#i still side with percy on a lot of decisions within the VM campaign generally but i think getting to a place where i realized taliesin's

[vethbrenatto]

hey i knew there was a lot of marisha hate, esp in c1, tho for a long while i was not getting why people would be so toxic cos while she was naive, it was understandable. but lately i started getting tired of her naivety and,, lack of foresight i suppose? and ik, that's basically the character arc! but at times it really does get a bit too much...

im not sure, maybe the fact that it's live rp somehow makes it hurt more because as a concept, characters with horrible choices are great, luv em, but something just doesn't click for me with keyleth

i feel bad for so viscerally disliking some of her actions, especially with the history of fandom, so i guess what i wanted to ask is, what is your view on some of her worse decisions and is there any advice on shifting my perspective towards her (because i really don't want to feel this way about any of the characters D:)?

I want to preface this with the fact that I'm not sure how much actual advice I have on this, but I did definitely want to answer it because I relate so much. This also got extremely long, so it’s going under the cut.

This is pretty much exactly how I felt watching C1 for the first time. I watched C2 first, and I fell in love with Beau over time and Marisha as a roleplayer. So, I felt very jarred watching C1 and getting so viscerally upset at Keyleth and some of the decisions and choices she made. Especially going into the comments and seeing all the Keyleth/Marisha hate, I felt very uncomfortable feeling those things because I didn't want to be one of the haters that were so clearly visible during the airing of C1. This is mainly to clarify to you that, no, you're not one of those people. I felt the same way watching it the first time, and the fact that you're having those feelings of "Oh, I'm uncomfy because I don't want to be One of the Keyleth Haters," means that you're not one. Truthfully, her decisions can be very frustrating at times.

The reason I'm not sure how good my advice is going to be is because where I am now with Keyleth versus where I started- there's a blur in the middle. Obviously, something changed, because now I very much love Keyleth and respect a lot of her choices, when that's definitely not where I started.

I would say after I saw C1, I did reflect on a lot of Keyleth's choices more than I did while watching it. I also read a good amount of Keyleth meta, and that actually really helped. A lot of people had a much better grasp on her character than I did, and having step-by-step guides on why Kiki was acting the way she was made a lot of her choices more understandable for me. Now, I'm rewatching C1 for the first time and am even finding places where I fundamentally disagreed with Keyleth originally that I've changed my tune and am on her side (this isn't the case for all situations, and more often than not I still don't take her side persay, but on certain things, I'm like... nah, Kiki was right).

I wish I could find some of the Kiki meta that made her more clear in my mind, I don't have any links on hand (if anyone has good Keyleth meta to share, feel free to add to this post).

I also think that Kiki becomes a lot easier to wrap your head around when you get at the root of why she can be frustrating. A lot of the time it's not just the naivete, it's also Keyleth's moral compass. In a world of adventurers, the dial on your moral compass sort of shifts and bad things aren't fundamentally bad anymore because you have to shift expectations in a world where killing and adventure are normalized. Nevertheless, for all characters, morality is still a spectrum. The problem comes in that Keyleth's morality is a lot more present than the rest of the group, and this makes her stick out like a sore thumb. Which isn't to say the rest of the group doesn't have morals, or are all identically moral, Grog is obviously less moral than Vex or Pike. It's just that Keyleth's goodness is an outlier, she's just stretched a bit further in terms of her morality, and she's often not willing to bend on that.

That morality gap leads to what also makes Keyleth a very easy character to get mad at- She sticks up for what she believes in and she's thus, not afraid of inter-party conflict. Inter-party conflict can be jarring to watch, it can also be compelling and enjoyable, but first and foremost, it's often jarring. And Kiki gets in conflicts I would say the most in the party, possibly followed by Percy. This makes it very easy to not take Kiki's side, especially because when she battles, sometimes it's not just Kiki vs. One other party member, it's Kiki vs. Everyone. This makes it extremely easy to take the side of the majority, without fully considering Kiki's reasoning. I'll also say that by human nature, it's inevitable for your brain to often take sides. The truth is, in a lot of the interparty conflicts involving Kiki or otherwise, there is no "correct" side. There are merits on both ends, valid points on either side. But our brain hears both arguments, and wants to make a choice and make things black and white. On my first time around, I almost always sided against Kiki. Considering she ends up in conflict more often than the others, this was easy to bleed into other Kiki interactions, staining my view of her character.

I know this is... a lot of text. But the point that I'm trying to get at is that understanding and broadening your context, really trying to think about her reasons rather than going with what your gut says is right is what I think ultimately made me change my mind about Kiki.

Some specific decisions:

1 - Whether to rest in Whitestone during the Briarwood revolt. This is a case of Keyleth vs. most if not all the Party. The Party was down on spells, down on HP, and wanted to rest in the middle of the Briarwood battle at the end of the arc. Keyleth was the only one recognizing that they had uprisen an army of peasants who were, as long as they chose to rest, fighting alone. The more time they took for themselves to rest, which was mechanically the correct choice for the party, the more chance of civilian casualties. This is one of the prime decisions where I shifted my tune. The first time around, I found it very easy to agree with the party that they needed spell slots and it'd be dumb to go in without spell slots. But narratively, Keyleth was right (and Matt actually validated this, when civilians did perish in the revolt), the longer they rested, the worse it was for the army they raised.

2 - One of the dragons flies over Whitestone, Keyleth vs. Percy. Percy advises they stand still and don't jump to defense, because if they do and the dragon didn't see them in the first place, they've just outed themselves. Keyleth is adamant they have to defend immediately, her fear taking over. Considering how powerful and formidable the dragons have been up to this point, her fear isn't unwarranted. It's easy to side with Percy, who ends up being in the right as Whitestone isn't seen, but it doesn't make Keyleth's thought process wrong either.

I know there's specifics in the Raishan/Keyleth segment that could be tackled, but I don't remember the specifics well enough because I haven't rewatched that bit yet. I remember the first time definitely not being on Keyleth's side, but I'm interested to see how my perspective has shifted.

TLDR; I don't think Keyleth's choice are terrible. I think that they can be hard to understand, and sometimes you need to put a little extra effort into understanding them, because she's a character where it can be very easy to side against her. My main advice is taking that initiative to try to think through what Marisha's logic might be in playing Keyleth, how whatever decision she's making now ties into her history, and you might get a better idea of Keyleth in general. I shifted my tune on Keyleth with time, and I really think anyone can, but even if you never really get to understanding her, you're still fine and you're not a h8er because it's easy to tell you're trying.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights: Critical Role Episode 111

Guests are Liam O’Brien and Matt Mercer. Full video on Project Alpha!

Brian: “Hello, welcome to Talks Machina. I am... dressed for success.” Liam: “You are very cute today.” Matt: “I call this look Saturday Darin De Paul.”

Matt is doing much better than he was on Thursday.

Digital copy of the Critical Role comic is out!

There’s now a Talks Machina shirt in the store.

Episode 111 is tied for the most natural ones in an episode.

The show has now surpassed 10,000 d20 rolls. Brian suggests buying @critrolestats​ a yacht for keeping track of all this.

The comic takes place before the game. At the first session, because it was meant to be a one-shot, Matt just had everyone assume they all knew each other and were used to working together as a party. The comic explores how they actually met and started working together as an adventuring party.

Moments they’d like to see from the pre-stream game if the comic continues: meeting Gilmore, finding Percy in Jorenn Village, going after Grog’s dad, the birth of Burt Reynolds, early interactions with the Clasp, the one time Pike and Vax had a solo adventure together. Brian: “Do you think we would have to get rights from Burt Reynolds’ estate to... oh, wait, he’s still alive.”

The pacing of this arc was always going to be different, since it’s epic-level stuff and many of the character-centric arcs have been closed; it’s a lot harder to draw in character backstory the way the previous arcs could. The time-crunch aspect of this particular plot (the villain is actively moving through his to-do list whether or not Vox Machina intervenes) is a careful balance to make sure the players don’t feel too rushed but can still maintain that sense of urgency. Liam: “I am consistently surprised and shocked by everything that’s happened, so no complaints from me.”

If it were just Liam’s decision, he’d want everyone to take a long rest before facing Vecna. He thinks losing Vasselheim might be the cost of actually having a slim chance of defeating Vecna.

Matt’s been slowly been building this last dungeon over the last six months. It’s right up there with Opash’s necromantic lair as his favorite dungeon he’s made. Liam wants to see the dungeon mapped out and described in PDF format at some point, and Matt mentions that, depending on what state it’s in at the end of this campaign, it might be a location in a future Issylra campaign guide.

Matt and Liam talk about how early adventuring in D&D is generally a selfish endeavor, and then later on there are considerably higher stakes. Matt mentions that even in high-level D&D, you want to include obstacles in a dungeon that characters can bypass easily as a reward for quick thinking or just being awesome at high levels. The dungeon is also fundamentally a power-sink where you have to prioritize where you put your resources before the final battle you know is coming.

GIF of the week. Matt: “It’s funny the effect painkillers have on running a D&D game...”

Once the oven had closed, once a round, everyone in the room would’ve taken 1d6 fire damage, then 2d6, then 3d6, and so on. Solving it was meant to be a little more high-stakes, but the party avoided getting trapped in the room themselves.

Matt had half a page of information, a voice, and a name prepared for the nothic that Vax just annihilated. Could’ve ended up being a small encounter or a temporary alliance with a Gollum-type character or an uneasy alliance that could’ve gone wrong. Matt: “What you did was quintessential D&D, and I loved it.”

Liam recently ran a D&D game for his whole family in which his son rolled a d20 on opening a door he wasn’t supposed to go through, forcing him to improvise.

Matt’s been working with Travis to build his next character, and he keeps having to remind him that most characters only have a movement speed of 25 or 30 feet.

Brian: “Like Matt and I, you too can be not in terrible debt and situationally famous without going to college!” Matt: “I cannot support any of these statements at all.”

Vax would be willing to sacrifice even Emon or Whitestone if it meant stopping Vecna, because the alternative is Vecna reigning supreme over the Material Plane... or the Divine Gate coming down and armageddon ensuing.

Fanart of the week.

In-universe flashbulb memory of the campaign: Chroma Conclave attack. Liam: “The goldfish dive will be remembered for millennia.” Matt: “Young druids will be taught from a very young age...”

Matt gave the party the ring to give them a level of comfort in a near-impossible situation, but the risk of fucking it up is what makes it fun.

Liam: “Matthew Mercer is one of the sweetest men I’ve met in my life, but I know within the boundaries of this game that you have this really devilish streak, like an inclination to fuck with us... fucking rakshasa.”

Vax has made peace with everything, but he thinks about the Tomb all the time, especially since the Raven Queen is the goddess of fate. Liam: “As Liam, I loved every dumbfuck thing that I chose to do in this game, ‘cause I’m sitting with my best friends making each other laugh every week, we love each other, we get a fucking kick out of each other every week, and the mistakes are some of the greatest memories of all time.”

Liam’s top priority even way back in the home game has always been that Vax will do whatever it takes to keep Vex alive; Vax still thinks that the Raven Queen will only keep her side of the deal if he does as well. It’s made things extremely complicated, but that’s the fundamental backbone of his character and he isn’t going to mess with that.

Matt has never had players embrace the sibling aspect of their characters to the extent that Laura and Liam have. Matt: “It’s been a gift from a storyteller’s standpoint to play in that space.”

Matt thinks Sam did a fantastic job on his one-shot, and encourages other new DMs to just commit and jump in and see how well it turns out. Liam: “It’s not a religion and it’s not appellate court, it’s just the world’s best game. Just fuckin’ have fun with it.”

Matt was expecting the undead titan reveal to happen in early or mid-July, but it just worked out to happen at Gen Con. Stressful as it was, Matt was excited that he could have such a big reveal at the live show.

Liam wasn’t worried about Simon because he knew it would take more than fire to destroy a magical item.

If the game had continued as a home game, Matt probably would’ve truncated elements of the narrative because they got to play so seldom. Both he and Liam agree that getting to play weekly was the best part of starting to stream the game.

Vax’s "this could be the last time” moments this week had less to do with his imminent death and more to do with Liam processing that in the next few weeks they’re going to be ending this game that they’ve been playing together for four years.

Brian is very sad about the end of the game as a fan of the show; he remembers Ashley coming home after the home game and giving him multi-hour summaries of everything that had happened. The game started around the same time as he and Ashley started their relationship, and he’s really delighted by how close they’ve all gotten since then. Brian: “I mean, we’re practically... I plan on sleeping with both of you on After Dark.” Liam: “I’m open to it.”

Talks Machina After Dark: Liam hosts for the first time!

Liam: “The only reason I agreed to do this Dungeons and Dragons show is so I could sit here, now, and I have you both right where I want you. Undress.”

If Matt could forget everything he knew and join VM as one of his NPCs for the final fight, from a personality standpoint, he’d want to play as Allura or Gilmore, but from a functionally helpful standpoint, probably Kima.

Matt once LARPed World of Darkness and had a very stressful experience where he was thrown into the midst of an extremely political game with no knowledge of what was going on.

Matt’s never had to ban particular items or spells, but there are aspects of the game that require discussion. In a primarily good/neutral campaign, he won’t ban evil characters per se, but he’ll require a discussion to figure out how not to ruin the experience for the rest of the characters. Liam points out that Jayne (an evil character) could easily have killed Clothesline in Sam’s oneshot, but he decided against it because it’d make Ashly’s game less fun and would mess with Sam’s having established that they all survived. It turned out to be more fun having to come up with a reason for that.

Worst possible person for Vax to face as part of Vecna’s undead army: his mother. Liam: “That would fuck his shit up.” Or Vex, if she were killed and then immediately brought back by Vecna.

On the theoretical possibility of a new campaign starting in a post-apocalyptic Tal’Dorei if Vecna wins, Brian: “It would be hard to Transport via Plants.” Matt thinks it’s an exciting prospect, and he has things in his mind if it goes that direction, but he thinks it would be really sad to culminate a five-year campaign with a loss, although planting seeds for the next story could make it retroactively pretty hopeful. 

Liam: “Story-wise, I know that everything’s gonna hurt and everything’s gonna be amazing, and I also trust you to flip my expectations somehow. We just love discovering the story together.”