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Aug. 15th, 2021 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missizzyLike most Critical Role fans this weekend, I've read my way through Aimee Carrero's thread on her experience playing Opal. And all I could think was, of course she approached this as an actor. Really, it's kind of strange so many of this show's viewers objected to that. I haven't been playing long either, but I've seen enough in my current group (and I even tweeted this at her) to know not only our characters but how we approach creating and playing them are heavily influenced by who we are and how we do things generally.
This past weeks especially, I've often thought of watching Patrick Rothfuss play Kerrek, and how he differed from the other players, because he approached it as a writer rather than an actor. I created Varvara very much as a writer. The former's current spells ended up being determined mostly be her backstory-I debated it with myself a bit, but in the end it made too much sense for them not to be, and when we hit level four, I eschewed a potentially more useful skill increase for the mounted combatant feat, because I could not see her not taking it.
It's sometimes made me feel like a drag at a table, I must admit, especially with the weaknesses of the Beastmaster Ranger lurking in the background. But it can click brilliantly. Late in our session Wednesday, when I was getting tired and outright freezing up, the story suddenly provided a moment for her to reach out and speak to the hostile group we were trying to negotiate with, say she understood why they were fighting the fight they were, though it was a fight she herself had felt the need to walk away from in her own past. By then I was hesitant about doing such a moment, but I went forward. Fate helped me there, too; I rolled a natural twenty on the persuasion check, and it suddenly their attitude towards us changed completely. A single moment, and I now know what I'm playing this game for, and that it can be of use to the party as well.
Schist, meanwhile, I created as a fan as well as a writer. That was a the sort of game where I chose eldritch blast as one of my cantrips purely because after seeing Fjord continually use it, I wanted to-and everyone else was delighted when I first broke it out. Schist's background and characterization ended up directing her actions during our short-lived campaign's climax, and I think that, too, was for the better in the end.
You do hesitate, sometimes. In fact, we saw Aimee very much do so, before she almost apologetically declared Opal was putting on that crown. After all, the fight was clearly almost over, a player with different priorities absolutely wouldn't have. But her doing so made the story. Those same people complaining about her were probably also the ones complaining about how disjointed the story was in general, because the final battle didn't feel that tied in to the rest of the story-but someone putting the crown on was a different and much more gripping culmination of events. Her approach to what she was doing provided us with that. It was good to hear she at least regretted nothing. There was nothing for her to regret.
This past weeks especially, I've often thought of watching Patrick Rothfuss play Kerrek, and how he differed from the other players, because he approached it as a writer rather than an actor. I created Varvara very much as a writer. The former's current spells ended up being determined mostly be her backstory-I debated it with myself a bit, but in the end it made too much sense for them not to be, and when we hit level four, I eschewed a potentially more useful skill increase for the mounted combatant feat, because I could not see her not taking it.
It's sometimes made me feel like a drag at a table, I must admit, especially with the weaknesses of the Beastmaster Ranger lurking in the background. But it can click brilliantly. Late in our session Wednesday, when I was getting tired and outright freezing up, the story suddenly provided a moment for her to reach out and speak to the hostile group we were trying to negotiate with, say she understood why they were fighting the fight they were, though it was a fight she herself had felt the need to walk away from in her own past. By then I was hesitant about doing such a moment, but I went forward. Fate helped me there, too; I rolled a natural twenty on the persuasion check, and it suddenly their attitude towards us changed completely. A single moment, and I now know what I'm playing this game for, and that it can be of use to the party as well.
Schist, meanwhile, I created as a fan as well as a writer. That was a the sort of game where I chose eldritch blast as one of my cantrips purely because after seeing Fjord continually use it, I wanted to-and everyone else was delighted when I first broke it out. Schist's background and characterization ended up directing her actions during our short-lived campaign's climax, and I think that, too, was for the better in the end.
You do hesitate, sometimes. In fact, we saw Aimee very much do so, before she almost apologetically declared Opal was putting on that crown. After all, the fight was clearly almost over, a player with different priorities absolutely wouldn't have. But her doing so made the story. Those same people complaining about her were probably also the ones complaining about how disjointed the story was in general, because the final battle didn't feel that tied in to the rest of the story-but someone putting the crown on was a different and much more gripping culmination of events. Her approach to what she was doing provided us with that. It was good to hear she at least regretted nothing. There was nothing for her to regret.
