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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9671485" data-attributes="member: 7026594">I am not a big actual play consumer, but I did make it all the way through the first Adventure Zone campaign (the Balance arc).  One observation I remember having was that they dropped close adherence to D&D rules PDQ and by the end of the campaign weren't really even using them at all, borrowing mechanics from another game entirely.  Of course that was with roughly hour-long episodes and only three PCs.  Critical Role has much longer episodes but also a much larger cast.  As I understand it CR sticks more closely to D&D rules and running structured round by round combats, for example, where TAZ was more improvisational and winging d20 roll high with a lot of judgement calls.  I think D&D has great brand recognition.I think the archetypes and concepts it originated (character classes, alignments, hit points and leveling up!) have propagated through pop culture and especially video games in ways which increases their familiarity and accessibility to people who aren't already D&D players but who've experienced media influenced by it.  I think the core "d20, roll high" mechanic is simple enough for anyone to grasp, and lends itself to extra random opportunities for dramatic narration with the occasional nat 1 or 20.I think the combat system is way too time-consuming and granular to work well with live actual plays.  It's always slow and clunky to watch and when I've watched groups try to do full combats it always seems to work better the simpler the rules they're using.  I don't think D&D was really created with the purpose of being a story generator in mind.  We've seen several approaches to that function over the years.  Classic or OSR play tends to have hooks and then let the players create the story retroactively.  Trad play classically involved the DM pre-planning an epic story and then engaging in varying levels of railroading/guidance to encourage the players to play it out, or adapting to them running off the rails.  I don't think that, mechanically, it's inherently great at that.</blockquote>

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