Videos

Critical Role
Critical Role Creates Characters in Daggerheart aka Daggerheart Open Beta: Session Zero
Critical Role Plays Daggerheart aka Daggerheart Open Beta: Live One-Shot [2nd half]

Session Zero not being on their Twitch channel meant I missed it before diving into the one-shot proper, but I'm glad I went back to it. You might think two hours of watching seven people fill out gaming paperwork sounds boring, but this is anything but: it's a nice insight into the system and how it works, and these guys are just fun to hang out with.

As for the one-shot itself, I wasn't sure about the Menagerie as a team at first (it all seemed a bit too whimsical for my personal taste), but once I settled into it, it was a lot of fun. The team seemed really energised by the new system and new story, too. I'm glad there are at least two more of these (though I'll have to think about when to fit them in around my regular Campaign 2 viewing, because I don't want to slip on that — I'm still so far behind...)

[Watch Session Zero on YouTube or Beacon, and the Live One-Shot on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]


Talking of not dropping behind on Campaign 2...

Talks Machina
#107 'Wood and Steel'
[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]

Videos

Critical Role
Critical Role Plays Daggerheart aka Daggerheart Open Beta: Live One-Shot [1st half]

With CR having recently announced the opening of preorders for their own TTRPG system, Daggerheart, I decided to take a break from my regular Campaign 2 viewing and check out the test play they did earlier this year. (They actually did several in the end, but this is, naturally, the first.) Partly I'm curious about the game and how it plays; partly there's reasonable speculation that CR proper will switch systems from D&D to Daggerheart (probably when Campaign 4 begins, whenever that may be) so I was curious how that might look.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's still watching other people roleplay — broadly speaking, it feels the same. Of course, when dice rolls come in — most notably during combat — then it gets a bit different, at least mechnically. A mixture of feelings about that. It can make you think "why change, then?", but there are lots of reasons for that. It's also reassuring, in the sense that it's not going to radically alter the show. But it also looks like it might be quite a fun system, once the initial learning curve is complete and you're tackling it properly.

[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

TV

Age of Umbra
1x01 Desperloch [remainder]
It's been fairly widely commented upon, but combat really does flow so much more smoothly in Daggerheart than D&D. The latter makes it feel like a minigame: you stop, roll initiative, then everyone takes it in turn to do their combo of action / bonus action / movement. In Daggerheart, it just... starts. Okay, here Matt goes off to get a map, so it is still demarked in that sense, but it's only a slight pause. I can see how a less respectful or controlled table could turn it into chaos and/or one or two people dominating, but when played as intended, there's an ebb and flow that keeps it more engaging. Coupled with the different damage system in Daggerheart, which makes every strike more impactful, and I think overall it works much better, certainly as a viewer.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Critical Role
Tag Team at the Teeth: Prologue
A nine-minute setup for their two Australian live shows. Watching this now feels a bit like taunting myself, because who knows how long it’s going to be before I can actually watch the shows proper? (I’m not in Australia, so can’t see them live. I’m not in the US or Canada, so can’t see them in a cinema later this week / next week. Presumably they'll be on Beacon shortly afte Age of Umbra, but they’re set after Campaign 3, so really I’m a couple of hundred episodes off getting to them.)
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Critical Role Cooldown
Age of Umbra Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]

Critical Role Live Show: Sydney || LIVE Beacon Backstage Pass
So, while it's going to be a while before the show itself is on Beacon, they did do this backstage livestream beforehand. It's just hanging out with the cast, doing things like improv warmup and eating Vegemite for the first time, but that's fun in its own way (for some us, at least).
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart

This past week I added a third PBP Daggerheart game to my schedule, so a slight shift in how I'm listing them here: I've decided to ditch the 'titles' and just stick with a comment along the lines of "all 3 games continuing". Something like that, anyway.

Videos

Critical Role
Ménagerie a Trois [2nd half]
The end of the last Menagerie adventure so far, with at least one major plot thread left hanging. You'd think they might pick it back up for the actual release of Daggerheart (coming May 20th), but (as far as I'm aware) they've announced nothing of the sort. Instead, they'll be marking the release with an unconnected Daggerheart miniseries, which sounds fun in its own way, but it would be nice to close this one off.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Videos

Daggerheart First Look: Worldbuilding with Critical Role - Live from PAX Unplugged
Funny to call this a "first look" when it came after the massive open beta and multiple CR Daggerheart streams, but there you go — it's kind of an introduction, though kind of assume viewers already have some knowledge of the basics of the system. Anyway, it's quite a fun mini-adventure (the panel lasts about 90 minutes, including some intro to the game and character building).
[Watch it (again) on YouTube.]

Videos

Daggerheart Launch Day LIVE!
An hour(-and-a-bit) livestream to mark the launch of Daggerheart.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart: Curse of Strahd

My second game has begun! Strahd is, of course, one of the more famous Dungeons & Dragons adventures, which is probably why I've seen plenty of people adapting it into Daggerheart — and now I'm in one of those games.

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart: Dragon Heist in the City of Splendors

This is one I'm not quite sure how to log, but I really feel I should because it's definitely a "cultural experience".

A couple of days ago I joined a Daggerheart campaign (with the title given above — that's not a sourcebook or something). But rather than your traditional TTRPG experience of playing once a week / fortnight / month / whatever for a couple of hours, it's what's known as a "play by post" campaign: it's done via text messages on Discord; almost like collaboratively writing a story but, y'know, with rules and dice rolls. And because of that, it's always 'on'; you can contribute at any time (within reason — there's etiquette about posting too much or too infrequently). So I'm "always playing", in a way. Certainly, so far I've been contributing something every day. So should I be logging it every day, then? That seems... excessive.

Well, here's an acknowledgement of it for now, at least.

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart
All 3 games continuing.

Videos

Critical Role
A Daggerheart Critmas Story: Session Zero
I was aware this Session Zero had happened, and thought I'd probably watch it at some point because I expect I'll watch the Christmas special at some point too, but then I happened to see another video with a clip of this, which suggested it featured a lot of Omar, Matt and Marisha's corgi, and, well, I had to see that ASAP. The rest of it was fun as ever — I like feeling like we're just hanging out with these guys — but I appreciated the Omar cam, too.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Videos

Age of Umbra
Session Zero Creating Characters Matt Wants to Kill
You feel like a Session Zero should be a great tool for players, but probably not much fun to actually watch. Not so here — it's a delightful mix of learning about the background to the world of the miniseries (whether or not, and how much, that will also be covered in the series proper, who knows) and just getting to hang out with these guys. Yeah, I'm one of those people who enjoys that.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Fireside Chat LIVE With Matthew Mercer and Elise Rezendes!
Answering questions about Daggerheart — or, quite often, not being able to answer them while clearly being excited for what they can't reveal yet.
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]

Fiction / Non-Fiction / Games

Daggerheart: Core Rulebook

It's kind of interesting to be reading through this when I've already been actively playing the game for a few weeks, because I sort of know it all (or, at least, the important bits), but am also sort of still learning stuff. At least I'm definitely gaining knowledge about parts of the game I don't personally use right now (e.g. other classes, ancestries, and communities).

Videos

Critical Role
2x90 Bathhouses and Bastions [1st half]
Welcome to 2020! I'm sure it's going to be a great year...
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Critical Role Cooldown
Daggerheart Ep 2: The Menagerie Returns!
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart
All 3 games continuing.

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart:
Dragon Heist in the City of Splendors
&
Curse of Strahd

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart
All 3 games continuing.

Tabletop Games

Daggerheart
All 3 games continuing.

Videos

Critical Role
Ménagerie a Trois [1st hour]
Watch the Menagerie level up to L6 on YouTube or Beacon, which is where they start this third (and, so far, final) adventure, playing the Daggerheart open beta.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Fiction / Non-Fiction / Games

Daggerheart: Core Rulebook

Yep, still progressing through this. I'm not necessarily intending to read the whole thing cover to cover (as I said, not the point, I don't think), but I am reading sections to learn stuff — like, today, I read about all the different classes.