Hey there! We’re the pixelists and love to talk about all the nerdy things we enjoy! Today we sit down to discuss the fifty-first episode of Critical Role’s Campaign 3, we start with an in depth recap and then discuss all our thoughts on the episode!
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1:07:55 Matt indeed mentions that Ruidous is believed to be a prison at one point in season one or two
The biggest complaints are that it was railroading which I really don't agree with, I fully believe this was stoppable if the Bell's had rolled well enough. I think there would have been less hard feelings if the classic characters had done more on screen. Obviously Beau and Caleb were taken because Marisha and Liam rolled badly, fair enough and I liked Matt giving the players the roll. But having both Keyleth and Vax make dramatic heroic entrances only to immediately get insta-gibbed turns that heroic moment into an almost comical one. Like Kiki and Vax basically made into Jobbers, to borrow a pro wrestling term, for Ludinus. The visual of Vax being turned into a sphere kinda doesn't help with that as it's almost looney-toon eseque the way it was described, making the moment more silly.
I'd wager Ottohan was also custom homebrewed and min-maxed by Matt specifically to be able to take Earth Elemental Keyleth down in a single round of attacks which, considering Matt also chose Keyleths actions since she's an NPC, just kind of fed into the feeling it wasn't as epic a moment as it could have been. If Keyleth and Vax had gotten to do a little more before being dropped I think it would have gone over better. Ottohan in particular was kind of done once Vax appeared, I feel like countering Kiki to bait Vax was the Ottohan characters entire purpose, so Matt could have let Vax go into her with his own attack round without disrupting his story if it killed Ottohan.
I thought the episode as a whole was pretty awesome. But I also feel like that ending fight was a case of DnD's game mechanics getting in the way of the story telling.
An hour and a half long video?!? A commentary I've been looking forward to for a week?! I'm so excited I can't wait to hear your thoughts and maybe comment my theories after I finish watching
Matt said the white sky “felt familiar.” Is it like when Imogen lost control of her powers and teleported everybody? If so maybe it was her or Liliana using their powers, either consciously or unconsciously? Edit: you got to it right at the end!
My crazy theory is that Ludinus KNEW the Raven Queen as a mortal. Because Vax in no way could have went help Keyleth without the RQ permission. So he knew she would allow Vax to go. If that’s true, I need a one shot with Ludinus and RQ story ASAP they have a story together for suuuure.
Anyways I’m not ok lol. Someone please check on Caleb :’)
enjoyed the talk
27:58 people on the Reddit were more upset that in their opinions none of their roles mattered, and it’s was “railroaded”
If Lilianna did teleport everyone away, I don't think she knows who the members of Imogen's group are. I'm not sure how she would single them all out for the TP in that case.
53:45 definitely think the groups will be separate for a decent time so there’s a chance Imo we get the fallout and take steps into Ashton and Chet’s backstories, maybe they have like a chapter each by themselves before meeting
This seems too important that they were split away from their original partners to be resolved by next episode
Ooooo….the Liliana teleport idea!!! Very cool.
There are more ways than magic to have complete control of Beau, like for instance they have Yasha and she knows they are dangling her over a pit of acid unless she walks down that ramp.
Do you guys think Imogen will still have her magic? Something intense came out of her…
I can't believe all the nonsense I've seen online complaining about this session being railroading when it was the opposite of that and just great DMing on every level. Excellent discussion.
If the teleportation was by Liliana or just some random effect of the ley lines and the solstice combined with the attempt to free Pedathos then I wouldn't rule out divine intervention resulting in their locations, maybe even the Changebringer.
If they are able to message someone like PIke or the Morrigan they could get back into the fight quickly. Keyleth is probably a statue right now or dead. These bad guys aren't messing around.
Can't wait to see Laudna with her Hound of Ill Omen.
This..episode..has..EVERYTHING! I couldn’t believe what was happening. I nearly died when Vax showed up. And splitting the party at the end to possibly have guests show up is SO COOL! Matt said they we’re going to do things differently this campaign. Love it.
I’d write more but I’m waaaay past my bedtime. 😅😴
Great recap and discussion guys! As usual I always look forward to your videos! And congrats again for getting to 5k!!! 🎉
It would be cool if the party doesn't reassemble right away and there are guests, if they split it up between the two stories with the two parts of the ep
My first thought at the end was that they were forcibly teleported away so they could no longer interfere; I hadn't considered that it might have been done to save their lives. But if I were in their situation, I'd be desperate to go back ASAP to see if there's still a chance to stop that beam of red light connecting Ruidus to the Malleus Key.
Glad you guys will be recapping Worlds Beyond Numbers… I struggle following audio only campaigns, so it’ll be nice having a bit of help.
I have a theory that Halas is somehow involved in all this. Cause I remember when the Nein were escaping Yussa's tower being chased by Trent, they got away to the fire plane. But Yussa I think was using Astral Projection and unavailable. So I think Trent went snooping around after they got away, maybe noticed the heirloom sphere and without taking it pointed it out to Ludanis or maybe made note of it somewhere. Ludanis must have known or known of Halas back in the day, since Yussa has been practicing magic for only a couple hundred years and knows Halas' stories. Somehow I think Ludanis got the heirloom sphere and at least using it to create golems like Caleb did. Whatever other possibilities that opens up too is wild.
I think orym, laudna and ashton are in the shadowfell
What I saw on Reddit was more people feeling like MM was pretty heavy handed in regards to pushing towards a specific outcome? Not full on railroading, but stacked the deck for narrative reasons. Which I’m fine with and think it’s a compelling story worth investing in.
Something coming down from the moon. Possibly a invasion from moon
The way I understand it the Calamity wasn't just a singular event, but the whole actual war that kicked off right on the day that ExU:C happened on. And since that was about a thousand years before current events, it follows that the Calamity was about 200 years long. So if Ludinus is actually 1000 years old and not older (I think he said he'd worked for this for 1000 years, not necessarily that's how old he is and besides, there might be consecution, or cloning or time magic shenanigans going on with him, so who tf really knows) he would've been a child when ExU:C happened (tinfoil hat theory: since he's from Aeor, he knew Bolo) and spent his formative years fighting in or avoiding a cataclysmic war between different dieties, which would make his obsession with this make a tiny bit more sense.
Re: C1 – The first ever fanart I saw for CR was Percy & Keyleth, so I was confused each time they kissed other people.
The PLANNING of the villains boggles my mind in this campaign. (Or Matt, I guess. The big brain on that guy!) but how long have we been lightly hearing about this apogee? And how did Fjord get to Exandria from the moon??
My guess about the teleport thing is that it either was Imogen, like, an unconsious, almost wild magic guided by instinct kind of thing, or that it was Liliana. That she took Imogen and the people she sensed Imogen had a connection to and just pushed them as far away as possible from whatever happened at the excavation site.
Either way, Matt obviously has his reasons for splitting them up, for how he split them up and for where he put them (the only one of those that's obvious to me at this point is to give them a reason to make Chetney confront his backstory).
In-universe those things would either have to be completely random (which would probably turn out to be a quite convenient kind of random) or they were guided by fate, which would mean the RQ has her eyes on them, if nothing else.
50:55 … wasn't that where Sprigg's house was? I rewatched that part of C1 not too long ago, but I'm not certain.
I kind of hope it'll be like the Trial of the Take. Depending on how long the split will be, they might even do the first half of an episode with one team and the second half with the other team.
But honestly I don't think they'll reunite in one episode, or even two. Matt obviously has a reason for splitting them up and I think it'll be interesting to see how it shifts the character dynamics if everyone's closest friend in the party suddenly isn't there. Might be a chance to develop some of the intra-party relationships that haven't been the focus so far, like, Imogen and FCG for example or Laudna and Chetney.
I feel like the White Sky may be something important, with the fact it was called "Familiar." Also my wish for Liliana to go full Vader on Ludinus/Otohan may still happen, but Laura's Nat 1 on persuasion put that on indefinite hold.
I think Ludinus froze everyone in a certain radius. Who knows how big that was, but at least big enough to encompass the whole excavation, I would think. My guess is that if it wasn't big enough to also freeze the Silver Sun and the Ashari and the Vasselheim airships then they got to the outer edge of that radius and found that they couldn't get in. Like an impenetrable stasis bubble, kind of like the ones in the ruins of Aeor. I don't think Ludinus would have the power to freeze the entire planet. Not without some serious magical assistence, like on the level of what they're doing with the Key and all those power cores and living Ruidusborn batteries. He did use the beacon and we know that can be pretty damn powerful, but still.
The matron of raves took half of the eaten gods portfolio.. I think back in the day, ludinous and the marton were working together to gain goodhood. Now it's his turn.
thanks guys. it's part of my weekly routine now to listen to this on Thursday mornings while i'm working to get ready for the night's episode.
Another great breakdown and analysis.
My 2 cents:
I stay off Reddit and most other places that deal in negativity. But I too have seen some rumbles of people being upset about C3e51. I think of the anger comes from a feeling that there was some railroading by Matt. But I think there are a few things going on here.
First, I do think the group was railroaded a bit. But in a way similar to the Chroma Conclave arrival in campaign 1. This is the moment that we get to see the big bads flex their power and set up confrontation for the remainder of the arc. It gives the viewers and the players a chance to fully understand what they are going up against. And now we are in a portion of the arc where the group will need to find tools/weapons and maybe other allies that can help them overcome this evil
Second, while I think the places that the group ended up in and most of the events would have happened regardless, the players DID have an impact on how it played out. As he has done in the past, I think Matt had a sliding scale of failure/success. While the group had some good rolls there were also a lot of not so great rolls as well. Maybe if Liam and Marisha rolled better there would have been more issues for Ludinus to overcome? But I assume the overall outcome would have been similar.
Third, as you discussed, this scenario fits closer into a a category of a genius level bad guy having a very well thought out plan and not a DM forcing their players to do things and act in certain ways to fit a narrative in their head. As I said above the players did make plans and execute their ideas. They did have a chance to influence the outcome, and to me it seems that they did have some kind of impact.
In the end I feel that this kind of railroading by a DM is completely acceptable and I enjoy it. It moves the story forward, it introduces stakes and complications that the players must react to and deal with, it fills out new lore and information for the players to process. Railroading is bad when the DM is trying to write their own novel and they look at the PC’s as being their own characters in their story. so they push them into doing certain actions to fulfill the prophecy that they are visualizing in their head. I do not feel that is what Matt did in this instance.
With that said, even if there was a little railroading going on, I feel that people tend to forget that this is 1 their game and as long as they are having fun, thats the point. And 2 while I do not think that the show is scripted like some people have suggested in the past. But I do think that they all understand storytelling and lean into the fact that this is a show that an audience is watching. They leave room for Matt and all of the players to accentuate the cinematic aspects of the game. And the end of this episode very much felt like the season finale of a show or like an Infinity War moment. There were high stakes and now the players have to deal with the fallout of a horrible situation. I doubt that anyone would enjoyed a game where the Bells Hells rolled in there blew up a couple of cores. And had a moment of Ludinus doing a Scooby Doo villain speech where he exclaims i would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for these Hells people. Then what happens? They spend the rest of the campaign hunting Ludinus and Otohan who did not accomplish anything important or prove their worth as a villan? I prefer this setup where we are uncertain of the BBG’s success. We have Antagonists that have proven themselves to be highly competent and the players have multiple and layered reasons to fear and hate them. So when we do arrive at the conclusion of the campaign there are some real emotions and drive behind the final confrontation. And eventually when they hopefully prevail, there will be a real sense of accomplishment and catharsis for the players.
I don't think they could've prevented something happening but I'm betting that everything they did successfully has an effect on how bad things are now. The weird power issue Ludinus noticed meant something. The damage Orym did to Otahan's pack probably will help them later on. Imogen giving her mom the quote from her dad is gonna pay off later.
Maybe we'll get some guests the next few weeks. The party being split like they did in campaign 1.
Mercer said “familiar white” right before the teleport and the only thing I can remember that’s familiar is when Imogen went all super cyan and destroyed that city block. So I think Lilliana did it to save Imogen and her friends. I don’t think Caleb and Beau were teleported though.
To be fair, for the second portion of the Trial of the Take episodes some of the first group were in the building watching the other group play. Because you could audibly hear Laura (and maybe Travis, he was at least there too) from out of the room when the other group accidentally destroyed a high value magical item of Vox Machina's.
I just had a thought. The whole thing with the rebel Ashari faction in Terra that turned out to be a front for the Ruby Vanguard was probably also meant to draw Keyleth's attention to them.
Maaaan. The levels on levels of that plan. First the attack 6 years ago to get on her radar at all (and maybe to get a sense of her capabilities and gather information on the Ashari). Then send a group of Ruby Vanguard people to infiltrate the Ashari (who knows how long ago), build a rebel faction under some made up banner and cause trouble right before the solstice. So on the surface it would look like an unrelated problem. And then have someone (the leader iirc) drop the knowledge that they're actually Ruby Vanguard (in a non-contrived looking way, if possible), so it looks like the rebel faction was a distraction to take attention away form the main event. When in reality it was never meant to succeed, in fact it was meant to draw attention to the main event, specifically Keyleth's, in reality it was a trap all along. A trap for Keyleth, to make her the bait in the actual trap that was meant for Vax.
So Ludinus had a bunch of his people pretend to be a diversion pretending to be an unrelated threat, so that he could trap the bait for the trap he was going to use to get the thing he needed for his machine to free the thing that would kill the things he wants to kill.
Fucking hell. Ludinus (and Matt) playing 4D chess indeed.