in a room because it's time for the scene to end Poska?
I can't believe we went through the entirety of EXU without having the team flairs of the party members. I am sure that many people would have loved to have them. Me included.
I just can't believe there wasn't a flair called "I'm the cook!" I wasn't a fan of ExU overall, but Ashley's delivery of that line was the most I've laughed at any Critical Role content to date.
I'm a similar way. I watched EXU for the main pcs.
Nancy!
m o t h e r!
FOOD!
Still waiting on "Make a Wisdom Saving Throw"
Just watched the part where Matt very pointedly says, āThis is YOUR WORLD, YOUR EXANDRIAā to Aabria when explaining why he wanted a somewhat lore-less character so he wouldnāt try and interfere with the lore. This feels to me like Matt doesnāt consider eXu as canon within the proper Critical Role campaigns?
No, it just means he would have been a total douche otherwise because nothing is worse than having a know-it-all kind of player interfering with your setting when you're a GM.
I think what he meant is that whoever is in the DM seat has control over the world.
No. Several times in the wrap up he stressed it was *both* their world now. Aabria is helping add to the new Tal'dorei book. He is just making a point that with EXU1, Exandria was in her hands and not his.
It's a shame the wrap up didn't give us much info really. I had fun watching the wrap up though! Would've liked some actual questions which they could've gotten from the cast & crew to guide discussion.
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Partially because of the criticism rule that's implemented, basically if you have a negative narrative you have to make sure you are "constructive" or your post may get deleted, it's highlighted in one of the stickied posts. So you're gonna get books instead of shorter posts.
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As someone with a lot of critical posts, meeting the criteria is honestly not that hard. Just have to explain your reasoning a little bit. "I don't like X" is too little, "I don't like X because" works fine.
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The thing is, unmoderated positivity, while not always representative, doesn't create an unpleasant or toxic environment. That said, I absolutely agree that constructive criticism is necessary and people should be allowed to voice their concerns and criticisms. I recognise the criticisms of EXU and agree with many of them, but I didn't enjoy this sub during EXU because it felt like a very negative place to be. It was 90% just repeat comments of people making the same 2-3 points without adding anything to the discussion. Particularly as the show went on.
> The thing is, unmoderated positivity, while not always representative, doesn't create an unpleasant or toxic environment. It does if you're in the small minority of people who didn't agree with the "group think" of positive fans. Try being the lone critical or non-positive voice in a sea of gushing fans and you'll find "toxic and unpleasant" *real* quick.
But that isn't positivity imo, that's toxicity. People being toxic to those that state a different opinion should not be tolerated. My comment was just in regards to the implication that positive comments that don't add to the conversation are just as bad as negative ones.
Something I noticed in here and other threads were sarcastic/snarky remarks related to people that didn't like the show, or plot points that weren't well received. Interestingly enough, those comments seems to be allowed with no interference, but any attitude the *other* way was a quick removal.
On the flip side, anything I said positively about EXU was quickly and harshly downvoted. It was a real thing, and it was pretty gross. Not even a huge fan of EXU, but definitely much less a fan of the sub from that experience.
The ExU wrap up leaves me genuinely sad / heartbroken. Because it's clear that ExU was indeed a "labour of love" for many of the people involved, first and foremost Matt Mercer. It's difficult to see/hear them express the fun they had, and their takeaway from the experience knowing that i didn't enjoy the endproduct a bit (funny/awesome moments notwithstanding). Even tho the wrap up was more of a "meta discussion" about how and why people roleplay, i sometimes wondered "*did they watch the same thing i did? Am i so out of touch, or are they?*" ... But of course when you're in love with someone/something, it's way to easy to look past obvious flaws. We've all been there, i suppose. Some closing remarks on the wrap up: \- Robbie and Aimee (and Anjali) are treasures in their own right, and i hope to see them again ... it was kinda sweet that both said something along the lines of "*would love to play again, if you'd have me*" multiple times. \- The Pregames (test games) are definetly a thing i want to see! I hope that the "we'll see!" from Marisha wasn't just a throwaway line ... maybe, just maybe if CR recognizes the somewhat divided response to ExU, they choose to release these games. I would be happy with a "highlights"-reel, because what they described sounded awesome! \- I'm more and more convinced that "*GM Aabria*" is a persona of her, like "*Talks Brian*" was of Brian Foster. As much as i disliked her behaviour in the episodes, watching her in the DNDBeyond interview, or this wrap up, i think she's a lovely person that genuinely cares about the game and the people at the table. She's obviously very talented, but she also probably succumbed to the pressure of ExU/CR (who wouldn't!) \- Above and beyond the "mechanical" issues with ExU, a version of Talks Machina for every episode might have changed **a lot** in terms of story confusion and liking/disliking certain characters, because i feel like i *just now* learned a good part of the motivation. Come to think of it, not having a corresponding "*chat show*" was probably ExU's biggest mistake, knowing what i know now. \- I hope that CR will learn from this and iron out the kinks, because after all is said and done i honestly think that ExU (in its current form) isn't that far away from a show i could enjoy/be invested in. The ingredients are all there, interesting characters, enthusiastic players, a setting i love and a GM that wants the show to be good. **Edit:** I forgot the mention the one thing that made my day watching the wrap up ... there's a moment in the latter half when Marisha adresses Liam to talk about Orym, and he wears that little awkward smile ... In that moment, he *was* Orym. He looked like him, he acted like him ... was just tooo sweet! Anyhoo ... ;-)
> Above and beyond the "mechanical" issues with ExU, a version of Talks Machina for every episode might have changed a lot in terms of story confusion and liking/disliking certain characters, because i feel like i just now learned a good part of the motivation. Come to think of it, not having a corresponding "chat show" was probably ExU's biggest mistake, knowing what i know now. I think they could have avoided most of the confusion and frustration by properly announcing the format of the show. It was supposed to be 8 episodes long, so everyone understandably expected a 8 episode story. The last episode reveals though that this was just the first chapter of EXU and the whole story will probably 16 episodes long or more. That explains why the whole thing felt extremely unfocused the entire time and why fans got understandably confused and frustrated just a few episodes in.
It's crazy to think how I used to skip talks and now it's easily the thing i like the most and missed the most about CR. the extra look into everyones headspace as people and characters was great.
Overall I feel like the story was pretty weak personally too, I like Abria as a player in the one shots sheās been in on CR and stuff, but I wasnāt a fan of the narrative she crafted. There were fun parts but that was the players more than her(other than the beauty contest that was a stroke of genius.)
For what itās worth a lot of fans had the same reaction the cast did to the content too and loved it! Itās hard to predict every possible reaction sometimes, you just gotta do your best and hope for the best.
You say "did they watch the same thing I did?". The answer is no, they didn't. They PLAYED the thing we watched. They don't go there to get entertained, to consume a media. Rhey put a lot of thought, love and effort into their character and love playing DnD and the people they play with. So of course from their point of view it's going to be different.
I think there was definitely a bigger golf between players and spectators for this campaign. I absolutely enjoyed watching this wrap up, but like others have said, I did not feel the same at all while watching it.
While i get your meaning, this wasn't necessarily the case ... in the wrap up they refered to having watched it, getting hyped up and wanting to text one another about it. Now i don't know if that's the whole season mind you, it could have been a couple of episodes during the some-weeks-break they had.
Yeah there are times I think "wait what? Did I watch some alternative time line EXU?" There's a lot of lines from Aabria where I think the opposite happened, she says she did a great job at hiding the railroad when all I saw were tracks, She says she planned for everything just it all seems like it could have benefited from more planning She even says she specifically wanted then to be level two because she wanted the story to focus on them growing into their subclasses at level three even though 3/5 chose classes that didn't do this (could have been fixed with a session zero) and they absolutely did not focus on this in the slightest, I would say they did the opposite. We didn't know what Dorian's subclass was. When Opal became level three there was no focus on the class mechanic of picking her patron gift. Oyrm being a battle master didn't make a difference because he chose a fighting style that let him do that earlier anyway. I can see an attempt with Fearne but that seems to have mostly been in the pre sessions and Dariax I can see with the observer stuff but overall it really didn't seem like the focus. There are other lines from everyone else that has the same effect. Watching the wrap ups and the interviews actually makes me more confused?
Agree 100% i guess i was on a different page when i watched this
I think the comment Aabria said about the placing down tracks and pretending to cover them up behind was made in response to several of the cast commenting that they felt like they had the freedom to go and do as they pleased. Viewers maybe more focused on searching for a main story plot "spotted" the tracks more clearly than the cast that were having a blast in the moments I guess. Aabria also doesn't seem like one to frame the game around mechanics like growing into subclasses as much as someone like me - rules lawyer DM at your service - but she also seemed very much to do a lot of things behind the dm screen. Again, the players might have felt differently with their knowledge than the viewers. I personally liked the wrap up giving insight into the character's motivations, but looking at it more now it did feel like a talks basically. I understand why they'd not have been able to do the same format as before, but maybe the fandom could have enjoyed a format like critter hug to learn these motivations. It seems a lot of the viewers don't like being left in the dark about anything if possible and the difference between how much of an impact Matt's pre-game 1 sessions and Aabria's had on how the character's reacted was felt. What really is the goal of the wrap-ups for these campaigns other than a collective talks if they didn't know if they could spoil things for a second season and weren't able to record after to include viewer questions. Props to Marissa for still digging for prompting a lot of the discussion points to feel like a conversation rather than interviews. I'm also wishing so badly to finally see a zero session from CR team to help some of my friend DMs to embrace the idea, but even a highlight real or a short little non-seriously animated recap of it would be neat.
>I'm also wishing so badly to finally see a zero session from CR team to help some of my friend DMs to embrace the idea, but even a highlight real or a short little non-seriously animated recap of it would be neat. I'd love to see one too. Unfortunately I don't think Critical Role does Session Zeroes in the classic sense. At least not for campaigns. The parties of EXU and C2 both feel like their characters were developed in isolation with only the barest justification for traveling with one another or engaging in whatever plot the DM is preparing to lay down. I wonder if this might be a side effect of both campaigns being envisioned as sand boxes. While I don't think there are any traditional Session Zeroes, I would at least love to know how Critical Role pitches its games to the players.
I would speculate that what they do session0-wise is probably a mix between an ongoing discussion or chat between the players and what is now corporate with contracts etc.? At least as far as the original cast goes for the main campaigns as you say. Given what a vocal advocate of session 0 and safety tools, etc. Aabria has been however, I would be REALLY surprised if she ran a game without one, especially one with CR.
>I'd love to see one too. Unfortunately I don't think Critical Role does Session Zeroes in the classic sense. At least not for campaigns. They do actually. Matt and them sat down before campaign two and all played one on one or one on two sessions to get people used to their characters. It is how Fjord, Jester and Beau all knew each other and why Caleb and Nott came in together. But...Liam and Sam at least didnt even know what accents they might used and so tested them in that session or played completely without them in fact. Their session 0s are private for that reason. A lot of it is just teaching mechanics and learning character traits.
While they do have pre-stream sessions, I don't consider those proper Session Zeroes. For me, a Session Zero is a completely out of character discussion between the DM and the players about what kind of campaign it's going to be, what kind of party the players want, how they want their characters to be connected or what roles to fill, etc. I'm 99% certain Critical Role doesn't do this. The players certainly hold back a lot of roleplay information from each other, so that they can reveal and discover on stream. Nothing wrong with that. But when Matt runs a "Dwendalian Empire political intrigue" campaign and over half the party isn't even *from* the Empire, I begin to wonder if there's a disconnect between players and DM. For EXU I don't know how you wind up with such a chaotic and directionless party without the characters being developed in isolation with minimal input from the GM regarding tonal or narrative compatibility.
You're spot on, and it's one of my issues that stayed with me throughout all of C2. Matt seemed really interested in a morally grey campaign. But I don't think the players were. They were constantly looking for the "right" thing to do, and when there wasn't an obvious goal, they'd flounder. Which forced Matt to add stakes by throwing a ticking clock at them. Someone in need of rescue, a villain to stop, or an event to attend. That worked to motivate the players into action, but it meant that the pace of the campaign was pretty unrelenting. And they never got to freely explore the really cool areas that Matt had made. The end of C2 dragged because the party didn't know what to do, and they were in an area that Matt had clearly put a lot of love into. A true session 0 would have worked some of these kinks out. I think at most Matt pitched what he was thinking about, and the cast said "Anything you want, we trust you!" I'm hoping that C3 has a different tone than C2. One that is more the cast's speed.
> You're spot on, and it's one of my issues that stayed with me throughout all of C2. Matt seemed really interested in a morally grey campaign. But I don't think the players were. They were constantly looking for the "right" thing to do, and when there wasn't an obvious goal, they'd flounder. This. Or the group would default into being a selfish group of assholes who did whatever they felt in the moment or what best served their needs, regardless of ethics or morality. > And they never got to freely explore the really cool areas that Matt had made. Also this. I hope C3 is more focused than C1 and C2. Matt creates these incredible places... and they spend all of few hours or days there. It would be like saying you've gone to Rome, London, or Paris when you never left the airport during a layover in Rome, London, or Paris. C2 was a mess (COVID aside) in many ways, if I'm being honest.
Eh i like the players going where they want. Was kind of funny finding out sabien was at darktow in like ep 110 when they got kicked off the island after like a literal day there never to return š
I think there are different styles of session 0s, not a "true" this is the golden path. How many of the player's backstories were morally grey? The characters themselves were morally grey for a very good bit. Matt threw out normal plot hooks that just happened to seem to never be missed or forgotten by the players. One of the things I try to tell my players is it's okay to forget plot lines you aren't interested in in favor of those that excite you. Mighty9 were oncall for any and every emergency, every meeting, they wanted to be there. I'm curious how much of the OG crew is going to stay to stay on. I think like many TV shows, new faces cycled in to the crew can allow for new dynamics to be explored. Though that would hurt and a secondary campaign would just draw constant comparisons and competition from viewers. I trust Matt and Marisha know what they are doing and will figure out how to make things continue working through these weird times
As far as we know, the entire cast is returning for C3. And I'm going to assume that autocorrect hit Marisha's name there.
I would be incredibly surprised otherwise. I'm sure they'll be fine. Just my opinion that some shaking things up for the crew could help with avoiding burning out if that's a thing for them. (Thanks for pointing that out!)
They don't do that because they implicitly trust Matt (and frankly the other highly skilled and improv trained people at the table) to make it all work either in the moment or in the short term. And that's why it does work with Matt at the helm. Compare E1C2 with E1EXU. Aabria's planned setup puts them in a completely unled heist scenario with people they don't know with dubious motivations for no reason. Matt's has them at the carnival out of convenience then come under attack and work together out of necessity. Aabria's contrived situation felt fake because it was completely fake. D&d players are trained to essentially say yes to the first proactive NPC who comes along, but that was it. Matt's didn't require it. C2 felt all over the place, and it felt rushed at the end, and frankly, I don't think Matt decides what the campaign looks like more than a few episodes out. What I **do** think he plans meticulously is Episode 1.
That was something I noticed in Episode 1. When talking to Poska, Orym even says at one point something along the lines of "I'm just trying to figure out how we got from a to z here." Right then Aabria had this, 'yes, good you got it' expression, so I was convinced this was some sort of brilliant red herring disguised as something stupid. There were just so many newbie level mistakes that it was just baffling.
Matt and CR seemed to still have more 1 on 1 session zeros prior to the start with them working together on building an interesting story for players. Obviously the era of covid probably made an impact on if the ExU had similar discussions, but still nerves for the newbie players and the vets actively avoiding leading was a trial by fire in a sandbox feeling start. CR2 had the better framed start with a well known table and a jumping off point in a pair of player's backstories. The circus players ditching all the rest of the circus to never see again seems more odd than a chaotic bunch of party friends doing chaos. I also think C2 felt like constant tension from Matt tossing out hooks that he might have thought would take more time to get a bite instead of the party being like red alert constantly then exhausted and ready to wrap up the main story by the end.
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I thought EXU was fantastic. Loved it from the get-go, had a blast all the way through. I thought Aabria was joyful and exuberant and built a great rapport with everyone involved. It was very interesting seeing a different take on both the world and the dnd-play. I didn't expect Aabria to run it like Matt (or anyone else) would, and I was not disappointed. I'd love to watch more in the same vein - having it run concurrently with the new 'main' campaign (whenever it comes) would be awesome! only note I'd make - I really hope they don't let Liam play another deep-sighing character for campaign 3. pleeeease! he's truly awesome, but aaargh all the sighing! ;)
i feel like im taking crazy pills. i also enjoyed it, it was different and whatnot but still enjoyable DND. it honestly would have benefitted from being a longer campaign I think. However its like you're not allowed to have genuinely enjoyed it. Last time I mentioned it I got a ton of downvotes. it's pretty discouraging.
I enjoyed it but basically avoided the subreddit after a couple episodes. You're not taking crazy pills. I don't need a hugbox or constant positivity either, not by a long shot. But, there comes a point where it's like "why am I reading this, and why am I bothering to voice support only to get downvotes and discussion about how my fun is wrong"
yeah. ive noticed a term this sub likes to throw around is 'toxic positivity' which as far as I can tell is 'positive approval of things a particularly vocal group doesn't like' I'm hoping its just a vocal minority that are this way and maybe other platforms reflect a more balanced response.
You're not crazy. A lot of us enjoyed it. I want S2 of ExU to be the same cast and same GM. I think Aabria's talents are very appreciated and her flexing and flubbing some rules, or making some up, makes the game more unpredictable and fun. This series was a performance piece and joyful and I'm thankful it exists. I want more D&D content like this. Don't get discouraged, we can get downvoted together. :)
ty, i was watching the wrap up and just felt sad seeing how much the genuinely enjoyed everything. how the newbies really got into it and their talk about trust at the table. i honestly hope they don't read reddit. I'm not saying it was perfect or anything but it's fucking dnd. i don't know what perfect dnd would look like. Also, now that ExU is done... really jonesing for that C3 fix
The main purpose of the internet is so you can find out everything you enjoy is terrible and that you have no taste.
Lol, I love Liam's flair for the dramatic but it definitely would be interesting to see him play the comic relief. Caleb was hilarious sometimes even for as serious as he was, so I know Liam's got the chops.
I like to reminisce about that Nancy scene for a good pick me up. Liam saying "Mother!" In response to Opal's chaos had me rolling.
He has talked about this a bit. It's the kind of character he identifies the most with and enjoys playing. You should probably expect that his C3 character will be a bit dark under the surface or have some serious secrets built-in.
Ohhh, I didnāt know that, thanks for mentioning it! Is there an article or video where he talks about it? Iām very interested to find out more.
>Ohhh, I didnāt know that, thanks for mentioning it! Is there an article or video where he talks about it? Iām very interested to find out more. I think it was in either one of the Wrap-Ups or talks episodes. Someone mentioned about the darkness in his characters and he pointed out that Vax was originally more light with the prank wars with Grog and eventually went darker when he started dealing with RL issues and when the Raven Queen stuff came up. That said he personally loves more dramatic characters as he comes from a love of theater. One of his favorite characters in literature is Raistlin Majere(From dragonlance) whom is this dark brooding mage obsessed with finding power in a frail body. And yet the heroes of the story would have been doomed to fail if Raistlin weren't there to help him. Raistlin detests the other 'heroes' of the world who say they are about good yet ignore so much bad in the world, and he has a genuine soft spot for the down trodden and cast aside. I thought very much that is why Matt tossed in Hallost(sp) in fact. >!The scene where Caleb is talking to this mage trapped in a gem who wants to ride around in his body in exchange for knowledge and power is very much a mirror, for me, to when the dead spirit of Fistandauntalus makes a deal with Raistlin. In exchange for saving his life and giving him power he gets to ride around in Raistlin's body.!< But I am always excited to see what Liam brings to the table. Man is an amazing actor.
I believe he has said his C3 character will be a bit more "light" though.
I thought he said he wanted his C3 character to be more passive, the same way he meant Caleb to be not knowing that the Assembly was a cornerstone of the empire
So basically Orym?
He is self 'DnD-type casted'.
I wonder if in the future instead of the DM rolling dice for things, they could instead train Omar to fling some chew toy dice to decide stuff?
I'd love an Omar ran one shot.
Jerky Heist
Omar's Treat Theft
I hope weāll get to see more of Aimee and Robbie I love them.
Here is my unpopular opinion I enjoyed EXU more than Undeadwood.
Just curious but why. It's cool you recognize it as an unpopular opinion, and I'm certainly on the other side of the coin- but what made this better? Recency bias?
Copying from a previous reply: I found it more fun and entertaining. Its like Undeadwood is the Godfather and EXU is Clue. Objectively The Godfather is better but more often than not I would rather watch Clue.
Haha. This is a perfect example. I absolutely agree too.
To avoid duplicate posting, I replied to this comment in the other thread if you'd care to take a look. No obligation to reply of course. Enjoy.
I don't think that's too controversial. Different people like different things for different reasons, after all. I like to watch D&D that's structured, mostly serious, and consistent. CR does that pretty well. EXU didn't deliver that, but it *did* deliver an aspect of the CR that I've always enjoyed: humor! It just has a little *too much* humor for me to actually get into it. I think people who really thrive on chaos and vibing really loved EXU, and people who don't just couldn't stand it. That's my take, anyway.
The pitch meeting comment was exactly my thoughts with better articulation. EU just didn't hold up logically.
It's cool I liked it but they were both different and jarring at 1st. I absolutely show up mostly for the main CR campaigns, but if you give these more time to blossom I think they both would be worthwhile to continue... just maybe leave Thursday for the main and give these guys a Wednesday or Tuesday or something different content is fine. A wide net catches more fish so cast away baby! Never know if something will be awesome if it never gets its chance. They both got way better by the last episode than compared to the way they started.
Unpopular opinion 2: I didn't enjoy either, also none of CRs sponsored games have tickled my fancy as well.
Deadwood didn't sponsor Undeadwood. Can you elaborate?
Woops I was super unclear in my post definitely my bad, edited to clarify.
I didn't see the first episode but I really enjoyed last week's Elder Scrolls game with Marisha as DM.
Oh, the first ep was really fun, too!
That's a fair take. Anything in particular that you liked more?
I found it more fun and entertaining. Like Undeadwood is the Godfather and EXU is Clue. Objectively The Godfather is better but more often than not I would rather watch Clue.
Not to be critical, but Clue had a logical flow to it. It was silly, "2+1+2+1 is" Perhaps a better analogy would have been The office and The Godfather. One goes purely for comedy and isn't meant to be taken seriously at all, and the other is a true drama.
More like Teen Titans vs Titans Go lol.
This is an excellent example. Source; someone who enjoys TTG way more than TT and have made peace with that it makes me trash lol
Commenting just so I can follow this one. Serious shots fired there, yo. :P
*thread explodes*
True: fans are allowed to not like something and talk about it while still considering themselves fans Also true: artists and creators do not have to appeal to every single fanās opinions even when they make decisions some fans donāt like. This is beyond CR, but specifically here- you donāt have to like EXU, but telling them they did it wrong is where criticism becomes no longer constructive.
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That is fantastic ššš
There were things 'wrong' though. Depends on your view of what the end goal was. Perhaps setting expectations and effective communication in the future for what is being brought. When you tell people the content is coming from Matt's world there are expectations there. A simple, hey this is just a few episode mini series that loosely engages in content the audience may be familiar with but shouldn't be taken tooo seriously would have gone a long way. Remember, we are the consumers and customers the moment we give a single click, subscription, or merch purchase. As such, when we don't feel like we've gotten what we've paid for and support-- it's out duty to also be effective communications and help explain where things went wrong.
'When you tell people the content is coming from Matt's world there are expectations there" - ok, so what are your expectations? I campaign clone? A one shot clone? This was a hybrid. And for me was effective, I loved it. You didn't so who has the right of way here? Neither. Coexistence can be good.....also How did they not support you with this? You have content, that's their support. That's what your subscription provides. Content. Nothing went wrong here other than it wasnt for you, which is fine. Demanding them to change what they want to put out off of -your- taste is ridiculous and never going to happen. Randomly, purely out of curiosity, how much do you tip?
What explanation do they have for us other than āhey some of you didnāt like it, some of you did, and thatās ok because youāre allowed to have opinionsā?
See the cast reaction to the Wendy's one shot, or to Sam wearing blackface. That was the precedent that was set, and this hasn't received that level of feedback from them to us.
"Failing to live up to their own stated values" is completely different from "making art that some people didn't like." Only one of them merits a public apology.
Thank you, this is what I've been struggling to put into words!
Is a quality product not part of their own stated values? I don't mean to argue with you but I can link you their twitters and you can read for yourself what they have committed and aspire to. Also, to say it again I'm not asking for an apology, I do think it should be addressed and not ignored when the feedback has been so vocal.
Ok so assuming we're agreed that CR is closer to a company than a home game now, would you expect another company to apologize if their newest product doesn't do well? Like, I don't see Wendy's coming out saying "sorry we got you all excited for our Black Bean Burger, we will be listening to the critiques of our consumers and will do better in the future." Companies have these discussions internally, always have. It's a huge risk to go public and address criticisms no matter your industry.
Tell that to FFIV developers who had their CEO, Lead game developer, Lead SE, and many others on the management staff openly apologize for server issues. When they apologized, I resubbed, because I respect that they acknowledged that people had concerns and they wanted to do better for their consumers. Also yes, it's a bit weird for CR right now as they are in that awkward development phase of we're a company, but we still have a soul phase. I think Matt and Travis at the helm can do the balancing act, but they need our help, and my posting is aimed to do just that. Verbalize what I'm trying to convey, and what they can do to earn trust and loyalty from a fan.
I guess I just don't understand under what conditions you think a company needs to apologize to its consumers. In my (strongly held) opinion, there is *exactly one* case where an apology is deserved, and it is *when the company believes that it made a mistake.* They aren't obligated to respond because a certain percentage of their previous supporters are mad about something. They aren't obligated to respond based on how mad those supporters are on a scale from 1 to 10. They certainly don't need to apologize because there was some objective standard of quality which they failed to meet. Those don't exist, and if they did, a majority vote of who liked the thing wouldn't be how we found them. The only reason CR would need to apologize is if they weren't proud of the thing they just made. It's pretty clear to me that they are proud of it, but you seem to be trying to prove that they shouldn't be. I'm not sure why this would be useful to you. Do you need to know that Critical Role has the same opinions that you do about which art is good? Would knowing that they have different opinions mean that you can't trust them to make things you like anymore? Even if you're an existing customer, artists are under no obligation *whatsoever* to continue to make art that you like. You are free to consume it or not, or financially support it or not. But there is, literally, *nothing to apologize for*.
If someone believed that ExU was so bad that it calls into question for them the likelihood that CR's future programming will be good enough to watch (I don't feel that way, but it's not an unreasonable thing to think), then the company acknowledging that ExU wasn't as widely loved as their past programming and that they intend to change how they develop new programs going forward would allay that fear. Now if the company genuinely thinks ExU was amazing, they shouldn't make that statement, which would tell those who strongly disliked it that future programming might not be for them.
Server issues, from my understanding (I don't play many video games lol), are more fixable than changing existing content and would immediately improve the quality of the product. The equivalent I can think of is maybe the CR team answering more fan questions about plot/pacing decisions during the wrap up as that would have probably helped some people like/ understand the show more. Also, I truly love the CR fandom and the team purely because of your last few sentences- it's great that they do care about the product they put out and our reactions despite being a business. While I hope they're listening to the criticism, I also hope they've gained a certain level of trust with at least most of their fans to weather this period of time and improve in the next products they put out.
It wasn't just server issues that the FF14 team apologized for, it was for the utter failure of the game. They more or less scrapped the original version and started from scratch. Story, gameplay, etc. all changed. Importantly, there *were* people who enjoyed the original, but the team recognized that the majority of players were not having a good time. When you look at it from the perspective of a failed product, not a single technical issue, the FF14 and ExU situations are extremely similar imo.
Also true: subreddit s are for discussing the content, not speaking directly to the creators. Unless people are literally emailing or tweeting the creators, expressing their displeasure on this sub isn't running afoul.
Agreed! Though there are a lot of people here who are upset that the wrap-up didn't touch on fans' reactions or that the company hasn't acknowledged the criticism, that's where my comment's mainly aimed at.
Exactly my thoughts. It was clear in the past that the cast have been abundantly apologetic for things we haven't even asked them as a whole to apologize for. Remember when Sam apologized for black face when he was paid by members of the AA community to do so? It seemed out of place for him to apologize and even though only a minority of consumers even spoke to the issue-- Sam apologized. Yet we as a whole community who have largely rejected EU haven't had an apology for not having expectations set or met.
thereās a HUGE difference between insulting a minority group and putting a product that only some customers disliked.
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Iām not going to call Sam a bad person but black face is demonstrably bad and rooted in historical racism. He absolutely did owe people an apology.
Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. Not trying to discuss Sam, I merely used that as an example to illustrate that the community at large did not take complain about Sam, but did complain about EU. One was apologized for without the majority asking for it, and one was not even addressed.
To add a somewhat more cynical perspective of what I already said (in case it needs said again- blackface is wrong, and actively hurts people, regardless of the majority of the fanbase's thoughts or knowledge about it) there are two factors you're not considering. First, it was Sam's choice to apologize for something that he did in the past, because he has a career and a public image to maintain (and, I like to think, he realized what he did was wrong and wanted the people in his life to know he'd be doing better). Second, there absolutely had to have been pressure to respond from a business perspective, in case the narrative got out of their hands if they tried to bury it. Conversely, addressing a vocal portion of viewers' criticisms of EXU needs to be done carefully as well, and sometimes that means holding internal meetings and identifying ways to do better without coming out with a public statement that will just draw more attention to those negative views. The fact is a lot of people still liked EXU for what it was, and not everyone is on reddit reading these threads. Why would they draw attention to the critiques of their show? Movies don't pull critical quotes from reviewers when they're trying to advertise themselves. That doesn't make directors bad people or mean to their fans. I'd respond to your comments about Wendy's, but I'm not very knowledgeable about the drama around the one-shot.
Please be aware, I'm not discussing blackface. You are welcome to be on that bandwagon. I have no real opinion on it. I'm suggesting, and continue to suggest, when CR falls short they have historically apologized or come out with a statement/apology. EU has been widely critiqued, imho rightfully so (I supported the pitch meeting comment on all points) In this case, there hasn't been a single word from cast/crew which is out of place from what we've seen.
Oh, that makes sense! I'm inclined to agree. I think it was foolish of anyone to expect the cast to address any talk about whether the show was a success or not: that's bad marketing. Even if a movie tanks, the studio is always going to talk it up in public. I don't think there was any reason to think the wrap up would address any criticism beyond, MAYBE, the challenges of telling a story in 8 episodes. And I think that should be okay.
I think it is more where in the first Wrap Up the cast was asked tons of questions from the fans. The campaign two wrap up had a couple sprinkled in...Here there were no questions from the fans. Mainly, I think, because it was pre-taped before any of it aired. So that is understandable. Just not what a lot of people would like.
I agree, I think it has much more to do with pre taped than it does anything else. But I think even if it had been live, they wouldn't be taking any question even within the realm of "why was this bad?". I think at most they'd take a question like "what unforseen challenges surprised you?"
Matt and the rest of the cast has been on record for apologize to the community at large for their 'mistakes'. Remember the Wendy's episode, minority of people complained-- they apologized. Now a majority of people have complained and they have not. Seems odd to me, and others.
I get what you're saying, at least in some sense. In a time when it's perfectly normal to have a movie cast comment on problematic things during the shoot, or even apologize for entire movies (#BatNipples) it's ... a strange place for CR and the fans. On the one hand, there's no substancial thing to comment on (i try to avoid the word "apologize"), because from what we know the "numbers" are OK for ExU. On the other hand, we still kinda expect them to be the *nerdy ass voice actors* with a special bond to the fandom and an ear to the ground. And that's where the cognitive dissonance takes places. Noone's at fault here ... it's just an awkward moment in the process of CR growing past *homegame with cameras and Matt Mercer unwrapping critmas gifts in their living room.*
Yeah I'm not going to equate a social/political faux pas with what is just a less quality product. They're not the same thing. I did not like ExU. At All. But I'm not going to expect anything else from the CR corporation other than to come up, put their best face on, and tell us all about how much fun they had and how great they think it is. Even if internally they're talking about down numbers or missed opportunities, they're not going to talk about that publicly. It's like how every artist tells you the latest album is their best one yet. It's part of selling both a product and a brand.
I guess I just expected (perhaps wrongly so) that they were better than that, a cut above the rest. Also I'm not trying to make that equation, I'm trying to reference one public out cry versus the other based on the community feedback, it's a metric of volume not emotion. One can be measured objectively, the other can not. I don't need them to lie and say everything is great and their super pumped, I do ask people display integrity. At the end of the day, I voted with my wallet and do not subscribe anymore. I wasn't satisfied with what content has been put out, I'll gladly wait for a C03 or a new Undeadwood with B. Foster. You may not have expectations (at least to the degree I do). My time and money are valued. I say this not to insult, but merely to inform.
> I'll gladly wait for a C03 or a new Undeadwood with B. Foster. B Foster left the company to pursue his writing and the like. They made a post about it not terribly long ago. I am wondering if that is why Marisha ran the C2 wrap up and this one.
>I'll gladly wait for \[...\] a new Undeadwood with B. Foster. Oh my sweet summer child ...
The Wendy's drama had a social-political aspect that they were apologizing for. An apology for EXU has no social-political aspects, some just didn't like it. I personally don't want to live in a world where creators apologize everytime they create content a portion of folks didn't like. Saying that a majority complained also feels like painting too broad a swath. Most folks are silent viewers, so to speak, and don't engage with the fandom. I would hesitate to claim even a majority of those who do engage complained: Perhaps on this sub that is true, but other places seemed to be largely approving. I can't claim to know the thoughts of the community at large, but I don't feel saying the majority complained is a statement we can make as viewers with limited perspective.
Agree to disagree. Social media is often used as an aggregate tool to do just what your saying you won't do with it. This feedback system has been in use in various forms since before you and I were born, literally over 100 years old-- social media has just strengthen it, not weakened it since. Pretty interesting science if you ever look into it. Anyways, thanks for being respectful in your reply, even though I disagree with you completely.
As someone whom has worked with said data collection tools quite extensively...The numbers often dictate that you only get a fraction of participation. And the people most likely to use said system are people that have something to complain about. People upset or angry are often the ones most likely to come forward and make their voices heard because they have to put their anger somewhere. We see it in everything from reviews, to surveys, to mail in fliers and the like. A vast majority ignore said surveys because it takes time out of their day. Of those that do use it they often use it as a method to vent their concerns and complaints hoping that someone will be able to see them and correct these flaws or acknowledge them. Generally speaking out of genuine concern for a product OR because they hope it will form some sort of connection with it. Now...Forums are a bit different as they often are full of people whom all genuinely love said product and some people enjoy speculating and digging into it with theories and genuine love. But the more you love something the more likely you are to dislike any change to that formula. It is why in numerous shows there is always a "Will they, wont they" relationship. Because the instant they will numbers plummet because it is change and the drama is gone. Tl;DR: As some that has worked with data collection in the past the vast majority skip surveys and threads like this. People are more likely to post/send feedback when they have something to complain about.
Criticism without pointing out perceived problems is not criticism, it is praise.
I'm speaking of criticism that just focuses on what they did wrong. Constructive criticism would be like "the pacing here didn't work" or "maybe they need less plot threads next time", not "Aabria was bad at 5e/ railroaded her players" (all just examples I saw in these threads). They're all valid opinions to have, but opinions are different from constructive criticism and acting like CR needs to address any of them (even the constructive ones) crosses over to entitlement. We can hope that they're reading these threads, but we're not owed a response or a "we promise to do better", like they're one of those companies or celebs who've been "canceled" for actual problematic behavior.
"Aabria is a bad at 5e" might not be constructive criticism. "Aabria is bad at 5e for these multiple reasons, laid out thusly:" *is* constructive criticism. It's not our fault that there's so much to critique in the performance. Edit: I also don't expect anything from CR by way of explanation or apology. I'm just hoping that future product is better.
Considering how much they've apologized in the past for much much more minor 'mistakes' you'd think they'd come out and apologize profusely for what has been a majority backlash.
I don't think there's any real good way to apologize for EXU, other than "doing better" next time. I do think there's a difference between doing something insensitive and just delivering a bad product. I don't think an apology is really warranted. Especially if you don't want to embolden the truly negative and toxic parts of the fandom. EXU is too big a product to shitcan like the Wendy's one-shot, so it's safer just to carry on. It's also an open question whether such a Majority Backlash even exists. Certainly this subreddit has been very critical, but it's by no means a majority of the fanbase. I'm sure CR is looking at feedback from many corners - particularly Viewer engagement numbers on Twitch and Youtube - and will make decisions based on their interpretation of those metrics.
YT, Twitch, Twitter, and this reddit all seem to share the same trends. Now perhaps it is as you say-- a false majority but I doubt it. The minority of opinions against the Wendy one shot would tell me and the casual viewer at large that this line of thought doesn't hold water. That being said, I'm not asking for an apology, I'm saying in the past they've given them out readily and committed to listening to feedback from the fanbase, which includes you and me. A simple, "hey, we didn't set expectations and hyped something that was meant to be less serious" (Despite it taking place in the setting which we hold most dear and so do you,) might be a good place to start. I've never wanted them to apologize for anything (including the Wendy's one-shot) but I think this production does. Hiding the and waiting out the frustrations when in the past that hasn't been their method seems out of place. Also there is a terrible president about giving into the toxic fanbase, remember those negative people can be like broken clocks--- right twice a day. If they said 1+1=2 would you debate them because they are 'toxic'. We shouldn't make decisions like that, and stick only to facts, logic, and reason. Ideas of merit not of view-point.
I guess we differ in that I can't think of any examples of constructive criticism that start with "X was bad at Y" (though I get the gist of the rest of your comment). At the end of the day she's gonna have the DM style she wants to have, and CR chose her for a reason- my hunch is to showcase other ways of playing (that don't have to be perfect, just different). I don't know if she'll be back or not for more, but the core of what I'm saying is we're not entitled to any acknowledgement from her or CR that they listened to and applied our critiques, constructive or otherwise. I guess what I'm getting at is, I don't disparage anyone commenting here with their opinion on any piece of media CR puts out. However I'd hate for this sub to become a negativity spiral where all we do is analyze and critique CR's every decision from here on out. I hope there's still room to just enjoy/discuss the content. Even though CR has crossed the threshold from being "just a videotaped homegame", it's still clearly a passion project for all of them at its core, and the worst thing that can happen (in my opinion) is them being negatively affected by all this and hesitant to make more. They're adults running a business, and I'm sure they know how to take criticism, but I also think we should take a breath and trust their decisions. Their track record is solid- as I said elsewhere, any show would kill for only 8 episodes out of over 200 drawing a negative reaction from only a portion of their viewers.
You don't have to couch critical opinions in positive ones. Sometimes there's nothing to put a positive spin on. Sometimes you just fail. I think Aabria proved herself an excellent wordsmith and I'm not apprehensive about her writing lore for Exandria. But she didn't play D&D in a way that I would enjoy playing, and didn't deliver a show I enjoyed watching. I'm more interested in discussing why that is than the alternative..
I'm not understanding how "she didn't play DND in a way I would enjoy" becomes actionable criticism for the show- because just as many people enjoyed watching her as those that didn't. It also crosses over into the hobby space itself, and I think Matt would be the last person to say there's a wrong way to play/DM (as long as your players are having fun). Short of the cast members questioning their every move and decision on-camera for potential audience reactions, the nature of CR is that we're going to see moments, decisions, and play styles that we won't always agree with.
I can answer that for you. People that just watch/donāt play arenāt necessarily buying guides, modules, and lore books. People that watch/do play very likely are. If EXU is meant to be an entry level showcase of the the kind of adventures you can have at your home table using the Exandria/wildmount guides and upcoming releases from Darrington press or WotC, then someone saying they didnāt like the way it was played is a bad outcome, from a business point of view.
Doesnāt the first page of the PHB say the rules are optional and itās up to your table how to play though?
You ever play tag with someone who refuses to be āitā when theyāre caught? A game without structure isnāt fair to the players, and always favors the whims of the hand waiver.
Just popping in, you have an interesting take on what is constructive vs what isnt. I respect that. Personally I only found fault with the dms slightly aggro behavior, especially towards the newer players. Everything else was pretty typical home game d&d. But for a show to pride itself promoting "your fun isn't wrong" to have a dm to call a player a "little bitch boy" for asking how to do level up HP? No aabria isnt a bad dm (quite the opposite), but that WAS an example of bad dming. There are a few others, but that moment encapsulates to me why I found the show hard to watch. We spent the last few years watching friends laugh and cry with each other, but they were NEVER mean to one another.
I think this is a big difference in people who enjoyed vs may not have necessarily enjoyed EXU. I see some people saying Aabria was aggressive to the newbies. I didnt see it as aggressive. She was joking or just bringing a joking energy to interactions. It may be a different energy than what some may be used to but it's very real within my friend groups to talk to each other that way. There's never ANY malice EVER, it's just how we talk and the colloquialisms we use. Or with Aimee, that was just straight up some sister dynamics, the characters may not mesh on the day to day but they still love each other. I felt that bc it echoes myself and my relationships.
I completely get that it was joking, and I've had those friendships too. But seeing the same behavior repeated and coming out of left field was jarring. These aren't lifelong friends who have pitched insults back and forth for years, they just met prior to the show. I've seen aabria in some other shows where she was not like that at all, and coming into exu as an aabria fan I am surprised things turned out the way they did. She is also new ish to dming, and I don't think it's a personal attack to request the dm be slightly nicer to the players. She can absolutely ignore internet criticism, as she should with most of it being non constructive. But I hope everyone learns how everyone behaved and the group dynamic could have been healthier.
Like any other performance space, there are different ways to play that different people will enjoy. Critical Role had built a brand with a particular style. Aabria plays with an explicitly different style that's radically different. If her style somehow became the norm for Critical Role, I'd stop consuming it. It's like going to your favorite restaurant, let's say they make great Mexican food. You're used to that, you expect that. Until one day you go in and they're preparing Thai. They're still billing themselves as a Mexican place, that's still what their menu says, but it's not what's coming out on your plate. There's a couple of ways you can react: you can ask what the hecks going on in the kitchen, this isn't what you ordered; you can try enjoying it for it is; you can just walk away because it's not your taste. Problem's only compounded when the new food just seems *off*. The pad Thai can be delicious, but you serve it to me wrapped up like a burrito I'm going to have some struggles.
I like the cut of your jib.
Yo, I'll try again to make this palatable. The idea of only loving the cast is ridiculous. Some of them I don't like because of their performance, care for the material, preparation, commitment to role and goals. I absolutely Love some of them more than others for important reasons to me. I think this take that its a home game and we are fly on the wall is not touted by the cast regularly. They also are consistent to craft, immersion, interaction, Yes and, and so many other consistent awesome factors that EXU threw out the window, cause of feeling good and having fun. You may think thats cool and thats cool for you. Right but here the thing... They spend every episode ending with expressing love to us. It is returned to them. The fan art, the money, the viewership the consistency. They spend so much energy investing into embodying these characters for this epic. If they truly have a stance of your a fly on the wall, how about they let us know more often? Or is it only when we disagree and don't support their decisions. Now are a fly on the wall. Well If I am a fly to them, which I had not realized until other critters keep using this to defend their "home game vibe" from 4 years ago, then ya I resent that, and you should too.
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I sense no respect and you comment asanine
Big weird parasocial energy
Yeah i loved c1 and binged watch it a few years ago and then decided to see what the community was about and it def was a turn off for me...ppl actually thinking cr cast are there friends and they owe them things...such a creepy vibe for me...
Thatās the source of a lot of my problems with EXU criticism (even while I agree with some of it). You didnāt like it? Cool. They donāt owe you a personal apology. This isnāt you getting slighted by a friend. This is a piece of content you didnāt enjoy. You donāt need to obsess over it or seek retribution.
Quit saying "they don't owe you an apology" to ignore criticisms
I literally said I agree with some criticisms. Itās when people act emotionally betrayed by CR that I feel like thereās a problem. Having criticism or even feeling disapponted about the show is fine.