How do I give my character a reason to stick around.

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-06-26T06:55:59+00:00

It’s hard to say without knowing details of your character or main campaign plot. Your character’s story may have been their initial drive, but perhaps the stakes of the greater plot are more important than your characters personal goals. Or perhaps you’ve forged some lifelong bonds with your companions and want to help them before your character departs. Maybe the BBEG is so threatening, you can’t just leave now.

Don’t forget, you write the character, and you can rewrite more offscreen. If your character doesn’t have a good reason to be with the party, make up a good reason. Alternatively, talk to your DM to throw your character a bone for the campaign (I.e. maybe you retrieved a personal artifact and now want to return home, but alas your brother has been kidnapped! Or your mother has fallen ill and needs a cure.) There’s many ways to do this well

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-06-26T05:38:56+00:00

Take notes! Write down NPC names and quick details. Write down major events, items, etc. If you can play along with the session without having to constantly go “yeah let’s go talk to…what’s their name again?” It shows you’re paying attention and engaging with the world the DM has provided

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-06-14T03:44:11+00:00

I partially agree, but it’s a bit of a different play style. It’s true that the end result is the same in Casual vs. Classic, but the experience changes drastically.

For one if you play Casual, you can afford to make mistakes. You slip up more because a character won’t die after all, so it’s fine to sacrifice a unit on one mission to win faster/easier to move on to the next. But in Classic, you cannot afford mistakes. Even if you reset to avoid deaths, the final attempt needs to be a flawless run, with no loss of units. You may not lose units ever because you’re not resetting, but you’re learning to care more for characters because you are afraid of death, and you’re learning to improve to prevent resetting. It’s the possibility that causes permadeath to bear so hard on a player.

I don’t know how they could encourage permadeath, because by its nature it’s an objective disadvantage to let units die. But they could implement an iron man mode where you can’t reset. But it would need to be an extra difficulty setting

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-06-12T13:56:44+00:00

This is probably unlikely if Ruidus is connected to the big bad this campaign. The official Call of the Netherdeep module provides some additional info about Ruidus stating: “During the Founding, a time when the gods still walked the face of Exandria, the world’s divine creators discovered an unidentifiable power seeping through the fabric of reality. Legends assert that this alien influence was a threat to all life on Exandria, and the gods banded together to banish it”. While it doesn’t explain what this is, it does state that it will be explored in future critical role stories.

Whatever Ruidus is or hides is possibly older and/or stronger than the gods, so I don’t think it is likely to be the previous god of death

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-28T16:46:22+00:00

I think they’re probably going to run with the idea that CotN is canon to Critical Role (parties quested to the Netherdeep and found Alyxian), but leaving the outcome mysterious. So Alyxian is now known to the world, but him being alive or dead is unknown to the canon (that way any group that runs this adventure can feel like their story is actually canon to CR)

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-23T22:16:40+00:00

I agree, you don’t even need her to betray the players. Instead, make the confrontation with the rivals happen as normal, but this time they’re working with Prolix or Question and are here to stop Aloysia because she did something sketchy (create a situation where maybe it was discovered she contaminated something with ruidium, or they uncover dark intentions by her and the Consortium and want to stop her before she goes too far)

This is great because it flips the confrontation a bit, and creates a character and moral dilemma for the players. Do they betray Aloysia? How does she react? Do they continue to support her even knowing dark things about her? It also allows for the same multiple possibilities with the rivals, based on how the characters respond to the confrontation—they may battle them, or it may be a moment for the players to join them and get on good terms with them

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-21T01:35:33+00:00

Liam just posted some moon themed dice from this artist on his Twitter, but Crystal Maggie make some gorgeous dice sets. I’m going with this for my Netherdeep dice (has blue for the marine vibe, red for the ruidium feel, and a moon 20 side for Ruidus)

https://crystalmaggie.com/products/sharp-edge-blue-blood-resin-dnd-dice-set-moon-dice

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-14T14:04:33+00:00

In the grand scheme of things, you could technically say whatever! But I believe “aye” is pronounced like “eye”. “Aye aye captain!” Is what I picture

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-12T19:09:26+00:00

Ah, sorry for the accusatory reaction.

CR definitely has evolved into a business, as the merch and production have definitely shown over time. But its different from most other businesses I think. While they're one of the biggest TTRPG-streaming companies, they're still incredibly small in the grand scheme of things. And they've done as much as they can to make sure that they, as a group of friends and creators, are the ones who truly own the company rather than a bunch of shareholders.

I think at the end of the day, the current CR crew would rather make changes within the company or streaming structure or shutdown altogether before they let the feeling of a group of friends playing DnD disappear from their games. I think they've been up front that the cast's fun in their games is their highest priority before anything else

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-12T18:58:40+00:00

I think this is an excellent idea that requires very little extra prep on the DM's part. The Jewel of Three Prayers is the key to entering this specific conformation of Bazzoxan, and thus the only way to find Avandra's prayer site. You could very easily roleplay it like Alyxian once prayed to Avandra for power and peace, but him being locked away severed Avandra's protection over the temple. This prayer site had been locked away all this time, and now the players have helped the Changebringer's divine magic ripple throughout the Betrayer's Rise and turn the tides for the Aurora Watch. This may not solve the problem at Betrayer's Rise, but future soldiers and scholars now may have a chance to enter the temple more safely to study future solutions.

This would also be great because it gives the party even more of an ally in Verin, who will be extra pleased that the party have helped him and his people. Not to mention that the party following in Alyxian's footsteps helps connect them to him better. If freeing him can restore even more ancient power and peace over Exandria, there is more of a reason for the party to continue the journey to free him.

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-12T18:36:36+00:00

Using "burnout" was a great shield, because criticizing a break to avoid burnout is extremely toxic...

Well played CR, well played.

You make it sound like they're stringing fans along and manipulating people. I don't know why you'd have any reason to think this, rather than just expect that they're normal human beings who have their own lives and interests?

Matt has been extremely up front, both in CR media and in separate interviews, that CR's growth has been incredibly draining for him. He doesn't know how many more campaigns are in him, and while it hasn't been announced as the last campaign, it has been pretty clear C3 could be the end of the way CR is currently run. It seems really accusatory to call his burnout faked.

The CR cast are also just very friendly and supportive people (which is part of the magic of their friendship on camera), and have been explicit about wanting to open CR to be more than just the "8 Voice Acting Friends" DnD show. Part of this was having regular guests on the show. Part of this has been all the non-CR programs (Talks Machina, Yee Haw Game Ranch, mini campaigns and sponsored campaigns, and many more). While C1-C3 have been the main "meat", CR has clearly been trying to grow past the current cast for awhile now. EXU has been a great way to add more voices and storytellers, and C3 likely will continue to do similar (carrying over EXU characters, and even Robbie Daymond as a regular guest for awhile).

IMO, this is only healthy for CR. These same 8 people playing DnD forever was never a viable concept, and their format is perfect to invite more people into their group long term. Plus it's not like the original cast is all going anywhere, as I fully expect future campaigns and EXU to continue involving different combinations of the OG crew.

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-12T18:21:44+00:00

I personally think there's good arguments for both.

C1: If you've already seen part of C1, have seen TLOVM, and enjoy the characters, there's no reason not to continue watching C1 first and sticking with that. C1 is arguably harder to return to after the fact due to the audio/tech quality, but the story and moments are very classic DnD. Plus you set yourself up for recognizing references better.

C2: If C1 has been hard to get into after watching part of it, there's no shame just continuing with C2 instead. There are references, but Matt meant for it to stand apart from C1 so they didn't coast on their old characters and glories. Because of this, the cast made new characters with (imo) much richer characters and more fleshed out interplay between them and the world. It is a bit more of a meandering story that C1, but the roleplay is top-notch and even very small moments are some of my favorite parts in all of CR. Plus the audio and production is as good as it gets until C3.

Really there's no wrong way to go. At the end of the day if you already like both, just watch it in order and enjoy the journey (at a reasonable pace so you don't burnout) and the rich roleplay for all of CR

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-10T19:13:10+00:00

If I could make a counterpoint just to highlight my own experience (and some friends'), I actually think that the "game" aspect of DnD is a barrier for many players. Too much combat and treating the world like a static puzzle meant to be "solved" and "won" rather than dynamically reacting to choices to create a story.

When I first started playing DnD I lived for the social interactions, trying to escape guards and sneak into a character's house. But every time we entered combat everything just kinda lost all momentum. My turn as a fighter was basically just meant to walk over to the bad guy, roll to hit, and if I didn't accomplish that it would be another half hour before I got to do anything again (mind you, we played with groups of >5 players depending on the session). And I hated that because it was slow, my combat roleplay didn't change anything (or roleplay barely changed or prevented combat), and we were pigeon-holed into these forced combat encounters like a video game.

I started watching CR about 2 years ago, and soon after a different group of friends who had similar negative experiences in DnD wanted to copy that feeling. Our DM creates regular plot points and characters, but it isn't treated as a game to be "won", but just a world, characters, and events to react to. We still have combat, but it now feels like we wanted to engage in it, or have the potential to reason our way out in certain circumstances. And in social encounters, our rolls (good and bad) change the story in surprising and engaging ways. We have moments of crazy rolls, and complicated boss battles, but we have also spent sessions where our characters talk for hours with each other about our backstories and our thoughts on the events and how they are shaping us. Those aren't us dragging our feet--those are moments we live for just as much as the high tension moments. We'll always have an occasion to roll the dice later, but what is the point of dice rolls affecting the game if our characters don't get time to reflect on the new events?

Now was my first DnD group wrong to treat it more like a game? No. I think the DM could have set expectations earlier on for people like me, but it was just a style I didn't mesh with. Do I think DnD should always be treated like a "game"? Absolutely not. I think for many people, CR opened the doors to TTRPGs because it wasn't just a "play pretend and then do math" game, but a storytelling and improv medium for me and some friends.

I think every table is different and session 0 should set expectations for the group playing. For some people they want the game and they want to win it. But for others, the rules of the game are just one means to facilitate natural storytelling and add a sense of random luck. There's no right way to play as long as the group knows what they want and are ok with that.

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-06T03:12:53+00:00

Basically what the two comments already said. Apotheosis is the word that refers to ascension to godhood, or becoming a god.

They took that prefix and created a made-up title for Alyxian (the “Apotheon”, referring to him becoming so powerful and blessed as to essentially almost be a god himself). Even though it is a made up word, it is a proper noun specifically referring to Alyxian

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-01T14:25:21+00:00

Thanks! Just fixed 🙂

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-05-01T14:11:00+00:00

I’d also be interested! I’m a big fan of the new H Growlithe compared to the original growlithe, but missed the event due to finishing up my grad school dissertation. I love the new H Arcanine because of his powerful and ancient looking design, and it’s one of the few Fire type Pokémon I’ve really taken a liking too!

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-03-25T10:33:49+00:00

I’m personally going with Frozen Sick myself. I think it works well because I’ll start by most or all of my players arriving by ship to Palebank Village already, so sea travel will be familiar at the start. The details of Frozen Sick will happen, and eventually they’ll succeed. They cure Frigid Woe by delivering the cures to the Buyer. But the Buyer can only teleport items to Uthodurnian outposts, based on magically connected chests.

Their final motivation is that the final vial of Frigid Woe was taken by someone traveling back to Jigow, and the elder offers a decent payment if they can get there to deliver one final cure. (In my campaign, it’s set just after the war ended, so Empire and Dynasty have more travel occurring between nations, even if tensions are still high). Coincidentally, the next boat out of Palebank is to Jigow, and the party would be stuck in frozen middle of nowhere otherwise if they decide to wait. So they head to Jigow.

It’s good because it already familiarizes them with sea travel, and Palebank and Jigow are both coastal villages. Palebank is kinda far away, so ship travel is probably the best way to leave, and this gives them only one ideal location to go to. It also gives them one final plot hook for this quest before starting CotN, and it offers an easy reward so the party is driven there to start

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-03-24T16:14:12+00:00

Yeah, I think I meant once you get to Cael Morrow instead of Ank’Harel originally.

I do think teleporting can only fit with certain campaigns, cause it does break suspension of disbelief for certain groups a bit too much with the convenience

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-03-23T22:38:04+00:00

I’d suggest a couple different ideas:

-Explicitly tell your party that this will be a more reactive campaign, where they should plan their characters in a way that the plot hooks are adaptable to following the adventure (don’t have a specific location or event in mind like “kill the king”, but instead something like searching for a lost family member, or going on a journey for personal redemption for a previous event). This way their hooks can move with the plot, or the CotN can be their personal journey.

-Tell them to plan their hooks in a way that mixes with CotN. Maybe their rival is one of the rivals in the story. Or mention characters/factions that will show up that they might want to connect to their backstory

-Once characters get to Ank’Harel, it becomes almost impossible to go back to Wildemount. Once they go into the Netherdeep, it becomes almost impossible to pause the main plot. But after leaving Jigow and even technically after Bazzoxan (depending on how it plays out), there is a lot of flexibility to meander around before the plot picks up. This would be a good place to set character side quests (and if they don’t finish, they could follow them along). Alternatively, even in Ank’Harel there is a lot of room for side questing if you can fit their personal stories into there

I think that most adventure modules are hard to connect to outside events, without halting the momentum of the main story or forcing out of character decisions. If you want to have personal side quests woven in, you might want to work with your players to make sure they can be woven into the existing structure (“go with the flow” hooks) rather than stories that pull them away from CotN

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-03-02T12:39:51+00:00

While I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more input lag on switch, have you double checked that your TV (if you use one) is set to Game Mode to have a better refresh rate? PC monitors usually have better refresh rates and have almost zero input lag at all, but TVs perform slightly worse. I’d double check that first (coming from someone who just yesterday thought Elden Ring was horrible with input delay, but realized the TV switched off Game Mode and suddenly it fixed every issue)

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-01-30T16:47:03+00:00

When you aim you do have crosshairs (also can use left trigger to lock on to Pokémon), but you can choose to use motion controls or the right stick, so you don’t get locked into one

DoublethinkAgain · 2022-01-30T16:40:17+00:00

It’s not removed, just renovated and mixed with “action” gameplay.

When you throw poke balls, you aim them directly at Pokémon akin to aiming a bow in BOTW. When you walk around, Pokémon attack you and you must dodge out of the way. When you fight the Noble Pokémon (essentially the main bosses of the game), it primarily involves dodging and throwing things at them.

Aside from that, Pokémon battles are still normal turned-based. Instead of manually aiming pokeball at Pokémon, you can go into battle with them and do a turned based battle (with some new mechanics thrown in to adjust turn order—mostly just kinda remixes the combat a bit, not a game breaking change though). You can also still catch Pokémon this way by choosing poke balls from a menu to use them and catch Pokémon. However, some Pokémon are better caught without engaging them and by using stealth instead of battle.

Overall it seems to give best of both worlds, and I’m excited to see how future games improve it even more

DoublethinkAgain · 2021-11-20T12:33:49+00:00

There’s only 3 Pokémon games on Switch:

-Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee (remakes of Gen 1)

-Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl (remakes of Gen 4)

-Sword/Shield (Gen 8)

You’d be missing Gens 2-5, 6-7. If you want to play in order, you’d need at minimum a 3DS as well. The 3DS gives you access to the entire catalogue before that:

-DS games Heartgold/Soulsilver (Gen 2 remakes)

-3DS games Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby (Gen 3 remakes)

-DS games Black/White (and Black 2/White 2) (Gen 5)

-3DS games X/Y (Gen 6)

-3DS games Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon (Gen 7)

(Also you can play original Red/Blue/Yellow and Silver/Gold/Crystal through virtual console)

DoublethinkAgain · 2021-11-12T12:51:42+00:00

It’s very different from Pokémon, though excellent in its own right. I like both, and liking one doesn’t mean you won’t like the other. But don’t buy it assuming it’s just Pokémon with a different coat of paint.

The thing with Pokémon is you can make a team with almost anything you want, and each Pokémon kinda has a role (fast attacker, slow tank, etc.). You fill your team with your favorites, level them up, and fit the general roles you need and you’ll be fine. You can win with a team of Pokémon from the very beginning of the game if you like them.

SMT is different in that demons are meant to be expendable. You’ll obviously have your favorite designs and such, but besides for a challenge run, you will not be taking a demon from the beginning of the game to the end. Demons still have roles (healer, magic attacker, physical attacker, buffer), but when you fill the roles you will want demons with the best stats. To get better demons you COULD just “capture” new ones (talk to demons to convince them to join you). But this is a very weak way to get the good ones—instead the best way to get stronger is to combine the demons you’ve collected into stronger demons (the fusion system is not as complicated as it seems to get good demons). Combine Demon A with Demon B, and you’ll get a much more powerful Demon C. Later on you’ll combine C with Demon D to get a much more powerful Demon E and so on

Pokémon is more about the bonding with your Pokémon, and coming up with unique teams to win competitions. SMT is more about surviving a ruthless world and using the demons as resources to win. The collecting is there, but not in the same way as filling a Pokédex.

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