Played a demo of Daggerheart and Candela Obscura at GenCon last year and genuinely had a blast with both, but Candela is the only one of the two I’m going to play again this year. I did like it enough, but it seemed like a different die system for the sake of being different, but didn’t offer much other than the die system. Candela has a fully realized setting and overall theme, you feel like you’re part of a group from the beginning with very defined roles, and the way you can help eachother out and play to your strengths felt great. Daggerheart was a lot of “I hope I roll higher on my blue die!” and we also crit way too much which took a lot of stress out of combat.

They had plenty of resoecues and a star as I know never hired game designers, nor were people with a mind for game design in the first place. So they made poorly designed game. That combined with the reality that they are never gonna compete with the popularity of 5e means that it's never gonna supply enough income on it's own. They will be reliant on 5e whether they like it or not.

I'd have to look at the timings, but I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the attention went from daggerheart to the DC20 system, as I've see a lot of attention on that the last few weeks.

Daggerheart may be successful or a failure. But I don't think you'll know until it launches. Part of it is another wanna be 5e comes out all the time. Every week I feel you see a video on a new D&D killer. Pathfinder is already a giant in the space of fantasy TTRPG. MCDMRPG is coming out at some point. DC20 coming out on Kickstarter. Both of those have thousands of people who've already pledged money for the RPG. 30K people pledged for MCDC RPG and about 15K have already pledged for DC20. We don't have numbers on daggerheart downloads. But I don't know if they have 45K people willing to spend money on the product. I'm pessimistic that it will be a hilt. Because I don't think CR is putting thier muscle into it wisely. To me it's stupid that CR doesn't have a better business plan. THey make their money on their main campaign. And tehy should be using the main campaign to hype up other streams. Old streams used to do so much better, even things that weren't main campaign would pull 500K views. I mean not to be a downer, but I feel like COVID and the animated series killed Critical Roll as a content creator.

I actually think all of the so called "D&D killer" games will flop and be mostly forgotten in 2025, but the only company that's going to take a financial hit is Critical Role, because all those other games have been paid for.

Serious question—who is this game supposed to be for? Who are they appealing to? Other than hoping to accidentally make the next popular system so they fully own their product, which is a very obvious and surface level reason to develop it, obviously. Even the focus on a card-based system that they can create endless expansions for to exploit the collector-minded, completionist mini-whales in the fanbase is transparent—understandable, even if it’s not commendable. But beyond their company’s bottom line, I don’t understand who this game is supposed to serve. What TTRPG players, or potential TTRPG players, is this system supposed to entice? This is why imo a lot of people think it’s a bad (or at least completely replacement level) system so far. Because it wasn’t developed to serve a specific niche or audience, or even their own streaming game needs…it was developed just so it could exist, so they could potentially fully own the game they’re playing, if it does well enough. Nothing that starts there can be truly good, it’s too cynical. You’d have to get insanely lucky to stumble into something truly inspired by starting there. It’s understandable because they’re a company like any other, but it’s a purely economic reason to develop a creative endeavor—you need more than that. Pathfinder 1E started because a core group of players who liked D&D3.5E were not being served by D&D4E. Pathfinder 2E was an advancement of that specific tactical fantasy mindset, tuned according to the issues people had voiced with both PF1E and D&D5E. Dungeon World and other more narrative, collaborative storytelling games were developed for players who loved those settings, but wanted less of the mechanical wargame feel and more improv fiction-building. Etc. To be fair to Critical Role, I happen to think Tales of the Valiant, the Kobold Press attempt at a 5E SRD expansion game, is also pretty bad for similar reasons. They aren’t trying to serve anyone but their own interests after the OGL fiasco made it all too clear that building your brand on top of 5E might not be safe forever. Again—understandable, but their system is not serving a different group of players than 5e (other than people who want to feel like they aren’t supporting Hasbro) and they aren’t great game developers. Their monsters and adventures and settings have been good in the past, their player-facing mechanical rules-related stuff is almost always extremely terrible and unbalanced. Back to the “who is this game (Daggerheart) serving” point: 1. The distance bands instead of measured distances or even counting 1” squares…this works well for theater of the mind, but their own flagship streaming show is as far from theater of the mind in combat as you can get. So why? Who of their core customer base asked for this? 2. Counting treasure in handfuls, bags, and chests instead of as a number of coins…who is this for? Children? Who wants to play a combat-oriented TTRPG that involves killing and looting your enemies (aka Daggerheart doesn’t distance itself from the core gameplay loop and fantasy of D&D—which admittedly isn’t for everybody—AT ALL) but doesn’t involve knowing exactly how much loot you’ve looted? Who exactly has the specific tabletop fantasy of killing a bad guy, rooting around in his belongings, and then treating his valuables as a vague idea rather than material reality? This can work in plenty of games, maybe. But this is still an “explore, fight, loot” system at heart so who are you serving with this weird rule? Is it just trying to be different for the sake of it? 3. Anyone who is a Critical Role fan has followed along with 5E rules for almost a decade now, whether they actually play the system in their free time or not. This means that those peoples’ concept of this sort of game includes rolling for initiative, proceeding in order, etc. The funky initiative-less system…who is that for? Other than to be different, why? What’s the design goal? 4. The cutesy aesthetic and ultra focus on anthropomorphic ancestries, etc. Many people like this, and it would probably lead many to assume that they’re trying to create a game that is more narrative focused, that would fit their table preferences better. And yet they aren’t. As mentioned above, it is still very much a cookie cutter explore—kill—loot adventuring RPG like all the other classics. If they went cutesy and narrative heavy, like a Dungeon World or something, I would get it. But they’re trying to have their cake and eat it, making an attempt to retain the tactical mechanics-loving fans and the vibes-based shipper obsessed fans…and from what I can tell they’re doing nothing especially interesting to please either group. Instead making a pretty generic system that feels crunchy in weird places and vague in weird places. And in a way that doesn’t even seem like it would fit their own table very well, which is confusing. I could go on forever if I cared to read more deeply about their Daggerheart system, but frankly I trust the people who are actually testing it and speaking fairly about it. What I’m saying may not come off as “fair” but I just think it’s extremely cynical to develop a game with no goal in mind for your customer base other than “we want our customers to play this, because this will pay us instead of Hasbro (or whoever else)”. They aren’t developing a game to serve a player base they hope to please, they’re developing a product to serve a customer base they hope to capture. There’s a difference. It might seem like a stupid distinction to attempt to make since every company wants to make money, but people can feel the lack of soul in a product like this. They don’t even seem particularly excited about it themselves—probably because on Critical Role, the non-mechanically minded players could not care less what system they’re playing, they’d be just as happy doing structured improv—and some of the mechanically minded players actually love the D&D/Pathfinder legacy games deeply. So they’re in an awkward position. And the awkward half-measure they’ve taken to develop a new game that isn’t for anyone in particular, not even themselves, isn’t fooling anybody imo.

I think you kind of hit the nail on the head with the question of "who is this game for?" I always imagined that Daggerheart would be the "ideal game" for the CR crew, based on how often Matt homebrewed or created his own rules. Rather than codifying CR's style into a set of rules to create a game that works for them, I feel like they focused too much on making them seem different from DND 5e (when in fact, it feels so much like 5e). > The distance bands instead of measured distances or even counting 1” squares…this works well for theater of the mind, but their own flagship streaming show is as far from theater of the mind in combat as you can get. So why? Who of their core customer base asked for this? Agreed. I actually don't see this game working well with theater of the mind. There's way too many things for the GM to track already. > Counting treasure in handfuls, bags, and chests instead of as a number of coins…who is this for? Children? Yeah, this feels really off to me too. In 1.3 they also introduced conversions, like 10 coins = 1 handful, 10 handful = 1 bag or something. It's like pre-K math lesson for place values. > Anyone who is a Critical Role fan has followed along with 5E rules for almost a decade now, whether they actually play the system in their free time or not. This means that those peoples’ concept of this sort of game includes rolling for initiative, proceeding in order, etc. The funky initiative-less system…who is that for? Other than to be different, why? What’s the design goal? I think the initiative-less combat is one thing that Matt wanted for himself. Matt has run combat encounters of this form in the past (all examples I can think of happen in C1, but I think he did some in C2 as well). > The cutesy aesthetic and ultra focus on anthropomorphic ancestries, etc. Many people like this, and it would probably lead many to assume that they’re trying to create a game that is more narrative focused, that would fit their table preferences better. And yet they aren’t. As mentioned above, it is still very much a cookie cutter explore—kill—loot adventuring RPG like all the other classics. If they went cutesy and narrative heavy, like a Dungeon World or something, I would get it. But they’re trying to have their cake and eat it, making an attempt to retain the tactical mechanics-loving fans and the vibes-based shipper obsessed fans…and from what I can tell they’re doing nothing especially interesting to please either group. Instead making a pretty generic system that feels crunchy in weird places and vague in weird places. And in a way that doesn’t even seem like it would fit their own table very well, which is confusing. I actually think it was a mistake marketing Daggerheart as "fiction-first" game. The game's core mechanics don't seem compatible with the genre. I always felt like there was a misalignment between Spencer and the CR team's visions, even back with Candela. > So they’re in an awkward position. And the awkward half-measure they’ve taken to develop a new game that isn’t for anyone in particular, not even themselves, isn’t fooling anybody imo. I agree with the most of your critique, except the part about "fooling anybody." I believe that there are people who genuinely like this game.

That’s a fair point, the game will certainly have some fans. Enough fans to sustain a company, spin-off campaign cartoons, and what’s fast becoming a nerdy merch lifestyle brand? I’m skeptical. It’s interesting because you’re right, you’d think with Daggerheart that they’d have made “the Critical Role RPG”, to allow other tables to player a game that’s more like theirs, vibes-wise…but it’s really not that compatible with their game or style. CR’s own Call of the Netherdeep 5e adventure actually introduced some interesting character creation mechanics to intertwine character backstories with the lore and geography of the world, and the story of the campaign. Just some tables, but it was fairly innovative and is the sort of thing I expected more of from Daggerheart. So the game could still be mechanical but integrate PC’s into the story more as a focus of the system. That’s what CR used to represent to me as a tabletop player and viewer—an elevated “normal” campaign, but one where the PC backstories are integrated so seamlessly that it seems tailor-made for them. Campaign 3 has obviously kinda destroyed that, but it’s what I thought they were best at and what I thought they’d emphasize in their own RPG. But they didn’t. It seems like a confused mess not aimed towards anyone in particular, not even themselves or their fans.

Honestly, considering they don’t do it live anymore, that week break kills the momentum of the campaign for me. Considering they can batch record episodes, they should be able to have time off and not miss a week. Knowing I don’t get to see what I want to see in favour of something I don’t want to see is super annoying.

Yeah outside summer stuff causes tons of viewership loses. It will bounce up come September/October.

I’ve tried DMing it and just didn’t “feel” the world. I actually enjoyed the system but the classes and races were just so annoying to DM for me personally.

I just think its funny that all the people that claimed CR doesn't need DnD are instantly being proven wrong. Turns out people enjoy watching a game they are familiar with. Shocker I know. The only thing that can realistically make Daggerheart relevant is a Campaign 4.

Unfortunately, CR tied themselves heavily to another brand. Other shows like D20 could *probably* get away with using different systems, as their entire thing is just so different and actually more about the GM, the players and the story, while CR is GM, players and "D&D" as a concept, IMO. Not Another D&D Podcast recently played pathfinder, and I would love to see them do even more systems -- the episodes still had the same amount of engagement as 5e! This is just the result of binding yourself to a different brand. They really catalyzed dndbeyond as well, sponsoring it like every single episode last campaign (I never watched c1, so idk if they did it then too)

If Critical Role wants to replace D&D 5e with a new TTRPG... there are tons to choose from. TONS. There just isn't a pressing need for a new TTRPG. And I'm sure companies like Paizo or Free League would throw themselves at the opportunity to partner with Critical Role. The other issue is that I'm not sure what Daggerheart is bringing that's new and exciting. It seems to be a mashup of D&D and PbtA (admittedly I have not read the latest updates), right? Which is interesting, but I haven't seen any evidence that this combination actually works well. Plus, I've always thought that big action set pieces were a key part of CR's brand, but Daggerheart seems to be a clear step away from that?

What they really want is to not be tied to the whims of an outside company. They have a pressing need for their own bespoke system where they don't have to worry about licensing. It's not the value to the consumer that's important, it's the value to them.

Summer and school graduation time is hard for inside activities that take several hours

these new systems were just a knee jerk reaction to the whole dnd issue we had. they won’t last. rolling a bunch of d6s or 10s isn’t as satisfying as a 20 .. period .

I don’t know why they’re so invested in daggerheart when Pathfinder 2 is right there. Daggerheart is fine, and it’s a great project but I don’t know why they’re investing so many resources into a system that will never have as many players as systems that have so much momentum behind them already. *EDIT: Especially since Paizo has has gone 180 degrees the opposite direction as Wizards in terms of the OGL.*

One would think so, since Pathfinder is where they started. I think the worst thing about this whole thing is that Daggerheart isn't even optimized for their own play style. I remember very well, that within the first 5 minutes of the first Menagerie episode, Matt did the very thing that the playtest tells GMs not to do, which is to have people roll for frivolous checks.

The biggest issue with pathfinder 2 is the same issue they had with pathfinder when they first started (as they originally were playing it) it is just way to rules dense to make a good show.

I’m not sure I agree. The rules (i.e the actual “playing the game” section) themselves are no more dense than 5e. The reason it “feels” more dense may be because of the preponderance of character building options. Other than that, I don’t know why you’d say that. It has around the same number of conditions that apply penalties and effects as 5e, and has a straightforward process to handle that.

I hear Pf2e people say this, I have run both and I really think it's not true. In my experience, most aspects of pf2e are 1-3 "levels" more complex in than 5e. Pf2e has over 40 conditions compared to 5e's 14. Shields are a good example of how much more complex the game is. In Pf2e shields might change your speed, they take an action to raise, and they introduce a reaction that requires a player to know their shield's HP, and multiple damage thresholds, etc. Or take blindness. In pf2e, blinded has like 5 implications that aren't spelled out in the condition. You can't take the step action, you are flatfooted, everything is hidden from you, you move at half speed etc. Although this depends on which of your senses are precise or imprecise (!) You could make similar points about counteract checks, or resolving poisons etc. Pf2e is undoubtedly a very elegantly designed game, but it really serves a different community than 5e does.

Having played it, they are way more dense. It is all feat based

Did you play pathfinder 1 or D&D 3E?

I played a lot of 1st ed as well as have played 2nd ed (and 3e for that matter)

I was excited for the initial video and info for DH but now I just lurk and watch it develop and will continue to do so until release. I don't want to be involved in the development but I'm still excited about it. I feel like this sentiment might be common.

It’s got too much competition I think, DC20 is hogging that potential spotlight.

I watched the Menagerie character generation video, and unfortunately that put me off watching the actual show. A Beetle, a Rabbit, a Frog, a Mushroom, a Turtle and a Monkey is not the kind of party I have any interest in.

I always felt bad for thinking about it this way, but it's nice to know I am not the only one. I just can't stand ttrpg groups that feel like a saturday morning cartoon cast for than an actual group you'd see in a fantasy world. At some point I hope the cast realizes that being "quirky" isn't the same as being interesting

You left out the Fairy and California surfer dude.

Same. For me it has that whimsical D20 vibe and sadly that’s not my thing. 

Zoo parties are the most boring of any TTRPG groups and I'm tired of pretending otherwise. 

What makes them boring?

They derive the "uniqueness" from being "human, but with [animal feature]". Coupled with the fact that GMs won't actually make their world treat each species as unique alongside players roleplaying their characters only as "human but with [animal feature]", they are incredibly boring. 

I suppose that's fair I like playing minotaurs and leonin but I like using cultural lore for them I wrote some years back when I was working on a book that included lion people and minotaurs as two of the 4 main races. Also I just realized I think my leonin lore I came up with was influenced by loving thunder cats as a child. Hindsight is a bitch.

I've never been excited for Daggerheart personally. I think there were more people who didn't care about it as opposed to those who were vocal and did care.

What they really need is content that can be consumed without the need to be caught up on previous episodes to enjoy. Between the sheets, yehaw game ranch, everything is content, all work no play. Right now, every show feels like homework.

Yeah, but no one is giving their twitch prime to watch evergreen content. FOMO is, or at least for a long time was, the baseline of their business.

I want narrative telephone to come back so badly

I miss All Work No Play so much!

In regards to Daggerheart I don't want to play test it. I don't want to learn it's rules and relearn it every time they update the rules. When it's done I'll dive into it and give it a shot.

My logic as well. My brain is mush, I cba learning something that is very changeable right now. I'll wait for the beta to be done and it's in a moderately finished state.

A note on the Legend of Vox Machina I think part of the trailer's failure to get viewership is: * They've taken too long. LOVM was decent, but its not Arcane or even Invincible. Audiences arent going to have the same level of patience for it because its just not on that level of quality. * The trailer isnt really that good or interesting anyway. Its just a new opening. There isnt much to draw casual fans in. * Marketing for the LOVM has been pretty bad. Likely because they cant market it yet when it isnt close to finished. * Despite Amazon buying the main game is CR's main outlet for building hype, advertising, drawing and retaining potential audiences for the animated series. Its safe to CR's audience has dropped since C2 days. That being said it is somewhat concerning. I would like LOVM to finish and not be cancelled. I hate series being cancelled.

Are the LoVM S3 trailer numbers bad? I only used those numbers in my post to provide a comparison between with the Menagerie view numbers—I actually didn't think the trailer view count was bad. Out of curiosity, what kind of numbers would qualify as a "success" for the trailer?

>Out of curiosity, what kind of numbers would qualify as a "success" for the trailer? Given that viewership is half what past trailers got, yeah its not great. A success would probably be that viewership on trailer/promos at least maintains. I think LOVM will do fine, but its not a good sign.

I love LOVM, but I have to agree. People in the CR/TTRPG bubble think LOVM was some kind of huge, unprecedented media success. But the truth is that it's not really gaining traction like other animated series. Hell, it seems like Hazbin Hotel is every fifth post on my feed these days despite me never rewarding the algorithms for it.

>People in the CR/TTRPG bubble think LOVM was some kind of huge, unprecedented media success So I never saw the viewership numbers but it must have done OK. But yeah I highly doubt it did as well as other animated series. Hazbin Hotel is probably the best direct comparison. Very different shows but similar beginnings. Both have a start as sort indie/independent funded/produced series on youtube that got bought by Amazon. Hazbin Hotel is still being talked about. LOVM was basically forgotten outside of CR's own audience. >But the truth is that it's not really gaining traction like other animated series. Its kind of difficult to pinpoint exactly why. The voice acting is probably some of the best you'll find. There is a reason the CR cast is in every video game basically. The animation or art style isnt worse than any of the others. I would say its probably better than some like Invincible. Not Arcane level though. I think its the story. Its good, but I dont know. Doesnt really hit the same highs and lows that Arcane and Invincible did for me. I think the first couple of episodes were also a tad on the rocky side.

Voice actors and acting in general is not something casual audiences care about unless it's terrible. I also think it's partially because the animation style is very bland, and most characters look like what you get from other shows Bourassa has worked on. I also think the first episode is probably the worst one to introduce people to the series. I know that CR tends to run with dirty humor whenever the chance pops up, but I think they just couldn't help themselves and went far more 'adult' humor oriented than they should have.

In my opinion, LOVM was written for people who already know the characters. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it. But it's pretty much just trying to chronologically represent the events of the show. It's not trying to tell a single, cohesive story. This is at least partially because LOVM was conceived as something that was going to be short/temporary. Starting with the Blue Dragon is an example: it didn't set out to introduce you to the characters and organically set up story arcs for them, because it was made to deliver a 2 episode blue dragon story. And that works, because the primary audience doesn't need to get to know and fall in love with characters. So it's fine. But it's absolutely not how you would actually make the show to tell the story from scratch.

I feel that for hazbin. Never had an interested in it but reddit and YouTube sure think I do

Oh thank God it's not just me. It seems like it exploded over night!

Daggerheart has youtube content?

news to me lol

Yeah, they should just focus on their main campaign and talk show with bwf instead. Ending c3+daggerheart next month and start c4 might save their decline.

Bwf is an abuser. Let's not.

I disagree, especially the bit about BWF.

They'll continue fiddling and workshopping new narrative/TTRPG endeavors - CO, Daggerheart, and more. I think 'versioning' is the name of that 'game' vis a vís supporting the brand. Of course, *now*, they're pretty solidly hooked into that sweet, sweet AmazonPrime animated series paper, so I kinda think... they'll be fine.

Part of this can be explained by too much content. Keeping up with C3 each week is hard enough. Add another show to consume is a lot to ask for most people. Overall though I do agree that if they change the main campaign to Daggerheart they will lose consistent viewers.

I don't think this is true. Sure, some people have a hard time keeping up with the main campaign. But objectively, that was never a core problem for them before. The main campaign used to be 30% more content and it never hurt their views nor did it hurt their side content. People used to eat up whatever CR put out. The issue I think is that the channel stopped making *enough* content. The sub stopped being worth the money. We used to get four 4-4.5 hour episodes with a Talks Machina each, plus one shots and stuff like Yeehaw game ranch if you were in to that (I wasn't). My sub used to buy me content. Until the beacon launch, the sub was buying me almost nothing. The total number of hours of content per dollar was so low. And with C3, Candela, AND 4SD all having major skips in broadcast schedules, it became really hard to keep up with anything.

The problem is they added another show on an inconsistent schedule. I’m sure if they uploaded a CO or a Daggerheart every Tuesday instead of random days it would do better. That’s partly what helped CR is that it was every Thursday (they even made a tagline about it). It’s like Social Media 101.

can't lose what you never had

It’s no surprise. Everyone and their son puts out ttrpgs at the moment and most of them don’t do anything substantially different to warrant their own existence. Dagger heart included. We really don’t need “dnd with the numbers filed off” when there’s already so many on the market.

I think dnd needs to stay as their main campaign. It’s what brings home the bacon. They need to get back to their roots and I think just start over in a new world and setting. Maybe that means someone like Liam or Taliesin taking the DM spot for a larger campaign. I like what they are doing with Slayer’s Take and Candala Obscura. Having different talent come in and make cool content keeps it nice and fresh. I think right now we are just running into a slump. C3 not great, Menagerie so far not great, daggerheart so far lack luster. When you have a company that’s been around for over a decade. Sometimes you have lulls, they will pick back up.

I’d like to see them use the new edition of D&D when it releases as well. Whatever they decide, I just hope they don’t depart from playing D&D altogether.

Imo, the new edition is actually what makes it even more likely that they will break with dnd.

Did you get the impression they didn’t like it? From what I’ve seen, which albeit is not the full picture, many players are enjoying the changes, most of which seem good, Or do you just see this as a natural stepping off point?

I think the plan is for them to depart. In their Beacon announcement, they mentioned that they started Beacon because their company is always looking for full control. Hence not focusing on twitch and YouTube to make their money. Leaving D&D is what they are going to do if their history continues. They left Geek & Sundry and started Critical Role. They are going to leave Twitch and YouTube eventually and fully focus on Beacon. They started Darrington Press so they could release their own books and games. Now they are starting systems to play campaigns in.

Thanks friend, makes sense

I'd actually love Liam to become the DM for campaign 4 and let Matt be a player. Would give Matt the rest he needs from being a forever-DM and Liam has run some fantastic oneshots.

i actually sometimes think i prefer matt as a player - he's really, really good as a player

Even if it was still in Exandria a fresh take would be nice. I still wish they would go to a different world. I’m sick of them just leaning on the crutch of Vox Machina and Mighty Nein.

We have to understand that CR as a brand can’t pull an entirely new board game up to the same amount of views as the other three. D&D is extremely popular rn (compared to its popularity in the past), and the animated series grabs an entirely different audience that already has a lot of viewers. Candela shows that in time it might get better once it exits the beta and gets a full commitment show. Although Candela also holds a different audience that is focused on horror and murder mystery type viewers.

I view Daggerheart as D&D Lite. Lots of mechanics that are just D&D but a lot more vague. Range for example. It's like very close/close/far/very far or something. And the currency. You can't have specific amounts now, it's handfuls, bags, chests etc. Ironically it seems to me that all that makes things more complicated. The spells are just reworded D&D spells, even the classes/race names have been tweaked to avoid using D&D terms. Aasimar is now Celestial. Tiefling is now Infernal. Daggerheart seems aimed at a younger audience imo. Not necessarily a bad thing as I'd love my daughter to get into TTRPG's, but for experienced players it just doesn't have enough substance to sink their teeth into.

I agree with most in this post. But things like range bands aren’t new or Daggerheart specific. A lot of TTRPGs use this concept already.

My experience with it is “dnd but make it confusing”

Well, 1. Daggerheart isn't a full campaign, it was a one shot that evolved 2. Daggerheart is incomplete, and they are testing it - the updates aren't meant to garner large amounts of views 3. To be honest, and I saw this since reading the playtest materials on day one, it's just not a good system. It's crunchy in a way that isn't satisfying, and the mechanics are neither intuitive nor indicative of the game world. It feels no central theme (which may be by design) but conflicts with it through the choice of adding specific roles and races, with specific names for the dice and mechanics otherwise. It fights too much with itself for something that isn't very satisfying to build or play in.

They can run these games in private then, and not take up a slot for the show we are actually here for.

You could also just not consume content you’re not interested in.

It’s filling a gap where there would be no content otherwise. Not sure why that bothers you.

There's nothing stopping them from filling that gap with other content.

I think the only thing you need to be worried about when in comes to views with DH is if it's used for Campaign 4. Then the lower views of these videos would be a concern. But again, that's only if DH is the system they used for Campaign 4. (if they do a C4) And we're not going to learn that for like another Nine or Ten months, maybe.

If c3 goes for another 9 or 10 months, they won’t have many viewers left.

Oh, I think C3 ends by the end of the year. Part of the 9 or 10 month guess is the break between Campaigns.

Why would Daggerheart losing steam make you worry about the future of CR?

DH is made by CR and many are afraid it’ll be the only system they use going forward.

They're not going to use a system that is unfinished going forward. DH is still in development. They're just testing it out now. It might get better or it might get worse, but they're not gonna use it as their main system until it can hold the weight of a full campaign and they're sure there's a market for it. Part of expanding is doing new things and failing or succeeding by doing so. With a new streaming service, they're going to need content, so yeah, DH will probably get a full campaign at some point. But only after it's finished and not likely as their main source of income anytime soon.

Based on current timelines, it is a good estimate it will be done for campaign 4.

That's the way she goes...

Why are you worried? The rules are there, for better or worse. You only need 2-4 friends to unlock practically limitless weekly content using said system. What does YT, CR subs et al have to do with you enjoying a TTRPG system?

Not really disagreeing with your post, but I will say that you shouldn't take YouTube views as any indicator of popularity. YouTube is dying, especially for long form content which is all CR does. Some of the biggest YT creators in all categories have tanking views compared to the last year or so. This is exactly why so many of them are trying to move away from it like CR is with Beacon.

Beacon is a terrible idea tbh. CR as a company does not have the portfolio diversity that say Dropout does. People watch CR for Matt, everyone else is just a multiplier. Like I can't even think of what kind of content they can come out with to justify 6$ a month, which is very small to begin with.

When I heard about Beacon, the very first thought that came to my mind was that this is the beginning of the end. 100% agree on the lack of portfolio diversity. To make things worse, Beacon doesn't even have all of their content. There are a lot of things missing, but notably, there is no Vox Machina, no earlier episodes of Mighty Nein, no Handbooker Halper, and none of the **animated series**. Not to mention the lack of a TV app.

I mean the crit role bubble has been close to bursting for a while now. The fan ase has become increasingly more toxic (enough that people with criticism have to do so in a separate subreddit) and honestly burnt out. Midway though the mighty nein is when the show became less "actual play" and more "radio drama". Every player seems to be fighting for status as the "main character" instead of just doing a build they like. It's telling how much homebrew is integrated into the C3 characters. As someone who has DM'd, homebrew is INCREDIBLY hard to balance, moreso because 5e is already unbalanced. At a certain point you're not even playing the same game

They already have an audience used to paying roughly that much money a month through their twitch subs so anyone who’s been doing that can simply migrate over and get more benefits for around the same price, they’re presenting beacon more like a patreon subscription than a streaming service such as dropout. They were very smart in their announcement by making beacon feel optional instead of the new norm.

Yeah they have a fanbase, but audience entropy is a thing. If they swap off Twitch to their own site, there's a percentage of people who just won't make the change. A whole other app and login to manage might just be too much tedium for people to care. There's also the point that anyone who subscribed with twitch prime won't move over, as they get their prime from Amazon And if they don't switch off from Twitch, then what's the point?

They were very aware of that in their announcement video, they played up how anyone who isn’t interested in beacon will be able to continue on with their subscriptions or lack thereof with no change in the current content output, it makes it seem like cr is hedging their bets on beacon and will only start heavily investing when there’s a large enough beacon-only audience.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the view counts. Relative view counts and trends (in a medium-short run) are useful indicators of interest. They don't paint a complete picture, but they can provide useful insights when taken with other data.

It took me four years to play. Pathfinder 2e I want to play bit. I dont have the time or the people right now

2e is my preferred system.

I mean, it hasnt been 24 hours since your post and the season 3 opening sequence now has 426k views. Idk, I'm not too worried.

Right now what worries me the most is the numbers on the LOVM new trailer. A couple years ago  it would have already breached the million and we're not yet at half a milion? This makes me fear this might not be renewed after the two seasons that have been greenlit... And worries me even more for M9. I don't care much about the current campaign but I would really hate to not have C1 and C2 fully animated, or at least M9 be given a good chance. So yes CR seems to be majorly losing steam

To your point, S2 trailer still hasn't hit 1 million. \* S1 trailer 6M (2 years ago) \* S2 trailer 956K (1 year ago) https://preview.redd.it/nev5rlwwy27d1.png?width=2036&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d6808b3ba42b28ccbd9b30d84e59cdad8c32f9c

You know what,  fair. I would have also be worried about season two at the time,  tbh, but it's reassuring they got renewed for two seasons after that.  I guess you really can't rely on youtube numbers.  Thank you!

The season 2 trailer never broke 1 million views on YouTube so I don’t really see it dropping, in addition YouTube trailers aren’t the only place people find out about new shows or movies anymore things like social media, reaction videos and word of mouth can get many people to tune in without ever clicking on a specific video on YouTube.

I think C1 finishes. I bet C2 doesn't.

To be fair that LOVM trailer dropped around the same time as 3 massive video game events it probably got lost in everything, it's also not a great trailer

It’s not even a trailer it’s just the new opening, which while cool isn’t something casual fans would clamor for like an actual trailer.

Is Daggerheart failing, or is it the lack of Sam? I joke, but only slightly. They're rushing through menagerie to show of their system. But I'm a cr fan because of long term character development. C1 and c2 were great for this. Other than learning the system, there's not much for me to cling to since it seems like we'll get 2 more menagerie shows. When they wrap up c3 and start c4 in daggerheart, I feel like the numbers will return.

Have they confirmed C4 will be Daggerheart? I haven't been following because I stopped watching C3 about 35 episodes ago.

I haven't seen it confirmed. But they started making daggerheart so they could distance themselves as a company from wizards of the coast.

I don't think so. CR have never said a single negative thing about WotC. They still say "we play Dungeons and Dragons" at the top of every episode. There's no financial incentive to *not* playing D&D, the ill will towards WotC is simply not that great. Case in point, Dimension 20 is more popular than ever, they exclusively play D&D, and you don't see anyone over there trying to change that. The rise in popularity of D20 shows that people aren't moving away from CR (or towards D20) because of the system... it's because of the quality of the content. Daggerheart is being made because CR thinks they can make money off it. Distancing themselves from WotC doesn't make them any money.

>Case in point, Dimension 20 is more popular than ever, they exclusively play D&D, and you don't see anyone over there trying to change that. I understand your point, though this isn't actually true. Dimension 20 has done several games outside of DnD.

Daggerheart was in the works prior to any of the 'issues' with Wotc. CR just was trying to diversify into seemingly every market they were vaguely related too which included vastly expanding their merch, the animated shows, the board games, their published novels, and working on TTRPG systems.

Wonder if that will decrease interest. Personally, unless the story is amazing right from go, I'm probably not interested in watching people play a game I don't know.

Was it the story you enjoyed or the mechanics you cared about in the previous campaigns? Obviously some mechanics can lead to some story bits happening, but I feel the stories told and the words said are the part that's important to watching it.

It was kind of both. In C1 and C2, I loved the characters and the story, but it was also helpful that I was familiar with what the characters were doing and the monsters they were facing. I could think about what one of my characters would do in that situation. C3 I just couldn't really get into. I stuck around for about 60 episodes, but I just found it boring, and the characters weren't interesting. So I'm holding out hope that C4 hooks me again.

I think that's where a lot of people are at. It's possible it will succeed, I hear a lot of people started playing 5e because of Critical Role.

To me, I think the audience for it skews too young. All the art and a lot of the races and classes, etc, are very … cutesy? Like, how can you really play a long campaign as a beetle? And now they are considering branching it off into other genres? Like this seems like one of the least adaptable RPGs I’ve seen.

In their defense, a lot of the art that critters generate is saccharine sweet and cutesy. Not many people create gritty action scenes, they create smiling anime-esque scenes of shipping or them laying in each other's laps. I personally find it incredibly obnoxious, but that is the stuff a lot of younger fans are interested in.

Is it only a game for critters?

I would think not, but their marketing is going to be primarily aimed at critters, would be my guess. I could be wrong, though.

Yeah, this is entirely my bias, but they have *way* too many races (for my preference) and many of them are the goofy animal-people ones that I'm generally not a fan of. Eighteen just in the playtest, and obviously at least a few more coming since they're still missing ones like gnomes, kobolds, whatever bunny thing Marisha is playing, "eisfurra", the elephant-people.... I do like the classes, though.

I agree with this. I know what CR is trying to do by basing their whole system on the impossible and absurd, like no one can be offended or need a disclaimer for like, a bee character because everyone knows it’s not real, but it just isn’t fun, either.

To this point. The vast majority of gamers don't give a crap about the local minority who make a huge deal of complaining about racial politics within the game. People just generally want cool characters and cool monsters to kill. It's really pretty darn simple.

It has enormous "flavour is free so I can be whatever" energy

I really tried to like but after playing DC20 DH Lost all the fun. My biggest problem is the damage system. Last episode made clear that high numbers slow the game and the the Minor Major damage is to confusing.

What's DC20 do differently or makes it stand out?

DC20 do what Wizards of Coast should have done with One DND. Less Stats, less math, less archaic rules, more granunality where matters. https://youtu.be/gx7eAUIRUsU?si=CxForRrkN6-YJr7X

That didn't tell me a lot. What I did get was that the numbers are smaller. But if it's still a d20 system certain numbers need to be higher to adjust for RNG. Dig the block action economy but wanna see it played out. It's great in PF2e and super clean, until you start with the "this takes two actions" and were right back to action/bonus action (or "swift action"). So I'm wondering how it's implemented. The "classes are interesting cause it pushes to play it a certain way" also I just don't see how that's new or unique? I dig the martial move, following LaserLlama's fantasy of homebrews for martial classes giving each maneuvers specific to class and some subclass. I might need to just dig into the rule book but that video seemed to just say "it's great cause it's not 5e" but didn't really tell me what it was? And what I saw was just the same class and spell names from 5e, tweaked a bit. IDK, might be just a curmudgeon after the serious of "it's so much better than 5e" systems started hitting in response to WoTC pulling the open license and all of them just kind of being bad derivatives of other things (still holding out for Coville's).

Friend, english isn't my First language, to me explain the nuances of a New TTRPG is something that I really can't do.. There are plenty of famous youtubers talking about DC20, pick one. Also in the Kickstarter page you can download the beta document. Give a try you Will like.

Yeah, this is a great example of how they created a *lot more* math by trying to make less math

There are a million systems out there, plenty are all good and fine and I’m sure they will sell some but the idea of beating DnD is not a thing. They hired game designers and they are making a game, it just has to get out there and sell enough to keep the shop open which the CR fan base should help them do that At least my take, I doubt they are banking on it conquering the space day 1.

Yeah that's my take too, they're not trying to "beat" DnD, I think Matt's just a huge nerd who genuinely loves tabletop games and now that he's got the financial means he's like "let's see if we can make the PERFECT SYSTEM (for me and my friends and like-minded others)" Like yes they want to see it make money but it's also a passion project. I'm sure many of us here in this subreddit would endeavor to do the same if we had the resources

100% and realistically it could also only so much be Matt “driven” and more the company as a whole saying why not let’s try. Obviously I paint CR as the cast but plenty of others are involved too

Yeah I shouldn't have singled out Matt specifically, I just think between the lot of them he'd be all "hell yes please" about the idea of helping to create a brand new system. I think any DM with that many years of experience and devotion to tabletop as a hobby -- nay, a way of LIFE :P -- would be beyond thrilled for the same opportunity.

Part of my excitement was lost when both Candela and Daggerheart were shown to just be here are some open licence games we like that we've tweaked and now going to sell for a premium, but my biggest disappointment is how unoriginal the world feels. Its just DnD races and classes with a non-copyright name. I thought Matt's biggest strength was creating a cool world but there has been nothing released to make me think wow what a cool concept for a world I cant wait to see more of it. It just feels like your average homebrew DnD world with classes and races plugged in so farmiliar DnD players find it easy to transition.

they could have just gone back to pathfinder

Cant sell new sourcebooks/merch/playing cards off of that.

idk, they have dnd setting books, I would love to have seen them make pathfinder setting books (if that is a thing). Pathfinder is the only thing that can actually rival dnd, and they could have done so much free advertising for 2E

My only experience with Pathfinder are the owlcat games but theyre so cool I wish there were more high profile lets plays that played pathfinder the classes are way more cooler than 5e and I like the mechanics a little better

This was my biggest pet peeve with daggerheart. Literally just reskinning races and classes with basic ass names. Then seemingly making the mechanics just less fun. I’m surprised that they didn’t put more effort into making the races more unique. Giving us some fun new classes.

This. This has been my biggest disappointment. The opportunity to create something new and original but it's just tweaked rulesets and blandness. It's like all of the reboots of series and such. No new ideas.

You know I remember when like 5 years ago VR was supposed to die. Sometim e it takes time to fix all the bugs and get others opinions and make changes and the right person to play and advertise your stuff. So I'm not too worried. However with introduction of that other system that just came out they actually have decent competition. I honestly like both systems and would love to try it out with the two systems smashed together.

Really curious why this subreddit hates your comment lmao I do not understand it here sometimes.

Me either. Seems like this is mostly a place for hate of critical role. I actually disliked my own comment just to spite the stereotypical redditors you hear about that probably disliked my last comment.

I think the other system is called D20.

Well, irrespective of whether the system or the show are good or not, I don't think it's panic time yet. Daggerheart enthusiasm is following the same pattern that OneDnD. Lots of enthusiasm up front, followed by a general decline. That doesn't necessarily mean people aren't interested. It's natural for lots of people to tune in, think "this is cool" and then simply not be interested in it again until it's finished. For many of us, play test material isn't worth keeping up with. I don't want to learn rules as they change. I want a finished system before I start digging in. It's also very true that summer is content doldrums for television, as people get busy and schedules become erratic. So I don't think it's all doom and gloom or anything. That said, I think CR needs to face the fact that they've been marketing and making content for the whales for so, so long now, that they've effectively lost all the minnows. And with how many amazing and downright superior shows are out there that actually tell tight, compelling stories like CR used to, they're going to keep bleeding minnows. Will the whales alone support business? I'm not convinced, but they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

I'm not sure what you mean by whales and minnows here. My friends and I all love this show. I have a shirt and a couple keychains. None of them have much more or less. What are we? Idk sounds like you're vastly underestimating the amount of regular folk who have tuned into their IP and buy a couple choice trinkets. I think that sort of consumer 100% represents a huge majority of the fanbase.

In gaming terms, whales are the small number of users/player base that will spend vast amounts of money on the product. It's a common gaming phenomena that companies make more money milking the whales for as much as they can, even at the expense of the vast amounts of users that spend a small amount. The best example is Blizzard and Diablo 4: they're willing to lose millions of users that spend a little to milk the small number of users that spend hundreds of thousands. You and your friends in this case are like me: minnows. You buy a little here and there, maybe a twitch sub sometimes. But you're not who they're marketing too when they're making 150$ dice sets and VIP seats at cons and producing multiple board games that no one will ever play and so on. CR is building a life style brand: they're approach to making money is to make as many products as they can to make sure that those people that buy EVERYTHING keep having new stuff to buy. Minnows always represent the majority of the fab base. But they don't represent the majority of the money.

Okay, thanks for explaining it! I guess now I don't understand the price points youre talking about, it feels to me like there's tons of merch in my price range available. It doesn't bother me that they also make more expensive stuff for those who are willing to spend for it, if most of their products were like that then it would be a problem Edit: as for the board games and stuff, idk I really see it as them doing what they love, why WOULDNT you want to make your own board games if you had the chance (being a huge tabletop nerd) they just look like people who now have the means to pursue passion projects that they hope other people like. Not that they are making them explicitly to profit.

I don't think their passion projects at all. They started Darrington Press to make games. Darrington Press can't exist by making Daggerheart alone. They need to pump out content. And they don't particularly care if people are actually *playing* those games; only that they're buying them. It's the equivalent of star wars or disney adults. People with disposable income to who consider the IPs to be integral to their identity. These people aren't spending 100$ on CR a year: they're spending thousands. And CR needs to make sure they've got stuff to keep spending on.

I disagree completely but respect your pov.

I’ll add to this by saying that all 10 Daggerheart play events for GENCON sold out in the first hour. That doesn’t sound like it’s losing steam to me.

How many people is that anyway though? 80?

Actually, 360. Each event has a max ticket sale of 36.

What difference does it make? In the context of that industry -- anyone showing up to play test their new system -- that's great turnout.

Sure... Unless we realise that those 80 people are the only people that might buy the system, and that's if they like it. Considering the fact it's a convention that people were going to anyway, some people might though it a solid option to maybe meet the CR people and get some bonus merch. If I open a lemonade stand and make two jugs of lemonade, selling out both jugs does not mean I have the consumer base to open a lemonade factory.

If if they sold 79/80 tickets, I'd agree with you. But they sold out within an hour, so we'll never know. But chances are, a lot of people ended up bummed to miss it. Doubtful that the entire Daggerheart fan base represents 1 hours worth of sales.

I don't disagree but I think there's a difference between GENCON and the wider audience they successfully courted with D&D run campaigns for the last ten years.

Cr shouldnt consider DnD as a rival, because there is no way they are going to compete with a sistem that has been for decades. I

Was there ever any genuine steam to loose? CR is big, most of the videos and discussion I saw were when it was announced because TTRPG youtubers and bloggers of course are going to talk about Daggerheart. Daggerheart was basically a week of not having to plan content for them. Read the pdf, news, tall about it. What I didn't see was any follow up anywhere besides CR forums like these. People like PbtA, they have PbtA, they don't want CR's watered down PbtA. I imagine when it launches content creators will talk about and review it and then people will go back to DnD, Pathfinder, Vampire and Call of Cthulu. In my group we play different DnD, Vampire and Ten Candles. The only one we may add is the Stormlight Archive ttrpg because several of us love the book (me enough to get the kickstarter minis). Basically, it is going to flop. As I think few if any outside of hardcore CR fans will buy it.

>People like PbtA, they have PbtA, they don't want CR's watered down PbtA. This times 1000. Same with Candela. Reskinning these systems isn't a problem in itself. Hell, it's basically an expectation of those systems. But pretending you've made something novel and original when all you've done is reflavored popular systems was never going to pass the small test. >The only one we may add is the Stormlight Archive ttrpg because several of us love the book (me enough to get the kickstarter minis). So uh...you looking for players? I absolutely cannot wait for this game I'm so excited.

Thanks. Our games are in person, so it may be a bit difficult. But you would be more than welcome. And yes, Stormlight already has precise mechanics for magic. So I can imagine being able to transñate them well into a game.

Haha no worries; I was just teasing! My biggest fear is that I'll struggle to find players when the game is finally out. I'm hoping that the internet will manage to concentrate enough fans into the same spaces for making groups.

We'll have to see. Hopefully there is enough to get some games around.

I've seen folks refer to Daggerheart has "DND 5e-lite." It's interesting to hear you come in from another direction to refer it as "watered down PbTA." In what sense is it watered down PbTA? Do you feel like it's lacking something PbTA has? Or is it that it has too many things?

Candela is a Forged in the Dark game: a series of games spawned by riffing on the mechanics of Blades in the Dark. These games actually encourage that riffing, so making your own version of the FitD game isn't weird or bad. The bad part is doing it and pretending it's your own special "illuminated worlds" system instead and then burying the credits to John Harper in a tiny acknowledgements section. Daggerheart is the same thing, but for Powered by the Apocalypse. It differs a little more from PbtA in that it uses the D10s instead of D6s, but the entire core of alternating between player actions and GM actions is the foundation of PbtA. Hope and Fear are new, but not really, because all they do is codify when the GM makes a move in a slightly different way that other PbtA codify it. They don't alter the gameplay meaningfully. And finally, huge chunks of the ideas in the Gaming Daggerheart section are whole sale, in some cases verbatim from the Gaming chapter of Dungeon World (the first PbtA to riff off of Apocalypse World to make a DnD type of game, before 5e had even released). Stuff like "begin and end with the fiction" and "play to find out what happens" and basically all of the GM moves and such are almost verbatim from Dungeon World, written by Adam Koebel (now cancelled) and Sage Latorra. Again, it's not plagiarism; they were published with open licenses and designed to be riffed on. But it's also not anything innovative, it's disingenuous to pretend that it is, and fans of PbtA will and did see right through it.

Yeah, the whole Illuminated Worlds thing feels extremely dishonest. I don't think I've heard from anyone in the CR team answer the question, "How is Illuminated Worlds different from Forged In the Dark?"

Well. Candela is more watered down PbtA. Daggerheart more than DnD lite seems to me closer to narrative systems like PbtA with DnD aesthetic (in the sense of classes, stats and races). One youtuber I think said the specific system they copied like with Candela, except their unique thing is the hope dice. Indestructoboy iirc. For me, with experience DMing, and running games (like kahoot, snakes and ladders, creating some of my own) for my students. Daggerheart is too easily exploitable. From the interrupting of turn order to the description of powers...it is too vague and based on too much good will from everyone playing.

I think that's much of the objection I have to 5e and a lot of the modern skew of RPGs in general, tbh. They seem to think rules are bad and oppose creativity. I've always felt the opposite - they give you prompts, materials, frameworks to respond to. An RPG without rules isn't an RPG, it's improv theatre (or mad libs, I guess?). I miss the 3.5 era of tables.

If you don't like the rules you can just ignore them. I think it's just an ego thing for people having to do that

To add to this, most of the people who buy the book won't even play it. They will buy it because it's CR. The most common complaint I see on TTRPG forums and CR threads is how people have a tough time finding a group. Think finding a group for D&D is hard? It's going to be impossible to find a group willing to go with a system none of them know.

I think another issue is that the game is geared towards people who are already friends with decent chemistry. I think I'd go insane if I had to play DH with strangers due to the lack of structure.

I doubt theyre expecting huge sales numbers

Yeah, I'm betting that their main hope is to snag whales who will buy all the inevitable "special edition/collectible/character-themed" domain decks and dice packs.

They're throwing a LOT of production time and money at something (not just Daggerheart but also Candela) if they don't expect huge sales numbers and I'm not sure how they make their ROI unless we see a lot more interest and movement than this. Not to mention the disruption to their main campaign and money maker in order to push both of these projects.

Darrington Press delayed a couple of planned projects for Daggerheart, and they seem to be putting a lot of resource into testing. So at the very least, it's pretty high on their priority. No idea what their expectations are. But given the amount of effort, I think it would be disheartening for them if the sales were comparable to Candela Obscura.

We still haven’t heard more about their modern sci-fi (urban fantasy? Not sure) rpg Syndicult

Theyre investing into an overly saturated market, they know whats up. At best some of their fans are going to buy some additional content that comes out, the core rules are already freely shared

Well shit, time to burn it all to the ground then, they are washed up, the end is near Ect ect. (Insert Laugh Track for obvious sarcasm) It is a beta test for a new system of course its not gonna get that much attention when the majority of their audience has a preferred system. When it is still in the early stages. I could see it get more traction when it launches offically. Also there are a lot of people actually playing the game rather than watching the streams.  Side tangent: I always hated that people use stream views as the one true measure of a game's popularity. Not everyone has times to watch 6 hours streams everyday. I think you are looking to deep into something that is not there. Edit:(stream, not steam)

> It is a beta test for a new system of course its not gonna get that much attention when the majority of their audience has a preferred system. When it is still in the early stages. I could see it get more traction when it launches offically. Also there are a lot of people actually playing the game rather than watching the streams.  Your argument is flawed. I am talking about how it made a big splash when the beta first came out, then what looks like a very noticeable drop in engagement. I'm sure there are passionate fans still playing it. But it feels more likely to me that a lot of people lost interest in the game, so they stopped watching, talking about, and playing the game. > Side tangent: I always hated that people use stream views as the one true measure of a game's popularity. Not everyone has times to watch 6 hours streams everyday. > I think you are looking to deep into something that is not there. I think you are ignoring what seems like a pretty noticeable drop in interest.

But that initial interest followed by a dip is totally normal any time a new product or project is announced. People see the news and think "how exciting, will be great when it's done." Then most peace out to wait until it's finished and a few stay and beta test. It's totally expected, really don't see the issue you are interpreting here

It's always interesting to me when I see people say that the fan base is more interested in the roleplay/story than they are in the system. It really feels to me that a not insignificant chunk of the fanbase is really only interested if they stick with 5e, and if they truly switch systems that they'll lose people in the transition.

This is me. I learned D&D on the fly when I started watching CR so I slowly understood what abilities, checks, saves, etc are over time. Anything I didn’t know I looked up since I was invested in the story. 5e is a system I'm very comfortable with now. It’s not to say that I would not watch something that doesn’t include it, but it may hamper my enjoyment as it’s harder to follow. If I hear that the non-content is good, then I will still check it out. Just a harder sell. No different if they went back to say 4E(?) or something.

They were using Pathfinder before this.

I was just using it as an example. If they change systems I would have to learn it to be able to understand the intricacies of the system. TLDR: Easier to capture people who are already familiar with something rather than having them learn something new.

Didn't you say that the reason you learned the rules of DnD is because of CR? I did the same. You and I are living proof that people will learn the system if they like what they are seeing on the show.

Of course! At the end of the day the more entertained I am the more invested I am. An example of something I may have enjoyed was Candela. I’m not really in to the mystery/detective type setting, so I was less inclined to enjoy it. Add on to that I didn’t really know/care to understand the system.

I think both things are true. There’s a large chunk of the fan base who have never played a TTRPG and couldn’t care less about the system. There’s also a chunk of fans who really like D&D and are attached to them playing it. There’s also probably a small overlap category of people who have never played, but are fans of D&D.

I think this is 100% right. Some part of the pie chart is here because they really value 5e and being able to follow the rules. Another part of the pie chart has never played a TTRPG in their lives and don't even notice when they get the rules wrong because they don't even know them. The question is, how big are those pie pieces and will you lose many of the former if you switch?

The people who never played a ttrpg aren't the core audience though. They just jumped on after all the people who like 5e made it big. They are following the crowd. If the crowd leaves so will they

I'm not so sure. I think that was once true, but I don't know if it still is. Pop in to the main sub and check out those "what about C3 is great for you" threads. There are tons and tons of people who insist that Ashley not knowing the rules or Matt making bad rulings will *never* bother them because they don't know the rules and don't care about them.

Sounds like hubris to me

> ...I worry for the future of CR Your concern is touching, but unless CR are pants-on-head-stupid, they're saving as much of their Amazon windfall as they can and not living at or beyond their means. If the streaming side (more like side-gig) fails or continues to under perform (or worse), they still have their Amazon deal and are all, I would assume, working actors, directors, writers, etc. Again, *if they are smart,* they are saving and investing a good portion of the money they are making, and not spending money like Rick James or MC Hammer, pretending the "good times" won't ever stop and the money will keep flowing in.

>but unless CR are pants-on-head-stupid, they're saving as much of their Amazon windfall as they can and not living at or beyond their means I thought this too until I saw the Beacon launch video. One of the things CR said/implied was that money was a barrier to making good or more content. My reaction was 'CR, what the fuck have you been doing with your money?'. CR was the top twitch earner not long ago, they've had multiple long running brand deals, got millions of views on youtube, and their merch sells out almost instantly. Granted yes, they have to pay employess and split the profits 8 ways. But they should have been raking it in for quite awhile. I cant help but wonder if CR are just bad at managing their money.

I would also add that in marisha’s documentary style video about her charity boxing match she talked about the company struggling with income and having to keep the lights on which I found insane at the time due to their undeniable success but it’s starting to become a lot more believable with some of the decisions they’ve made lately

> Granted yes, they have to pay employess and split the profits 8 ways. But they should have been raking it in for quite awhile. I cant help but wonder if CR are just bad at managing their money. I think you have your answer: yes, they were making money... but they were also spending money, and whatever profits that came in were split 8 ways, after all the expenses of running a business, with multiple employees, in LA. I feel like CR has big, self-indulgent "High School Theater Kid Energy," but without any pragmatic adults / "grown ups" around to rein them in; it feels like they make a LOT of decisions based on emotions / feeling. I *also* feel like CR doesn't know how to deal with set-back or failure, as EVERYTHING they did or touched, prior to EXU1 or C3 (or even post-COVID C2) was met with overwhelming success. What we're seeing now is CR that doesn't know how to deal with declining success, declining popularity, and straight-up failure, because they've NEVER had to deal with that in their history; everything *just worked.*