Take a chance, roll the dice

Ok, here’s a little appreciation post. Today it’s going to be about Critical Role. We started to watch when Crystal was up here on her tour of the wall. We started watching campaign 3, and something surprised us – we really liked it. We got through, I think, 4 maybe 5 episodes where we just really enjoyed watching.

After Crystal left, I couldn’t handle waiting a week for new episodes, so I started watching campaign 2. You know, to pass the time between episodes of campaign 3.

In campaign 2 there’s 141 episodes, and approximately 537 hours. It’s very daunting, but you do what you do, and you start at the start. Which I did. Without doing a shit tonne of math, I’m guessing I’ve watched probably over 350ish hours so far. At the time of writing this, I’m on episode 90. the episodes range in time from just over 3 hours to around 5ish hours. I have heard that the final episode is over 7 hours.

Of course, it took a number of episodes to really fall into the swing of things. They were all pretty despicable characters at the beginning. But it was entertaining. It started off rather slow, allowing for the watchers and the players to get used to their new characters.

There was one character that felt like they weren’t a good fit – and that was the character of Mollymauk Tealeaf played by Talisin Jaffe. Talisin really looked frustrated every battle and fight. It just didn’t seem like it was working out the way they wanted the character to end up.

It’s so easy to watch, after you wrap your head around how many hours and episodes there are. If I had a long day at work, they’re easy to just put it on for noise – which is what I always say. It’s just on for noise, but honestly, I pause it more than I’d like to admit so I don’t miss anything.

It’s totally relaxing for me. Their senses of humour really kind of mesh with me, and I find myself laughing and laughing. There’s been some times that I’ve teared up. These simple voice actors sure know how to convey happiness, desolation, and fear so well.

I’ve never met these people, and I know for a fact that I will never meet them. That’s ok. But through these 90 episodes that I’ve watched, I can totally see bits and pieces of me in all of their characters. they’ve been my friends in TinyTown when I really don’t have any.

Spoilers ahead – if you haven’t watched campaign 2, and don’t want to be spoiled, I’d probably skip my top 5 scenes.

My top 5 scenes (so far) in campaign 2:

5. Mollymauk’s surprise death – 4:22:51 C2E26. The build up and the intense stress of the episode was immense, and resulted in Talisin walking off the set. It was incredible to see – and has reverberated even to episode 90 where I’m at today.

4. Fluffernutter – 2:34:59 C2E39. This is comedy gold. It was all Nott and Jester – pure chaos and totally unexpected. The improv is amazing.

3. Nott one shots a guard – 2:46:42 C2E76. In the vein of chaos again. Nott one shots a guard on a natural 20, and with his weapon, automagically shoots again. It was totally out of the blue and reduced the cast to genuine belly laughs from all the cast.

2. Beau’s meditation – 1:35:38 C2E86. Every one of the characters have had growth, but Beauregard, I think has had really the most so far. The just way she describes how she does this is simply breathtaking. To see the rest of the cast dumbfounded is amazing. And as an added bonus; she surprised Matt Mercer the DM.

1. Wall of fire – 3:41:52 C2E42. Liam O’Brien plays his character very soft spoken, and this was really the first time that he really shows off his power. Again, it totally surprises the rest of the cast.

Ok, I’ve spent way too much time on this post. I don’t know how to describe the happiness that I get while watching Critical Role.

We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet?