@heritage367, you asked me a question - and I answered. I apologize.
Just so you’re aware, I have been going through this answer so much in my head before I’ve written it down. Unfortunately, I’m very fluent and awesome in my own thoughts, but time to speak or write it, and I lose the thread. This is the best that I can do.
First of all, I want to clarify a few things. As always, all the below is only my opinion and the way I view things. This does not mean that it’s objectively correct in any way. I hope that I don’t offend anyone or think that I’m hating on any of the players in any way. As always, I truly enjoy them all!
Taliesin. I want to clarify the lack of vulnerable emotions. I definitely don’t mean that he’s incapable of playing the emotions, or lacks skill in it. The way I’m viewing things, he’s made a deliberate choice not to play certain emotions at the table, for whatever reason he may have. Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with those feelings in a game, who knows.
He’s good at playing a wide range of emotions, but when it comes to things like grief or fear, he doesn’t play them outright. He’ll do the stunned silence, as I’ve mentioned, but I have two problems with it and it’s why I’m not counting it. One – since it’s just silence, it’s even more subjective and up to the viewer as to what emotions may be felt. And two, and this is the big one – with eight players at the table, I WILL NOT NOTICE SILENCE. I don’t care who it’s from! I’ve missed it from Liam, I’ve missed it from Sam, and I’ve missed it from Taliesin, and on and on. There’s too much action at the table for me to focus on every player, so my focus tends to be on who is talking and who is actively participating in a scene. Silence is a very valid reaction from PCs to a scene, but it’s not going to draw my eye when watching. In C1 and C2 it was more okay because I’d frequently look at youtube comments and see people mention it, so either rewatch the section or make sure to focus on the faces when I watched. But since I’m watching C3 as close to live as I can, and always before the youtube release, I’m just watching what’s waving in my face. I TRY to focus on other faces, but it’s hard when you’re actively invested in the story that’s being told by those who are waiving their hands. In my opinion, it kind of only works either 1) during a rewatch where you’re deliberately focusing on it, or 2) when it becomes a point – such as when Caduceus was in his silent feels on the boat and Jester had to go over and comfort him. Once again, a lot of the silence, while there and present, got buried under the rest of the RP, until it was brought up and dealt with. This is the very rare occasion where I think Taliesin actually did act a vulnerable emotion – a bit, until it ends up getting resolved REALLY really quickly. Like, I feel that even before Laura was finished with Jester’s speech, Taliesin had already decided that it was good enough and he wasn’t gonna do the emotion anymore. (Cad’s alleged dislike of the ocean and how he wasn’t going to let the few bad experiences tarnish his opinion of it so he trained himself to like it? Don’t recall actually seeing it roleplayed every in the campaign, just talked about on Talks.)
The biggest issue with Tal not playing the vulnerable emotions though, is that he always talks about how his PCs are feeling it. Percy was allegedly going through a nervous breakdown the entire campaign, I never saw it. Percy allegedly feared Ripley. Never saw it. Taliesin says that Molly goes and has a panic attack, we never saw any of the emotion, nor lead in for it, nor aftermath of it. Etc. etc. So I get a lot of ‘telling not showing’ with Tal’s PCs in terms of vulnerable emotions, which ends up frustrating me, because I’m sure he would be fucking FANTASTIC at showing it, but it choosing not to. It also ends up making it much harder for me to relate to his PCs. If everything has to be analyzed and subtext, it’s just frustrating rather than fun. Not everything needs to be surface level, but a lot needs to be seen at least some times at surface level to make the effort of deeper review even worth it. (It’s an issue I tend to have with Sam’s PCs as the start of the campaign, but he eventually allows the more true emotions to be seen on the surface and then I like them much more.)
Again, biggest thing here, THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I WANT the players to play how they want to play, because I personally think that Critical Role will only survive as long as the cast is still having honest fun. So am I disappointed that I don’t get Taliesin acting out the emotions that he’s claiming his PCs have? Yes. But I need to learn to let that go, because it’s a choice that he is making, and I want him to make choices for his own fun rather than choices for an audience.
OKAY, I’ve rambled fucking enough, on to the rest!
Matt! Matt has portrayed pretty much every single emotion that there is to experience through all his NPCs. About the only emotion I can think of that he may not have done (remembering that my memory is not SUPER great and I can absolutely have missed things) is having an NPC express grief with tears. I think the closest we get is with Essek’s ‘it’s not fair’ speech? Grief is certainly used in many of his PCs, but in some ways it’s almost a little distant – that recognition of being a side player in the story and not wanting to take the limelight from the main characters. Matt himself has cried several times on stream, but again, I don’t think any of it was in character – except for maybe that end Essek moment (which I can’t remember clearly). Aside from that one specific thing (which I also don’t think is a necessity – I don’t require any of these players to actually cry!), I’m pretty sure he’s done the whole gambit in all levels and spectrums of emotion.
Marisha. She plays every emotion her PCs feel to 110% and it’s GLORIOUS. Keyleth, Beau, Laudna, they all are very different in the emotions they feel and they all portray them to the absolute depths. While Keyleth didn’t always hit for me, I could never deny the level of which Marisha sank into her emotions, and made sure that they were seen – whether they were subtle or loud. I admit, I don’t really get people who don’t like Beau. I can kinda understand a bit, but Beau was so full of such a depth of emotion, and without getting ‘in your face’ about it, I’m certain that Marisha made sure that every emotion was seen, even when it was being smothered by cockiness.
Laura – Let’s talk about *harp music* Laura Fucking Bailey. She’s right up there with Marisha in feeling her feels and putting them all out on display. Honestly? I’d love to see some solid fucking RAGE from her. (I kinda was hoping she’s play a barbarian, but I’m loving Imogen so much that I was clearly wrong). I’m trying to think through her PCs, and I do think that the emotions that she hasn’t played so much have been sheer fucking anger, maybe some of the ‘nastier’ emotions like pure spite? Vex certainly had anger and spite in her, but I feel like Laura would love going further, taking the emotions and really CHEWING on them. Maybe I’ve forgotten something from C1, but I don’t recall Laura ever having one of her PCs full on yelling in rage.
Sam is Sam. Which means that for the start of his PCs, he deliberately shows them very shallowly, a few characteristics which make them feel a little more cardboard cutout rather than the rest of the cast. Nott, I’d say, is the one who started the most ‘in depth’, and even then it really was just ‘drunk’, ‘jittery’, ‘steals shit’, ‘caleb’s the best’. However, he also very deliberately adds more and more as the campaign goes on to where you forget how shallow the PC started at the beginning. He’s another one I’m sure has shown the entire range of emotion. It’s a little odd though, because there’s a bunch of scenes with him where the emotions are serious but because it’s SAM and the way he does things that it comes off a bit or more than a bit jokey regardless (‘is that my baby girl?’), but then there are the scenes where he just wants to remind you that he IS a professional actor thank you very much, and he’s going to punch you in the gut whether you like it or not. Also, just putting it out there, he is another one who I don’t think has cried in character, and again I don’t think it adds or detracts from the emotions, because the grief is still heavily present without the need for actual tears. Like Matt, he’s cried a few times out of character, but not in.
Ashley next! You know, despite having so few episodes to her in the first two campaigns, I do feel like she really got the opportunity to showcase everything regardless. Maybe not in the first campaign, but by where she is now, she’s really hit all across the spectrum. Pike, Yasha, and Fearne are just SO different with how they portray themselves and the ‘base’ emotions that they feel, that she ended up hitting everything just because it was all there! I am looking forwards to seeing bigger emotions (if that makes any sense) that I think she’ll be hitting with Fearne. Yasha, while full of so many emotions, was played so quietly, and poor Pike was just not there SO much! My biggest complaint about her roleplay is there’s so many moments where she just feels uncertain with it, and immediately backs off of her choice. How many times has she had a great moment and then immediately backed off with an ‘i’m joking’? She’s done it a bit with Fearne too, but seems to be getting more comfortable with taking her decision and running with it. I really cannot fucking wait to see where she is going to go, and I am 100% here for the ride.
Travis deserves props for taking an emotion that he was uncomfortable with playing in C2 and allowing himself to be coaxed into it, and then taking it and running it the full course. I am assuming (and honestly hoping) that the way he talked about Laura forcing him into it on Talks was an exaggeration and that she genuinely made sure he was comfortable with it along the entire way. Especially considering that she dropped it from her PC eventually and let him take the lead going forwards. And I have no complaints about him seemingly picking a PC for C3 designed to not have that emotion used! It goes back to what I said with Taliesin, I want Travis to play something because he finds it fun to play, not because the audience wants to see it. I do think we also got the full range of emotion from Travis during the course of the campaigns. Grog and Fjord’s grief at times may not have been sobbing (again, not asking for real tears!), but they were noticeable and present! To be fair, I wouldn’t say no to more of an exploration of grief with Chetney, just because it was an emotion that he leaned into the least (unless there’s something from C2 that I’m strongly forgetting) and maybe also didn’t lean into as hard. I don’t want to sound like a dick here, and I apologize if I do, but it also comes down to the fact that I felt the grief with ‘fix him’ and a lot of Fjord without Travis needing to say ‘Fjord is sad’, and that’s an aspect that I didn’t get with a lot of Taliesin’s moments. So while I would enjoy more exploration or leaning into emotions from other players, I still saw that the emotions were there and didn’t need a Talks to tell me out of character what they were feeling.
Liam is last, and maybe not for what you would expect? So, to get it out of the way, Liam HAS shown the entire range of emotions. I didn’t expect so, before I saw C1, just because I knew Vax Was Angsty Boy, but then I watched C1 and realized that Vax was a jokester, a pranker, a bit of a jerk, a lot more levels than just SAD. There’s the running joke of people wanting Liam to have played a jovial PC for C3, ignoring the fact that Vax WAS the jovial PC for at least two long stretches of the campaign (before the dragon attack, after dragons but before vecna), but it got overshadowed by the intense emotions during the conclave arc, Vex’s tragedy, his deal to end vecna, etc. etc. I’m actually enjoying Orym being very placid, because that isn’t something that he had played before – his other PCs were very intense most of the time.
My biggest criticism of Liam’s RP? As much as I love it, sometimes he needs to STOP. I’m not a huge fan of when he has to interject ‘just one more thing’, especially when it’s something so small that I feel like it wasn’t needed. The first thought coming to mind, because of it’s relatively recency, is when the unnamed C3 party was in the theater and Dorian went off on his own and came back, Matt is closing out the episode, and then Liam interrupts to quickly say about how Orym lets go of the sending stone and realizes how tightly he was clutching it. A nice moment? Sure. One that the shippers loved? Absolutely! One that was needed, especially when interrupting Matt? Nope. And I do think that this happens in all three campaigns. Sometimes it’s fine – just a bit of an eyeroll like the moment just mentioned. It’s quick and over and whatever. Other times it’s moments of ‘man I hope the other cast is cool with this’. And let’s be clear, I’m sure they are! (and I usually end up enjoying all the scenes anyway) but it can be rough sometimes.
The other thing that I HATED about Liam’s role play, which luckily he can’t do at ALL in C3 (so far, and I hope I don’t jinx it) is when he has his PC drag another player’s PC to Do A Thing, without really seeing if other player is actually interested or maybe had their own thing they wanted to do. He did it with Vex/Laura SO MUCH in campaign one, it honestly infuriated me at times. He did it a lesser amount with Nott/Sam in campaign two, to the point where I didn’t notice it was a trait of his that bugged me until after I started C1, and now it jumps out at me in my C2 rewatches. Luckily, it IS a lot less and did seem to be mostly early campaign. (here’s hoping I don’t have an unpleasant surprise reminder during my rewatch.) But to my delight, Orym is so NOT a PC that can do the dragging thing, because LOL good luck doing that with Fearne!
……………….WELL THAT WAS A LOT. Hope you liked it!
(also tagging @suicidallyreckless in case you wanted any more CR ramblings from me)
