It appears you and I are in the same boat. I would enjoy watching everything live but living Florida would require staying up until around 2:00 am. I did recently learn that if you have an Amazon Prime membership you can subscribe to their Twitch channel for free. This would allow you to watch rebroadcasts a bit earlier if you so choose. :)
Yup that’s what I do (the anazon prime gets 1 twitch channel, so g&s it is).
I’m also on the east coast, I generally watch up until midnight or first break live if I can, the watch the rest Saturday morning
I try that every week. I end up falling asleep by 10:30 pm. My usual bedtime is 9:30/10:00...stupid waking up at 5:30 am every day to be a "productive member of society."
Guess what guys - Critical Role starts for me at 4 am, and I watch the last scenes going to work ;)
I've been OK watching it the next Monday but I also did just find the Twitch/Amazon thing so I guess I know what Friday nights / Saturday mornings are for me now. :)
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"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow" "No power in the 'verse can stop me"
That episode set a good precedent for Guest Stars in this campaign. I love that you could see him getting more into the role-playing as the game progressed
Side note, I think it's gonna be interesting if Matt sticks to making Nat1's do bad stuff in the "critical fail" kinda way
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Yeah, I kind of hope he doesn't! Or maybe switches to 'roll to confirm'. It's going to suck for martial classes at level 5 if they have a wildly increased rate of fumbles compared to the rest of the party.
Increased odds of critical hits should come with it an equal number of critical fumbles. It's not quite fair that a critical hit doubles damage die, but a fumble is just like any other miss. Not to mention there are ways to mitigate that issue, like taking the Lucky feat. Besides, fumbles are a lot more fun, naritavely speaking, and they really are mostly a minor inconvenience. Laura rolled one 1, and she dropped her sickle, which only required some movement and a free action to get back. The way Matt Mercer seems to be doing it is based more on escalation than anything else, which is perfectly acceptable. I think exploration and social fumbles has always been a part of their game. He's just adding fumbles to combat, and maybe making those fumbles have more consequences than before, which is fine. Finally, remember that above all this is a show. Sure it's a home game that was brought over to an audience, but there are viewers just like any show, and adding elements that potentially make it more entertaining is pretty much what shows do.
To your first point of 'increased critical hits should come with increased crit fails...' Except that as you're leveling up you are becoming more powerful, and more adept at your set of skills. But with critical fumbles on 1s, a level 20 Fighter is likely to critically fumble MORE than a level 1 fighter. A fighter who is almost god-like in their fighting abilities, is apparently a massive klutz for some reason. It makes sense for a more adept martial combatant to critically succeed more often as they get stronger, because they're getting better. It doesn't make sense that they actually get worse. If you want to talk narratively, that's the narrative.
Beau and Mollymauk are going to be disadvantaged in a way that other players with spells that ask for saving throws are not going to be. That's the issue, and I hope that Matt, because he's a good DM, realizes as they level up that if he doesn't mitigate fumbles in some way for classes who live and die on having more attacks, that he's disproportionately damaging the contributions of Taliesen and Marisha.
Don't get me wrong: I use critical fumbles in my game, I don't go by RAW. A 1 is an automatic miss no matter what you would add. And they then have to roll to confirm, and there's an agreed upon value that marks an actual fumble vs. just a miss. I've got a Monk and a Paladin both with Extra Attack. As expected, they roll 1s more often than the Sorcerer and the Rogue. If I did crit fumbles like we just watched in the most recent episode, the Monk and Paladin would absolutely pale in comparison. They'd drop their weapons, have to roll saving throws or else go prone, hit their allies, you name the kinds of things you see on a crit fumble table - and all at a rate (currently) 3x that of the Rogue, and a ridiculous amount more than the Sorcerer (who only has one spell that requires an attack roll).
You can flavour a miss or a 'crit fail' without giving your martial classes a mechanical disadvantage. You can also find a happy medium between crit fails being mechanically punishing and not being disproportionately punishing to martial classes. Matt is a good enough DM, and narrator that I'm sure the show would still be entertaining without slapstick fumble moments.
Here's the thing Thoe D&D shouldn't be balanced even in Series 1 the party wasn't balanced, if everyone is balanced and midmaxed to hell then wheres the fun, wheres the story and that is the thing Critical role is more about the story , then about balance. Another thing is with the amount of magic items I'm sure they are going to get later on even the worst fighter is going to end up with a + 5 to hit
To your first point of 'increased critical hits should come with increased crit fails...' Except that as you're leveling up you are becoming more powerful, and more adept at your set of skills. But with critical fumbles on 1s, a level 20 Fighter is likely to critically fumble MORE than a level 1 fighter. A fighter who is almost god-like in their fighting abilities, is apparently a massive klutz for some reason. It makes sense for a more adept martial combatant to critically succeed more often as they get stronger, because they're getting better. It doesn't make sense that they actually get worse. If you want to talk narratively, that's the narrative.
Beau and Mollymauk are going to be disadvantaged in a way that other players with spells that ask for saving throws are not going to be. That's the issue, and I hope that Matt, because he's a good DM, realizes as they level up that if he doesn't mitigate fumbles in some way for classes who live and die on having more attacks, that he's disproportionately damaging the contributions of Taliesen and Marisha.
Don't get me wrong: I use critical fumbles in my game, I don't go by RAW. A 1 is an automatic miss no matter what you would add. And they then have to roll to confirm, and there's an agreed upon value that marks an actual fumble vs. just a miss. I've got a Monk and a Paladin both with Extra Attack. As expected, they roll 1s more often than the Sorcerer and the Rogue. If I did crit fumbles like we just watched in the most recent episode, the Monk and Paladin would absolutely pale in comparison. They'd drop their weapons, have to roll saving throws or else go prone, hit their allies, you name the kinds of things you see on a crit fumble table - and all at a rate (currently) 3x that of the Rogue, and a ridiculous amount more than the Sorcerer (who only has one spell that requires an attack roll).
You can flavour a miss or a 'crit fail' without giving your martial classes a mechanical disadvantage. You can also find a happy medium between crit fails being mechanically punishing and not being disproportionately punishing to martial classes. Matt is a good enough DM, and narrator that I'm sure the show would still be entertaining without slapstick fumble moments.
Dude, chill. It's cool. It's their game, so let them run it their way, the same way that you get to choose to run your games your way, and I choose to run my games my way. I like fumbles, and clearly Matt likes them, too. For me, it's more fun and interesting. Besides, it's all about how you narrate it. It doesn't have to be a clutzy drop. You can have a fumble be the enemy dodged and your weapon gets embedded in the wall, or maybe they block the attack and disarm you. That's all fun and flavoring, and it plays into the idea of more swings means more possibilities, including more bad things happening. Plus, as you level up, so do your enemies, so there's more room to have even the fumbles be super epic, too. Also, like I said before, more swings also means more chances for criticals. Besides, fighters get an increased crit range, which more than makes up for fumbles, so there's plenty of mitigation.
Also of note, don't let mechanics run your life. Balance is all well and good, but it doesn't matter as long as your party is having fun. Personally, I'm not a fan of confirmation dice (or exploding dice). I like dice to be fast so I can quickly go back to setting the stage for the encounter and entertaining my party, where the people I tend to play with usually prefer being an audience to the epic moments in our games, and all that crunchy stuff slows it down. Don't get me wrong, if min-maxing and number crunching is your thing, by all means have your kind of fun. As long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, there's no wrong kind of fun. Please just respect that people have different kinds of fun, including actors on a game they're choosing to share with us, and try not to force your fun on others.
To your first point of 'increased critical hits should come with increased crit fails...' Except that as you're leveling up you are becoming more powerful, and more adept at your set of skills. But with critical fumbles on 1s, a level 20 Fighter is likely to critically fumble MORE than a level 1 fighter. A fighter who is almost god-like in their fighting abilities, is apparently a massive klutz for some reason. It makes sense for a more adept martial combatant to critically succeed more often as they get stronger, because they're getting better. It doesn't make sense that they actually get worse. If you want to talk narratively, that's the narrative.
Beau and Mollymauk are going to be disadvantaged in a way that other players with spells that ask for saving throws are not going to be. That's the issue, and I hope that Matt, because he's a good DM, realizes as they level up that if he doesn't mitigate fumbles in some way for classes who live and die on having more attacks, that he's disproportionately damaging the contributions of Taliesen and Marisha.
Don't get me wrong: I use critical fumbles in my game, I don't go by RAW. A 1 is an automatic miss no matter what you would add. And they then have to roll to confirm, and there's an agreed upon value that marks an actual fumble vs. just a miss. I've got a Monk and a Paladin both with Extra Attack. As expected, they roll 1s more often than the Sorcerer and the Rogue. If I did crit fumbles like we just watched in the most recent episode, the Monk and Paladin would absolutely pale in comparison. They'd drop their weapons, have to roll saving throws or else go prone, hit their allies, you name the kinds of things you see on a crit fumble table - and all at a rate (currently) 3x that of the Rogue, and a ridiculous amount more than the Sorcerer (who only has one spell that requires an attack roll).
You can flavour a miss or a 'crit fail' without giving your martial classes a mechanical disadvantage. You can also find a happy medium between crit fails being mechanically punishing and not being disproportionately punishing to martial classes. Matt is a good enough DM, and narrator that I'm sure the show would still be entertaining without slapstick fumble moments.
Dude, chill. It's cool. It's their game, so let them run it their way, the same way that you get to choose to run your games your way, and I choose to run my games my way. I like fumbles, and clearly Matt likes them, too. For me, it's more fun and interesting. Besides, it's all about how you narrate it. It doesn't have to be a clutzy drop. You can have a fumble be the enemy dodged and your weapon gets embedded in the wall, or maybe they block the attack and disarm you. That's all fun and flavoring, and it plays into the idea of more swings means more possibilities, including more bad things happening. Plus, as you level up, so do your enemies, so there's more room to have even the fumbles be super epic, too. Also, like I said before, more swings also means more chances for criticals. Besides, fighters get an increased crit range, which more than makes up for fumbles, so there's plenty of mitigation.
Also of note, don't let mechanics run your life. Balance is all well and good, but it doesn't matter as long as your party is having fun. Personally, I'm not a fan of confirmation dice (or exploding dice). I like dice to be fast so I can quickly go back to setting the stage for the encounter and entertaining my party, where the people I tend to play with usually prefer being an audience to the epic moments in our games, and all that crunchy stuff slows it down. Don't get me wrong, if min-maxing and number crunching is your thing, by all means have your kind of fun. As long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, there's no wrong kind of fun. Please just respect that people have different kinds of fun, including actors on a game they're choosing to share with us, and try not to force your fun on others.
Look, I know it's the hip internet thing to assign a negative emotion to someone's discussion points, but I really don't think that it's necessary for you to attempt to frame my points as 'angry' by starting your points with 'dude, chill'... I was just participating in a discussion about an episode of a show in a discussion thread about the show.
We don't have to agree, and I think we are both well aware that nothing said in this thread is going to have any effect on what Matt or any of the players do or think. It's just a discussion about mechanics.
I think that I can go off of last campaign where Taliesen was affected by the misfire mechanic of the class he was playing, a perfectly sensible mechanical balance, but something that could clearly be seen to affect his player excitement in combat. Now take that mechanical penalty for a powerful feature and apply it to something that is already balanced, adding a penalty that more largely affects Marisha and Taliesen as they level up (we won't really see the affect until level 5), and now you have created a disbalance. I'm not saying "your fun is wrong" to anyone using this house rule, all I am doing is pointing out how it may strongly impact Marisha and Taliesen in a couple levels.
It's also important to note that we can all only go off of this last episode for how Matt is going to run fumbles in a combat setting. So both sides of this discussion are purely theoretical. Matt could go either way with them... But the purpose of a discussion thread is for discussion, which is why I went off what another user said, which I agreed with, to elaborate using game rules and mechanics, since it's an easy and structured way to predict how the future happens.
I do take a little offense at the min-maxing comment, but I can see where you might get that based on solely my comments in this thread and not participation elsewhere on DDB. RPing is the reason I play d&d, I love flaws (mechanical or just acted) and limitations because they breed creativity and make for a more interesting game, which is also why I love Critical Role, because they play for the story and the excitement of it. But I also only play D&D and not any other RPG system because the "delivery system" (mechanics) is, for me, the most interesting and fun. I think you can have a huge focus on RP while working within the mechanics (ie. Prescribed limitations ), because: Limitations breed creativity. But that's just how I've always played, which is why my opinion on this discussion is different than your's. Not angry or anything, just different. ;)
To make sure nothing I've said is read in a tone other than I intended: Just trying to have a friendly, and interesting discussion on the merits of critical fumbles in the context shown in episode 7 of this awesome show we both love. :)
Just a quick note that it seems a LOT of people have been talking about the critical fumble in the last show, in fact sufficiently so on reddit that Matt Mercer noticed and felt he needed to respond.
Just a quick note that it seems a LOT of people have been talking about the critical fumble in the last show, in fact sufficiently so on reddit that Matt Mercer noticed and felt he needed to respond.
Here's the additional information that Matt posted on reddit:
Wow, this all got very... intense.
Allow me to clarify: I am playing up the NARRATIVE elements of crit fails on occasion, with sometimes minor inconveniences. For players and opponents. Not a new mechanic throughout. I won't be largely penalizing a player for it. Martial classes won't be losing their weapons on a 1, casting classes won't be blowing off a fingers, etc. The choice for Jester's weapon to go flying was in knowing she had other elements up her sleeve, and her general previous lack of use of it up to that point. It was for fun flavor.
Regarding my "advantage on the Manticore's save", that was largely because, in the moment, I had been playing up the Mother's blind rage for killing her child. For a mind-affecting spell, I imagined in the moment it would make sense. It wasn't a "**** the players" moment, or a "not what I wanted... I'll change that!" moment, but a sudden realization that "ya know what... I think she would have advantage". Narrative and story cohesion always trump RAW, as far as my games go, and I've often given situational benefits to my players in comparable scenarios. This was also my logic for the "attack of opportunity", as mechanically it would have gone to Beau, but ALL that the mother was focused on was killing what killed her child. You are allowed to disagree with it, by all means, but I felt it made sense in the moment. :)
As to Nott's "drunkeness", this was actually a mechanic that Sam requested be added for the character. We chatted about it, and decided on a small set of rules. It granted a shift in RP dynamic and bravery (immune to being frightened), but had some detriments to some ability checks (not attacks, like the Poison condition). That's all.
Here's the additional information that Matt posted on reddit:
Wow, this all got very... intense.
Allow me to clarify: I am playing up the NARRATIVE elements of crit fails on occasion, with sometimes minor inconveniences. For players and opponents. Not a new mechanic throughout. I won't be largely penalizing a player for it. Martial classes won't be losing their weapons on a 1, casting classes won't be blowing off a fingers, etc. The choice for Jester's weapon to go flying was in knowing she had other elements up her sleeve, and her general previous lack of use of it up to that point. It was for fun flavor.
Regarding my "advantage on the Manticore's save", that was largely because, in the moment, I had been playing up the Mother's blind rage for killing her child. For a mind-affecting spell, I imagined in the moment it would make sense. It wasn't a "**** the players" moment, or a "not what I wanted... I'll change that!" moment, but a sudden realization that "ya know what... I think she would have advantage". Narrative and story cohesion always trump RAW, as far as my games go, and I've often given situational benefits to my players in comparable scenarios. This was also my logic for the "attack of opportunity", as mechanically it would have gone to Beau, but ALL that the mother was focused on was killing what killed her child. You are allowed to disagree with it, by all means, but I felt it made sense in the moment. :)
As to Nott's "drunkeness", this was actually a mechanic that Sam requested be added for the character. We chatted about it, and decided on a small set of rules. It granted a shift in RP dynamic and bravery (immune to being frightened), but had some detriments to some ability checks (not attacks, like the Poison condition). That's all.
All is well. You worry yourselves too much.
Thanks for sharing again. I dig Matt's response on all of this, and I'm super happy to hear he's doing fumbles the way he is. All of my worries are eased!
Just a quick note that it seems a LOT of people have been talking about the critical fumble in the last show, in fact sufficiently so on reddit that Matt Mercer noticed and felt he needed to respond.
That is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for from him doing fumbles! Much appreciated for sharing! I would never have seen it otherwise!
I'm going to respond to both posts in here, because meh, and because I felt like Matt Mercer put it much more succinctly than I did. That's pretty much the exactly the point I was trying to make. I hope he cleared up what i was trying to say, where I was adding the commentary that it's the players at the table who have to worry about that stuff, and whether they think it's fair. It's not up to us to worry about whether they think it's fine. Perhaps I didn't do a good enough job of getting my point across. Perhaps it's because there was a communication breakdown, and you felt defensive out of the gate, making you feel like I was attacking you in a way that wasn't my intent.
Tone is mostly lost on the internet, and to make things worse my age and my education (as an English major, not the level of education) make it so I'm much more likely to be formal with my use of language, which I've read is a sign of a more hostile tone, whereas how I read things is different. I'm not sure if I could strictly define it, but there is a structure to writing that can create impressions of tone that I feel like is lost, or may have changed, on the internet. One thing I've noticed is that length tends to be indicative of anger. I can write a 2,000 word opinion (probably in about 3-ish hours) without feeling any kind of frustration, just because of who I am and the education that I have, but in an era of TLDR (a term I loath), most people who take that amount of time to write have some kind of anger behind that volume.
I don't know what's cool on the internet (really, I don't know what's cool at all). I'm too old to spend that much time on it, and I have too many responsibilities. I mostly check Twitter, and hop on here mostly when I need to check rules or work on GM stuff (and occasionally create characters I'll probably never get to play). I'm really only subcribed here to have any semblance of conversation with other critters because no one else I know watches Critical Role. Any response I'm going to have is reflective of who I genuinely have as a human being, not some trend as an online personality. I'm a pretty chill person that has a sense of formality.
If I switch my register from formal to casual, it means that I'm attempting to defuse a situation, because people tend to respond better to casual language, especially when the conversation has escalated, just in the same way that I've learned not to counter or comment on every point that someone makes, because that makes them feel like all of their points are being invalidated. Instead, I've learned to try to pick out the core points, and those that can be more open for discussion without causing more problems, and address them as best as I can.
You're right that I don't know your stance anywhere else, and thus I'm in a vacuum of your opinion. That's a problem inherent in the system of the internet, which is why we all have to be cognizant of it. Perception is more important than reality, on both sides of a conversation. It's not always possible, especially when working in a vacuum, but it's a thing we all should be cognizent of. We all have to be aware of our preconceived notions, but we all have to be aware that everyone has a different set of preconceived notions, so we all have to do our best to meet in the middle.
Also, as a tip, the use of quotation marks in an informal setting, especially when the origional text is readily available, can be percieved to be very hostile (and a little obnoxious). It's the kind of thing that will make people assume that what you're saying comes from a place of anger. It's going to put people on edge, and make everyone very defensive. It's not that you can't quote the person. Just leave the quotation marks out of it. Paraphrasing is also a good tool as long as you're making sure you're keeping the spirit of the quote intact, unless you're pulling out a short quote.
I cannot stop laughing at this episode tonight but have to go to bed :(
Laura is amazing at this, her improv skills are incredible as is her storytelling. She is in such control while acting as well it feels not like I’m sitting here watching D&D, it’s like I’m watching someone’s life unfold.
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I've been OK watching it the next Monday but I also did just find the Twitch/Amazon thing so I guess I know what Friday nights / Saturday mornings are for me now. :)
"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow"
"No power in the 'verse can stop me"
For those who are looking for Matt Mercer's setting: https://greenroninstore.com/products/critical-role-tal-dorei-campaign-setting
Holy crap, that was such an amazing episode last night!
That episode set a good precedent for Guest Stars in this campaign. I love that you could see him getting more into the role-playing as the game progressed
Side note, I think it's gonna be interesting if Matt sticks to making Nat1's do bad stuff in the "critical fail" kinda way
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Yeah, I kind of hope he doesn't! Or maybe switches to 'roll to confirm'. It's going to suck for martial classes at level 5 if they have a wildly increased rate of fumbles compared to the rest of the party.
Increased odds of critical hits should come with it an equal number of critical fumbles. It's not quite fair that a critical hit doubles damage die, but a fumble is just like any other miss. Not to mention there are ways to mitigate that issue, like taking the Lucky feat. Besides, fumbles are a lot more fun, naritavely speaking, and they really are mostly a minor inconvenience. Laura rolled one 1, and she dropped her sickle, which only required some movement and a free action to get back. The way Matt Mercer seems to be doing it is based more on escalation than anything else, which is perfectly acceptable. I think exploration and social fumbles has always been a part of their game. He's just adding fumbles to combat, and maybe making those fumbles have more consequences than before, which is fine. Finally, remember that above all this is a show. Sure it's a home game that was brought over to an audience, but there are viewers just like any show, and adding elements that potentially make it more entertaining is pretty much what shows do.
To your first point of 'increased critical hits should come with increased crit fails...' Except that as you're leveling up you are becoming more powerful, and more adept at your set of skills. But with critical fumbles on 1s, a level 20 Fighter is likely to critically fumble MORE than a level 1 fighter. A fighter who is almost god-like in their fighting abilities, is apparently a massive klutz for some reason. It makes sense for a more adept martial combatant to critically succeed more often as they get stronger, because they're getting better. It doesn't make sense that they actually get worse. If you want to talk narratively, that's the narrative.
Beau and Mollymauk are going to be disadvantaged in a way that other players with spells that ask for saving throws are not going to be. That's the issue, and I hope that Matt, because he's a good DM, realizes as they level up that if he doesn't mitigate fumbles in some way for classes who live and die on having more attacks, that he's disproportionately damaging the contributions of Taliesen and Marisha.
Don't get me wrong: I use critical fumbles in my game, I don't go by RAW. A 1 is an automatic miss no matter what you would add. And they then have to roll to confirm, and there's an agreed upon value that marks an actual fumble vs. just a miss. I've got a Monk and a Paladin both with Extra Attack. As expected, they roll 1s more often than the Sorcerer and the Rogue. If I did crit fumbles like we just watched in the most recent episode, the Monk and Paladin would absolutely pale in comparison. They'd drop their weapons, have to roll saving throws or else go prone, hit their allies, you name the kinds of things you see on a crit fumble table - and all at a rate (currently) 3x that of the Rogue, and a ridiculous amount more than the Sorcerer (who only has one spell that requires an attack roll).
You can flavour a miss or a 'crit fail' without giving your martial classes a mechanical disadvantage. You can also find a happy medium between crit fails being mechanically punishing and not being disproportionately punishing to martial classes. Matt is a good enough DM, and narrator that I'm sure the show would still be entertaining without slapstick fumble moments.
Here's the thing Thoe D&D shouldn't be balanced even in Series 1 the party wasn't balanced, if everyone is balanced and midmaxed to hell then wheres the fun, wheres the story and that is the thing Critical role is more about the story , then about balance. Another thing is with the amount of magic items I'm sure they are going to get later on even the worst fighter is going to end up with a + 5 to hit
Just a quick note that it seems a LOT of people have been talking about the critical fumble in the last show, in fact sufficiently so on reddit that Matt Mercer noticed and felt he needed to respond.
https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/967679619141742595
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Here's the additional information that Matt posted on reddit:
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I have never understood the uproar on some of Matt’s decisions. It is his game and we are not playing in it.
so... any intention on D&DBeyonds part to record the shingle sam sang in the start of the show? ;)
How do you get a one-armed goblin out of a tree?
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I cannot stop laughing at this episode tonight but have to go to bed :(
Laura is amazing at this, her improv skills are incredible as is her storytelling. She is in such control while acting as well it feels not like I’m sitting here watching D&D, it’s like I’m watching someone’s life unfold.
How do you get a one-armed goblin out of a tree?
Wave!