Critical Role Could Critical Role launch their own RPG?

[Dausuul]

They could, but it would be pretty silly.

Right now they have a nice symbiotic relationship going with WotC. WotC handles the "design, publish, and support the RPG" end of things, which is not easy and requires a good deal of talent and expertise. Critical Role manages the "create and stream a popular show" end of things, which is also not easy and requires a good deal of talent and expertise. Then they both profit off their shared audience.

Publishing their own RPG would blow all that up and saddle them with the costs of the RPG end. And what would they get? At best, they would collect a fraction of the profits of D&D (since they would now be splitting the market with 5E). More likely, the RPG would crash and burn.

A good business plan needs to offer returns commensurate with the risks. High risks need high potential returns to justify them. In this case, the returns are low and the risks are high.

 

[Morrus]

You of all people should know how much work and effort goes into creating, designing, and publishing an RPG.

True. But I don't know how difficult it is to make an animated show. It *sounds* a lot more difficult to me, but I've no way of gauging it.

 

[OB1]

True. But I don't know how difficult it is to make an animated show. It *sounds* a lot more difficult to me, but I've no way of gauging it.

Well, there are a lot of existing companies that can take a screenplay and storyboards and some art and turn it into a show, which is a difficult operation, but one that can be done well with practice and talent.

Critical Role isn’t trying to draw the animation themselves, even though they theoretically could teach themselves, because there are already skilled production houses that do that sort of thing. Just like there are skilled TTRPG companies who are very good at making games.

While they could potentially use their success to launch their own animation studio, it’s not what they do. Neither is designing RPGs.

Now if WoTC was stoping them from using the D&D brand or demanding too much for the license, then maybe, perhaps, possibly they’d have a reason to do their own game, and could probably get a lot of cash from a kickstarter to create one.

But WoTC would be crazy to get into that fight with them. In fact, I’d be shocked if CR pays a dime to WoTC for the brand. It’s just too good of free advertising. Toy companies usually produce Cartoons at a loss just to get those 22 min advertisements onto a kids monitor. So getting CR to do it for free to WoTC is a huge win.

And it should also help the brand gain awareness before the Movie (which apparently has a near finished script now and is looking for a lead) which should also help.

Maybe someday the monies will get large enough and the egos big enough that WoTC and CR will split ways, but for now, they are too mutually beneficial for it to make sense.

 

[Enkhidu]

I’m in the “why would they?” camp.

Shifting away from D&D to a self made RPG would be akin to a video game company abandoning Unreal to make their own engine. Sure, it can happen. But why would the business incur the additional cost if it could spend that money on additional IP?

 

[Parmandur]

True. But I don't know how difficult it is to make an animated show. It *sounds* a lot more difficult to me, but I've no way of gauging it.

There are more successful animated shows than successful tabletop RPGs. Partly a difference in demand, but still. RPGs are complex, and take even more work to fine tune from what I can see. I have family in animation, and while it is skill intensive and time-heavy, it doesn't need the sort of robust mathematical balance AND creative freedom an RPG needs.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

To publish a new retro-clon of d20 may be a great risk. To use a system created by other is easier than starting from zero.

Other option could be to try a universal d20 for different genres: horror, superheroes, sci-fi, WW II, spies, mechas & kaijus.. but it is a higher challenged, and WotC hasn't published a d20 Modern 2.0. yet.

* It would be fun to create a third d20 system with the classes and races from both SRD. why not changes as adding more abilities scores (astuteness, grace(karma/fate/luck), courage & technique)? And it would need a new setting, for example something about XIX century, with armours as guns.

 

[Gradine]

I would argue that it is still the case that Critical Role needs D&D more than D&D needs Critical Role. There's a reason they switched to D&D from PF in the first place as soon as they started streaming. D&D gives them the bigger built in audience. They would only stand to lose patronage if they went rogue with a homebrew system.

It's not as hard as it used to be, but it still takes a lot of effort to budge newbies off of D&D. CR would only stand to lose viewership if they switched systems.

I mean look at The Adventure Zone. I feel the current arc (where they are using Monster of the Week) has a lot less relevance and presence on the internet now than they used to, even though the McElroys were always fairly up-front that even saying in their first arc they were "playing" "D&D" is a somewhat charitable statement.

Critical Role certainly brought a lot of new players to D&D, but I'd wager that the significant majority of them were already interested in the game, or else they likely wouldn't have been drawn to the show in the first place; I think CR at most just pushed a lot of them into taking the plunge having seen it in action.

 

[darjr]

Way too much effort for the return. They don’t do this now and are making a large share of the rpg industry already. Matt even seemed to lament the effort to make a setting book was too much. Sort of.

I think it’s far more likely they will directly influence the current system and or any future development of D&D. I think their influence will rival all others but the WotC designers themselves. Maybe.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I think it would actually make more sense for them to launch a Board Game. Lords of Waterdeep style.

Board games tend to Kickstart better than TTRPGs.

 

[MichaelSomething]

True. But I don't know how difficult it is to make an animated show. It *sounds* a lot more difficult to me, but I've no way of gauging it.

Imagine producing thousands of art pieces, a novel, a soundtrack, and a radio play all at the same time?