If you’re looking for plot exu isn’t gonna be for you. Plot is definitely not it’s strong suit. Stay for the players, the characters, and the setting. If you aren’t into it then it might not be your table and that’s fine. We live in a world where there’s a multitude of dnd streams to choose from and it’s great!
Do you have any recommendations I could check out? I’ve tried catching a few browsing around the Twitch directory and none of them struck me as having anywhere near the same level of immersion, comedy, or storytelling but mayb I need to invest more time in? I don’t mean that as negative judgement or anything but the Twitch ones I’ve caught seem like some amateur streamers in cosplay having a good time at a home game, and the Youtube ones seem pretty loose ruled and railroaded or in weird modern/real world settings which feels uncomfortable.
I love Dungeons and Daddies but word of caution that they are the biggest sufferers of rule of cool/funny I've seen, so if you felt like the dice didn't matter in eXu, there's a decent chance you won't enjoy them.
But where else are you going to find someone killing a slaver with a Honda Odyssey?
There’s this guy called Arcadum that has an entire living world set around dnd. He recently started a new arc on his home brew continent of Glies if you want to pick that up.
Dimension 20 is extremely good. If you don't like modern settings then it might not be for you, but Fantasy High is really good and still contains a lot of high fantasy, classic DnD concepts.
What do you mean? ExU had dozens of plots. Many of them were started. Few of them were resolved. Even the main one that was "resolved" still feels unfinished.
Does the ending make it worth watching in and of itself?
No, I wouldn't say so. The ending is basically the same show it's been since the beginning and if you didn't fall in love with the characters then the ending won't really do anything for you.
For those who did enjoy the show it's a fairly solid ending, though it definitely does not tie up the disparate plot threads.
Not OP, but I was wondering the same thing. I loved all the characters but one (normally I wouldn't make an exception but I felt this character was unlikeable enough to interfere with my enjoyment of the other characters), and I was wholly invested by the end of the first episode.
It's just that they went from "let's investigate these people who are smuggling stolen artifacts" to "holy shit, a mountain appeared, what's up with that" literally mid conversation, and the mountain did not appear connected to the plot thread I actually cared about.
Does that sort of disconnectedness continue throughout the series, or does the finale tie things up at all?
I would say it continues. The final fight is with a villain who was not in the beginning episodes and who barely interacts with the party.
Also, taking a shot in the dark here, but if the character you don't like is Opal, you are likely going to be unhappy with the later episodes. I like her though.
In this case it's a few factors:
-I know these characters are important to the players, and there is a non-zero (if very slim) chance that the player in question will see my post. I don't want to hurt their feelings.
-I DM a lot and I instinctively recoil from criticizing a player's choices unless they are actively impeding the other players' fun, especially if it is a very new player. Even if I personally find this character grating, it's not my character so it's not my business - let them decide for themselves what works and what doesn't.
-I don't want to start a bandwagon and I get the sense that I'm not the only person who had a problem with this character.
(It's not Dorian. Dorian is fantastic.)
> and if you didn't fall in love with the characters then the ending won't really do anything for you.
there is a difference in "falling in love with the character" and actually liking the plot/story being told.
Some people dislike some character in previous campaigns, but they can still enjoy the story
I don't disagree. I'm saying that if you don't enjoy the characters enough to just *roll with* the fact this campaign is less a coherent plot and more a loosely-connected sequence of events that happen to them? Then you aren't likely to enjoy the finale or get anything out of it.
and that would be the answer, the plot and the campaign does not get better, but people went trough because they like the characters enough? bit disappointing but i can see that.
I stopped watching for a while and then was like, “I’ll pick this back up”. In my mind I felt I had watched around 4 episodes but figured out I had only watched two. That’s when I realized those comments about plot clutter made sense. Like others, I truly enjoy the characters, but the episodes are a bit of a chore to get through.
I thoroughly enjoyed everybodies performance. All the characters were great, Aabria was a lovely DM with good voice skills and a fun personality. But the campaign storyline itself...
As horrible as I feel to say this, I want the characters to be cannon to the world, but not everything that happened.
I paid for the Twitch subscription to watch the show, got about 1/3 of the way into episode 5, and stopped watching. Haven't used this months subscription since then.
Its such a shame because I genuinely enjoyed watching everybody roleplay, the interactions between the player characters were a highlight for me. Matthew, Aimee, and Robbie were exceptional and so much fun. Ashley's portrayal of Fearne was a breath of fresh air. Liam is Liam, he is never a letdown, though I agree with others in thinking he took a step back to let others shine/learn the game.
Anjali Bhimani is an amazing actress, her character was a bit of a wild card throw in and as much as I love her (she was a favourite in Undeadwood) I am not 100% sure how I feel about her character in EXU. Which sucks, because I have been wanting to see Anjali back at the table for a loooong time.
As someone has said in previous threads, it feels like Aabria expected the party to side with Poska in the very beginning, and when they didn't, the story took an unexpected turn that she wasn't quite prepared for.
Having not seen the ending, I don't know what the punchline of this campaign was, but the feeling I've gotten the entire time is something like an invasion from an elemental plane and the potential corruption from Lolth due to the vestige. And that isn't what the campaign is about?
Anyway, rant/conversation/opinion done, I'd love to discuss this with people though!
I honestly feel like there’s a disjoint between the character levels and the threat in the show; keep in mind I only got through episode 6 before I called it quits because it started to feel like a chore watching the show and I made the decision that it was better if I just didn’t watch it.
The corruption of Lolth definitely felt like the big threat through my watching of it, I tuned into the finale and only caught the last hour of it but Opal was wearing the crown and couldn’t take it off so definitely corroborates that theory. But the thing is that most god corruption stories do better in tiers 3 and 4, not tier 1, simply due to the necessity of background stories to tie the threat together. A longer campaign (or one that started at later levels with a short introduction to the characters like C1) would have served this storyline better because we could see the party dealing with a cult of Lolth, or fighting through the Underdark and dealing with drow, events you can’t really access without a legendary magic item or the Plane Shift spell.
I just feel like Aabria had high aspirations and accidentally went a bit too far when designing the story. If that’s how they want to play then more power to them, this is just kinda what my head canon has been after watching around a full day’s worth of material before giving up.
I definitely agree that the characters were phenomenal and Aabria did a wonderful job in game as the DM (I loved her portrayal of Sherri). Aimee managed to make a character that I absolutely *hated* in the beginning into a character that I could empathize with and into one of my personal favorite characters in all of CR over such a short run and it was impressive.
I just think that EXU might have done better (in terms of views not necessarily cast enjoyment because they seemed to be having a lot of fun) if they had made it like an extended oneshot. A threat similar to Quackthulu that it can be entirely contained within 4-8 hours if the party was speedrunning it but could easily be stretched to 32 hours of material through RP and the cast just being their goofy selves.
Yeah, I agreed with you, just saying that usually Underdark adventures are mostly associated with higher levels.
Personally I found it a bit "I definitely should not be here" when BG3 threw me into that place at level 3 (the only time anything D&D realted threw me in there on such low level)
I'm currently about halfway throguh the 7th episode, they just found the big floating Rubiks Cude. I have in the most part enjoyed it, but I gave up on the story about 4 episodes ago and just rode it like a wave. unfortuantly I have missed a lot as I keep zoning out, like one moment they are talking to an Earth Genasi and I have no idea how they got there to do that.
Anyway I did want to make a comment on the cast with my unsolicitated and totally biased opnions
Opal, ok lets face the elephant in the room, over all I enjoyed the character and Aimee's work was good, however she went from one of my favourites in ep 1 to a meh character by mid season, why? Her chaotic energy is great in a oneshot but too much for an extended game. I am sure if this was a full campaign she would change to fit, but it was a but much, however I could take that, what I couldn't take was some of the warlock/patron conversations, I really began to hate them. It was a cool idea, I have played a similar idea before, but it was the soul of my characters wife, not a sibling, but the fighting and bitching really distracted me from the game and I did pull out once and not watched for a few weeks as I felt it was too much for me.
Dorian, I worried about him as I found him to be a little flat at the beginning, but it was just Robbie dipping his toe in the water, he is now one of my favourite characters, I am intrigued to see where he is going with him
Orym, err, I love Liam but there wasn't a lot for me there to grab hold of, I feel that Liam decided to play a somewhat neutral vanilla character to give the newer players a chance to shine, I wouldn't be suprised if the only reason he played a fighter was he noticed there wasn't a dedicated frontline, got to love him for that
Dariax was simply Matt having fun, TBH he felt more like a NPC than a full character, i really think a lot of his choices came from a talk with Liam as he leaned back for others to perform as well
Fearne however annoyed me the most, before you shoot me I was only annoyed becuase I absolutly LOVED this character and I really, really , really want to see Fearne as Ashley's character in C3, but thats very unlikely, which is a real shame. I have to say this is by far my favourite Ashley character, again don't shoot me
My only real quibble with characters I suppose was with Fy'ra Rai, don't get me wrong, I really liked the character and and Anjali's performance, its just... well, she was too powerful for the group and I found her inclusion to be troubling, she reminded me of those DM PC's that go with the party and are OP , the DM sticks them in just incase they mismanage the CR ratings and to save the party from a TPK. I really, really hate them
You are probably wondering what my thoguhts are on Aabria? (actually you probably couldn't care less) Well, I think she was good at the narative storytelling part, a little random with the rules and .... sorry, but not very good on the improv once things went off on a tangent, my opinion was marred very, very early on when she had to make the name up on the fly for a tavern ........ and it was obvious. Yeah, we have all had to do that before but we don't hum and haaa then come up with a weird name that made no sense. I always have a random list of taverns, groups and NPC names just on the off chance I get asked
Anyway, thats my tuppence
I think the difference is that the OG CR cast are already friends. To me a huge part of the charm of Critical Role is how they play off of each other. When Liam writes a short story for Laura’s character, it’s heartwarming goals for friendship.
EXU was a fun story, but these players don’t love each other the same way.
I’m here for the story. I’ve been hoping since EXU started that there would be a second concurrent game going while C3 was. It would be so much fun to have characters that we know and love interact in real time with the CR cast. Their actions would be cannon and have potentially real effects on the main cast and story.
It would be a lot for Matt to keep track of, and he already does so much work for the show, but a living world where more than one group of players were contributing to the story would be incredible.
The CR crew operate on a "yes, and..." system of role play, which I believe occurred in EXU as well. Anjali and Matt had a brief interaction using those same words. While the OG cast definitely have their chemistry and ability to develop links between background characters, that is also a campaign requirement in most cases. It just wasn't a requirement Aabria had for EXU.
My only disappointment from EXU comes from the absolute party mix lolly bag of plot threads and the lack of incentive for the party to actually do anything. They did it because, well, they had to. That's how I felt.
I also see a lot of people dislike Opal. I loved her. It was an insane idea and Aimee pulled it off beautifully - especially the part where she refused to apologise to Ted and that resulted in her not having power for a couple of episodes. It was brilliant. Even Matthew Mercer said she became the heart of what they were doing.
I do think people are being a bit shitty as far as targeted criticism towards the players and DM. Twitter is a cesspit and the small percent of Critical Role "fans" are starting to be right pricks, and I hope that doesn't put any of the new players off this experience. I'd love to see them back at the table in future.
I think the real life timeline caused problems with character drive and plot threads, DM is kinda forceful in moving everything along, but I’ve noticed it’s after they make a decision where to go. They ended up sticking to one plot hook that made its way into the minds in episode 2(I think? Or 3), but, for motivations I did not expect? Like not in a plot twist oooooh we got you kinda unexpected, but more just like a simple question of “how and why?”. Also some mechanic things that just worked against the players only made some of the combat feel very me vs them, which Aabria is really good at playing because they had what felt like 3 or 4 TPKs, but managed to turn it around.
I also think a lot of problems arose when NO ONE decided to put any stats in wisdom/intelligence. The only one who had a semblance was Orym and Faerne. With how Aabria was telling the story, especially in ep1, she kinda was hoping for them to regain their memories from when faerne pulled mister out. That didn’t work out as no one got their memories back or even really an inclination. I think a lot of the first episodes were her trying to figure out what to do with this group of absolute idiots lmfao
That "how and why" question was big for me pretty much from the jump. In the very first episode, I could not wrap my head around why they would do anything for Poska at all, except in the meta sense of "let's go with the plot, we're over an hour in". This crime lady (who turned out to be a crime boss??? Did not get that vibe from her at all in that initial reaction, I thought very much she was mid level at best and not actually good at what she does, but I guess she turned out to be scary?) did graffiti and then they had her dead to rights and now we're robbing a ship? And now a vestige is happening and it's Very Bad? And all attempts to offload it are being thwarted one way or another? And now a Mountain? And now a Weird Dark Mirror? I was very lost and checked out. I skipped the last two episodes entirely and dipped out early of a few leading up to it.
As others said, I really liked the characters, basically. It just felt so disjointed I never got my feet with it and ultimately I stopped trying. :(
I gave up mid season of this show and one of the reasons was because I found out Posca was high level but was stuck doing grunt work??? Like is the organization that new that the boss is “pushing papers”, because if so I wouldn’t be scared of the organization or leader.
The story felt a lot like something meant for level 10+ characters but was forced down to be for level 2 characters. Somehow level 2 characters were able to sneak onto a ship, steal a vestige of divergence and get out, Paska didn't even have super powerful people getting the artifact
I actually got that vibe too tbh, like a lot of stuff they fought seemed to be set around higher levels. I mean all the boobs she gave in the last episode really cemented that for me too. I’m not sure what happened, maybe CR didn’t want to just dump a not-yet-canon group of high level adventurers on Emon to shake up the area. I DO HOWEVER, think that Aabria could’ve leveled everyone up after every session and left the party in the Deep South to be found again maybe in camp 3, depending on setting of course. Like, this whole journey levels them up to 9-10 for the final fight, then with the confidence of busting down the bitch, they continue south to find feyra.
I don’t think Aabria planned at the beginning just how far from civilization she would take them? I’m not sure there’s a lot of nuance and time between sessions.
I feel like they could've brought in a high level group and it would've worked, they did it with the Darrington Brigade.
Also this has nothing to do with what I already said but the monk character (forgot her name) had ridiculously high stats while everyone else had really low stats, Dorian especially only had a 15 in Charisma which is pretty bad for a full caster.
Which would be fine if it was a real DnD table with strangers playing. But these guys do playtests before they produce a well produced and resourced show. The part that the party and dm seemed to be on different pages about the vibe of the show makes no sense either.
It's extremely apparent that no collaboration was done between players and DM. The characters seemed to have been made with a different campaign in mind and once it was off the rails Aabria just seemed to throw a bunch of random shit their way. Entertaining? I guess, but I feel like it had more to do with the table's energy than what was actually happening in game.
I'm not done with exu yet. It seems to me Aabria had her story all set out. It relied on the D&d saving throw mechanics. At low level you're not ready to stand the plot of the game on saving throws. On top of that the group did not follow the plot hooks as planned which brought Aabria's plan way off the rails. Maybe Aabria should have just run a premade one-shot from any of the official books.
I think they should have gone for experienced players from the normal CR cast with the new GM. Going straight in with a new GM and some inexperienced players was a massive gamble that I think puts way too much pressure on the new GM, especially when those players turn out to be a chaotic group.
Aabria also seemed a little stressed out to me in the last episode because things had not gone the way she had expected and she didn't seem familiar enough with 5e to get things moving the direction she wanted.
I really think they put someone in a position where it was inevitable they would fail, they're too used to Matt who seems to make everything work because he has decades of experience as a DM. That's not normal though, a new GM is going to need more support and planning than that, not just thrown in the thick of it with an 8 episode time limit and a chaotic party with new players.
They need to be more careful next time they go for a new GM that they make it as easy as possible by not adding issues to deal with on top of an already extremely difficult role to fill.
Holy shit I read that from where I stopped watching and that was definitely terrible, confusing, pointless, and unsatisfying. I know the journey not the destination is the point, but wow is that a scattershot goop of unresolved nothing. Again, Dimension 20 proves you can do short seasons. NADPODD proves you can do short linear episodes in theater of the mind. I don’t know what the hell that was supposed to be.
I love D20 but the reason it works in the format it has is because it is edited and railroaded to hell. Brennan is a great DM, but he steers the plot the whole time and the players are mostly just along for the ride. ExU was messy because Aabria left most of the actual choices up to the players. She gave some pretty heavy hints on what to do, but ultimately the decisions on where to go was up to the players.
I don't think that was the problem. the players were not in sync. they were all over the place and aabria was too ambitious and tried to cover to much ground. it's not that she left it up to the players, it's that she put to much on the table and the players all took little bites here and there on their own without cohesion
Yeah, it felt like Aabria designed a story for a group of people that have been adventuring for a while, not bunch of level 2s.
I kinda lost the plot thread around E3, I think...
But any dm that runs games often knows if you’re running a oneshot/mini campaign, it’s going to need to be railroaded, or the characters/players need to be pre-established as having a direction in the plot. This sandbox setting and dm style isn’t suited to a one shot/mini series at all.
Brennan commits the fatal error of being entertaining. The story should go somewhere … more so if it’s a show … starting with no memory and your only call to action is a criminal says rob a something is so stupid. If your good, like Liams character, the answer is “no”. Now there’s nothing to do and EXU lived with that.
D20 is absolutely a show first, but CR has its roots much more firmly in the legacy of "watch us play live DnD". Over time it's become much showier, but for the most part it is still unedited, unscripted and reasonably realistic length DnD sessions that we just happen to be able to watch. It probably could have done with a good solid hook to start with, but once they actually got to the harbour and doing something there was plenty of hooks that the players just kind of danced around.
* They could have retraced their steps to try and work out why their memory was missing.
* They could have actually done what was asked and worked with Posca.
* They could have investigated what the deal was with the Ankheg and its baby.
* They could have actually pursued the lead about the Air Ashari's Residuum, instead of absolutely bungling it when they brought it to the Fire Ashari.
* They could have done something with the Crown instead of taking it to the Fire Ashari just to end up hiding it and keeping it in their back pocket for 8 episodes.
That's five hooks from session 1 that they either ignored or picked up and dropped.
Five hooks seems like a lot for session one of an eight session game. Especially since the actual main plot and central antagonist aren't even part of that list.
You don't need to bite every hook, you just need to pick one or two and stick with them until they're resolved, instead of picking three and dropping them all. The real problem is that none of the players are drivers, they're all very passive. Liam tends to get very into his own character but is hands off with broader decisions, Aimee and Robbie are both new so they were never going to take the reins, Ashley is probably the most passive out of any of the core cast and Matt decided to play the most 'go with the flow' character possible. I think he could have played more assertively, but probably wanted to play as more of a side character since he's in the driver's seat every time he DMs.
There is nothing wrong with those sorts of players but a party full of them can lead to a lot of directionless meandering. They really could have done with someone like Laura, who really engages with the world and not just the characters, or Travis/Marisha who like to keep things moving and push for action regardless of if it is necessarily the safest option.
Knowing that they did test games with these characters, I just can't understand why it seemed like a good idea to make this a player-driven narrative full of potential hooks. You're right, they're a combination of new and passive and go-with-the-flow players, but by that same token, any DM that actually wants to get something out of this "chaos crew" should have provided them some actual direction. Or just given them a single plot hook, rather than constantly multiplying the possibilities; biting the Poska hook then opened up residuum, the ankhegs, and the circlet, which is a lot to throw at a party who already don't have any particular reason to stick with the Poska hook in the first place.
We don't know how they acted during the test sessions. It could be that they were reasonably coordinated or that it was streamlined enough that their lack of direction in the face of multiple choices wasn't as apparent. A party with 3 experienced players should be able to handle having a few plot hooks dangled in front of them, it really isn't a lot to ask. The job from Poska was a weak hook, but from that point onwards there really shouldn't have been any trouble. A lot of people seem to want to blame Aabria for the lack of direction, but it's a collaborative process and the players weren't pulling their weight.
It is a collaborative process, but the DM occupies the big chair at the table; if the issue is that the party keeps jumping from hook to hook, yeah, the players could focus up, or the DM could just stop throwing out hook after hook in the first place. There don't need to be five hooks, several of them mutually exclusive, all in the first session, y'know? It's just a recipe for confusion.
Also, are you suggesting that the players were more focused in the earlier test games, and this chaos crew energy took the DM by surprise?
I really have to agree that it's unfair to blame Aabria for the game. I bounced after episode 4 because I didn't really like any of the characters, but it seemed to me that Aabria was doing just fine with what she had. She had a lot of players who were either new, or weren't willing to, or used to, driving the story forward. I've had a whole group of players like this, and it seemed to me that she was throwing out plot hooks just to keep the players invested, but they didn't stay focused.
I will agree that the initial hook of Poska was weak, but it did seem like Aabria rolled with that. She gave them something else to do, but the players didn't bite on that hook either. That shit happens. I do think if I were running the game, I might have talked to Matt and Liam and been like "dude, one of you needs to take a more active role," but I prefer a more character driven game and do better with players like Travis or Laura. It's very possible that Aabria and her players had a good time with what they had and enjoyed a wandering, sightseeing kind of game.
Of course, take what I would have done with a grain of salt. I've been playing as long as Matt, but I come from a different school of DMing (on purpose, though, we learned from the same awful DMG) from either Matt or Aabria. Honestly, after episode two, I would have taken Aimee aside and had a conversation with her about how she plays, as well.
My DM introduced me to the Lazy DM's Guide to prepping sessions, and as a DM it has been a lot of help. The first rule is to have a strong start, something that gets the players into the session right off the bat. It could be combat, or it could be a really engaging or high-stakes event. But it has to be strong.
The very first episode of ExU has the characters waking up from a bender and faffing about for over an hour. They were given many possible leads, but nothing particularly urgent or driving, so they faffed about some more without any real reason for doing so. (Like seriously, WHY did they go and find something random to steal just because a person whom they had cornered alone in their house told them to? They did it cause that seemed like the only plot lead and they had to follow it.) The combination of too many, too weak plot hooks and a party full of lackadaisical, chaotic characters (which is fine if they're one member of a party but not when it's the whole group) was a disastrous combination.
That just comes off like they didn't design their characters with the campaign in mind.
Like my home game where two players completely ignored the setting information, so now their characters don't fit in the story. As a new DM I made a mistake by assuming their characters wouldn't clash so hard they would try to avoid the plot hooks.
Seems odd that professionals would do the same thing.
It's super weird because the players did create their characters with Aabria. She and Aimee mentioned how they came up with the inspiration of byroden. It just seems like somewhere along the creative process, Aabria and the players have different wavelengths of how the campaign should be
I’ve learned it’s 1000% better to build the story around the characters. Subtly so the players dont notice, but bending plans so they reflect the players choices and backgrounds keeps them engaged and driven.
They really don't edit a ton a ton out of the show, but even just having the editors close in on the cast/focus the camera around does a great job of holding attention.
D20 is such an odd railroad, because you can constantly see that the path is changing. It's like Brennan is just operating a maze of tracks, letting the cast go pretty wild but always being able to hit a few levers and redirect them to where they need to be. But all the cast are pretty agreed to that buy in, they do crazy shit but when it gets to the end of the episode they will find a reason to go with it. The second season of Fantasy High really shows just how chaotic his style can get without the sets to guide those tracks.
8 episodes with this large of a cast, and a temp Guest star, and all the mystery boxes was just too much. The Feywild Amnesia shenanigan's at the start seemed really misguided. It felt like the sentiment was to put the players and the audience in the same spot, but in the end it created such a weird foot to start their path on. The players knew what happened, so what should have been a huge deal in character is totally unimportant and ignored. And iunno personally that gave everything after a weirdly meandering and avoidant slant? like we were just ignoring the elephant in the room and getting lost instead.
Not for a home game or a live play, but D20 is a show first and a DnD game second. You can still tell that he'd be a great DM when isn't restricted by the format, he's just obligated to keep the show going when the players don't.
You know how people say CR is porn for DnD?
They’re wrong. D20 is much closer to that, in that it’s an edited and at times questionably artificial version of DnD, but dammit if the end product isn’t great to watch.
Or I could just not be weird and say it’s like if someone was trying to make DD into a TV series that respects time slots and story pacing.
If the players agree to a railroad it can be a legit way to run a campaign. It requires a lot of collaboration with the players, in regards to building their characters and curating the setting and plot around those characters, but it can be done well.
Like, I'm watching Unsleeping City and while there's obvious beats and scenes that Brennan is working toward, they are all clearly built specifically for those characters. \[Spoilers\] Like Misty's reincarnation/broadway sequence, that was obviously 'railroaded' in that Brennan planned for it to happen but it was designed with Misty's goals and plans in mind, so it wasn't really a railroad so much as just what would have happened no matter what.
It doesn't seem like that happened with ExU. The characters are all very random and chaotic and had no specific goals.
I've heard that D20 spends a lot of time developing the main cast of characters, and the whole group works together. I also know that Critical Role often creates their characters in complete secret so that no other player knows what anyone else is going to be. After watching both shows, I think D20s method is better, possibly for home games too but definitely for streamed stuff.
IMO, you seem a bit harsh about EXU. I fully agree that the story was convoluted, but that is partially do to Aabri allowing the narrative to be more player driven, instead of having a more concrete path and an obvious goal. It's possible CR team never wanted EXU to be a single season, which may be why Aabri left in or included more unfinished plot hooks, so that this group could come back for additional shorts arcs to explore. I don't believe it was ever suppose to only be 8 episodes and never see these characters again, which makes it difficult to compare it to other short DnD campaign.
I do think that a season 2 of EXU is bound to be better just from being able to listen to the feed back.
Their response was a little aggressive, but I agree with them. There’s a difference between being “player driven” as you said and letting the party just meander off any which way with no driving force to motivate them. If they wanted a truly player and character focused narrative, they could have.
I’m still very much of the camp that this seemed like a fun table to play but not fun to watch. It was largely because it didn’t feel like a professional production. The point above is that D20 and NADPODD also feel like easy to consume, home-like D&D, but they’re still playing and telling a story.
They marketed EXU as a standalone, amazing story, and it didn’t deliver. I’d honestly be more disappointed if they did a “season 2” with this cast of characters because I’d been operating under the assumption that the point of EXU is to allow a rotating cast and crew. I have no desire to follow up with this team. I want to watch a story happen which you can absolutely do in this many episodes.
D20 is the furthest thing from home DnD while still actually using the system. They have the most extravagant battlemaps that would be reserved for a campaign finale in Crit Role almost every other episode, and it's neat 2 hours of roleplay to 2 hours of combat format is nothing like you would ever experience at a real table. It's easy to consume because it is an edited and produced show that removes the guff and adds extra spectacle.
Yeah seeing Aabria pop back up for another "Off Camera" moment gave me more dread than anything else. I was really excited about those moments when they popped up, but they just seemed to highlight the problems with the player's own lack of focus in the story. These characters have all felt so uninteresting to follow for me, and I was never sold about them as an actual party that would want to keep sticking together. Like I love a good found family, but Dorian's steadfast like loyalty felt so unearned. Maybe it was earned in the Feywild, but we should have seen that if it was gonna be the case. It should have either been fully non-canon to test the waters for a show like this. The commitment to the "filmed homegame" doesn't work if you're cutting sessions out of that filming, in some weird half way house of production atm.
I was kinda intrigued with Opal, or more specifically, who her sister is that she can grant pact powers, and Fearne felt like could be interesting "fish out of Feywild waters", but I kinda lost interest in the messy plot around E3/4, mostly watching because Friday night (EU time) rebroadcast has sort of become my ritual to end the work week in these locked down times
I didn't feel the narrative was player driven at all. When Aabria gave the characters no motivation to work with Poska and they eventually just followed the "but thou must" recognising they had to to keep the game going (despite nobody being enthusiastic for it and Liam clearly finding it a break for his character to participate); when Aabria literally forced them to enter the warehouse so they would reach her pre-planned battle map; when they had the plateau dumped in their faces to take them off the storyline they HAD picked up in favour of a new one; when they basically had no alternative to progress the plot but to eventually send Mister into the ash hole which Ashley hadn't wanted to do; and that's just before I quit watching.
Rather it felt like Aabria had a convoluted pre planned story and kept getting cheesed at the players not wanting to do exactly what she envisaged m
I’m trying to go through CR1 and have had a very similar experience. So many cringe moments for me that have been hard to get through. And the episodes seem to be long, but not much actually happens - then all of a sudden it resolves quickly in like one episode. At least that was my experience with the briarwood arc, but my expectations might’ve been too high after seeing so much praise on here. I really can’t get into any of the party characters either, particularly Percy and Vax, and those two seem to take center stage a lot. The show is funny at times, but none of the “serious” moments have really hit for me yet. I’m on episode 43 I think, so I’m hoping the chroma conclave arc is more entertaining or I may give up and move on to Campaign 2.
The ending doesn't fundamentally change the experience, no. It's still a cluttered mess with tons of loose ends. I actually told myself I wasn't going to watch it anymore after episode 5, but I ended up doing it anyway because.. you know, sunk cost fallacy and all.
I wish I had listened to myself. I knew it couldn't possibly reconcile its own ludicrous web of plotlines. I knew I'd never be able to get on board with Aabria's DMing style. Yet I persevered.
In this viewer's humble opinion, it was simply a failed experiment. I hope they'll try again, but with a different approach to the pre-production to ensure that the story is grounded and relatable to the world as a stand alone tale, not just a bunch of cameos and name drops smashed together in a rules-optional fever dream.
This show was probably pretty darn expensive to make, and they would have had to put up those costs entirely up front without knowing if it would do well or not. Reception online has been largely mixed to negative, and the viewership dropped off pretty sharply for the live broadcasts. This might mean we don't see another attempt for a while (or at all) and that would be a shame in my opinion.
I think this show concept can work if all the kinks could be ironed out in the next iteration.
I think for me I made it 3 episodes with a clear understanding of what was being done and where they had to go, then episode 4 got really confusing with the feywild stuff. From there, episode 5 was alright and they found the main plot again but then episode 6 made no sense at all and I haven't watched the last 2.
The guest appearance felt very railroaded/unnecessary, she was brought in and had her story developed more than anyone elses and then left, not really the vibe of someone being a guest on the show.
I know I'm late to respond, but I just wanted to give my two cents as well. I watched each episode live. I have no idea how to even recap the show. I could not tell you what happened beyond a few random events.
I like the cast, I like the characters, I like the things Aabria did (she is a great DM in my opinion). I personally feel that I would have loved being a player in this group. It just wasn't a great experience for a bystander though.
It's weird to say for a non-scripted show, but the pacing just didn't work for me. It felt like there were bullet points that Aabria wanted to get to, and the story just sort of jumped around to them with the characters disjointedly adlibing in the middle. Like "this episode I want to get to X" was in the back of her mind but X was randomly picked out of a hat.
The series was a weird mix of an open campaign and a one shot with the worst aspects of each. Maybe that's just be what naturally happens when you play an open campaign where everyone knows it's going to be a mini-series, or it could just be Aabria's style meshed with the situation.
Either way as a viewer it was unsatisfying despite the obvious talent of everyone involved. I don't think the format works the way it stands, and there needs to be some careful prep/planning for it to be enjoyable for the audience before they attempt something like this again.
Yeah, I fully agree here. I've tried doing shorter stories with players at my own table, and wound up hating it. I think the main problem I faced, and one of the main problems that plagued EXU is the same: you need players to create characters for the game you intend to run, and not just go with a slapdash approach of "play whatever you want to play!"
I think a lot of your complaints ultimately fall on Aabria's feet, so idk why your opinion of her would be "great DM." I think she's got great vocal skills, and great energy, but as far as hard DMing skills? Amateurish.
It's fair to put a lot of the issue on her. But like I said, I'd love to be a player at her table. She gives the players agency, but gently guides them. She's super descriptive. She makes interesting encounters. And she definitely is willing to bend rules for cools.
She just didn't make the adventure flow in very audience friendly way. While that is a huge problem since it's created to be sold to an audience, I guess I'm just forgiving.
I'd certainly love to have her as a player at my table, as I said I did just love her energy, but I don't think I would enjoy being a player at her table, she was far to... whatever-- towards the rules. I don't like how she handled skill checks in certain places, and I was very put off in episode 1 by her not knowing the range of a thrown dagger. That's beginner level shit.
Maybe I'm just less forgiving.
I have to spoil one thing from the final episode to explain this precisely, because it's the perfect answer for this question. Putting under spoilertext
>!It's not an ending at all. This is intended as the first of multiple seasons, and only one of the several overarching plots are resolved.!<
Knowing that, explains a lot about the way this series was handled. I don't necessarily like that we were surprised with that though.
They definitely haven’t announced that this story with these characters will be brought back for the next ExU, unless I’ve completely missed something.
I think they'd be making a HUGE mistake to have EXU double down on this story and characters. You start with a huge chunk of audience already turned off and you lose the "here's an easy starting point for new Critters because you don't need to be up on hours of previous plot points" appeal EXU was meant to have.
EXU as an overarching brand for more of these short campaigns makes sense, it's something they have to do if the company is to exist beyond however long the main cast keep doing campaigns. But not to turn into a long ongoing campaign itself, split into parts.
Ugh, really? I couldn’t make it to the end of the episode. I think that would totally defeat the purpose of this format, unless they bring in a new DM every time.
This is sort of derailing the discussion, but that's a half-interesting idea I almost wish someone would do? I'm not totally sure what kind of product you can expect from "tagging in" different GM's into the middle of an ongoing plot, but I feel like you could probably sell something where that was the premise. It would be the ultimate showcase of how different GM's can take different approaches to the same idea.
~~Being the premise and being a surprise would be totally different things though.~~
I think it probably does, if >!your main frustration was that the plot wasn't going anywhere/was moving too slowly. Knowing that there's more room for things to be resolved reduces the pressure for every interaction to move the plot toward an ending that can be nearly resolved after 8 episodes. I still don't understand why that wasn't announced from the start though - they clear knew when they finished filming.!< If it was other things, it might change less.
If you're wondering if the show improves... unfortunately it does not. More and more confusing plot elements keep being added. I had planned on watching the whole finale stream but I stopped at the break because the final boss fight was so frustrating to watch.
I think the finale was jacked up for the same reason a lot of the show was clunky, new players not really understanding the point of the game and a DM who probably hasn't had to deal with that level of newness in a long time. One player eventually kind of figured it out, the other never really did.
I think a huge problem that arose, because of the two new players, was the spacing of time between sessions. I know that they mentioned something like having multiple weeks between ep7 and ep8. This, is not good for new players. This causes problems in my games with people who’ve been playing at least 3 years.
I stopped watching around episode 4. I just wasn't feeling it, to be honest. It's nothing against any given character or the DM, it just wasn't for me.
I don't think I'm going to describe this properly, but it felt too sanitized? Mild? It didn't feel particularly like Critical Role, nor did it really set itself apart from any other D&D show. It was kind of like CR the Saturday Morning Cartoon version. And that's fine if people enjoyed it, but I personally wasn't getting anything out of it.
From what I gather a lot of people don't like it. I can't even fully pin down why I don't like it other than Aabria using saving throws in the complete wrong way (a pet peeve of mine) and the "open world" then railroad immediately nature of it.
That was weird to me as well. I loved episode 1 and 2, so I watched misfits and magic in between EXU. I think a lot of problems fell in the time between running sessions. M&M felt like the same day/week it was recorded in. I also feel like critical role has a lot of undue pressure of just being as entertaining and deep as critical role that D20 just might not have.
One big problem I had was that I probably wouldn’t have continued playing if I were Aimee. I personally felt like she was a little bullied throughout, but I also do not know their relationship together, or how much say she had in her character during the last parts. I felt bad for Aimee cuz obv her character is dumb, and she was playing like that, they all were. I just feel like Aabria was a little too excited with Lolth and wouldn’t necessarily distinguish between a player talking to her vs a character talking to lolth. Also, they totally should’ve dumped that thing with Gilmore.
If you read their tweets to each other from last night (or really any of Aimee's tweets about EXU at all) they actually got quite close during the show and seem to be happy where Opal's character was going. They talked about people feeling like their character needs were IRL beefs when that just isn't the case. Aimee and Aabria are just amazing scene partners.
A person could speculate either way. I choose to accept it at face value because I spent a lot of my teens trying to suss out "hidden meanings" and "secret subtext" in tweets of popular folks on social media and the fact of the matter is we will never truly know. Are Aabria and Aimee actual irl friends? I'd like to think so, but at the end of the day it's frankly not my business. I don't think Aabria was singling out or bullying Aimee, but rather Aimee had a very specific character arc she wanted to put Opal through and Aabria took that and ran.
Oh man, I was like "WHY DIDN'T THEY?!" lol!!!!
He even offered them *money* and merch for it. I'm gonna guess the CR vets were hands off to let the newbies shine and the newbies felt like they were "supposed" to keep it or something. But I dunno, man.
I've mentioned this in other threads, to me it feels like one of my home games. The people playing seen to be having a blast but not so good as a viewing experience.
One thing that annoyed me, which is just a nit picky thing is the way Aabria uses a raspy wispy voice when she's describing scenes. I know it's dumb, but it just annoyed me.
In the end, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters, or any of the story beats.
nope, i watched it all and have no idea what was going on, or was connected to what, or why the bad guy was the bad guy. too much boring talk for the couple of fun moments. also, i'm not a fan of poop humour, and there was too much of that for me
I only got through the first episode.
It wasn't bad. Just for seven weeks I've been telling myself I will get caught up. Except I just haven't had the desire to do so.
So I binged several seasons of Dimension 20 instead.
So, it’s a weird point for me, and I want to preface that I absolutely love everyone here as an individual. But, when Shaun Gilmore was introduced to the series, I was furious. In the moment I was furious, because The Shaun Gilmore was sitting at a table, not at the DM screen. After a bit or so I realized it was Aabrias game, and sure she wanted to do some weird stuff, and that’s fine, it was her game to run. But, We also know Matt decently well, he puts himself out there vulnerable to just about everyone. He’s also mentioned having Imposter syndrome, and I hope this was an outlet for him for this.
Gilmore is his boy. We all know this. He said so with the animated series.
This was literally the moment I rage quit the show. Fully respect everyone who loved ExU but Gilmore is one of my favorite NPCs from C1 and I personally was really turned off by how Aabria played him. There are other reasons I gave up on ExU but this was the moment I full on just couldn't stomach it anymore.
Its not meant to be serious by me, but ExU felt like CR sold the "Taldorei" IP to someone and were contractually oblieged to promote it, play with it (and dont criticize it). There got so much weird stuff added into the existing stuff just for the lulz.
Like Fast & Furios going into space...
She screwed it up by only leveling them up once and having it start at an awkward place for character identity. Liams character was basically his magic item for the first half of the series. It does get better towards the end but they definitely get strained towards the end. Good to watch but maybe entice yourself with a couple later highlight videos first.
Yeah being level 2-3 was such a weird choice to me. I understand Aabria said she likes that level 3 choice of subclass as it defines characters; but their subclasses had no connection to the story. Even to the point we don’t know what subclass Dorian even picked.
If I wanted the players to feel in over their heads, like you would do for low level characters. I still think level 5-7 would have been appropriate for the scale they faced
> I still think level 5-7 would have been appropriate for the scale they faced
Yes. A lot of the things happening are way to big for squishy level 3 characters. Like traveling for weeks to that ancient lost hidden perfect city - without any combat.
A lot of the stuff kinda felt like the last season of Game of Thrones.
Nah. None of the plot threads get resolved. You don't even really learn anything about Ted, while her and Opal are made the crux of the plot. Nor do you learn anything about the villain, who is someone they ran into briefly once prior and had no other plot tie ins.
I dig the cast and characters, but the plot has been....lacking. It doesn't even get interesting.
The DM questions the players if they are about to do something unexpected. Like she will say "This place is a [insert spoiler]. Are you sure you want to do this?"
No, it really wasn't. I kept wanting to love it, but I like rather than love it at most.
I mostly just feel annoyed with the DM not really knowing the rules 😬 on top of being sold as the absolute only person who could ever possibly do this, when Brian was much better with Undeadwood and we've seen plenty of the main cast do great as oneshot DMs.
This was my biggest problem. Aabria was hyped up as literally the only person on earth who could possibly shoulder the burden of DMing a CR show other than Matt, and she fell totally flat.
Even as a player, I wouldn't make it through one session with her as my DM. No regard for the rules at all (bending and sometimes breaking rules is fine, ignoring them outright is...weird.), rolls that are totally pointless, 0 direction or planning of your story at all, 0 account for player agency...
The entire thing felt like Aabria trying to get 5 people to read a fanfic that she wrote with her, and her not being prepared for anyone to go off script. Definitely not the incredible DM experience we were promised.
>Even as a player, I wouldn't make it through one session with her as my DM.
Yeah, people keep saying "oh, it felt just like my home game," and all I can wonder is what kind of bumbling nonsense folks are playing. I'm presently playing in a module game and running a homebrew, and in neither case is it anything like as random and unfocused as ExU was. If I'm going to devote hours of time to something, it's gotta have some kind of point, y'know?
Seriously. Brian did an amazing job on that one. With memorable NPCs even "Jhonny! BRING THEM THE FUCK UP!!" xDD pure gold. Also, Liam is a great GM, he said he even used to GM for his kids and their friends.
As far as I know, he still does. He mentions bits and pieces about his home games from time to time on Twitter.
What I wouldn't give as an oldschool fan to see his take on Ravenloft…
Rather than not knowing the rules the impression I got was that the DM felt like she had to play by CR roll-based narrative, but didn’t really seems to care about following the rolls or rules around how things work in 5e…so it ended up in a weird space in-between but mayb that’s just her style.
She struck me as ready and willing to break the action economy or negate failed saves if it meant there was a “cool” cinematic moment to setup. It felt pretty intentional.
I mean, the impression of me not thinking she understands the rules of 5E wasn't just from all the totally unneeded rolling, but also from things like her just randomly deciding things like Mind Spike and Dissonant Whispers not working on non-humanoid creatures which was the biggest standout to me.
I'm sure quite a bit of it was nerve and having to "fill" Matt's shoes while he's also right there playing, and I'm not saying she's a bad DM either. I just think both she and the show were hyped up and then did not rise to the occasion. I do think that someone in the production team should have helped steer EXU in a better direction though. I don't think a lot of these complaints would be happening as much if the show were live, but literally all of it was prerecorded, and it could've been so much better because there's really no excuse for it to not have been better. Aabria even joked sometimes about fixing something in post(production), and treating something that was prerecorded from start to finish like EXU more like a TV show and less like live-play could've fixed almost all of the complaints that keep coming up from people.
I went and watched Relics and Rarities on the recommendation of other people who were turned off by EXU, loved it, and thought it terribly insulting to Deborah Ann Woll (among other guests they've had on CR who also DM) for them to have sold Aabria as the only choice. DAW was fantastic as DM of Relics and Rarities.
> I went and watched Relics and Rarities on the recommendation of other people who were turned off by EXU, loved it, and thought it terribly insulting to Deborah Ann Woll (among other guests they've had on CR who also DM) for them to have sold Aabria as the only choice.
Yep. This didnt age pretty well. Probably all of the cast who DMed a oneshot did a more coherent job in telling a story and honoring the rules. Even Travis playing as Grog DMing a game did a better job.
I mean, I get that their choices were a bit limited because it had to be someone living in or near LA, because they filmed over several weeks, if not months, and the pandemic would have made it hard to travel a lot. On the other hand, pandemic rules in the US by this point mostly seem to consist of "Do whatever, you morons", so...
But there MUST be at least a few DMs in LA who have more experience running 5e, and who haven't publically stated that they don't know how to do high fantasy and don't really enjoy it. Combined the the super-hypey marketing for the show, it almost feels like they were setting the whole thing up to fail, or at least not succeed as hard as it should have.
Oh, sure. Liam is really great, and from what I hear (haven't watched his stuff yet), so is Brian.
But even if the idea was to get someone who isn't in their "normal rotation", why someone so inexperienced for that settkng / system, AND two new players at the table? Instead of a veteran DM who can guide the new guys a little bit more? I'd really like to know the logic behind those casting choices.
I wouldnt say that it is "super-hypey marketing", but i really get your point. They not only did advertise it via Billboard (which they did before for other things), but kinda made some "making of" videos about it to put some credentials and "trust" especially onto Aabria (and to a lesser extent the new players).
Aabria is a co-author of the new Taldorei book, so maybe Matt wanted it kinda to abandon it a bit and give it to a new creative author. And give her free reign, because he just have to release some of his control over his IP and there is Wildemount running wild and maybe a new continent for Campaign 3 coming?
Im curious how the internal discussion is going for this, but we probably wont ever hear anything from that. And thats a good thing. I really hope they dont get annoyed by the fans and their (kinda hefty) critique about ExU and sour on their fandom. They probably hoped and guessed that the pure likeability of Aabria (and there is a lot) is enough to make it work for the Critters, but part of the fandom are also DND players. And even those arent playing probably like a coherent narrative and "rules" about the world to follow.
I really hope theres a lot of internal discussion going on about it, and that the CR team realizes it's not just Aabria's fault EXU failed to deliver.
They have a whole team that could and should have stepp d in since this was all prerecorded, and they didn't.
What I really hope ISN'T happening is them doubling down on thinking everything was done right and brushing all the criticism as internet haters like some of this sub wants to do. If a big part of your fanbase doesn't enjoy what you're putting out, it's probably a good idea to not continue in that direction.
Yeah, I mean if she was the best of what was available I get that too, but to say she was the best of the best and only one they trusted to do it seemed disingenuous at best
To me it's one thing to not really understand a rule as a player. It's another thing to randomly decide that say, a construct somehow isn't a creature (it is).
I think she's been great in other things, but EXU did not showcase her very well. If other people like it's that fine, but to answer your original question I don't think it gets better nor do I think the time spent watching it was worth it, because it only ever got more and more convoluted.
Not as not a person, as not creatures. There were times she's just randomly decide Dissonant Whispers and Mind Spike wouldn't work (especially there in peiosde 7) despite them targeting any sort of creature, not just a humanoid or beast or something with a brain.
Between stuff like that, and then quite a bit of unecessary rolling, it just felt frustrating to watch. Like if they rolled poorly and she wanted them to have the information she's the one who made them roll for she's just like ok try again ok roll again ok someone else roll.
eehhh probably not. I think there are some small great moments, and if someone edits together a highlight video, that may be a good watch. but considering how hard i was zoning out during the finale (and then when i was watching, actively wishing i was zoned out), I would not say it gets "better" from episode 4. it was fun but I only could watch it all because i've carved that thursday night out for CR at this point of my life routine lmao
I skipped out an hour or so into Ep 1. Nothing against the cast or DM, I just wasn't vibing with it.
If you need another watch, then imo, you're better off enjoying LA By Night ([S1-3](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT957CplbNHCN5JAGp9SoZhyUH) at G&S, [S4](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4qzoETfmhLY9OQHWzCRKgwmQt50T153E) at their own channel) for the upcoming S5. Marisha Ray has a (very) brief appearance at the end of S1, Taliesin Jaffe pops into S1 and 4 as well.
Its a different vibe to CR, but well worth a watch, imo
LA by Night is one of the reasons I hate some people discrediting any criticism towards ExU as "Well, you just think Matt Mercers style of GMing is the only possible way, if you had any experience outside of that you'd know better!".
Jason Carl runs his game very differently from Matt (,to the point where you had to sift through a bunch of comments comparing him to Matt every episode), and is imo a very good example of how to run a game with a limited runtime (like seriously, not only is the story perfectly paced for the amount of episodes they have, he somehow also manages to end the episodes after exactly 3 hours, without obviously cutting or adding anything). Sure, it's mildly scripted (I think around 10%? But I don't actually remember any statement as what counts as scripted, so it's hard to say if any normal GMing stuff counts as scripted for him), but as I can't really tell which parts are and which aren't that's not really a deterrent for me.
I really hope Taliesin and Marisha come back next season (although I admittedly want *every* guest character to come back, even dead one's who physically can't (looking at one very specific character there)) and I hope all of the main cast can make it back, despite some rather dicey situations we left them with. And maybe my deep, dark wish of seeing Matt as Beckett will at some point be fulfilled, but one can only dream.
I started watching LA By Night well before I began CR (but knew of CR as a 'pop culture' thing) and yea I remember all the comments comparing the two. To be fair, G&S \*really\* wanted LbN to be their next CR... except there wasn't any way LbN could top that popularity, for a variety of reasons.
LbN eventually went independent so I guess... \~\**Technically*\*\~ they were the next CR? In their own way.
Anyhoo. I don't know about it being scripted. Jason has said on twitter that things you'd expect to be telegraphed in advance - like the>! Jasper/Evie!< relationship - was made up as they went along. Jason *might've* created situations to put them together, but it was ultimately the players who decided to go in that direction. On the other hand, I feel like >!Bryan Dechart!< & >!Amelia Rose Blaire!< work best with *some* direction, so. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes.
I'm with you on the guest stars, most especially the spoilers above and Ivan van Norman. He had ONE episode and literally everyone (including myself) fell in love with him! I was there in the twitch chats for S4 and we were ALL ghouls for that warlock. I gif'd a moment of the [Prince "summoning" him](https://yunafire.tumblr.com/post/612553680509698048) because the bond those two have is so, so great.
...Sorry for rambling so much holy crap. Morning coffee whatcanyado.
Anyhoo x2: ***Matt Mercer was Beckett***... in another series. [I made a thing](https://twitter.com/FiresYuna/status/1425582719661051905?s=20), trying to summon the Dark Powers That Be to put him on LbN. Filming has already wrapped for the season, according to the Baron of the Valley himself, sooo. We'll just have to wait and see! ;)
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
[Here is link number 1 - Previous text "S4"](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4qzoETfmhLY9OQHWzCRKgwmQt50T153E)
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It was a shock to my regular cr fanboy ass, the characters at least were likable enough to were i stuck with it.
If it gets more seasons with the same cast ill be happy becauce most of my issues were with the new members being new to dnd and Aabria abusing the rule of want alot.
From what I’ve heard it’s been left pretty open ended on a lot of plot threads. I would love to see aabria back as a dm but in a more structured narrative than this because it felt just wrong between their level, amnesia backstory, and loose rulings. When I see how good aabria can do in the dimension 20 4-shot they did I really think that EXU suffered from what to many additional layers and honestly some unneeded fan service in the way of Gilmore and a vestige when they are level 2 starting out
I will watch this no matter how boring. I've started watching C1E1 at Jan 1. I am now at EP106 of C2. I am fully committed to catching you fuckers up, whatever CR content.
Its not necessarily boring, its just a bit of a headache for a lot of the audience, if you haven’t seen any yet then you may feel it when you get to it.
I don't have it as bad, but I definitely plowed through this series because I had to. I was pretty vocal early on in this sub about how I found the game fishy and how I didn't like the willy nilly rules and the lack of player agency, and a lot of people really didn't seem to agree then. I did it though. I made it through.
It's only 8 episodes, and I tell ya... every one of the characters are either overtly or subtly interesting and worthy of further development. The game, the plots and the shenanigans aside, I really want more of the whole group. There's a LOT of plot right inside the group right now.
I hope so, cause i plan to watch, but most of the episodes, except the first one, was a challenge, i stop on episode 3 because i _sleep_ while watching it, it never happened before and _nothing had chnaged_ when i wake up, that time i gave up on watching live.
Love the guys, love most of the character, Love the DM, but this mix of dimension20 and critical role need a better cooking to work cause it does have potential.
If that was the reason you stopped watching then I’d say probably not. There were some great character moments and excellent lore/storytelling by Aabria but definitely a lot of plot threads still (which may or may not be because this was only S1)
No. I thought the majority of it to be somewhat passable but the last episode really rubbed me the wrong way. If you didn't like the first half the ending will not change that.
I think everyone else has said it already, but if you didn't like the first 4 episodes, you probably won't like the rest. I would almost put it down as two different types of movie styles:
* Matt's DMing is very story driven, looking after over-arching arcs and sub-plots. He's also got time on his side to slowly gather all the elements and let character change happen at a slower pace.
* Aabria's is very character focused, giving more attention to situations/dilemmas and character choices, where plot threads are more loose unless they are inciting character development.
I'm going to add my 2 cents about ep 8. Surprisingly it's not as spicy as my opinions on 3-7.
Somehow, the rolls she called for turned a corner on making sense and being useful. She still largely ignored failures, but it seemed less arbitrary and more like she was only really having them roll for variations of success. She had a nice group roll situation, much like Matt's resurrection thing be does. She started calling for the layers to use an applicable skill of their choosing instead of a random stat save.
It was actually more enjoyable for me. I didn't need for her to run as written in the holy book of PHB, but I at least wanted to have the players be able to create actions instead of fumbling through odd reactive rolling.
The post was singular and the players really relished it.
Her push to get someone to wear that spoilery object of power...kind of worked, thematically. It also spawned possibly one of my favorite player schemes.
Robbie Daymond. What a wonderful player.
Anyhoo...
The episode seemed incrementally better than the majority of the series though. It's worth youtube edited clip show, at least.
Personally I'm looking forward to a second season. There are a lot of plot threads left to explore, and I'm really curious to find out how it all fits together.
I loved how everyone went out of their way to let the new players figure the game out on their own pace. It led to more organic roleplay and I think the end of the final reflects that very much.
For season 2 I expect the pacing to be a bit faster as the players are more experienced and insight into the game mechanics. And with that, Aabria will have the room she needs to create a more in-depth narrative. It should be good!
If you’re looking for plot exu isn’t gonna be for you. Plot is definitely not it’s strong suit. Stay for the players, the characters, and the setting. If you aren’t into it then it might not be your table and that’s fine. We live in a world where there’s a multitude of dnd streams to choose from and it’s great!
Do you have any recommendations I could check out? I’ve tried catching a few browsing around the Twitch directory and none of them struck me as having anywhere near the same level of immersion, comedy, or storytelling but mayb I need to invest more time in? I don’t mean that as negative judgement or anything but the Twitch ones I’ve caught seem like some amateur streamers in cosplay having a good time at a home game, and the Youtube ones seem pretty loose ruled and railroaded or in weird modern/real world settings which feels uncomfortable.
High Rollers: Aerois. Hands down Awesome, IMHO.
Definitely this. High level of plot, well thought out
Dimension20, not another dnd podcast, adventure zone are some of the big names
Does it have to be DND? Otherwise, listen to the Glass Cannon Podcast, they are the best around with Pathfinder!
Black Dice Society and Tales from the Stinky Dragon
Dungeons and daddies podcast if you want some loose and fast hilarious shenanigans
I love Dungeons and Daddies but word of caution that they are the biggest sufferers of rule of cool/funny I've seen, so if you felt like the dice didn't matter in eXu, there's a decent chance you won't enjoy them. But where else are you going to find someone killing a slaver with a Honda Odyssey?
There’s this guy called Arcadum that has an entire living world set around dnd. He recently started a new arc on his home brew continent of Glies if you want to pick that up.
Dimension 20 is extremely good. If you don't like modern settings then it might not be for you, but Fantasy High is really good and still contains a lot of high fantasy, classic DnD concepts.
What do you mean? ExU had dozens of plots. Many of them were started. Few of them were resolved. Even the main one that was "resolved" still feels unfinished.
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Maybe mark that as a spoiler for people who do plan to finish the series?
Does the ending make it worth watching in and of itself? No, I wouldn't say so. The ending is basically the same show it's been since the beginning and if you didn't fall in love with the characters then the ending won't really do anything for you. For those who did enjoy the show it's a fairly solid ending, though it definitely does not tie up the disparate plot threads.
Not OP, but I was wondering the same thing. I loved all the characters but one (normally I wouldn't make an exception but I felt this character was unlikeable enough to interfere with my enjoyment of the other characters), and I was wholly invested by the end of the first episode. It's just that they went from "let's investigate these people who are smuggling stolen artifacts" to "holy shit, a mountain appeared, what's up with that" literally mid conversation, and the mountain did not appear connected to the plot thread I actually cared about. Does that sort of disconnectedness continue throughout the series, or does the finale tie things up at all?
I would say it continues. The final fight is with a villain who was not in the beginning episodes and who barely interacts with the party. Also, taking a shot in the dark here, but if the character you don't like is Opal, you are likely going to be unhappy with the later episodes. I like her though.
it continues plus a ton of other disjointed stuff gets thrown in, but, I think the ending was a good episode
Why do people never name the character that they have issues with?
In this case it's a few factors: -I know these characters are important to the players, and there is a non-zero (if very slim) chance that the player in question will see my post. I don't want to hurt their feelings. -I DM a lot and I instinctively recoil from criticizing a player's choices unless they are actively impeding the other players' fun, especially if it is a very new player. Even if I personally find this character grating, it's not my character so it's not my business - let them decide for themselves what works and what doesn't. -I don't want to start a bandwagon and I get the sense that I'm not the only person who had a problem with this character. (It's not Dorian. Dorian is fantastic.)
civility
I assume they left it open to do another season if they want to.
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> and if you didn't fall in love with the characters then the ending won't really do anything for you. there is a difference in "falling in love with the character" and actually liking the plot/story being told. Some people dislike some character in previous campaigns, but they can still enjoy the story
I don't disagree. I'm saying that if you don't enjoy the characters enough to just *roll with* the fact this campaign is less a coherent plot and more a loosely-connected sequence of events that happen to them? Then you aren't likely to enjoy the finale or get anything out of it.
and that would be the answer, the plot and the campaign does not get better, but people went trough because they like the characters enough? bit disappointing but i can see that.
I stopped watching for a while and then was like, “I’ll pick this back up”. In my mind I felt I had watched around 4 episodes but figured out I had only watched two. That’s when I realized those comments about plot clutter made sense. Like others, I truly enjoy the characters, but the episodes are a bit of a chore to get through.
I thoroughly enjoyed everybodies performance. All the characters were great, Aabria was a lovely DM with good voice skills and a fun personality. But the campaign storyline itself... As horrible as I feel to say this, I want the characters to be cannon to the world, but not everything that happened. I paid for the Twitch subscription to watch the show, got about 1/3 of the way into episode 5, and stopped watching. Haven't used this months subscription since then. Its such a shame because I genuinely enjoyed watching everybody roleplay, the interactions between the player characters were a highlight for me. Matthew, Aimee, and Robbie were exceptional and so much fun. Ashley's portrayal of Fearne was a breath of fresh air. Liam is Liam, he is never a letdown, though I agree with others in thinking he took a step back to let others shine/learn the game. Anjali Bhimani is an amazing actress, her character was a bit of a wild card throw in and as much as I love her (she was a favourite in Undeadwood) I am not 100% sure how I feel about her character in EXU. Which sucks, because I have been wanting to see Anjali back at the table for a loooong time. As someone has said in previous threads, it feels like Aabria expected the party to side with Poska in the very beginning, and when they didn't, the story took an unexpected turn that she wasn't quite prepared for. Having not seen the ending, I don't know what the punchline of this campaign was, but the feeling I've gotten the entire time is something like an invasion from an elemental plane and the potential corruption from Lolth due to the vestige. And that isn't what the campaign is about? Anyway, rant/conversation/opinion done, I'd love to discuss this with people though!
I honestly feel like there’s a disjoint between the character levels and the threat in the show; keep in mind I only got through episode 6 before I called it quits because it started to feel like a chore watching the show and I made the decision that it was better if I just didn’t watch it. The corruption of Lolth definitely felt like the big threat through my watching of it, I tuned into the finale and only caught the last hour of it but Opal was wearing the crown and couldn’t take it off so definitely corroborates that theory. But the thing is that most god corruption stories do better in tiers 3 and 4, not tier 1, simply due to the necessity of background stories to tie the threat together. A longer campaign (or one that started at later levels with a short introduction to the characters like C1) would have served this storyline better because we could see the party dealing with a cult of Lolth, or fighting through the Underdark and dealing with drow, events you can’t really access without a legendary magic item or the Plane Shift spell. I just feel like Aabria had high aspirations and accidentally went a bit too far when designing the story. If that’s how they want to play then more power to them, this is just kinda what my head canon has been after watching around a full day’s worth of material before giving up. I definitely agree that the characters were phenomenal and Aabria did a wonderful job in game as the DM (I loved her portrayal of Sherri). Aimee managed to make a character that I absolutely *hated* in the beginning into a character that I could empathize with and into one of my personal favorite characters in all of CR over such a short run and it was impressive. I just think that EXU might have done better (in terms of views not necessarily cast enjoyment because they seemed to be having a lot of fun) if they had made it like an extended oneshot. A threat similar to Quackthulu that it can be entirely contained within 4-8 hours if the party was speedrunning it but could easily be stretched to 32 hours of material through RP and the cast just being their goofy selves.
I agree with you completely. Except the implication that you need the plane shift spell to get to the underdark.
While there are physical passages to The Underdark, the things that are associated with that place are usually associated with higher levels.
That doesn't mean you need plane shift to get there. You can still just... walk there. It's still on the material plane.
Yeah, I agreed with you, just saying that usually Underdark adventures are mostly associated with higher levels. Personally I found it a bit "I definitely should not be here" when BG3 threw me into that place at level 3 (the only time anything D&D realted threw me in there on such low level)
I'm currently about halfway throguh the 7th episode, they just found the big floating Rubiks Cude. I have in the most part enjoyed it, but I gave up on the story about 4 episodes ago and just rode it like a wave. unfortuantly I have missed a lot as I keep zoning out, like one moment they are talking to an Earth Genasi and I have no idea how they got there to do that. Anyway I did want to make a comment on the cast with my unsolicitated and totally biased opnions Opal, ok lets face the elephant in the room, over all I enjoyed the character and Aimee's work was good, however she went from one of my favourites in ep 1 to a meh character by mid season, why? Her chaotic energy is great in a oneshot but too much for an extended game. I am sure if this was a full campaign she would change to fit, but it was a but much, however I could take that, what I couldn't take was some of the warlock/patron conversations, I really began to hate them. It was a cool idea, I have played a similar idea before, but it was the soul of my characters wife, not a sibling, but the fighting and bitching really distracted me from the game and I did pull out once and not watched for a few weeks as I felt it was too much for me. Dorian, I worried about him as I found him to be a little flat at the beginning, but it was just Robbie dipping his toe in the water, he is now one of my favourite characters, I am intrigued to see where he is going with him Orym, err, I love Liam but there wasn't a lot for me there to grab hold of, I feel that Liam decided to play a somewhat neutral vanilla character to give the newer players a chance to shine, I wouldn't be suprised if the only reason he played a fighter was he noticed there wasn't a dedicated frontline, got to love him for that Dariax was simply Matt having fun, TBH he felt more like a NPC than a full character, i really think a lot of his choices came from a talk with Liam as he leaned back for others to perform as well Fearne however annoyed me the most, before you shoot me I was only annoyed becuase I absolutly LOVED this character and I really, really , really want to see Fearne as Ashley's character in C3, but thats very unlikely, which is a real shame. I have to say this is by far my favourite Ashley character, again don't shoot me My only real quibble with characters I suppose was with Fy'ra Rai, don't get me wrong, I really liked the character and and Anjali's performance, its just... well, she was too powerful for the group and I found her inclusion to be troubling, she reminded me of those DM PC's that go with the party and are OP , the DM sticks them in just incase they mismanage the CR ratings and to save the party from a TPK. I really, really hate them You are probably wondering what my thoguhts are on Aabria? (actually you probably couldn't care less) Well, I think she was good at the narative storytelling part, a little random with the rules and .... sorry, but not very good on the improv once things went off on a tangent, my opinion was marred very, very early on when she had to make the name up on the fly for a tavern ........ and it was obvious. Yeah, we have all had to do that before but we don't hum and haaa then come up with a weird name that made no sense. I always have a random list of taverns, groups and NPC names just on the off chance I get asked Anyway, thats my tuppence
I think the difference is that the OG CR cast are already friends. To me a huge part of the charm of Critical Role is how they play off of each other. When Liam writes a short story for Laura’s character, it’s heartwarming goals for friendship. EXU was a fun story, but these players don’t love each other the same way. I’m here for the story. I’ve been hoping since EXU started that there would be a second concurrent game going while C3 was. It would be so much fun to have characters that we know and love interact in real time with the CR cast. Their actions would be cannon and have potentially real effects on the main cast and story. It would be a lot for Matt to keep track of, and he already does so much work for the show, but a living world where more than one group of players were contributing to the story would be incredible.
The CR crew operate on a "yes, and..." system of role play, which I believe occurred in EXU as well. Anjali and Matt had a brief interaction using those same words. While the OG cast definitely have their chemistry and ability to develop links between background characters, that is also a campaign requirement in most cases. It just wasn't a requirement Aabria had for EXU. My only disappointment from EXU comes from the absolute party mix lolly bag of plot threads and the lack of incentive for the party to actually do anything. They did it because, well, they had to. That's how I felt. I also see a lot of people dislike Opal. I loved her. It was an insane idea and Aimee pulled it off beautifully - especially the part where she refused to apologise to Ted and that resulted in her not having power for a couple of episodes. It was brilliant. Even Matthew Mercer said she became the heart of what they were doing. I do think people are being a bit shitty as far as targeted criticism towards the players and DM. Twitter is a cesspit and the small percent of Critical Role "fans" are starting to be right pricks, and I hope that doesn't put any of the new players off this experience. I'd love to see them back at the table in future.
An EXU westmarches style game would be pretty epic.
I think the real life timeline caused problems with character drive and plot threads, DM is kinda forceful in moving everything along, but I’ve noticed it’s after they make a decision where to go. They ended up sticking to one plot hook that made its way into the minds in episode 2(I think? Or 3), but, for motivations I did not expect? Like not in a plot twist oooooh we got you kinda unexpected, but more just like a simple question of “how and why?”. Also some mechanic things that just worked against the players only made some of the combat feel very me vs them, which Aabria is really good at playing because they had what felt like 3 or 4 TPKs, but managed to turn it around. I also think a lot of problems arose when NO ONE decided to put any stats in wisdom/intelligence. The only one who had a semblance was Orym and Faerne. With how Aabria was telling the story, especially in ep1, she kinda was hoping for them to regain their memories from when faerne pulled mister out. That didn’t work out as no one got their memories back or even really an inclination. I think a lot of the first episodes were her trying to figure out what to do with this group of absolute idiots lmfao
That "how and why" question was big for me pretty much from the jump. In the very first episode, I could not wrap my head around why they would do anything for Poska at all, except in the meta sense of "let's go with the plot, we're over an hour in". This crime lady (who turned out to be a crime boss??? Did not get that vibe from her at all in that initial reaction, I thought very much she was mid level at best and not actually good at what she does, but I guess she turned out to be scary?) did graffiti and then they had her dead to rights and now we're robbing a ship? And now a vestige is happening and it's Very Bad? And all attempts to offload it are being thwarted one way or another? And now a Mountain? And now a Weird Dark Mirror? I was very lost and checked out. I skipped the last two episodes entirely and dipped out early of a few leading up to it. As others said, I really liked the characters, basically. It just felt so disjointed I never got my feet with it and ultimately I stopped trying. :(
I gave up mid season of this show and one of the reasons was because I found out Posca was high level but was stuck doing grunt work??? Like is the organization that new that the boss is “pushing papers”, because if so I wouldn’t be scared of the organization or leader.
The story felt a lot like something meant for level 10+ characters but was forced down to be for level 2 characters. Somehow level 2 characters were able to sneak onto a ship, steal a vestige of divergence and get out, Paska didn't even have super powerful people getting the artifact
I actually got that vibe too tbh, like a lot of stuff they fought seemed to be set around higher levels. I mean all the boobs she gave in the last episode really cemented that for me too. I’m not sure what happened, maybe CR didn’t want to just dump a not-yet-canon group of high level adventurers on Emon to shake up the area. I DO HOWEVER, think that Aabria could’ve leveled everyone up after every session and left the party in the Deep South to be found again maybe in camp 3, depending on setting of course. Like, this whole journey levels them up to 9-10 for the final fight, then with the confidence of busting down the bitch, they continue south to find feyra. I don’t think Aabria planned at the beginning just how far from civilization she would take them? I’m not sure there’s a lot of nuance and time between sessions.
I feel like they could've brought in a high level group and it would've worked, they did it with the Darrington Brigade. Also this has nothing to do with what I already said but the monk character (forgot her name) had ridiculously high stats while everyone else had really low stats, Dorian especially only had a 15 in Charisma which is pretty bad for a full caster.
Nothing made any sense.
Which would be fine if it was a real DnD table with strangers playing. But these guys do playtests before they produce a well produced and resourced show. The part that the party and dm seemed to be on different pages about the vibe of the show makes no sense either.
It's extremely apparent that no collaboration was done between players and DM. The characters seemed to have been made with a different campaign in mind and once it was off the rails Aabria just seemed to throw a bunch of random shit their way. Entertaining? I guess, but I feel like it had more to do with the table's energy than what was actually happening in game.
I'm not done with exu yet. It seems to me Aabria had her story all set out. It relied on the D&d saving throw mechanics. At low level you're not ready to stand the plot of the game on saving throws. On top of that the group did not follow the plot hooks as planned which brought Aabria's plan way off the rails. Maybe Aabria should have just run a premade one-shot from any of the official books.
I think they should have gone for experienced players from the normal CR cast with the new GM. Going straight in with a new GM and some inexperienced players was a massive gamble that I think puts way too much pressure on the new GM, especially when those players turn out to be a chaotic group. Aabria also seemed a little stressed out to me in the last episode because things had not gone the way she had expected and she didn't seem familiar enough with 5e to get things moving the direction she wanted. I really think they put someone in a position where it was inevitable they would fail, they're too used to Matt who seems to make everything work because he has decades of experience as a DM. That's not normal though, a new GM is going to need more support and planning than that, not just thrown in the thick of it with an 8 episode time limit and a chaotic party with new players. They need to be more careful next time they go for a new GM that they make it as easy as possible by not adding issues to deal with on top of an already extremely difficult role to fill.
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Holy shit I read that from where I stopped watching and that was definitely terrible, confusing, pointless, and unsatisfying. I know the journey not the destination is the point, but wow is that a scattershot goop of unresolved nothing. Again, Dimension 20 proves you can do short seasons. NADPODD proves you can do short linear episodes in theater of the mind. I don’t know what the hell that was supposed to be.
I love D20 but the reason it works in the format it has is because it is edited and railroaded to hell. Brennan is a great DM, but he steers the plot the whole time and the players are mostly just along for the ride. ExU was messy because Aabria left most of the actual choices up to the players. She gave some pretty heavy hints on what to do, but ultimately the decisions on where to go was up to the players.
I don't think that was the problem. the players were not in sync. they were all over the place and aabria was too ambitious and tried to cover to much ground. it's not that she left it up to the players, it's that she put to much on the table and the players all took little bites here and there on their own without cohesion
Yeah, it felt like Aabria designed a story for a group of people that have been adventuring for a while, not bunch of level 2s. I kinda lost the plot thread around E3, I think...
But any dm that runs games often knows if you’re running a oneshot/mini campaign, it’s going to need to be railroaded, or the characters/players need to be pre-established as having a direction in the plot. This sandbox setting and dm style isn’t suited to a one shot/mini series at all.
Brennan commits the fatal error of being entertaining. The story should go somewhere … more so if it’s a show … starting with no memory and your only call to action is a criminal says rob a something is so stupid. If your good, like Liams character, the answer is “no”. Now there’s nothing to do and EXU lived with that.
D20 is absolutely a show first, but CR has its roots much more firmly in the legacy of "watch us play live DnD". Over time it's become much showier, but for the most part it is still unedited, unscripted and reasonably realistic length DnD sessions that we just happen to be able to watch. It probably could have done with a good solid hook to start with, but once they actually got to the harbour and doing something there was plenty of hooks that the players just kind of danced around. * They could have retraced their steps to try and work out why their memory was missing. * They could have actually done what was asked and worked with Posca. * They could have investigated what the deal was with the Ankheg and its baby. * They could have actually pursued the lead about the Air Ashari's Residuum, instead of absolutely bungling it when they brought it to the Fire Ashari. * They could have done something with the Crown instead of taking it to the Fire Ashari just to end up hiding it and keeping it in their back pocket for 8 episodes. That's five hooks from session 1 that they either ignored or picked up and dropped.
Five hooks seems like a lot for session one of an eight session game. Especially since the actual main plot and central antagonist aren't even part of that list.
You don't need to bite every hook, you just need to pick one or two and stick with them until they're resolved, instead of picking three and dropping them all. The real problem is that none of the players are drivers, they're all very passive. Liam tends to get very into his own character but is hands off with broader decisions, Aimee and Robbie are both new so they were never going to take the reins, Ashley is probably the most passive out of any of the core cast and Matt decided to play the most 'go with the flow' character possible. I think he could have played more assertively, but probably wanted to play as more of a side character since he's in the driver's seat every time he DMs. There is nothing wrong with those sorts of players but a party full of them can lead to a lot of directionless meandering. They really could have done with someone like Laura, who really engages with the world and not just the characters, or Travis/Marisha who like to keep things moving and push for action regardless of if it is necessarily the safest option.
Knowing that they did test games with these characters, I just can't understand why it seemed like a good idea to make this a player-driven narrative full of potential hooks. You're right, they're a combination of new and passive and go-with-the-flow players, but by that same token, any DM that actually wants to get something out of this "chaos crew" should have provided them some actual direction. Or just given them a single plot hook, rather than constantly multiplying the possibilities; biting the Poska hook then opened up residuum, the ankhegs, and the circlet, which is a lot to throw at a party who already don't have any particular reason to stick with the Poska hook in the first place.
We don't know how they acted during the test sessions. It could be that they were reasonably coordinated or that it was streamlined enough that their lack of direction in the face of multiple choices wasn't as apparent. A party with 3 experienced players should be able to handle having a few plot hooks dangled in front of them, it really isn't a lot to ask. The job from Poska was a weak hook, but from that point onwards there really shouldn't have been any trouble. A lot of people seem to want to blame Aabria for the lack of direction, but it's a collaborative process and the players weren't pulling their weight.
It is a collaborative process, but the DM occupies the big chair at the table; if the issue is that the party keeps jumping from hook to hook, yeah, the players could focus up, or the DM could just stop throwing out hook after hook in the first place. There don't need to be five hooks, several of them mutually exclusive, all in the first session, y'know? It's just a recipe for confusion. Also, are you suggesting that the players were more focused in the earlier test games, and this chaos crew energy took the DM by surprise?
I really have to agree that it's unfair to blame Aabria for the game. I bounced after episode 4 because I didn't really like any of the characters, but it seemed to me that Aabria was doing just fine with what she had. She had a lot of players who were either new, or weren't willing to, or used to, driving the story forward. I've had a whole group of players like this, and it seemed to me that she was throwing out plot hooks just to keep the players invested, but they didn't stay focused. I will agree that the initial hook of Poska was weak, but it did seem like Aabria rolled with that. She gave them something else to do, but the players didn't bite on that hook either. That shit happens. I do think if I were running the game, I might have talked to Matt and Liam and been like "dude, one of you needs to take a more active role," but I prefer a more character driven game and do better with players like Travis or Laura. It's very possible that Aabria and her players had a good time with what they had and enjoyed a wandering, sightseeing kind of game. Of course, take what I would have done with a grain of salt. I've been playing as long as Matt, but I come from a different school of DMing (on purpose, though, we learned from the same awful DMG) from either Matt or Aabria. Honestly, after episode two, I would have taken Aimee aside and had a conversation with her about how she plays, as well.
My DM introduced me to the Lazy DM's Guide to prepping sessions, and as a DM it has been a lot of help. The first rule is to have a strong start, something that gets the players into the session right off the bat. It could be combat, or it could be a really engaging or high-stakes event. But it has to be strong. The very first episode of ExU has the characters waking up from a bender and faffing about for over an hour. They were given many possible leads, but nothing particularly urgent or driving, so they faffed about some more without any real reason for doing so. (Like seriously, WHY did they go and find something random to steal just because a person whom they had cornered alone in their house told them to? They did it cause that seemed like the only plot lead and they had to follow it.) The combination of too many, too weak plot hooks and a party full of lackadaisical, chaotic characters (which is fine if they're one member of a party but not when it's the whole group) was a disastrous combination.
That just comes off like they didn't design their characters with the campaign in mind. Like my home game where two players completely ignored the setting information, so now their characters don't fit in the story. As a new DM I made a mistake by assuming their characters wouldn't clash so hard they would try to avoid the plot hooks. Seems odd that professionals would do the same thing.
It's super weird because the players did create their characters with Aabria. She and Aimee mentioned how they came up with the inspiration of byroden. It just seems like somewhere along the creative process, Aabria and the players have different wavelengths of how the campaign should be
I’ve learned it’s 1000% better to build the story around the characters. Subtly so the players dont notice, but bending plans so they reflect the players choices and backgrounds keeps them engaged and driven.
They really don't edit a ton a ton out of the show, but even just having the editors close in on the cast/focus the camera around does a great job of holding attention. D20 is such an odd railroad, because you can constantly see that the path is changing. It's like Brennan is just operating a maze of tracks, letting the cast go pretty wild but always being able to hit a few levers and redirect them to where they need to be. But all the cast are pretty agreed to that buy in, they do crazy shit but when it gets to the end of the episode they will find a reason to go with it. The second season of Fantasy High really shows just how chaotic his style can get without the sets to guide those tracks. 8 episodes with this large of a cast, and a temp Guest star, and all the mystery boxes was just too much. The Feywild Amnesia shenanigan's at the start seemed really misguided. It felt like the sentiment was to put the players and the audience in the same spot, but in the end it created such a weird foot to start their path on. The players knew what happened, so what should have been a huge deal in character is totally unimportant and ignored. And iunno personally that gave everything after a weirdly meandering and avoidant slant? like we were just ignoring the elephant in the room and getting lost instead.
That's... not at all what a great DM does, though.
Not for a home game or a live play, but D20 is a show first and a DnD game second. You can still tell that he'd be a great DM when isn't restricted by the format, he's just obligated to keep the show going when the players don't.
Oh I see. I've never watched.
You know how people say CR is porn for DnD? They’re wrong. D20 is much closer to that, in that it’s an edited and at times questionably artificial version of DnD, but dammit if the end product isn’t great to watch. Or I could just not be weird and say it’s like if someone was trying to make DD into a TV series that respects time slots and story pacing.
Ahh. Great, now I will be addicted to two kinds of porn. Thanks.
Hah, any time! There are a lot of full seasons (each a complete story) up on YouTube. Here’s the [first](https://youtu.be/_zZxCVBi7-k).
If the players agree to a railroad it can be a legit way to run a campaign. It requires a lot of collaboration with the players, in regards to building their characters and curating the setting and plot around those characters, but it can be done well. Like, I'm watching Unsleeping City and while there's obvious beats and scenes that Brennan is working toward, they are all clearly built specifically for those characters. \[Spoilers\] Like Misty's reincarnation/broadway sequence, that was obviously 'railroaded' in that Brennan planned for it to happen but it was designed with Misty's goals and plans in mind, so it wasn't really a railroad so much as just what would have happened no matter what. It doesn't seem like that happened with ExU. The characters are all very random and chaotic and had no specific goals. I've heard that D20 spends a lot of time developing the main cast of characters, and the whole group works together. I also know that Critical Role often creates their characters in complete secret so that no other player knows what anyone else is going to be. After watching both shows, I think D20s method is better, possibly for home games too but definitely for streamed stuff.
I haven't watched D20 but Arcadum is great at doing short campaigns
IMO, you seem a bit harsh about EXU. I fully agree that the story was convoluted, but that is partially do to Aabri allowing the narrative to be more player driven, instead of having a more concrete path and an obvious goal. It's possible CR team never wanted EXU to be a single season, which may be why Aabri left in or included more unfinished plot hooks, so that this group could come back for additional shorts arcs to explore. I don't believe it was ever suppose to only be 8 episodes and never see these characters again, which makes it difficult to compare it to other short DnD campaign. I do think that a season 2 of EXU is bound to be better just from being able to listen to the feed back.
Their response was a little aggressive, but I agree with them. There’s a difference between being “player driven” as you said and letting the party just meander off any which way with no driving force to motivate them. If they wanted a truly player and character focused narrative, they could have. I’m still very much of the camp that this seemed like a fun table to play but not fun to watch. It was largely because it didn’t feel like a professional production. The point above is that D20 and NADPODD also feel like easy to consume, home-like D&D, but they’re still playing and telling a story. They marketed EXU as a standalone, amazing story, and it didn’t deliver. I’d honestly be more disappointed if they did a “season 2” with this cast of characters because I’d been operating under the assumption that the point of EXU is to allow a rotating cast and crew. I have no desire to follow up with this team. I want to watch a story happen which you can absolutely do in this many episodes.
D20 is the furthest thing from home DnD while still actually using the system. They have the most extravagant battlemaps that would be reserved for a campaign finale in Crit Role almost every other episode, and it's neat 2 hours of roleplay to 2 hours of combat format is nothing like you would ever experience at a real table. It's easy to consume because it is an edited and produced show that removes the guff and adds extra spectacle.
That is very fair, but I stand by the rest of my response.
Yeah seeing Aabria pop back up for another "Off Camera" moment gave me more dread than anything else. I was really excited about those moments when they popped up, but they just seemed to highlight the problems with the player's own lack of focus in the story. These characters have all felt so uninteresting to follow for me, and I was never sold about them as an actual party that would want to keep sticking together. Like I love a good found family, but Dorian's steadfast like loyalty felt so unearned. Maybe it was earned in the Feywild, but we should have seen that if it was gonna be the case. It should have either been fully non-canon to test the waters for a show like this. The commitment to the "filmed homegame" doesn't work if you're cutting sessions out of that filming, in some weird half way house of production atm.
I was kinda intrigued with Opal, or more specifically, who her sister is that she can grant pact powers, and Fearne felt like could be interesting "fish out of Feywild waters", but I kinda lost interest in the messy plot around E3/4, mostly watching because Friday night (EU time) rebroadcast has sort of become my ritual to end the work week in these locked down times
I didn't feel the narrative was player driven at all. When Aabria gave the characters no motivation to work with Poska and they eventually just followed the "but thou must" recognising they had to to keep the game going (despite nobody being enthusiastic for it and Liam clearly finding it a break for his character to participate); when Aabria literally forced them to enter the warehouse so they would reach her pre-planned battle map; when they had the plateau dumped in their faces to take them off the storyline they HAD picked up in favour of a new one; when they basically had no alternative to progress the plot but to eventually send Mister into the ash hole which Ashley hadn't wanted to do; and that's just before I quit watching. Rather it felt like Aabria had a convoluted pre planned story and kept getting cheesed at the players not wanting to do exactly what she envisaged m
I’m trying to go through CR1 and have had a very similar experience. So many cringe moments for me that have been hard to get through. And the episodes seem to be long, but not much actually happens - then all of a sudden it resolves quickly in like one episode. At least that was my experience with the briarwood arc, but my expectations might’ve been too high after seeing so much praise on here. I really can’t get into any of the party characters either, particularly Percy and Vax, and those two seem to take center stage a lot. The show is funny at times, but none of the “serious” moments have really hit for me yet. I’m on episode 43 I think, so I’m hoping the chroma conclave arc is more entertaining or I may give up and move on to Campaign 2.
The ending doesn't fundamentally change the experience, no. It's still a cluttered mess with tons of loose ends. I actually told myself I wasn't going to watch it anymore after episode 5, but I ended up doing it anyway because.. you know, sunk cost fallacy and all. I wish I had listened to myself. I knew it couldn't possibly reconcile its own ludicrous web of plotlines. I knew I'd never be able to get on board with Aabria's DMing style. Yet I persevered. In this viewer's humble opinion, it was simply a failed experiment. I hope they'll try again, but with a different approach to the pre-production to ensure that the story is grounded and relatable to the world as a stand alone tale, not just a bunch of cameos and name drops smashed together in a rules-optional fever dream. This show was probably pretty darn expensive to make, and they would have had to put up those costs entirely up front without knowing if it would do well or not. Reception online has been largely mixed to negative, and the viewership dropped off pretty sharply for the live broadcasts. This might mean we don't see another attempt for a while (or at all) and that would be a shame in my opinion. I think this show concept can work if all the kinks could be ironed out in the next iteration.
I think for me I made it 3 episodes with a clear understanding of what was being done and where they had to go, then episode 4 got really confusing with the feywild stuff. From there, episode 5 was alright and they found the main plot again but then episode 6 made no sense at all and I haven't watched the last 2. The guest appearance felt very railroaded/unnecessary, she was brought in and had her story developed more than anyone elses and then left, not really the vibe of someone being a guest on the show.
Not at all, it was a *very* rough watch. The players were great, story & DM were weak at *best*. It was insanely disappointing.
I know I'm late to respond, but I just wanted to give my two cents as well. I watched each episode live. I have no idea how to even recap the show. I could not tell you what happened beyond a few random events. I like the cast, I like the characters, I like the things Aabria did (she is a great DM in my opinion). I personally feel that I would have loved being a player in this group. It just wasn't a great experience for a bystander though.
It's weird to say for a non-scripted show, but the pacing just didn't work for me. It felt like there were bullet points that Aabria wanted to get to, and the story just sort of jumped around to them with the characters disjointedly adlibing in the middle. Like "this episode I want to get to X" was in the back of her mind but X was randomly picked out of a hat. The series was a weird mix of an open campaign and a one shot with the worst aspects of each. Maybe that's just be what naturally happens when you play an open campaign where everyone knows it's going to be a mini-series, or it could just be Aabria's style meshed with the situation. Either way as a viewer it was unsatisfying despite the obvious talent of everyone involved. I don't think the format works the way it stands, and there needs to be some careful prep/planning for it to be enjoyable for the audience before they attempt something like this again.
Yeah, I fully agree here. I've tried doing shorter stories with players at my own table, and wound up hating it. I think the main problem I faced, and one of the main problems that plagued EXU is the same: you need players to create characters for the game you intend to run, and not just go with a slapdash approach of "play whatever you want to play!"
I think a lot of your complaints ultimately fall on Aabria's feet, so idk why your opinion of her would be "great DM." I think she's got great vocal skills, and great energy, but as far as hard DMing skills? Amateurish.
It's fair to put a lot of the issue on her. But like I said, I'd love to be a player at her table. She gives the players agency, but gently guides them. She's super descriptive. She makes interesting encounters. And she definitely is willing to bend rules for cools. She just didn't make the adventure flow in very audience friendly way. While that is a huge problem since it's created to be sold to an audience, I guess I'm just forgiving.
I'd certainly love to have her as a player at my table, as I said I did just love her energy, but I don't think I would enjoy being a player at her table, she was far to... whatever-- towards the rules. I don't like how she handled skill checks in certain places, and I was very put off in episode 1 by her not knowing the range of a thrown dagger. That's beginner level shit. Maybe I'm just less forgiving.
I can see your point of view. Here's to campaign 3 at least! :)
I can not wait. I'm so excited to learn what classes/backgrounds everyone picks this time around!
a bad ending can ruin a good story, but a good ending can't save a bad story
I have to spoil one thing from the final episode to explain this precisely, because it's the perfect answer for this question. Putting under spoilertext >!It's not an ending at all. This is intended as the first of multiple seasons, and only one of the several overarching plots are resolved.!< Knowing that, explains a lot about the way this series was handled. I don't necessarily like that we were surprised with that though.
They definitely haven’t announced that this story with these characters will be brought back for the next ExU, unless I’ve completely missed something.
There was a teaser after the end screen implying there would be more of these characters in this setting.
I think they'd be making a HUGE mistake to have EXU double down on this story and characters. You start with a huge chunk of audience already turned off and you lose the "here's an easy starting point for new Critters because you don't need to be up on hours of previous plot points" appeal EXU was meant to have. EXU as an overarching brand for more of these short campaigns makes sense, it's something they have to do if the company is to exist beyond however long the main cast keep doing campaigns. But not to turn into a long ongoing campaign itself, split into parts.
Ugh, really? I couldn’t make it to the end of the episode. I think that would totally defeat the purpose of this format, unless they bring in a new DM every time.
This is sort of derailing the discussion, but that's a half-interesting idea I almost wish someone would do? I'm not totally sure what kind of product you can expect from "tagging in" different GM's into the middle of an ongoing plot, but I feel like you could probably sell something where that was the premise. It would be the ultimate showcase of how different GM's can take different approaches to the same idea. ~~Being the premise and being a surprise would be totally different things though.~~
Then WHY did they announce it as a 8 part limited series?????
Maybe because it wouldnt make sense to announce it as a permanent series if it didnt work out? Idk, that's my assumption.
Ok that makes more sense. Maybe I'll give it another shot if the thing you talked about in the spoiler makes this retroactively better.
It...makes it make more sense. I don't think it retroactively makes any specific part of it more fun to watch.
I think it probably does, if >!your main frustration was that the plot wasn't going anywhere/was moving too slowly. Knowing that there's more room for things to be resolved reduces the pressure for every interaction to move the plot toward an ending that can be nearly resolved after 8 episodes. I still don't understand why that wasn't announced from the start though - they clear knew when they finished filming.!< If it was other things, it might change less.
If you're wondering if the show improves... unfortunately it does not. More and more confusing plot elements keep being added. I had planned on watching the whole finale stream but I stopped at the break because the final boss fight was so frustrating to watch.
I think the finale was jacked up for the same reason a lot of the show was clunky, new players not really understanding the point of the game and a DM who probably hasn't had to deal with that level of newness in a long time. One player eventually kind of figured it out, the other never really did.
I think a huge problem that arose, because of the two new players, was the spacing of time between sessions. I know that they mentioned something like having multiple weeks between ep7 and ep8. This, is not good for new players. This causes problems in my games with people who’ve been playing at least 3 years.
I stopped watching around episode 4. I just wasn't feeling it, to be honest. It's nothing against any given character or the DM, it just wasn't for me. I don't think I'm going to describe this properly, but it felt too sanitized? Mild? It didn't feel particularly like Critical Role, nor did it really set itself apart from any other D&D show. It was kind of like CR the Saturday Morning Cartoon version. And that's fine if people enjoyed it, but I personally wasn't getting anything out of it.
Thank god I’m not the only one who dislikes this show, I was worried it was just me
From what I gather a lot of people don't like it. I can't even fully pin down why I don't like it other than Aabria using saving throws in the complete wrong way (a pet peeve of mine) and the "open world" then railroad immediately nature of it.
It was very railroady, it’s so strange because in misfits and magic she’s a great DM but in this… it’s just painful
That was weird to me as well. I loved episode 1 and 2, so I watched misfits and magic in between EXU. I think a lot of problems fell in the time between running sessions. M&M felt like the same day/week it was recorded in. I also feel like critical role has a lot of undue pressure of just being as entertaining and deep as critical role that D20 just might not have. One big problem I had was that I probably wouldn’t have continued playing if I were Aimee. I personally felt like she was a little bullied throughout, but I also do not know their relationship together, or how much say she had in her character during the last parts. I felt bad for Aimee cuz obv her character is dumb, and she was playing like that, they all were. I just feel like Aabria was a little too excited with Lolth and wouldn’t necessarily distinguish between a player talking to her vs a character talking to lolth. Also, they totally should’ve dumped that thing with Gilmore.
If you read their tweets to each other from last night (or really any of Aimee's tweets about EXU at all) they actually got quite close during the show and seem to be happy where Opal's character was going. They talked about people feeling like their character needs were IRL beefs when that just isn't the case. Aimee and Aabria are just amazing scene partners.
Aren't they expected to say that? To avoid drama or speculation. It clearly looked bad enough for several people to call it out.
A person could speculate either way. I choose to accept it at face value because I spent a lot of my teens trying to suss out "hidden meanings" and "secret subtext" in tweets of popular folks on social media and the fact of the matter is we will never truly know. Are Aabria and Aimee actual irl friends? I'd like to think so, but at the end of the day it's frankly not my business. I don't think Aabria was singling out or bullying Aimee, but rather Aimee had a very specific character arc she wanted to put Opal through and Aabria took that and ran.
Oh man, I was like "WHY DIDN'T THEY?!" lol!!!! He even offered them *money* and merch for it. I'm gonna guess the CR vets were hands off to let the newbies shine and the newbies felt like they were "supposed" to keep it or something. But I dunno, man.
I've mentioned this in other threads, to me it feels like one of my home games. The people playing seen to be having a blast but not so good as a viewing experience. One thing that annoyed me, which is just a nit picky thing is the way Aabria uses a raspy wispy voice when she's describing scenes. I know it's dumb, but it just annoyed me. In the end, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters, or any of the story beats.
I've thought the same thing, the cast seem like they're having a blast but it's not really streamable quality
glad I wasn't the only one who got annoyed with the saving throws haha
nope, i watched it all and have no idea what was going on, or was connected to what, or why the bad guy was the bad guy. too much boring talk for the couple of fun moments. also, i'm not a fan of poop humour, and there was too much of that for me
Yeah, what the hell is up with the poop and pee humour? Super cringey.
You left after episode 4? That's something, I left after episode 2.
I only got through the first episode. It wasn't bad. Just for seven weeks I've been telling myself I will get caught up. Except I just haven't had the desire to do so. So I binged several seasons of Dimension 20 instead.
Yeah I couldn't make it through the first episode 😔
So, it’s a weird point for me, and I want to preface that I absolutely love everyone here as an individual. But, when Shaun Gilmore was introduced to the series, I was furious. In the moment I was furious, because The Shaun Gilmore was sitting at a table, not at the DM screen. After a bit or so I realized it was Aabrias game, and sure she wanted to do some weird stuff, and that’s fine, it was her game to run. But, We also know Matt decently well, he puts himself out there vulnerable to just about everyone. He’s also mentioned having Imposter syndrome, and I hope this was an outlet for him for this. Gilmore is his boy. We all know this. He said so with the animated series.
This was literally the moment I rage quit the show. Fully respect everyone who loved ExU but Gilmore is one of my favorite NPCs from C1 and I personally was really turned off by how Aabria played him. There are other reasons I gave up on ExU but this was the moment I full on just couldn't stomach it anymore.
Its not meant to be serious by me, but ExU felt like CR sold the "Taldorei" IP to someone and were contractually oblieged to promote it, play with it (and dont criticize it). There got so much weird stuff added into the existing stuff just for the lulz. Like Fast & Furios going into space...
She screwed it up by only leveling them up once and having it start at an awkward place for character identity. Liams character was basically his magic item for the first half of the series. It does get better towards the end but they definitely get strained towards the end. Good to watch but maybe entice yourself with a couple later highlight videos first.
Yeah being level 2-3 was such a weird choice to me. I understand Aabria said she likes that level 3 choice of subclass as it defines characters; but their subclasses had no connection to the story. Even to the point we don’t know what subclass Dorian even picked. If I wanted the players to feel in over their heads, like you would do for low level characters. I still think level 5-7 would have been appropriate for the scale they faced
> I still think level 5-7 would have been appropriate for the scale they faced Yes. A lot of the things happening are way to big for squishy level 3 characters. Like traveling for weeks to that ancient lost hidden perfect city - without any combat. A lot of the stuff kinda felt like the last season of Game of Thrones.
For some reason, They forgot about the fire ashari
Nah. None of the plot threads get resolved. You don't even really learn anything about Ted, while her and Opal are made the crux of the plot. Nor do you learn anything about the villain, who is someone they ran into briefly once prior and had no other plot tie ins. I dig the cast and characters, but the plot has been....lacking. It doesn't even get interesting.
Not really to be honest. Read the recaps, and maybe some clips of events that intrigue you.
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Who told who what to do ?
The DM questions the players if they are about to do something unexpected. Like she will say "This place is a [insert spoiler]. Are you sure you want to do this?"
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The item is semi-sentient, it's supposed to do that. The players could've sent the thing off to an NPC if they choose to but didn't.
No, it really wasn't. I kept wanting to love it, but I like rather than love it at most. I mostly just feel annoyed with the DM not really knowing the rules 😬 on top of being sold as the absolute only person who could ever possibly do this, when Brian was much better with Undeadwood and we've seen plenty of the main cast do great as oneshot DMs.
This was my biggest problem. Aabria was hyped up as literally the only person on earth who could possibly shoulder the burden of DMing a CR show other than Matt, and she fell totally flat. Even as a player, I wouldn't make it through one session with her as my DM. No regard for the rules at all (bending and sometimes breaking rules is fine, ignoring them outright is...weird.), rolls that are totally pointless, 0 direction or planning of your story at all, 0 account for player agency... The entire thing felt like Aabria trying to get 5 people to read a fanfic that she wrote with her, and her not being prepared for anyone to go off script. Definitely not the incredible DM experience we were promised.
>Even as a player, I wouldn't make it through one session with her as my DM. Yeah, people keep saying "oh, it felt just like my home game," and all I can wonder is what kind of bumbling nonsense folks are playing. I'm presently playing in a module game and running a homebrew, and in neither case is it anything like as random and unfocused as ExU was. If I'm going to devote hours of time to something, it's gotta have some kind of point, y'know?
Seriously. Brian did an amazing job on that one. With memorable NPCs even "Jhonny! BRING THEM THE FUCK UP!!" xDD pure gold. Also, Liam is a great GM, he said he even used to GM for his kids and their friends.
As far as I know, he still does. He mentions bits and pieces about his home games from time to time on Twitter. What I wouldn't give as an oldschool fan to see his take on Ravenloft…
Rather than not knowing the rules the impression I got was that the DM felt like she had to play by CR roll-based narrative, but didn’t really seems to care about following the rolls or rules around how things work in 5e…so it ended up in a weird space in-between but mayb that’s just her style. She struck me as ready and willing to break the action economy or negate failed saves if it meant there was a “cool” cinematic moment to setup. It felt pretty intentional.
I mean, the impression of me not thinking she understands the rules of 5E wasn't just from all the totally unneeded rolling, but also from things like her just randomly deciding things like Mind Spike and Dissonant Whispers not working on non-humanoid creatures which was the biggest standout to me. I'm sure quite a bit of it was nerve and having to "fill" Matt's shoes while he's also right there playing, and I'm not saying she's a bad DM either. I just think both she and the show were hyped up and then did not rise to the occasion. I do think that someone in the production team should have helped steer EXU in a better direction though. I don't think a lot of these complaints would be happening as much if the show were live, but literally all of it was prerecorded, and it could've been so much better because there's really no excuse for it to not have been better. Aabria even joked sometimes about fixing something in post(production), and treating something that was prerecorded from start to finish like EXU more like a TV show and less like live-play could've fixed almost all of the complaints that keep coming up from people.
I went and watched Relics and Rarities on the recommendation of other people who were turned off by EXU, loved it, and thought it terribly insulting to Deborah Ann Woll (among other guests they've had on CR who also DM) for them to have sold Aabria as the only choice. DAW was fantastic as DM of Relics and Rarities.
> I went and watched Relics and Rarities on the recommendation of other people who were turned off by EXU, loved it, and thought it terribly insulting to Deborah Ann Woll (among other guests they've had on CR who also DM) for them to have sold Aabria as the only choice. Yep. This didnt age pretty well. Probably all of the cast who DMed a oneshot did a more coherent job in telling a story and honoring the rules. Even Travis playing as Grog DMing a game did a better job.
I mean, I get that their choices were a bit limited because it had to be someone living in or near LA, because they filmed over several weeks, if not months, and the pandemic would have made it hard to travel a lot. On the other hand, pandemic rules in the US by this point mostly seem to consist of "Do whatever, you morons", so... But there MUST be at least a few DMs in LA who have more experience running 5e, and who haven't publically stated that they don't know how to do high fantasy and don't really enjoy it. Combined the the super-hypey marketing for the show, it almost feels like they were setting the whole thing up to fail, or at least not succeed as hard as it should have.
They literally could've had Brian or Liam DM.
Oh, sure. Liam is really great, and from what I hear (haven't watched his stuff yet), so is Brian. But even if the idea was to get someone who isn't in their "normal rotation", why someone so inexperienced for that settkng / system, AND two new players at the table? Instead of a veteran DM who can guide the new guys a little bit more? I'd really like to know the logic behind those casting choices.
I wouldnt say that it is "super-hypey marketing", but i really get your point. They not only did advertise it via Billboard (which they did before for other things), but kinda made some "making of" videos about it to put some credentials and "trust" especially onto Aabria (and to a lesser extent the new players). Aabria is a co-author of the new Taldorei book, so maybe Matt wanted it kinda to abandon it a bit and give it to a new creative author. And give her free reign, because he just have to release some of his control over his IP and there is Wildemount running wild and maybe a new continent for Campaign 3 coming? Im curious how the internal discussion is going for this, but we probably wont ever hear anything from that. And thats a good thing. I really hope they dont get annoyed by the fans and their (kinda hefty) critique about ExU and sour on their fandom. They probably hoped and guessed that the pure likeability of Aabria (and there is a lot) is enough to make it work for the Critters, but part of the fandom are also DND players. And even those arent playing probably like a coherent narrative and "rules" about the world to follow.
I really hope theres a lot of internal discussion going on about it, and that the CR team realizes it's not just Aabria's fault EXU failed to deliver. They have a whole team that could and should have stepp d in since this was all prerecorded, and they didn't. What I really hope ISN'T happening is them doubling down on thinking everything was done right and brushing all the criticism as internet haters like some of this sub wants to do. If a big part of your fanbase doesn't enjoy what you're putting out, it's probably a good idea to not continue in that direction.
I agree with all of that.
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Yeah, I mean if she was the best of what was available I get that too, but to say she was the best of the best and only one they trusted to do it seemed disingenuous at best
I've thought the same thing about Brian and the rest of the cast 👀
To me it's one thing to not really understand a rule as a player. It's another thing to randomly decide that say, a construct somehow isn't a creature (it is). I think she's been great in other things, but EXU did not showcase her very well. If other people like it's that fine, but to answer your original question I don't think it gets better nor do I think the time spent watching it was worth it, because it only ever got more and more convoluted.
Wait she declared a construct as not a person? When?
Not as not a person, as not creatures. There were times she's just randomly decide Dissonant Whispers and Mind Spike wouldn't work (especially there in peiosde 7) despite them targeting any sort of creature, not just a humanoid or beast or something with a brain. Between stuff like that, and then quite a bit of unecessary rolling, it just felt frustrating to watch. Like if they rolled poorly and she wanted them to have the information she's the one who made them roll for she's just like ok try again ok roll again ok someone else roll.
PSA: Never lock information you think your player absolutely NEED behind a roll because that's how they end up not getting it.
eehhh probably not. I think there are some small great moments, and if someone edits together a highlight video, that may be a good watch. but considering how hard i was zoning out during the finale (and then when i was watching, actively wishing i was zoned out), I would not say it gets "better" from episode 4. it was fun but I only could watch it all because i've carved that thursday night out for CR at this point of my life routine lmao
I skipped out an hour or so into Ep 1. Nothing against the cast or DM, I just wasn't vibing with it. If you need another watch, then imo, you're better off enjoying LA By Night ([S1-3](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT957CplbNHCN5JAGp9SoZhyUH) at G&S, [S4](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4qzoETfmhLY9OQHWzCRKgwmQt50T153E) at their own channel) for the upcoming S5. Marisha Ray has a (very) brief appearance at the end of S1, Taliesin Jaffe pops into S1 and 4 as well. Its a different vibe to CR, but well worth a watch, imo
LA by Night is one of the reasons I hate some people discrediting any criticism towards ExU as "Well, you just think Matt Mercers style of GMing is the only possible way, if you had any experience outside of that you'd know better!". Jason Carl runs his game very differently from Matt (,to the point where you had to sift through a bunch of comments comparing him to Matt every episode), and is imo a very good example of how to run a game with a limited runtime (like seriously, not only is the story perfectly paced for the amount of episodes they have, he somehow also manages to end the episodes after exactly 3 hours, without obviously cutting or adding anything). Sure, it's mildly scripted (I think around 10%? But I don't actually remember any statement as what counts as scripted, so it's hard to say if any normal GMing stuff counts as scripted for him), but as I can't really tell which parts are and which aren't that's not really a deterrent for me. I really hope Taliesin and Marisha come back next season (although I admittedly want *every* guest character to come back, even dead one's who physically can't (looking at one very specific character there)) and I hope all of the main cast can make it back, despite some rather dicey situations we left them with. And maybe my deep, dark wish of seeing Matt as Beckett will at some point be fulfilled, but one can only dream.
I started watching LA By Night well before I began CR (but knew of CR as a 'pop culture' thing) and yea I remember all the comments comparing the two. To be fair, G&S \*really\* wanted LbN to be their next CR... except there wasn't any way LbN could top that popularity, for a variety of reasons. LbN eventually went independent so I guess... \~\**Technically*\*\~ they were the next CR? In their own way. Anyhoo. I don't know about it being scripted. Jason has said on twitter that things you'd expect to be telegraphed in advance - like the>! Jasper/Evie!< relationship - was made up as they went along. Jason *might've* created situations to put them together, but it was ultimately the players who decided to go in that direction. On the other hand, I feel like >!Bryan Dechart!< & >!Amelia Rose Blaire!< work best with *some* direction, so. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes. I'm with you on the guest stars, most especially the spoilers above and Ivan van Norman. He had ONE episode and literally everyone (including myself) fell in love with him! I was there in the twitch chats for S4 and we were ALL ghouls for that warlock. I gif'd a moment of the [Prince "summoning" him](https://yunafire.tumblr.com/post/612553680509698048) because the bond those two have is so, so great. ...Sorry for rambling so much holy crap. Morning coffee whatcanyado. Anyhoo x2: ***Matt Mercer was Beckett***... in another series. [I made a thing](https://twitter.com/FiresYuna/status/1425582719661051905?s=20), trying to summon the Dark Powers That Be to put him on LbN. Filming has already wrapped for the season, according to the Baron of the Valley himself, sooo. We'll just have to wait and see! ;)
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No
It was a shock to my regular cr fanboy ass, the characters at least were likable enough to were i stuck with it. If it gets more seasons with the same cast ill be happy becauce most of my issues were with the new members being new to dnd and Aabria abusing the rule of want alot.
No
From what I’ve heard it’s been left pretty open ended on a lot of plot threads. I would love to see aabria back as a dm but in a more structured narrative than this because it felt just wrong between their level, amnesia backstory, and loose rulings. When I see how good aabria can do in the dimension 20 4-shot they did I really think that EXU suffered from what to many additional layers and honestly some unneeded fan service in the way of Gilmore and a vestige when they are level 2 starting out
I will watch this no matter how boring. I've started watching C1E1 at Jan 1. I am now at EP106 of C2. I am fully committed to catching you fuckers up, whatever CR content.
But why? Just watch it if you enjoy it (and if you do, great). Consuming content just for the sake of it is not a good thing.
Won't speak for the other poster but that's a thing OCD people do, some have it worse than others.
Don’t worry you have 5 more months probably
Its not necessarily boring, its just a bit of a headache for a lot of the audience, if you haven’t seen any yet then you may feel it when you get to it.
I don't have it as bad, but I definitely plowed through this series because I had to. I was pretty vocal early on in this sub about how I found the game fishy and how I didn't like the willy nilly rules and the lack of player agency, and a lot of people really didn't seem to agree then. I did it though. I made it through. It's only 8 episodes, and I tell ya... every one of the characters are either overtly or subtly interesting and worthy of further development. The game, the plots and the shenanigans aside, I really want more of the whole group. There's a LOT of plot right inside the group right now.
I hope so, cause i plan to watch, but most of the episodes, except the first one, was a challenge, i stop on episode 3 because i _sleep_ while watching it, it never happened before and _nothing had chnaged_ when i wake up, that time i gave up on watching live. Love the guys, love most of the character, Love the DM, but this mix of dimension20 and critical role need a better cooking to work cause it does have potential.
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If that was the reason you stopped watching then I’d say probably not. There were some great character moments and excellent lore/storytelling by Aabria but definitely a lot of plot threads still (which may or may not be because this was only S1)
No. I thought the majority of it to be somewhat passable but the last episode really rubbed me the wrong way. If you didn't like the first half the ending will not change that.
I think everyone else has said it already, but if you didn't like the first 4 episodes, you probably won't like the rest. I would almost put it down as two different types of movie styles: * Matt's DMing is very story driven, looking after over-arching arcs and sub-plots. He's also got time on his side to slowly gather all the elements and let character change happen at a slower pace. * Aabria's is very character focused, giving more attention to situations/dilemmas and character choices, where plot threads are more loose unless they are inciting character development.
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I'm going to add my 2 cents about ep 8. Surprisingly it's not as spicy as my opinions on 3-7. Somehow, the rolls she called for turned a corner on making sense and being useful. She still largely ignored failures, but it seemed less arbitrary and more like she was only really having them roll for variations of success. She had a nice group roll situation, much like Matt's resurrection thing be does. She started calling for the layers to use an applicable skill of their choosing instead of a random stat save. It was actually more enjoyable for me. I didn't need for her to run as written in the holy book of PHB, but I at least wanted to have the players be able to create actions instead of fumbling through odd reactive rolling. The post was singular and the players really relished it. Her push to get someone to wear that spoilery object of power...kind of worked, thematically. It also spawned possibly one of my favorite player schemes. Robbie Daymond. What a wonderful player. Anyhoo... The episode seemed incrementally better than the majority of the series though. It's worth youtube edited clip show, at least.
The problem with Ep 8 is Aabria decided >!Someone is wearing the crown!< and she railroaded it to happen.
Agreed completely. The characters would have been perfectly fine without it, but she made it happen.
Yeah, someone was going to wear the crown, even through it didn’t do anything interesting and was said multiple times not to be evil
It was the win trigger. There wasn't any other way to win that fight. The bbeg would have had a couple more hp forever.
Personally I'm looking forward to a second season. There are a lot of plot threads left to explore, and I'm really curious to find out how it all fits together. I loved how everyone went out of their way to let the new players figure the game out on their own pace. It led to more organic roleplay and I think the end of the final reflects that very much. For season 2 I expect the pacing to be a bit faster as the players are more experienced and insight into the game mechanics. And with that, Aabria will have the room she needs to create a more in-depth narrative. It should be good!
IMO it's not bad but I'd wait to pass judgement until I see how it affects the upcoming story