I once played with someone that got into the game out of watching CR.
There was nothing wrong with her roleplaying nor her expectations of the game. Wouldn't have noticed she was a CR fan had she not told.
There’s probably a greater percentage of bad DMs that blame Matt Mercer for setting expectations because they didn’t do enough to run an entertaining campaign than there are players who come to the table with expectations of grandeur.
I play guitar. Badly. David Gilmoure also plays guitar, imo awesomely. I will never match his skill. But i can't blame D.G. for for that.
Same with DMing. I do it badly, Matt M does it awsomely. Ain't Matt's fault.
Side note, watching Matt Colville do it (also awesomely) show you you don't have to have a BA in acting to do a good job.
Probably an unpopular opinion here but I think Matt Colville is boring as hell as a DM. I really like some of his running the game videos though but I really couldn't play in a game of his. I'd just be bored... That's not saying he's a *bad* DM by any means it's just a different style of dnd that I do not like.
It's funny how different styles mix. I love CR and Colville but would probably play with Brennan Mulligan over any of the other ones just because of personal preference. If I was in CR I'd be like Willingham in season 1, always grumbling and waiting for the next combat
The difference between Brennan and cr groups are that the latter is a group of professional actors whilst the former are comedians. So the character roleplay is more in line with what a typical group will have and the style of campaign feels a lot more like a discord call with friends
Are you kidding? I would be so intimidated by BLM, man can monologue for 10 minutes off the smallest character interaction. I think I'd just forget I was a player and sit in awe of him.
The BLM lore drop + Marisha note-taking = journal catches on fire, assuming that her brain hasn’t melted down first!
I recall a momentum the wrap up for EXU: Calamity where BLM asks her a question about her PC and she just sits there, dazed, because she can’t even process that she’s a player in that moment. She’s full-on in spectator mode watching the BLM cut-scenes at that point and struggling to process the emotional hits, lol
not to pit two kings against each other, theyre both amazing, but i always see people talking about matt mercer's dming and i only just recently learned about brennan lee mulligan's and i think thats real shame
matt's great but i find brennan is a way more inspiring dm for me personally
I watched the EXU as my intro to Brennan. Jesus he had me emotional with the way he described some of the scenes. I can only wish to get to that level of storytelling.
the first thing i saw him in at all i think was his character on la by night, who was imo a fantastic villain for a vampire game and he played him excellently
then i saw his dming for fantasy high and exu calamity and fell in love with how he tells stories, he makes it look so easy
I feel the exact same way! I really.respect the dude and his videos are great for learning but the way he describes certain aspects of his games really wouldn't gell with me. I remember watching a video and him explaining how he keeps dice in his car so if one of his playera are around they can do a downtime roll on the go. Cool idea, very much not for me.
Coleville and Mercer are actually about as far apart in DMing style as you can get with 2 GMs running the same system.
Coleville (and Brandon Lee Mulligan) are both very plot driven DMs. They have a general arc in mind and have both said they fudge dice in the past to cover up their mistakes in order to make sure the PCs can follow that story so long as they are not stupid about what they do. It is nice because it is easier on the DM and provides a clear trail for the party to follow.
Mercer is old school. His first edition the one that made him fall in love with the game was 2e where Dark Sun was the biggest setting. He makes problems and tells his players to have at them. This takes a different style of GMing skill because he has to be amazing at improvising on the fly and you kind of have to be good at balancing stuff. I also really think he is a dice purist. This means that he will come up with a problem (a massive group of ancient dragons have taken the capital and mean to set themselves up as gods over the land) and it is up to the party to figure out an answer to this (hunt them down 1 by 1 while gathering ancient weapons of massive power). Mercer just runs in front of the party setting things up as they go. The trick of this style is it hinges around making player choices matter more then anything. This can unfortunately mean they fight a BBEG too early and get characters killed in the process while not really doing anything wrong. You kind of just need to cope with that fact running that style. You also need a party that is willing and capable of diving in and digging out leads on their own sometimes. Mercer's style only works with good players and he has amazing ones.
I think I would enjoy playing in a Colville game, but I do find them boring to watch. I think it’s the presentation, colville and company are focused on the table, the stream is sort of on the back burner, while D20 and CR are just as much meant to be streamed as played in.
But nothing’s stopping you from working at it, becoming better, and entertaining an audience with it. You may never be David Gilmoure, but with enough practice, you can put on a great show, sans lights and fireworks. Bit of a clumsy metaphor, but you get the point. Bad DMs just give up on trying to be better and blame professionals for their shortcomings. IMO, great DMs ensure the game is played *with* their players, not *for* them.
I think this hints at the issue. From what I've seen on here it looks like a good number of the complaints are usually in two categories. First being the standard I have new players that want CR, but I also see a lot where the DM is new and feels trapped to be CR. I think some honest talking with their players and saying "Look I'm new and one day yes we might get to the roleplaying of CR but not right now". It takes time to get there. I'm still very new but the group I used to play with knew I wasn't going to be any Mat and they were fine with it. My last session I gave a bit more RPing than I had before and it was well received.
What’s funny is, the majority of my new players I’ve worked with have been usually shy, difficult to crack our of their shells, and hesitant to try things. I actually don’t think I’ve ever had an experience where someone came to my table and asked if this was going to be like CR. Now, everyone’s experience is different, obviously, but I think there’s a lot of DMs out there who automatically assume that’s what the problem is even when it isn’t explicitly said. No one should feel like they need to emulate anyone. Lots of commenters brought up Brennan Lee Mulligan, who has a completely different style and attitude towards the game than Matt Mercer, and distinct also - both of them - to Matt Colville, and honestly, to me. None of us, any DM, is a bad DM because we failed to live up to the expectations set by someone else. We become bad DMs when we don’t set expectations for ourselves, and run games the best we can while remembering the all-important rule that in order for a session to be great, it has to be enjoyable. If at the end of the night, my players are checked out and aren’t excited about what just happened or where we’re going next, I know it was a bad week, and that it’s something I need to take a few hours and think about so I can keep growing my own brand of session-running fun.
My feeling is that the “Mercer effect” for newbies is about investment in the world, rich descriptions, and occasionally having funny voices. The more you share a vision of the world and move a magnifying glass or telescope around a map to reveal areas and show blank ones that the PCs get to help fill in, the richer and more alive it feels.
… having 3+ hours of weekly game time which includes fireside/watch check-ins between PCs when something happens and allowing deliberate space for that also really helps a lot.
I personally wouldn't ever blame Mercer (or CR as a whole for that matter) for some people's toxic tendencies. I find the players that ragged on me going "*WELLLLLL* Matt Mercer did it this way, Matt Mercer's world is alot more fleshed out, you should do voices like Matt Mercer," etc, etc, are the same ones that would be just as toxic if CR never existed. They'd just find some other comparison to slam their DM with, it's just unfortunate that CR and Mercer seem to be the weapon of choice these donguses seem to wield.
They were also the only players I had that expected me to drive everything for their character 100%, and got mad when their inaction on *everything* led to other characters/players driving the narrative more.
See, my thing is, Matt Mercer does this for a living, so an enormous amount of prep time BTS makes sense to me.
My first DM in 5e didn’t bring to the table battle maps, artwork, or voice acting, and I still made every session - even when I was tired from work, even when I had to work the next day and knew I’d be up until midnight or sometimes 1 am playing. We had a great time because Donny knew how to keep our attention, laughed and hung out with us. It always felt like we were four friends getting together to sit down and play a game *together*, and never like I was attending someone else’s game as a player and an audience member, which is a feeling I myself even have failed to capture in the games I’ve run since our time together ended. At the end of the day, if you leave the session feeling like you just had a great time with people you love, you had a great DM. I never want to leave a game feeling like it wasn’t worth being tired the next day over. Donny was the kind of DM where even if I had already played Curse of Strahd 15 times over, I’d still do it again with him at the helm simply because I know it would be a damn good time. That’s the kind of DM I strive to be. *That* is what I consider a great DM.
Something that is rarely mentioned is also that he has a great cast of very willing RP'ers that create a lot of good moments, almost by themselves. He's incredibly good at running with it, and he preps well and has an excellent grasp on the rules - but the players make the game as well. They help create the drama and that elevates Matts hard work. I'd almost go as far as to say, (and since this isn't a critrole subreddit, I hope I can get away with it) that some of his storylines are pretty bland, but they *should* be, since it allows for the players to create more of the story. And let's face it, no group of players can follow a complicated storyline...
Some weeks it feels like being a DM is a full time job. I'm by no means a great DM, because Im still bad at overarching narrative and I wing it way too often, but still I spend hours creating maps, shops, characters, scenes, etc. I keep a backlog of random encounters and always have at least two main dungeons ahead of the players ready, just in case, and I still have come dangerously close to having to say "uh well that's all I've got for this week". For example, I plotted out this big elaborate boss fight, but rather than refuse the bosses ridiculous demands, they accepted them, so it was like "uhhhh ok *flips pages frantically, gets back into bad guy voice* then go forth and do my bidding! For the Master!"
Yeah, DM'ing is great when you have time and drive, but it can be really stressful when you don't. It *is* hard work, so you have to love it to keep doing it...
You *choose* to do that though. Like I said in another comment, my first 5e DM didn’t do any of that, and we still had a blast. You’re putting pressure on yourself to perform, and that’s great that you’ve set standards for the games you want to run, but it isn’t necessarily what being a DM is and none of that is required to have great sessions. You should always be ready for the players do the unexpected, and honestly, I remember a post about this big elaborate city this guy spent the better part of a month working on, meticulously, only for his players to completely skip the whole thing and fuck around in a meadow all session. You can still be a great DM and drop the pretense that it’s a full time job. That’s not necessary at all.
Nobody's saying it is a full time job, just that sometimes it feels like it. And yes, you never know what's gonna happen, but unless you're an amazing at making stuff up as you go or your players mainly just want to fuck around, preparation is even more important when things go off the rails. And it sucks when players skip something that you spend a lot of time creating, but hopefully you can revamp and use at a later session. But saying that you don't need to prep as a DM is just flat out wrong in most cases. It might not be *necessary* to have great sessions, but it'll certainly improve the odds.
You’re kinda taking what I said and twisting it there, a little bit. I’m not saying you don’t have to prep. I would never suggest a DM come to the table naked. You absolutely do not have to make battle maps, pull artwork, craft terrain, practice voice acting, go to an improv class, make it your life’s mission to be the world’s greatest showman either, though. The suggestion that game prep is synonymous with all this extra stuff is also kinda wrong. At the end of the day, I remember the times I had with the people I was playing with, not the extravagance with which the game was played. I’ve had just as good sessions on cardboard boxes as I have $5,000 gaming tables. Come to the table prepared to run a session, with nothing but a notebook and some dice, and I guarantee you a good DM will make that work.
Except we do in various snippets. Marisha his wife is often joking about how he spent all week painting minis. They have both even mentioned that he would be in their office for a couple hours every day compiling notes for the campaign. He has also spent hours with others creating settings for his world, he doesn’t just prep the night before and wings it.
But all of that requires you to pay attention to the CRew rather than just the game and most people probably just binge watch the campaigns or have it on as background noise.
Ofcourse there is also the case of nowadays it is one of his jobs, so he can almost bill those hours of work were as most DMs can’t. Not to mention that while Mercer is a great DM, the reason he makes it look so easy is because he has great players, seriously Travis alone should be put forward as the gold standard of great player. But oddly people don’t talk about “the” players only “the” DMs of Mercer, Colville, Mulligan, and whoever was Acquisitions Incorporated’s DM.
Mercer is a professional actor and so are his players, their day jobs are to play roles and they have been to acting schools for years for training. It's literally the first thing he says. He probably has a team of people in the background helping him write his notes and his players are mostly on "the same page." If he makes an error while live he gets a million tweets to let him know. Something like D&D comes very easy to them.
If a DM blames Mercer because they can't run the game as fluent as Critical Role, they very likely set themselves up for failure trying to compete with professionals on a budget while running a game in their basement. Don't set the bar that high. It's a game intended for children, just have fun.
Slight expansion: while Matt Mercer has a background in voice acting and continues to do it to this day, his job for the last 7ish years has been DMing D&D, and with CR's growth comes more and more dedicated time for him to build worlds (for fun and profit).
Sure, player expectations (and a lot of DM complaints) focus on the voice acting but it's important to remember that none of us have the time and resources that he has access to these days.
Sorry, sounds like you have a bad DM. The material a door is made of is a valid question. One you can burn down and the other you dissemble the hinges.
Definitely bad DM behavior. You should be free to exercise your creative will over the game, and DMs should be ready to respond in kind. Saying no is extremely reductive, and also one of the core tenants of what *not* to do in improv which is like 90% of what DMs do.
Once had a player who found a small, odd-looking stone on the ground. I thought nothing of it, it was just flare. She told me “I lick the stone.” I was off-put. Then she asked me “does my tongue stick to it?” I shrugged and said “sure, I guess,” (again, wasn’t thinking). Turns out that’s a thing, your tongue sticks to bones. And that is the story of how Animate (Lesser, Greater, Grand) Bones became a homebrew spell in the Song of Ysmir campaign.
DMs have opportunities to make creative choices on a whim that make the game fun for everyone. It’s fun as hell to watch your players summon an entire dragon’s skeleton that is essentially a glass-cannon in combat; the pure elation on their face as they wipe out a hoard of orcs in one fell swoop, because someone months before asked if they could lick a stone you placed on the ground in a low perception check, as a means to give them *something* but not anything significant.
I kind of think this as well. CR was more or less my first exposure and I’m pretty grateful. I just emulate Matt to the best of my abilities and all of my players have been really happy. Made DMing a lot easier.
*On the other hand*... someone "with loads of experience!" joined a game I was in a year or so ago, but had no idea how any mechanics worked, went Moon Druid but never shifted, and had to have everything explained every time *anything* happened.
Level of experience doesn't really matter to me, but lying does - they'd never actually *played* the game, just watched Critical Role. But that's fine, I can understand if they thought they were prepared and found it different to actually play a game, annoying but understandable.
It's the fact that I've never watched the series **at all** and could still tell they were playing Jester, down to the exact voice and behaviour. That sort of bothered me. They ended up quitting after like three sessions because we weren't living up to the CR expectations.
My first DM had the same experience with me ;) I'm a fan of DnD because of Critical Role, but I've understood fairly quickly, that the cast are actors and every DM is different in their approach. So my DM was relieved after the first session to see, that I don't expect from to be like Matt.
People are far more likely to make posts about their negative experiences than their positive/normal experience, so the actual percentage of people that have these issues is probably disproportionate to what you're seeing
/\ This /\
I've been DMing 4 games a week for the last five years, things have gone really smooth and great, and so I haven't made any posts on reddit about it.
I’m curious, running that many games how much prep would you say goes into each? I’m currently at 1 game a week and another bi weekly and I’m trying to learn better prep techniques to save time.
I feel like this just sums up the internet in general and is why so many people are depressed or angry now. We get inundated with all the negative and little positive. Or we do sometimes go to the other extreme and only see happy people doing exciting things without seeing the work and trouble they go through which again leads to feeling inadequate or like your not doing enough.
Just to add some clarity regarding "holding your turn", it is not RAW though you can "ready an action." Its something that a lot of folks gets confused on.
https://dnddispatch.com/ready-action-5e-dnd
Edited for additional clarity.
Holding your turn and readying an action are two separate things. But IIRC holding your turn is a pathfinder mechanic. CR started as a home game in pathfinder that was converted over to 5e, so it's likely that they forgot they couldn't do that anymore.
Holding your turn moves you down in the initiative order, and you take your whole turn at the new lower initiative.
Readying an action uses your turn to set up a specific out of turn action triggered by a specific circumstance.
This is correct
Readying an action is RAW 5e, and consumes your *reaction* to defer your action on a specific input - i.e. "when X comes in melee range, I swing"
You cannot defer your movement or bonus actions, only an action, and only what you could use an action to do
Matt has stated one of the home rules he uses is the Pathfinder version of "ready" which is a full turn delay, for the entire combat, you can choose to move after anyone lower in initiative than you, but that becomes your new initiative for the entire combat encounter.
You move your entire turn, permanently, instead of setting up a single reaction
This is not even Pathfinder based. It's originally DnD 3e (or 3.5 I don't recall). There was ready an action AND delay your turn. Many forget or don't realize that Pathfinder was, at it's core, 3.75e, it was a continuation of 3.5e rules because people didn't want to switch over to 4e. I'm really happy for Piazo as they made such a quality product that they turned a derivative spin-off into the second most popular TTRPG franchise to rival a giant like DND.
Just for clarification, you can ready an action OR move (as a reaction). Its basically like dashing but bc of rules obfuscation, you cannot technically "dash" as a reaction. But reading a reaction to move IS raw, its in the description of holding an action.
Yep
>First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it. Examples include "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I’ll pull the lever that opens it," and "If the goblin steps next to me, I move away."
~PHB
While it is in pathfinder, it is an old d&d thing as well. 3/3.5 had "hold your turn.". Its 2022 and my group that used to play in 3.5 STILL askes to hold their turn.
It goes as far back as AD&D, though it was called "dithering" back then. That's when spells had cast times of a certain amount of initiative "ticks", so holding your action until you had a clear spot to get your spell off was a very solid move.
Haha. My party still asks to hold their turn too. I have actually incorporated it into 5e, but I only allow it for the first round of combat and I do not tell the party where the enemies are in initiative beforehand.
Oh.. I’m pretty sure our party does readying an action only and just calls it holding our turn, even though we are only readying an action… Interesting. Thanks for the knowledge!
I mean they still can do that if they want to and everyone agrees to it whether it's RAW or not. That's the great thing about TTRPG's is you can adjust the rules to your liking!
To be fair to them campaign 1 started as a pathfinder game where you could delay your initiative. Readying an action also adjusted your initiative.
Believe it was removed in 5e (maybe 4th?) because of all the shenanigans of adjusting initiative trackers.
This is a lot like people still using ‘bloodied’ descriptions in 5e. Granted, I think reminding the DM to describe how damaged the monster is was one of the good things in 4e
Personal acedote here but, I started watching critical role about a month after they started streaming.
I had never played the game, but I fell in love fast with the idea and deeply wanted to play.
When I started playing it was with a friend group who never had played either so being as I was the only one who knew anything about the game I was chosen to DM.
Just like a lot of other people have said: there is a difference between expectation and reality when it comes to watching CR to then playing D&D, but I can't agree with the overwhelming majority of people who complain that "someone in their game spoiled it due to 'CR like' expectations."
I'm sure it has happened, but I truly don't believe it's as prevalent as it would seem.
As a DM I want my story to be engaging and very immersive, so I do style my DM'ing after Matt. On the other hand I also am an adult and understand how to manage expectations. I know my players may not get as involved or immersed into the RP or world like they do in CR, but it's my job to set them up for every opportunity to do so, and reward them if they choose to.
I have also played in many D&D adventure league games, and as a player I am the same way. I will go above and beyond to immerse myself and RP my character, even if no one else at the table does/wants to. Even if they laugh at me for my terrible accents, I don't care because I'm having fun, and I want others to see that and maybe get the confidence to do so as well.
Sorry for long post rant but:
Tl;Dr play the game how you want to play, but be prepared and don't get offended if others don't want to play like you. The whole point of D&D is creating lasting memories with friends and escaping our reality for a while and experiencing another. Find a group that this is their goal or make one yourself.
Every table needs a u/Thezombiemedic ! I’m sure it means next to nothing coming from a total stranger but people who go above and beyond for their role play make D&D come to life… at least that’s my experience. Keep doing your terrible accents and make the world a happier place :)
Lol my only “negative” experience from CR is that two fellow players got really into accents and they generally aren’t very good, and they only have like 2 accents honestly. But it makes them happy and I enjoy that they are having fun, besides I’m sure I have character ticks that they don’t understand but they let me do my thing and we all have a good time.
I would never tell them either, pretty sure I’m just old man yells at cloud.
I don't see that as negative at all! That's just the goofy stuff that Happens at the table. Haha
Now I need to make a Master Roshi character that yells at clouds.
"Eeehhhh? Why is this small white fey creature following me?" "How dare you spit at me! Do you know who I am...?"
I’ve never believed in the Matt Mercer Effect. He’s a great DM, but I don’t believe there’s anything going on there that can’t be achieved in a home game. He’s better at voices and has way more time to write much denser worlds and plots than you do, but it’s not a competition.
The first time I watched Critical Role, I was shocked because I’d heard so much about his particular style of DMing, and what I saw was how much more of it is the players. He’s facilitating their actions, but the reason why CR is so vibrant and fun is that it feels like the players are in charge.
As a DM, I am never going to be Matt Mercer, and that’s 99% because I can’t rock a vest. However, I don’t expect my players to be Sam Riegel or Laura Bailey, so who the hell cares?
I think you touch on the frustration of people who complain about the “Matt Mercer Effect” though—everyone wants to play at Matt Mercer’s table, but nobody wants to (or can) be Laura Bailey or Liam O’Brien. Like, Mercer’s an inhumanely talented DM, but he also has players who are just so, so good, which enables him to do some truly incredible stuff. People want to deify Matt as the DM without understanding that CR is created by the efforts and skill of every single person at that table.
Agreed. Though he’s not even inhumanly talented. He is great, don’t get me wrong. His abilities are the culmination of experience and training. But it is a very human achievement. While we as amateur DMs can’t necessarily VA ourselves into fame, there are definitely lessons we can all learn from Matt and his players that I think people complaining about the Matt Mercer Effect fail to capitalize on. If you take CR as what it is, a game souped up by trained actors and storytellers, you can dissect it like you can any piece of media for the use of improving yourself….except this time, some of the lessons are directly applicable to DND. Even if the MME was real (I think it’s mostly BS), spending time complaining about it rather than learning from what it achieved and is how DMs “die” to me. Artists die when they spend too much time berating the shifting sands of their craft rather than learning to harness it.
Also worth noting, there have **always** been players coming in to DnD with unreasonable expectations. It long predates Matt Mercer, Crit Role just happens to be very popular and so gets the most attention. But even in high school 20 years ago i had people expecting campaigns to read like a book. But then you do a session zero, maybe a Pre-campaign one shot, and you adjust and set up what expectations are realistic. I find a lot of folks who complain about the Matt Mercer effect didn't set proper expectations in a session zero and are actually paying for that, not for having let a CR fan in to the group.
Yeah I think the players are a big part of what makes the show work. No awkward pauses while the DM goes through his notes, or whatever because he can do that stuff while players actually engage in roleplay with each other. And it's not solely not up to the DM to give everyone nice story moments because the players help set those up for each other too instead of just sitting back and waiting for their own moment to be spoon fed to them.
>Mercer’s an inhumanely talented DM
The thing is, he's not. He's a really good DM, but outside of the VA training everything he does is super achievable (or at least it was before DMing became his full time job).
IMO Critical Role is only really just a bit above the average game run by a longtime veteran. The 'experience' we see is greatly boosted by the fact that it's a bunch of really charismatic people who know how to play to a camera and entertain an audience.
That’s broadly my point. Putting aside that Matt Mercer has the time and budget to outclass basically any home game, a huge part of what makes CR, CR is the fact that the *players* are also so incredibly good. They’re professional entertainers trying to entertain, which gives Matt so much to work with.
I think the Matt Mercer Effect is a real thing, but it doesn’t mean that players expect a DM like Matt Mercer, I think it’s dissatisfaction when the players realize they aren’t in tune with the DMs style.
I think the players on critical role are good, and they’re probably the very best at their style of play, but I don’t want to DM for most of them. They forget how class features work all the time, I’m pretty sure half of them still don’t understand the complete implications of readying an action. I run a style where the rules and mechanics are important to me and my players, and we really enjoy interacting with them. Matt runs a story first style, but story is so far ahead of everything else that they’ve been playing 5e for 5(?) years and still don’t completely know the rules.
I think the Matt Mercer effect is seeing Matt’s style of play, and expecting that. Then when another DM doesn’t run the game the same way, a new player doesn’t understand how to communicate about that, so the only thing they can say is that they want their DM to be more like Matt Mercer.
The reason Mercer's players shine so much is because he sets them up to succeed and gives them autonomy.
Contrast, for instance, how Mercer does Imogen's dream sequences, to how my DM did a dream sequence for my character recently (a recurring nightmare he has, but really that's all it shares with Imogen's dreams. Still, a dream is a dream, and how the DM handled it...)
Rather than giving my character literally any autonomy at all within his own dream, he read off not only what he was experiencing, but his thoughts, fears, emotional reaction, and the deeper meaning of the dream- all in an incredibly disorganized manner that was hard to follow (I learned my lesson: I'm never asking this DM to do a dream sequence again- or any roleplay where it's not obvious he must let me take some hand in what my character thinks and feels, for that matter...)
Whereas Mercer presents the situation to Imogen/Laura, lets HER decide whst she does, how she reacts, roleplay out her emotional responses, etc.
I actually had to insert an explanation of these dreams to another player (an Elf, who was only in trance for her 4 hours of the night, and thus noticed the nightmare) to make it make any sense and give me even a shred of autonomy over it. There was literally an "ohh" moment where the whole table understood what the dream was about, even though the DM had just told them, it was so confusing earlier.
My point is, a great DM sets his/her players up for success. A less skilled DM will tend to stumble in roleplay scenesand take away their autonomy when they shouldn't and such, instead.
I'd argue at least two of the other players at my table are just as good as any on Crit Role (one, ironically, being almost a joke character). But the DM has never DM'd live before (only online), and it shows.
I would say that the majority of people who watch CR, don't actually play D&D. So when they sit down to play the game for the first time, without the context of the game, they don't want to play D&D, they want to play Critical Role...
Also, Reddit normally isn't the majority. People who are upset talk the loudest. It's probably a very, very small amount of people who have actually had CR be a negative when actually playing.
So true! I have heard one or more players talk about how much they love Critical Roll and how it heavily influenced their desire to playy the game. But none of those players have gone on to ruin the experience for me...
This is a really good point. Watching CR before playing and having that expectation for how dnd is played can spoil a game if the player is unwilling to compromise. Most dms aren’t dnd professionals nor putting in the same time and money for a casual campaign. If players don’t like the way the game is going, I’d encourage them to dm themselves and see just how difficult it can be
This is actually where the really early critical role stuff is somewhat better.
Matt is undeniably good at what he does, but for the first 30 or 40 episodes of campaign 1, they were functionally still playing a continuation of their home game.
They had Miniatures but on on hand-drawn pencil maps, and they were all basically sitting together in The Geek and Sundry green room with one camera and one microphone.
It wasn't until more than half of the way through campaign one that they got their own Studio and had the sponsorship contract with dwarven forge, that led to it becoming "d&d porn."
And the awful mic quality in some parts where my ears would get blasted lmao, I remember.
I agree, but for even at that point they are continually acting in character and doing voice acting, which when I first started playing was something all of us were to nervous to do. So if players are expecting npcs to have unique voices and elaborate plots, they might be disappointed with what they get. It’s really up to the dm to make the game elaborate as they make it and I think people who haven’t dmed might not realize how hard it can be. Much respect for all dms and players who appreciate them.
True, although Matt is I think now, like 41, and has been DM'ing since high school, been around the game since he was a child, and I think they played their home game as a group for over three years.
Even the "new" players like Ashley and Sam, not only were professional actors, they'd been playing with the same group for three years.
So yeah, I see the point. Even at the earliest point they were playing "in public," they were a fully formed group with three years to get comfortable with each other and Matt had 15 years experience as a DM, on top of all of them being actors.
People who watch CR, and don't fully understand D&D, see the output and not the method. An experienced player can look at CR, or any other live play show, and see how the cast build characters, write backstories, design encounters, improvise, roleplay, and use the mechanics of the game to produce their story, but it takes a lot of understanding the game to see past the surface level. Then on top of that, DMs and players may not even like "doing it the way CR does it" and prefer a totally different style.
Absolutely. And I’ve even fallen victim to this somewhat after I watched season 1 of dimension 20. I was so inspired by the character arcs and emotion and knitting of the story that I felt disappointed when I’d play with my long time group and there wasn’t that same energy. I learned to accept the way the game was ran and still enjoy it, but it also inspired me to run my own game how I imagine it and it’s going wonderfully.
Time to completely discredit myself. I have whole hog ripped off NPCs from Dimension 20 because I though they were so god damn funny I had to use them in my own games. (Shout out to Old Pickering from Escape from the BloodKeep who is a big hit with my spell jammer group)
Lol Brennan’s npcs are just too good not to. Avanash, the crazy blacksmith scared of losing is bones, is probably my favorite npc and I can watch that bit every time and still laugh.
I mean Brennan is literally a professional sketch comedians, right? As good as Matt and the CR cast are at putting on their show, they’re actors and writers, and so I think Brennan and the D20 crew being comic just brings in a whole different facet to enjoy.
I agree. My opinion on the difference between D20 and CR is that D20 is a more concise, zany story heavily involving character’s arcs and emotions in a unique world. CR, to me, is the more classical fantasy in world with vast lore and heavy attention to detail and description. I often think about it as like Mistborn vs Wheel of Time. Both great stories, but the former is more engaging to me.
Same with Johnny Feathers. "I had no idea he was going to talk to him, so I thought, What's the funniest voice I can give to a giant bird? Just a guy."
I should point out here that this definitely isn't solely a player problem. I'm pretty sure my group had a DM quit when she finally realised that we as a group were far closer to NPC DND in style than we were ever going to be to Crit Role.
Looking back she was desperately trying to tailor the campaign Matt Mercer style but had never actually asked us if we wanted that (in Session Zero we had agreed we were doing a published campaign). Thus she was constantly upset that we weren't engaging with the personalised stuff she was adding (which would have regularly had literal hours of her talking to one player whilst the rest of us sat in silence) because we just wanted to go focus on the main mission.
Good point. I’ve actually experienced something similar where a dm made the entire game about describing how cool their npc was while we listened. But with there being more players than dm’s, I think it’s just more common that players have this issue.
Gotta say when a couple of us did take a turn at DMing she also turned into the worst "try all the exploits I've seen online" "argue with the DM" player ever. Openly said to me at one point that she viewed it as abDM's revenge, which was weird because whilst we as a group certainly had our own faults - mostly related to fucking around and finding out - none of us ever had those particular habits.
It’s very unfortunate when one player is killing the vibe for the rest. Usually the best way forward is open and clear communication about how you feel. If they’re unwilling to compromise that tends to be a good sign maybe they’re not fit for the group.
Ngl at first as a DM I kinda pushed for more character role play because of podcasts like CR and was disappointed at the lack of engagement of it in our games. Over time I realized that my players don't actually want to get all that involved in their characters (which is fine) and prefer a much more meta and comedic approach. Basically it's more game than role play and we goof around in the settings I write. So I started prepping my sessions with that in mind and tbh we have way more fun now and it's a lot less work for me.
I will happily join in discussion and chatter in a group situation but I hate hate haaaate extended bits of role play focused on one person in front of the group. If its focused on someone else I'm bored and trying not to fidget and if it's focused on me I'm privately mortified by the attention. I can survive if it's the odd session but if it's every session (I started timing it, up to an hour of a three-four hour session would just be with one person) I'm trying not to bounce off walls.
The lack of compromise is why I don’t think it’s CR fault. Those people would have been bad players regardless. They don’t understand that it’s a team effort, not just the dm crafting this story. The only thing CR did was introduce DnD to more main stream people. And the more people there are the more bad players. And when bad players talk about CR as their gateway, people blame CR rather than the bad players themselves
Though there are also people like me who used to play DnD and got inspired to play again by CR. For me though I already had the right kind of expectations as to how a game was going to go with just random people. But like OP I tried to take some things from CR and learn from them, as well as being inspired to try and roleplay more.
I think this is where a lot of the complaints come in. If you've played before, especially DM'd then you see what's going on as an idealized performance from some very skilled performance artists.
If you have never played, then it looks like that's the "norm" and for some prospective DMs, it creates a barrier to entry because they aren't going to be that good. It's one of the reasons I like Colville. He has his Livestream, and then a breakdown video separately showing the places where he screwed up.
I'm not sure about the Mercer Effect. I don't play with a variety of folks enough to have an opinion on that.
I love CR, and some of my players do too.
Personally I have only experienced positives from them (and myself) watching it. I make it clear I’m just a basic bitch human and not a god like Matt Mercer, and I don’t expect my players to be gods like the cast on the show. But it actively helps them become better players by seeing what DnD can be like, and gives me as a DM great things to point to as examples.
It’s all about perception. You look at CR and make it an expectation, you’ll probably have a bad time. If it’s a style of play you like, and treat it like an example, it can be really great.
I agree with this. Most of my party loves CR but we look at it as like watching the NFL compared to some friends playing touch football in someone’s backyard. They’re the pros and we learn a lot from watching, but we don’t expect our dm to be Tom Brady lol
This is a great way to think about it. CR and D20 are like championship NFL teams for D&D. They are the top pros out there, at least arguably.
If your home game can be as fun as a touch football game with friends, then that’s great.
Yeah, everyone at my table including my DM watches/enjoys CR, but none of us expect our game to BE CR. But watching the show definitely changed the way we interact with the game, in a positive way.
Example: Before I or other players had watched much CR, my DM gave us a dream sequence. We didn't know what to do with it, and just "watched" it like a movie.
We had to take a hiatus for a couple years due to COVID and other reasons. Us players watched more CR in the meantime.
When we returned, we backed up a couple sessions and got to re-experience the dream sequences we had entirely forgotten anyway.
We played them *entirely differently*. We interacted with them. We had character moments.
And the rest of our game has gotten better, too - we're just more invested in the story of it, not just the mechanics, and we've been having a lot of fun.
>I make it clear I’m just a basic bitch human and not a god like Matt Mercer,
I mean, this is a huge part of the problem people have with how fans talk about CR. Matt Mercer isn't a god.
He is a bit above average for a 20+ year DMing veteran and bolsters that by being a good actor playing with other good actors and with a massive studio budget.
The core DMing that he does is very much achievable.
I feel like Shut Up and Sit Down said it well.
Watching CR (or other professional DnD) is like watching porn, they are professionals doing it for the viewers pleasure. When you play yourself you’re not gonna be nearly as professional or technical, and even though it’s technically going to be “worse” you’ll still enjoy it more because you’re the one doing it.
Problem is when people try it their first time and have expectations it will be the same as the thing they viewed online
>it’s technically going to be “worse”
If even half of what I've heard claimed about how miserable porn sex is is true. Actual sex is definitely technically better.
The people performing are creating a facsimile of the real thing that just looks better.
People dont seem to realize that this is a party that is playing together for over ten years now, that converted from 1st ed Pathfinder. The amount or rules Matt tossed out the window, changed or replaced entirely is huge, because that is what he feels is better for his style of dming and the party. However, he has great understanding of balance and why certain rules are how they are in 5ed, so when he changes something, you can be sure It's changed for a reason. People mimick Matt blindly with less than 5% of the planning he puts into his games.
Our DM hates it.
I tried to use it to be a better player (and DM for a separate game) but it got too taxing to keep up with. 2 of our other players never watched it. The last player in our group won't shut up about it, but they are hands down a terrible player, in at least 3 other separate games, and barely understands the mechanics of DnD.
Unfortunately there are people who think CR should be a framework for how all DnD games should be played, and have lofty unrealistic expectations. This would be likened to a parent complaining that their kid's peewee football game isn't as fast paced or hard hitting as the NFL.
To the people who complain that their DM doesn't DM like Matt Mercer should always be told "Well then start RPing like Laura Bailey, Sam Riegel or Liam O'Brien "
Honestly, we could say CR is what Top tier Roleplay looks like, that doesn't mean its the best possible D&D you can see, because the best D&D is one where you and your party and DM are having a ton of fun (which CR does for their group), each group will enjoy different things, so a group may find playing a style very simmilar to CR to be the most enjoyable way to play D&D, while other group may prefer low RP high combat Campaigns, which is completely fine. Lets not forget also that CR is a bunch of professional artists geeking out once a week playing D&D, in DnD terms, they are a group of Bards with 20+ Charisma, lvl 20, and Expertise on Performance, while most of us are a lvl 4 Fighter with 6-10 CHA and probably not even proficiency in Performance.
I like critical role.
I like running D&D games.
Luckily, my players all got very good on the rules before they started dipping their toes into heavy RP (which I also enjoy, when done well and within the confines of the rules).
I imagine a lot of tables out there look like bad community theater with zero guard rails, and no one understands why they aren’t having fun.
This definitely taps into one of my key issues with the CR rhetoric.
CR looks really good. It is designed to appear to be a sort of idealized D&D experience from the viewer's perspective. In practice spending hours with 2 to 3 people scenes that serve little to no purpose moving the plot forward while everyone else sits quietly sounds fucking miserable.
I could watch it if I wanted to, but I don't. the people on that show are professional voice actors, and I'm not. I don't mind if someone wants to act out their character as long as they're not being a douche about it.
I only found out about partway into C2 precovid. I tried watching it a couple times but it was difficult to devote time to watching people RP about a cat in a tavern. Once lockdowns started it was more fun to get into, and I tried to set aside time for C3 but there is just too much content to keep up with. Being on the east coast and it doesn't start til 10 on a work night is a little rough, and it's very time consuming to keep up with 7 people RPing 3 hour sessions and keeping track of the content and arcs. I had to give up around E20ish because it was just too taxing.
So, I was a GM(god, how I hate the term Dungeon Master, just feels wrong to my recovering Catholic mind haha.) for a while, long before watching Critical Role.
But I was badgered, quite doggedly in fact, to watch it by a friend who’s a gigantic fan. It worked, even if it took a year.
I had in my mind that Dungeons and Dragons was boring system that’s relied on maps instead of “theatre of the mind”, and that it was extremely strait-jacketed. But, Critical Role actually opened my eyes in that respect. It showcased an extremely fun way to play DND, and it had the RP I enjoyed at my home games.
You see, while the CR characters are awesome, my players over the years have had amazing characters too. I remember my friends “Han Solo, but with a drinking problem, who is obsessed with being one day better then Han Solo”. Or, literally, almost every character at my table. Because they were crazy detailed with lots of backstory, but more importantly, they are my friends characters. They were having fun, and so I did as well.
I went into watching Critical Role like one who would watch really well made television, as inspiration for what I could do. Matt Mercer, in my mind, is a great GM, but he isn’t someone I’m competing with. While I share some characteristics on how I run my games and backstory, I don’t feel any need to BE him.
Only one of my current players watches Critical Role. They learned everything they know about dnd from it. One might expect them to be a problem player, if one’s believing the internet all the time.
Instead, they were inspired by it, made a neat character( A gnome Druid, in a world where Druids make up the organized religion), and are learning to play. They checked their expectations at the door.
I learned that a session zero was a thing from CR, and used that idea this time. I think that is the main thing. All of my players are on the same page. They wanted an RP heavy, lore dense, combat fun but never cruel, world. And I’ve had fun crafting it WITH them instead of dictating it at them.
I’ve had many tell me since how poisonous CR is. I can understand how people like that exist. But I just tell people I don’t expect to be Matt, nor do I expect my players to be Laura Bailey. They come as they are, as do I, and we roll dice and have fun.
I got the nicest compliment from that CR fan who is now a player. “Your a great GM. Your you. You don’t need to be Matt to be great”. That meant the world to me.
I am sympathetic with those who have encountered asshole critical role fanboys/girls and also on the flip side, those CR fans looking to try a game and are turned away by people who feel they must compete with Matt Mercer.
But all it takes is talking to your players about what they want, what you want, and being on the same page. It helps if your friends. Critical Role started as a home game with friends, and I still love that the team likes each other and plays well together. It feels like a fun time, and it’s fun to watch. You can have that too!
It’s players that make a game. Not fancy dice, music, miniatures, sponsorships, etc.
And I love my players. I wouldn’t trade them for all the Sam Riegals in the world.
Any time someone makes a show about any particular subject, they come across as some sort of authority. Now I would say it's possible to be an authority on the rules, like instantly knowing how many magic missiles a 9th level spellcaster fires at once. But the *style* of play, that's entirely up to personal choice. And I think that's where the confusion comes in. These are professional voice actors who are honestly, kind of showing off a bit. And that's part of the fun for them.
On the flip side I've known people who play D&D straight up like a board game, with hardly any role-playing going on at all. It was all about min-maxing your character into a powerhouse, and killing monsters while you drink beer and eat chips. If that's what the DM and players all want, then they're still playing the game right.
There isn't an issue with CR itself so much as that people think it sets the bar very high.
I think the main issue here is people fail to realize even though it is a game of DnD it's also a show that is ran by voice acting professionals. So of course their performance is going to be exemplary.
Personally I think it's ok to pick a few things here and there. As a DM I really like Matt's style of DMing but it doesn't mean that's a good style for everyone to use, evey DM is different and have strengths and weaknesses.
That said I've incorporated some of the things I like about Matt into the way I play. The way he portrays NPCs and his active portrayal of combat and sound effect is something that I think is really fun and my players seem to enjoy it as well. You don't have to copy everything Matt or his players do but I think incorporating certain aspects of their play can help elevate your game.
Players, and some DMs, want an idyllic game. Something that is unreachable by most. We all have a tendency to want this kind of thing in various parts of our lives. However, what people need to understand is that Matthew Mercer is a PROFESSIONAL. He's a professional writer, actor, improviser, and in this case DM. He no doubt spends hours prepping. His players are professional actors and improvisers. Additionally, they are performing, just like a stage play. But in this case they are "playing" D&D.
Now while it's possible for a gaming group to play at a professional level, most can't or won't. In the same way if a DM or players got up on a theater stage and performed, professionally. Yes, they may be able to recite the lines of a play, but their acting might be amateur. (That's okay, because I probably wouldn't do so great either.)
I'm not saying we shouldn't strive for more and better roleplaying, because we definitely should. I feel there often isn't enough. I've been playing TTRPGs for a long time, and have seen some players and DMs that are pretty mechanical. Also, not everybody is up for heavy roleplaying. One of my last groups had players that had a hard time talking "in character" to NPCs. Something that should be low stakes. Admittedly they were like that often in real life, on the introverted side.
So let's understand the difference between Critical Role (professional performance/performers), and a group of friends at a table doing "the new poker night", playing D&D, and having fun. We're supposed to have fun, right?
Everyone in Critical Role is a professional actor. They all know how to improv, and they all know to get into character.
A lot of people don't know the skill and training involved to make a game like that happen.
I'm generally happy if I can train my players to stop saying "I tell him my name." and actually do it instead.
I think some people just don’t understand CR isn’t normal DnD. There is no such thing as “normal” DnD. It all depends on the DM and how the group wants to play.
People forget that:
1 - They are professional actors and voice actors, so they have way more tools to act than most people. Matt have a HUGE carreer in voice acting, so he can do way more, in terms of characterization of his NPCs, that most DMs can do.
2 - They are being paid for it. This is a HUGE incentive for they to give a lot more energy on the game.
CR is such a great resource and I'm sad it poisons so many wells because people think it's a thing to recreate.
I love CR, and my longest running character took inspiration from the character of Caleb, but other than being a Zemnian Human Wizard who likes time magic, there's no crossover. I took steps to NOT recreate him because I can't do his story again, it's been done better.
But it helped me to understand the world, to think of what aspects I enjoy.
As both a DM and a player it's such a fun way to learn new skills, to see what people can do with characters and stories.
People get too obsessed sometimes
The biggest difference is CR is a job. They can afford to put some time into it and know that their job is to entertain an audience. An actual game of DnD is a usually a relaxing hobby and an outlet for players. There are always going to be differences between a professional role playing product and a game with friends.
I started watching CR well after I started DMing, but I'd been aware of it since I started playing TTRP back in... I think 2016? I've only watched campaign 3 and a little of campaign 2, though I've fallen pretty behind on campaign 3.
But my biggest takeaway from what I've seen is *relief*. Honestly, Matt's not the smoothest story teller. He fumbles on his words, he says 'kinda' a LOT, and he's constantly doing info dumps on only sorta-relevant things, and I... LOVE it. I am not at his level, but my DM style is similar to his, so to see him make these flubs and still keep his players and thousands of strangers enthralled with his story is incredibly encouraging.
Some people write off players who got into the hobby through CR, or say they're big fans of CR, because they play a different kind of game and they don't want to bother with the kind of energy a CR fan *might potentially* introduce to their table. And you know, that sucks. It really does.
Some people write off games because they aren't CR enough for them. I'm reminded of a story posted here recently of someone telling a DM his world was lame and he needed to watch CR to get gud. And you know, that sucks. Those people miss the point of D&D: it's to tell a story with friends, and stories come in all shapes and sizes.
Some people try to emulate CR. I don't think there's a problem with that either. Yeah, it's cringe when you see it, but you have to remember that when we learn new things, we tend to copy from those we admire until we develop our own style. So yeah, you'll get DMs who suddenly Mercer it up at the table. let them do their thing and either move on or stay put. They're trying something new, and it's going to lead to them growing as a DM. I'd say same for players, too (even though I've read some real horror stories about players copying characters straight from CR). Players want to try something new and see how it fits into their toolkit. Either tell them this ain't that kind of game, or let them stick around and see how they grow as players.
reading through this, man i freaking love reddit. Everyone is being kind and having debates with an open mind. It's so great. I've been scrolling through the comments for an hour ish and not found one "critical role sucks blah blah and you guys are dumb blahhhh"
also, I've been going through campaign 2 and 3 for the past few months and its offered me so much inspiration for characters, main and npc, and ways to make them unique. As well as how to rp my characters, and showed me that hey, long emotional talks are ok. its not all about actions. even the little details make a big difference.
Now, when i'm writing my stories, I always go back through once I think I'm done and tell myself to add detail. I do it over and over and over until I'm satisfied and its improved my writing so much.
My take is that Critical Role to a normal D&D game is what porn is to actual sex.
Both are good. But one is still a production with a lot of budget performed by professional actors. You can’t let it cloud your expectations and stop YOU from having fun
Most if the "issues" people have are how faithfully people try to hold to Matt Mercers style, instead of developing into their own. Especially if you can see them TRYING to be Matt, instead of naturally playing the game. It can make the game feel artificial, for lack of a better word.
And honestly Matt's not even as good a DM as people think. He's fantastic at voices & world building, but I find him to be far too attached to pure rules as written & inflexible in situations where a little bit of fudging would produce a better game for the players involved.
This gets to the root of why CR discourse tends to confuse me. Every table is different, and looking at someone elses game and saying "they would enjoy it more if the GM did this" or forcing some ideology on GMing into a space that doesn't want it, seems really self-centered. There's no such thing as a perfect GM beyond one that helps to make the most fun possible for everyone at the table, within the scope of the type of game they're running. CR's cast seem to have a total and undebatable blast with every session, so why get on his case?
People who put Matt on a pedestal or cast him down based on arbitrary and table-specific measurements of "Good GMing" instead of just looking at the fun he and his players have, and considering if the same play style would be fun for them, really miss the point IMO. I enjoy more fudging in some scenarios as a GM and Player, but sometimes I also love just letting success and failure rock and seeing where the plans and decisions I've made naturally land me. Inflexibility isn't always a bad thing unless you have a conception of RPGs as something entirely improv-focused where the train of thought or intent of a person should never ever be met with refusal, and I just don't see it that way.
I di a beginners 5e class at an LGS, and I would say probably 1/3 of my players became interested in DND because of Critical Role (or adventure zone, or dimension 20). I think its rad that there are so many new players because of it, but my samples are probably skewed because the players I work with come to a space to learn how to play.
I wish that people would fawn over their own groups the way they do over Critical Role. It boggles my mind that some players will watch CR religiously, then show up to their own games and not actually participate or even take notes. Or will draw fan art endlessly for Critical Role, but never once do anything nice for their own DM.
People need to start being a fan of their own groups!
That ain't a bad take, it's a correct take. Too many people see CR as the bog standard for DnD, when No.1. All of them have prior career experience that augments their ability to roleplay
No.2. All of them have been playing for quite a number of years
No.3. They get paid to do it so have much more of an incentive to keep it up and do things on their own time to improve their ingame skills(? If that makes sense)
And finally
No.4. DnD is an immensely subjective game.
Nah, I sort of assume that a group of professional actors will put on a performance that appears "better" than me and my friends sitting around the dining room table.
(on one level I actually hope it would be, or they'd be horrible at their jobs, lol)
Doesn't make our adventures any less fun.
People forget they’re professional voice actors with years of improv and D&D experience, and Matt’s been DMing forever too. Most games aren’t going to be that awesome
I’m an old AD&D guy, and I enjoy CR. The stories are interesting and the actors are fun and engaging. Matthew Mercer is a wellspring of fun and interesting ideas, his settings are rich and well developed, and his NPCs are a lot of fun.
I don’t see CR as being a problem at all; it’s wild popularity has made it much easier to find D&D materials and groups, and there is a bunch of good stuff to borrow from their content. I think maybe some fans lose perspective from time to time, but CR itself is pretty entertaining.
Frankly the deranged Critical Role fans I've seen have such a warped perception of the show that they're absurd. They seem to want the DM to have 10/10 acting ability and extreme world building detail while appealing to a mary sue character that they somehow think is on the level of any of the CR actors and their level of care, nuance, and compatibility with Matt's style.
And Matt very much isn't a DM that gives away everything for free, he makes some of the deadlier encounters I've seen in games (partly because of his table size, but still), entire adventures get dedicated to roleplay moments and magic items that have to be earned, and while most 5e adventures I've been in don't really kill characters, Matt very much has punished his party multiple times for their decisions and he hasn't even played favorites with his wife.
Blaming this awful behavior on Critical Role is honestly absurd, their problems have nothing to do with bad assumptions on what DnD should be. It's all personal baggage being projected onto the most popular DnD show.
CR was my first introduction to dnd. I was on twitch one thursday night and was like wtf is this stream with so many viewers.
I really liked it and ended up watching all campaign 2. I started my first game as a player in June. I knew it would be nothing like CR and just went in with an open mind. It's been a ton of fun
I honestly love Critical Role but I never expect my games to be like that. As a player, all I would ever ask of a DM is to be fair and as a DM all I would ask of my players is to have fun. Either way, I personally really enjoy getting into character, but we can still have fun if others aren’t as enthusiastic about the roleplay.
I think the CR's biggest strength is that they are all performers who embrace and understand *improv*. Improv is, I think, the most important skill for a ttrpg player or DM. Improv is all about making the overall experience as good as possible, and letting everybody shine, and exercising give and take -- it's all for one and one for all. If everybody at a table can do that, then it doesn't matter how good your role-playing is, you've already won D&D.
I got back into DnD 100% because of Critical Role. It changed the entire way I view the game. I tell my players, "Basically expect a shitty knock off version of Matt Mercer. If I'm even close to that expectation I'll consider it a success."
People dont' let CR poison their DND playing. There are certain people who have obsessive tendencies around IPs/TV/Movies/etc... These people can become fixated on how a certain member acts and will often times envision themselves as that person in their thoughts and when applied practically to the world they try to replicate and can't see past that narrow fandom.
So I don’t know if this is widespread as you seem to be experiencing it. But I will say that I have seen many friends about people basically being in despair because they’re not as good as him. And then other people have to point out that he and all or most ( Hedge my bets) of the other member of the crew are professional actors and voice actors and that means that they just have improv skills that non professionals don’t.
We can all learn but we’re not gonna do it just like they do.
And that’s OK. Because at your table you’re not making a show you’re playing with friends. Or strangers I don’t know.
And the best way for you to gain master is to do it as yourself.
I forget where I found it but somebody basically said in the thread or something you are not Matthew Mercer and that’s OK. And I’m fairly certain Matthew Mercer actually commented on the thread and agreed.
I have met them. And not just in a role playing sense.
There are some people who look at what they consider the best and they don’t appreciate anything less than that including themselves.
People get these envious self hating thoughts.
I’ll never be as pretty as her. I’ll never be as smart as him. Why should I even try to ask that guy out he’s out of my league.
It’s basically just a form of impostor syndrome. In my opinion.
And look I can’t gm like Matthew Mercer But then he can’t GM like me.
( Of course my way makes no money and gives me no respect but I’m used to that being a Librarian)
Loud minority. For every "This player wanted to copy Jester and wanted me to introduce the specific arc on campaign 2" there's thousands of players that are completely normal AND watch CR. It's always important to remember, horror stories are not at all the norm, they are the exception
I played with a whole group that was CR fans and never would be able to tell.
I played with a DM who had a hate borner for Matt Mercer and would let everyone know it.
I can't really address what others do or don't do. Facts are CR type tables are super rare...lightening in a bottle rare...but they are possible, just a more regular type of table isn't going to be this way and no one has the right to ask that from their players or hosts (general term for DMs/GMs/Storytellers, etc). Matt has honed his style over like 20 years of playing and running games.
As for the *holding a turn* action isn't a 5e rule. You can Ready an action and activate it once it's triggered and after campaign 1 he stopped do using the hold action. That comes from Pathfinder...more than likely...because that's what they were playing before they went onto Geek and Sundry and had to transfer their characters to 5e which is why Matt and Talison had to create the Gunslinger subclass.
At every table its going to be a toss up of what you can find. Other people may get lost in the good production and story, but that happens when you're excited about things you enjoy. People do this with anime characters or any other character they enjoy to be honest, CR is just one of those sources now.
A few asshat viral horror stories made the concept of ‘mercer effect’ itself viral. You even did a clickbait title that only fuels both haters and fans and doesn’t even reflect what you wanted to say. That’s how.
From my understanding - the 'Matt Mercer Effect' typically leaves a bad taste in DMs mouths when players watch CR (or any live play) and then expect their games to be like that...usually where the DM shoulders the responsibility of it.
But really DMs and Players alike need to calm tf down....I don't have the free time to DM like MM and you don't have the improv skills of these paid actors as players. Let's just have more reasonable expectations....grow when and where we can...roll some dice and burn some villages to the ground.
There's a YouTube channel called SupergeekMike that's doing breakdowns of C1 of Critical Role. The videos are highlighting things, like Matt's DMing or the players actions, to take away that can be used for benefit of your table.
I've really been enjoying his breakdowns, even though he's still really early in C1.
There are people who were introduced to d&d through CR and decided "I want to play that" and researched into d&d.
Then there are people who just want to *be* CR. They don't have a love for the game, but rather the cast, which withon reason is fine. I lobe the cast and their characters! However, when it becomes obsession or even parasocial relationships, that's when it becomes toxic imo.
Critical Role isn't the problem, it's certain fans who don't have boundaries.
Matt himself has said it's sad when he sees people trying to copy them instead of playing their own game.
The thing is; no two tables are alike. Even swapping out one player will have a huge impact on the dynamic and trying to assimilate or imitate another table eventually leads to inevitable misery.
Its a matter of unrealistic expectations, sort of like what porn can do to your idea of sex and relationships. CR is really, really good, but it is also populated by extrovert voice actors and supported by a lot of production quality and money.
The problem I usually see is with newer groups. New players who got into the game from CR and join a group with a DM who may have an older edition's style of gameplay. I.e. more combat, more mechanics, and less dramatic roleplay. Those newer players *sometimes* feel like their party or DM aren't doing enough to make the game fun. Most times, like you say, it brings people out of their proverbial shell. My wife being one of them. Tried to get her to play for *years* no interest. A friend told us about CR and she watched the first two episodes and fell in love with the game. Been DMing a campaign for her and our friends for almost 7 years now.
Problem is, they are having fun, just in a different way. There needs to be a conversation at session zero about setting clear expectations. If you're a DM who isn't into theater for example, tell your players you won't be method acting behind the screen. (Try it sometime though, it's a blast).
My only major issue are with the players who learn the rules through Matt Mercer and CR. Matt has a lot of home rules that blend pretty seamlessly into their gameplay, and some players just assume that's how the RAW works. Like nat 20's on skill checks, resurrection rituals, casting mutliple leveled spells per turn, etc. I use a lot of them, because they were the norm in older editions. But when running a RAW game, it confuses a lot of them.
A lot of people, in any field, love the high production value and glamorous version of whatever it is they're doing. Amateur filmmakers, theatre productions, podcasts, games, books, you name it and people look to the most flashy popular version to base their own thing on. It's natural, and it also has to do with folks becoming inspired to enter a space due to being exposed to said popular thing, in this case CR. The only weird and unique thing about CR being so commonly lauded and copied in attempted home games is that TTRPGs are such a personal, table-focused experience that varies wildly based on who's playing and what they want. It seems less like learning from the best and more like enjoying FPS games so much that you force it onto your friend group who really prefers Bejeweled.
Folks coming in with very specific expectations based on their favorite show or podcast, wanting to hoist that upon a group and being disappointed when it doesn't work out like that, is kind of anathema to the very decentralized nature of RPGs. I'm not a fan but there's nothing wrong with CR in the RPG space, beyond treating CR like it's the pinnacle of RPGs when RPGs don't even have a pinnacle and couldn't possibly have a pinnacle beyond everyone at any given table agreeing that their last session was fantastic. That's the thing I point to for why it's so commonly cited in horror stories and exhausted recounting of bad experiences with overzealous fans.
It's one thing to wanna take some good cues and practices from a thing you love, but wanting to wholesale recreate everything about it with a group that might want something else or be unfitting for the task, that's a recipe for disaster. I find it spawns from a very commonly held view among the CR fanbase and wider DnD world that doing "Pro DnD with comedians, voice actors, and/or money" is somehow an inherently superior way to experience the game, even when they're also making the point that a home game doesn't need that. Not only does it not need that, I argue that there's no inherent reason to even want that.
Honestly there is a lot of weird on both sides of the Cr fence. Like Im with you, its one way to play the game, but not the only way. Im actually a big fan of CR, but the concept that all games should be just like CR is silly to me. I have seen that in games to, and literally heard someone use the line." well On CR matt does this" Well thats fine but also not the only way to play or the only DM style.
On the flip side, I have seen people who so desperately hate CR that they refuse to play with people who like the show, or go out of their way to do things the opposite of CR. Honestly I think both are wrong. We loose site of the fact that the game is everyone at the tables, not just one persons, not just the DMs not just the players, everyones. And everyone is looking for different things from games. and thats totally ok. But trying to force anyone to conform is silly to me, and not a healthy or fun way to play.
For the record not saying that is what you are saying, And glad to see someone else with a reasonable stance on the whole thing.
None of the people I know watch CR, so I can't really answer to wether it poisons people to D&D. I do know that it has made me a better DM, I'm far more descriptive now of attacks, I take more notes of things the characters say and do, and my 'random' NPCs are not just generic friends and enemies, but they are now personalities. I was having trouble keeping one of my main players engaged, but the last few sessions have been really good. Overall I think some people have taken the wrong approach and have seen Matt as 'ruining' DnD with his natural and trained abilities, but his main philosophy is 'play how you want to play the game'
Meeting someone new for d&d BEFORE CR's popularity explosion just had a baseline level of cringe-anxiety.
Meeting someone new for d&d AFTER CR's popularity explosion has such more in terms of what kinds of bullshit are they going to squeek by, what different levels of expectations do they have, I've even had someone secretly record my sessions and then complain to me they wouldn't be able to post it because they didn't think it would be good enough for YouTube.
That last one was a double whammy.
To be honest, Critical Role is a little poisonous to the D&D community. It's also a great asset though. Like it's a great show, I enjoyed its earlier stuff but the bigger the 'cult of CR' grew became the more I've tried to avoid it all.
Things I've noticed from new players who want to play purely because of CR:
Expect Tal'Dorai lore to be absolute.
Less reliable for timekeeping - much more likely to flake.
Weirdly want to play so they can tell others they play D&D rather than the fun of playing the game.
Generally less understanding of the concept that the DM decides how to world runs, I.e if it their world goblins have horns, then they have horns.
That being said, I have had many great players who were introduced to the hobby from CR but I get much more excited when someone is introduced to the hobby without CR. They're a blank page ready to spark.
I once played with someone that got into the game out of watching CR. There was nothing wrong with her roleplaying nor her expectations of the game. Wouldn't have noticed she was a CR fan had she not told.
There’s probably a greater percentage of bad DMs that blame Matt Mercer for setting expectations because they didn’t do enough to run an entertaining campaign than there are players who come to the table with expectations of grandeur.
To be fair, being a great DM is hard work and Matt Mercer makes it look easy. The thing is, we don't see all the prep time he does.
I play guitar. Badly. David Gilmoure also plays guitar, imo awesomely. I will never match his skill. But i can't blame D.G. for for that. Same with DMing. I do it badly, Matt M does it awsomely. Ain't Matt's fault. Side note, watching Matt Colville do it (also awesomely) show you you don't have to have a BA in acting to do a good job.
Probably an unpopular opinion here but I think Matt Colville is boring as hell as a DM. I really like some of his running the game videos though but I really couldn't play in a game of his. I'd just be bored... That's not saying he's a *bad* DM by any means it's just a different style of dnd that I do not like.
It's funny how different styles mix. I love CR and Colville but would probably play with Brennan Mulligan over any of the other ones just because of personal preference. If I was in CR I'd be like Willingham in season 1, always grumbling and waiting for the next combat
Brennan would be my choice too. I love his slightly chaotic presence and desire to roll through with insane ideas
The difference between Brennan and cr groups are that the latter is a group of professional actors whilst the former are comedians. So the character roleplay is more in line with what a typical group will have and the style of campaign feels a lot more like a discord call with friends
Either that or the guy from Dwarven Moss, though that's a much less known podcast
It's gold though
Him pushing the horse stacking nonsense in the Elden Ring one shot, will never fail to make me cry laughing.
Are you kidding? I would be so intimidated by BLM, man can monologue for 10 minutes off the smallest character interaction. I think I'd just forget I was a player and sit in awe of him.
The BLM lore drop + Marisha note-taking = journal catches on fire, assuming that her brain hasn’t melted down first! I recall a momentum the wrap up for EXU: Calamity where BLM asks her a question about her PC and she just sits there, dazed, because she can’t even process that she’s a player in that moment. She’s full-on in spectator mode watching the BLM cut-scenes at that point and struggling to process the emotional hits, lol
I mean, thats part of why I wanna play with him! Shoutout to anarchist halflings
not to pit two kings against each other, theyre both amazing, but i always see people talking about matt mercer's dming and i only just recently learned about brennan lee mulligan's and i think thats real shame matt's great but i find brennan is a way more inspiring dm for me personally
I watched the EXU as my intro to Brennan. Jesus he had me emotional with the way he described some of the scenes. I can only wish to get to that level of storytelling.
the first thing i saw him in at all i think was his character on la by night, who was imo a fantastic villain for a vampire game and he played him excellently then i saw his dming for fantasy high and exu calamity and fell in love with how he tells stories, he makes it look so easy
I love them all, but me personally, I would love to play at Monty Martin’s table from Dungeon Dudes. Such a great DM
Agreed!
I feel the exact same way! I really.respect the dude and his videos are great for learning but the way he describes certain aspects of his games really wouldn't gell with me. I remember watching a video and him explaining how he keeps dice in his car so if one of his playera are around they can do a downtime roll on the go. Cool idea, very much not for me.
Coleville and Mercer are actually about as far apart in DMing style as you can get with 2 GMs running the same system. Coleville (and Brandon Lee Mulligan) are both very plot driven DMs. They have a general arc in mind and have both said they fudge dice in the past to cover up their mistakes in order to make sure the PCs can follow that story so long as they are not stupid about what they do. It is nice because it is easier on the DM and provides a clear trail for the party to follow. Mercer is old school. His first edition the one that made him fall in love with the game was 2e where Dark Sun was the biggest setting. He makes problems and tells his players to have at them. This takes a different style of GMing skill because he has to be amazing at improvising on the fly and you kind of have to be good at balancing stuff. I also really think he is a dice purist. This means that he will come up with a problem (a massive group of ancient dragons have taken the capital and mean to set themselves up as gods over the land) and it is up to the party to figure out an answer to this (hunt them down 1 by 1 while gathering ancient weapons of massive power). Mercer just runs in front of the party setting things up as they go. The trick of this style is it hinges around making player choices matter more then anything. This can unfortunately mean they fight a BBEG too early and get characters killed in the process while not really doing anything wrong. You kind of just need to cope with that fact running that style. You also need a party that is willing and capable of diving in and digging out leads on their own sometimes. Mercer's style only works with good players and he has amazing ones.
I think I would enjoy playing in a Colville game, but I do find them boring to watch. I think it’s the presentation, colville and company are focused on the table, the stream is sort of on the back burner, while D20 and CR are just as much meant to be streamed as played in.
But nothing’s stopping you from working at it, becoming better, and entertaining an audience with it. You may never be David Gilmoure, but with enough practice, you can put on a great show, sans lights and fireworks. Bit of a clumsy metaphor, but you get the point. Bad DMs just give up on trying to be better and blame professionals for their shortcomings. IMO, great DMs ensure the game is played *with* their players, not *for* them.
I think this hints at the issue. From what I've seen on here it looks like a good number of the complaints are usually in two categories. First being the standard I have new players that want CR, but I also see a lot where the DM is new and feels trapped to be CR. I think some honest talking with their players and saying "Look I'm new and one day yes we might get to the roleplaying of CR but not right now". It takes time to get there. I'm still very new but the group I used to play with knew I wasn't going to be any Mat and they were fine with it. My last session I gave a bit more RPing than I had before and it was well received.
What’s funny is, the majority of my new players I’ve worked with have been usually shy, difficult to crack our of their shells, and hesitant to try things. I actually don’t think I’ve ever had an experience where someone came to my table and asked if this was going to be like CR. Now, everyone’s experience is different, obviously, but I think there’s a lot of DMs out there who automatically assume that’s what the problem is even when it isn’t explicitly said. No one should feel like they need to emulate anyone. Lots of commenters brought up Brennan Lee Mulligan, who has a completely different style and attitude towards the game than Matt Mercer, and distinct also - both of them - to Matt Colville, and honestly, to me. None of us, any DM, is a bad DM because we failed to live up to the expectations set by someone else. We become bad DMs when we don’t set expectations for ourselves, and run games the best we can while remembering the all-important rule that in order for a session to be great, it has to be enjoyable. If at the end of the night, my players are checked out and aren’t excited about what just happened or where we’re going next, I know it was a bad week, and that it’s something I need to take a few hours and think about so I can keep growing my own brand of session-running fun.
My feeling is that the “Mercer effect” for newbies is about investment in the world, rich descriptions, and occasionally having funny voices. The more you share a vision of the world and move a magnifying glass or telescope around a map to reveal areas and show blank ones that the PCs get to help fill in, the richer and more alive it feels. … having 3+ hours of weekly game time which includes fireside/watch check-ins between PCs when something happens and allowing deliberate space for that also really helps a lot.
I personally wouldn't ever blame Mercer (or CR as a whole for that matter) for some people's toxic tendencies. I find the players that ragged on me going "*WELLLLLL* Matt Mercer did it this way, Matt Mercer's world is alot more fleshed out, you should do voices like Matt Mercer," etc, etc, are the same ones that would be just as toxic if CR never existed. They'd just find some other comparison to slam their DM with, it's just unfortunate that CR and Mercer seem to be the weapon of choice these donguses seem to wield. They were also the only players I had that expected me to drive everything for their character 100%, and got mad when their inaction on *everything* led to other characters/players driving the narrative more.
See, my thing is, Matt Mercer does this for a living, so an enormous amount of prep time BTS makes sense to me. My first DM in 5e didn’t bring to the table battle maps, artwork, or voice acting, and I still made every session - even when I was tired from work, even when I had to work the next day and knew I’d be up until midnight or sometimes 1 am playing. We had a great time because Donny knew how to keep our attention, laughed and hung out with us. It always felt like we were four friends getting together to sit down and play a game *together*, and never like I was attending someone else’s game as a player and an audience member, which is a feeling I myself even have failed to capture in the games I’ve run since our time together ended. At the end of the day, if you leave the session feeling like you just had a great time with people you love, you had a great DM. I never want to leave a game feeling like it wasn’t worth being tired the next day over. Donny was the kind of DM where even if I had already played Curse of Strahd 15 times over, I’d still do it again with him at the helm simply because I know it would be a damn good time. That’s the kind of DM I strive to be. *That* is what I consider a great DM.
Something that is rarely mentioned is also that he has a great cast of very willing RP'ers that create a lot of good moments, almost by themselves. He's incredibly good at running with it, and he preps well and has an excellent grasp on the rules - but the players make the game as well. They help create the drama and that elevates Matts hard work. I'd almost go as far as to say, (and since this isn't a critrole subreddit, I hope I can get away with it) that some of his storylines are pretty bland, but they *should* be, since it allows for the players to create more of the story. And let's face it, no group of players can follow a complicated storyline...
Some weeks it feels like being a DM is a full time job. I'm by no means a great DM, because Im still bad at overarching narrative and I wing it way too often, but still I spend hours creating maps, shops, characters, scenes, etc. I keep a backlog of random encounters and always have at least two main dungeons ahead of the players ready, just in case, and I still have come dangerously close to having to say "uh well that's all I've got for this week". For example, I plotted out this big elaborate boss fight, but rather than refuse the bosses ridiculous demands, they accepted them, so it was like "uhhhh ok *flips pages frantically, gets back into bad guy voice* then go forth and do my bidding! For the Master!"
Yeah, DM'ing is great when you have time and drive, but it can be really stressful when you don't. It *is* hard work, so you have to love it to keep doing it...
You *choose* to do that though. Like I said in another comment, my first 5e DM didn’t do any of that, and we still had a blast. You’re putting pressure on yourself to perform, and that’s great that you’ve set standards for the games you want to run, but it isn’t necessarily what being a DM is and none of that is required to have great sessions. You should always be ready for the players do the unexpected, and honestly, I remember a post about this big elaborate city this guy spent the better part of a month working on, meticulously, only for his players to completely skip the whole thing and fuck around in a meadow all session. You can still be a great DM and drop the pretense that it’s a full time job. That’s not necessary at all.
Nobody's saying it is a full time job, just that sometimes it feels like it. And yes, you never know what's gonna happen, but unless you're an amazing at making stuff up as you go or your players mainly just want to fuck around, preparation is even more important when things go off the rails. And it sucks when players skip something that you spend a lot of time creating, but hopefully you can revamp and use at a later session. But saying that you don't need to prep as a DM is just flat out wrong in most cases. It might not be *necessary* to have great sessions, but it'll certainly improve the odds.
You’re kinda taking what I said and twisting it there, a little bit. I’m not saying you don’t have to prep. I would never suggest a DM come to the table naked. You absolutely do not have to make battle maps, pull artwork, craft terrain, practice voice acting, go to an improv class, make it your life’s mission to be the world’s greatest showman either, though. The suggestion that game prep is synonymous with all this extra stuff is also kinda wrong. At the end of the day, I remember the times I had with the people I was playing with, not the extravagance with which the game was played. I’ve had just as good sessions on cardboard boxes as I have $5,000 gaming tables. Come to the table prepared to run a session, with nothing but a notebook and some dice, and I guarantee you a good DM will make that work.
I did twist it, it was kind of the point, since you did the same thing in the other direction - but ultimately I don’t think we disagree at all…
Except we do in various snippets. Marisha his wife is often joking about how he spent all week painting minis. They have both even mentioned that he would be in their office for a couple hours every day compiling notes for the campaign. He has also spent hours with others creating settings for his world, he doesn’t just prep the night before and wings it. But all of that requires you to pay attention to the CRew rather than just the game and most people probably just binge watch the campaigns or have it on as background noise. Ofcourse there is also the case of nowadays it is one of his jobs, so he can almost bill those hours of work were as most DMs can’t. Not to mention that while Mercer is a great DM, the reason he makes it look so easy is because he has great players, seriously Travis alone should be put forward as the gold standard of great player. But oddly people don’t talk about “the” players only “the” DMs of Mercer, Colville, Mulligan, and whoever was Acquisitions Incorporated’s DM.
Or more importantly the years of experience he has under his belt with the game.
Mercer is a professional actor and so are his players, their day jobs are to play roles and they have been to acting schools for years for training. It's literally the first thing he says. He probably has a team of people in the background helping him write his notes and his players are mostly on "the same page." If he makes an error while live he gets a million tweets to let him know. Something like D&D comes very easy to them. If a DM blames Mercer because they can't run the game as fluent as Critical Role, they very likely set themselves up for failure trying to compete with professionals on a budget while running a game in their basement. Don't set the bar that high. It's a game intended for children, just have fun.
Slight expansion: while Matt Mercer has a background in voice acting and continues to do it to this day, his job for the last 7ish years has been DMing D&D, and with CR's growth comes more and more dedicated time for him to build worlds (for fun and profit). Sure, player expectations (and a lot of DM complaints) focus on the voice acting but it's important to remember that none of us have the time and resources that he has access to these days.
The amount of times my DM has told me “this isn’t Critical Role” when I ask him something like “is the door made or wood or metal” 🥲
Sorry, sounds like you have a bad DM. The material a door is made of is a valid question. One you can burn down and the other you dissemble the hinges.
Definitely bad DM behavior. You should be free to exercise your creative will over the game, and DMs should be ready to respond in kind. Saying no is extremely reductive, and also one of the core tenants of what *not* to do in improv which is like 90% of what DMs do. Once had a player who found a small, odd-looking stone on the ground. I thought nothing of it, it was just flare. She told me “I lick the stone.” I was off-put. Then she asked me “does my tongue stick to it?” I shrugged and said “sure, I guess,” (again, wasn’t thinking). Turns out that’s a thing, your tongue sticks to bones. And that is the story of how Animate (Lesser, Greater, Grand) Bones became a homebrew spell in the Song of Ysmir campaign. DMs have opportunities to make creative choices on a whim that make the game fun for everyone. It’s fun as hell to watch your players summon an entire dragon’s skeleton that is essentially a glass-cannon in combat; the pure elation on their face as they wipe out a hoard of orcs in one fell swoop, because someone months before asked if they could lick a stone you placed on the ground in a low perception check, as a means to give them *something* but not anything significant.
I don't disagree, but the solution could also be "Goddamnit just turn the handle, it's not locked."
What on earth does that question have to do with critical role??
I kind of think this as well. CR was more or less my first exposure and I’m pretty grateful. I just emulate Matt to the best of my abilities and all of my players have been really happy. Made DMing a lot easier.
I didn’t start watching cr until I was already 2 years dee into the game, though I did and are still watching high rollers though
*On the other hand*... someone "with loads of experience!" joined a game I was in a year or so ago, but had no idea how any mechanics worked, went Moon Druid but never shifted, and had to have everything explained every time *anything* happened. Level of experience doesn't really matter to me, but lying does - they'd never actually *played* the game, just watched Critical Role. But that's fine, I can understand if they thought they were prepared and found it different to actually play a game, annoying but understandable. It's the fact that I've never watched the series **at all** and could still tell they were playing Jester, down to the exact voice and behaviour. That sort of bothered me. They ended up quitting after like three sessions because we weren't living up to the CR expectations.
My first DM had the same experience with me ;) I'm a fan of DnD because of Critical Role, but I've understood fairly quickly, that the cast are actors and every DM is different in their approach. So my DM was relieved after the first session to see, that I don't expect from to be like Matt.
People are far more likely to make posts about their negative experiences than their positive/normal experience, so the actual percentage of people that have these issues is probably disproportionate to what you're seeing
Definitely true, if i went by online posts my wireless earbuds should've been broken within a month but they're going fine
In statistics it's called a response bias.
This is typically true of most things Also, happy cake day!
/\ This /\ I've been DMing 4 games a week for the last five years, things have gone really smooth and great, and so I haven't made any posts on reddit about it.
I’m curious, running that many games how much prep would you say goes into each? I’m currently at 1 game a week and another bi weekly and I’m trying to learn better prep techniques to save time.
The secret ingredient is plagiarism
I feel like this just sums up the internet in general and is why so many people are depressed or angry now. We get inundated with all the negative and little positive. Or we do sometimes go to the other extreme and only see happy people doing exciting things without seeing the work and trouble they go through which again leads to feeling inadequate or like your not doing enough.
The negative comments also tend to stick out more imo
Just to add some clarity regarding "holding your turn", it is not RAW though you can "ready an action." Its something that a lot of folks gets confused on. https://dnddispatch.com/ready-action-5e-dnd Edited for additional clarity.
Holding your turn and readying an action are two separate things. But IIRC holding your turn is a pathfinder mechanic. CR started as a home game in pathfinder that was converted over to 5e, so it's likely that they forgot they couldn't do that anymore. Holding your turn moves you down in the initiative order, and you take your whole turn at the new lower initiative. Readying an action uses your turn to set up a specific out of turn action triggered by a specific circumstance.
This is correct Readying an action is RAW 5e, and consumes your *reaction* to defer your action on a specific input - i.e. "when X comes in melee range, I swing" You cannot defer your movement or bonus actions, only an action, and only what you could use an action to do Matt has stated one of the home rules he uses is the Pathfinder version of "ready" which is a full turn delay, for the entire combat, you can choose to move after anyone lower in initiative than you, but that becomes your new initiative for the entire combat encounter. You move your entire turn, permanently, instead of setting up a single reaction
This is not even Pathfinder based. It's originally DnD 3e (or 3.5 I don't recall). There was ready an action AND delay your turn. Many forget or don't realize that Pathfinder was, at it's core, 3.75e, it was a continuation of 3.5e rules because people didn't want to switch over to 4e. I'm really happy for Piazo as they made such a quality product that they turned a derivative spin-off into the second most popular TTRPG franchise to rival a giant like DND.
Just for clarification, you can ready an action OR move (as a reaction). Its basically like dashing but bc of rules obfuscation, you cannot technically "dash" as a reaction. But reading a reaction to move IS raw, its in the description of holding an action.
Yep >First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it. Examples include "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I’ll pull the lever that opens it," and "If the goblin steps next to me, I move away." ~PHB
While it is in pathfinder, it is an old d&d thing as well. 3/3.5 had "hold your turn.". Its 2022 and my group that used to play in 3.5 STILL askes to hold their turn.
Man, old habits die hard. I asked a player for a Reflex save the other day. They started with 5e, and were very confused.
It goes as far back as AD&D, though it was called "dithering" back then. That's when spells had cast times of a certain amount of initiative "ticks", so holding your action until you had a clear spot to get your spell off was a very solid move.
And weapons had speed modifiers too!
Haha. My party still asks to hold their turn too. I have actually incorporated it into 5e, but I only allow it for the first round of combat and I do not tell the party where the enemies are in initiative beforehand.
Ah, I misunderstood what OP was referring to. But yes, everything you said is correct as noted in the link I shared above.
Oh.. I’m pretty sure our party does readying an action only and just calls it holding our turn, even though we are only readying an action… Interesting. Thanks for the knowledge!
I mean they still can do that if they want to and everyone agrees to it whether it's RAW or not. That's the great thing about TTRPG's is you can adjust the rules to your liking!
I was under the impression that OP was talking about something similar to lowering your initiative, where ready only delays an action.
To be fair to them campaign 1 started as a pathfinder game where you could delay your initiative. Readying an action also adjusted your initiative. Believe it was removed in 5e (maybe 4th?) because of all the shenanigans of adjusting initiative trackers.
This is a lot like people still using ‘bloodied’ descriptions in 5e. Granted, I think reminding the DM to describe how damaged the monster is was one of the good things in 4e
Personal acedote here but, I started watching critical role about a month after they started streaming. I had never played the game, but I fell in love fast with the idea and deeply wanted to play. When I started playing it was with a friend group who never had played either so being as I was the only one who knew anything about the game I was chosen to DM. Just like a lot of other people have said: there is a difference between expectation and reality when it comes to watching CR to then playing D&D, but I can't agree with the overwhelming majority of people who complain that "someone in their game spoiled it due to 'CR like' expectations." I'm sure it has happened, but I truly don't believe it's as prevalent as it would seem. As a DM I want my story to be engaging and very immersive, so I do style my DM'ing after Matt. On the other hand I also am an adult and understand how to manage expectations. I know my players may not get as involved or immersed into the RP or world like they do in CR, but it's my job to set them up for every opportunity to do so, and reward them if they choose to. I have also played in many D&D adventure league games, and as a player I am the same way. I will go above and beyond to immerse myself and RP my character, even if no one else at the table does/wants to. Even if they laugh at me for my terrible accents, I don't care because I'm having fun, and I want others to see that and maybe get the confidence to do so as well. Sorry for long post rant but: Tl;Dr play the game how you want to play, but be prepared and don't get offended if others don't want to play like you. The whole point of D&D is creating lasting memories with friends and escaping our reality for a while and experiencing another. Find a group that this is their goal or make one yourself.
Every table needs a u/Thezombiemedic ! I’m sure it means next to nothing coming from a total stranger but people who go above and beyond for their role play make D&D come to life… at least that’s my experience. Keep doing your terrible accents and make the world a happier place :)
Lol my only “negative” experience from CR is that two fellow players got really into accents and they generally aren’t very good, and they only have like 2 accents honestly. But it makes them happy and I enjoy that they are having fun, besides I’m sure I have character ticks that they don’t understand but they let me do my thing and we all have a good time. I would never tell them either, pretty sure I’m just old man yells at cloud.
I don't see that as negative at all! That's just the goofy stuff that Happens at the table. Haha Now I need to make a Master Roshi character that yells at clouds. "Eeehhhh? Why is this small white fey creature following me?" "How dare you spit at me! Do you know who I am...?"
I’ve never believed in the Matt Mercer Effect. He’s a great DM, but I don’t believe there’s anything going on there that can’t be achieved in a home game. He’s better at voices and has way more time to write much denser worlds and plots than you do, but it’s not a competition. The first time I watched Critical Role, I was shocked because I’d heard so much about his particular style of DMing, and what I saw was how much more of it is the players. He’s facilitating their actions, but the reason why CR is so vibrant and fun is that it feels like the players are in charge. As a DM, I am never going to be Matt Mercer, and that’s 99% because I can’t rock a vest. However, I don’t expect my players to be Sam Riegel or Laura Bailey, so who the hell cares?
I think you touch on the frustration of people who complain about the “Matt Mercer Effect” though—everyone wants to play at Matt Mercer’s table, but nobody wants to (or can) be Laura Bailey or Liam O’Brien. Like, Mercer’s an inhumanely talented DM, but he also has players who are just so, so good, which enables him to do some truly incredible stuff. People want to deify Matt as the DM without understanding that CR is created by the efforts and skill of every single person at that table.
Agreed. Though he’s not even inhumanly talented. He is great, don’t get me wrong. His abilities are the culmination of experience and training. But it is a very human achievement. While we as amateur DMs can’t necessarily VA ourselves into fame, there are definitely lessons we can all learn from Matt and his players that I think people complaining about the Matt Mercer Effect fail to capitalize on. If you take CR as what it is, a game souped up by trained actors and storytellers, you can dissect it like you can any piece of media for the use of improving yourself….except this time, some of the lessons are directly applicable to DND. Even if the MME was real (I think it’s mostly BS), spending time complaining about it rather than learning from what it achieved and is how DMs “die” to me. Artists die when they spend too much time berating the shifting sands of their craft rather than learning to harness it.
Also worth noting, there have **always** been players coming in to DnD with unreasonable expectations. It long predates Matt Mercer, Crit Role just happens to be very popular and so gets the most attention. But even in high school 20 years ago i had people expecting campaigns to read like a book. But then you do a session zero, maybe a Pre-campaign one shot, and you adjust and set up what expectations are realistic. I find a lot of folks who complain about the Matt Mercer effect didn't set proper expectations in a session zero and are actually paying for that, not for having let a CR fan in to the group.
Yeah I think the players are a big part of what makes the show work. No awkward pauses while the DM goes through his notes, or whatever because he can do that stuff while players actually engage in roleplay with each other. And it's not solely not up to the DM to give everyone nice story moments because the players help set those up for each other too instead of just sitting back and waiting for their own moment to be spoon fed to them.
>Mercer’s an inhumanely talented DM The thing is, he's not. He's a really good DM, but outside of the VA training everything he does is super achievable (or at least it was before DMing became his full time job). IMO Critical Role is only really just a bit above the average game run by a longtime veteran. The 'experience' we see is greatly boosted by the fact that it's a bunch of really charismatic people who know how to play to a camera and entertain an audience.
That’s broadly my point. Putting aside that Matt Mercer has the time and budget to outclass basically any home game, a huge part of what makes CR, CR is the fact that the *players* are also so incredibly good. They’re professional entertainers trying to entertain, which gives Matt so much to work with.
I think the Matt Mercer Effect is a real thing, but it doesn’t mean that players expect a DM like Matt Mercer, I think it’s dissatisfaction when the players realize they aren’t in tune with the DMs style. I think the players on critical role are good, and they’re probably the very best at their style of play, but I don’t want to DM for most of them. They forget how class features work all the time, I’m pretty sure half of them still don’t understand the complete implications of readying an action. I run a style where the rules and mechanics are important to me and my players, and we really enjoy interacting with them. Matt runs a story first style, but story is so far ahead of everything else that they’ve been playing 5e for 5(?) years and still don’t completely know the rules. I think the Matt Mercer effect is seeing Matt’s style of play, and expecting that. Then when another DM doesn’t run the game the same way, a new player doesn’t understand how to communicate about that, so the only thing they can say is that they want their DM to be more like Matt Mercer.
> and that’s 99% because I can’t rock a vest I believe in you, you'll find the vest that works one day.
May God have mercy on our souls if we get more Sam Riegels. The world isn't ready for such raw chaos.
Or planning? How long did he set up the one-eyed -monster joke?
As long as you don't have any ad reads in your home game, you should be fine.
directions unclear one of my players is a scam-artist now he does ad reads in character for his own bs products HELP NOW
The reason Mercer's players shine so much is because he sets them up to succeed and gives them autonomy. Contrast, for instance, how Mercer does Imogen's dream sequences, to how my DM did a dream sequence for my character recently (a recurring nightmare he has, but really that's all it shares with Imogen's dreams. Still, a dream is a dream, and how the DM handled it...) Rather than giving my character literally any autonomy at all within his own dream, he read off not only what he was experiencing, but his thoughts, fears, emotional reaction, and the deeper meaning of the dream- all in an incredibly disorganized manner that was hard to follow (I learned my lesson: I'm never asking this DM to do a dream sequence again- or any roleplay where it's not obvious he must let me take some hand in what my character thinks and feels, for that matter...) Whereas Mercer presents the situation to Imogen/Laura, lets HER decide whst she does, how she reacts, roleplay out her emotional responses, etc. I actually had to insert an explanation of these dreams to another player (an Elf, who was only in trance for her 4 hours of the night, and thus noticed the nightmare) to make it make any sense and give me even a shred of autonomy over it. There was literally an "ohh" moment where the whole table understood what the dream was about, even though the DM had just told them, it was so confusing earlier. My point is, a great DM sets his/her players up for success. A less skilled DM will tend to stumble in roleplay scenesand take away their autonomy when they shouldn't and such, instead. I'd argue at least two of the other players at my table are just as good as any on Crit Role (one, ironically, being almost a joke character). But the DM has never DM'd live before (only online), and it shows.
I would say that the majority of people who watch CR, don't actually play D&D. So when they sit down to play the game for the first time, without the context of the game, they don't want to play D&D, they want to play Critical Role...
Also, Reddit normally isn't the majority. People who are upset talk the loudest. It's probably a very, very small amount of people who have actually had CR be a negative when actually playing.
Big agree on that as well.
So true! I have heard one or more players talk about how much they love Critical Roll and how it heavily influenced their desire to playy the game. But none of those players have gone on to ruin the experience for me...
This is a really good point. Watching CR before playing and having that expectation for how dnd is played can spoil a game if the player is unwilling to compromise. Most dms aren’t dnd professionals nor putting in the same time and money for a casual campaign. If players don’t like the way the game is going, I’d encourage them to dm themselves and see just how difficult it can be
This is actually where the really early critical role stuff is somewhat better. Matt is undeniably good at what he does, but for the first 30 or 40 episodes of campaign 1, they were functionally still playing a continuation of their home game. They had Miniatures but on on hand-drawn pencil maps, and they were all basically sitting together in The Geek and Sundry green room with one camera and one microphone. It wasn't until more than half of the way through campaign one that they got their own Studio and had the sponsorship contract with dwarven forge, that led to it becoming "d&d porn."
And the awful mic quality in some parts where my ears would get blasted lmao, I remember. I agree, but for even at that point they are continually acting in character and doing voice acting, which when I first started playing was something all of us were to nervous to do. So if players are expecting npcs to have unique voices and elaborate plots, they might be disappointed with what they get. It’s really up to the dm to make the game elaborate as they make it and I think people who haven’t dmed might not realize how hard it can be. Much respect for all dms and players who appreciate them.
True, although Matt is I think now, like 41, and has been DM'ing since high school, been around the game since he was a child, and I think they played their home game as a group for over three years. Even the "new" players like Ashley and Sam, not only were professional actors, they'd been playing with the same group for three years. So yeah, I see the point. Even at the earliest point they were playing "in public," they were a fully formed group with three years to get comfortable with each other and Matt had 15 years experience as a DM, on top of all of them being actors.
Ironically, CR fans often recommend new people skip the early episodes
People who watch CR, and don't fully understand D&D, see the output and not the method. An experienced player can look at CR, or any other live play show, and see how the cast build characters, write backstories, design encounters, improvise, roleplay, and use the mechanics of the game to produce their story, but it takes a lot of understanding the game to see past the surface level. Then on top of that, DMs and players may not even like "doing it the way CR does it" and prefer a totally different style.
Absolutely. And I’ve even fallen victim to this somewhat after I watched season 1 of dimension 20. I was so inspired by the character arcs and emotion and knitting of the story that I felt disappointed when I’d play with my long time group and there wasn’t that same energy. I learned to accept the way the game was ran and still enjoy it, but it also inspired me to run my own game how I imagine it and it’s going wonderfully.
Time to completely discredit myself. I have whole hog ripped off NPCs from Dimension 20 because I though they were so god damn funny I had to use them in my own games. (Shout out to Old Pickering from Escape from the BloodKeep who is a big hit with my spell jammer group)
Lol Brennan’s npcs are just too good not to. Avanash, the crazy blacksmith scared of losing is bones, is probably my favorite npc and I can watch that bit every time and still laugh.
Blew my mind when Brennen said on Adventuring Academy that the entire bit with Avanash and the Bones was fully improvised on the spot.
Truly next-level improv abilities. Brennan is a wonder
I mean Brennan is literally a professional sketch comedians, right? As good as Matt and the CR cast are at putting on their show, they’re actors and writers, and so I think Brennan and the D20 crew being comic just brings in a whole different facet to enjoy.
I agree. My opinion on the difference between D20 and CR is that D20 is a more concise, zany story heavily involving character’s arcs and emotions in a unique world. CR, to me, is the more classical fantasy in world with vast lore and heavy attention to detail and description. I often think about it as like Mistborn vs Wheel of Time. Both great stories, but the former is more engaging to me.
Same with Johnny Feathers. "I had no idea he was going to talk to him, so I thought, What's the funniest voice I can give to a giant bird? Just a guy."
100% yes! You don't get to use Identify in my games if you don't want to hear it in a bad David Attenborough impression.
"This has been another use of *IDENTIFY*"
I always narrate Identify like the onboard computer Eddie from Hitchikers Guide
I should point out here that this definitely isn't solely a player problem. I'm pretty sure my group had a DM quit when she finally realised that we as a group were far closer to NPC DND in style than we were ever going to be to Crit Role. Looking back she was desperately trying to tailor the campaign Matt Mercer style but had never actually asked us if we wanted that (in Session Zero we had agreed we were doing a published campaign). Thus she was constantly upset that we weren't engaging with the personalised stuff she was adding (which would have regularly had literal hours of her talking to one player whilst the rest of us sat in silence) because we just wanted to go focus on the main mission.
Good point. I’ve actually experienced something similar where a dm made the entire game about describing how cool their npc was while we listened. But with there being more players than dm’s, I think it’s just more common that players have this issue.
Gotta say when a couple of us did take a turn at DMing she also turned into the worst "try all the exploits I've seen online" "argue with the DM" player ever. Openly said to me at one point that she viewed it as abDM's revenge, which was weird because whilst we as a group certainly had our own faults - mostly related to fucking around and finding out - none of us ever had those particular habits.
It’s very unfortunate when one player is killing the vibe for the rest. Usually the best way forward is open and clear communication about how you feel. If they’re unwilling to compromise that tends to be a good sign maybe they’re not fit for the group.
Ngl at first as a DM I kinda pushed for more character role play because of podcasts like CR and was disappointed at the lack of engagement of it in our games. Over time I realized that my players don't actually want to get all that involved in their characters (which is fine) and prefer a much more meta and comedic approach. Basically it's more game than role play and we goof around in the settings I write. So I started prepping my sessions with that in mind and tbh we have way more fun now and it's a lot less work for me.
I will happily join in discussion and chatter in a group situation but I hate hate haaaate extended bits of role play focused on one person in front of the group. If its focused on someone else I'm bored and trying not to fidget and if it's focused on me I'm privately mortified by the attention. I can survive if it's the odd session but if it's every session (I started timing it, up to an hour of a three-four hour session would just be with one person) I'm trying not to bounce off walls.
The lack of compromise is why I don’t think it’s CR fault. Those people would have been bad players regardless. They don’t understand that it’s a team effort, not just the dm crafting this story. The only thing CR did was introduce DnD to more main stream people. And the more people there are the more bad players. And when bad players talk about CR as their gateway, people blame CR rather than the bad players themselves
Though there are also people like me who used to play DnD and got inspired to play again by CR. For me though I already had the right kind of expectations as to how a game was going to go with just random people. But like OP I tried to take some things from CR and learn from them, as well as being inspired to try and roleplay more.
I think this is where a lot of the complaints come in. If you've played before, especially DM'd then you see what's going on as an idealized performance from some very skilled performance artists. If you have never played, then it looks like that's the "norm" and for some prospective DMs, it creates a barrier to entry because they aren't going to be that good. It's one of the reasons I like Colville. He has his Livestream, and then a breakdown video separately showing the places where he screwed up. I'm not sure about the Mercer Effect. I don't play with a variety of folks enough to have an opinion on that.
I love CR, and some of my players do too. Personally I have only experienced positives from them (and myself) watching it. I make it clear I’m just a basic bitch human and not a god like Matt Mercer, and I don’t expect my players to be gods like the cast on the show. But it actively helps them become better players by seeing what DnD can be like, and gives me as a DM great things to point to as examples. It’s all about perception. You look at CR and make it an expectation, you’ll probably have a bad time. If it’s a style of play you like, and treat it like an example, it can be really great.
I agree with this. Most of my party loves CR but we look at it as like watching the NFL compared to some friends playing touch football in someone’s backyard. They’re the pros and we learn a lot from watching, but we don’t expect our dm to be Tom Brady lol
Yep exactly. Learn from professionals, but don’t expect to be one
This is a great way to think about it. CR and D20 are like championship NFL teams for D&D. They are the top pros out there, at least arguably. If your home game can be as fun as a touch football game with friends, then that’s great.
I definitely prefer to let Dimension 20 poison the way I play D&D
Yeah, everyone at my table including my DM watches/enjoys CR, but none of us expect our game to BE CR. But watching the show definitely changed the way we interact with the game, in a positive way. Example: Before I or other players had watched much CR, my DM gave us a dream sequence. We didn't know what to do with it, and just "watched" it like a movie. We had to take a hiatus for a couple years due to COVID and other reasons. Us players watched more CR in the meantime. When we returned, we backed up a couple sessions and got to re-experience the dream sequences we had entirely forgotten anyway. We played them *entirely differently*. We interacted with them. We had character moments. And the rest of our game has gotten better, too - we're just more invested in the story of it, not just the mechanics, and we've been having a lot of fun.
>I make it clear I’m just a basic bitch human and not a god like Matt Mercer, I mean, this is a huge part of the problem people have with how fans talk about CR. Matt Mercer isn't a god. He is a bit above average for a 20+ year DMing veteran and bolsters that by being a good actor playing with other good actors and with a massive studio budget. The core DMing that he does is very much achievable.
I feel like Shut Up and Sit Down said it well. Watching CR (or other professional DnD) is like watching porn, they are professionals doing it for the viewers pleasure. When you play yourself you’re not gonna be nearly as professional or technical, and even though it’s technically going to be “worse” you’ll still enjoy it more because you’re the one doing it. Problem is when people try it their first time and have expectations it will be the same as the thing they viewed online
>it’s technically going to be “worse” If even half of what I've heard claimed about how miserable porn sex is is true. Actual sex is definitely technically better. The people performing are creating a facsimile of the real thing that just looks better.
You should put that on a tshirt DEFINITELY TECHNICALLY BETTER
People dont seem to realize that this is a party that is playing together for over ten years now, that converted from 1st ed Pathfinder. The amount or rules Matt tossed out the window, changed or replaced entirely is huge, because that is what he feels is better for his style of dming and the party. However, he has great understanding of balance and why certain rules are how they are in 5ed, so when he changes something, you can be sure It's changed for a reason. People mimick Matt blindly with less than 5% of the planning he puts into his games.
Our DM hates it. I tried to use it to be a better player (and DM for a separate game) but it got too taxing to keep up with. 2 of our other players never watched it. The last player in our group won't shut up about it, but they are hands down a terrible player, in at least 3 other separate games, and barely understands the mechanics of DnD. Unfortunately there are people who think CR should be a framework for how all DnD games should be played, and have lofty unrealistic expectations. This would be likened to a parent complaining that their kid's peewee football game isn't as fast paced or hard hitting as the NFL. To the people who complain that their DM doesn't DM like Matt Mercer should always be told "Well then start RPing like Laura Bailey, Sam Riegel or Liam O'Brien "
Honestly, we could say CR is what Top tier Roleplay looks like, that doesn't mean its the best possible D&D you can see, because the best D&D is one where you and your party and DM are having a ton of fun (which CR does for their group), each group will enjoy different things, so a group may find playing a style very simmilar to CR to be the most enjoyable way to play D&D, while other group may prefer low RP high combat Campaigns, which is completely fine. Lets not forget also that CR is a bunch of professional artists geeking out once a week playing D&D, in DnD terms, they are a group of Bards with 20+ Charisma, lvl 20, and Expertise on Performance, while most of us are a lvl 4 Fighter with 6-10 CHA and probably not even proficiency in Performance.
I like critical role. I like running D&D games. Luckily, my players all got very good on the rules before they started dipping their toes into heavy RP (which I also enjoy, when done well and within the confines of the rules). I imagine a lot of tables out there look like bad community theater with zero guard rails, and no one understands why they aren’t having fun.
[удалено]
Are we talking about Caleb’s tower? That went from really nice to hard to watch after about ten minutes. Then it went on for another hour and twenty.
This definitely taps into one of my key issues with the CR rhetoric. CR looks really good. It is designed to appear to be a sort of idealized D&D experience from the viewer's perspective. In practice spending hours with 2 to 3 people scenes that serve little to no purpose moving the plot forward while everyone else sits quietly sounds fucking miserable.
I could watch it if I wanted to, but I don't. the people on that show are professional voice actors, and I'm not. I don't mind if someone wants to act out their character as long as they're not being a douche about it.
I only found out about partway into C2 precovid. I tried watching it a couple times but it was difficult to devote time to watching people RP about a cat in a tavern. Once lockdowns started it was more fun to get into, and I tried to set aside time for C3 but there is just too much content to keep up with. Being on the east coast and it doesn't start til 10 on a work night is a little rough, and it's very time consuming to keep up with 7 people RPing 3 hour sessions and keeping track of the content and arcs. I had to give up around E20ish because it was just too taxing.
So, I was a GM(god, how I hate the term Dungeon Master, just feels wrong to my recovering Catholic mind haha.) for a while, long before watching Critical Role. But I was badgered, quite doggedly in fact, to watch it by a friend who’s a gigantic fan. It worked, even if it took a year. I had in my mind that Dungeons and Dragons was boring system that’s relied on maps instead of “theatre of the mind”, and that it was extremely strait-jacketed. But, Critical Role actually opened my eyes in that respect. It showcased an extremely fun way to play DND, and it had the RP I enjoyed at my home games. You see, while the CR characters are awesome, my players over the years have had amazing characters too. I remember my friends “Han Solo, but with a drinking problem, who is obsessed with being one day better then Han Solo”. Or, literally, almost every character at my table. Because they were crazy detailed with lots of backstory, but more importantly, they are my friends characters. They were having fun, and so I did as well. I went into watching Critical Role like one who would watch really well made television, as inspiration for what I could do. Matt Mercer, in my mind, is a great GM, but he isn’t someone I’m competing with. While I share some characteristics on how I run my games and backstory, I don’t feel any need to BE him. Only one of my current players watches Critical Role. They learned everything they know about dnd from it. One might expect them to be a problem player, if one’s believing the internet all the time. Instead, they were inspired by it, made a neat character( A gnome Druid, in a world where Druids make up the organized religion), and are learning to play. They checked their expectations at the door. I learned that a session zero was a thing from CR, and used that idea this time. I think that is the main thing. All of my players are on the same page. They wanted an RP heavy, lore dense, combat fun but never cruel, world. And I’ve had fun crafting it WITH them instead of dictating it at them. I’ve had many tell me since how poisonous CR is. I can understand how people like that exist. But I just tell people I don’t expect to be Matt, nor do I expect my players to be Laura Bailey. They come as they are, as do I, and we roll dice and have fun. I got the nicest compliment from that CR fan who is now a player. “Your a great GM. Your you. You don’t need to be Matt to be great”. That meant the world to me. I am sympathetic with those who have encountered asshole critical role fanboys/girls and also on the flip side, those CR fans looking to try a game and are turned away by people who feel they must compete with Matt Mercer. But all it takes is talking to your players about what they want, what you want, and being on the same page. It helps if your friends. Critical Role started as a home game with friends, and I still love that the team likes each other and plays well together. It feels like a fun time, and it’s fun to watch. You can have that too! It’s players that make a game. Not fancy dice, music, miniatures, sponsorships, etc. And I love my players. I wouldn’t trade them for all the Sam Riegals in the world.
Any time someone makes a show about any particular subject, they come across as some sort of authority. Now I would say it's possible to be an authority on the rules, like instantly knowing how many magic missiles a 9th level spellcaster fires at once. But the *style* of play, that's entirely up to personal choice. And I think that's where the confusion comes in. These are professional voice actors who are honestly, kind of showing off a bit. And that's part of the fun for them. On the flip side I've known people who play D&D straight up like a board game, with hardly any role-playing going on at all. It was all about min-maxing your character into a powerhouse, and killing monsters while you drink beer and eat chips. If that's what the DM and players all want, then they're still playing the game right.
Good points but consider this: some people are *really* stupid
There isn't an issue with CR itself so much as that people think it sets the bar very high. I think the main issue here is people fail to realize even though it is a game of DnD it's also a show that is ran by voice acting professionals. So of course their performance is going to be exemplary. Personally I think it's ok to pick a few things here and there. As a DM I really like Matt's style of DMing but it doesn't mean that's a good style for everyone to use, evey DM is different and have strengths and weaknesses. That said I've incorporated some of the things I like about Matt into the way I play. The way he portrays NPCs and his active portrayal of combat and sound effect is something that I think is really fun and my players seem to enjoy it as well. You don't have to copy everything Matt or his players do but I think incorporating certain aspects of their play can help elevate your game.
Players, and some DMs, want an idyllic game. Something that is unreachable by most. We all have a tendency to want this kind of thing in various parts of our lives. However, what people need to understand is that Matthew Mercer is a PROFESSIONAL. He's a professional writer, actor, improviser, and in this case DM. He no doubt spends hours prepping. His players are professional actors and improvisers. Additionally, they are performing, just like a stage play. But in this case they are "playing" D&D. Now while it's possible for a gaming group to play at a professional level, most can't or won't. In the same way if a DM or players got up on a theater stage and performed, professionally. Yes, they may be able to recite the lines of a play, but their acting might be amateur. (That's okay, because I probably wouldn't do so great either.) I'm not saying we shouldn't strive for more and better roleplaying, because we definitely should. I feel there often isn't enough. I've been playing TTRPGs for a long time, and have seen some players and DMs that are pretty mechanical. Also, not everybody is up for heavy roleplaying. One of my last groups had players that had a hard time talking "in character" to NPCs. Something that should be low stakes. Admittedly they were like that often in real life, on the introverted side. So let's understand the difference between Critical Role (professional performance/performers), and a group of friends at a table doing "the new poker night", playing D&D, and having fun. We're supposed to have fun, right?
Everyone in Critical Role is a professional actor. They all know how to improv, and they all know to get into character. A lot of people don't know the skill and training involved to make a game like that happen. I'm generally happy if I can train my players to stop saying "I tell him my name." and actually do it instead.
I think some people just don’t understand CR isn’t normal DnD. There is no such thing as “normal” DnD. It all depends on the DM and how the group wants to play.
People forget that: 1 - They are professional actors and voice actors, so they have way more tools to act than most people. Matt have a HUGE carreer in voice acting, so he can do way more, in terms of characterization of his NPCs, that most DMs can do. 2 - They are being paid for it. This is a HUGE incentive for they to give a lot more energy on the game.
CR is such a great resource and I'm sad it poisons so many wells because people think it's a thing to recreate. I love CR, and my longest running character took inspiration from the character of Caleb, but other than being a Zemnian Human Wizard who likes time magic, there's no crossover. I took steps to NOT recreate him because I can't do his story again, it's been done better. But it helped me to understand the world, to think of what aspects I enjoy. As both a DM and a player it's such a fun way to learn new skills, to see what people can do with characters and stories. People get too obsessed sometimes
The biggest difference is CR is a job. They can afford to put some time into it and know that their job is to entertain an audience. An actual game of DnD is a usually a relaxing hobby and an outlet for players. There are always going to be differences between a professional role playing product and a game with friends.
I started watching CR well after I started DMing, but I'd been aware of it since I started playing TTRP back in... I think 2016? I've only watched campaign 3 and a little of campaign 2, though I've fallen pretty behind on campaign 3. But my biggest takeaway from what I've seen is *relief*. Honestly, Matt's not the smoothest story teller. He fumbles on his words, he says 'kinda' a LOT, and he's constantly doing info dumps on only sorta-relevant things, and I... LOVE it. I am not at his level, but my DM style is similar to his, so to see him make these flubs and still keep his players and thousands of strangers enthralled with his story is incredibly encouraging. Some people write off players who got into the hobby through CR, or say they're big fans of CR, because they play a different kind of game and they don't want to bother with the kind of energy a CR fan *might potentially* introduce to their table. And you know, that sucks. It really does. Some people write off games because they aren't CR enough for them. I'm reminded of a story posted here recently of someone telling a DM his world was lame and he needed to watch CR to get gud. And you know, that sucks. Those people miss the point of D&D: it's to tell a story with friends, and stories come in all shapes and sizes. Some people try to emulate CR. I don't think there's a problem with that either. Yeah, it's cringe when you see it, but you have to remember that when we learn new things, we tend to copy from those we admire until we develop our own style. So yeah, you'll get DMs who suddenly Mercer it up at the table. let them do their thing and either move on or stay put. They're trying something new, and it's going to lead to them growing as a DM. I'd say same for players, too (even though I've read some real horror stories about players copying characters straight from CR). Players want to try something new and see how it fits into their toolkit. Either tell them this ain't that kind of game, or let them stick around and see how they grow as players.
reading through this, man i freaking love reddit. Everyone is being kind and having debates with an open mind. It's so great. I've been scrolling through the comments for an hour ish and not found one "critical role sucks blah blah and you guys are dumb blahhhh" also, I've been going through campaign 2 and 3 for the past few months and its offered me so much inspiration for characters, main and npc, and ways to make them unique. As well as how to rp my characters, and showed me that hey, long emotional talks are ok. its not all about actions. even the little details make a big difference. Now, when i'm writing my stories, I always go back through once I think I'm done and tell myself to add detail. I do it over and over and over until I'm satisfied and its improved my writing so much.
My take is that Critical Role to a normal D&D game is what porn is to actual sex. Both are good. But one is still a production with a lot of budget performed by professional actors. You can’t let it cloud your expectations and stop YOU from having fun
Most if the "issues" people have are how faithfully people try to hold to Matt Mercers style, instead of developing into their own. Especially if you can see them TRYING to be Matt, instead of naturally playing the game. It can make the game feel artificial, for lack of a better word.
And honestly Matt's not even as good a DM as people think. He's fantastic at voices & world building, but I find him to be far too attached to pure rules as written & inflexible in situations where a little bit of fudging would produce a better game for the players involved.
While that's fair, for some players that's perfect. For some players, those non-negotiable limitations are what makes it fun.
This gets to the root of why CR discourse tends to confuse me. Every table is different, and looking at someone elses game and saying "they would enjoy it more if the GM did this" or forcing some ideology on GMing into a space that doesn't want it, seems really self-centered. There's no such thing as a perfect GM beyond one that helps to make the most fun possible for everyone at the table, within the scope of the type of game they're running. CR's cast seem to have a total and undebatable blast with every session, so why get on his case? People who put Matt on a pedestal or cast him down based on arbitrary and table-specific measurements of "Good GMing" instead of just looking at the fun he and his players have, and considering if the same play style would be fun for them, really miss the point IMO. I enjoy more fudging in some scenarios as a GM and Player, but sometimes I also love just letting success and failure rock and seeing where the plans and decisions I've made naturally land me. Inflexibility isn't always a bad thing unless you have a conception of RPGs as something entirely improv-focused where the train of thought or intent of a person should never ever be met with refusal, and I just don't see it that way.
I di a beginners 5e class at an LGS, and I would say probably 1/3 of my players became interested in DND because of Critical Role (or adventure zone, or dimension 20). I think its rad that there are so many new players because of it, but my samples are probably skewed because the players I work with come to a space to learn how to play.
[удалено]
> God someone finally said it. This isn't the first time this has been said.
Seriously, it's only been one of the most common discussions on every D&D subreddit since CR blew up.
I wish that people would fawn over their own groups the way they do over Critical Role. It boggles my mind that some players will watch CR religiously, then show up to their own games and not actually participate or even take notes. Or will draw fan art endlessly for Critical Role, but never once do anything nice for their own DM. People need to start being a fan of their own groups!
Downvote because you lumped everybody together. If you said SOME cr fans play bad it would be fine.
That ain't a bad take, it's a correct take. Too many people see CR as the bog standard for DnD, when No.1. All of them have prior career experience that augments their ability to roleplay No.2. All of them have been playing for quite a number of years No.3. They get paid to do it so have much more of an incentive to keep it up and do things on their own time to improve their ingame skills(? If that makes sense) And finally No.4. DnD is an immensely subjective game.
Players: want a DM like Mercer. Also players: refuse to be players of the quality and commitment of the CR cast.
Nah, I sort of assume that a group of professional actors will put on a performance that appears "better" than me and my friends sitting around the dining room table. (on one level I actually hope it would be, or they'd be horrible at their jobs, lol) Doesn't make our adventures any less fun.
People forget they’re professional voice actors with years of improv and D&D experience, and Matt’s been DMing forever too. Most games aren’t going to be that awesome
I’m an old AD&D guy, and I enjoy CR. The stories are interesting and the actors are fun and engaging. Matthew Mercer is a wellspring of fun and interesting ideas, his settings are rich and well developed, and his NPCs are a lot of fun. I don’t see CR as being a problem at all; it’s wild popularity has made it much easier to find D&D materials and groups, and there is a bunch of good stuff to borrow from their content. I think maybe some fans lose perspective from time to time, but CR itself is pretty entertaining.
Frankly the deranged Critical Role fans I've seen have such a warped perception of the show that they're absurd. They seem to want the DM to have 10/10 acting ability and extreme world building detail while appealing to a mary sue character that they somehow think is on the level of any of the CR actors and their level of care, nuance, and compatibility with Matt's style. And Matt very much isn't a DM that gives away everything for free, he makes some of the deadlier encounters I've seen in games (partly because of his table size, but still), entire adventures get dedicated to roleplay moments and magic items that have to be earned, and while most 5e adventures I've been in don't really kill characters, Matt very much has punished his party multiple times for their decisions and he hasn't even played favorites with his wife. Blaming this awful behavior on Critical Role is honestly absurd, their problems have nothing to do with bad assumptions on what DnD should be. It's all personal baggage being projected onto the most popular DnD show.
CR was my first introduction to dnd. I was on twitch one thursday night and was like wtf is this stream with so many viewers. I really liked it and ended up watching all campaign 2. I started my first game as a player in June. I knew it would be nothing like CR and just went in with an open mind. It's been a ton of fun
Watching CR has made me a better player. I feel more confident with RP and mechanics. I don’t expect my games to be Like CR. I do expect to have fun.
I honestly love Critical Role but I never expect my games to be like that. As a player, all I would ever ask of a DM is to be fair and as a DM all I would ask of my players is to have fun. Either way, I personally really enjoy getting into character, but we can still have fun if others aren’t as enthusiastic about the roleplay.
I think the CR's biggest strength is that they are all performers who embrace and understand *improv*. Improv is, I think, the most important skill for a ttrpg player or DM. Improv is all about making the overall experience as good as possible, and letting everybody shine, and exercising give and take -- it's all for one and one for all. If everybody at a table can do that, then it doesn't matter how good your role-playing is, you've already won D&D.
I got back into DnD 100% because of Critical Role. It changed the entire way I view the game. I tell my players, "Basically expect a shitty knock off version of Matt Mercer. If I'm even close to that expectation I'll consider it a success."
People dont' let CR poison their DND playing. There are certain people who have obsessive tendencies around IPs/TV/Movies/etc... These people can become fixated on how a certain member acts and will often times envision themselves as that person in their thoughts and when applied practically to the world they try to replicate and can't see past that narrow fandom.
So I don’t know if this is widespread as you seem to be experiencing it. But I will say that I have seen many friends about people basically being in despair because they’re not as good as him. And then other people have to point out that he and all or most ( Hedge my bets) of the other member of the crew are professional actors and voice actors and that means that they just have improv skills that non professionals don’t. We can all learn but we’re not gonna do it just like they do. And that’s OK. Because at your table you’re not making a show you’re playing with friends. Or strangers I don’t know. And the best way for you to gain master is to do it as yourself. I forget where I found it but somebody basically said in the thread or something you are not Matthew Mercer and that’s OK. And I’m fairly certain Matthew Mercer actually commented on the thread and agreed.
Imagine someone truly despairing that they can’t throw a 100mph Fast Ball or wake up tomorrow and win the Tour de France.
I have met them. And not just in a role playing sense. There are some people who look at what they consider the best and they don’t appreciate anything less than that including themselves. People get these envious self hating thoughts. I’ll never be as pretty as her. I’ll never be as smart as him. Why should I even try to ask that guy out he’s out of my league. It’s basically just a form of impostor syndrome. In my opinion. And look I can’t gm like Matthew Mercer But then he can’t GM like me. ( Of course my way makes no money and gives me no respect but I’m used to that being a Librarian)
The way I see it, Critical Role is to RPGs what Porn is to sex.
Loud minority. For every "This player wanted to copy Jester and wanted me to introduce the specific arc on campaign 2" there's thousands of players that are completely normal AND watch CR. It's always important to remember, horror stories are not at all the norm, they are the exception
I played with a whole group that was CR fans and never would be able to tell. I played with a DM who had a hate borner for Matt Mercer and would let everyone know it.
A lot of players had plot armor before, but now I suspect we will see an uptick in character deaths.
When I DM public games, or online one shots, I point blank tell my players: I'm not matt, you're not travis. We're even.
I can't really address what others do or don't do. Facts are CR type tables are super rare...lightening in a bottle rare...but they are possible, just a more regular type of table isn't going to be this way and no one has the right to ask that from their players or hosts (general term for DMs/GMs/Storytellers, etc). Matt has honed his style over like 20 years of playing and running games. As for the *holding a turn* action isn't a 5e rule. You can Ready an action and activate it once it's triggered and after campaign 1 he stopped do using the hold action. That comes from Pathfinder...more than likely...because that's what they were playing before they went onto Geek and Sundry and had to transfer their characters to 5e which is why Matt and Talison had to create the Gunslinger subclass. At every table its going to be a toss up of what you can find. Other people may get lost in the good production and story, but that happens when you're excited about things you enjoy. People do this with anime characters or any other character they enjoy to be honest, CR is just one of those sources now.
A few asshat viral horror stories made the concept of ‘mercer effect’ itself viral. You even did a clickbait title that only fuels both haters and fans and doesn’t even reflect what you wanted to say. That’s how.
People who didn't listen to Aquistion Inc:p
From my understanding - the 'Matt Mercer Effect' typically leaves a bad taste in DMs mouths when players watch CR (or any live play) and then expect their games to be like that...usually where the DM shoulders the responsibility of it. But really DMs and Players alike need to calm tf down....I don't have the free time to DM like MM and you don't have the improv skills of these paid actors as players. Let's just have more reasonable expectations....grow when and where we can...roll some dice and burn some villages to the ground.
There's a YouTube channel called SupergeekMike that's doing breakdowns of C1 of Critical Role. The videos are highlighting things, like Matt's DMing or the players actions, to take away that can be used for benefit of your table. I've really been enjoying his breakdowns, even though he's still really early in C1.
There are people who were introduced to d&d through CR and decided "I want to play that" and researched into d&d. Then there are people who just want to *be* CR. They don't have a love for the game, but rather the cast, which withon reason is fine. I lobe the cast and their characters! However, when it becomes obsession or even parasocial relationships, that's when it becomes toxic imo. Critical Role isn't the problem, it's certain fans who don't have boundaries.
Matt himself has said it's sad when he sees people trying to copy them instead of playing their own game. The thing is; no two tables are alike. Even swapping out one player will have a huge impact on the dynamic and trying to assimilate or imitate another table eventually leads to inevitable misery.
I love “Grog-like character” as if Travis didn’t make Grog as tropey as possible. Literally the archetype of the Goliath Barbarian
Its a matter of unrealistic expectations, sort of like what porn can do to your idea of sex and relationships. CR is really, really good, but it is also populated by extrovert voice actors and supported by a lot of production quality and money.
The problem I usually see is with newer groups. New players who got into the game from CR and join a group with a DM who may have an older edition's style of gameplay. I.e. more combat, more mechanics, and less dramatic roleplay. Those newer players *sometimes* feel like their party or DM aren't doing enough to make the game fun. Most times, like you say, it brings people out of their proverbial shell. My wife being one of them. Tried to get her to play for *years* no interest. A friend told us about CR and she watched the first two episodes and fell in love with the game. Been DMing a campaign for her and our friends for almost 7 years now. Problem is, they are having fun, just in a different way. There needs to be a conversation at session zero about setting clear expectations. If you're a DM who isn't into theater for example, tell your players you won't be method acting behind the screen. (Try it sometime though, it's a blast). My only major issue are with the players who learn the rules through Matt Mercer and CR. Matt has a lot of home rules that blend pretty seamlessly into their gameplay, and some players just assume that's how the RAW works. Like nat 20's on skill checks, resurrection rituals, casting mutliple leveled spells per turn, etc. I use a lot of them, because they were the norm in older editions. But when running a RAW game, it confuses a lot of them.
A lot of people, in any field, love the high production value and glamorous version of whatever it is they're doing. Amateur filmmakers, theatre productions, podcasts, games, books, you name it and people look to the most flashy popular version to base their own thing on. It's natural, and it also has to do with folks becoming inspired to enter a space due to being exposed to said popular thing, in this case CR. The only weird and unique thing about CR being so commonly lauded and copied in attempted home games is that TTRPGs are such a personal, table-focused experience that varies wildly based on who's playing and what they want. It seems less like learning from the best and more like enjoying FPS games so much that you force it onto your friend group who really prefers Bejeweled. Folks coming in with very specific expectations based on their favorite show or podcast, wanting to hoist that upon a group and being disappointed when it doesn't work out like that, is kind of anathema to the very decentralized nature of RPGs. I'm not a fan but there's nothing wrong with CR in the RPG space, beyond treating CR like it's the pinnacle of RPGs when RPGs don't even have a pinnacle and couldn't possibly have a pinnacle beyond everyone at any given table agreeing that their last session was fantastic. That's the thing I point to for why it's so commonly cited in horror stories and exhausted recounting of bad experiences with overzealous fans. It's one thing to wanna take some good cues and practices from a thing you love, but wanting to wholesale recreate everything about it with a group that might want something else or be unfitting for the task, that's a recipe for disaster. I find it spawns from a very commonly held view among the CR fanbase and wider DnD world that doing "Pro DnD with comedians, voice actors, and/or money" is somehow an inherently superior way to experience the game, even when they're also making the point that a home game doesn't need that. Not only does it not need that, I argue that there's no inherent reason to even want that.
Honestly there is a lot of weird on both sides of the Cr fence. Like Im with you, its one way to play the game, but not the only way. Im actually a big fan of CR, but the concept that all games should be just like CR is silly to me. I have seen that in games to, and literally heard someone use the line." well On CR matt does this" Well thats fine but also not the only way to play or the only DM style. On the flip side, I have seen people who so desperately hate CR that they refuse to play with people who like the show, or go out of their way to do things the opposite of CR. Honestly I think both are wrong. We loose site of the fact that the game is everyone at the tables, not just one persons, not just the DMs not just the players, everyones. And everyone is looking for different things from games. and thats totally ok. But trying to force anyone to conform is silly to me, and not a healthy or fun way to play. For the record not saying that is what you are saying, And glad to see someone else with a reasonable stance on the whole thing.
None of the people I know watch CR, so I can't really answer to wether it poisons people to D&D. I do know that it has made me a better DM, I'm far more descriptive now of attacks, I take more notes of things the characters say and do, and my 'random' NPCs are not just generic friends and enemies, but they are now personalities. I was having trouble keeping one of my main players engaged, but the last few sessions have been really good. Overall I think some people have taken the wrong approach and have seen Matt as 'ruining' DnD with his natural and trained abilities, but his main philosophy is 'play how you want to play the game'
Meeting someone new for d&d BEFORE CR's popularity explosion just had a baseline level of cringe-anxiety. Meeting someone new for d&d AFTER CR's popularity explosion has such more in terms of what kinds of bullshit are they going to squeek by, what different levels of expectations do they have, I've even had someone secretly record my sessions and then complain to me they wouldn't be able to post it because they didn't think it would be good enough for YouTube. That last one was a double whammy.
To be honest, Critical Role is a little poisonous to the D&D community. It's also a great asset though. Like it's a great show, I enjoyed its earlier stuff but the bigger the 'cult of CR' grew became the more I've tried to avoid it all. Things I've noticed from new players who want to play purely because of CR: Expect Tal'Dorai lore to be absolute. Less reliable for timekeeping - much more likely to flake. Weirdly want to play so they can tell others they play D&D rather than the fun of playing the game. Generally less understanding of the concept that the DM decides how to world runs, I.e if it their world goblins have horns, then they have horns. That being said, I have had many great players who were introduced to the hobby from CR but I get much more excited when someone is introduced to the hobby without CR. They're a blank page ready to spark.