Critical Role's The Mighty Nein Reveals First Look, Season 1 to Air on November 19th

The Mighty Nein will come to Prime Video in November. Alongside news that The Legend of Vox Machina would be picked up for a fifth season, Prime Video also revealed a first look at The Mighty Nein animated series and announced that the show would start airing on November 19th. You can check out a "sneak peek" of the season down below, which features six of The Mighty Nein's seven characters being interrogated after an incident at a traveling circus.


The Mighty Nein will star Critical Role's founding cast members (Matt Mercer, Marisha Ray, Liam O'Brien, Travis Willingham, Taliesin Jaffe, Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, and Sam Riegel) and will feature a group of misfit heroes swept up into the political intrigue of two feuding nations. While The Legend of Vox Machina is a prototypical heroic quest, The Mighty Nein's heroes are much more reluctant and face much more personal threats over the course of their adventures.

 

[Seramus]

And didn’t he end up not really liking playing a Warlock that much and multiclassing to Paladin?

There were several things afoot. Travis wasn't having fun playing a serious leader type, so he made an intentional character shift that involved stepping back from his serious persona to something more relaxed (and dropping the accent, but that was foreshadowed). He also mentioned feeling constrained by the Warlock's limited spell slots, and wanted a few more options. He debated Paladin or Ranger, and Paladin was the natural fit with his charisma.

In hindsight, he speculated that he might have enjoyed being a Paladin from the start. He just wanted to try out spellcasting, and Warlock seemed like a good introduction since they were more narrow than a full caster. Laura teased/grumped at him when he said that, because she wanted to be a Warlock from the start. =P

 

[overgeeked]

There were several things afoot. Travis wasn't having fun playing a serious leader type, so he made an intentional character shift that involved stepping back from his serious persona to something more relaxed (and dropping the accent, but that was foreshadowed). He also mentioned feeling constrained by the Warlock's limited spell slots, and wanted a few more options. He debated Paladin or Ranger, and Paladin was the natural fit with his charisma.

In hindsight, he speculated that he might have enjoyed being a Paladin from the start. He just wanted to try out spellcasting, and Warlock seemed like a good introduction since they were more narrow than a full caster. Laura teased/grumped at him when he said that, because she wanted to be a Warlock from the start. =P

I honestly can’t imagine Jester as a warlock. So much of her character is wrapped up in the “WTF do you mean I’m the cleric?” and her almost complete lack of healing.

 

[Seramus]

I honestly can’t imagine Jester as a warlock. So much of her character is wrapped up in the “WTF do you mean I’m the cleric?” and her almost complete lack of healing.

It definitely worked out for the best. Warlocks don't get Message or Spirit Guardians, and her reluctant healing gave us Caduceus.

 

[Sorinth]

The campaign has more false endings than Peter Jackson's Return of the King.

Fingers crossed they take advantage of redoing it for the TV series to either weave it all together into a single coherent narrative or to toss some of the bonus storylines overboard.

It was mentioned by I think Sam that when doing the TV show that they had to re-order a lot from the actual play because they were just wandering around aimlessly for so much of it. So there's been an attempt to make the storyline a little more coherent, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Seramus]

I think the issue is that Mercer has been overindulging in his epic storyteller tendencies, to the point that it is disempowering the players. They are doing improv with their characters in lieu of having real decisions to make.

He really does both. Matt loves the idea of classic D&D where the party wanders around in a sandbox, and his players tend to struggle with finding direction in that sandbox. It's clear they could use a few clear paths in times like these to keep the game coherent. On the other end of the spectrum, once Matt locks in on a major/epic story it tends to come about no matter what the players do. I do think he is genuinely open to the plot changing dramatically - agency is important to him - but it's usually behind a high DC roll instead of an equal choice his players get to make.

And in his defense, his players are famous for sitting back and letting Matt narrate/monologue. I can't count how many times I've said "Do something! Anything! Take action!" when one villain or another is executing their master plan, Matt looks up to see if any of his players are going to do anything, and they often don't.

That moment, where he looks up to see if they do anything, is usually where Matt would give them that high DC roll and proceed as planned when they likely fail. So it's possible they've been trained to just sit back and watch, but they could still try.

But take all this with a tone of laughter and kindness. I love his games.