Transcript:Critical Role Answers Your Questions at SDCC!

List of Transcripts

MATT: Welcome to the San Diego Comic Con official Critical Role Panel Q&A. Hi, guys! Who in this room has no idea what Critical Role is, or has watched none of it? All righty. You will-- prepare to be very confused.

MARISHA: But enjoy resting your feet with the person who drug you here.

MATT: Critical Role is a show on Twitch on Geek and Sundry where us, a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons weekly.

TALIESIN: That was so succinct.

MATT: We live and die by this. Which was gifted by an awesome critter to me earlier today.

TRAVIS: Where were you storing that dice?

MATT: Where I store all my dice. My handy haversack. That's what I call it. So yeah, welcome to our panel. We have-- my name is Matthew Mercer as the paper says. I'm the dungeon master of the show. To my left here is the illustrious--

LAURA: You got a piece of paper?

MARISHA: Why did you get a piece of paper?

MATT: Why did I get a piece of paper?

TRAVIS: This is some bullshit.

MATT: He who holds the podium.

SAM: Ladies and gentlemen, Ashley Johnson!

MARISHA: Ashley!

SAM: Surprise guest!

MATT: We were somehow able to get her on loan from Blind Spot, so thank you, Blind Spot. So we have Sam Riegel! The illustrious bard Scanlan Shorthalt. Marisha Ray plays Keyleth. Laura Bailey, who performs Vex'ahlia. Travis Willingham as Grog Strongjaw. Taliesin Jaffe as Percival de Rolo the third. Ashley Johnson as Pike Trickfoot. And Liam O'Brien is the rogue-ingly dashing Vax'ildan. Well, awesome. I guess let's go ahead get this Q&A started off. We have a microphone in the center of the room, there. If you have a question, go ahead and line up at that microphone. Be respectful.

LAURA: But when you're in the line, if you're waiting, it might be smart to sit on the ground so everybody around you can see.

MATT: Indeed. So to begin with this, we have a fantastic armored critter at the microphone. What is your name and what is your question?

BECCA: Hi, I'm Becca.

MATT: Hello, Becca.

BECCA: I started watching only two months ago, and I started playing D&D since then, and I'm making all my friends play, so... And I'm the DM, unfortunately.

MATT: Not unfortunate. That's awesome.

BECCA: I know, but it's a lot of responsibility. So I was wondering, how do you balance what you tell the players like afterward. Like if they've gone another direction, I've been asked, "What would have happened if we went down that way? And if we'd have chosen to fight that guy instead of to let him go?" Stuff like that.

MATT: I have one answer and it's a very strong answer, and I think it helps facilitate the storytelling and is really the secret to being a Dungeon Master when a player comes to you with those questions. And it goes like this. "I dunno." Because who knows at the end I'm going back there, and it leaves the mystery alive.

LAURA: He does do that. He really, really does.

TRAVIS: We try to get him drunk and try and squeeze that out of him. We get him super liquored up and go like, "Oh, man, remember that time with that skull? Like if I had knocked that out of his hand, what would have happened?" He's like, "You don't know."

MARISHA: It's super frustrating.

MATT: It's awesome. Hello, what's your name?

GARRETT: Hi, my name is Garrett. I've been playing D&D for about two years now. I've been DMing a bunch of groups on Roll20.

MATT: Fantastic. Good on ya, man.

GARRETT: And my question-- first, Sam, I still love your shirt.

SAM: Available for sale in my own imagination.

LAURA: He keeps trying to convince me to (unintelligible) dinosaur.

SAM: We would sell at least 35 shirts right here.

GARRETT: But my question is-- it's for the entire group. If your character were to die...

SAM: You shut your mouth.

GARRETT: I know this is sometimes a hard question for some players and for some it's an easier question, but what would you be thinking about class-wise or just character-wise, playing next?

SAM: Go for it, Taliesin.

TALIESIN: That's the thing. I have lots of possibilities. I don't know.

MARISHA: Yeah, exactly. We get reticent about saying what characters we might want to play next because we might want to play them next. So... yeah.

LIAM: Yeah, we don't want to tell you what's going to happen in Book Two.

TALIESIN: We've thought about it, though.

MARISHA: We have thought about it, yeah.

LIAM: At our extensive rehearsals where we work out all our lines.

MARISHA: Most of them are all polar opposites of the characters we're playing now.

SAM: Is there anything shorter than a gnome, Matt, that I could play?

MATT: We can talk.

SAM: Okay. A smurf perhaps?

MATT: You'd make a great pseudo-dragon, I think.

SAM: I like that.

MATT: It's like a dragon. It's like a tiny little dragon.

LAURA: Really?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Wait, do they have those in (unintelligible)?

MATT: Possibly. Chris Hardwick has one as his pet in Force Grey--

LAURA: Oh, good, I can--

MATT: -- named Mrs. Don't-fire, which attacks by going (slide whistle sound) because Hardwick.

TALIESIN: There's an easy way to get a new animal familiar. I'm just saying.

AUDIENCE: Ohhh.

MATT: Next open. Hi, what's your name?

ANOZ: I had a question, and it was for Taliesin, but then my brother sent another one, so I'll be texting you or tweeting it. So. Since the (unintelligible) has been escalating, and you guys will start doing more live shows, since those are pretty popular with the live audience, are you planning at some point, once it reaches climax, to bring back your guest stars to the show? And Matt, how would you deal with 15-plus people?

TALIESIN: Yeah, man.

MATT: I mean, well--

MARISHA: I mean, it's not like seven's not a lot.

MATT: I guess, one thing-- the live show we had recently in LA was a great success and we're doing a live show at Gen Con shortly. We're not going to do live shows often because we want to make them special. They're very time intensive and expensive to do, and three--you know, we prefer the intimacy of playing most of our game inside the room, but it's a really cool opportunity to occasionally meet critters and do something special for you guys across the country. As to the possibility of a climax with other guest stars, that largely depends on what the players want to do, as they build toward that climax, and two, who's available, and three, I've already had to think about this and I have ideas as to different ways that type of event might transpire. So we'll have to see. I can guarantee you my survival is not guaranteed, my sanity for that event is not guaranteed, but epicness will be guaranteed. So there you go.

QUESTIONER: (unintelligible) If each of your characters were Pokemon, which ones would they be?

MATT: If each of your characters were Pokemon, what would they be?

TALIESIN: I got nothin'.

SAM: The one down the block from my house, that I've caught like five times now. I dunno, what are they called?

TRAVIS: Can you name a Pokemon besides Pikachu?

SAM: Yeah, sure. Timothy. He's like a little dragon guy. And then there's good old Lester.

TRAVIS: Bill.

SAM: Yeah, Bill's a Pokemon, too. I got nothin'. Ashley Johnson, huge Pokemon Go fanatic, though.

TALIESIN: I love Mewtwo, since he's the most evil.

MARISHA: Maybe Growlithe, because it's most like Minxie. Oh, yeah. You all better name all your Growlithes Minxie now.

MATT: I'm starting to do that right now.

LIAM: Maybe, Ashley, my favorite Pokemons are the Raven Queen and Sarenrae. We don't play the Pokemons because they're so heavily laser.

MATT: There you go. I can see Scanlan as like a Gengar, that creepy (unintelligible) and grabby hands.

SAM: Squirgle?

MATT: He totally named another Pokemon. That was awesome.

SAM: I just looked it up.

MATT: Good question, thank you. Hello!

KYLA: Hi, I'm Kyla. Now to follow a completely silly question with a serious question, I'm looking to play a campaign or a series of one-shots for my young nephew who is on the autistic spectrum. And Matt, in particular, I was wondering if you have any advice on systems or story content that might be used for this purpose. And Liam, if you have any advice from doing campaigns with your kids.

LIAM: How old?

KYLA: He's eight, nine.

LIAM: Okay, well, that's right where my son is, and I would suggest-- I've said this before, but I would suggest small, bite-sized chunks. Let him grow into really complicated games if he really cottons to it. But have one branching off thing, maybe, and he can choose there and will feel like the most mind-blowing thing to him. I would keep it simple in the beginning. Which is the same advice you give everyone, which is: Start with a tavern. Start in the town. Start with a swamp. You don't have to create the universe. And just slowly build out from there. I think when I first started, I was planning all this stuff and not getting to like 20% of it, so little bits.

MATT: Yeah, I would say also try the best you can to present a challenge without presenting character death as an immediate opportunity. For younger kids or people that are just getting introduced to a system, or with any sort of learning disability, you want to make sure that they feel like it's a welcoming and comfortable place where the challenges are difficult and success is really fulfilling, but nothing is worse than taking somebody who's new and fresh to the experience and going, "Okay, that's great, you're a wonderful adventuring hero, and now you're dead. Make a new one." It can alienate very quickly, so I'd say definitely choose challenge and danger, but be receptive to let things slide more than you would with like a more casual or hardcore gamer in that universe, definitely.

LIAM: I am massively fudging rolls for these kids, but they don't know that, and they encountered a dragon. Just doing the basic starter set that was in Wizard of the Coast's release, and they encountered the dragon, and they thought they were going to die. But they didn't. And they loved it. So it's okay to make them a little shaky.

KYLA: Little scared.

LIAM: Yeah.

KYLA: Thank you.

MATT: No worries. Good question.

QUESTIONER: Hello. I am actually currently coming to the end of a two-years world campaign that I've been DMing, so it's pretty exciting.

MATT: Awesome.

QUESTIONER: Hopefully ends well. This is a hypothetical for all of you, including Matt. Hypothetically, if your favorite character that you have ever voiced were to play D&D, what class and race would they choose, and why?

LAURA: That is a long question.

QUESTIONER: You can ignore the why.

SAM: Favorite voiceover character in D&D... Wow, this is like math.

TALIESIN: This is like (unintelligible)

MARISHA: Oh, man, we're so tired. Trying to think. Someone else say something.

SAM: I think the answer is (soft groan).

MATT: It's hard to say favorite character, but let's say a character that we're familiar with, that we like a lot, so not our favorite per se. I'd say one of the easiest to my mind would be Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil would totally play a paladin, because he's a big old boy scout, goody two-shoes, lawful good dude, and he'd probably play human because that's not very creative, from his standpoint. And he'd probably end up getting killed in the first session by doing stupid shit like he does all the time to save people that can't be saved. So there you go.

TRAVIS: That was a good answer.

IAN: Hello. So my name's Ian. I've been playing D&D with all my nerdy-ass art school friends since (unintelligible), and recently you guys have inspired me, given me confidence to start my own campaign as a DM, and it's been such an amazing experience with you guys' example. So I have another hypothetical question. If Vox Machina existed in a science fiction setting instead of fantasy, what would your characters be like?

MATT: This is actually a really cool question. I like this question.

LAURA: Ooh, I get out my blaster like Han Solo.

MATT: Yeah. Laura, Laura, what would Vex'ahlia be in a space kind of, sort of Firefly, Star Wars universe?

LAURA: Oh my gosh!

TRAVIS: I would be a Klingon.

SAM: Yeah, that's accurate.

MARISHA: Is there magic in this sci-fi world?

IAN: Sure.

SAM: It's science fiction magic.

MARISHA: Science fiction magic. Oh, man. I kind of think Keyleth would be like a droid.

LAURA: Really?

MARISHA: I mean, she kind of runs on like, weird-- she picks up social cues from other people.

LAURA: Instead of plant-based, she's gadgets-based?

MARISHA: Maybe, yeah.

LAURA: Ooh, that's cool.

MARISHA: But she's kind of robotic in nature so... she's kind of awkward and robotic.

LAURA: Learning emotions.

MARISHA: Yeah, learning emotions, totally. That's what I was going for. Yes. She's got it.

LIAM: I think that Vax would be sticking his hand in the gom jabbar, and wearing the suit, and riding sand worms.

ASHLEY: I think Pike would probably wish she were Ripley, but she would really be Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest.

TALIESIN: I think Percy would kind of lean towards more of like somewhere between like an Oppenheimer crazed terrible person, like a little bit of like somewhere between Mr. Fantastic and Doctor Doom. It would kind of be a big mess.

LIAM: We're terrible people.

TALIESIN: Yeah. It's a key word.

ASHLEY: You're not terrible!

TALIESIN: I am. Mr Fantastic is terrible in a similar way.

MATT: I envision a person almost like Brad Dourif in Alien Resurrection.

TALIESIN: Oh, yeah.

MATT: I think it's a great movie, but...

LAURA: I feel like I want to be a chick like Han Solo. Like she's got her speeder, dude, she's got like a ship, like her flying broom.

TRAVIS: You be Han Solo and I'll be Chewy.

LAURA: Yeah! It's perfect. Except I think Chewy is a lot smarter than Grog.

TRAVIS: That's true.

MATT: Sam, who are you?

SAM: I'd just be Howard the Duck.

MATT: That was an awesome question. Thank you.

MELISSA: Hey, my name's Melissa. I'm Team (unintelligible). But I named my RP9 Minxie just for you right now. My question is for anybody on the panel, but mainly those of you who are together in real life.

LIAM: Sam. I went to talk to my husband and he was cozying up to Mercer!

MATT: This panel just got really awkward. We'll talk later, Liam.

MARISHA: No fan fiction. No fan fiction! Okay, keep going.

MELISSA: I mean, after last week's live streaming where you guys were all kind of together, so that was kind of fun. But does what happens on the show stay on the show, or do you guys come home sometime, and have a little discussion about maybe something someone has said.

SAM: Don't say anything, Travis. Anything you say, Travis, will be used against you later at home.

TRAVIS: Ya'll, when that fucking bear almost died... No good.

LAURA: I mean, if he-- one time, I'm sure you guys have heard the story where he almost got Trinket killed. HE did. Because he got impatient and he wanted us to get through a room, so he hit Trinket on the back of his butt and sent him through a bunch of traps. And I was not happy with Travis.

TRAVIS: The bear lived!

LAURA: The bear! You call him Trinket!

TRAVIS: Okay, Trinket lived. I was in some deep shit that night.

MATT: I have not seen a man of your size suddenly look so tiny, when she flashed you that look.

TRAVIS: They all saw it.

ASHLEY: Trinket lived. Travis did not live. I had to do a resurrection spell.

MATT: We get that question a lot, actually.

MARISHA: Yeah, I think like anytime you do something mean. Mean. I get the big like, "Oh, shit, Marisha, Matt's sleeping on the coach tonight!" Like, no. I don't care that much when we get home, to where I'm like, "You're on the couch." But there have been a few times where I'm like, "I don't know who you are. I thought I knew." Like the Sun Tree thing, and him hanging all of our bodies on the Sun Tree? I was like, "There's some deep, dark-seeded shit in you, that I had no--"

MATT: That wasn't Matt. That was the dungeon master.

MARISHA: It came from somewhere inside you.

MATT: Nope. Nope. Two entirely separate entities. Help me out here, guys. Thank you for the question? Hello!

ELVIN: I'm star-struck right now. Give me a second. My name is Elvin. I'm a fledgling dungeon master. I just started throwing together one shots and homebrews for me and my friends because I've always loved the game, but nobody around played until I got them into it. So I'm torn between running the homebrew and making everything good and safely for them, so they can learn their characters and get more into it, or just dropping a shitload of dangerous monsters on them and seeing how it goes. I mean, I already killed one with a pit fiend, so...

MATT: What level are they?

ELVIN: Three.

MATT: Okay. First off, don't do anymore of that. Like if I dropped a pit fiend on their asses, they'd probably wipe. So like-- okay.

ELVIN: Well, it was an illusion. At the end of it, it was an illusion.

MATT: I recommend, if you want to play like a fun one shot just to get a feel for monster balance and such, you can throw in some crazy monsters and some characters they made some fun and see how well they last. If you're trying to keep people engaged in D&D, I recommend doing more the first one, where you develop a safe-- still dangerous but a fun way to introduce them to the world and keep them engaged in the story and then you can kind of ramp up the difficulty as they get better and more invested. No more pit fiends. Not for like--

TRAVIS: Kill 'em all!

MATT: --not for like twelve more levels.

ELVIN: What if they're talking mess about killing all my monsters? Then can I drop it on them?

MATT: Well, yeah, if they start giving you shit, then drop it on their ass, go for it. But up until that point, be safe.

TALIESIN: We live in fear. We live in fear.

QUESTIONER: My question is for any of you who have actually run a game. So when is the first time that your players have actually done fanfic of their character?

LIAM: Say again?

QUESTIONER: When was the first time that one of your players did fanfic for their own character?

MATT: Technically, I guess the character---

MARISHA: No, I'm a huge fan of myself. It's fanfic, yeah.

MATT: Technically, if you consider writing character backstories, which is technically fiction about their characters, then for some of them, before the first session, really, and for some of them, two years into the session.

SAM: I was developing the character still.

MATT: I guess it depends on people's penchant for creative writing, and wanting to have the free time to flesh that out. It can vary from player to player. For some people it was before the first session, they came at me with a page of backstory history, which allowed me to ingrain that into the story.

TRAVIS: Who did that? Who was that? Who had the page of backstory before we started? Not me. I didn't know what my name was.

MATT: For the first three episodes, you and Liam had worked out your guys' backstory.

LAURA: Oh, it was us. That's right.

TRAVIS: Like the first time we ever played...

MARISHA: It was after.

MATT: Yeah, it was early in the campaign.

MARISHA: It was early-ish.

LAURA: I wrote that backstory for me and Trinket. I totally did. I wrote a story about me and Trinket, and I sent to to Matt.

SAM: Aww.

LAURA: I know. I've still got to send it over to Kevin and Claudia because they want to put it on Geek & Sundry. I'm not a writer! It's going to suck, okay? But just keep that in mind.

LIAM: I read it. It's really sweet.

MATT: It's really sweet.

ASHLEY: I always give out pamphlets of our characters' porn time. (Unintelligible) Nobody wants my pamphlets?

MARISHA: What are you talking about?

SAM: She's drunk.

ASHLEY: I had some fanfic porn, that I would write myself.

MARISHA: Pamphlets? Like, Hey, you should discover the good grace of Sarenrae pamphlets? Like that kind of thing?

ASHLEY: Like some-- come talk to me later.

MATT: Great question, thank you.

LIAM: You have only (unintelligible)

ASHLEY: I've been up since five!

SAM: PM! Kaylie.

GABBY: Yes, that's what I'm dressed like, actually.

MATT: You're dressed up like Kaylie, which is awesome.

SAM: Kaylie Shorthalt, ladies and gentlemen. Kaylie Shorthalt.

GABBY: So my real name is Gabby--

SAM: Hi, Gabby!

GABBY: Hi! And my question is to Matt. I've been trying to find groups to play Dungeons & Dragons for a frustratingly long amount of time. And it's gotten to the point where I figure that I should try making the game as a dungeon master, but my question is: Do you think someone should experience Dungeons & Dragons as a player before DMing? Or should I just study up on some of the books and then DM without having played the game previously?

MATT: I don't think it's necessary, especially nowadays, where you have more opportunities to have examples of dungeon mastering done, whether it be like our show, or High Rollers, or Real Roleplay. They're all a bunch of really great actual play podcasts, that show different styles of dungeon mastering the storytelling, so you get to watch those, handpick what elements you like and would like to emulate or incorporate into your storytelling methods, and then you can just create from there. It helps from the player standpoint, because you can understand how the game mechanics work and how it is to be and think in that moment, but thanks to videos like Live Play and our show, you have an example of that experience already. So I wouldn't say it as necessary as it used to be. If you're feeling confident and you have a good story to tell, just get a decent grip of the rules. It doesn't have to be perfect, but just enough where you feel like you could pretend like you know what you're doing when the players ask you to. Like-- oh, just roll a dexterity check. It may not be what most people would do but the players don't know that, and just fudge it and have fun going with it. Half of being a dungeon master is just bullshitting your way through it, anyway. That's half of what I do with these guys. So as long as you're confident with that, but don't show that you're bullshitting, you're fine. It's all smoke and mirrors, man.

GABBY: Thank you.

MATT: No worries.

MISSY: Hi, I'm Missy, and I want say thank you for doing Comic Con and also thank you for coming today because it's my birthday. And my question was: There's a lot of fan art out there, and is there anything from the show that you haven't seen before that you would really like to?

LAURA: Those porn pamphlets...

TALIESIN: I want fan art of Pike drawing the fan art.

LIAM: With a crazed look in our eye.

ASHLEY: It's so not a sexy title. "This is a porn pamphlet."

TRAVIS: What happens when you think we sleep? Grog eats mayonnaise, you draw porn pamphlets.

MARISHA: Pike has this whole hobby that none of us are aware of. You're a hentai artist in your spare time.

MATT: She's going to publish like a 400 page book she's been working on for the past five years.

MISSY: Thank you.

MATT: No, do we have any moments that we want to see drawn that we haven't yet seen?

LIAM: I'd love to see Earthbreaker Groon handing us our asses. Like the combat sequence.

MATT: That was pretty cool, yeah.

MARISHA: I don't think there was ever fan art that came out of Keyleth choking the magician at the Winter's Crest Festival, and having a panic attack. Yeah, of her freaking out the magician. That was a fun moment.

TALIESIN: It's hard to feel like something's missing. There's so much of it.

LAURA: I'm going to keep thinking. I may enter it later on.

MATT: It'll come to you.

LAURA: Yeah, I'm just going to throw it out.

MATT: We've got time for a few more questions. We're going to try to get through this as fast as possible, cause we've only got about ten minutes left.

ALEX: Hello, my name is Alex Maxwell, and I was guys at your Wonder Con panel.

TRAVIS: Love that shirt!

ALEX: I got it because of you.

TRAVIS: I got it because of you!

ALEX: I want to ask you guys how you solved a problematic player with his metagaming druid. Resolution, he's really, really dead.

MATT: That's a way to do it.

ALEX: So the chapter Tower of Fiends is all because of you guys saying, Make his friends kill him. So he was possessed and the clerics said, "F that," and (unintelligible). As a DM, I know sometimes the DM burn out can (unintelligible) after a while, and Matt, how do you every week, especially with some of the more challenging personalities that have played--

MATT: (to Sam) You're just closest to me.

ALEX: Kind of like writer's block, in any other creative entertainment medium, keeping that stream flowing fresh.

MATT: I will say, for one thing, you guys kind of inspire me to keep going.

AUDIENCE: Aww.

MATT: But no, the positive feedback from the community is so overwhelming on a consistent basis and watching these guys' faces light up every week that we play. That's enough to keep me pushing through the wildness of a writer's block.

LAURA: We love you, Dad.

MARISHA: I can't say that. That's weird.

MATT: Please don't, no. But there can be times where it gets hard and if you have the opportunity of not having a weekly show that people are like, "When's the next episode, Matt?" If you're feeling that block, take a break. Find a point in the story where you can have a hiatus. Resolve one storyline and then tell players, "We'll come back in a few months." And you'll be a six months or a year time jump, and you can write stories during that time of what they do in the interim, and in that meantime have somebody else trying to DM for a while. Maybe try a different system for a few game sessions to just kind of cleanse your palate, and get back to being inspired again. Everyone has their own techniques and I can't really tell you what works for you, because each person's method is different, but if you need to take a break and step away and try something else for a change, go for it. Sometimes that might be just enough to kind of shake you free of that slack point.

ALEX: Thank you, and you guys gave me some great voice acting advice at (unintelligible) Con. It's making a huge difference. Thank you a lot.

SAM: Let's just clarify that our advice was not to kill his friends.

PATRICK: How's it going, everybody? My name's Patrick. I had kind of a meta-question. Me, my wife and our friends, it's our first time at Comic Con, and we're having a blast.There's so many stories. But we come in at 8, 9 a.m., and go to bed at 1 or 2 a.m., so we're exhausted. As we're falling asleep, I'm wondering what's it like for you guys behind the panel? What's it like rushing and trying to make (unintelligible). What's it like to be in the center of a Comic Con panel? Give us fun stories and let us know what it's like behind that side.

TRAVIS: Drugs are awesome.

LAURA: He's not serious.

SAM: Yes, they are.

LAURA: Travis!

MARISHA: Thank God for liquid courage, man.

TRAVIS: I'm sorry. Prescription drugs are awesome.

LAURA: No. No.

TALIESIN: It's amazing. It's fantastic. I won't pretend that I don't occasionally miss being able to do that. I've got like 20 years of Comic Con now, somewhere around 20 years at Comic Con. I was a vendor for a while. I was a fan. I was a voice actor. And now this. It's a weird sideways experience of the whole reality. It's fabulous, though.

MATT: It's exhausting.

LAURA: Yeah, sometimes you don't even get a chance to go on the floor. It's crazy. Like yesterday was the first time I walked the floor and it was just for five minutes as I was going from one location to another.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I've had about four minutes on the floor.

LAURA: Look at all this stuff that I didn't see!

TALIESIN: Yeah, it's been four minutes on the floor, then this is the only time I've been in the building otherwise.

MARISHA: Yeah, same here.

TALIESIN: This is awesome.

LAURA: But this is great!

MARISHA: It's always humbling and overwhelming, I think. But it's always energizing. I don't know. It's a lot of things, man. And I don't have my voice anymore because of it, so... yeah.

TALIESIN: I will say, that's the one commonality. We go out at night and have a really good time along with everybody else, and that's cool. Like we went to see some of our favorite DJs a few nights ago, and that was awesome. Awesome people.

LAURA: It's a super secret. There's a super secret Geek and Sundry party happening tonight.

MATT: Where is that?

LAURA: Am I allowed to say where it is? It's in flux.

SAM: Flux?

MATT: Flux. Starting at 9 p.m.

MARISHA: There's a password. There's a secret password,

SAM: Fidelio.

LAURA: Go look online for the secret password. Look on Twitter.

MATT: It's on Twitter, man.

MARISHA: Hakuna--

LAURA: No!

SAM: No, barracuda.

MARISHA: Ooh, barracuda. Benatar.

TALIESIN: That reality hasn't changed. That's the one thing that's still the same, is I'm still having the same fun time I had in (unintelligible). Twenty years ago.

MATT: Thank you very much. We're running out of time here. I may have one or two more questions here so let's try to make this happen.

LAURA: We'll go faster.

MATT: All right, let's go for it. Lightning round.

QUESTIONER: Hi, guys.

MATT: Question.

QUESTIONER: It's not so much a question as a suggestion. How about the (unintelligible) for only the guest players?

MATT: I mean, if the story were to ask for it, or if there were some players who were like, "No, we don't want to play this week!" then maybe. But also at the same time this is the story of Vox Machina. I don't want to detract too much from that. Maybe when they finish their arc, and they want to take a break for a while, maybe we'll bring some of the guest players in to do their own little side tangent. We'll see. We'll figure something out. I'd love to and I know they'd love to, but I want to focus on these cats first.

QUESTIONER: Cool.

MATT: Thank you.

SAM: We love our guests, though.

MATT: Yep.

SAM: Will. Chris. Felicia.

JACOB: Hi, guys, my name is Jacob. I'm finishing writing my campaign. I'm sort of winding down, so I was planning a campaign for a bunch of brand-new players who've never really played before, and one of them is really excited about DMing, but is incredibly nervous. What sort of advice would you give or help would you provide to a person, who you won't be able to play in their game when they run it because you already know their whole story and helped them build it, but you can give them courage, help them build the game that they feel comfortable with?

MATT: I mean, first and foremost know that it's nerve-racking. To this day I still get nervous a little before every session, and that's good. That driving nervous energy is what gets you into it. Don't want to over prepare, because as Liam mentioned earlier, while with children-- it's not that different with adults. Sometimes you prepare this much and you only get to maybe that much of it, often. So you want to prepare enough to where you feel comfortable at least. Slightly flesh out many things as opposed to really fleshing out one thing, because if they divert, you'll be lost. And anywhere in that space that you kind of prepare, at least you can go with it and make up stuff in that realm that you're pseudo-prepared for. And all in all, have fun and ensure the players have a good time. Unless you play that hardcore Tomb of Horrors-type game where it's like, "No! You're fucking dead! Deal with it! Your turn!" Then you want to make sure that the players are feeling fulfilled, that they're having heroic moments, that they're having heroic failures, and that the story itself is engaging. And honestly the only way you can prepare for that is just watching their faces and being ready to adjust it based on their reaction. It's a lot of give and take between you and the players. So best advice I could have is just jumping in with those nerves and trying it out, and then from that, learn. It's going to be harsh the first time but man, it's gonna be really, really invigorating and really thrilling.

SAM: Just like sex.

JACOB: I'll take your word for it. Thank you.

MATT: No worries.

TALIESIN: And he walks away. Boom.

KATIE: Hi, guys, I'm Katie.

MATT: Hi, Katie.

KATIE: It's tough hearing my husband. I've been playing D&D for about seven or eight years now, but I've never DMed. In a few weeks, I'm going to be DMing a game where the DM of our game is going to be playing my character, and he's going to be playing an offshoot of my character, and I'm wondering how to approach the situation, for him to play my character without the other characters feeling that my character is different.

SAM: Kill the character.

LAURA: Evil twin.

LIAM: That's your answer.

KATIE: I want to pull them into-- basically I want to make my character a copy of my character, so that that character is a bad version of my character. So at the end of the single campaign that I'm going to be doing, is the-- I'm trying to think how I want to approach it. They're going to be bad guys. My character will be the bad guy, but it will not be my character.

MATT: Okay, then then you partially answered your question already. You want to find some some story thread that lets you separate the character he's portraying from yours, while still being inherently a copy of the character, whether that be by a possession story arc, or that there is some sort of a rift, a divergence, where two versions get created: one that's more of the id, or the essence of their negative emotions. Or you can have it be a doppelganger that ends up taking the form, and somehow through some sort of arcane process, adopts the memories, or a Rakshasa-- also totally viable. So, yeah. My biggest suggestion would be to find a way to separate it from your character because as soon as you get to the point where somebody else is playing a character you were really involved with, and they do it differently than you would expect, then you feel like it's doing a disservice to something you've already put a lot of effort into. So I would recommend definitely making a separation between their version and yours.

SAM: Evil twin.

MATT: We just got a big sign over here that said, "STOP!"

SAM: Thank you guys so much. We love you, critters!

MATT: Thank you guys so much for coming. Thank you so much for watching, and being a part of our show.

SAM: Next year, a bigger room.

MATT: Next year a bigger room.

MARISHA: Tell Comic Con. Bigger room next year.

MATT: If you know anybody who didn't get in here give them a hug from us, please.

LAURA: We'll see you on Thursday.

VOICE: I still love that shirt, Sam!