[Image ID: a tumblr text post by theglowqueen that’s a paraphrasing of the audio clip, comparing Matt Mercer and Griffin McElroy as DMs]
[transcript: a clip from Critical Role:
TRAVIS (WILLINGHAM): Ten, ten points of damage.
MATT: As you sweep down, you completely bisect the rat with your blade. You hear it- [SCREAM] scream out in this loud, heavy, horrible, monstrous squeak. You’re not used to hearing what normally is a small rodent sound, but amplified from a larger, almost bulbous, mutated form that it now has. As you impact, you see it cut in half. It releases this putrid cloud of whatever gases its body holds in it. I need you to make a constitution saving throw, please.
[fade into a clip from The Adventure Zone]
TRAVIS (MCELROY): I’m gonna- I’m gonna two handed battle axe at him.
TRAVIS: Attempt to cleft him in twain.
TRAVIS: That is 13 plus 7, a twenty.
GRIFFIN: Yeah, that’s a hit.
TRAVIS: [quietly] Aaand 1d10… [mumbles] Ooh, that’s a ten! Plus 6, 16.
GRIFFIN: Okay yeah, uh, you don’t cleft him in twain, but you get a- but you get pretty deep in ‘im and, uh, and he falls to the ground. As uh, as this, as this man is bleeding out, uh, at your feet, uhh, you remember the, uh, orders of lieutenant Hurley who um- uh, humbly requested that you not murder anybody during this sneaking mission.
TRAVIS: Oh, I meant that non-lethally, clefted-
GRIFFIN: [bursts out laughing] You said ‘cleft in twain’, sir.
TRAVIS: But I meant non-lethally.
GRIFFIN: Tell me, if you can explain to me how you cut somebody in half, survivably-
JUSTIN: Yeah, what kind of gross Hannibal stuff are you- like, uh- like uh, uh expertise in human-
TRAVIS: When I meant- When I said ‘cleft him in twain’, I meant like caused some kind of psychological schism, that would make him-
GRIFFIN: Well, you’ve done that!
TRAVIS: Put him in a fugue state.
GRIFFIN: Yeah, he’s in a state alright.