D&D 5E Grey beard culture question about critical role

[doctorbadwolf]

Oh, I see. Well, that's entirely possible.

What I looked for were moments when it seemed clear to me they were not acting (it's a lot easier to catch the genuine smiles, frowns, excited eyes, and teary moments than to catch well-faked ones, especially when dealing with professional actors who just love them some juicy character studies). I definitely found a bunch of those. (There was a moment in Campaign 2 when Mercer sent something to Ray over her cell phone and her emotional agitation, which had nothing to do with the game, was immediately evident and very sharp; the entire crew's reaction to Pumat-Sol was unequivocal; Bailey's reaction to her character's death toward the end of Campaign 2 was unequivocal; etc.) Then I went back and compared them to the rest of each episode, and it seemed pretty clear to me when someone like Travis or Laura was actually open-mouthed surprised by something and when they were doing what I'd call some really good acting work.

Still, it certainly may be that I misread their postures and expressions. Because I'm in academia, I'm pretty good at catching a B.S.er, but in no way perfect.

Yeah I’m probably excessively skeptical of any claim of being good at spotting genuine vs feigned emotion, simply due to having never met anyone who was observably actually any good at it, but many who are convinced they’re very good at it, and a few who fervently believe they are basically flawless at it lol.

So, sorry if I came across poorly with that.

I also just genuinely don’t think that they are playing to the camera, at least not consciously. They’re playing to eachother.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I may have a similar experience. OP: I think it’s related to game philosophy.

I think Crawford is smart and quite talented. But when I hear: “ways to tell your story” and it’s derivatives, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. The implication is that the YOUR story is going to win out and happen as designed.

I played as a little kid but then in earnest as a teen in the late 80s. We tried to tackle challenges and make a mark, meet goals. But we were never guaranteed “our story.” Sometimes we died.

Sometimes we won. Hey I want to take over this cave system as our hideout! Many dead orcs later, we did just that. Other times we ran like hell.

We skip over things that seem trivial to the adventure a lot. Yes, this small town has two sets of medium armor and lots of ammunition: book price. We don’t talk all of those occasions out unless I get the bright idea that we could pump the blacksmith for information….

I just don’t like the idea (me! Just an opinion!) of crafting a story and taking the DMs hand and showing him how it has to be. It might work and it might not. And we might die.

Very different than what I have seen a subset of newer players do. And we are very focused on the rules in combat..but the book as much as makes sense.

The philosophy of a character arc is unknown to my group. We play it until we are bored with it or another campaign idea grabs us.

That said, do we roleplay? Heck yeah. Sometimes funny accents and mannerisms along with behavior patterns in game.

I think the idea of “my story” as primary is not a fit with what we do. We take it by force or the world dictates but we don’t tell the dm how the story will go.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

What I’m curious about is whether an episode of Buffy the vampire slayer or Supernatural or whatever that was just the heroes interacting socially (which is 99% of shopping sessions, otherwise they’d be 5 minutes with no in character speaking) with side characters would get the same reaction as the same amount of time spent on that in a show that happens to involve playing a TTRPG as part of the framework?

Does that happen, though? I'm hard-pressed to recall an episode of a show that slows down to that degree, other than the old bottle episodes that sitcoms used to do (often just frameworks for the dreaded clip show episode format). Maybe it still happens on some network shows, that need to pad out 24 episodes per season?

Anyway I wouldn't like it. Even so-called "hangout" movies like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood might have pretty shaggy stretches where characters are interacting without plot interactions, but then something big happens.

Back to RPGs, though, I'm not against downtime sessions at all. Sometimes they're amazing, especially when they wind up deepening relationships with NPCs. Doing that at Ye Olde Potion Shoppe just sounds excruciating to me. Then again, I'm about as far from CR's target audience as it gets.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Yeah I’m probably excessively skeptical of any claim of being good at spotting genuine vs feigned emotion, simply due to having never met anyone who was observably actually any good at it, but many who are convinced they’re very good at it, and a few who fervently believe they are basically flawless at it lol.

God protect us from the people who so fervently think they know so many things. I mean, that's straight outta Men in Black.

So, sorry if I came across poorly with that.

No, no--you didn't.

I also just genuinely don’t think that they are playing to the camera, at least not consciously. They’re playing to eachother.

That is a really good distinction and there I suspect you're largely right. They've all been friends and gaming partners for years, after all. There are clear instances where they're doing something for the cameras, but much of the time what they're really doing is riffing off of and feeding off of each other. I think that's right.

 

[beancounter]

Yes, it's generational, but I think it's a sub culture.

For example, I've played with people in their late 20's who had minimal interest in RP.

I have no proof or examples other than what I mentioned above, but I think there may be a difference between the preferences of 20 something "true geeks" and "general public" 20 somethings.

(The above labels are meant to be descriptive, not derogatory...).

 

[Charlaquin]

I’m extremely skeptical of this, tbh.


I don’t understand. It’s a show. They sometimes spend an episode in downtime. I can’t even fathom what is unusual about it, much less deserving of this reaction.

I’m with you on this, but I think what drives that reaction is that this particular kind of downtime activity tends to be very low-stakes. For many players, talking in-character with quirky NPCs might be mildly amusing for a few minutes, but quickly gets boring because there’s no challenge or dramatic conflict.

 

[SakanaSensei]

Yeah I’m probably excessively skeptical of any claim of being good at spotting genuine vs feigned emotion, simply due to having never met anyone who was observably actually any good at it, but many who are convinced they’re very good at it, and a few who fervently believe they are basically flawless at it lol.

So, sorry if I came across poorly with that.

I also just genuinely don’t think that they are playing to the camera, at least not consciously. They’re playing to eachother.

I think the easiest way to illustrate that they probably aren’t generally “playing to the camera” is to look at one of their con games when they have an actual live audience and most assuredly are.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think the easiest way to illustrate that they probably aren’t generally “playing to the camera” is to look at one of their con games when they have an actual live audience and most assuredly are.

Absolutely, and the videos of the home game when there was no audience.

 

[tetrasodium]

I will tell you the truth as I see it, and hopefully I won't be too offensive. I have met tons of players of RPGs that have 20 or 30 years of experience and have never learned to play the game well. They stayed in a comfortable spot where they never had to develop skill as a role-player and they used minimal interaction over and over again.

The result is that I often find experienced players play the game less well than complete novices. I spend a lot of my time as a GM unlearning very experienced players of bad habits that limit the amount of fun they can have with the game, and prevent them from improving as players that are better able to increase everyone's fun.

The great thing about Critical Role is that it shows what really elevated and skillful play looks like so that younger players have a template for that. And it sounds like you've fallen into a group that has rolled with that and is playing at a very high skill level. And now you are out of your comfort zone and being challenged to stretch your wings and level up your game. And it's awkward at first. I was fortunate to have a really good DM take me under his wing at like age 13, and show me the real game and force me to play it. And it was hugely embarassing and awkward at first to be in character. And figuring out how to give RP hooks to other players and play a make believe game together takes practice.

Ultimately I can't tell you how to play at a particular table because every table has it's own procedures of play. I can tell to just lean into it and realize that somewhere you got stuck at the equivalent of 4th level fighting kobolds and rats and stayed there and that this is awesome, and you are 50 and you are leveling up and that is amazing. Because so many gamers I meet don't want to learn anything new.

You are rephrasing a very old & particularly abrasive position used for many years to justify all sorts of toxic & main character syndrome type behavior. "I'm a role player, not a dirty roll player" has been the shielding mantra of "It's what my character would do" for ages now. Everyone at the table is roleplaying within the confines of the game rules, some people just choose to ignore the confines & switch to freeform roleplay expecting the rules & the world itself to accommodate The Main Character's story.

 

[Celebrim]

You are rephrasing a very old & particularly abrasive position used for many years to justify all sorts of toxic & main character syndrome type behavior.

No, I'm not and if you'd followed my argument through the thread that would be obvious. In fact, I've very much talked about the opposite of that, things like deliberately sharing spotlight and throwing out RP hooks to other players as elements of skillful play.

Since you clearly aren't actually responding to what I said, there must be all sorts of horrors in your past that is what you are actually responding to. I don't know what they are, but they aren't really relevant to my conception of playing the game well, and we probably both agree that whatever burned you and hurt you was poor play.

But to use your own dysfunctional description and your own dysfunctional classifications, I've yet to meet a player that really knew how to to role-play that couldn't roll play, where as I've frequently met roll players that couldn't role-play. And the worst sorts of selfish and self-centered play, spot-light hogging, rules lawyering, argumentative, time wasting, bullying crap usually come from roll players who have never considered that the fundamental ethic of play is always to ensure everyone is having fun. Because I played just a few weeks ago with a guy that made an art of "it's what my character would do" but not once sacrificed the fun of anyone else at the table, where as I played a few hours before that with a guy literally incapable of making in character propositions who never once considered anyone else's enjoyment but his own. There is nothing inherently toxic about "it's what my character would do". The inherent toxicity lies at some level below the excuses.