talkswithwind | So, this week's Critical Role episode

This is one of those episodes that will go down as significant. Also, it was about here in Campaign 2 that Molly died. With that in mind...

What happened was only successful because of who was at that table, and risks giving a lot of younger DMs a bad example as a result.

At the close of the episode, we had:

Two characters past death-saves into actual death: Orem and Ferne.
One character who may or may not have just failed her last death save: Laudna
One character still in death-saves: Chetney
Still walking around: Imogen, Fresh Cut Grass, Ashton

The group decided "GTFO" was the way to go after the big bad took down their tankiest tank (Ashton, Imogen got him back up later) in a single round. They never succeeded. The big bad was specced like a level 17 fighter (the party is level 6). The big bad had legendary actions, allowing her to move 60' a round, faster than all of the PCs. None of the PCs had mass fast travel spells (too early a level for that). In short, disengage was never an option unless they got really lucky with a control spell like Hold Person.

Thing is, this encounter was built to make that functionally impossible. Matt had a goal with this encounter, which was to get Imogen to give in to ~~the dark side~~ the red storm of Ruidis. Matt's chosen method of doing this has everything to do with why this encounter is a bad example for a lot of younger DMs.

Imogen has said several times in game that she will never give in. Ever. It scares her. She sees personal dissolution in doing so. In other words, she expressed an in-game limit.
Matt built this encounter to get Imogen to violate her own limit. If that didn't work, he'd make her violate that limit through a failed saving throw.
Imogen failed a saving throw rather than violate her stated limit.

That's some deeply suspect bullshit I wouldn't accept from anyone I didn't have an extremely high level of trust with. That said, this group of people have been playing together for ten years, and seem to have that level of trust. Social media posts from the cast in the wake of this episode's airing made it clear they didn't have a problem with Matt doing what he did. It worked for this group.

I was watching all the players while this true death spiral happened, looking to see who was having a personal problem with the cycle of death unfolding in front of everyone:

Liam (Orem) was the first killed. He stayed actively paying attention to the fight. He got up, talked with other players, and was clearly engaged. Not only that, twice he mimicked the Emperor during the final Luke/Vader fight, showing he understood what Matt was trying to do here: let the hate flow through you, give in to the dark side.
Talison (Ashton) spent half the fight unconscious, and was the one to call "GTFO". He spent the most of the fight staring at the board with his teeth grinding. Some of that was bleed from Ashton, but some was knowing there was no good end to this. He's also a gamer from w-a-y back, so this wasn't his first time facing a situation like this.
Travis (Chetney) is their number two tank, and had a hell of a time catching up with the big bad enough to even do damage. In the early fight frustration was driving, but as the death spiral unfolded his eyes got wider and his voice went higher. He was having trouble believing what was happening, but was willing to trust Matt.
Marisha (Laudna) went down once before getting cut down and maybe-killed. She was in a clear panic through most of the fight, but her stress came at the end. Laudna and Imogen have a close relationship, and the big bad used Laudna's imminent death as a lever to convince Imogen to give in to ~~the dark side~~ the red storm of Ruidis. Marisha's biggest problem is she doesn't know if she's dead, which means she doesn't know how much of the next week to figure out how far down the backup-character path she needs to go. She ended the episode with, "I'm not OK."
Ashley (Ferne) was the second killed, but I find her pretty hard to read. Ferne's character is starry eyed, "Oh wow," as it is, and that's pretty close of an expression to "WTF am I seeing?" She's probably waiting for some of the other players to give her a hint as to reaction, which didn't come on-camera.
Sam (FCG) was their Cleric and having a bad time with such a powerful big bad. Sam knew as soon as FCG poked their head out of cover, they were getting killed. And also knew that they were the only way to get Orem or Ferne back. Impotence was Sam's biggest problem. Sam's also enough of a troll to recognize a bit when he sees one, so seems to be willing to hold judgement until Matt tells everyone what happened in the next episode.
Laura (Imogen) was at the center of this death spiral and I think figured out pretty fast that the way to stop it was to give in. She even tried, by saying the words, "take me," but the ask from the big bad wasn't "let me lead you away," but "give in to the scary impulses inside you," which Imogen still wasn't doing in spite of the "take me". Laura played Imogen's limits all the way to the very fucking end, which is amazing role play. But also incredibly damaging to live through unless you trust the DM to handle this situation right.

This is the kind of encounter where you absolutely know they spent a couple of hours afterwards post-morteming it, Matt reassuring people, and overall processing what just happened. Marisha saying what she did at the end of the show is particularly significant, because she lives with Matt. It could be that as soon as the cameras turned off he turned to Marisha and said, "Don't worry, you didn't fail your last death save," or "yeah, you should consider your backup character." Either one would be good.

Other analysis of this episode called out the complete lack of evident safety systems like the X card (gdoc link) or red/yellow/green flags to indicate how much of a problem a player is having with what's going on. There are a couple of other techniques that viewers of the stream would never see because they're off camera: debriefs (like the post-mortem I described above), and pre-campaign lines and veils (pre-agreed limits of "do not discuss" vs "fade to black"). An episode this intense would have been a great place to showcase safety system tool use, but they didn't. A lot of the community is unhappy with this because they're pretty sure someone would have exercised one if one was available.

My read of it is, this is a group of gamers who have been playing together so long they kinda just know where their true limits are, and have several years of streaming experience to compartmentalize the breakdowns and debriefs until they can get off camera. Never forget this group of players are all in the entertainment industry in various capacities, most have actual stage/screen experience, and all have some experience with improv theater's prioritization of flow. This session went more intense than some of their previous big bad fights, but they've had fights almost this intense before. This is a unique encounter possible only with this group of players with these experiences.

What I didn't see in the players during this death spiral, that I would expect to see if players were not having fun:

Disengagement. Ignoring the table, fiddling with their phones/tablets, doodling. If addressed directly, they have no idea what just happened or why they were called on.
Walking off. A key personal safety step. Get out of the traumatic experience.
Sarcasm. If disengagement isn't a player's game, getting sarcastic and hostile is probably where they go.

As it happens, I'll be on the road when the next episode airs so will be on tenter hooks for longer than I'd like. Even so, a lot to chew on in this episode.