Decline Critical role ruined PnP

[ItsChon]

I'm currently in a Star Wars PnP group. For the first time in the fifteen odd years I've been doung Tabletop on and off, my current PC marks the first time I ever played a character that had a full fledged backstory, limitations and moral compass separate from my own. Usually I either roll a fascimile of myself, or a gimmick character with a clear mechanical hook.

It's been both fascinating and annoyingly obtuse having to roleplay out an honest reaction to something I myself would either not care about, or be completely opposed to. Seeing the CR guys take things so seriously is exhausting. Even after the two other players and I had out big philosophical debate on the right course of action, I, out of character, was like, "alright look, the pathos is getting tiring, how do we actually want to do this? I'll act out my PC in a way that lets it happen."

My PC's schtick is that he's a Twi-Lek Bounty-Hunter who freed himself from Hutt slavers and now does odd job hunts in the Empire. For him, The Empire is another monolithic entity he has no chance of stopping. He couldn't kill his former Hutt master, and they're as powerful as the Imperials. He cares about survival and little else. He's also not that smart, only an Int of 2 (out of 5 Max).

One of our other PCs is a boy-scout wannabe rebel who's pestering the party to take the fight to the Empire while the last one is a character born during the chaos of the Clone Wars and understands the peace the Empire brought. Our party just saw, first hand, the brutality of the Empire as they occupied a colony world. All three of us got into an in-character debate over how to proceed. For my PC, he was relatively unphased by the executions and the martial law- the Hutts are no better, he'd seen it all before. I argued, legitimately in earnest, that this was not our fight, we're bounty-hunters taking in marks, nothing more. Let some other fool, like the Blonde pretty-boy with the blue lasersword, figure it out. The PC who'd been born into the Empire was having a crisis of faith because he does generally believe the propaganda. It just kept going and going until our GM just told us he'd written more for Rebels than Empire. At that point I just pulled a Han Solo and agreed on the condition I get the biggest share of credits.

Fuck me man, the people who actually sit there and get into it to the point of emotion are nuts.

Who asked?

21,000 posts with over half of them being shitty one liners that add nothing to the conversation. Shut your fucking mouth bitch. Some where along the line you fostered the misguided impression that you actually have a right to give your opinion as confidently as you do. You are actual subhuman trash and I can guarantee you look disgusting IRL.

Nobody asked you.

 

[Sunri]

Illegal imigrant and germanoid epic battle

 

[HeroMarine]

Chon is just roleplaying a character with INT 2.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I've been thinking of having somewhat easy resurrection, with permanent penalties, in order to have a campaign where encounters are all likely to be lethal, without completely derailing events by killing half the party every few sessions (as I did last time). For example having the resurrection be offered by a witch working with corpses, so you end up in an inferior body as well as beholden to the witch. That kind of thing. Or another way to do it would be to have the party be special forces in a war, so that if some die, their replacements have a similar agenda. Not sure if leaving the party to choose their own overarching goals is interesting, there's plenty of decision-making to be had figuring out how to do things as opposed to what.

 

[Mortmal]

his style of DMing which is like 4h of story telling and one easy encounter

Absolutely disgusting in every possible way. Glad I've never watched a minute of this shit.

If that's how they roll, why even bother with D&D? I'm sure there are a thousand storygames they could be playing instead.

He's a youtuber with good theatrical and writing skills, get a cast of cuties and do something that turned popular for mainstream. It turns out his show become popular and that's all, not sure he was really looking for it . It's d&d cause it was the dominant system, he could do the exact same with any rpg system, the exact same with some osr system.
It's not something new ,romance and fantasy cheap novels in pocket book format. They always were a thing, he's just porting that to youtube.

 

[NecroLord]

I prefer a more deadly and harsh style of dming.

If your players claim to be badasses you let them prove it, right?
Send in the Balors, Pit Fiends, Liches, etc.

No need of that, a mob of peasants can do wonder already, a den of kobolds trapped like vietcongs would do, no need of epic monsters for epic fights.

Right. I forgot how deadly groups of goblins and kobolds can be if they are implemented properly - traps, ambush tactics, etc.

 

[NecroLord]

I've been thinking of having somewhat easy resurrection, with permanent penalties, in order to have a campaign where encounters are all likely to be lethal, without completely derailing events by killing half the party every few sessions (as I did last time). For example having the resurrection be offered by a witch working with corpses, so you end up in an inferior body as well as beholden to the witch. That kind of thing. Or another way to do it would be to have the party be special forces in a war, so that if some die, their replacements have a similar agenda. Not sure if leaving the party to choose their own overarching goals is interesting, there's plenty of decision-making to be had figuring out how to do things as opposed to what.

Raise Dead and Resurrection have been staple D&D spells.
If you deny your party the ability to raise their fallen comrades, your players will probably want to kill you in your sleep.
I think the only issues are availability and the spiritual/moral implications, do all souls want to be brought back? Definitely not.

 

[Hagashager]

I'm currently in a Star Wars PnP group. For the first time in the fifteen odd years I've been doung Tabletop on and off, my current PC marks the first time I ever played a character that had a full fledged backstory, limitations and moral compass separate from my own. Usually I either roll a fascimile of myself, or a gimmick character with a clear mechanical hook.

It's been both fascinating and annoyingly obtuse having to roleplay out an honest reaction to something I myself would either not care about, or be completely opposed to. Seeing the CR guys take things so seriously is exhausting. Even after the two other players and I had out big philosophical debate on the right course of action, I, out of character, was like, "alright look, the pathos is getting tiring, how do we actually want to do this? I'll act out my PC in a way that lets it happen."

My PC's schtick is that he's a Twi-Lek Bounty-Hunter who freed himself from Hutt slavers and now does odd job hunts in the Empire. For him, The Empire is another monolithic entity he has no chance of stopping. He couldn't kill his former Hutt master, and they're as powerful as the Imperials. He cares about survival and little else. He's also not that smart, only an Int of 2 (out of 5 Max).

One of our other PCs is a boy-scout wannabe rebel who's pestering the party to take the fight to the Empire while the last one is a character born during the chaos of the Clone Wars and understands the peace the Empire brought. Our party just saw, first hand, the brutality of the Empire as they occupied a colony world. All three of us got into an in-character debate over how to proceed. For my PC, he was relatively unphased by the executions and the martial law- the Hutts are no better, he'd seen it all before. I argued, legitimately in earnest, that this was not our fight, we're bounty-hunters taking in marks, nothing more. Let some other fool, like the Blonde pretty-boy with the blue lasersword, figure it out. The PC who'd been born into the Empire was having a crisis of faith because he does generally believe the propaganda. It just kept going and going until our GM just told us he'd written more for Rebels than Empire. At that point I just pulled a Han Solo and agreed on the condition I get the biggest share of credits.

Fuck me man, the people who actually sit there and get into it to the point of emotion are nuts.

Eh, maybe I'm autistic, but this whole story reeks of "casual" to me. I unironically enjoy things like in-character debates that sometimes take forever. Shit is super fun and immersive. Of course, an hour does seem excessive but not always, depends on if the situation warrants it. My question to you would be what is the situation in which the three characters you described are even working together? Like, what's stopping y'all from just going your separate way?

Like I said, I get very into roleplaying, so things as intricate as that actually matter to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people that are into this are nuts, because as I've said before, I've never actually joined a PnP campaign because I can't imagine finding a group of people that I could actually stomach being around who would enjoy DnD to the level of autism that I do.

That answer's actually very cool.

This all started as a low-born grounded campaign where we were just gutter-trash mercs working on Coruscent's under levels. The GM had originally intended for our story to be a "down-to-earth everyman" plot running concurrent to the epic struggle of the Rebellion.

"You found your mark- he was hiding out in an apartment complex in the Alderaan District. As you prepare to take him in you hear the outbreak of the fiercest riot you've ever heard go on outaide. Cries of 'Remember Alderaan!' Echo through the streets- violence soon follows."

^that kind of thing.

One thing led to another though, a player character died and us survivors were forced to flee the planet. Us survivors have a pre-established history of working together already, literally as in two campaigns worth. We, as characters, are genuine friends, and we, as players, like our characters and how we've developed them.

For my PC, his companions are the first family he's ever had. He may not agree with the idea of taking it to the Empire, but that's more due to his nihilism, rather than agreement with the faction. If his friend, who has bled and suffered alongside him since the days of Coruscent says we outta do it, he'll go through with it.

 

[Trithne]

And that's, in my opinion, what TTRPGs are about - It's about establishing the story and bonds between the characters, so that they have motivations and you get something to tell like that. A reason as why you're shooting the mooks / raiding the dungeon. D&D encouraged this once you got past the initial "Bunch of guys looting a dungeon" stage, and moved into various levels of renown and developed links between characters.

What TTRPGs aren't about is fucking around for four hours doing improv theatre as a form of shitty therapy. Talking back and forth in character forever and putting on stupid voices to do it. Just go be a theatre kid and fuck off.

 

[Popiel]

he fudges rolls

In combat? Disgusting if so.

With his style of DMing which is like 4h of story telling and one easy encounter, it makes sense to fudge the roll to be sure he keep his cast of actors. I prefer a more deadly and harsh style of dming.

Hm, I'm not sure if that's fair. Mercer can do good combat encounters, he utilizes groups of enemies very well (which is quite rare when it comes do D&D GMs). Its just that his players are absolute casuals who clearly dislike fighting.

 

[Popiel]

What TTRPGs aren't about is fucking around for four hours doing improv theatre as a form of shitty therapy. Talking back and forth in character forever and putting on stupid voices to do it. Just go be a theatre kid and fuck off.

Yeah, hard disagree. There are tabletops designed for such a playstyle and there are tabletops which are designed for opposite playstyles. D&D is - or, rather, was, for majority of its history - clearly not well suited for extensive roleplay, it doesn't provide mechanical structure for it, which is why it ends up being a detached improvised theatre. D&D is a questing tabletop game. It structures itself around quests which are adventures when it comes to their content. It works best if its a quest about killing things, but heists or investigations can work as well.

 

[Silva]

I've been thinking of having somewhat easy resurrection, with permanent penalties, in order to have a campaign where encounters are all likely to be lethal, without completely derailing events by killing half the party every few sessions (as I did last time). For example having the resurrection be offered by a witch working with corpses, so you end up in an inferior body as well as beholden to the witch. That kind of thing. Or another way to do it would be to have the party be special forces in a war, so that if some die, their replacements have a similar agenda.

So, tough ongoing complications in place of PC death. Yes, this has been my jam lately.

Not sure if leaving the party to choose their own overarching goals is interesting, there's plenty of decision-making to be had figuring out how to do things as opposed to what.

Why not? I personally love when PCs set their own agendas and take the reins of the campaign.

 

[ItsChon]

Spoiler

I'm currently in a Star Wars PnP group. For the first time in the fifteen odd years I've been doung Tabletop on and off, my current PC marks the first time I ever played a character that had a full fledged backstory, limitations and moral compass separate from my own. Usually I either roll a fascimile of myself, or a gimmick character with a clear mechanical hook.

It's been both fascinating and annoyingly obtuse having to roleplay out an honest reaction to something I myself would either not care about, or be completely opposed to. Seeing the CR guys take things so seriously is exhausting. Even after the two other players and I had out big philosophical debate on the right course of action, I, out of character, was like, "alright look, the pathos is getting tiring, how do we actually want to do this? I'll act out my PC in a way that lets it happen."

My PC's schtick is that he's a Twi-Lek Bounty-Hunter who freed himself from Hutt slavers and now does odd job hunts in the Empire. For him, The Empire is another monolithic entity he has no chance of stopping. He couldn't kill his former Hutt master, and they're as powerful as the Imperials. He cares about survival and little else. He's also not that smart, only an Int of 2 (out of 5 Max).

One of our other PCs is a boy-scout wannabe rebel who's pestering the party to take the fight to the Empire while the last one is a character born during the chaos of the Clone Wars and understands the peace the Empire brought. Our party just saw, first hand, the brutality of the Empire as they occupied a colony world. All three of us got into an in-character debate over how to proceed. For my PC, he was relatively unphased by the executions and the martial law- the Hutts are no better, he'd seen it all before. I argued, legitimately in earnest, that this was not our fight, we're bounty-hunters taking in marks, nothing more. Let some other fool, like the Blonde pretty-boy with the blue lasersword, figure it out. The PC who'd been born into the Empire was having a crisis of faith because he does generally believe the propaganda. It just kept going and going until our GM just told us he'd written more for Rebels than Empire. At that point I just pulled a Han Solo and agreed on the condition I get the biggest share of credits.

Fuck me man, the people who actually sit there and get into it to the point of emotion are nuts.

Eh, maybe I'm autistic, but this whole story reeks of "casual" to me. I unironically enjoy things like in-character debates that sometimes take forever. Shit is super fun and immersive. Of course, an hour does seem excessive but not always, depends on if the situation warrants it. My question to you would be what is the situation in which the three characters you described are even working together? Like, what's stopping y'all from just going your separate way?

Like I said, I get very into roleplaying, so things as intricate as that actually matter to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people that are into this are nuts, because as I've said before, I've never actually joined a PnP campaign because I can't imagine finding a group of people that I could actually stomach being around who would enjoy DnD to the level of autism that I do.

That answer's actually very cool.

This all started as a low-born grounded campaign where we were just gutter-trash mercs working on Coruscent's under levels. The GM had originally intended for our story to be a "down-to-earth everyman" plot running concurrent to the epic struggle of the Rebellion.

"You found your mark- he was hiding out in an apartment complex in the Alderaan District. As you prepare to take him in you hear the outbreak of the fiercest riot you've ever heard go on outaide. Cries of 'Remember Alderaan!' Echo through the streets- violence soon follows."

^that kind of thing.

One thing led to another though, a player character died and us survivors were forced to flee the planet. Us survivors have a pre-established history of working together already, literally as in two campaigns worth. We, as characters, are genuine friends, and we, as players, like our characters and how we've developed them.

For my PC, his companions are the first family he's ever had. He may not agree with the idea of taking it to the Empire, but that's more due to his nihilism, rather than agreement with the faction. If his friend, who has bled and suffered alongside him since the days of Coruscent says we outta do it, he'll go through with it.

"People who get into their characters and get into emotion are nuts". Proceeds to outline an awesome roleplay scenario that could only occur by getting into the emotion of things.

Admittedly, it took me years of roleplaying to properly get into everything, and when I first started I probably had the same mindset as you. But trust me, stick with it and you will start to enjoy it more and more, and those long IC convos will start to fly by. Lucky you have such a cool group though, enjoy.

he fudges rolls

In combat? Disgusting if so.

With his style of DMing which is like 4h of story telling and one easy encounter, it makes sense to fudge the roll to be sure he keep his cast of actors. I prefer a more deadly and harsh style of dming.

Hm, I'm not sure if that's fair. Mercer can do good combat encounters, he utilizes groups of enemies very well (which is quite rare when it comes do D&D GMs). Its just that his players are absolute casuals who clearly dislike fighting.

Yeah I agree with this as well. He's a good DM which is something he should be given credit for regardless of how cringe his politics might be or the group he DMs for is.

What TTRPGs aren't about is fucking around for four hours doing improv theatre as a form of shitty therapy. Talking back and forth in character forever and putting on stupid voices to do it. Just go be a theatre kid and fuck off.

Yeah, hard disagree. There are tabletops designed for such a playstyle and there are tabletops which are designed for opposite playstyles. D&D is - or, rather, was, for majority of its history - clearly not well suited for extensive roleplay, it doesn't provide mechanical structure for it, which is why it ends up being a detached improvised theatre. D&D is a questing tabletop game. It structures itself around quests which are adventures when it comes to their content. It works best if its a quest about killing things, but heists or investigations can work as well.

It's tricky because while this can be great, it usually ends up cringe and retarded because the audience for DnD is full of creeps and lames. I never actually had an issue with the voices the people in Critical Role put on, but that's because they're literally fucking voice actors. I would never bother because it would sound retarded if I did it, and it would probably sound retarded if the majority of people tried it as well. Still, having IC conversations with your normal voice is totally fine, and IC conversations can be really great if the situation warrants it, it just requires a ton of skill for the DM to pull off. IC conversations between players is easier to pull off but also does require some skill.

What people don't realize is that roleplaying in and of itself is a skill. If you roleplay with someone that is really fucking good, you will feel the difference between someone who is average, and likewise, someone that is bad will also feel very different to play with compared to those two as well. If everyone is skilled, you can have an amazing time.

 

[Mortmal]

I often see groups on youtube trying to do the same, dnd is full of creeps and lame for sure but also entitled , and huge ego people trying to homebrew and tweak perfectly fine system or nerf their player's characters, that when they even want to play and not just do some ERP. Their broadcasting is slow and boring, combat i could DM 10X faster, voice acting so bad its cringe, and the girls on the video aren't even hot...
Matt mercer is at least doing some quality d&d, even if its not my style at all.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Not sure if leaving the party to choose their own overarching goals is interesting, there's plenty of decision-making to be had figuring out how to do things as opposed to what.

Why not? I personally love when PCs set their own agendas and take the reins of the campaign.

Maybe the people I play with are too gormless. It ends up feelings slow and unfocused.

 

[Silva]

Not sure if leaving the party to choose their own overarching goals is interesting, there's plenty of decision-making to be had figuring out how to do things as opposed to what.

Why not? I personally love when PCs set their own agendas and take the reins of the campaign.

Maybe the people I play with are too gormless. It ends up feelings slow and unfocused.

Maybe some games help with this? Last game I remember the PCs pusuing their own goals was Blades in the Dark, where we played a crew of scoundrels pulling heists in a Dishonored-like city. The game sets up a pretty open-ended, strategical framework by default though, so maybe it's something harder to pull out in other games.

 

[Rocket-Propelled Game]

Nah, it was just the killing blow. White Wolf planted the seeds of the hobby's downfall by catering to increasingly antagonistic and edgy weirdoes.

Look at Werewolf: The Apocalypse. I like the idea, it's metal as Hell, but look at the Get of Fenris and that militant-feminist werewolf tribe and tell me you don't see where some of the problem players in the hobby come from.

That and they gave birth to storygames. Used to love those until some of the people behind them went nuts (like one of the Dungeon World writers being a socially-maladapted creep on his own podcast, to think I backed their Kickstarter once upon a time...)

 

[Eldagusto]

Nah, it was just the killing blow. White Wolf planted the seeds of the hobby's downfall by catering to increasingly antagonistic and edgy weirdoes.

Look at Werewolf: The Apocalypse. I like the idea, it's metal as Hell, but look at the Get of Fenris and that militant-feminist werewolf tribe and tell me you don't see where some of the problem players in the hobby come from.

That and they gave birth to storygames. Used to love those until some of the people behind them went nuts (like one of the Dungeon World writers being a socially-maladapted creep on his own podcast, to think I backed their Kickstarter once upon a time...)

Get are an archetypical tribe though, the Ultra warriors that act as vanguards for Ragnarök. Very solid concept.

 

[KateMicucci]

That and they gave birth to storygames. Used to love those until some of the people behind them went nuts (like one of the Dungeon World writers being a socially-maladapted creep on his own podcast, to think I backed their Kickstarter once upon a time...)

quick rundown?

 

[Rocket-Propelled Game]

That and they gave birth to storygames. Used to love those until some of the people behind them went nuts (like one of the Dungeon World writers being a socially-maladapted creep on his own podcast, to think I backed their Kickstarter once upon a time...)

quick rundown?

Ach, sorry I didn't notice this reply sooner.

To answer your question (Reddit link): https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/fts4rd/adam_koebel_dungeon_worlds_far_verona_stream/

 

[udm]

Yeah Adam Koebel is a weirdo who has always been part of the Kancel Kulture Klan. Then he projected his weird sexual fantasies on to one of his NPCs during an RPG session and got cancelled. Loser.

 

[Rocket-Propelled Game]

Oh. Well, shite!

Man, this hobby has issues.

 

[KateMicucci]

That and they gave birth to storygames. Used to love those until some of the people behind them went nuts (like one of the Dungeon World writers being a socially-maladapted creep on his own podcast, to think I backed their Kickstarter once upon a time...)

quick rundown?

Ach, sorry I didn't notice this reply sooner.

To answer your question (Reddit link): https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/fts4rd/adam_koebel_dungeon_worlds_far_verona_stream/

doesnt seem like a big deal tbh

sometimes jokes fall flat it happens to everyone

 

[lightbane]

Apocalypse World guy being a creep seemed a given. I remember reading that game's rules, and it barely gave any focus on the game's setting (so that the QM can make up his own thing, sure, but not even a premade example?), and instead on its weird rules, including a way-too-focused description of the consequences after one of your PCs sexs with another one, potentially including other PCs. Nevermind that IIRC other characters could use social skills against your player characters to "force" them to sleep with said NPCs, which felt like a cringier version of "using mind-control to do something nasty to you". Future games on these rules kept that "feature".

 

[Trithne]

Apocalypse world was weirdly fixated on sex and swearing, a 15 year old's idea of mature. The newest version of it has stripped a lot of that out, funnily enough.

There's plenty of PbtA hacks that don't use the sex moves. I'm personally partial to the death moves - when your character dies, you can do certain things.

The Dungeon World gut being weird has nothing to do with the Apocalypse World guys being juvenile though.