[dramatic music] (applause) AUDIENCE MEMBER: Ready for dice violence! MATT: It's too early for dice violence. TALIESIN: Oh my God. MATT: Tap, tap, tap. Can you hear me through the
mic? That's the perfect time for the cricket sounds to go off. TALIESIN: I'm going to keep making noise. AUDIENCE MEMBER: We can hear you. MATT: You got this. TALIESIN: Wait! MATT: This is not your fault. TALIESIN: We got one up. Second one is possibly
going to be up. MATT: At worst we'll just have to share a mic. TALIESIN: It'll be fine. MATT: No. Thank you for your patience. We'll be
with you in just a second. TALIESIN: You start talking and I'll sit over
here. MATT: Okay. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Loot Crate! (laughter) MATT: Sam's not here, it's not the same. That poor
man didn't realize what he was doing when he did his first real Loot Crate pitch, like, well, this is
your job from now on. TALIESIN: I'm horrified. I was originally like,
I'm excited, I'll eventually get to do one. I don't want to do one any more. MATT: Yeah! There's too much to live up to now. TALIESIN: I'm still [inaudible]-- okay, fine. MATT: So, good morning, everybody! How you doing? (cheering and applause) MATT: Welcome to our hopefully well-rested Sunday at
noon Critical Role panel. Who had a good night last night? (cheering) MATT: Who's suffering today because of it? (cheering) MATT: You are the true champions. TALIESIN: Hey! Found your badge! Yay. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I got a new one. TALIESIN: Even better. MATT: Is that Allura over there? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. MATT: That is amazing! TALIESIN: So much cosplay. MATT: I love it! TALIESIN: I don't know what happened. MATT: #CriticalCostumes for our Halloween
contest. TALIESIN: Critical Costumes with an 's'? Critical
Costumes? MATT: One of the two. TALIESIN: Yes. MATT: We'll just check them all. I don't remember.
I'm still groggy. So who are you? TALIESIN: Hi, my name is Taliesin Jaffe. I'm a
voice actor and voice director and somehow a Dungeons & Dragons player at this point which has
apparently become a thing I say now in front of crowds of people. It is a unique and exciting
opportunity and makes taking Lyfts and Ubers around the city even more exciting than it used to
be. Really great. It's nice to actually see them get worried. "You do what? No." Yeah. "I don't
know what that is! Ah!" MATT: Well, sometimes it helps end the
conversation you don't need in the back of the Uber. TALIESIN: Another test. Carry on! Keep talking! MATT: My name is Matthew Mercer. I'm a voice actor
from Los Angeles. We got it? TALIESIN: Yeah, you're good. Carry on. MATT: I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons most of
my young adult and adult life and I'm damn proud of it. There's other RPGs but D&D is kind of my
mainstay, and somehow this happened. We all know what this means. We don't know how this happened. TALIESIN: Is there anybody here who got dragged
here and has no idea why they're in this room? (laughter) MATT: All righty! So to give you a little heads up
on that, Critical Role is a Twitch stream that we do pretty much every Thursday night where me,
Taliesin, and a bunch of other nerdy-ass voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. It began as a
private game we played for two years in Pathfinder, and then Geek & Sundry approached us
because somehow word got around the industry that there was this voice actor D&D game, and like,
"You should do it on camera." We were like eh. TALIESIN: Look at that. Yeah. MATT: Yay! TALIESIN: It's like a Brookstone puzzle of wires
down here. It was so impressive. It was red to green. It was like a Mansions of Madness
mini-puzzle down here. That's evil. Thanks, man! MATT: Success. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah, tech! (applause) AUDIENCE MEMBERS (chanting): Tech crew! Tech crew!
Tech crew! TALIESIN: That should happen at every panel. MATT: There isn't enough appreciation for the tech
crew. We were iffy on doing our game on-camera because it was something that was personal to us
and whenever you put anything on the internet, you're ready for the internet to tear it into 14
pieces, light it on fire, and laugh at you in your pile of tears. When they told us they were doing a
Twitch channel and it allowed us to play unedited for all the rough bumps and mishaps that is an
actual D&D game, then at least that allowed us to continue what we were doing, just adding cameras to
the room. I think we were happy to find that it really didn't change the experience too much and
we're still having fun playing D&D once a week in front of a lot more people. TALIESIN: I was quite pleased that our most-viewed
episode so far has been the one where I'm mostly not in it. (laughter) TALIESIN: Wow, all they had to do was get rid of
me and suddenly we've got more people watching. We should do that in every episode. That's great. So
sorry. MATT: (angry voice) "We'll give you ten bucks,
here, you can kill Percy every episode." TALIESIN: We're going to make so many likes. All
the internet likes will be ours. We'll be swimming in internet likes. MATT: "The whole marketing team crunched the
numbers and you get at least a 25% increase in "viewership every time Taliesin is not on screen.
Do it!" God, if that conversation ever happened, that's when we're gone. TALIESIN: I was about to say, to be fair, who
would we have that conversation with? We are pretty much left to our own devices mostly. It's
nice. They just let us do the show. It's really sweet. MATT: At the very beginning, they were like, "Hey,
this show's going well. You should do these "things!" We went-- MATT and TALIESIN: No. MATT: They went, "What?" We went, "We'll leave."
They went, "Do your thing." It's been nice to be able to hold our ground. TALIESIN: I'll say, the tech crew and even the
production crew at this point, we're all on the same ship together at this point, it's nice. MATT: Everyone involved with the show's
production: really cool people and we have a good time. TALIESIN: It was a couple of weeks ago when that
giant tub of Legos came in. I was so excited because I had a guest with me and I wanted to
introduce her to everybody. The show's happening and things are getting ready, but half the tech
crew are just sitting building Legos. They won't even make eye contact, just like slowly-- I'm
like, "Guys, are you--" and just like, "No, this "is what we do now." It's a fun place to work. MATT: So, that's the gist of Critical Role. You
can check it out, it's a bunch of us just improvising, making weird voices, and rolling
dice. But, yes, this is primarily a conversation Q&A about the show and anything surrounding games
that you have. Any burning questions you got in the back of your skull. TALIESIN: I wanted to point out, it's your only
5th edition game you've ever run, isn't it? MATT: It is, actually. TALIESIN: Before that was Pathfinder, before that
was 4th edition. MATT: Before that was 3.5 and every edition
previously. TALIESIN: It just suddenly occurred to me, this is
the only experience you've had running 5th edition. That's so crazy. MATT: I only have so much free time. We started
streaming a once a week campaign. TALIESIN: That changed everything, didn't it? MATT: We used to play once every six to eight
weeks, maybe. Mind you, we'd play for a marathon session, it would be a six to nine hour game when
we did play. We'd just block out an entire Saturday. TALIESIN: You want to watch something sad? This is
my favorite thing to do to hurt him. You remember War Machine? MATT: (sadly) Yeah. TALIESIN: That's a beautiful army you've got. It's
a shame nothing happens with it anymore. MATT: I know. They have a new edition out, too. TALIESIN: That's what I hear. I haven't finished
painting the minis I got for Christmas last year. MATT: No, I still have them at my place. (laughter) MATT: MK3 rules look really nice. They made some
good changes. TALIESIN: I've heard. I haven't had time. MATT: Me neither. That's fine. TALIESIN: Maybe after we finally open up that new
Mansions of Madness at some point. MATT: Me and Marisha did try that. The new
Mansions of Madness edition is really cool. TALIESIN: Now I'm a little envious, actually. MATT: A fan sent us a copy and pre-painted all the
minis. Which is so awesome! I think I opened it on the last Periscope we did, but it was really cool,
because I've been wanting to have Mansions of Madness with all the minis painted. I got half of
them done with the older edition and just didn't have time, and so it was really cool that somebody
did that. TALIESIN: Not that I'm jealous. Who did you play
with, was it Key and Brittany? MATT: No, it was just me and Marisha. You can play
with two people. TALIESIN: Oh, because of the app, okay. We're just
talking about games, I'm so sorry. Okay, so the app works. That's good. I'm very excited about
that. MATT: It takes a little bit of a learning curve,
but once you get there it actually runs pretty well. Narratively, actually, it's pretty cool
because-- anyway, hi guys! You're here, too. TALIESIN: We don't get to talk much, so this is
really nice. It's so good not to see you on a weekday. MATT: I know. TALIESIN: Should they just raise their hands? MATT: Let's have some questions, how about that?
You pick first. TALIESIN: Let's start on the left in the hoodie.
You, sir. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Taliesin, you're generally very
secretive about what you like to do in the game. Is that a Percy trait or is that a Taliesin trait
of trying to hide it from the audience and hide it from your fellow cast members? TALIESIN: Ooh, that's probably a me-- God, it's
been so long. I finally got to play a character who wasn't Percy for the first time a few weeks
ago and it was such a surprising breath of fresh air. Not in a bad way, but like, "Oh, that's
right, I can do other things." It's a me trait, but he really probably brings out more of it than
would necessarily be normal because he's not a big talker. I was originally brought into the game to
be a bit of a ringer, just to make sure there was somebody in the room who kind of knew the rules,
kind of knew what was happening, and could shove everybody in the right direction. I got used to
playing that way of like, "I don't want anybody to "see what I'm working on. I'm going to let
everybody else who this is their first D&D game "figure this stuff out and I'm just going to come
in at the end if there's anything to sweep up." AUDIENCE MEMBER: To follow up, what were the rules
for Percy coming back? TALIESIN: I won't go too deep into them. I will
say I would have been happy either way. We had a conversation. MATT: We had discussed your next possible
character. TALIESIN: Sitting over really alcoholic beverages.
Dangerous levels of alcohol at Laura and Travis' house, and if he ever goes, I have a great
character that I'm really excited for. Like, <i>really</i>. I checked it and it's good. MATT: I already have a way to work it into
the lore and the current story. TALIESIN: The only big rule was because of his
most recent experiences with the Raven Queen, any attempt to invoke a deity was going to be an
automatic no. Just because he has gone in a weird direction where it's become a-- You can't really
be an atheist in D&D. That just doesn't make any sense, that's just an idiot, because a golden
flaming fist just came down out of the sky and crushed a dragon. You'd be an idiot to be like,
"There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for "that. That's a weather balloon, obviously." He has
decided that he wants nothing to do with any of them. Any attempt to invoke any of that would have
been an automatic no. MATT: Pike got close. TALIESIN: I was watching, like, "What are you
doing, girl? What are you doing? Oh, okay." She got close to a no. You pick one. MATT: Let's go on the-- I'm biased. Hi, Allura.
Sorry, guys. You come dressed up as an NPC, I'm going to pick your question first. Just setting
that up for future panels. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I know that DMing is very time
consuming. How many hours of preparation does it take to prepare for a session? MATT: The question was how many hours does it take
to prep for a session as a DM? It varies depending on what's coming up. If the next episode, the
players are on a very clear track and I know what the next couple of events they're probably going
to encounter might be, then I'd say it takes about an hour of prep per hour of gameplay. So if it's
going to be a three to four hour session, three to four hours of preparation. As I recently
discovered with the episode where they were bringing you back, I call that a nexus episode,
where there are multiple plot threads out there and they can go to any of them and they're getting
to a point in the story where they have to make that choice of where to go, then my life becomes
horrible because I have to prepare for many different opportunities here. So that was about a
four-hour episode. I think I prepped about nine hours for that one. That was also because I didn't
know if they were going to go into the Abyss to try and find Yenk the goristro, in which case I
had to prepare a bunch of encounters in the Abyss and made two additional maps for various
Abyss-based encounters. I didn't know if they were going to go for the Dawnmartyr plate, so I had
stuff for the City of Brass prepared including some encounters that would have worked with the
fire plane and the City of Brass. I also had a couple other NPC encounters. I prepped a lot of
things so that I wouldn't be completely lost if they went off the rails, which they always do
anyway, but you try your best as a DM to prepare. TALIESIN: There was just a giant pile of maps and
you after the game were like, "Welp, didn't need "any of that, did we?" MATT: I made a whole Whitestone battle map just in
case they decided to say, "Sorry, Raishan," and then attack, which would have gone really poorly
for everybody involved. It can vary depending on what point in the story they are. But on average,
it's about an equal amount of hours per prep to gameplay, usually. Good question. You pick now. TALIESIN: I'm going to go to the-- actually, we
may get to everybody eventually, so I'm just going to start pointing randomly. The girl in the red
shirt right back there. AUDIENCE MEMBER: This is actually a question for
Matt. I'm going to start DMing my first campaign soon, so I wanted to ask you what is some of the
best advice you wish you knew when you started DMing? TALIESIN: Run! MATT: Let's see, trying to make this quick. I
have a bunch of GM Tips videos you can go look up which go into more detailed stuff, and I have more
of those starting soon. We did a whole new run of them that go into more of the nuts and bolts, a
little look under the hood there. Look for those soon. My recommendation is start small. It's very
easy to get lost in like, "Well, I have to create "a world and create all these civilizations and
political struggles and (screaming)." Start in a very small location, a key location, and flesh
that out well so the players can play within that small space and you have a really good idea of
what can be done in that area. Then as they're playing in that space you can then expand a little
and expand a little. So definitely start small and then grow out. That doesn't work for everybody, of
course. People love the whole world building aspect, and that's totally fine. But for people
that are starting, it can be a little daunting. Other than that, keep in mind some of the best
experiences are when you're trying to facilitate the players to have incredible moments. The very
old school Gygaxian mindset of DM versus players, "I will smash you all and you will have fun," can
work as long as you all agree ahead of time that that's the kind of game you want to play. If you
want to run Tomb of Horrors and your friends are like, "Yeah, let's do Tomb of Horrors," then yeah,
go ahead and do it, that's awesome. Just make sure that everybody's on the same page on what kind of
game you want to run. That way you don't end up getting halfway through and someone is like, "Oh,
I thought we were going to do, like, political "intrigue, I made a character based around that.
Now we're fighting kobolds and I can't do "anything." Then you end up leaving out players. So
have everyone talk beforehand and make sure you're all on the same page with what kind of game you
want to run. I think those are two big steps right there. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. MATT: No worries! TALIESIN: Yeah, that's a really good one. I picked
one. MATT: I know. I'm going to go in the way back.
You, sir, with the yellow shirt on the left. Or pink shirt, I can't tell. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Orange shirt. MATT: Orange shirt. Oh, it's in between. I got to
the bookend colors and eventually came together. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I've heard that there's going to
be a sourcebook for the Critical Role setting and I'm just wondering, is the gunslinger class going
to be a full class or just remain an archetype on the DM's Guild? MATT: In regards to the campaign setting, which
has been an amazing experience of having no free time. TALIESIN: We miss you, too. MATT: I'm excited for it. I've never written
something like this before and I hope you guys will like it. First off, I'm trying to see if I
can get permission to put those in the book because one of the interesting elements of putting
things on the DM's Guild is technically in the rules you're not allowed to then publish them in
other facets. It's one of those "now it's on DM's "Guild, it stays on DM's Guild" circumstance, so I'm
trying to see if I can find a way to put the blood hunter and the gunslinger in there. As far as
turning it into a full class, people can do their own mods; I created it as an archetype because I
didn't feel there was necessarily enough there for the build that I did to make it a full class. I
could if I had time and I wanted to stretch it out, but it seems to be working fine the way we
have it, so I'm probably not going to change it dramatically from what's been tested and worked in
the campaign. But there are other people out there that have made their own custom firearm gunslinger
based classes out there that are actually pretty awesome. I saw a gun mage class that was pretty
cool on the DM's Guild. TALIESIN: Someone sent me a really interesting gun
cleric. MATT: Gun cleric? Heal! Heal! You're basically
Ana. TALIESIN: It was basically full-on an Overwatch
character. MATT: So we'll see. I don't think it's going to
become a full class more than just an archetype, just because that's what we have tested primarily
and creating anything new and publishing it without having any real extensive test time sounds
like a really bad idea to me. TALIESIN: This week's cluster of stupid is a good
sign that it's well-balanced. I had a wonderfully pitiful round, which I'm happy about. I'm glad. MATT: It's a powerful class. The grit recycling
works really well for crits and deaths. It seems to balance pretty well from being a little bit
stronger in some cases and then the drawbacks can be pretty nasty at times. TALIESIN: Two critical fails on the guns is just
sad. MATT: If you play a gunslinger, pull a Percy and
make sure you have as many John Woo weapons on you as possible. TALIESIN: Have a close combat object of some kind.
Something. That's the worst. MATT: Indeed. Good question. TALIESIN: I'm probably going to try and keep
pulling through. I'm going to keep popping around a bit. You, sir, with the hair. Yeah, you, right
there. Yes, you know who you are, you have the hair. No, no, no, we'll get there. MATT: To be fair, he also has hair, too. We all
have hair. TALIESIN: I suppose that is hair, sort of. MATT: We'll do the guy with the hair, and then
we'll do the guy with the hair. AUDIENCE MEMBER: He loves that you noticed his
hair. You have no idea. TALIESIN: I ruined everything. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a person in one of my
games who is going to be eventually playing a gunslinger and he wanted something to be a bit
more support-y. So I was wondering, just to bounce this off you guys, the idea that, like Ana, tranq
darts, but you fill them with various potions. TALIESIN: I don't know if that's something I would
do in our game just because, although I'm very amused by the notion of a paintball gun, basically
what you're talking about is paintball guns full of Tiger Balm where you're just hitting somebody
with like, what are the odds of that being knockout gas? I love the idea of just like, "Oh,
it itches, what have you done?" I'm amused by the notion of a poison slinger of some kind. Although
it really would be a mess to try and make those all the time. MATT: Yeah. The cool thing about D&D is you can
try anything. Whatever you think fits your campaign, go for it. A tranq dart aspect with
healing potions could get expensive very quickly. Plus, nothing sucks more than pumping a 150, 200
gold potion into a tranq dart and then missing. Also rolling a critical one and hitting the
creature instead is like, "Whoa!" TALIESIN: What would you think of 1d4 per dart? MATT: 1d4 healing per dart? TALIESIN: That would be kind of interesting. Super
low health, that would be kind of amusing that you could actually pump 3d4 into someone but it might
go horribly wrong and you might hit an enemy if you miss. AUDIENCE MEMBER: The main thing he joked about was
a potion of diminution against mounted combatants. TALIESIN: That would be pretty fun. The history
nerd in me is like, that's very German, that's great. Somewhere there's a 16th-century German
military historian going, "Yeah, it is very "German!" There's one in the crowd somewhere. MATT: You'd be surprised. It's like a gunslinger
alchemist combo, that would be interesting. Yeah, try it out, why not? No reason not to. That's why
I like D&D, you can just do anything and it'll probably not work but you'll have fun trying. TALIESIN: Give it a few rounds, you'll figure it
out. It's a cool thought, though. Do you want to pick one? MATT: I feel like we should get the other guy with
the hair. TALIESIN: Guy with other hair. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I appreciate it. As a theater kid
myself, thank you very much for showing the respect for the tech because you're right, they
don't get the respect. TALIESIN: Don't drop the mic, they're expensive! AUDIENCE: If you're a voice actor, you don't touch
the mic. MATT: Yeah, exactly. AUDIENCE MEMBER: From your experience both as RPG
players, DMs, but also as actors and directors, have those two worked together in such a way where
you've found experience from one field is dedicated to another and back and forth between
the two of them? TALIESIN: Yes yes. Very yes. Yes. We should
probably repeat the question. Has working as a voice actor and working as a voice director
influenced our play and has our play influenced our work as voice actors and voice directors? Oh
my God, yes. Not just the game we're in right now. Always. I think it's one of the reasons why so
many of the people we bring on as first-timers who are VO people are really good. Mary Elizabeth is
just delightful to watch, and Will is-- Any time we have VO people on I'm always just so excited. MATT: Because they realize, "Oh, this is kind of
what we do for a living anyway." TALIESIN: There's a lot of the same skill sets. I
love our friends who come on who aren't necessarily big VO people, like I love having
Chris, and I'm not going to call him other Wil, and Felicia. They're fun because they know the
game and they're into it and they're down, but I love watching a new VO actor being like, "I don't
know what I'm doing!" MATT: Then comparably we had Rothfuss, who had
plenty of D&D experience, but even he came on and before we started playing, he was like, "I'm
really intimidated." He was nervous. In the kitchen I'm like, "You wrote The Name of the Wind,
are you serious?" Once again, once he got comfortable with it,
he made an amazing character that had an amazing story impact to Keyleth's personality. TALIESIN: Then two months later dropped a bomb on
us. From space! Out of nowhere! MATT: It was so good! On the other end of that, I
will say, part of the reason I even became a voice actor was because of D&D. I played these games
long before I became a professional actor, and as a DM especially, having to create all of these
personalities and inhabit them and find variations to voices to try and mix it up and make the
characters interesting became a toolbox of personalities that I was able to fine-tune and
utilize as a voice actor later in life. I can say with complete honesty, probably a third of the
characters I've ever performed as an actor had some sort of root or base as an NPC in my high
school D&D games. TALIESIN: I can go in on that one, too. That's
very true. I hadn't really thought about that. Any weird voice I ever do probably started in some
game in high school. That's nuts. MATT: So yes. Both ways. TALIESIN: I'll throw to the red coat in the front
because I'm highly entertained by your outfit. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good, it's supposed to be Dr.
Ripley. TALIESIN: (gasps) Yes, with the hand! Yes! MATT: That's fantastic. AUDIENCE MEMBER: You guys talk a lot about finding
a game that fits you. How do you gracefully bow out of a game that maybe isn't what you wanted it
to be? TALIESIN: Blow it up, leave nothing! MATT: Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be
sure. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a friend who ordered C4
through a Vampire LARP, so, that happened. TALIESIN: I've watched so many of my favorite
vampire LARPs be destroyed by three jerks. All it takes is three jerks to ruin a perfectly
functional vampire city. I hope he's listening. He knows who he is. I had a good thing going. MATT: There's always the, "Oh, guys, my shift
changed. I can't make the game time, sorry, have "fun!" You can do the white lie route because then
nobody gets hurt. People come in and out of games all the time because of work. TALIESIN: It is a breakup, though. You have to
accept that somebody's feelings are probably going to be a little miffed. Although it's possible if
you're not having fun, they're not having fun with you there, either. So you can always do the
roommate thing of, "I love you as a friend and I "know if we live together for another month I'm
going to end up hating you, so I'm ending this now "so I can still love seeing you and not want to
throttle you. This is slowly going to poison "everything I love about you and make me want to
strangle you in your sleep." MATT: If you're not enjoying the game, you can
always talk to the DM beforehand and let them know. In some cases, without communication, they
might not be aware that they're running sessions that aren't to your liking or tastes. If they're a
good DM, they'll be open to constructive criticism and be like, "Oh, okay, I didn't know that that
was an aspect that you were missing but you "wanted. I'll see if I can incorporate that more
into the game for you." If they're really defensive and like, "Well, if you don't like my
game, then step off," then step off! They just gave you complete permission to cut away free and
dry, like, "All right, see you sucker!" TALIESIN: Not every game is for everybody. I've
definitely been in games where I'm not having a good time and I've been in games where somebody
else is obviously playing a different game and we're like, "Ah, man, I dig the game you're
playing, I hope you find it, or I'll run you "another game." I've done that before, both
directions. MATT: Which is why, once again, communication
before you start playing is so key because that way everyone has an idea of what they're looking
for and if it's the game for them, and the DM knows what kind of players to tailor the story to.
I would recommend first having a conversation and express that, because there is a possibility that
it could become what you're looking for. I would say give the DM the chance to go ahead and do
that. If they're not willing to, then just respectfully bow out and look for a game that more
suits your interests. Because it is your free time that you're allocating to this. Don't feel like
you should stay out of obligation. TALIESIN: It's supposed to be relaxing and
therapeutic. It's not supposed to be what you're actually talking about in therapy. MATT: That's a good way of putting it. TALIESIN: Really, it's supposed to be the den of
the therapy, not the problem. MATT: Good luck. I'm going to go ahead and pick
you, sir, over on the far side with the Zelda shirt. AUDIENCE MEMBER: You guys play a lot of general
RPGs. Are there RPGs you prefer playing? You play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons. What would be your
next favorite RPG? TALIESIN: It's legitimately been two years since
I've touched anything else. I'm trying to think. You go. MATT: I love D&D because it's what I grew up with
and the 5th edition system is really comfortable to me. It takes a lot of my favorite aspects of
older editions and streamlines them where it allows you to build narrative within the rules a
lot easier, which as a person who loves narrative more than anything, that to me is a great thing.
But there are other systems that do it really well, too. The Fate system is really fun. I've
played a few games in the Fate system. As far as sci-fi stuff goes, I really enjoy Traveler and
Diaspora. Those are both really good. Traveler is one of the few RPG systems where you can die in
character creation. TALIESIN: That and HoL, man. MATT: That and HoL, definitely. TALIESIN: Human-occupied landfill. MATT: I love the Deadlands setting, like the weird
west. It's very cool, very strange, and I love good western settings, anyway, so that one's a
great one. The original system, though complicated, I think is the better of the two, but
if you want more of a simple gameplay style, you can go with the newer editions, which is what we
did for our one-shot. TALIESIN: I like Risk. (laughter) TALIESIN: I like the World of Darkness one,
Vampire: The Masquerade, both tabletop and LARP I'm a big fan of. Also on their end, I liked all
their little addendums. The Mage game is an enormous amount of fun. Any attempt to play it in
a LARP is always a hilarious failure in the best way. Changeling, Werewolf By Night, the whole run
of them is just a great time. On that other end, there's some old-school stuff. Teenagers from
Outer Space, which is one of the first anime tabletop games, is just dumb. It's great. MATT: If you want the other end of dumb anime
RPGs, you want to go Full Saiyan or Ninja Scroll style insanity, Exalted is always a good time. TALIESIN: Exalted is that end and TFOS is more
like Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha vibe. Like harem anime stupid. MATT: Exalted is more like, "I put all my strength
into one final attack. Destroy everything." It's fun. TALIESIN: Cyberpunk and Cybergen was always a big
one. I remember GURPs being fun, but I think I was probably wrong. MATT: GURPs is fun in the same way that paper is
fun. Depending on what you do with paper, it can be a lot of fun or really boring. TALIESIN: It's way too awkward. It's just, "Well,
I'm going to make a robot vampire that has the "Sword of Omens," and you can kind of do it. MATT: Speaking of which, Rifts also is a
ridiculous experience in the same vein. I'm not saying it's a good system. TALIESIN: No, but boy, you can do anything.
Champions from back in the day was always fun. I was a Champions player briefly. Are there any good
superhero RPGs? MATT: Actually, the Marvel RPG that came out five
or six years ago was actually pretty decent. Different characters were better at being a solo
fighter versus a group fighter versus a team fighter and you had different dies depending on
what you were a specialist with. Some characters like Wolverine had better damage rolls if they
were away from a team. TALIESIN: I could go in for something like that.
That would be really cool. MATT: It was pretty fun. TALIESIN: Vampire kind of fakes that. You could
fake being superheroes in the Vampire world. All right, more hands. I'm going to pick one. Dude in
the glasses right there. I'm just going to keep rolling. MATT: There are a couple dudes-- TALIESIN: Yeah, you. No, I'm so sorry. Man, I'm
terrible. I'm awful! Guy in the red shirt. MATT: Then the other guy with the glasses. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Not counting Critical Role, what
for each of you is your most memorable experience during a tabletop game? TALIESIN: Whoa. Tabletop or LARP, or just
tabletop? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tabletop or LARP. TALIESIN: Ooh, okay, I can't talk about that one
because I may actually incorporate that into a game I run later online. I have some really good
ones that I sadly-- There was-- no, I can't talk about that, either. I would incriminate people who
are in this room right now. Oh God, there's so many good ones! Once I had a whole bunch of people
try and turn on me when I was the Prince of Los Angeles in a Vampire game and they tied me up,
threw me in a coffin, wrapped it with TNT, and tried to blow it up, and didn't think enough to
actually leave the room. I survived perfectly, but the shrapnel damaged everybody in the room and
literally it was just me standing there looking at all of them bleeding going, "You idiots." Just
went down the line and took them all out. It was amazing. It felt so good. MATT: That's pretty epic. TALIESIN: Just brush. Wooden shrapnel at vampires.
Oh my God, they were so dumb. Dumbest coup ever. It did not go well for them. MATT: Someone please draw that. TALIESIN: This was at the Mormon Temple, too. This
was the Vampire game that the Mormon Temple was hosting. It was so great. We have the coolest
Mormons in Los Angeles. Best Vampire LARP. MATT: Oh, man, let's see. This is one of the more
ridiculous experiences, talking about Rifts. I think I mentioned this in a couple panels before.
My friend Todd Huntington in high school was obsessed with Rifts. It was his favorite system;
he owned every book. Rifts UK! Rifts Asia! Rifts Atlantis! Wormwood! Everything Palladium he had.
His big thing was, because all the books technically were in the same ruleset, any
Palladium book was on the table to be used some way in the game. TALIESIN: Terrible idea. MATT: We had fun with it, but part of the fun of
Rifts was trying to show him how broken Rifts was. He was like, "It's the best system ever!" and we
were like, "It's really not, and here's why!" He's like, "No, it's great." As we got into the later
power levels of the game, they also had the Macross license. TALIESIN: I was about to say, how can you say it's
not broken when the SDF-1 is available? MATT: Which is what happened. TALIESIN: Okay. Here we go. Thank you. MATT: In the Macross book, they had the rules for
the SDF-1, which is the giant ship. Now, everything in Rifts has a damage value as a weapon,
even if it's 1d4 times one million megadamage, which some of the higher-level ship cannons do.
There is a damage value. Except for the SDF-1's main cannon, which takes ten minutes to warm up
before it fires, but we're talking Death Star style cannon. Damage: destroys everything in its
path. Everything. So our team decided, let's go hijack the SDF-1. So we went and wiped out the
entire crew, kept the few that were necessary as slaves to run the actual ship. Then we asked Todd
to hand us one of the other Palladium books, which was the Pantheon book, which had stats and rules
for all these different pantheons. All the ancient Sumerian gods, like Apsu, Tiamat, Enki, Marduk. TALIESIN: You guys Loboed! MATT: Yeah! They have all the rules for the Norse
pantheon, for the Hindu pantheon, and they all had hundreds of millions of hit points, but that
didn't matter, because our gun destroyed everything in its path. So we went god hunting!
After we took out Thor and Odin with one shot, our GM, Todd, went, "This is so stupid, I'm done." End
of the game. But we won! TALIESIN: The SDF-1 was like, when that thing came
out I'm like, "Okay, we've got to stop playing "this game." I remember looking like, "I'm done."
That was the book where I'm like, "I'm done and I "can't pretend that this makes any sense anymore." MATT: I just envision all the really sweet,
well-dressed Macross crew walking across the board in a very Next Gen feel like, "Captain, we need
to--" All of a sudden this beam in like an Apok from Wormwood and someone in a glitter boy outfit
starts blasting people, laughing the whole time. TALIESIN: That defense system is all trackball.
It's not that hard to work. It's three guys with a trackball going, "We got it!" I've watched that
show! That's not like Next Gen where, like, "I "wonder what they're pressing?" That's a trackball.
There's no denying it. Sorry, I'm good. MATT: Thank you, Taliesin. TALIESIN: I have problems. MATT: All right, other glasses. AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question's a bit similar. It's
about having experiences with That Guy. The guy who turns into a gibbering mouther in bars or will
pee in the paladin's boots. TALIESIN: There's a good rule nazi and there's a
bad rule nazi. Sean's a good rule nazi. He's the guy who understands how all the math works and is
there to make a shot that shouldn't be possible, but he's read every book and can make terrible
things happen. And he's fun. We have a friend named Sean who we used to play with before he
moved away because he hates us. He hates us so much. Then there's the guys who come in and try
and break the game. I'm never happy with-- why are you trying to break a game? I don't get it. MATT: It's good to work the system in your favor,
but at the same time if it's at the cost of the narrative and everyone else's enjoyment, then
perhaps you need to reassess what kind of game you're playing with. As far as being that guy who
constantly messes with the narrative, some people you can curb them to make it work. Sam Riegel's a
good example of that. He skirts the line at times, but he never does it to detract from anybody
else's experience, and that's the key. When there is somebody like that, you have to talk to them
about it. After a game, like, "Hey, man, come here "for a second. I just want to let you know, I know
you're having a good time with this, but what "you're doing is kind of ruining the experience for
a few other people. Is there any way you can scale "it back or just be mindful of everyone else who's
playing as well?" You might be surprised, people might be open to it and be like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I
didn't realize that. Okay, cool, thank you for "telling me, I'll keep that in mind." TALIESIN: A gentle, loving conversation can
sometimes work wonders. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. Genuinely, I understand that that's
weird. MATT: If they're like, "No, screw you, I'm doing
this anyway, woo, spring break!" TALIESIN: Even that dude, nine times out of ten,
that dude is not ready or prepared for real human interaction, and any actual eye contact in this
conversation about your feelings is just going to turn into a blubbering, apologizing, like, "I'm so
sorry, man." Not all the time, but often. MATT: Yeah. So try and talk to them. If that
doesn't work out, get with the other players and find out how you can ambush his character. TALIESIN: Shh. Shh. Go to sleep. Shh. MATT: Don't do that. TALIESIN: Saving throw! Saving throw! Saving
throw! Problem solved. The dude who tried to blow me up also had a ship offshore with cruise
missiles. Why do you have ground-to-air missiles in a Vampire: The Masquerade game? You are an
idiot. What game are you playing? MATT: (laughing) Are you serious? TALIESIN: Like, "No, I have a ship offshore with
ground-to-air." I'm like, "Why? We are 15 "people having a conversation in a backyard of a
church. What are you doing?" Of a temple, not even-- ugh. MATT: Talk to them. If that doesn't work, kill
their character. TALIESIN: I keep taking yours. You pick one. MATT: Let's go in the back. You, sir, in the way
back with the goatee. Or it might've been a shadow. With the glasses. You. It was a shadow.
I'm sorry. But you should grow a goatee, it would look good. AUDIENCE: What's your favorite morality to play?
Like chaotic neutral... MATT: Everyone's always go-to is chaotic neutral
because you can do anything, and I'm like, "Eh, "but also--" TALIESIN: That's no fun. Being able to do
anything, that's like chess with no rules. Who cares about that? MATT: Honestly, I enjoy the idea of playing lawful
good to show people that it doesn't have to be that goody two shoes, stick in the mud, ruin
everyone else's experience alignment. TALIESIN: You can be Captain America. MATT: Yeah! TALIESIN: Captain America is a great, fun lawful
good character to play. Chaotic good is fun just because I like having morally ambiguous characters
who are not evil. I'm a big fan of that. MATT: Comparably, lawful evil can be fun to play
because even though you tend to skew towards a darker morality, you understand the necessity of
structure and order and the necessary circumstances in which you must make alliances you
wouldn't normally have, which is one of the few alignments that can work in a good to neutral
based group with an evil character. One, if they can keep that kind of under wraps or, conversely,
convince the party that it is a mutually beneficial arrangement. They may not
trust you, but they may still go along with you. That gives you the opportunity to either try and
convert other members of the party or, conversely, over time, maybe see the light. There's a lot of
different ways you could play that alignment. It's a difficult one, but it can be a lot of fun. TALIESIN: Chaotic evil doesn't have to be the
giggling worst version of the Joker ever. I had a chaotic evil character in a game for a while who
was great, because he pretended to be lawful good. He was this really nice guy that everybody liked,
and then eventually you'd be in a room with him alone and he would just (twisting noise). I'm
like, "Let me talk to the innkeeper," and kill the innkeeper and stuff him in the closet, and like,
"We've got the run of the place. Everything's "cool." He was slowly undermining everything. If
anybody's watched Hannibal, the television series, it was just that, "I wonder if I just undermine
everything that everybody I'm working with is "doing right now, what's going to happen. It's a
phone call. We're looking for you. You should "probably run." That's a great way to play chaotic
evil, is to not be chaotic evil when anybody else is around. Just be this avatar of destruction. It
can be a lot of fun. MATT: There's a reason why Taliesin is one of my
favorite players. I've kept him around for a number of reasons. TALIESIN: They're all so innocent. They just don't
know. This is their first game. They don't know how awful it can be. MATT: Well, next campaign. TALIESIN: I know, I'm going to ruin them. Oh, you
know that. You know what terrible things we're going to do to them. MATT: You pick. TALIESIN: Me pick? Okay. You in the corner right
there, with the hat. Yes, you, with the yellow, with my Pokemon Team Instinct. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Despite Dungeons & Dragons being
such an improvised-based game, the story you have in Critical Role is so rich. It's so good. I was
wondering -- you can be included in this if you want. TALIESIN: Oh, no, it's fine. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was wondering, how do you divvy
up the focus amongst each of the characters so that none of the characters are really left out
per se, that everyone has that moment to be the star? MATT: That's the challenge, especially for larger
groups. I would not recommend for anybody a group larger than four or five players. This just
happened to be a large party which I took upon as a challenge for myself. AUDIENCE MEMBER: She does ten! MATT: Ten? Why would you do that? Why? You're so
crazy! AUDIENCE MEMBER: I tried to warn her. MATT: There you go. Well, now you've been
multi-warned. TALIESIN: You can't even make an Avengers movie
work with that number of people. You want to pare it down. MATT: It's a challenge, and you want to be mindful
of that, because you don't want any players to feel left out. What you do is, as you're creating
story-- not necessarily every session can have a golden moment for every character, but you want to
strive for that sort of experience, where you can think of different scenarios where each person has
a chance to shine. That's where players writing backstories come in really handy for you, is you
can find ways to intertwine their history with the current story thread or future story threads where
they not only feel more invested in the current adventure, but you give them an opportunity to
really step up and be involved in the resolution of that storyline. But when you're constructing
encounters and dangers and traps and various challenges, keep in mind what the strengths of
each party member are and what they're good at, and try and tailor experiences where they
themselves naturally feel inclined to step up and be like, "Hold on, I got this." As opposed to
being like, "There's this thing that you should be "doing, bard." They won't always get it, and that's
fine, they'll stumble, because that's half the fun of the game is watching your players fall over and
going, "Heh. You poor kids." But it is a challenge. You can only create so much story as a
DM when the other half of it is the players picking it up and running with it. It is that
collaboration that makes it so magical but also is a little daunting and complicated to prepare for.
So be mindful to try and create at least one experience per player per session where they have
the opportunity to rise up and shine a bit. TALIESIN: Whether they take it or not. MATT: Yeah, whether they take it or not. If they
don't, then someone else will take it up. (phone rings) TALIESIN: I'll get it. I got it. That's nothing. MATT: Just be mindful of that as you prepare. TALIESIN: And I'll say from the players' side, we
are very, very conscious of not stepping over each other. We take pains on our end to not get in the
way of other people's moments, of like, "Oh, "I'll-- oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not doing that.
Never mind." You'll actually see us occasionally start to do something and reel it back in, and
it's usually the, "Oh, no, I know what's about to "happen and this has to happen on that side of the
table, and that's great." We're very, very careful about that. Then also the way that we present our
backstories. I have a really good tip for backstories and for writing character backstories
which is, never give the DM any more information than your character has. If your character didn't
see it happen, you don't know what happened. If your character doesn't know what somebody's
motivations were or what organization they worked for or what people they were influenced by, don't
tell the DM. Just tell him what you saw, nothing more. Don't tell him anything other than what you
saw, because he will have so much fun with the rest of it. It's a great way of definitely
creating a situation where you could walk into what you thought was your origin and just be
turned 180 degrees around, and you get to experience that as a character and that's nuts! If
you've explained everything about how you came about to the DM, that's not going to happen. Even
though you don't know, you're going to just hear your DM regurgitating what you wrote on a piece of
paper six months ago. MATT: Yeah. It helps you set up your own mystery.
Essentially, you're including the building blocks for a really, really cool series of surprises down
the road for you by writing it that way. TALIESIN: Don't know that you have a daughter.
Don't know why your parents died. Don't know where you came from. Don't know how you ended up where
you are. Just don't know it! It's great. The less you know, the more fun the DM's going to have. MATT: Mind you, add some structure. Don't hand me
a piece of paper that says, "I don't know." TALIESIN: Other than a list of names and vague
descriptions and basically what amounted to a week's worth of encounters with those people,
that's all I gave you. There was the Briarwoods, Father Anders, Doctor Ripley, was literally: list
of names, what happened in those approximately six days I was in their company, and some friends of
ours they vaguely resembled, and basically that was pretty much it. Go nuts. MATT: The rest of it I went nuts with. TALIESIN: Yes he did! MATT: All right. Let's see. The glasses and the
green shirt back there. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I really love D&D but I'm also
really paranoid. So whenever my character encounters anything that I personally would find
suspicious or dangerous I internally kind of panic and I almost go into survival mode. If I don't get
a handle on that, it's really hard for me to stay in character and also not metagame. I never want
to metagame, ever. That's a habit I'm trying to break. Are there any tips that you can give me on
trying to break this habit of going into survival mode? TALIESIN: You want to go first? MATT: I'll jump in real fast. One thing:
metagaming isn't a bad word. I want to specify this. Sometimes people on the internet have
responded to one of our players unintentionally metagaming. They'll be like, "Oh damn it. I hate
when they metagame. It's the worst!" It happens. We're people, and it is a game that we're playing.
While there's an in-character element, there is an aspect of our brain that is trying to put the
pieces together, you know, from a gamer standpoint. So it's going to happen, intentionally
or not. Don't beat yourself up over it by any means. It's one of those things that comes with
comfort and experience. The more you're with a character, the easier it is to stay in that
mindset. The newer you are to a campaign, you're still feeling out their skin, you're still getting
what separates you from that character and being able to jump back and forth. What you're
experiencing is not an uncommon thing. Every player goes through that to a certain extent. Us
as performers, our lifestyle is jumping into and out of characters, and even we still have it
happen every now and then. You can't help it. It's just taking some time to really understand the
mindset of your character, think, as opposed to what makes you similar, what makes them so different
from you and embrace that difference and really adhere to that the best you can. When the survival
instinct kicks in, take a step back, take a breath, and remember what that character's thought
process is, what makes them different from you. Then jump back in and hold onto that difference.
That's what's going to help you kind of stay in character and keep from metagaming in that moment.
It's not perfect. It's hard to be perfect because we're all broken human beings by nature. That's just our
existence. But that does help. TALIESIN: Yeah. As a player, you are the broken
god of a broken player. It's fabulous on that level. You are definitely occasionally feeding
your character information that they don't necessarily have, but because it's in there, it's
just inevitably going to push you in certain directions. That's not a bad thing. I'm
also a big fan of, it takes a little getting used to, but trying to fight the normal natural
risk-aversion of one's day to day life and being okay with abandoning that risk-aversion once you
hit the graph paper. It's tricky, but this is where you can take a risk and the worst thing
that's going to happen is you're going to have to reroll a character. That's great. That's a
great way to get, even in life, more comfortable with the inevitability of risky decisions. I'm a big
fan of, especially if you're new to the game and you're having a little bit of panic or fight or
flight when playing, play a character with a little bit of fight or flight. Teenage feral
barbarian is a great way. (yells) Hit it with a stick! That way you can lean into it if you're feeling
like you want to get comfortable with everything and not feel like you're fighting
yourself. The other thing, and I don't actually do this for Critical Role, but I used to do it for my
games when I was a teenager: I'm a dress-up fan. We used to get, some of us in high school, we used
to get drunk, get stupid, and dress up and play Axis and Allies in stupid costumes while drinking lots of
beer, possibly under the age of appropriateness. Vampire LARPing and all that stuff. For some of my
earlier characters I would have a piece of jewelry, especially rings or something like, that which was
like, "Okay it's character time." I'm sure you've seen when I play I do a minute of just sitting and
thinking and just going through my Percy Brain. A ring or a necklace that's something you can play
with at the table and you only wear when you're playing. It's game time. This happens. It's your
uniform. You put it on, and them you have this thing to constantly remind you where your
head is supposed to be. When it's done, it comes off. I'm a big fan of that. MATT: That's really good. The last thing I'll say
on that topic is it's honestly as fun sometimes to let yourself fail than it is to succeed in these
RPGs. So when that instinct kicks in, you're like, "I know that's dangerous, I shouldn't go towards
it, even though my character wouldn't know." Just think, "But, man, my character walking right into
this is going to make such a great surprise moment "for the rest of the characters and the story, I might
just have to let it happen." TALIESIN: For whoever survives, it's going to be
awesome. MATT: Exactly. Be okay with embracing failure and
bad scenarios even though your brain tells you otherwise. If the character wouldn't know, let
them walk into that trap! TALIESIN: Failure is so much more glorious than
victory. Oh man. I've had a number of amazing and beautiful shots with those weapons, but taking 25
bullets to the chest and dropping like a fly is going to be the best thing I ever did. That's an
epic failure. That's brilliant. MATT: Yeah. We've got time for a few more. TALIESIN: Green shirt! AUDIENCE MEMBER: Matt, I've heard this story of
your first character a couple times. The Militant wizard and how much of a big giant failure that
is. MATT: Yes, he was. (laughter) AUDIENCE MEMBER: Have you had any other characters
where everything just falls apart once it hits the game? MATT: Oh, yeah. I played a Midlands game where I
made a guy who's like a 75-year-old, crotchety sharpshooter, but I took every single penalty I
possibly could. So he was nearsighted, he was just an ornery fella. He was just the worst person.
Nobody liked him. Nobody hung around him. He just got drunk and passed out in every alleyway.
Everyone was like, "Why is he still alive, and why "is he still here?" Nobody liked him. But every now
and then he could pull out his six-shooter and just destroy-- (Taliesin's phone rings) TALIESIN: I literally put it on silent! I just put
it on silent. Keep talking. I'm going to kill everything that makes noise. MATT: It was a character that completely broke
down when we got to the game, and it was glorious, because every party member had their strength. He
was a sharpshooter, but he had terrible vision, and he couldn't shoot anything. So he literally
missed every single attack. But man, wasn't he excited to take the credit for every victory they
had. He was useless mechanically, but from a story standpoint, he was an amazing character to have
for the rest of the party, because he annoyed everybody, but everyone found that that ridiculous
confidence and the lack of capability was endearing in a weird way. So he became this mascot
of the party for a while. TALIESIN: That's a hard walk, man. If you're the
character no one likes, eventually you're just going to be the character that no one likes if
you're not careful. That's a really tough one. MATT: Well, you have to make it in a way where
they're comedic, and how ridiculous and over the top they are in their confidence, and still able
to buy them a round of drinks, because he's the papa bear who helped save them all. TALIESIN: Yeah, and not ruining everything, which
is a big one. MATT: Good question. Let's see. Hi, Vex. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. I have a question for Percy.
Did you actually hear what went on when you were getting resurrected? TALIESIN: Maybe. (laughter) AUDIENCE MEMBER: Can I roll a persuasion check? (laughter) TALIESIN: I'll allow it! Wait, no, up here. (applause) TALIESIN: Just so all of you know, I'm not making
a habit of this, this was just way too amusing of a thing to do, so I'm letting this go once. MATT: If you wink, you'll probably get advantage. TALIESIN: Oh-- (laughter, applause) AUDIENCE MEMBER: On the table! MATT: It was a natural 20? On the table. So it was
a 14, plus, let's see-- it was a +5 modifier for being proficient in that, so that's 19, plus the
charisma bonus, so that's easily 23. TALIESIN: Oh, I'm fucked then. MATT: Because she multi-classed into rogue and
took the expertise feat, it's double proficiency bonus, so-- (applause) (cheering) TALIESIN: That was so worth it on every
conceivable level. That was genius. You with the goggles. Yes. Hi. AUDIENCE MEMBER: So I confess I'm more of a
watcher than a player. Since this has come out on the internet, I've watched Wil Wheaton, I've
watched Critical Role, I've watched Force Grey, which has ripped my heart out. I think people know
exactly what I'm talking about. TALIESIN: I haven't seen it yet. MATT: Hey, man. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I will never look at goo the same
way again. But when I was growing up, most of pop culture's idea of Dungeons & Dragons was the angry
fat nerds who would be in the dungeon of their basement arguing about, "But that roll was right,"
or, "That creature's too powerful." Now I'm looking at it and I'm seeing, wow, it's a great
story, and it has people I respect playing it, and there's lots of different people playing it. How
do you feel the internet has helped that image? Has it helped that image? TALIESIN: I don't think it's the internet. MATT: To be fair, I was and am that fat guy in the
basement arguing about the rules still. That's always been a part of it, but because when it
first became a cultural phenomenon, whenever anything is misunderstood at large by the public,
people then label it, pigeonhole it, and shove it aside. It's never really been just that. There's
been a large faction initially of the Gygaxian era of chainmail players, and there was definitely
a-- TALIESIN: I was in a few of those games as a
teenager, but I was also in a few games like-- I was always baffled, because we had a couple of the
basement games. We also had all the goth kids playing. At one point at our school we just got a
third, a bunch of the cheerleading squad and a couple of the football players playing, because
whatever. People were into it, but who were you telling? MATT: It's always been more diverse than people
expected it to be. I think what the internet's helping with, it's giving a platform for everyone
to show how diverse the community has always been, and is continuing to be. I think what's great
about livestreaming games and a lot of people being able to be more open about this hobby is
it's giving people, one, the confidence to be like, "Oh, yeah, no, I totally play these games,
and they're a lot of fun, and here's my gaming "group." Conversely, allowing a whole new
generation of people to embrace it because they thought for a long time it was something that you
don't talk about, and now it can be cool to discuss about it in the older crowd, and a new
generation of people that are being exposed to it for the first time, and being like, "Oh, this is
actually really cool and different than any other "form of entertainment I've done," and starting up
their own gaming groups in school. Then merging. TALIESIN: The other big thing that happened is all
those kids that we were playing with, at least back in Los Angeles, all those kids that we were
playing with in high school now write television shows and direct movies. Like, all of them.
There's a reason something like Stranger Things exists, and it comes out and you've got Stephen
Colbert just going like, "Oh, yeah, I played D&D "as a kid," and he's just talking, like-- There's
so many people in the business who played D&D as a teenager. MATT: The fact that the person I've seen geek out
hardest over a natural 20 roll is Vin Diesel should help push the diversity factor of how many
people have been affected by this type of gaming experience. TALIESIN: Does anybody here know T.J. Storm, for
god's sakes? T.J. Storm is this amazing voice actor, an amazing stunt man, and he's basically
six and a half feet tall, 350 pounds of muscle, and braided dreadlocks, big black martial artist,
and we didn't meet him doing VO. We met him in a D&D game. MATT: Yeah. He did all the mocap for Godzilla in
the recent Godzilla movie. TALIESIN: He was Colossus in Deadpool as the mocap
actor. And, like, "Oh, God, that's T.J. from D&D! "What-- yo! What are you doing here?" MATT: He was the dungeon master. He had all the
books, and was like, "All right, we're making "characters. Sit down." TALIESIN: Sundays, karate in the park. Saturday,
D&D. MATT: It's always been diverse, and it's
continuing to grow more and more so as more people have the opportunity to be exposed to it. Now it's
a cool thing to talk about again, which is great. I'm excited to see where it goes from here.
Nothing makes me more excited than having people send me pictures of their game group. Some of them
are a whole spread of ethnicities, and varying sexes-- TALIESIN: Someone's parents are playing. MATT: Yeah. It's a family thing! I've seen so many
people that, like, their kids and their parents play together now, and it's this great bonding
experience with the family core. There isn't a lot of opportunity for people to enjoy something as a
family quite like this. TALIESIN: My younger older brother's a dungeon
master, and my younger younger brother is playing now with his friends in Colorado. MATT: (maniacal laugh) TALIESIN: Should we keep going? MATT: We've got two more-- we're supposed to rush
over to our signing, it's 1:02. One more quick question. Taliesin, you've got it. TALIESIN: Okay. I know I'm just going to feel
guilty no matter who I pick, but-- you in the back. Yes, you. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. When you guys started
broadcasting, I thought, "Oh, that's cool. We "should do one too." [inaudible] We have nine
people. They all keep coming back. Everyone has a lot of fun. I'm so overwhelmed sometimes when
we've got NPCs [inaudible]. So I've tried to do things like roll all their initiatives ahead of
time-- MATT: That's a way to do it, yeah. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Is there anything else I can do
to try to help? They're all having fun, I'm having fun, but-- TALIESIN: Your hourglass thing that you do every
now and then is just the meanest thing on earth. There's always that. The chess clock. MATT: Putting a timer and giving people a very
limited period of time to succeed or decide is always fun. Doing the initiative order ahead of
time is great. Whatever you can do to reduce the amount of rolls everyone has to make, or doing
group rolls. Like if they have to do a group stealth check, designate somebody in the group
that is the designated roller for that circumstance, who does like three rolls, average
them out. You can find ways to keep those a little more streamlined and creatively come up with ways
to help you do that. Also, you can have two DMs. I ran a game for a couple years with me and my
friend Zach Hanks both co-DMed, which allowed us both to get together to write the stories. Having
someone to bounce story ideas off, which means you construct cooler ideas. TALIESIN: There would be 20 minutes a game where
it would just be him and Zach having NPC conversations between each other while the rest of
us were going-- MATT: Which helps, because then you have half as
many NPCs. You designate an NPC to one or the other, and that person always deals with that NPC. TALIESIN: He's just an angrily good voice actor,
also. Zach's so talented. Oh god. MATT: Also, you have one person handling the music
while you're setting a scene or vice versa. Or while you're tracking initiative and whose turn order it
is, he's handling the monster combat rounds. Having a co-DM can be a really good way to
alleviate some of that pressure, and plus you have a partner in crime now. TALIESIN: You only had like five players in that
game. That was nothing. That was six players? MATT: Five players. Six and then Sean left. TALIESIN: Okay, and then Marisha came in to
replace him. Okay, yeah, five. MATT: Guys, we are over time for our panel. Thank
you so much for hanging. TALIESIN: We'll see you at the signing. MATT: Please don't be pained if we're a little
pressed. We have a lot of people we want to get through. We want to make sure everyone gets
signed, and we have-- TALIESIN: We're so sorry if we go a little faster
than normal. We do apologize. MATT: We're trying. We'll shake hands. We love you
guys. See you in a minute. [light piano music] AUDIENCE MEMBER: So I just got back from a
Critical Role panel and I asked Taliesin if he had heard everything that people said during his
resurrection. I rolled a persuasion check with advantage because of my wink. I got a whisper and
he totally said-- [light piano music]
