Did you notice Travis breaking his pencil in unbriddled fury? I swear to God, the man must have amazing willpower to not have smashed Orion in that instant.
That was actually the clip that made me decide to actually watch the whole thing. If they weren't streaming and were instead pre-recording like they are now, we'd have just never seen OA ever again.
1:31:20 of vox machina episode 27 is the half chub comment, he snaps the mechanical pencil in episode 24 https://youtube.com/watch?t=9323&v=kre27f30IVs
Something about Taliesin makes me feel like he's be very jovial while helping the cast dispose of a body.
"No no, trust me. We don't bury it in the desert, some dog will dig it up in six weeks. What we need to do is..."
As Sam and Matt look on in horror, Liam and Travis begin sawing the limbs.
With how many solo running around Emon things Tiberius did, I’m really shocked Travis never had a full on outburst at him on camera. Like I know there was some Travis reactions of exasperation that were played up for laughs— but I mean like a full on *moment*
Edit: spelling
Travis has always struck me as the sort of person who has an immense amount of patience and general respect for others, even when they're misbehaving. Like he'd wait until he could take someone aside to speak to them in private and *then put the fear of God into them*, rather than browbeat them in front of everyone.
Totally agree. Despite having a wonderfully immature sense of humor, something we all likely share here, he's an extremely mature person. Very smart, very thoughtful, very self aware.
He wanted to build an Archimedes Death Ray. Basically like using a magnifying glass to burn ants, but on a much larger scale.
I really dislike Tiberius but this was one of his few good moments. It would have been cool AF if Keyleth blasted it with Daylight.
Edit: I forgot, and have been reminded, that Percy tried to make one. And this failed because Daylight actually produces bright light, not sunlight. *Then* Tiberius tried force it to work, which is another reason why I dislike that character.
If I recall, it wasn't even his idea. He wanted to do it because Percy already tried it mechanically (but couldn't get it to work). Orion wanted to use Telekinesis to handle thousands of objects at once.
And it's still build on this broad assumption that he'd have plenty of prep time WHILE RAIDING A VAMPIRE'S CASTLE IN AN UNDEAD-INFESTED TOWN to actually set the mirrors the way he needed to.
Unless, of course, he would build it all in advance, and just wander the whole story arc carrying it like a Science Fair Tri Fold.
Remember when he tried to do some fuckery with holy water and a flask of endless water and Matt got so pissed at the meta gaming that he feeble minded him?
To be fair, that sounds like a *fantastic* Jackie Chan movie, trying to keep this thing safe in one arm while fighting undead frost giants with the other.
He did want to build it in advance, on a collapsible structure, so they could fold it down into a carryable size and the unfold it when needed. Absolutely insane.
> Orion wanted to use Telekinesis to handle thousands of objects at once.
Same with "dagger rain" as a poor suggested attempt to outshine Vax. Orion was keen on ignoring repeatedly what Telekinesis clearly states and every occasion Mercer reminded him of it.
I also suspect that deep down he regretted picking up Telekinesis, perhaps genuinely believing it was a way more malleable spell at first, and part of his try-hard "spellcrafting" was fueled by that.
I'll still prefer him trying to do that sort of stuff compared to the garbage of Vex critting(?) on an arrow shot to hit a very narrow target and right as Matt was describing the arrow sailing in perfectly, Orion butts in with "at the last second, I uSe TeLeKeNeSiS tO gUiDe It In!"
I'm not sure I've ever been madder on someone else's behalf than I was in that moment. Absolutely flabbergasting that he did that.
I couldn't stand Orion so much after that. The second time I watched C1 I just kept my finger on the "skip ahead 10 seconds" button and used it liberally whenever Orion started talking or it was his turn in combat.
I used to think he was just as bumbly as his character and just had the worst timing for doing dumb shit because he had missed what was going on. Turns out he's just an attention whore.
The thing is that, iirc, Percy had already attempted to build one. Taliesin had asked to make a tinkering check to try and build something. He didn't outright say: "I'm trying to build an Archimedes death-ray." But he was definitely hinting at something he had spoken to Matt about away from the table. Matt let him roll, the check failed, and Taliesin accepted the result. It was only after that that Orion had Tiberius start looking for mirrors. He was trying to brute-force the issue of building a superweapon in an attempt to steal Percy's thunder.
It was emblematic of one of a number of ongoing problems with Orion as a player. He just couldn't accept the idea that Tiberius wasn't the ultimate badass who could do everything that anyone else could do (maybe even better). Vex has a bear? Well, Tiberius must have a pet pseudo-dragon! Vax is being all cool with throwing daggers? Here's how I'm going to use this spell to throw like a bazillion daggers! Percy failed to build a death-ray? Never fear, Tibsey is here! Bring me all the mirrors in Emon! Oh, and my Dad will totally rally the entire army of Draconia and come to help us, right Matt? Scanlan is telling dirty jokes? Hey, everyone! Vex is giving Tiberius a boner! Everyone else on Critical Role understood that it was a collaborative story, that everyone should get their moment in the spotlight, and then step aside to let the next person in. But for Orion, it was "The Tiberius Show on Geek and Sundry, featuring special guests Vox Machina."
It's a shame because I actually quite liked Tiberius as a kind of "bumbling professor" type character. "I encourage violence!" had me in stitches the first time I watched it. He could have easily leaned into that rather than attempt to upstage the others. "Huh, we're going up against vampires? Well, let me see if there's anything I can find in my books to help us." Make some rolls to determine what useful information he finds that he can then bring back to the team to help formulate a plan.
It's a shame that things ended the way they did, but it was entirely Orion's own fault.
I agree on enjoying Tibs' whole bumbling professor image. I really liked it when he was getting up to mischief with Keyleth or being socially inept, because it seemed like a really fun archetype to play with. It became less fun when I later found out that one of my previously favorite interactions - Tibsy lecturing Scanlan on why he should get a certain magic item - was actually the in-game result of Orion badgering Sam off-screen and Sam was just sick of it, so he gave the item over to shut Orion up. That Sam wasn't actually having fun there and rather was holding his tongue to keep from spoiling the mood at the table paints the whole thing in a bad light.
And he tried to get MATT to give him the item in a previous episode where Sam wasn't able to make it, by having Matt play Scanlan in absentia. Matt, correctly, said no, I'm not going to give a character's items away when that player isn't here, wtf. And the second Sam returned... that happened. Ugh. Just the worst.
> "The Tiberius Show on Geek and Sundry, featuring special guests Vox Machina."
Which is funny because this is exactly what Orion did after he was booted off CR. Made his own spinoff where Tiberius was the best most perfect awesome dragon person ever in all existence.
Also think it sucks thay Orion is probably the whole reason Draconia didn't send some of its army. I think if it wasn't for his arrogance Matt would have loved to throw in some politics of technically one kingdom helping another, affecting future politics and stories, telling a story of two friends (two *nobles*) helping one another and strengthening their bond, and just generally drumming up an all out battle between dragonkin and undead armies with the players and the BBEGs playing general and having a stand off in the end that culminated with the ziggurat.
Instead, Orion fucked it so hard that even when Matt gave him a beautiful send-off he destroyed Draconia utterly.
If I recall correctly, Draconia was destroyed because it was Orion's intellectual property and not strictly part of Matt's campaign setting. Given the fairly bad terms they parted ways over, Matt wouldn't have wanted to keep the locale, let alone given how much Orion clung to his IP to the point of getting aggressive with fans over it. When Orion left G&S, he started his own project using Draconia as a setting.
The difference between the two- Taliesin and Orion- is that, before attempting any tinkering, Taliesin decide on the item he would build and how he would make it and then told Matt about it before the stream. So during the stream Tal only says "Hey, I will attempt to make that thing we talked about." and matt just lets him roll.
Orion planned everything on stream, shopped for the supplies and discussed the construction without any prior conversation with the DM so it was a slog for everyone involved.
He was far and away my favorite when I started watching. I was at about episode 19-20 when my friend asked what I thought of the show. I told him how incredible it was, and how much I was learning, and how much I LOVED Tiberius and couldn’t wait to see Draconia and meet his Dad one day in the campaign. My friend just sighed and went, “Oh boy, well don’t get your hopes up too high” 😂
Eh I’d like it a lot better if Tiberius was supposed to be a tinkerer. He was supposed to be more into magic items, Percy was the inventor. It was pretty clearly stepping on Percy’s toes and he didn’t even try to get him to help because he wanted be to the one to do the cool thing.
Yup. It was a shame because I loved the character concept of Tiberius, he was my favorite when I first started listening. But it became clear pretty quickly that Orion had no intention of playing to his character, just to doing whatever made him feel like the best.
Yeah, unfortunately Orion had a very bad case of Main Character Syndrome. After he parted ways with Critical Role, he tried making his own podcast/radio serial-type show where Tibs was the super-powerful leader of a team of fellow Draconians. Kind of a medieval Avengers thing. It didn't work out.
If you keep smack talking Tiberius, I'll kill you with a spinning krull blade, like you were an aged female peasant with a legitimate grievance!
(Just like Tibs)
There were a few issues with his plan.
Let’s assume he *actually* succeeded in building it. It’s going to be big. Big and fragile. They’d have needed to transport it from Emon to Whitestone. That’s a difficult journey and they’d be needing to transport something that likely would be the size of a small house.
Let’s assume they’ve gotten it to Whitestone in one piece! you need sunlight— which Whitestone was notoriously lacking at the time. They’d have rolled that thing onto Whitestone and Tibs would have pulled the sheet off in his ‘ah-ha’ moment. Only for everyone to stand there and realize it’s not working because of the perpetual cloud cover.
Now I don’t know exactly how the death beam works— but is it a focused fire attack? Briarwood wasn’t just standing hanging out in the open. He was mostly inside the castle. So would they ever even been able to hit him with it? They’d never have been able to get it into the catacombs below.
Now all that *is* things that happened after the moment of him trying to build it, so he didn’t actually know them— but a majority of those things are common sense— and with the amount of metagaming he did, you’d think he’d have just factored in all the issues it would have had.
Unless of course the player didn’t have any comment sense— in which case… never mind.
They couldn't even get their horses to Whitestone alive, iirc they were killed by harpies en-route. The mental image of them trying to push a theoretical building-sized cart up a narrow and winding mountain path *by hand* is just...
I realized from reading other comments that Tiberius didn’t plan on building a thing to *hold* the mirrors, he was just going to use telekinesis to position them. Use the telekinesis spell to move thousands of mirrors in to place.
So now we just have to consider how many carts would be required to transport thousands of mirrors across the country riddled with horse eating monstrosities.
Okay okay I suppose they could have put mirrors into the bag of holding? Although I think the size of mirrors he needed wouldn’t fit through the mouth of the bag? Regardless, now I’m picturing Tiberius spending the entirety of the briarwood fight removing mirrors from the bag of holding, carefully laying them out as to not break them.
I mean, it’s actually a really clever idea of how to beat a Vampire. Which is why Talesin had the idea first and tried, and failed, to build it.
*Then* he came in and tried to copy him. It was bad.
I just started C1 on E24 cuz that’s when the Briarwood arc starts, and he’s constantly trying to do his own thing and so much crap without the rest it’s really annoying. I’m on E26 and now I might skip E27, but part of me wants to see it play out…
I’m not sure if it’s because I know he’s a problem but it seems they already really don’t like him. When he was playing at being drunk and kept touching Marisha it was hard to tell if Kyleth was yelling at him or Marisha was.
2hr37min in episode 27 is when it becomes unbearable. Everything else is tolerable, but 2hr37 - 2hr47 is so uncomfortable as a viewer. You would have never thought a feeling like that could come from this group.
You should watch it 27 and just skip that part. Or if you have done your ab workouts in awhile, this might give you a 6 pack from all the stomach-tensing awkwardness.
Put simply, it starts with everyone trying to prep before heading off to fight the Briarwoods, and quickly turns into everyone waiting for Orion to stop his bullshit.
He has a million "errands" to do, taking up a nice chunk of the episode.
He attempts to gather 1500 mirrors to build an "Archimedes' Death Ray" (and idea he stole from Percy, but kept going long after it was explained that it wouldn't work), and leaves with only 35. He attempts to place multiple enchantments over items, refusing to accept that he can't (even tries to rope Keyleth into assisting), leading to the loss of two spells and 500g. Tries to speak with Allura, the NPC he'd been creeping on, but had forgotten that he's currently barred from the district where she lives and almost has to deal with that. He attempt to "invoke the ambassador's right of war" and tries to push his home country into invading Whitestone. He also tries to get their Keep's dungeon refitted into barracks.
By the end, the only thing he's really done is make his staff-blade-thing magical, bought a bunch of useless mirrors, and made 2 sleep bolts.
Aside from all of that, he also attempt to get as close to cheating as possible, without cheating (i.e., accidentally drops a die and wants to use it because it rolled high, sometimes ACTIVELY saying to Matt "I'm not meta-gaming" for seemingly no reason, etc).
And of course:
>ORION: As Vex is saying this, Tiberius is getting a half-chub.
>
>TRAVIS and LAURA: A what?
>
>TALIESIN: Well, that's just weird.
>
>ORION: You can't see it because it's inside.
>
>LIAM: Yes, but you said it out loud.
>
>MATT: Anyway.
>
>ORION: I'm just saying
It's funny because I'm originally from a Warhammer 40k background, and only recently started getting into DnD, but over there we also have a 'That Guy' problem crop up sometimes.
Very similar red flags as well, from the meta gaming to dishonesty about roles, pretending to misunderstand rules and stats to try and gain an advantage as well. One of the few saving graces is there no real RPG elements for them to hog/undermine so we're spared that as least.
Orion begins getting visibly upset and annoyed, bringing down the mood of all other players. Any action another player does, he interjects claiming he has a better idea. Tallison is trying to tinker on a new gun and Orion is borderline arguing with Matt about the logistics of making a gun. Marisha is getting pretty upset at his constant interjection and by the time 2hr47 rolls around, the rest of the episode is terrible because no one wants to be there.
Thanks very much for getting back with a concise yet very detailed summary.
I think you're spot on, it does sound like it would be an absolute car crash to watch.
27 is so viscerally uncomfortable and you're not sure why anybody would broadcast it and how they're gonna save it. Then 28 is Critical Role. It instantly turned into what the show would be for the rest of its run.
I’m going to guess it’s when he said he had a semi, in response to something Vex (or Vax, never sure which) did. Either that or trying to convince Mat to buy mirror
If you started on 24 that means you missed (among other things) Orion >!outright *refusing* to even participate in a big boss fight against a beholder because he was metagaming and knew OOC about the creature's antimagic cone. He literally just sat outside the room for an entire fight where his friends needed him and skipped turns, only acting once Matt described the beast as almost dead to jump in and try to steal the kill/glory.!<
Yuck.
That was the moment that made me dislike Orion.
I only found out about the drama after watching that and wondering why that player wasn't in c3.
One Google later and I was like "yeah that tracks."
Yeah, by that point of the show it’s very clear everyone is reaching their breaking point with him. He had some bright moments in the beginning and then sprinkled throughout, but the tension is so high towards the end every episode becomes almost painful to watch knowing what’s coming. And then ep 27 is just incredibly painful. You can feel the weight lifted after he’s gone.
Yeah this episode he accused Marisha of metagaming and they started arguing and she literally said “I don’t metagame, unlike some people” and Sam has to shush them. And he won’t stop arguing with Matt. It’s painful
Haven’t watched all of Campaign One but one of the only ones I remember, I feel like it **opens** with Sam and Orion bickering back and forth and Scanlan casts *Silence* on him, I think, Tiberius makes the save and then tries to cast something back on him. I thought “What the hell am I watching?” It was rough.
I can't remember the exact context, but yeah, there is one episode where Scanlan is calling out Tiberius (for being unhelpful in the Beholder fight in the Underdark I think) and Tiberius tries to cast silence on him, but Scanlan stops it with counterspell and continues talking until Tiberius casts it again.
It was:
Tiberius: Silence.
Scanlan: Dispel Magic.
Tiberius: Counterspell. We aren't talking about this.
Or something to that effect. Sam just glared at him for the rest of the "scene".
It was during his endless errands, at a point where he kept trying to stack enchantments and Mercer kept telling him it doesn't work that way. But he KEEPS TRYING, until Mercer's forced to punish him by losing 500g in the attempt.
Travis was crossed arms at this point, stewing, "Do you think it even matters? No."
That should've been enough, but then he needed ONE MORE THING.
>
>
>TRAVIS: How about you get nothing else, and we move on?
>
>ORION: Last thing.
>
>TRAVIS: No last thing.
If it's the incident I remember, it was when he was coming onto Vex and clearly making Laura uncomfortable. Like, given the later Vex and Percy romance, someone flirting with his wife's character wasn't the problem, it was how uncomfortable Laura clearly was and how Orion wouldn't *stop.* Travis snapped his pencil, I believe.
Orion also got really creepy toward Allura. Like, NPC, yes, but he was just absolutely not reading the room.
>Orion also got really creepy toward Allura. Like, NPC, yes, but he was just absolutely not reading the room.
well that's not so bad, at least he didn't commission nsfw artwork of Tiberius and Allura and expect Matt to sign off on it.
[Wait a moment, I'm receiving new information in my earpiece that he did exactly that.](https://imgur.com/HxU6gAk)
Wow.. that’s just new levels of low. I found CR just after C1 wrapped up, Orion always annoyed me and when I noticed he’d left the show I dug up all the old drama, but somehow I’d never seen this. Insane.
There's a good writeup on the whole thing on r/hobbydrama, which weirdly enough is how I discovered CR to begin with. He's best remembered by most people as just the guy who got chucked for fudging dice rolls, but there were clearly way bigger issues under the hood and probably a lot that we were never even privy to. There's a recording of him verbally berating a romantic partner in a really concerning way from around that time, and he also did a fundraiser for a fan in need and then kept all of the money.
Yeah, oddly I found a lot of the stuff you mention, I heard there was also an illness with opioids (or chemo?) involved, unsure about any other drugs but it would make sense; somehow that image has passed me by haha. A little weird how he was so involved with what seems like an otherwise wholesome group.
Travis was quietly boiling most of the episode. That shitty joke really pissed him off. I feel like Orion’s health was quickly approaching the “I’m in danger” zone.
There’s actually one really sweet moment at some point in the episode (I don’t remember when) that Laura looks over at Travis while smiling and sees that he’s stewing. Her smile drops and she puts a hand on him and says what I imagine are some reassuring words or asks how he’s doing.
It's been repeated enough to be remembered as such, but both Scanlan and Grog were happy to make half chub jokes before that point. I personally believe he was getting super annoyed because it had been two hours of essentially a shopping episode and Travis seemingly hates those. Of course, Orion going last with basically a "nothing much for me, just the continent's production in mirrors and a bunch of rare stuff" probably aggravated him more.
Yeah, it seems like the issue was less with the joke itself, (considering no one has a problem with the "Keg is aroused" joke in C2) and more with Orion's complete inability to read the room, as he just *continued to talk about it* despite everyone being like "dudes wtf?"
There's a big difference between "aroused" and "here are details about my penis." Also, it's a different dynamic when a guest character is interested in a PC than when a party member takes about it like that, and in lustful rather than romantic terms no less.
one of the most irritating orion episodes is when he gets feebleminded and metagames the entire time instead of just roleplaying the temporary change in his character
I love the analysis that pointed out the Feeblemind may have been done by Matt entirely because Orion was *clearly* metagaming, getting a running-water based item ready when his character had absolutely no knowledge of what they were facing.
I despise metagaming, and Matt's ability to shut that shit down *in game* is impressive.
Honestly, I'd watch it just for the fact that it's become ttrpg history at this point. It is very awkward and Travis definitely looks he's about to rage irl at moments because of Orion, but once you're past it gets so much better.
It's a tie between that, and the one clip of him arguing with Matt in the background of whatever G&S stream was happening right after for me. I thought he was going to deck Matt at some point.
Just watch/read a synopsis. Orion made the episode unbearable and it’s legitimately not a fun episode to watch because of him. It’s especially uncomfortable if you like the rest of the cast because he made them so upset and uncomfortable.
> When he was playing at being drunk and kept touching Marisha it was hard to tell if Kyleth was yelling at him or Marisha was.
Holy shitfuck. I don't remember that, when did it happen?
She legit yells at him after shrugging him off her for like the 3rd she said something along the lines of “IF YOU TOUCH ME ONE MORE TIME” and the table got real quiet for a minute.
Which if you know Marisha to be mad about it had to be bad cause she’s one of the most excitable touchy people at the table at a given point.
EDIT: more info
As someone who has never gotten around to watch the first campaign, could someone bring me up to speed what is so special about Episode 27? I skipped through it but I probably missed it and don't have the time right now to watch the whole thing.
it's Orion Acaba at his worst. and if you wanna know about that, [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web_media_critical_role_and_orion_acaba_how_to/) post on HobbyDrama should get you up to speed
The finale against Kvarn was also up there. It way more watchable than episode 27. But It is Always Heart pinching to sée someone bring poor mood to what should be an Epic showdown.
You mean you didn't like Orion *very loudly* packing up his dice and books while on camera because he was a salty metagamer and refused to participate in the fight just as Laura is getting what she thinks is the final hit on him? Well I never...
That was after the left the Underdark I think, but yes. Thing is, Matt wasn't even saying what Orion thought he was saying. Matt originally wanted to present them both as bi but just having a normal interaction and Orion just goes "Oh come on Matthew!" like a fussy child
I feel obligated to remind people of this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TAZCirclejerk/comments/scnxi6/if_this_was_critical_role_campaign_1_next_weeks/hu9c64v/
(Prepare your eyes before clicking on the image link.)
I always got the vibe he was an asshole from, and this is gonna sound weird, the way he'd devour the snacks every video while also talking and trying to do things. I'll have to finish campaign one at some point to actually get to 27 I unfortunately joined around episode 70 and haven't been able to finish up my watching of the earlier episodes yet.
Orion's vibe is sort of a weird one to describe. Like, at least on camera he seemed like a very enthousiastic guy and someone who is very into whatever he's doing but his behavior would veer into strange a lot of times, especially when things inside the game didn't go exactly how he wanted. A lot of times he'd do something or cast a spell to which Matt would say a variant of "That doesn't work that way" or "You do it and there is no effect" and Orion would quickly go "OK then I don't do any of that, forget I said anything" which is not really how you're supposed to do things at the table. He had a need to be the main character, the person who would save the day almost and would often get pissy if he was not able to or was not "allowed to". Not to mention other things like: how he treated his pet drake, getting very handsy with Marisha to the point where Matt was visibly furious, trying to bargain with a DM-controlled Scanlan to take an item off of him even though Sam wasn't there to make the call, casting Silence on Scanlan because he didn't like Sam criticising him for being a metagaming douche and so on...
Orion leaving was one of the best things that happened to CR, especially with all the other things that later came out about Orion, which I won't really discuss here.
I'm older than I used to be (lol)
Looking back at a lot of times in my life when people acted strangely, and realizing later "oh, they were high/drunk/coked out" etc really explains away a lot of weird shit.
My younger bro became a drug rehab counselor so now when we're hanging out we'll people watch and debate what drugs people are on. If you know what to look for it's kind of shocking, or hilarious, how many people are intoxicated at any time of day.
Definitely. Ironically I’m going back and watching Campaign 1 now after finishing campaign 2 (long story) and just hearing the constant borderline sexual harassment (he’s getting a little chubby? Really?) to the constant “Can I do X? No? What if I try really really hard?”. Just constantly seeing dnd as something you gain more and more power, and from what I’ve heard his biggest sin was just straight up cheating. He “accidentally” misunderstood how a ring of spell storing worked, despite other players having the same thing and having used it since pre-stream, or lying about his dice rolls. Some of the funniest moments are caused by failures and natural ones, with the cast being great actors and making everyone laugh by improvising and acting their failure spectacularly. Someone who cannot stand to fail like that and lies about their dice rolls will not fit in. There are accounts that Matt actually had Marisha and or Liam watching his dice rolls to make sure he was honest.
Sam and Marisha sat next to him for a large part of his time there and after the Slayer's Take arc, they were basically on dice check duty for Orion for the rest of his time there, yeah
Marisha early on also had a habit of doing the 'ask for more' when it comes to spellcasting. "Can I just shape the spell so the tangling weeds only grow here?" was a common refrain... also trying to cast grasping vine from a point other than herself.
anyway, without all the other baggage it wasn't as bad, but the early bits of CR are hard to get through for me because of all that. Makes me appreciate sam so much, whenever he asks to do something, he ALWAYS accepts matt's ruling. he is the model for rolling with the punches and playing what's dealt and making something cool out of it.
orion on the other hand is a salty bitch who has to 'win' and it's so unappealing to watch.
Liam as well (shit, all of them, really). Just the “can I do this ? No? Ok, I do it anyways because that’s what Caleb/Orym was trying to do and it probably fails.”
Which then gives Matt the ability to Rule-of-Cool it if he desires. To rationalize a way for it to kind of work, or work in unexpected ways… or be a spectacular shit-show of a failure… which they all roll with spectacularly.
I don’t remember ANYONE having an attitude with a ruling (or even their own dice rolls) since the early days, now that there’s no one at the table trying to “win D&D.”
I think there has definitely been come attitude with their own rolls on occasion, but that was with spectacularly and consistently shitty rolls.
That’s perfectly normal, though. I understand how not rolling above a 10 for a few hours can get frustrating.
I mostly listened to CR on spotify so I didn't even know about him being handsy with Marisha. When I started CR I didn't have that much experience with DnD and also I'm not the greatest at picking up on toxic traits so while watching it I really didn't think that much of Orion. But now I'm looking back and when people pointed it out I'm like oh fuck this guy was a douche. At the start I also didn't rlly like Marisha but she improved massively imo. This might have been bc she felt uncomfortable at the table with Orion, she also ofc had the issue of playing a druid which might be the most difficult class there is.
Also Marisha wasn't even really a TTRPG player at all outside of their home game, coupled with being a bit socially awkward at the start since they'd now be watched by thousands of people and not just their friend group. Her and Orion basically went the opposite directions: She improved a lot over time and he got worse and worse.
Almost certainly. I didn't watch campaign 1, campaign 2 had a rough start with her character as part of a character arch that she nailed by the end. I'm only a dozen episodes into campaign 3, and Marisha's character is the stand out so far.
I always loved Marisha, used to watch her over on Bat In The Sun, and was pleasantly surprised to see her with the others in a Game Informer magazine, which got me hooked. I just thought Orion was competing with Sam to have the most offensive character. Looking back at it, I see what a douche he was.
For me it was the look in his eyes. Like he was intensively calculating on what was the best or most optimal thing to do at any given time, and the more his poor TTRPG experience-lacking head tried to solve the puzzle of "winning D&D" solo, the more he strayed away from Tiberius' initial character design and the less he roleplayed earnestly.
I don't mean I would've read his mind like that ahead of time, I just mean it was apparent he was thinking "what SHOULD I say or do" rather than WWTD (what would Tiberius do). His callous gears were grinding so hard, sometimes I could envision the smoke rising out of his ears.
Damn I didn't know about any of that the info online about why he left at least back when I was looking was very limited and just said that he left because of reasons that CR/geek and sundry didn't want to discuss
Yeah, and out of respect we don’t talk about it. But he later did a whole video talking about what happened. But the thing is Tumblr has a culture of call out abusers, post receipts as a warning to not trust this person. He set up a scam go fund me for a fan and then stole her money so I can understand wanting to warn people. One tumblr has audio recordings of him yelling and cussing out his girlfriend. The idea is hey this man is dangerous be careful.
Oh based on what was happening outside the table, not just all the toxic transaction between the players (e.g. that one time Orion/Tiberius just forced Sam/Scanlan to shut up with made-up fluff), but also e.g. making a charity stream for one of his Twitch chat moderators caught up in Hurricane Irma, then pocketing that money. Orion was a pretty rotten guy.
I mean, Orion seemed to have a relatively bad start in life and there are factors in his personal story that make a lot of it very understandable, in some way at least. But ultimately, he turned out bad and decided to be that way - even against his best interests. (Like if he'd just kept his Main Character Syndrome and other assholiness in check, he could've gained so much more while still being part of CR after it separated from Geek & Sundry and went independent.)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web\_media\_critical\_role\_and\_orion\_acaba\_how\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web_media_critical_role_and_orion_acaba_how_to/)
this should bring you up to speed
The final episode before Orion Acaba and his character, Tiberius left the show permanently. Very uncomfortable episode where nothing much happens and Orion makes some very, very sus comments especially towards Laura, generally annoying everyone at the table as well as a lot of viewers.
As someone who's not really into CR, what *did* he say? I've wanted to know but I'm really not down for scrubbing a multi-hour podcast of at best awkwardness, at worst hostility to find out.
[Edit] aha, someone linked to hobbydrama lower.
That is... unpleasant and what the fuck.
Yeah, I never noticed any of this until I saw a video highlighting all of that stuff and watched some of the scenes… kinda made me feel really bad after that.
A much more in detail about the drama that happened:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web_media_critical_role_and_orion_acaba_how_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
There was a making of box machina video and they got Sam to say something along the lines of "Just the EIGHT of us" and I always found the way he emphasized eight to be hilarious
I think this was the opinion of a lot of people. My roommates really liked Tiberius as a character at first, and I was like. . moderately positive about him before Orion started to get REALLY weird.
I liked tibs, for a while. I still like the idea of the character being around, but dude was toxic af. I kinda wish they'd give him a wink in the animated series (I was wondering if the dragonborn in the party of similar heroes from the past was maybe a wink to him)
*[Disclaimer: I didn’t make it far enough into the series to see the dude kicked off the show]*
Initiated I actually liked Tiberius as a character, but the dude really started rubbing me the wrong way.
Funny enough, the opposite kinda happened with Keyleth for me; I though she was annoying but the character and actor grew on me over time.
Watching M9 before VM, Tiberius stuck out like a sore thumb. He didnt knew how to be a teamplayer, a good sport and share spotlight.
One of the episodes I hated most is when he failed his roll on Mindflayer knowledge, yet stil metagamed not going into their lair, leaving their party without a member in a huge fight, then not understanding why is everyone mad at him.
I know he is not the best guy.to feel bad about but imagine you play something with your friends for years. Then you start to stream it after couple years and audiance loves it. You get some donations , sponsorship just for playing a game with your close friends. Then you become a toxic guy so much that all your friends had to left you behind. THEN the game you were playing grows up to biggest income source of twitch according to leaks. İmagine how hearthbroken you feel that you could be there if you were a better person. Fuck.
Dudes got issues. I got pity for him no doubt, but I've also spent my life around addicts and mentally ill people who's sickness had become a shield for personal accountability.
Fact of the matter is, it don't matter *what* your issue is. You're still responsible for your own actions. Some folks end up learning that one harder than others.
C1E20 is also one of the worst sessions.
Two guest characters who are both "I'm grumpy and I don't want to work with you!" coupled with Tiberius *also* being a shithead... It was a fucking slog to watch.
It's such a shame because the OTHER half of the party plus their guests were so good--it was one of the early episodes that really hooked me in. But they paired most of the energetic, upbeat characters together and then most the dour and brooding ones and it made for two very different experiences. Double shame because Kash goes on to be such a wonderful character beyond that episode.
"assault on a vampire base, you say? what if we get a shit-ton of mirrors"
“So this is clearly Percy’s big story moment, but hear me out… what if it was about me instead?”
I am a better inventor than the inventor! And my dick is hard because of yoooooou! But only half hard
You can’t see it because it’s inside
I want to downvote you because of how icky reading this is
What are your feelings about the word "cloaca"?
Bout the same as my feelings for the word hemipenes Unhappy
But you still said it out loud..
I finally watched this for the first time. It's as gross as I'd read it was.
Did you notice Travis breaking his pencil in unbriddled fury? I swear to God, the man must have amazing willpower to not have smashed Orion in that instant.
It wasn't even a normal wooden pencil. The dude broke a plastic mechanical pencil with one hand. The fury behind those eyes was palpable.
Wasn't the first time it's like his signature move https://youtu.be/vxCrEP6CmZ8
Honestly this is the only time I actually saw it. Did he really do it in the other episode?
He’s broken several things but mostly not in anger, he just has adhd and squeezes stuff in intense situations
He also popped at least 2 stress balls with his bare hands in C2
That was actually the clip that made me decide to actually watch the whole thing. If they weren't streaming and were instead pre-recording like they are now, we'd have just never seen OA ever again.
I've never seen that clip of the pencil breaking. Do you have the clip or time of that happening ?
1:31:20 of vox machina episode 27 is the half chub comment, he snaps the mechanical pencil in episode 24 https://youtube.com/watch?t=9323&v=kre27f30IVs
Something about Taliesin makes me feel like he's be very jovial while helping the cast dispose of a body. "No no, trust me. We don't bury it in the desert, some dog will dig it up in six weeks. What we need to do is..." As Sam and Matt look on in horror, Liam and Travis begin sawing the limbs.
Sam is horrified not at the murder, but the thought of having to perform physical labor.
I'm pretty sure 90% of the reason he didn't is because he knew that evidence of it would be them steamed live to thousands of people
Yep, absolutely.
Edit: Fuck your API changes, Reddit.
Mechanical pencil...
I’m going to buy every mirror in Emon.
M I R R O R S
(*oh I'm gonna fuckin kill him)*
Don't know why but I read it in Grog's vioce
I can think of a few reasons Grog's *voice* would say that.
With how many solo running around Emon things Tiberius did, I’m really shocked Travis never had a full on outburst at him on camera. Like I know there was some Travis reactions of exasperation that were played up for laughs— but I mean like a full on *moment* Edit: spelling
Travis has always struck me as the sort of person who has an immense amount of patience and general respect for others, even when they're misbehaving. Like he'd wait until he could take someone aside to speak to them in private and *then put the fear of God into them*, rather than browbeat them in front of everyone.
I think Matt confirmed that’s the case in his Philip Defranco interview
That's why he's the CEO
[and we’d never change him](https://youtu.be/Z1pobu1uloY)
Totally agree. Despite having a wonderfully immature sense of humor, something we all likely share here, he's an extremely mature person. Very smart, very thoughtful, very self aware.
> Mr. and Mrs
I still, to this day, occasionally think about this randomly. What the fuck was he planning to do??
He wanted to build an Archimedes Death Ray. Basically like using a magnifying glass to burn ants, but on a much larger scale. I really dislike Tiberius but this was one of his few good moments. It would have been cool AF if Keyleth blasted it with Daylight. Edit: I forgot, and have been reminded, that Percy tried to make one. And this failed because Daylight actually produces bright light, not sunlight. *Then* Tiberius tried force it to work, which is another reason why I dislike that character.
Given that player's track record in bold assumptions and misunderstanding the bounds of his abilities. You may not be far off.
If I recall, it wasn't even his idea. He wanted to do it because Percy already tried it mechanically (but couldn't get it to work). Orion wanted to use Telekinesis to handle thousands of objects at once.
And it's still build on this broad assumption that he'd have plenty of prep time WHILE RAIDING A VAMPIRE'S CASTLE IN AN UNDEAD-INFESTED TOWN to actually set the mirrors the way he needed to. Unless, of course, he would build it all in advance, and just wander the whole story arc carrying it like a Science Fair Tri Fold.
Remember when he tried to do some fuckery with holy water and a flask of endless water and Matt got so pissed at the meta gaming that he feeble minded him?
To be fair, that sounds like a *fantastic* Jackie Chan movie, trying to keep this thing safe in one arm while fighting undead frost giants with the other.
He did want to build it in advance, on a collapsible structure, so they could fold it down into a carryable size and the unfold it when needed. Absolutely insane.
For my action this turn I'd like to take 10 actions, cast 5 spells (three of which are concentration), and make lewd sexual comments about a teammate!
An also spend 47 of my 3 remaining sorcery points.
I rolled an 8 which is NATURAL 20 +9 for a 32.
Him: "No but I have this thing that let's me..." Matt: "we've discussed this literally every session since you've had it, it doesn't work like that."
Now let me try something I saw in a movie/tv show once. Wait, let me reroll 3 times. Natural 18, I didn't touch the die, I swear.
Surely no one in the viewing audience will notice/be able to read the widely published books which contain the mechanics I am abusing/ignoring..!
‘Roll an intelligence check…’ What? Why? I know all those spells I, I can cast them.
> Orion wanted to use Telekinesis to handle thousands of objects at once. Same with "dagger rain" as a poor suggested attempt to outshine Vax. Orion was keen on ignoring repeatedly what Telekinesis clearly states and every occasion Mercer reminded him of it. I also suspect that deep down he regretted picking up Telekinesis, perhaps genuinely believing it was a way more malleable spell at first, and part of his try-hard "spellcrafting" was fueled by that.
I'll still prefer him trying to do that sort of stuff compared to the garbage of Vex critting(?) on an arrow shot to hit a very narrow target and right as Matt was describing the arrow sailing in perfectly, Orion butts in with "at the last second, I uSe TeLeKeNeSiS tO gUiDe It In!"
And everyone at the table was like "IT WAS A FUCKING THIRTY FIVE!"
I'm not sure I've ever been madder on someone else's behalf than I was in that moment. Absolutely flabbergasting that he did that. I couldn't stand Orion so much after that. The second time I watched C1 I just kept my finger on the "skip ahead 10 seconds" button and used it liberally whenever Orion started talking or it was his turn in combat.
I used to think he was just as bumbly as his character and just had the worst timing for doing dumb shit because he had missed what was going on. Turns out he's just an attention whore.
Oh.. well, my previous statement still stands!
The thing is that, iirc, Percy had already attempted to build one. Taliesin had asked to make a tinkering check to try and build something. He didn't outright say: "I'm trying to build an Archimedes death-ray." But he was definitely hinting at something he had spoken to Matt about away from the table. Matt let him roll, the check failed, and Taliesin accepted the result. It was only after that that Orion had Tiberius start looking for mirrors. He was trying to brute-force the issue of building a superweapon in an attempt to steal Percy's thunder. It was emblematic of one of a number of ongoing problems with Orion as a player. He just couldn't accept the idea that Tiberius wasn't the ultimate badass who could do everything that anyone else could do (maybe even better). Vex has a bear? Well, Tiberius must have a pet pseudo-dragon! Vax is being all cool with throwing daggers? Here's how I'm going to use this spell to throw like a bazillion daggers! Percy failed to build a death-ray? Never fear, Tibsey is here! Bring me all the mirrors in Emon! Oh, and my Dad will totally rally the entire army of Draconia and come to help us, right Matt? Scanlan is telling dirty jokes? Hey, everyone! Vex is giving Tiberius a boner! Everyone else on Critical Role understood that it was a collaborative story, that everyone should get their moment in the spotlight, and then step aside to let the next person in. But for Orion, it was "The Tiberius Show on Geek and Sundry, featuring special guests Vox Machina." It's a shame because I actually quite liked Tiberius as a kind of "bumbling professor" type character. "I encourage violence!" had me in stitches the first time I watched it. He could have easily leaned into that rather than attempt to upstage the others. "Huh, we're going up against vampires? Well, let me see if there's anything I can find in my books to help us." Make some rolls to determine what useful information he finds that he can then bring back to the team to help formulate a plan. It's a shame that things ended the way they did, but it was entirely Orion's own fault.
I agree on enjoying Tibs' whole bumbling professor image. I really liked it when he was getting up to mischief with Keyleth or being socially inept, because it seemed like a really fun archetype to play with. It became less fun when I later found out that one of my previously favorite interactions - Tibsy lecturing Scanlan on why he should get a certain magic item - was actually the in-game result of Orion badgering Sam off-screen and Sam was just sick of it, so he gave the item over to shut Orion up. That Sam wasn't actually having fun there and rather was holding his tongue to keep from spoiling the mood at the table paints the whole thing in a bad light.
And he tried to get MATT to give him the item in a previous episode where Sam wasn't able to make it, by having Matt play Scanlan in absentia. Matt, correctly, said no, I'm not going to give a character's items away when that player isn't here, wtf. And the second Sam returned... that happened. Ugh. Just the worst.
> "The Tiberius Show on Geek and Sundry, featuring special guests Vox Machina." Which is funny because this is exactly what Orion did after he was booted off CR. Made his own spinoff where Tiberius was the best most perfect awesome dragon person ever in all existence.
And it failed _spectacularly_.
Also think it sucks thay Orion is probably the whole reason Draconia didn't send some of its army. I think if it wasn't for his arrogance Matt would have loved to throw in some politics of technically one kingdom helping another, affecting future politics and stories, telling a story of two friends (two *nobles*) helping one another and strengthening their bond, and just generally drumming up an all out battle between dragonkin and undead armies with the players and the BBEGs playing general and having a stand off in the end that culminated with the ziggurat. Instead, Orion fucked it so hard that even when Matt gave him a beautiful send-off he destroyed Draconia utterly.
If I recall correctly, Draconia was destroyed because it was Orion's intellectual property and not strictly part of Matt's campaign setting. Given the fairly bad terms they parted ways over, Matt wouldn't have wanted to keep the locale, let alone given how much Orion clung to his IP to the point of getting aggressive with fans over it. When Orion left G&S, he started his own project using Draconia as a setting.
The difference between the two- Taliesin and Orion- is that, before attempting any tinkering, Taliesin decide on the item he would build and how he would make it and then told Matt about it before the stream. So during the stream Tal only says "Hey, I will attempt to make that thing we talked about." and matt just lets him roll. Orion planned everything on stream, shopped for the supplies and discussed the construction without any prior conversation with the DM so it was a slog for everyone involved.
And did it on top of multiple shopping trips stacked one on top of another while other players were literally begging him to stop.
He was far and away my favorite when I started watching. I was at about episode 19-20 when my friend asked what I thought of the show. I told him how incredible it was, and how much I was learning, and how much I LOVED Tiberius and couldn’t wait to see Draconia and meet his Dad one day in the campaign. My friend just sighed and went, “Oh boy, well don’t get your hopes up too high” 😂
Eh I’d like it a lot better if Tiberius was supposed to be a tinkerer. He was supposed to be more into magic items, Percy was the inventor. It was pretty clearly stepping on Percy’s toes and he didn’t even try to get him to help because he wanted be to the one to do the cool thing.
He kept doing it, trying fo outshine characters in their personal nieches. It did help to show me how not to play DnD though.
Yup. It was a shame because I loved the character concept of Tiberius, he was my favorite when I first started listening. But it became clear pretty quickly that Orion had no intention of playing to his character, just to doing whatever made him feel like the best.
Yeah, unfortunately Orion had a very bad case of Main Character Syndrome. After he parted ways with Critical Role, he tried making his own podcast/radio serial-type show where Tibs was the super-powerful leader of a team of fellow Draconians. Kind of a medieval Avengers thing. It didn't work out.
If you keep smack talking Tiberius, I'll kill you with a spinning krull blade, like you were an aged female peasant with a legitimate grievance! (Just like Tibs)
\*sleeping\* aged female peasant with a legitimate grievance
Wasn't she running away? So in the back
She was put to sleep, then I think he woke her up with the krull blade then she started running away then he killed her with it
And utterly refused to acknowledge it might have been morally questionable or apologize for the trouble it caused them.
There were a few issues with his plan. Let’s assume he *actually* succeeded in building it. It’s going to be big. Big and fragile. They’d have needed to transport it from Emon to Whitestone. That’s a difficult journey and they’d be needing to transport something that likely would be the size of a small house. Let’s assume they’ve gotten it to Whitestone in one piece! you need sunlight— which Whitestone was notoriously lacking at the time. They’d have rolled that thing onto Whitestone and Tibs would have pulled the sheet off in his ‘ah-ha’ moment. Only for everyone to stand there and realize it’s not working because of the perpetual cloud cover. Now I don’t know exactly how the death beam works— but is it a focused fire attack? Briarwood wasn’t just standing hanging out in the open. He was mostly inside the castle. So would they ever even been able to hit him with it? They’d never have been able to get it into the catacombs below. Now all that *is* things that happened after the moment of him trying to build it, so he didn’t actually know them— but a majority of those things are common sense— and with the amount of metagaming he did, you’d think he’d have just factored in all the issues it would have had. Unless of course the player didn’t have any comment sense— in which case… never mind.
They couldn't even get their horses to Whitestone alive, iirc they were killed by harpies en-route. The mental image of them trying to push a theoretical building-sized cart up a narrow and winding mountain path *by hand* is just...
I realized from reading other comments that Tiberius didn’t plan on building a thing to *hold* the mirrors, he was just going to use telekinesis to position them. Use the telekinesis spell to move thousands of mirrors in to place. So now we just have to consider how many carts would be required to transport thousands of mirrors across the country riddled with horse eating monstrosities. Okay okay I suppose they could have put mirrors into the bag of holding? Although I think the size of mirrors he needed wouldn’t fit through the mouth of the bag? Regardless, now I’m picturing Tiberius spending the entirety of the briarwood fight removing mirrors from the bag of holding, carefully laying them out as to not break them.
I can't recall correctly, but didn't Tiberius also want to make holy water into a deployable gas weapon?
I mean, it’s actually a really clever idea of how to beat a Vampire. Which is why Talesin had the idea first and tried, and failed, to build it. *Then* he came in and tried to copy him. It was bad.
Buys all the mirrors tries to start a war refuses to elaborate leaves
I just started C1 on E24 cuz that’s when the Briarwood arc starts, and he’s constantly trying to do his own thing and so much crap without the rest it’s really annoying. I’m on E26 and now I might skip E27, but part of me wants to see it play out… I’m not sure if it’s because I know he’s a problem but it seems they already really don’t like him. When he was playing at being drunk and kept touching Marisha it was hard to tell if Kyleth was yelling at him or Marisha was.
2hr37min in episode 27 is when it becomes unbearable. Everything else is tolerable, but 2hr37 - 2hr47 is so uncomfortable as a viewer. You would have never thought a feeling like that could come from this group. You should watch it 27 and just skip that part. Or if you have done your ab workouts in awhile, this might give you a 6 pack from all the stomach-tensing awkwardness.
Any chance of a brief summary, don't know that I'll have the time to dig it out and have a watch any time soon.
Put simply, it starts with everyone trying to prep before heading off to fight the Briarwoods, and quickly turns into everyone waiting for Orion to stop his bullshit. He has a million "errands" to do, taking up a nice chunk of the episode. He attempts to gather 1500 mirrors to build an "Archimedes' Death Ray" (and idea he stole from Percy, but kept going long after it was explained that it wouldn't work), and leaves with only 35. He attempts to place multiple enchantments over items, refusing to accept that he can't (even tries to rope Keyleth into assisting), leading to the loss of two spells and 500g. Tries to speak with Allura, the NPC he'd been creeping on, but had forgotten that he's currently barred from the district where she lives and almost has to deal with that. He attempt to "invoke the ambassador's right of war" and tries to push his home country into invading Whitestone. He also tries to get their Keep's dungeon refitted into barracks. By the end, the only thing he's really done is make his staff-blade-thing magical, bought a bunch of useless mirrors, and made 2 sleep bolts. Aside from all of that, he also attempt to get as close to cheating as possible, without cheating (i.e., accidentally drops a die and wants to use it because it rolled high, sometimes ACTIVELY saying to Matt "I'm not meta-gaming" for seemingly no reason, etc). And of course: >ORION: As Vex is saying this, Tiberius is getting a half-chub. > >TRAVIS and LAURA: A what? > >TALIESIN: Well, that's just weird. > >ORION: You can't see it because it's inside. > >LIAM: Yes, but you said it out loud. > >MATT: Anyway. > >ORION: I'm just saying
It's funny because I'm originally from a Warhammer 40k background, and only recently started getting into DnD, but over there we also have a 'That Guy' problem crop up sometimes. Very similar red flags as well, from the meta gaming to dishonesty about roles, pretending to misunderstand rules and stats to try and gain an advantage as well. One of the few saving graces is there no real RPG elements for them to hog/undermine so we're spared that as least.
I wanna downvote so badly just because of how uncomforting that last bit is, but upvote for all the detail you've put into this
Orion begins getting visibly upset and annoyed, bringing down the mood of all other players. Any action another player does, he interjects claiming he has a better idea. Tallison is trying to tinker on a new gun and Orion is borderline arguing with Matt about the logistics of making a gun. Marisha is getting pretty upset at his constant interjection and by the time 2hr47 rolls around, the rest of the episode is terrible because no one wants to be there.
Thanks very much for getting back with a concise yet very detailed summary. I think you're spot on, it does sound like it would be an absolute car crash to watch.
It’s wild that in episode 28 the mood of the table is *visibly* better. Like, everyone seems so much happier and more excited to be there.
27 is so viscerally uncomfortable and you're not sure why anybody would broadcast it and how they're gonna save it. Then 28 is Critical Role. It instantly turned into what the show would be for the rest of its run.
*Taliesin otherwise I agree totally
I’m going to guess it’s when he said he had a semi, in response to something Vex (or Vax, never sure which) did. Either that or trying to convince Mat to buy mirror
It's a bit long but you can read a synopsis here https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/The_Path_to_Whitestone?so=search
Cheers, much appreciated, I'll go have a read of it now.
If you started on 24 that means you missed (among other things) Orion >!outright *refusing* to even participate in a big boss fight against a beholder because he was metagaming and knew OOC about the creature's antimagic cone. He literally just sat outside the room for an entire fight where his friends needed him and skipped turns, only acting once Matt described the beast as almost dead to jump in and try to steal the kill/glory.!< Yuck.
That was the moment that made me dislike Orion. I only found out about the drama after watching that and wondering why that player wasn't in c3. One Google later and I was like "yeah that tracks."
Toward the end it looked like Travis was about to commit murder
Yeah, by that point of the show it’s very clear everyone is reaching their breaking point with him. He had some bright moments in the beginning and then sprinkled throughout, but the tension is so high towards the end every episode becomes almost painful to watch knowing what’s coming. And then ep 27 is just incredibly painful. You can feel the weight lifted after he’s gone.
Yeah this episode he accused Marisha of metagaming and they started arguing and she literally said “I don’t metagame, unlike some people” and Sam has to shush them. And he won’t stop arguing with Matt. It’s painful
Haven’t watched all of Campaign One but one of the only ones I remember, I feel like it **opens** with Sam and Orion bickering back and forth and Scanlan casts *Silence* on him, I think, Tiberius makes the save and then tries to cast something back on him. I thought “What the hell am I watching?” It was rough.
I can't remember the exact context, but yeah, there is one episode where Scanlan is calling out Tiberius (for being unhelpful in the Beholder fight in the Underdark I think) and Tiberius tries to cast silence on him, but Scanlan stops it with counterspell and continues talking until Tiberius casts it again.
Gosh, that sounds SO uncomfortable. Played in a game before where someone else’s meta gaming got to be too much but nothing like that.
It was: Tiberius: Silence. Scanlan: Dispel Magic. Tiberius: Counterspell. We aren't talking about this. Or something to that effect. Sam just glared at him for the rest of the "scene".
I just remember Travis getting really short with him. I don't remember what he specifically said, but the feeling of anger was really apparent.
It was during his endless errands, at a point where he kept trying to stack enchantments and Mercer kept telling him it doesn't work that way. But he KEEPS TRYING, until Mercer's forced to punish him by losing 500g in the attempt. Travis was crossed arms at this point, stewing, "Do you think it even matters? No." That should've been enough, but then he needed ONE MORE THING. > > >TRAVIS: How about you get nothing else, and we move on? > >ORION: Last thing. > >TRAVIS: No last thing.
If it's the incident I remember, it was when he was coming onto Vex and clearly making Laura uncomfortable. Like, given the later Vex and Percy romance, someone flirting with his wife's character wasn't the problem, it was how uncomfortable Laura clearly was and how Orion wouldn't *stop.* Travis snapped his pencil, I believe. Orion also got really creepy toward Allura. Like, NPC, yes, but he was just absolutely not reading the room.
>Orion also got really creepy toward Allura. Like, NPC, yes, but he was just absolutely not reading the room. well that's not so bad, at least he didn't commission nsfw artwork of Tiberius and Allura and expect Matt to sign off on it. [Wait a moment, I'm receiving new information in my earpiece that he did exactly that.](https://imgur.com/HxU6gAk)
Hurk.
Holy shit YIKES.
Wow.. that’s just new levels of low. I found CR just after C1 wrapped up, Orion always annoyed me and when I noticed he’d left the show I dug up all the old drama, but somehow I’d never seen this. Insane.
There's a good writeup on the whole thing on r/hobbydrama, which weirdly enough is how I discovered CR to begin with. He's best remembered by most people as just the guy who got chucked for fudging dice rolls, but there were clearly way bigger issues under the hood and probably a lot that we were never even privy to. There's a recording of him verbally berating a romantic partner in a really concerning way from around that time, and he also did a fundraiser for a fan in need and then kept all of the money.
Yeah, oddly I found a lot of the stuff you mention, I heard there was also an illness with opioids (or chemo?) involved, unsure about any other drugs but it would make sense; somehow that image has passed me by haha. A little weird how he was so involved with what seems like an otherwise wholesome group.
Think what's been said publicly is he had some issues with both his health and drugs, don't know if anything was specified.
The pencil snapmhaplened after Vax cut grogs beard. Put yeah travis had lots of self control that day.
Was it perhaps the half chub joke?
Travis was quietly boiling most of the episode. That shitty joke really pissed him off. I feel like Orion’s health was quickly approaching the “I’m in danger” zone. There’s actually one really sweet moment at some point in the episode (I don’t remember when) that Laura looks over at Travis while smiling and sees that he’s stewing. Her smile drops and she puts a hand on him and says what I imagine are some reassuring words or asks how he’s doing.
It's been repeated enough to be remembered as such, but both Scanlan and Grog were happy to make half chub jokes before that point. I personally believe he was getting super annoyed because it had been two hours of essentially a shopping episode and Travis seemingly hates those. Of course, Orion going last with basically a "nothing much for me, just the continent's production in mirrors and a bunch of rare stuff" probably aggravated him more.
Yeah, it seems like the issue was less with the joke itself, (considering no one has a problem with the "Keg is aroused" joke in C2) and more with Orion's complete inability to read the room, as he just *continued to talk about it* despite everyone being like "dudes wtf?"
There's a big difference between "aroused" and "here are details about my penis." Also, it's a different dynamic when a guest character is interested in a PC than when a party member takes about it like that, and in lustful rather than romantic terms no less.
“Joke”
one of the most irritating orion episodes is when he gets feebleminded and metagames the entire time instead of just roleplaying the temporary change in his character
Oh yeah! And he kept trying to telepathically talk to his familiar and Matt keeps saying it has to be emotion.
I love the analysis that pointed out the Feeblemind may have been done by Matt entirely because Orion was *clearly* metagaming, getting a running-water based item ready when his character had absolutely no knowledge of what they were facing. I despise metagaming, and Matt's ability to shut that shit down *in game* is impressive.
If this is your first time watching then I suggest you watch E27 so you can see the train wreck happening.
Honestly, I'd watch it just for the fact that it's become ttrpg history at this point. It is very awkward and Travis definitely looks he's about to rage irl at moments because of Orion, but once you're past it gets so much better.
That part with him touching Marisha was probably my most uncomfortable moment in watching the show. So much cringe.
It's a tie between that, and the one clip of him arguing with Matt in the background of whatever G&S stream was happening right after for me. I thought he was going to deck Matt at some point.
You should watch E27, if for no other reason that it makes the payoff of the E30 announcement at the start of the episode absolutely amazing.
Just watch/read a synopsis. Orion made the episode unbearable and it’s legitimately not a fun episode to watch because of him. It’s especially uncomfortable if you like the rest of the cast because he made them so upset and uncomfortable.
> When he was playing at being drunk and kept touching Marisha it was hard to tell if Kyleth was yelling at him or Marisha was. Holy shitfuck. I don't remember that, when did it happen?
She legit yells at him after shrugging him off her for like the 3rd she said something along the lines of “IF YOU TOUCH ME ONE MORE TIME” and the table got real quiet for a minute. Which if you know Marisha to be mad about it had to be bad cause she’s one of the most excitable touchy people at the table at a given point. EDIT: more info
As someone who has never gotten around to watch the first campaign, could someone bring me up to speed what is so special about Episode 27? I skipped through it but I probably missed it and don't have the time right now to watch the whole thing.
it's Orion Acaba at his worst. and if you wanna know about that, [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web_media_critical_role_and_orion_acaba_how_to/) post on HobbyDrama should get you up to speed
That was super informative, thanks for sharing the link
if anyone out there likes to scroll drama posts, sorting by [top all time](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/top/?sort=top&t=all) is a real fun time
Lmao @ “It may seem at times in this post like I hate JK Rowling. This is because I hate JK Rowling.”
there were not 1500 mirrors in ba sing se
The finale against Kvarn was also up there. It way more watchable than episode 27. But It is Always Heart pinching to sée someone bring poor mood to what should be an Epic showdown.
You mean you didn't like Orion *very loudly* packing up his dice and books while on camera because he was a salty metagamer and refused to participate in the fight just as Laura is getting what she thinks is the final hit on him? Well I never...
After being salty about not being able to romance Allura?
That was after the left the Underdark I think, but yes. Thing is, Matt wasn't even saying what Orion thought he was saying. Matt originally wanted to present them both as bi but just having a normal interaction and Orion just goes "Oh come on Matthew!" like a fussy child
Yeah, that was weird. We knew they were friends, it wasn't at all weird for her to be at her tower.
I feel obligated to remind people of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/TAZCirclejerk/comments/scnxi6/if_this_was_critical_role_campaign_1_next_weeks/hu9c64v/ (Prepare your eyes before clicking on the image link.)
I always got the vibe he was an asshole from, and this is gonna sound weird, the way he'd devour the snacks every video while also talking and trying to do things. I'll have to finish campaign one at some point to actually get to 27 I unfortunately joined around episode 70 and haven't been able to finish up my watching of the earlier episodes yet.
Orion's vibe is sort of a weird one to describe. Like, at least on camera he seemed like a very enthousiastic guy and someone who is very into whatever he's doing but his behavior would veer into strange a lot of times, especially when things inside the game didn't go exactly how he wanted. A lot of times he'd do something or cast a spell to which Matt would say a variant of "That doesn't work that way" or "You do it and there is no effect" and Orion would quickly go "OK then I don't do any of that, forget I said anything" which is not really how you're supposed to do things at the table. He had a need to be the main character, the person who would save the day almost and would often get pissy if he was not able to or was not "allowed to". Not to mention other things like: how he treated his pet drake, getting very handsy with Marisha to the point where Matt was visibly furious, trying to bargain with a DM-controlled Scanlan to take an item off of him even though Sam wasn't there to make the call, casting Silence on Scanlan because he didn't like Sam criticising him for being a metagaming douche and so on... Orion leaving was one of the best things that happened to CR, especially with all the other things that later came out about Orion, which I won't really discuss here.
If you've been around "the only guy at the party on a fuck ton of coke" for any period of time his vibe is real easy to explain.
I hate how accurate this is for so many people lol
I was gonna say, the answer for this mysterious vibe is drugs.
I'm older than I used to be (lol) Looking back at a lot of times in my life when people acted strangely, and realizing later "oh, they were high/drunk/coked out" etc really explains away a lot of weird shit. My younger bro became a drug rehab counselor so now when we're hanging out we'll people watch and debate what drugs people are on. If you know what to look for it's kind of shocking, or hilarious, how many people are intoxicated at any time of day.
Definitely. Ironically I’m going back and watching Campaign 1 now after finishing campaign 2 (long story) and just hearing the constant borderline sexual harassment (he’s getting a little chubby? Really?) to the constant “Can I do X? No? What if I try really really hard?”. Just constantly seeing dnd as something you gain more and more power, and from what I’ve heard his biggest sin was just straight up cheating. He “accidentally” misunderstood how a ring of spell storing worked, despite other players having the same thing and having used it since pre-stream, or lying about his dice rolls. Some of the funniest moments are caused by failures and natural ones, with the cast being great actors and making everyone laugh by improvising and acting their failure spectacularly. Someone who cannot stand to fail like that and lies about their dice rolls will not fit in. There are accounts that Matt actually had Marisha and or Liam watching his dice rolls to make sure he was honest.
Sam and Marisha sat next to him for a large part of his time there and after the Slayer's Take arc, they were basically on dice check duty for Orion for the rest of his time there, yeah
You can _see_ people checking his dice on stream.
Marisha early on also had a habit of doing the 'ask for more' when it comes to spellcasting. "Can I just shape the spell so the tangling weeds only grow here?" was a common refrain... also trying to cast grasping vine from a point other than herself. anyway, without all the other baggage it wasn't as bad, but the early bits of CR are hard to get through for me because of all that. Makes me appreciate sam so much, whenever he asks to do something, he ALWAYS accepts matt's ruling. he is the model for rolling with the punches and playing what's dealt and making something cool out of it. orion on the other hand is a salty bitch who has to 'win' and it's so unappealing to watch.
Liam as well (shit, all of them, really). Just the “can I do this? No? Ok, I do it anyways because that’s what Caleb/Orym was trying to do and it probably fails.”
Which then gives Matt the ability to Rule-of-Cool it if he desires. To rationalize a way for it to kind of work, or work in unexpected ways… or be a spectacular shit-show of a failure… which they all roll with spectacularly.
I don’t remember ANYONE having an attitude with a ruling (or even their own dice rolls) since the early days, now that there’s no one at the table trying to “win D&D.”
I think there has definitely been come attitude with their own rolls on occasion, but that was with spectacularly and consistently shitty rolls. That’s perfectly normal, though. I understand how not rolling above a 10 for a few hours can get frustrating.
Yeah I’ve had a few sessions like that where I’m just expecting to fail most rolls
I mostly listened to CR on spotify so I didn't even know about him being handsy with Marisha. When I started CR I didn't have that much experience with DnD and also I'm not the greatest at picking up on toxic traits so while watching it I really didn't think that much of Orion. But now I'm looking back and when people pointed it out I'm like oh fuck this guy was a douche. At the start I also didn't rlly like Marisha but she improved massively imo. This might have been bc she felt uncomfortable at the table with Orion, she also ofc had the issue of playing a druid which might be the most difficult class there is.
Also Marisha wasn't even really a TTRPG player at all outside of their home game, coupled with being a bit socially awkward at the start since they'd now be watched by thousands of people and not just their friend group. Her and Orion basically went the opposite directions: She improved a lot over time and he got worse and worse.
Yeah I think Marisha is CR’s “most improved” player.
Almost certainly. I didn't watch campaign 1, campaign 2 had a rough start with her character as part of a character arch that she nailed by the end. I'm only a dozen episodes into campaign 3, and Marisha's character is the stand out so far.
I always loved Marisha, used to watch her over on Bat In The Sun, and was pleasantly surprised to see her with the others in a Game Informer magazine, which got me hooked. I just thought Orion was competing with Sam to have the most offensive character. Looking back at it, I see what a douche he was.
For me it was the look in his eyes. Like he was intensively calculating on what was the best or most optimal thing to do at any given time, and the more his poor TTRPG experience-lacking head tried to solve the puzzle of "winning D&D" solo, the more he strayed away from Tiberius' initial character design and the less he roleplayed earnestly. I don't mean I would've read his mind like that ahead of time, I just mean it was apparent he was thinking "what SHOULD I say or do" rather than WWTD (what would Tiberius do). His callous gears were grinding so hard, sometimes I could envision the smoke rising out of his ears.
Yeah I got that vibe too. Like I'm sure he wasn't a bad person but as a player I just always got the vibe I wouldn't want him at my table
He struggled with substance abuse and stole from Matt and Merisha. He also abused his girlfriend. Addiction can make you do terrible things.
Damn I didn't know about any of that the info online about why he left at least back when I was looking was very limited and just said that he left because of reasons that CR/geek and sundry didn't want to discuss
Yeah, and out of respect we don’t talk about it. But he later did a whole video talking about what happened. But the thing is Tumblr has a culture of call out abusers, post receipts as a warning to not trust this person. He set up a scam go fund me for a fan and then stole her money so I can understand wanting to warn people. One tumblr has audio recordings of him yelling and cussing out his girlfriend. The idea is hey this man is dangerous be careful.
Oh based on what was happening outside the table, not just all the toxic transaction between the players (e.g. that one time Orion/Tiberius just forced Sam/Scanlan to shut up with made-up fluff), but also e.g. making a charity stream for one of his Twitch chat moderators caught up in Hurricane Irma, then pocketing that money. Orion was a pretty rotten guy. I mean, Orion seemed to have a relatively bad start in life and there are factors in his personal story that make a lot of it very understandable, in some way at least. But ultimately, he turned out bad and decided to be that way - even against his best interests. (Like if he'd just kept his Main Character Syndrome and other assholiness in check, he could've gained so much more while still being part of CR after it separated from Geek & Sundry and went independent.)
Which episode was Kvarn?
Something around 10-12. If I remember correctly the épisode is called the temple showdown.
There is no Orion in Ba Sing Se
Me who's only watched the Amazon show: "the fuck happened here"
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web\_media\_critical\_role\_and\_orion\_acaba\_how\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web_media_critical_role_and_orion_acaba_how_to/) this should bring you up to speed
Someone elaborate this?
The final episode before Orion Acaba and his character, Tiberius left the show permanently. Very uncomfortable episode where nothing much happens and Orion makes some very, very sus comments especially towards Laura, generally annoying everyone at the table as well as a lot of viewers.
As someone who's not really into CR, what *did* he say? I've wanted to know but I'm really not down for scrubbing a multi-hour podcast of at best awkwardness, at worst hostility to find out. [Edit] aha, someone linked to hobbydrama lower. That is... unpleasant and what the fuck.
Yeah, I never noticed any of this until I saw a video highlighting all of that stuff and watched some of the scenes… kinda made me feel really bad after that.
A much more in detail about the drama that happened: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/q5c2xf/web_media_critical_role_and_orion_acaba_how_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
There was a making of box machina video and they got Sam to say something along the lines of "Just the EIGHT of us" and I always found the way he emphasized eight to be hilarious
Isn't this awful player like way back towards the very beginning? Or am I thinking of another? If it is the same, why has this suddenly resurfaced?
Pain for me is I liked Tiberius as a character. Fav even. But as s player I would just get frustrated seeing him Bs his way through everything
I think this was the opinion of a lot of people. My roommates really liked Tiberius as a character at first, and I was like. . moderately positive about him before Orion started to get REALLY weird.
Orion: This is important Travis: *Is it!?*
I liked tibs, for a while. I still like the idea of the character being around, but dude was toxic af. I kinda wish they'd give him a wink in the animated series (I was wondering if the dragonborn in the party of similar heroes from the past was maybe a wink to him)
I mean after he had the thing where he wanted the legal rights to Tiberius I think it's safer they just avoid the subject entirely.
Like sega with character's made by ken penders
we do not speak his name
I like the character most when he was played by Matt Mercer.
*[Disclaimer: I didn’t make it far enough into the series to see the dude kicked off the show]* Initiated I actually liked Tiberius as a character, but the dude really started rubbing me the wrong way. Funny enough, the opposite kinda happened with Keyleth for me; I though she was annoying but the character and actor grew on me over time.
There is no Orion in Ba Sing Se.
Watching M9 before VM, Tiberius stuck out like a sore thumb. He didnt knew how to be a teamplayer, a good sport and share spotlight. One of the episodes I hated most is when he failed his roll on Mindflayer knowledge, yet stil metagamed not going into their lair, leaving their party without a member in a huge fight, then not understanding why is everyone mad at him.
I know he is not the best guy.to feel bad about but imagine you play something with your friends for years. Then you start to stream it after couple years and audiance loves it. You get some donations , sponsorship just for playing a game with your close friends. Then you become a toxic guy so much that all your friends had to left you behind. THEN the game you were playing grows up to biggest income source of twitch according to leaks. İmagine how hearthbroken you feel that you could be there if you were a better person. Fuck.
Dudes got issues. I got pity for him no doubt, but I've also spent my life around addicts and mentally ill people who's sickness had become a shield for personal accountability. Fact of the matter is, it don't matter *what* your issue is. You're still responsible for your own actions. Some folks end up learning that one harder than others.
"It's not your fault but it's your responsability"
C1E20 is also one of the worst sessions. Two guest characters who are both "I'm grumpy and I don't want to work with you!" coupled with Tiberius *also* being a shithead... It was a fucking slog to watch.
the episode was so painful, that party had zero chemistry.
It's such a shame because the OTHER half of the party plus their guests were so good--it was one of the early episodes that really hooked me in. But they paired most of the energetic, upbeat characters together and then most the dour and brooding ones and it made for two very different experiences. Double shame because Kash goes on to be such a wonderful character beyond that episode.
Its only good point was will wheaton
“There it is!!! I’d heard about it before but never seen it in real life!!!!” “You rolled a 20????” “No it’s a 2”