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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2021 8:43:10 GMT -5
 Made a trip in to the LCS to pick this up along with the rest of my last few weeks of pulls (Destroy All Monsters is in there too), the new Critical Role comic which both my wife and I wanted to read. This is a one-shot, and a solid read. Fills in the background on the setting and the history of the region that a large chunk of the second CR campaign is set in, while fleshing out one of the major supporting characters/sometimes ally (at least she was up through what I have seen of the Mighty Nein adventures). The art was visually very good, but the visual storytelling was merely adequate, not spectacular. The art team looked to be very good illustrators but possibly still learning the ins and outs of visual storytelling as opposed to illustration. -M I always see these and think they look great but know nothing about Critical Role, I'm assuming it's a table top game? Critical Role started as a Twitch stream of a group of voice actors (Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, Marisha Ray, and Ashley Johnson) playing D&D on Thursday nights and had become much more.  Here's welcome to CritRole what are we piece they just put up for newcomers since a new campaign is just starting... What is Critical RoleAnd here's the animated intro to the second campaign "The Mighty Nein" An animated series based on the first campaign (Vox Machina) is set to debut on Amazon Prime early next year. The Kickstarter they ran to fund an animated special had a goal of $750K to help produce a single one-shot animated episode. It reached that goal in less than an hour and ended up raising over $11 million, so that single episode special morphed into a 2 season (8 episodes each) animated series that Amazon picked up. There has been tons of fan art (collected into currently 2 coffee table art books), audiobook spinoffs featuring CritRole characters, comics, D&D products, and other stuff all spinning out of the success and popularity of the show. But the streamed game play is the heart of it. It's live on Twitch and Youtube most Thursdays, and has VOD on Twitch and Youtube. Audio versions are available as podcasts in most places you can get podcasts. It's become a bit of a pop cultural phenomenon. It's a big reason or the surge in popularity in D&D over the last 6-7 years, and they've created a non-profit foundation that does a lot to help literacy and arts programs, and that raises a lot of money to help fund other NPO/charities. -M |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 23, 2021 9:22:53 GMT -5
I always see these and think they look great but know nothing about Critical Role, I'm assuming it's a table top game? Critical Role started as a Twitch stream of a group of voice actors (Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, Marisha Ray, and Asley Johnson) playing D&D on Thursday nights and had become much more. Here's welcome to CritRole what are we piece they just put up for newcomers since a new campaign is just starting... What is Critical RoleAnd here's the animated intro to the second campaign "The Mighty Nein" An animated series based on the first campaign (Vox Machina) is set to debut on Amazon Prime early next year. The Kickstarter they ran to fund an animated special had a goal of $750K to help produce a single one-shot animated episode. It reached that goal in less than an hour and ended up raising over $11 million, so that single episode special morphed into a 2 season (8 episodes each) animated series that Amazon picked up. There has been tons of fan art (collected into currently 2 coffee table art books), audiobook spinoffs featuring CritRole characters, comics, D&D products, and other stuff all spinning out of the success and popularity of the show. But the streamed game play is the heart of it. It's live on Twitch and Youtube most Thursdays, and has VOD on Twitch and Youtube. Audio versions are available as podcasts in most places you can get podcasts. It's become a bit of a pop cultural phenomenon. It's a big reason or the surge in popularity in D&D over the last 6-7 years, and they've created a non-profit foundation that does a lot to help literacy and arts programs, and that raises a lot of money to help fund other NPO/charities. -M That actually sounds pretty cool, I'll have look into it more I used to love playing D&D back in middle school and high school. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 23, 2021 22:07:30 GMT -5
Just wanted to second Slam... Not All Robots is really great... I actually think perhaps better than Snagglepuss, but it's close. Mark Russell's definitely one of the best out there right now.
The Nightwing issue was better than I thought it would be, being a tie in, but I don't think I liked it as much as you guys did. I'm not a fan of Dick-Barbara having a romantic relationship.. they grew up together, they should be more like brother and sister.. not to mention Barbara SHOULD be a solid 5-7 years older (though with DC's crazy timeline shaninigans, who knows now). Definitely much more a fan of Dick-Kori.
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Post by Dizzy D on Oct 24, 2021 2:23:47 GMT -5
I always see these and think they look great but know nothing about Critical Role, I'm assuming it's a table top game? Critical Role started as a Twitch stream of a group of voice actors (Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Liam O'Brien, Sam Riegel, Marisha Ray, and Ashley Johnson) playing D&D on Thursday nights and had become much more. Here's welcome to CritRole what are we piece they just put up for newcomers since a new campaign is just starting... What is Critical RoleAnd here's the animated intro to the second campaign "The Mighty Nein" An animated series based on the first campaign (Vox Machina) is set to debut on Amazon Prime early next year. The Kickstarter they ran to fund an animated special had a goal of $750K to help produce a single one-shot animated episode. It reached that goal in less than an hour and ended up raising over $11 million, so that single episode special morphed into a 2 season (8 episodes each) animated series that Amazon picked up. There has been tons of fan art (collected into currently 2 coffee table art books), audiobook spinoffs featuring CritRole characters, comics, D&D products, and other stuff all spinning out of the success and popularity of the show. But the streamed game play is the heart of it. It's live on Twitch and Youtube most Thursdays, and has VOD on Twitch and Youtube. Audio versions are available as podcasts in most places you can get podcasts. It's become a bit of a pop cultural phenomenon. It's a big reason or the surge in popularity in D&D over the last 6-7 years, and they've created a non-profit foundation that does a lot to help literacy and arts programs, and that raises a lot of money to help fund other NPO/charities. -M
To add to that:
Taliesin Jaffe is also part of the original cast (the guy with purple hair in the picture). (There was a ninth member originally but he left early during the first campaign). There have also been many one-shots (usually played between campaigns, when Matt Mercer was not available or for promotional purposes), a short mini-campaign of six episodes to start of the new campaign and many, many guest stars.
The main campaigns take quite a bit of time investment if you want to follow them, sessions are 3-4 hours usually and the campaigns ran for 100+ sessions each (also the first campaign started out as a personal game so the first sessions where never recorded. The original game was also in Pathfinder, but for the recorded campaigns they switched over to D&D.) Luckily they have just started a new campaign with (mostly*) new characters last week, so you can start that one with no previous knowledge of the series.
*= there was a mini-campaign between Campaign 2 and 3, DMed by Aabria Iyengar that ran for 6 episodes. The characters Liam and Ashley play in Campaign 3 where first introduced in that mini-campaign.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2021 6:31:33 GMT -5
To add to that: Taliesin Jaffe is also part of the original cast (the guy with purple hair in the picture). (There was a ninth member originally but he left early during the first campaign). There have also been many one-shots (usually played between campaigns, when Matt Mercer was not available or for promotional purposes), a short mini-campaign of six episodes to start of the new campaign and many, many guest stars. The main campaigns take quite a bit of time investment if you want to follow them, sessions are 3-4 hours usually and the campaigns ran for 100+ sessions each (also the first campaign started out as a personal game so the first sessions where never recorded. The original game was also in Pathfinder, but for the recorded campaigns they switched over to D&D.) Luckily they have just started a new campaign with (mostly*) new characters last week, so you can start that one with no previous knowledge of the series. *= there was a mini-campaign between Campaign 2 and 3, DMed by Aabria Iyengar that ran for 6 episodes. The characters Liam and Ashley play in Campaign 3 where first introduced in that mini-campaign.
G'ah, I can't believe I forgot Taliesin. To add to that, if you search youtube, there are lots of recaps to get you caught up without having to watch everything. There's also an Aftershow that started late in the first campaign called Talks Machina where cast members talk about the game and the thoughts/impetus behind character decisions, personal matters and such. Production values increase as the show proceeds, with lots of early stuff from campaign 1 being done on the fly on a shoestring button, but sets and game props improving as the show goes along and more money becomes available for their budgets. -M |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 24, 2021 8:57:25 GMT -5
I can't picture spending that much time watching others play d&d.. I'd rather play myself.. (also more of a Pathfinder/Starfinder guy these days). Sounds pretty epic though, I might try a comic at some point.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 25, 2021 19:23:16 GMT -5
Couple other things from this week: Green Lantern #8 : This was split between the two parallel stories... one showing Jo and Simon saving Keli from the wrath of the UP. I LOVE that they're building the UP, I hope they do a better job than when they brought Alchemax to the current Marvel. The 'flip' story focuses on John Stewart, and is weird, but the bottom line is I think he's going to have some powers with a ring... maybe he IS a ring now? We'll see where it goes. Legends of the Dark Knight #7 Funnily enough, his was also a flip book... the 1st half was the finish of the Solomon Grundy story from last issue, the 2nd one was a story with Killer Croc 'helping' during a flood. Think I'm done with this one... I like me some out of continuity Batman, but these are pretty inconsistent, and not worth $3.99... maybe I'll pick it off the shelf when it has good creators  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2021 19:33:58 GMT -5
I can't picture spending that much time watching others play d&d.. I'd rather play myself.. (also more of a Pathfinder/Starfinder guy these days). Sounds pretty epic though, I might try a comic at some point. I resisted the idea of watching others play via streaming for a few years, thinking the same thing, I'd rather play, but after a few years of not being able to get a game together due to players moving away and not being able to find replacements, I tried a couple episodes to get a D&D fix, ad was completely sucked in. When I got my wife to watch it, she was addicted worse than I. The snowball effect of this is that there are a lot more people looking to play D&D, and we were able to put together not one, but two regular games, so watching it actually led to me playing more D&D. -M |
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Post by Dizzy D on Oct 26, 2021 7:55:47 GMT -5
I can't picture spending that much time watching others play d&d.. I'd rather play myself.. (also more of a Pathfinder/Starfinder guy these days). Sounds pretty epic though, I might try a comic at some point. I resisted the idea of watching others play via streaming for a few years, thinking the same thing, I'd rather play, but after a few years of not being able to get a game together due to players moving away and not being able to find replacements, I tried a couple episodes to get a D&D fix, ad was completely sucked in. When I got my wife to watch it, she was addicted worse than I. The snowball effect of this is that there are a lot more people looking to play D&D, and we were able to put together not one, but two regular games, so watching it actually led to me playing more D&D. -M I usually have it on in the background while at work, so it's not as much as "play myself or watch somebody else". But I also have been able to draw some others into D&D (and other RPGs) through Critical Role. Will DM a game of Paranoia next Sunday for instance.
If you like Critical Role, Matt Mercer was a player himself on Dimension 20's D&D show "Escape from the Bloodkeep", which I enjoyed a lot as well. (It's basically a parody of Lord of the Rings told from the point of view of "name changed but essentially Sauron"'s henchmen starting at the exact moment that "alter-Frodo" destroys the "alter-ring".)
Dimension 20 has shorter campaigns usually ~10 episodes a 2 hours each with a somewhat rotating cast and setting each season. Generally more comedic (they are associated with CollegeHumor) with less dramatic moments than Critical Role, but there has been quite a bit of overlap between both series.
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Post by Dizzy D on Nov 1, 2021 13:21:02 GMT -5
X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #3
Written by Leah Williams
Art by Lucas Werneck, David Messina and Edgar Delgado
What Happened Before: Mutants have organized and live together now on the living island of Krakoa. Through a process of combining the powers of 5 different specific mutants, dead mutants are resurrected back on Krakoa whenever they die. Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch has been murdered and the main suspect is Magneto, the man she once believed to be her father. As the Avengers come to collect her body, both X-Men and Avengers face Magneto. But as Magneto confesses his crime, Wanda appears alive and well, denying his guilt.
Plot: Wanda is alive, but it is quickly established that she is missing quite a lot of memories: she thinks she is still married to Vision and she no idea who Speed and Wiccan are. Jean and Rachel restore Wanda's memories, but three giant monsters appear and attack Krakoa. X-Men and Avengers team-up to defend the island.
The Good: Northstar is still written well, the final scene i interesting with good art but otherwise...
The Bad: Not a good issue, most of the time is spend fighting monsters that appear from nowhere and while there may be a reason behind their appearance, it slows down the main story and this story certainly does not need it. Give me more murder mystery and investigation.
Apart from the monster fight there also some issues with the story itself:
Rachel and Jean restore Wanda's memories, but from what or whom? Because restoring somebody's memories based on another's recall of events sounds like a recipe for disaster. There also is the question from which time period this Wanda was restored (if she indeed was restored and is not something else); it was established that their mental backups were no longer being taken once Cerebro established that they were not mutants, but this Wanda is also lacking memories from long before that moment.
Finally X-Men and Avengers leave to deal with the monsters, leaving Wanda behind. She just got murdered, maybe leave some Avengers and X-Men behind to keep an eye on her?
3/10: The first two issue had good pacing and characterization, but this issue just stops dead in its tracks to deal with some not very interesting giant monster fights.
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