Critical Role - Tabletop RPGs is serious business, man.

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Every other month this thread (and I’d imagine every other TTRPG thread here of sufficient length) devolves into the kill vs. not kill slap fight and it’s incredibly stupid because it amounts to attempting to designate an objective definition of fun. I think the closest one can get is knowing one’s players as a DM, which should be the point anyway because they’re the storyteller. Where CR and its ilk fall down here is that they have a much larger group of people to consider, the audience, who, on account of being People on the Internet, are insane shipping-obsessed clothes-renders who are by definition impossible to please. As others have noted upthread, the safe bet is to preserve a character who might otherwise die because regardless who is killed it will be one section of the fan base’s favorite.

The cast decided to turn their stories into a business so now they’re beholden to consumers and investors forever. Let that be a lesson to any creator: never make your art about money in any way but, if you absolutely must, retain complete control over it. The entertainment industry is built almost entirely by people who are only concerned about twisting ideas into their most sanitized and profitable form, and for some reason it is illegal to kill them.
I have no cat skin in kill or no kill because I the DM so I can just forse my will on my players. That's why DM, I love being in control and get to do most talking. So of course I'm going to keep killing tool with me, duh. Why would I trough away an opportunities to show my might or my graceful mercy?

But more seriously, modern D&D isn't a game where it's fun to die often. You can kinda make it that way if you set the expectations right but it's not really how the 5E encourages to play in a first place. I think they wanted to avoid murder hoboing as much as possible as that has been a long long time cliche with bad reputation. So players are very much pushed to spend time to create a character that they can role play in multiple different situations rather an avatar to get trough a dungeon. Campaigns in official material have more mysteries and social interaction rather than different looting opportunities for different classes. So many players really invest in their characters and mostly care about their characters. Part of it is that's where they have most impact but it's also I did this and it's my baby. The story that DM wants to tell is fun and all but my princess gnome barbarian is why I'm here. She ride is a wolverine named Guddles and I last time I cut a giant head off with a magical butter knife. If you kill her I'm out.

So Matt being a softer DM was in all likelihood what made CR easier to become popular and was easier for him anyway. If I remember correctly most of the players were not really into D&D or TTRPGs before this but are actors who were easy to lure in with RP rather than G. Role play tends to more fun to follow as a normie watcher than just number in battles like in more wargamy campaigns where hard dice, death and perma death shine as punishments for bad tactics.
 
So Matt being a softer DM was in all likelihood what made CR easier to become popular and was easier for him anyway. If I remember correctly most of the players were not really into D&D or TTRPGs before this but are actors who were easy to lure in with RP rather than G. Role play tends to more fun to follow as a normie watcher than just number in battles like in more wargamy campaigns where hard dice, death and perma death shine as punishments for bad tactics.
I agree personally, especially insofar as an RPG played for an audience and featuring, as you said, a cast of actual actors, at least one of whom had no real experience with TTRPGs before CR began.

But from a more meta standpoint we’re verging into the importance of stakes in a narrative, and that may not be at or even near the top of your priorities as a storyteller (and that’s fine) but it’d be an uphill battle to convince me that it doesn’t matter at all and I don’t want to have to make that argument anyway because I’m not going to spend that much energy attacking or defending the writing capabilities of a bunch of white Californians who each have several times more money than I will ever see in my life.
 
To be honest, I doubt we’ll get anything. A response sounds like the thing corporate suicide is made of.
Corporate suicide is overstating things. When CR started, they weren't even using D&D. They were using Pathfinder. I honestly would not be surprised if they left D&D and simply went back to PF. And considering what is going on with WoTC right now and how universally hated they've become, they'd honestly be lauded by living Wizards now.

I heard that he (Mercer) apparently liked a post on Twitter that criticised the OGL 1.1 leak, but nothing official from the CR crew as of yet.
Yeah, somebody in the general tabletop thread mentioned this here's what they wrote:

Here's a fun bit too: Kobold Press 'raised the black flag' in opposition to WotC's OGL revision. They commented on it in a tweet. Guess who liked and retweeted said declaration? Critical Role.
 
Corporate suicide is overstating things. When CR started, they weren't even using D&D. They were using Pathfinder. I honestly would not be surprised if they left D&D and simply went back to PF. And considering what is going on with WoTC right now and how universally hated they've become, they'd honestly be lauded by living Wizards now.


Yeah, somebody in the general tabletop thread mentioned this here's what they wrote:
They’ve been sponsored by DND Beyond for like a decade. They will keep the knee bent.
 
They’ve been sponsored by DND Beyond for like a decade. They will keep the knee bent.
They've actually released a very milquetoast statement vaguely supporting the current move by other companies in the industry to create their own replacement of OGL. Its probably the most they could do without stepping on non-disparagement clauses of their current contracts.
 
Late and gay, but it’s a video.

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Última edición:
Found myself being incredibly bored after the group split up in C3 so I started watching Dimension20 and I have to say I am enjoying that a lot!
 
Fuck these faggots, Matt Mercer is the Will Wheaton of the TTRPGs.

I will take my black hats now
Funnily enough, they had Wil Wheaton as a guest early Campaign 1. He rolled terribly, because it's Wil Wheaton, to the point one of the guys - probably the fag - burned incense to try and purify the table from his Bad Luck at the start of the next episode.
 
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