The fact that you spend most of the intro expecting a plan with at least some semblance of thought or ingenuity behind it regarding Jarnathan only for it to turn out the entire plan was based on "he has wings, let's grab him and jump out a window!" is peak D&D and I'm here for it.

I remember hearing someone complain that

" they keep making plans and they keep getting derailed"

And I was like

" Yeah... thats.. DND my guy"

The twist of him, in the end, ACTUALLY keeping his word and bringing back HER mom was such great story writing and example of character development. He let go of his own needs to care for his daughters.

"We approved your pardon!" Is 100% the DM having a planned story beat, and the player characters having a plan that absolutely disregards it.

Xenk is the absolute perfection of 'NPC that the DM brings in to complete a specific task, but they can't stay because they're horrifically OP'

I like the relationship between Edgin and Holga. They're not in love, but they're both parents to Kira. It's really nice to see wholesome well rounded characters who are opposite genders be very good platonic friends.

As a DM the moment that hit my soul was when  they messed up the bridge puzzle so the DMPC says " hey look a portal stick" because I spent three hours on this encounter and it will be played come hell or high water.

One of my favorite details is that Simon, as a sorcerer, draws his power from charisma, so it makes perfect sense that he was bad at magic until he gained more confidence.

15:16 In a 'normal' DnD game, Xenk would generally be a DMPC - a character run by the DM that joins the party for at least a few sessions but is mainly there to give exposition and provide support while the party is in a situation where they're outnumbered or really need class-specific abilities from a class they don't have or something.
However, if you're Critical Role, then Xenk is Shakäste. An extremely cool character played by a guest player who wraps everyone around their little finger and then leaves mysteriously, leaving the party in awe.

This movie really just felt like the writers sat down, played DnD for a few weeks and gave us the highlights, which is exactly how I want my DnD movies.

One of my favorite things in the whole movie was the final fight where everyone's ganging up on Sofina. Rounds of combat in D&D are 6 seconds of in-game time, and every character in the final fight had 6 seconds between each action they took, each punch they threw, etc. INCREDIBLE attention to detail

4:00 rewatching this, your comment finally let me connect a really subtle point. The mittens aren't just a simple gag about a kid who doesn't appreciate their parent's effort, or foreshadowing how she doesn't trust him specifically.  She actually lives in Neverwinter.  And those mittens look large enough that, in that cold prison, he probably wore the mittens as he was making them and once they were done.  So even while he was telling everybody, including himself, that he was making the mittens for her, it wasn't something she needed and he was really doing itself for him.

The mittens are a subtle microcosm of his flaw of claiming to be working to bring her mother back, while he's really trying to bring his wife back.

@ 5:38, it's not just Ed having bad rolls, as a Bard one of his defining abilities is being able to inspire allies to boost their rolls, so his shouts of encouragement are also a gameplay feature.

"Jarnathan" is a very clear "oh crap I forgot to name this character" moment. Pure DND

5:30 "OH WE GOT 'EM, NOW" could also be subtle bardic inspiration as hes failing his dice rolls

The bridge joke is my favorite because it’s kind of a meta joke. The amount of times a group will mess up an entire puzzle the DM laid out resulting in the DM giving them an OP item is astronomical.

Something I love about Simon is how his character development actually makes sense in how he gets stronger.
Simon is a Sorcerer, and Sorcerers are reliant on their Charisma stat. Charisma does represent things like personality, but also self-confidence. Simon was a bad Sorcerer BECAUSE he had low Charisma. As he goes, his development was his raise in Self-Confidence, which would reflect in a raise in Charisma, in-turn making his magic more powerful.

1:18 for anyone feeling they’ve “missed the boat”, there’s always opportunity to get into D&D, even with just the free core rules, and your local game shop may have a group or two that can accept a new player. There are also some online forums where you can find groups. It’s never too late to start adventuring!

I love how genuine the guard's horror was when the illusion started glitching

"...what is this madness?!"

One thing that was pointed out to me, the fights with Holga isn't just a horde of enemies. It's the same guys getting up again. The armor's actually doing what it's designed to do.