Critical Role Announces Publishing Company

The first game will be a board/card game called Uk’otoa. This will be followed by role playing game products including Syndicult, “an original modern magic roleplaying game designed by Matthew Mercer in which mob families jealously guard secrets and battle it out for power on the city streets.”

Announcing Darrington Press, Our Game Publishing Company | Critical Role

critrole.com

I’ve long wondered whether there might one day be the official Critical Role role playing game, and whether CR's massive influence could make a dent in WotC, the traditional 800lb gorilla.

 

[imagineGod]

With the millions raised by the Critical Role Streaming Kickstarter, I bet everyone and their dog saw this one coming. Congratulations to Mercer and Co.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Hasbro ought to consider getting out of the D&D business, because RPG fans are too savvy, individualized, and, well, "high-demanding" to be effectively served by a large corporation, without PR snafus. I propose that Hasbro sell the entire D&D brand and catalog to Critical Role, Paizo, Modiphius, FFG, and/or Free League.

 

[imagineGod]

Hasbro ought to consider getting out of the D&D business, because RPG fans are too savvy, individualized, and, well, "high-demanding" to be effectively served by a large corporation, without PR snafus. I propose that Hasbro sell the entire D&D brand and catalog to Critical Role and/or Paizo.

I do not want to be the anti-corp complainer, but big corporations have this terrible focus on profits above all else, above ethics, above happiness, above community, that I was never happy Hasbro bought out Wizards of the Coast. A similar bad taint happedned when Fantasy Flight Games was sold to Asmodee, which earlier this year just axed the role playing games division.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

A similar bad taint happedned when Fantasy Flight Games was sold to Asmodee, which earlier this year just axed the role playing games division.

Okay, I'll nix the FFG idea. ;-D

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Hasbro ought to consider getting out of the D&D business, because RPG fans are too savvy, individualized, and, well, "high-demanding" to be effectively served by a large corporation, without PR snafus. I propose that Hasbro sell the entire D&D brand and catalog to Critical Role, Paizo, Modiphius, FFG, and/or Free League.

I must say...D&D in the hands of Free League would be (probably) absolute awesomeness! Even Modiphius would be a good thing, they put out a lot of high quality stuff...but they would probably make D&D a 2d20 game...

 

[CubicsRube]

Well as a Schwalb fanboy, I wish everyone just converted to Shadow of the Demon Lord (Or the upcoming Shadow of the Weird Wizard)...

 

[Cadence]

I don't think this is entirely unfair. I wonder how many people who picked up D&D after watching Critical Role are more CR fans than they are D&D fans.

What is CR's viewership? (Have the vast majority of D&D players never seen an episode or never heard of it? Or is it the gateway to 5e that most players have seen at least a few episodes of?)

 

[MerricB]

"Legacy-lite". I'm not sure exactly how to interpret that, but I'm guessing it means that they've stripped out most of the original game mechanics in order to make this a self-contained game.

I'm trying to work out if the "lite" refers to the mechanics or the legacy elements. I tend to suspect the latter.

There are two major ways of approaching story-campaign games at present, one is the full legacy route, where you alter the game permanently as you play, and then you have the more campaign approach where information is hidden, but game components are not destroyed or permanently altered.

I know I play Gloomhaven with removable stickers so that it becomes a campaign game rather than a legacy game. Perhaps that is what they mean by "legacy-lite"?

I think they probably should have proofread their announcement a bit more though: there is no way that Uk'otoa is a "flagship product" - first product, yes. But the centre of their company's strategies? I think not. (Dungeons & Dragons and Magic are flagship products).

 

[Dire Bare]

As we see with the Weis and Hickman debacle, it’s a good idea to publish your own ip. Hope to see more CR products, allthough i think that is allready owned by WOTC/ HASBRO.

Apples and oranges.

Dragonlance was never solely W&H's baby, it was designed by committee back in the TSR days. It was both authors first novel, and their break into the world of fantasy novels. They have gone on to write multiple Dragonlance sequel books for TSR and later WotC, plus several of their own worlds/stories (IP) through other publishers. W&H benefitted from their relationship (employment) with TSR greatly, and without it nobody would have ever heard of them. They have never owned Dragonlance, but do own the IP for several other fantasy worlds of their creation . . . none of which have ever achieved the popularity of Dragonlance.

When you decide to write a novel . . . do you create an original world or do you play in somebody else's sandbox? Do you self-publish or go through a major book publisher (gatekeeper)? There is no wrong answer, any path can lead to success and the right one to take varies with the author's needs, wants, and personality. And a huge degree of luck, as with any artistic career.

Is it a good idea to only publish your own IP? Not always. Bad advice.

 

[Cadence]

I am afraid WotC is "burn", has suffered a serious wear, lost a lot of prestige by fault of the last controversies.

The Magic part of WotC is always getting roasted for something on magicTCG reddit and twitter. If the vast majority of players at large never see the controversy there (don't know the name of who was fired, haven't heard about the artist with the out there views, don't know about the harrassment on the pro tour etc...) does it matter?