Eric Stirpe

At Telltale we tended to do a lot of our casting last minute without a ton of time for a traditional audition process. That means we would typically cast actors by saying "You know who I bet would be good in this role? [insert actor name here]. Send 'em an email." These actors would usually be either folks we had worked with before on other projects or recommendations from other actors we were working with.

So how did Ashley become part of our roster?

Well, back in 2013 when we were working on "Tales from the Borderlands", we needed an actor to play Gortys the robot and trying to cast that part had been a nightmare. We'd tried about a zillion different personalities and ideas and gender flips and just couldn't land anything that worked.

Finally in a last ditch effort we decided to just make Gortys female-coded and as adorable as possible in contrast to the ugly and crude world of Borderlands. But who to cast? Luckily, Troy Baker (who was playing Rhys), recommended Ashley, who he had just finished working with on "Last of Us" and said she would crush it. He was right, and she charmed the pants off everyone.

Boy, I get a lot of passive aggressive “vagueposting” like this in my ask box. You know what’s funny is if you had stood on your own two feet (even anonymously) and said “I think the Admin’s redemption arc was rushed and here’s why” I would’ve been much more likely to engage with you because that’s an interesting opinion and topic I could dig into.

But instead you asked it this way, which is just silly. Because I have no idea what the current discourse is about the Admin’s “redemption arc”, or the specifics of the criticism, and I’m not sure where I’d find it even I did have the time or interest. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that my answer either way would be captured as a screenshot to be used in some argument somewhere.

Was the whole "Tell PAMA a paradox" even just ever so slightly inspired by Portal 2?

Also unsure if you would even happen to know the answer but we can be hopeful! Have a good day!

if Mojang and telltale partnered again to A. Reboot the series, or B. Make a season 3, would you be interested in writing for the game again?

Is it AI? A joke? They claim it was there because the game was written to be rated T but isn't the f word a little strong for that?

It’s fake. I don’t know why or how someone made it but it is VERY obviously fake. So obvious I’m a little disappointed people even believe it. C’mon folks; smarten up and use your brains.

But a lot of people think he's based of Chuck norris.

is there any truth to that?

Haha wild story about that! We did most of the development for MCSM Season 1 in 2014/early 2015 before Critical Role had started so Mercer was relatively unknown outside of hardcore VA / anime dub circles. He was cast as Aiden originally when a bunch of actors came in as a “loop group” to fill out the crowd and side characters, and when we decided to promote Aiden to a full villain for ep 5 our producers actually said they wanted to recast him because they didn’t know if he’d have the range!

Luckily my then-girlfriend/now-wife Molly was the lead designer on the episode and she had been loving him as McCree in Fallout so she fought really hard to keep him, and obviously he did amazing. We had a voice session the day the first CR episode went up and I remember him saying he was excited he had just launched some webseries with his D&D group.

Here’s a definition if you don’t know what self-shipping is: A situation where a person makes an OC (original character) or self-insert and ships themselves with their favorite character aka a fictional other.

I’ve always been curious what your thoughts are on this! I see in it in fanart sometimes.

Ha! Very sweet of you to ask. I've only got the one kid, and he just turned five yesterday so he's very early in his gaming career. And, honestly, I'm trying to very slowly introduce him to games in general.

All he's played so far is Astrobot, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Kirby & the Forgotten Land, and Katamari Damarcy; and even then I put "played" in very heavy air quotes because it's mostly me helping him as he tries his best, heh.

Stories don’t have correct answers. They’re not puzzles to be solved. They’re meant to be a dialogue between the storyteller and the audience.