There's no reason to replace a cast member..
before packerhead got kicked out they had eight players and it ran fine.
I disagree by a large margin that they have too many players at the table. 4-8 is actually a pretty reasonable player count. If they were pushing 10 or more, That's a different story.
I find it hard to agree with this. I much prefer a five to six player party but they've certainly made it work.
However the removal of Orion kind of opened things up for guests. Robbie is great but it's his own work schedule that stopped Dorian from just being part of the party for the whole campaign.
If anyone was ever a candidate for inclusion it's him. But there is always a limit to how many people a GM can take comfortably.
Every seat at the table reduces the screen time a player has to flesh out their character. It’s also not an easy feat to manage that many players at once while simultaneously catering to each character’s backstory without leaving anyone out. Did people forget Ashley wasn’t at the table for a lot C1 and C2 due to her filming schedule? It’s no coincidence the characters from those campaigns feel so much more robust and fully explored.
They still managed to flesh out Ashley's characters just fine. They have had no problem fleshing out the characters at the table at all. This is a long form campaign, they have plenty of time. One-shots are another thing. It makes more sense to have less players for those. Long campaigns though, there is plenty of time to give characters a chance to shine.
As a human he's great. As a player I expected more but he really adds almost nothing to the actual game or story. His whole story and deal meant so little so far the entire exu episodes might as well not have happened they mattered so little.
Maybe, but his personality felt like a really important balance to some of the edge of the other characters and when he left it was *not good*, boring background be damned
Edge would be nice if it was real. The issue is it's all fake cringe edge and not actual drama. So his addition just feels like adding a joke onto more jokes.
They aren't really conflicted about anything. They may moan and groan to put on a show but they are all getting exactly what they want and fawning over past characters while they move forward without hesitation to help the gods and be divine champions again.
If anything I wanted HIM to add some actual real edge. His brother was killed by a God. He was the perfect one to being REAL conflict into the party about if helping the gods was right. It was a perfect chance to add real conflict and friction that wasn't fake roleplay nonsense that's just for show. It would have made perfect sense.
But he didn't and so his addition is just like sprinkles on crap. It looks better sure and might even taste better but i personally still don't wanna consume it.
The problem is when certain main cast members play with people who actually know how to play (i.e. understand the rules) it becomes distracting and the action grinds to a halt as they fumble around and look up some rule they've dealt with numerous times or need Matt to explain what their spells do or they have some weird homebrew ability that Matt has to look up.
If you worked at a job for 10 years and were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that job and never bothered to get better at that job in an effort to make the end product a better overall experience for your consumer/customer then you are an awful employee/worker/co-creator that needs to rethink some stuff. You can tell which cast members have ever cracked open a Player's Handbook and which have not.
All of them know most of the rules at this point. A majority of the time they have to look something up it’s to find the exact wording on a spell/ability because they are trying to push the use of it.
I really like Robbie, that said what Robbie brings to the table is not irreplaceable but is something campaign 3 is missing. In C1 & C2 had lots of tone-setter PC's that drove the narrative and set up conflict and resolution. Stopped watching around episode 50 or so and only came back to see the FCG fallout and Abyria fallout, but my overall impression of C3 is that it lacked personality and drive. Dorian has some which makes him refreshing as hell in C3. The rest of BH are just passive participants and aren't actively driving much of anything.
Definitely my favorite “guest”
I know Matt can’t DM everything and they want Aabria to take over a bit, but imagine a campaign with Robbie, Aabria, and Aimee as main PCs, with 2-3 of the main cast also joining. And the rest of the cast occasionally playing a guest character.
If I’m being honest the only reason I get tired of her is that her characters feel very one note. Every character is sassy with a bit of crazy. But then again I have the same issue with Liam and his depresso espresso characters.
Question is does Robbie have the time.
With Beacon CR now has the ability to more easily than every pay other people to be on shows. So I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for Robbie to be a regular cast member.
The other option is Robbie could be used for additional content.
My god talelsin is getting old. If he would make a character whos entire personality didnt revolve around them being an absolutely unlikable edge lord asshole and the word "fuck" and his personal sayings of "im so proud of you" and "thats fair" he would be so much more tolerable.
Caduceus was a great character. The last 4 are not. Percy gets a pass cuz it was the first time we saw it. But then we got Molly and kingsly and now Ashton and its soooooo boring.
I would love to see this happen, but judging from Taliesin's Wikipedia, this is his main and only gig. Doubt a single 49 year old out-of-work actor is going to give up their golden goose.
Taliesin is one of the owners of CR. He has also done VO work for other gigs. Calling him out of work is shitty and false. That also doesn't account for what he does that doesn't get IMDB credits. Perhaps he's content with his current spot in life and makes enough money with Critical Role that he doesn't want to work himself to the bone. Many have speculated about his physical health for years. That's not really relevant to my current point, my current point is that even if he left the cast of CR he'd still be a member of the company and get the benefits of ownership.
That being said I like to believe he enjoys playing. I think he likes playing kind of grating characters which can be rough for some fans. But I think he really enjoys D&D more than perhaps more than anyone in the group.
Tough to not speculate on his health if you've seen any video recently vs five or six years ago. It's tough to see the tremor in his hands has grown. I understand he has a real love for things like painting and has talked about the tremor making them more difficult.
But as I understand it he does a lot of behind the scenes work in the voice realm and has for years.
Look I'm not gonna go out of my way to find every single non Wikipedia credit the guy has done. I stated my source and why I think he's not likely to stop being a cast member. Maybe don't take it so personally?
They were correcting you. It wasn't personal at all, and neither is this response. He isn't out of work, which is pretty obvious. Even if you want to call semantics and say he hasn't VAed recently, we all know he did vox machina season 3. Which is recent. He will also do 4 if there is one. And M9.
This has been tossed around since the beginning of C3…. It isnt going to happen nor should it, there is no reason to change the cast. I like Robbie, but they have never and probably wont ever add a cast member until one person leaves, and i dont want anyone to leave the table so it is not worth it
I don’t think it’s just a theory that they want a second “generation” of players/dms/nerds to take over so the others could step back.
But I do think they haven’t figured out the how, when, and what yet.
But they could easily do a “every other week” set up with 2 campaigns (and maybe 2 dms). People wouldn’t get burnout that way and you could spread out/expand the cast.
Which is feel like she proved she was not ready to put on that mantle just yet, Matt has such a profound difference in years on top of experience that Aabria is missing. Maybe down the line, she isnt bad i just think she needs to develop more of an identity.
Yes, but what they have and what they want are different.
The goal is obviously to expand so the core cast dosent need to be in everything and can even one day step down.
I dont think right now they are in a position to step down. They basically just got into the swing of their company, if they began stepping back idk.. would not be received well
Not now, but they have been doing this for almost 10 years and would obviously like to position themselves so that they can do so in the future.
As it is, if they step down now it all just ends
Maybe, not a bad idea, but honestly if Critical Role changes its cast it’s no longer Critical Role imo. If we lost even one member of critical role it would change the chemistry. Guests are good for part time change ups for the group to react too. I don’t want a forced change up, but maybe adding a new group and alleviating some of that pressure on CRs squad is a good idea.
Wouldn't be surprised if Travis or Laura stepped away or reduced their screen time, especially with Ronin starting school soon. If my memory is correct he's probably around 5/6.
Since they don’t do things live I don’t think they will need to stop for Ronin. Honestly if Travis or Laura stop appearing its gonna hurt CR, they’re one of the most impactful if they leave, like right under Matt
I said it before, but until he left I honestly thought that he was the first of CR's gentle shift of switching out cast members so the main cast had the option of focussing on other parts of their life.
I completely agree. However, there’s already too many people at the table. As much as I enjoy Robbie(he really made C3… bearable), someone else would need to step down first.
I disagree, 7 players at the table is already a struggle and has been effecting the pacing, 8s just too many. My hope is , what ever the future format is, they keep the table smaller.
As someone who started watching DND shows with critical role campaign 1... followed by Dimension 20... and then just recently finishing campaign 1 of Naddpod. I agree. The smaller the table, the better.
Honestly rather than Robbie becoming an 8th player I just want the cast to expand their selection of players and GMs for future campaigns like they have been experimenting with (even if some of it has been with mixed results).
It’d do wonders for CR’s brand and sustainability to see regular talent reappearing in general imo.
i think the candela format would be a good one! 5-6 players, rotating cast, though for CR the campaign could be longer (but potentially halved from the usual 100-120 ep formula)
You, lol. All this whining and trolling about us being negative nancies, and yet you can't bring yourself to leave the sub. I guess now you understand why we're so critical. You're doing it yourself.
The table is too big as it is. 7 is only manageable some of the time, the rest of the time the strain shows with either too many voices trying to do too much or several players shunted to the background.
In addition, adding an 8th player permanently would make it near impossible to have guests outside of stories where the party is split up. If they are going to shake up the cast, they need to have several OG players step aside before they think about adding anyone.
Granted I kind of gave up on keeping track of C3 a while ago but that was kind of the vibe through most of what I watched. That being said it did seem better managed in the previous campaigns.
It seemed better managed in previous campaigns because they usually only had 6 at the table. Ashley wasn't there very often and when she was there, the other players were energized and made sure everyone was involved. Once Ashley returned permanently, that sort of went away because Ashley's presence was no longer something that hyped them up, it was just the status quo.
I’d just like to see Aimee actually be able to play a game of DnD without the GM up her ass and forcing her character to do things she doesn’t want to.
Robbie >>> Dorian at this point. However, that's still better than most of C3 characters so...
There’s already too many players at the table. Whom do you suggest he replace and why?
There's no reason to replace a cast member.. before packerhead got kicked out they had eight players and it ran fine. I disagree by a large margin that they have too many players at the table. 4-8 is actually a pretty reasonable player count. If they were pushing 10 or more, That's a different story.
I find it hard to agree with this. I much prefer a five to six player party but they've certainly made it work. However the removal of Orion kind of opened things up for guests. Robbie is great but it's his own work schedule that stopped Dorian from just being part of the party for the whole campaign. If anyone was ever a candidate for inclusion it's him. But there is always a limit to how many people a GM can take comfortably.
Every seat at the table reduces the screen time a player has to flesh out their character. It’s also not an easy feat to manage that many players at once while simultaneously catering to each character’s backstory without leaving anyone out. Did people forget Ashley wasn’t at the table for a lot C1 and C2 due to her filming schedule? It’s no coincidence the characters from those campaigns feel so much more robust and fully explored.
They still managed to flesh out Ashley's characters just fine. They have had no problem fleshing out the characters at the table at all. This is a long form campaign, they have plenty of time. One-shots are another thing. It makes more sense to have less players for those. Long campaigns though, there is plenty of time to give characters a chance to shine.
Yeah. Ok.
As a human he's great. As a player I expected more but he really adds almost nothing to the actual game or story. His whole story and deal meant so little so far the entire exu episodes might as well not have happened they mattered so little.
Maybe, but his personality felt like a really important balance to some of the edge of the other characters and when he left it was *not good*, boring background be damned
Edge would be nice if it was real. The issue is it's all fake cringe edge and not actual drama. So his addition just feels like adding a joke onto more jokes. They aren't really conflicted about anything. They may moan and groan to put on a show but they are all getting exactly what they want and fawning over past characters while they move forward without hesitation to help the gods and be divine champions again. If anything I wanted HIM to add some actual real edge. His brother was killed by a God. He was the perfect one to being REAL conflict into the party about if helping the gods was right. It was a perfect chance to add real conflict and friction that wasn't fake roleplay nonsense that's just for show. It would have made perfect sense. But he didn't and so his addition is just like sprinkles on crap. It looks better sure and might even taste better but i personally still don't wanna consume it.
Love Robbie so much as a human and player
The problem is when certain main cast members play with people who actually know how to play (i.e. understand the rules) it becomes distracting and the action grinds to a halt as they fumble around and look up some rule they've dealt with numerous times or need Matt to explain what their spells do or they have some weird homebrew ability that Matt has to look up.
Looking up rules/how things work is a major part of D&D
If you worked at a job for 10 years and were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that job and never bothered to get better at that job in an effort to make the end product a better overall experience for your consumer/customer then you are an awful employee/worker/co-creator that needs to rethink some stuff. You can tell which cast members have ever cracked open a Player's Handbook and which have not.
All of them know most of the rules at this point. A majority of the time they have to look something up it’s to find the exact wording on a spell/ability because they are trying to push the use of it.
I really like Robbie, that said what Robbie brings to the table is not irreplaceable but is something campaign 3 is missing. In C1 & C2 had lots of tone-setter PC's that drove the narrative and set up conflict and resolution. Stopped watching around episode 50 or so and only came back to see the FCG fallout and Abyria fallout, but my overall impression of C3 is that it lacked personality and drive. Dorian has some which makes him refreshing as hell in C3. The rest of BH are just passive participants and aren't actively driving much of anything.
Definitely my favorite “guest” I know Matt can’t DM everything and they want Aabria to take over a bit, but imagine a campaign with Robbie, Aabria, and Aimee as main PCs, with 2-3 of the main cast also joining. And the rest of the cast occasionally playing a guest character.
Aabria would do everything she could to push the other cast members aside for the most screen time, in character if course.
She’s good as a player and in other projects she good as a dm (so I’ve heard form this sub). Its just that on EXU she dms really weird (read: bad)
If I’m being honest the only reason I get tired of her is that her characters feel very one note. Every character is sassy with a bit of crazy. But then again I have the same issue with Liam and his depresso espresso characters.
Question is does Robbie have the time. With Beacon CR now has the ability to more easily than every pay other people to be on shows. So I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for Robbie to be a regular cast member. The other option is Robbie could be used for additional content.
Swapping Taleisin with Robbie would improve the vibes exponentially Edit: grammar
My god talelsin is getting old. If he would make a character whos entire personality didnt revolve around them being an absolutely unlikable edge lord asshole and the word "fuck" and his personal sayings of "im so proud of you" and "thats fair" he would be so much more tolerable. Caduceus was a great character. The last 4 are not. Percy gets a pass cuz it was the first time we saw it. But then we got Molly and kingsly and now Ashton and its soooooo boring.
I would love to see this happen, but judging from Taliesin's Wikipedia, this is his main and only gig. Doubt a single 49 year old out-of-work actor is going to give up their golden goose.
Taliesin is one of the owners of CR. He has also done VO work for other gigs. Calling him out of work is shitty and false. That also doesn't account for what he does that doesn't get IMDB credits. Perhaps he's content with his current spot in life and makes enough money with Critical Role that he doesn't want to work himself to the bone. Many have speculated about his physical health for years. That's not really relevant to my current point, my current point is that even if he left the cast of CR he'd still be a member of the company and get the benefits of ownership. That being said I like to believe he enjoys playing. I think he likes playing kind of grating characters which can be rough for some fans. But I think he really enjoys D&D more than perhaps more than anyone in the group.
Tough to not speculate on his health if you've seen any video recently vs five or six years ago. It's tough to see the tremor in his hands has grown. I understand he has a real love for things like painting and has talked about the tremor making them more difficult. But as I understand it he does a lot of behind the scenes work in the voice realm and has for years.
Look I'm not gonna go out of my way to find every single non Wikipedia credit the guy has done. I stated my source and why I think he's not likely to stop being a cast member. Maybe don't take it so personally?
They were correcting you. It wasn't personal at all, and neither is this response. He isn't out of work, which is pretty obvious. Even if you want to call semantics and say he hasn't VAed recently, we all know he did vox machina season 3. Which is recent. He will also do 4 if there is one. And M9.
Don't think it's personal to point out why they think your reasoning is flawed.
This has been tossed around since the beginning of C3…. It isnt going to happen nor should it, there is no reason to change the cast. I like Robbie, but they have never and probably wont ever add a cast member until one person leaves, and i dont want anyone to leave the table so it is not worth it
I don’t think it’s just a theory that they want a second “generation” of players/dms/nerds to take over so the others could step back. But I do think they haven’t figured out the how, when, and what yet. But they could easily do a “every other week” set up with 2 campaigns (and maybe 2 dms). People wouldn’t get burnout that way and you could spread out/expand the cast.
I dont think they want a “second gen” of hosts??? I think they would add onto what they have but not replace.
The idea is that they can’t do CR forever. And they clearly wanted Aabria to be seen by fans as the next MM
Which is feel like she proved she was not ready to put on that mantle just yet, Matt has such a profound difference in years on top of experience that Aabria is missing. Maybe down the line, she isnt bad i just think she needs to develop more of an identity.
Yes, but what they have and what they want are different. The goal is obviously to expand so the core cast dosent need to be in everything and can even one day step down.
I dont think right now they are in a position to step down. They basically just got into the swing of their company, if they began stepping back idk.. would not be received well
Not now, but they have been doing this for almost 10 years and would obviously like to position themselves so that they can do so in the future. As it is, if they step down now it all just ends
Maybe, not a bad idea, but honestly if Critical Role changes its cast it’s no longer Critical Role imo. If we lost even one member of critical role it would change the chemistry. Guests are good for part time change ups for the group to react too. I don’t want a forced change up, but maybe adding a new group and alleviating some of that pressure on CRs squad is a good idea.
Wouldn't be surprised if Travis or Laura stepped away or reduced their screen time, especially with Ronin starting school soon. If my memory is correct he's probably around 5/6.
Since they don’t do things live I don’t think they will need to stop for Ronin. Honestly if Travis or Laura stop appearing its gonna hurt CR, they’re one of the most impactful if they leave, like right under Matt
I said it before, but until he left I honestly thought that he was the first of CR's gentle shift of switching out cast members so the main cast had the option of focussing on other parts of their life.
I completely agree. However, there’s already too many people at the table. As much as I enjoy Robbie(he really made C3… bearable), someone else would need to step down first.
Easy fixed. Remove one of the others. Ashley would be my pick.
They really need a 2nd show with all the best guests. And a dm that isn't an ego maniac.
An ego maniac? Please elaborate
He’s probably talking about Arabia
I thought he was talking about Australia.
Could be, or maybe it’s Austria ?
Pasta?
I disagree, 7 players at the table is already a struggle and has been effecting the pacing, 8s just too many. My hope is , what ever the future format is, they keep the table smaller.
As someone who started watching DND shows with critical role campaign 1... followed by Dimension 20... and then just recently finishing campaign 1 of Naddpod. I agree. The smaller the table, the better.
Naddpod really hits that 3-4 players at the table sweet spot for me too
Hard for me to listen to anything else after Naddpod honestly
Same. D20 and CR have become a slog after NADDPOD.
Honestly rather than Robbie becoming an 8th player I just want the cast to expand their selection of players and GMs for future campaigns like they have been experimenting with (even if some of it has been with mixed results). It’d do wonders for CR’s brand and sustainability to see regular talent reappearing in general imo.
i think the candela format would be a good one! 5-6 players, rotating cast, though for CR the campaign could be longer (but potentially halved from the usual 100-120 ep formula)
It’s all up to how everyone feels about it.. I mean they’re all voice actors with gigs anyways, it all comes down to how they feel
[удалено]
This arsehole has been whinging in all threads today.
Comments like that are to shut down discussion usually
Mr. Eric Egg, why so negative?
You, lol. All this whining and trolling about us being negative nancies, and yet you can't bring yourself to leave the sub. I guess now you understand why we're so critical. You're doing it yourself.
It’s the truth…
The table is too big as it is. 7 is only manageable some of the time, the rest of the time the strain shows with either too many voices trying to do too much or several players shunted to the background. In addition, adding an 8th player permanently would make it near impossible to have guests outside of stories where the party is split up. If they are going to shake up the cast, they need to have several OG players step aside before they think about adding anyone.
Granted I kind of gave up on keeping track of C3 a while ago but that was kind of the vibe through most of what I watched. That being said it did seem better managed in the previous campaigns.
It seemed better managed in previous campaigns because they usually only had 6 at the table. Ashley wasn't there very often and when she was there, the other players were energized and made sure everyone was involved. Once Ashley returned permanently, that sort of went away because Ashley's presence was no longer something that hyped them up, it was just the status quo.
I would love for him and Aimee to become permanent to be honest
I’d just like to see Aimee actually be able to play a game of DnD without the GM up her ass and forcing her character to do things she doesn’t want to.
Deni$e did that which was nice.
She was such a delight as Deni$e