The success or failure of a plan in Dungeons & Dragons often depends on the mercy of the dice. A member of the Mighty Nein from Critical Role experienced such impossible bad luck due to his merciless dice “luck” that he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Tavis Willingham, CEO of Critical Role and Fjord Stone of the Mighty Nein, encountered such bad luck in the second campaign that no one at the table or in the livestream could comprehend. He rolled three natural 1s, meaning three times in a row the worst possible outcome of a roll, landing him in a scenario that could only occur once in 8,000 scenarios.
In episode 17 of the second campaign, the party found themselves at some sort of harvest festival, where they participated in a skill game.
The half-orc Fjord volunteered to participate in a game where he had to throw a small sandbag over his head with his back to the target, attempting to land it in a wicker basket about 3 meters away. A simple task that required just a bit of finesse – or so Fjord thought.
What followed was such an embarrassing situation for the otherwise stoic-looking warlock that it could only happen with a probability of 0.0125 %.
Here you can see Fjord in the trailer for “The Mighty Nein,” the animated series from Critical Role on Amazon Prime:
Dice as Paid Actors
Fjord took the sandbag to throw it backwards into the basket according to the rules. For this, his player Travis was asked by Dungeon Master Matt Mercer to make a dexterity roll – and the first natural 1 was in the room.
The sandbag flew and hit a mother in the face, who understandably left the place with her child in a huff.
The cleric Jester and barbarian Yasha, who are also part of the Mighty Nein, offered to lift Fjord together, just as they had done previously with a small child who participated in the throwing game. But Fjord firmly declined with a, “I got this.”
What followed this self-assurance was a second natural 1, which sent the entire table into laughter.
After the second critical failure, the sandbag got caught on Fjord’s armor and ripped open during the motion of the throw, showering him in sand. The humbled adventurer finally accepted the offered help of his friends and let himself be carried like the child before him.
“It Can’t Get Any Worse.”
Travis refused to be defeated. Fjord had to at least hit the basket once, even if he had to be carried like a toddler, because: “Two crappy throws in a row, it can’t get any worse.”
But it did get worse.
No one at the table could believe it, not even Matt, but Travis actually managed to roll a third natural 1 in a row, stripping his character of the last shred of dignity. And the Dungeon Master was ready to make the most of it:
[Jester and Yasha] throw Fjord about a meter forward before he lands face-first on the carpet. The carpet rolls up in front of him while he slides another half meter, his feet in the air, before they both come back down to earth and come to a stop.
A loud “Ooohhh …” echoes through the room as the music continues playing in the background.
Matt Mercer at Fjord’s third consecutive natural 1 (Source: YouTube)
Travis can count himself lucky that this bad luck occurred during a harvest festival and not in battle or, worse, during death-saving throws, where Fjord would have immediately died instead.
During the throwing game, his bad luck and tragic optimism created a moment that many Critters, fans of Critical Role, fondly remember with a smile.
If you want to see the moment in the campaign, you can do so in the episode on YouTube. If you watch the video here, you start at the right spot:
While Travis created one of the funniest moments of the Mighty Nein with his rolls, his playmate and wife Laura Bailey managed to pull off one of the best and most epic plays in all of Critical Role with her tiefling Jester, with skill and clever strategy: A significant moment from Critical Role shows that an inconspicuous item in Dungeons & Dragons can change a character’s life
