D&D General What if Critical Role had stuck with Pathfinder? Or 4E?

[overgeeked]

So what you have basically proved is that CR’s popularity, in part, was due to the switch to 5e, just like Matt said.

No. Not at all. There's two scenarios that are possible. Either, as others have stated, it's a symbiotic relationship, 5E and CR boosting each other into the stratosphere; or the success of 5E is due to CR being a phenomenon. In no world is it "CR is only popular because of 5E". 5E was outselling Pathfinder within months of release, sure. But it was not a resurgent cultural phenomenon within the first 6 months of release. CR is lightning in a bottle. Regardless of what system they played, that stream was going to be a smash hit. And whatever system they played was going to get a massive PR boost.

I don’t believe this for one second. 5e’s popularity is an order of magnitude larger, at least, than critical roles.

Not everyone that plays D&D will watch other people play D&D, but most (like vast majority most) of the people who watch CR buy the books and start games. To play the game you need more than one person. One CR fan starts a group with people they know who aren't CR fans. Then they play and however many get hooked. Only a small percent of those will then become CR fans. But everyone that's hooked is then a D&D fan. This is almost the exact pattern most RPGs spread. One fan gets other non-fans involved. Then they become fans. It's not rocket surgery. Sorry, but I've literally watched CR flip people I know into D&D fans. Try to get them into RPGs for years, but they're not interested, then CR comes along, they happen to watch an episode or twelve, and suddenly they're hounding me to play. 5E would still be the number one RPG without CR, but it would not be the juggernaut it is now without CR.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

That is demonstrably untrue: CR viewership is a tiny fraction of the 5E player base, and 5E was already a huge success by the time the stream started.

That's demonstrably untrue. The PHB was released in August 2014. The MM in September 2014. And the DMG in December 2014. CR started streaming in March 2015. Depending on how you count it, 5E was between 3 and 7 months old at that point. It was not the resurgent pop culture fad it eventually became when it was that new. A success, sure. On its way to beat 4E, sure. Beating Pathfinder? Maybe, I don't remember exactly when the top spot swap took place. But it certainly wasn't all this that quickly.

It seems neither of you really demonstrated untrueness very thoroughly, but given the improbability of the underlying claim that "5E's popularity is mostly due to Critical Role" overgeeked faces a much higher burden of proof. The narrative laid out here has at most argued for a scenario where CR could have been some sort of decisive factor.

Personally I came into consitantly playing D&D with 5e long before hearing about Critical Role, and for every new player I've met who has been a Critical Role fan first I've met at least four to seven who just wanted to give D&D a try having never heard of that particular livestream. I think the "5e renaissance" came more from a general mainstreaming of geek culture reaching a certain level of critical mass, and there being a reasonably approachable version of D&D available that most people who tried didn't bounce off of the way I did 3.X when I tried to give D&D a shot in my youth. I won't weigh in on whether or not the trueness of that proposition is demonstrable.

Now, the proposition that of the various specific media influences in 5e's favor Critical Role was the single most decisive seems reasonably plausible, though I suspect as many folk came to it because Stranger Things kindled nostalgia for something they tried once as a kid, or wanted to try and never got the chance to, and 5e just happened to be the version of D&D readily available.

 

[Parmandur]

That's demonstrably untrue. The PHB was released in August 2014. The MM in September 2014. And the DMG in December 2014. CR started streaming in March 2015. Depending on how you count it, 5E was between 3 and 7 months old at that point. It was not the resurgent pop culture fad it eventually became when it was that new. A success, sure. On its way to beat 4E, sure. Beating Pathfinder? Maybe, I don't remember exactly when the top spot swap took place. But it certainly wasn't all this that quickly.

5E had already passed Pathfinder on Roll20 in Q1 2015, before Critical Role took off in any appreciable way. By August 2016, 5E had outsold the lifetime sales of 3E, 3.5, AND 4E, and Critical Role was growing but still smaller than 5E overall. Critical Role has over a million regular viewers, but 5E qt last report had over 50 million players...orders of magnitude more than watch CR.

So, yeah, CR is riding the wave, not making it.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

It seems neither of you really demonstrated untrueness very thoroughly, but given the improbability of the underlying claim that "5E's popularity is mostly due to Critical Role" overgeeked faces a much higher burden of proof. The narrative laid out here has at most argued for a scenario where CR could have been some sort of decisive factor.

Personally I came into consitantly playing D&D with 5e long before hearing about Critical Role, and for every new player I've met who has been a Critical Role fan first I've met at least four to seven who just wanted to give D&D a try having never heard of that particular livestream. I think the "5e renaissance" came more from a general mainstreaming of geek culture reaching a certain level of critical mass, and there being a reasonably approachable version of D&D available that most people who tried didn't bounce off of the way I did 3.X when I tried to give D&D a shot in my youth. I won't weigh in on whether or not the trueness of that proposition is demonstrable.

Now, the proposition that of the various specific media influences in 5e's favor Critical Role was the single most decisive seems reasonably plausible, though I suspect as many folk came to it because Stranger Things kindled nostalgia for something they tried once as a kid, or wanted to try and never got the chance to, and 5e just happened to be the version of D&D readily available.

As "demonstrable" as everything appears to be, you would think it wasn't the case that people are presenting conjectural interpretations of the same facts. But that's exactly what's going on.

Maybe there is a fact of the matter but from what I've seen here it hardly makes sense to form a definite conclusion.

Edit: however when our friend Parmandur mentioned some facts and dates about what people were playing on Roll20 it did leave me veering in that direction more, it appears more clear cut than looking at the book sales.

 

[Parmandur]

It seems neither of you really demonstrated untrueness very thoroughly, but given the improbability of the underlying claim that "5E's popularity is mostly due to Critical Role" overgeeked faces a much higher burden of proof. The narrative laid out here has at most argued for a scenario where CR could have been some sort of decisive factor.

Personally I came into consitantly playing D&D with 5e long before hearing about Critical Role, and for every new player I've met who has been a Critical Role fan first I've met at least four to seven who just wanted to give D&D a try having never heard of that particular livestream. I think the "5e renaissance" came more from a general mainstreaming of geek culture reaching a certain level of critical mass, and there being a reasonably approachable version of D&D available that most people who tried didn't bounce off of the way I did 3.X when I tried to give D&D a shot in my youth. I won't weigh in on whether or not the trueness of that proposition is demonstrable.

Now, the proposition that of the various specific media influences in 5e's favor Critical Role was the single most decisive seems reasonably plausible, though I suspect as many folk came to it because Stranger Things kindled nostalgia for something they tried once as a kid, or wanted to try and never got the chance to, and 5e just happened to be the version of D&D readily available.

5E was already successful e en before Critical Role came on the scene, but CR helped. Acquisitions Inc and Adventure Time also helped: 5E was fortunate to be so streaming friendly, right whenstreaming took off. But no one of those streams provide even a sizable fraction of the player base.

 

[Parmandur]

As "demonstrable" as everything appears to be, you would think it wasn't the case that people are presenting conjectural interpretations of the same facts. But that's exactly what's going on.

Maybe there is a fact of the matter but from what I've seen here it hardly makes sense to form a definite conclusion.

Edit: however when our friend Parmandur mentioned some facts and dates about what people were playing on Roll20 it did leave me veering in that direction more, it appears more clear cut than looking at the book sales.

I dunno if the information is still anywhere, but @Morrus used to have a RSS tracker board to show online chatter for various games. 5E took it over, very quickly, at the time, and never let go. Independent of Critical Role starting.

I think it is pretty undeniable that Mercer chose to change his game to 5E specifically to ride the current wave that had already started creating by March 2015. He chose...wisely.

 

[Iry]

In the old Tal'dorei book they put out with Green Ronin, the two optional rules at the table:
1) Drinking a potion is a bonus action. Feeding a potion to someone is still an action.
2) Spelldriver lets higher level casters cast two spells a round, with the second spell being limited to being under-Level-2.

#1 was genuinely good stuff, and I use it at my own table.
#2 was actually a nerf, because Matt completely forgot about the Cantrip rule and was letting everyone cast two spells a turn if they had the ability to do so. Which became a big issue with Tiberius and his quickened multi-fireballs, though he was not the only guilty party.

 

[Malmuria]

Apropos the discussion of social vs combat mechanics in other threads, I wonder if CR would feel different (as a game or as a show) if they used 4e instead of 5e. CR often gets cited as an example of what low-combat, high-RP improv style dnd looks like. Would this change using a different system? If not, is this an indication that edition doesn't matter so much; you can run your style of dnd in any edition more or less. Or, would the divergence between the type of game they want to play and what the edition emphasizes be more glaring?

 

[Vaalingrade]

If they had stuck with 4e?

You know that Simpson's scene with the vision of a world without lawyers? That.

 

[Oofta]

CR's popularity certainly doesn't hurt D&D and vice versa. Saying that D&D is popular because of CR though is the tail wagging the dog. Yeah, the dog's posterior is going to wiggle a little (okay may be a lot depending on the dog) but the tail wouldn't be there without the dog. I remember watching a stream, a demo, of 4E. It was ... awful. People staring down at their character sheets trying to figure out what to do in the situation instead of just interacting with each other and playing the game. I've never played PF, but I had friends that did and at the time that CR was released they were getting pretty overwhelmed with the complexity of the system.

As far as why they switched according to the WIKI

In preparation for the streamed series, Matt converted the game over from Pathfinder to Dungeons & Dragons, because Pathfinder combat is slower due to an abundance of various modifiers. D&D also has more name recognition.​

​

So to answer the OP's question, there was never a question of streaming a 4E game. If they had stuck with PF I'm not sure CR would have ever taken off as much as it did. The appeal of the game is not in it's combat (although they generally do a good job of that as well) the focus of the game is in the RP and exploration. I think it's a show that does a good job of giving people an idea of what a real game is like, even if few people can match their talent and the "Mercer effect" is unfortunately a real thing. But as other people have mentioned it's not a show that comes off as trying to be a comedy skit using D&D as the venue, it is a show about very talented and entertaining people having fun playing a game.