When I saw you doing a DND horror story I knew it had to be good

It's not banned the production studio did not wanna post it to Disney+ so it's only on KZfaq

If I was Robbie, my main spell would become level 1 fireball.. i mean chromatic orb.

Rugrats in its entirety was nightmare fuel

Honestly, there are people here who would have an objection to the episode for sure. It’s not an American thing, unfortunately. But it’s honestly just Disney being extra censor-y.

Kenichi the world's mightiest deciple pretty much fits the profile too. It may be a martial arts comedy anime, but he still climbs the strength latter while taking on a giant gang of delinquents. Who just also happen to be a smattering of different types of martial artists. Kenichi starting as a no skill fighter that constantly gets picked on. Until one fateful encounter leads to him getting training from powerful masters. Which quickly goes off the rails, and makes him want to go back to a more quiet peaceful life. Buuuut it's to late to go back now... It's well over ten years old now, but it's still one of my top 10 anime. I just wish it went further than it did. The manga source material went much further Its sad to see so many great anime based off mangas never get passed 2 maybe 3 seasons, and the rest never gets to be animated. The ones that hurt the most is the ones that were supposed to, but ran into some kind of complication that forces the show to come to a early end. Like Air Gear or Highschool of the Dead. Which makes me wish someone would pick up the banner and continue these fantastic stories again so we can see the rest of the story. 😢😢😢

Let me start by saying, I am not raging, I'm not angry, but do not like all that happened in the last two episodes. This just happens, things don't always develop the way you as a watcher and fan hope and sometimes things will be frustrating, but I honestly hate the type of Uber-Fans that overreact so hysterically to anything they don't like, all the time. I've had my problems with Aabria's DMing before. She's prone to just disregard rules and what things to, if she wants something to happen, but I also like a lot of what she does. The problem is, that in this case (unlike other times she acted similarly, but for the players) she had an outcome she wanted, and she went against the rules, against what players wanted, and I'd say even against the whole spirit of TTRPGs to get there. A DM has so much power and so many options, a good and experienced DM like Aabria should not need to act like she did, to achieve what she wants, she really should have known better and found a better way. It does feel as if she or maybe even CR and her together wanted to get rid of the Crownskeepers for good and open up the way for Dorian to rejoin Bells Hells. Maybe she doesn't have any good ideas for them any more or doesn't particularly like the characters. I don't mind integrating the Crownskeepers into the campaign that way, because for one they did need a way to bring Dorian back and tbh. While Matt might not have been sure that one of the player characters would die, he probably knew it was a likely occurrence and that might be why he set this up beforehand, to give a bit more time for a grieving player before they had to present their new character.

What I find both funny and incredibly stupid is that Aabria catches a lot of flak whenever she pops up as a DM for CR but over on Dimension 20, its seemingly a vast majority of praise. Brennan, who only DM'd one mini series is loved despite the fact that he has taken ques from Aabria's style and openly said as much abd that dude is flagrant with rules breaking! Aabria is fine as a DM. People can really miss me with this whole "she's toxic" mess. It has served her well on the second biggest actual play IP and CR appreciates her talents enough that she has helped build on the campaign setting book.

I think Aabria’s dm-ing style is refreshing and a needed change from the pacing the story has been going down so far. And cutting to the crown keepers mid session was exciting because it was unexpected. The roll out of the last few episodes reminded me that I could still be surprised even after hundreds of hours of watching CR. So being mad about a filler episode, especially when you get the same amount of classic CR content within the side arc feels like a bad faith take if you asked me.

my only criticism with Aabria is her frequent granting of inspiration. it just feels a bit much at times, but it’s a tiny nitpick. also her giving disadvantage on that one death saving throw rubbed me the wrong way. other than that. i love her style and her adherence to the rule of cool!

As a American i wish people here would grow up and learn not to take things so seriously -_-)

I personally didn’t mind crown keepers it’s fun to watch Aabria as a DM and Matt as a player!

I wouldn't call myself a devout Critical Role or Aabria fan; but I wouldn't call myself a detractor of them either. I view them as people who share a love with me for the greatest hobby on earth. Only occasionally will I tune in and perhaps listen in the background while I prep my own campaigns; after all, the BEST dnd is the one you get to play in! That said, THIS episode was ABSOLUTE TRASH! DM's come with numerous variations in style and that's absolutely fine; it's part and parcel of what makes the hobby awesome! And I think we can (mostly) all understand and agree that "railroading" is defined in many different ways; some good, some bad (personally, I believe it's required to a certain degree else the story never progresses; after all, I choose how the villains/world reacts to player agency). I can even understand the difficult position Aabria was in, having to rather shoehorn an event that leads a player to rejoin another party while trying to maintain a vibe all while under a time crunch... I get it. But playing so loosey goosey with Player Agency and at times even straight up ignoring it? I was FORCED to watch after my ears recognized the symptoms while trying to prepare my own next session! And much like a train wreck I couldn't rip my eyes from, I could only sit there feeling disgusted deep in my gut. She's supposed to be representative of the shared community, she's supposed to be receptive to her players actions while laying down clear and concise information for them to interact with/react to in GOOD FAITH. Instead, she decides to subvert what is mechanically spelled out in front of him, and when he questions it she responds with "the rules are what I say they are, cause FUCK YOU" (all while looking directly into the camera). That wasn't a response meant for him, but for the fans; either way, entirely unprofessional. She could've changed the environment noticeably enough to impress upon the players that spells get kind of funky here (in which case, any one of his spells could've done the deed with him understanding at least some of the potential), or had any number of other vectors kill his brother (literally rocks falling would've been better, or the crown takes a lair action to seep his brother's vitality away); but no, she utterly STOLE his agency away then made light of it in a socially deaf manner. She bore zero responsibility to address the fandom or even a subsection of it in the middle of play; let alone in such a negative fashion. She does bear the responsibility to provide a safe environment for her players and the audience (to some extent as a guest) and present herself as a responsible DM worthy of her players trust. She bears this responsibility because the CR community (and I'm certain her own as well) look up to her as some form of "pinnacle DM". Someone who should be setting a proper example of how the DM/Player relationship SHOULD be. She simply failed to uphold her responsibilities here. She tried coming off as some "bad bitch", but she ended up only coming off as a bitch instead. Which is a shame. What she did fell short of only Adam Koebel's incident; thank GOD, cause that would've been so much worse. It's bad enough that this incident will prove to be a precedent for many future DMs that it's quite ok to write a complete story during your prep (player agency be damned), and the only actions that matter at the table are the DMs. As for myself, well... I held her in high regard despite the fact that I don't jive with her DM style; I still respected her way of storytelling. But, this is DnD; and that means COOPERATIVE storytelling. Perhaps she can take some time to reflect on that.

3:02 I feel like I know that audio scream... but from where ?! I feel like it's a disney villain maybe ?

There were a lot of things that I felt weren't right and over the top. The way Aabria actively redirected the story and outcome of everyone's actions to perfectly fit how she or who ever wrote this portion of the the campaign to go. Just a bit to heavy handed IMO. If I were playing, I would think twice of playing again if she were leading the game. And this is just a side note. Personally, I can't imagine Lolth taking a personal interest in any mortal the way she did in this game play. She would have acted through one of her Yochlol hand maidens. Mortals are completely beneath her. Even a presumed champion. Just my opinion. Cheers

If productuon and Aabria put 10 minutes more thought into it you could have structured it really well. 1) You prerecord the one shot 2) Robbie is reintroduced at the ene of episode 92 wherein he says Cyrus died Opals went on a Ramapage. Im out for vengeance. WOW A HOOK?! 3) Release the one shot OPTIONALLY to the community that care about what. The people who really care about the crownkeepers will watch it. The people who don't won't and can continue to appreciate Dorian.

The big thing for me is that we are watching their campaign. They can do what ever they want with it. Was it kinda weird that there was a filler arc in the middle of a super serious moment, Yes. BUT prob for Mat and the main cast it was a good break from all the action. They had been going for so long and they got go take a break for a sec and proses what just happened to there friend.

I Personally think they did the right thing. It would have been hard for them to explain why dorian would leave the crown keepers for bells hells. If they had split up or died off screen that would have been awefull. Im not personally the biggest fan of Aabria's DM'ing, but I think it was a decent couple of episodes.

Ive always been a huge fan of wondbreaker, im excited

As an European I completely disagree with it

The Cringiest Live Action Anime kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nsCWpb2S07_Me6c.html

Melromack??? They very clearly say mark that’s just lazy nd shows u don’t watch 😭

Honestly just the fact that we're here calling a narrative interlude that was very obviously a designed story beat "a filler episode" feels pretty insulting. Matt's decision to pack up one table and sit another mid-episode, bookending it with the main cast instead of having one cut-out ""filler"" episode, WASN'T a bait and switch, it was frankly elementary storytelling. It SHOULD HAVE told the audience that Yes, this is still Matt's story being told, and the only stronger way they possibly could have signalled that would be hanging a strobing neon sign over Aabria's shoulder that read "THIS IS VERY RELEVANT TO THE MAIN CAMPAIGN." I am begging anyone online to read a book that isn't shelved in the YA stacks.

Personally, I think the criticism is valid in every case, but especially with Aabria's DMing. She is at the very edge of being on that RPG horror story DM list especially with her behavior during the 2 sessions in this "filler arc" Railroad narrative was fine (sometimes have to especially for 1 shot or time constrained adventures. Having different rules to another DM, also fine. But the problem was that she outright gets the written rules wrong and then attempts to lecture the audience not the players on how they work. She did it with the Darkness spell in the first filler episode, and then again when Robbie was asking for a rules clarification so he could resolve what he can actually do in his head. This is a sign of a very very antagonistic DM. It didn't look like a fun episode, it didn't look fun for the players, she actively went after the audience, it was entirely a mess as a production and I really really hope the cast talks to her and sets her straight on how she should treat people going forward because if I was a player at that table, I would not be coming back.

Oh sorry, I'm only on episode 19, hopefully the like and this comment will counter me turning the video off after 2 minutes

To me it wasn’t a filler episode. And to me exandria unlimited is a must watch bc you do some lore. Matt has always brought back character introduced in campaign at the end. the only difference here is Matt didn’t DM all the players and is a player. Them doing what they did sets up who these people are and also shows all god betrayers and prime deities are afraid. They need to team up to fight a common enemy. I wouldn’t be shocked if Opal shows up as the champion of Lolth at the end on the final battle. And now we know why instead of later saying who the hell is that.

I loved C1. C2 was a bit hit or miss for me, but i liked it enough to check up on it from time to time (but this campaign dragged so much that i mostly watched or read recaps, also i started to notice that during C2 some of the... personal views of cast seeped in). Then they supported some questionable things in social media. And then i heard "a new DM will be in Mercers team". I was intrigued so i sat down to watch this Exandia something thingy Oh boy did i waste my time... Sadly, i cant say that Aabria is a good DM. She in my opinion is one of the worst "famous" DM's i've seen and probably one that i would walk out of the group session 3 max. She is snappy, she is disrespectful, she has the "me vs player" approach and she has average narration skils at best. Francly her as DM seems a bit like someone up top in the company was choosing her as a token member that has to check boxes for inclusivity. She lacks the charisma. It would be way better decision to coop someone like Liam for the 2nd DM role or even do some big collaboration. All in all my thoughts were, after seeing her in action: "Oh... we are in the Decline era then..." Not to mention the drama with Brian Foster and Ashley Johnson/

"the blue-eyed samurai" while showing a title card for "blue eye samurai"

Matt has said time and time again: (paraphrasing here, ofc) "It's OUR game that WE play, however WE want. The audience is just that, an audience. And as much as we love our fans, don't interfere in any narrative decision I or anyone DMing takes because we do not care, we are gonna play as WE like it." Also, if y'all truly cared about pacing issues this much you would have dropped C3 like, 60 episodes ago, let's be for real.

As someone watched EXU I feel like for me the issue is this being in the main campaign. They could have easily made this another one shot thing to wrap up crown keepers story. Even at the end of the story Dorian comes back to the main story so he could have just said sth like my brother has died and if wwe wanted to learn how and why would could have just watched the one shot if we wanted to. But with this way they put pressure on lots of people that didn't watch the whole exu story since this came out of nowhere and naturally people had no idea what was happening and quickly lost interest with these 2 episodes. This was kinda giving me more of a `spinoff of a show got cancelled so the main character of that show returned to the main show but we actually had to watch 2 episodes of that spinoff in the main show' than a crossover they intended for.

I am honestly just not a big fan of Aabria, especially as a DM. I do understand why they did the small branch off, but kinda hope that the thread with Aabria DM-ing on C3 is finished. Really feel like the filler was dropped on us due to FCG dropping what he did on the crew. Now as far as story, I feel like the only reason this filler needed to be aired is maybe because of Opal's part later in the story. Otherwise, it could have been easy for Robby to just have a bit of backstory on the time between. Could have been simple for Matt to have everyone leave the table and bring Robby in solo, like he has done in the past. @johnpo2 brings up a solid point, one of the reasons I do not care for Aabria's DM style. At the end of the day, I think it bothered me the most because I wanted to see the main cast after such a major loss. I also want to put this out there. I am not hating on Aabria or what CR did. It just wasn't for me, and I can understand why it bothered many.

It's okay, they're the least important part of ttrpgs in general. Even if they were the most important, anyone to attached should probably review their life choices as a whole

Matt didn't expect that PC death, and he needed time to figure out his next move.

It’s not just the chromatic orb, it’s the confrontational attitude, the hours long SINGLE TURNS and railroading bs

i saw one episode of aabria her DMing and it was not my thing to watch the moment the group switched i just turned the episode off and from what im hearing and reading is that the filler wasnt that good the chromatic orb if you change the ruling of any spell u have to make it clear with your player before hand and not after they casted the spell and say "the rules are whatever i say they are" that is the wrong mentality as any DM for it will make everything just confusing. u can change certain effects of a spell on nat 1 or 20 for extra dramatic effect for sure but killing off someweone becuse u changed a spell is bad DMing IMO but its all hearsay since i didnt watch it becuse it was not in my interest im more peeved becuse of the change but u adressed that aswell so ye good vid and explanation

All the massive amounts of creaming from butt-hurt fans only puts people off from enjoying it. Like, I've enjoyed Camp3 so far, I'm not caught up (I don;t mind spoilers) but every time I hear yet another "controversy" about it all I hear is just a bunch of children complaining about shit that doesn't matter.

I suspect his brother dying was something everyone agreed needed to happen from a narrative stand point, before any of them sat at the table. Otherwise, Dorian would have no reason to seek out and rejoin Bell’s Hells. Turning that single target spell into an aoe spell for that purpose was a means to an end everyone already knew had to happen one way or another. Between having a random spider kill him or having the unintended splash of Dorian’s own spell kill him, having Dorian’s own actions be the final blow is more dramatic and impactful for the narrative they needed to tell.

Piece of advice for the commentators mentioning the chat messing up the fun, join the Monday Gang. It’s all positive in those comment sections. Flando’s timestamps help navigate the experience and you can skip the parts of the session that seem to drag a bit and zero in on the good stuff xD I was happy to see Dorian and Opal again, and I like Aabria’s back n forths with Aimee.

I suspect we're going to see Opal, Fy'ra and Morrighan along the way to the end. Since all are Champions now. If all the gods from both sides are gathering Champions etc and agreeing to work together for the face off with Predathos. We'll see them again.

I dont watch critical role only clips in the 6 years ive played and ive had experiences with the die hard fans that have actually gotten offended by me saying it and read to many horror storys so this doesn't surprise me

Robbie: "I'm unclear, what are the rules?" Aabria: "the rules are whatever the fuck I say it is" Do not tell me that's not a sign of a toxic DM! I would have lost my shit if I was Robbie. It's so condescending to talk to a player like that especially if they are asking for clarification

First off, though chat may be live the episodes are still recorded ahead of time. Second, the Crown Keeper interlude was planned ahead of time and before Sam had his FCG moment. Yes, it was all about catching up with Dorien and providing him a way back to BH. It felt "railroady" because it had to be. They had to actually end the Crown Keepers as a group to provide a reason for everyone to go their separate ways. For Dorien specifically, what better reason to join back up with the Hells and maybe have a bit of tension there then to kill his brother -- the only reason he actually left in the first place. I'm part of the 80% but I'm in it for the story -- wherever it goes.

Campaign 3 is broken beyond the repair. This isn't long form story telling, its a dumpster fire. The pacing is a nightmare, the characters are not suited to the story being told, the story itself is nonsensical and all built to vilify the gods Matt spent years getting the community to like and care about just so he can kill them off and install his Daggerheart bs.

This is why I don't bother conversing with fandoms. These people are so f*cking miserable and toxic

So given that they make money off of merch and comics and such do their characters now have a bit of armor from being killed? I mean sure recently they have had something happen but that was a choice.

The fact that watcher didnt thought about their international fanbase. 6 dollars in my country it’s almost 4 times the value. It’s insane. I also think that their new videos are going to suffer a decrease in views. Once new eps are upload in watcher tv, they are going to be re-upload somewhere else, so when the “new” episodes drop on youtube, there will be already thousands of people who already watched it…

The thing that made me feel weird is that Cyrus' death felt very obviously scripted. If my DM did what Abria did for that chromatic orb I would be very annoyed, I respect my DM but that is just plain bs, my single target spell somehow becomes an aoe? I fire a Disintegrate and for some reason it explodes so my 2 friends standing near the villain also both die? It was just a really strange thing to do. Even more strange is that no one seemed to care too much, which made me feel like this was probably discussed beforehand that Syrus will probably die in the fight. Dariax also healed Syrus which I don't know if I just missed it, but I think Abria didn't even bother to give him that 20+ HP, which would have probably kept him alive for 1 or more attacks from the spider. Other than these moments yes the combat was a bit slow because of the really long descriptions but the rp was great, I found myself tearing up at a few sections.

Dear everyone in the comments. PLEASE watch the latest 4SD episode. There is no need to be judgemental about when it occurred. It also makes it quite clear that it was very intentional on CR's part and not intended to be filler. The switch was planned BEFORE the ottohan battle. No way could they change scheduling last minute. Please chill out with the assumptions and just hear from the actual cast.

If you like Exandria games, check out Dice Soup. I love that group... You know... because I GM it

for those who want to watch it it's on KZfaq. I freaking love this show and it's absolutely dumb that it was banned. And it wasn't actually banned Disney chose not to show it because I don't know why the amount of crap that comes out of Disney these days it should be right up there alley.