Critical Role Announces Two New RPGs

Critical Role’s publishing arm, Darrington Press, has released a ‘State of the Press’ video announcing two new tabletop RPGs.

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Two new RPG systems we’ll be releasing: Illuminated Worlds, optimized for short story arcs and adaptable to myriad settings, and Daggerheart, a fresh take on fantasy RPGs with emphasis on longer campaigns and rich character options.

At Gen Con this year, you’ll be able to play AND purchase Queen by Midnight, and you’ll even be able to take our two upcoming RPGs for a spin. We hope to see you there!

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

They also don't flock to the non-Darrington, non-D&D games that Critical Role has featured.

None of those games were the one that fueled their actual campaign. I don't think we should be under any illusion that people were rushing to make Crash Pandas or Honey Heist the bedrock of their fantasy RPG campaigns.

Completely unrelated: After all this time in these forums, I only just realized the pun in your user name. LOL

 

[bedir than]

None of those games were the one that fueled their actual campaign. I don't think we should be under any illusion that people were rushing to make Crash Pandas or Honey Heist the bedrock of their fantasy RPG campaigns.

Completely unrelated: After all this time in these forums, I only just realized the pun in your user name. LOL

Ha!

My name's origins are from when I learned Arabic. bedir means full moon and I took that name as I was in a very cyberpunk mood back in the mid 90s. People asked how to pronounce it and I said "bedir than average." Variants on that are now my pseudonym everywhere

 

[Aldarc]

Exandria has borrowed a lot from other games. It’s Dark Elves with their reincarnation crystals are straight from Mystara

There is a significant difference of scope between that and lifting out the Dawn War pantheon and Dawn War mythos straight out of 4e and the Nentir Vale almost wholesale.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Exactly. That's one reason I'm really hopeful that they will go lighter with the system. That way the combats will go quicker and they won't drag as much. A two-hour long combat that is supposed to represent less than 30 seconds of in-fiction time is just ridiculous.

I agree to an extent... if combat takes a shorter amount of time and that leads to more combat scenarios in a single session, that would be an overall plus. The trend of less and less combat on the show is a major part of why it's becoming harder and harder for me to stay even remotely focused on it. I loved in the first season when we would conceivably see three or four different battle maps in an episode because they were getting into lots of different interesting, hostile situations. Over the course of the series, however, there has been a trend of less and less combat. Heck, there are stretches of episodes in this campaign where there isn't any meaningful combat (I don't count Matt pulling out a battle map and then the party deciding after a round to not do anything or even figuring out after a round some way to just shut the entire encounter down).
I'm certainly an outlier, but listening to them talk in character for four hours straight is not my idea of fun, and that's followed closely by watching them plan the everloving crap out of something for two hours just to abandon the plan 5 minutes in.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

That proves my point: 1-2 million is a fraction of Beyond's user base. I'm not pitting any shade on Critical Role, I'm a Critter myself. But CR definitely didn't cause 5E's success, nor is there any way it can be construed as a primary driver when 5E has a much larger audience still.

I’m with @Parmandur, CR didn’t make 5e any more popular, more quickly. First episode was June 2015, 9-10 months after release and its viewers back then as it built its audience wasn’t big as it was still finding its feet and growing its viewers. I didnt know about it until episode 30ish after a thread on here. 30 episodes is like 30 weeks give or take so another 9 months out. Did CR help 1.5 years out after 5e release, to get reach more potential buyers, sure but 5e by that time and by the quarter it had came out was rolling back to number 1 and picking up steam.

If things like Stranger Things and Critical Role never came around, 5E would still have been the number one TTRPG. It just wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is now or reached the levels of their multiple, consecutive "best years of D&D ever" numbers.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Looks like CR took off from Feb 2019 to May 2020, by then 5e was pretty established already.

CriticalRole - Statistics

Twitch CriticalRole statistics and charts of activity, monthly concurrent viewers, views and followers growth.

twitchtracker.com

Those stats aren't necessarily helpful. Critical Role has been around for significantly longer than that. They started off as just one of many programs under Geek & Sundry's banner, way back in May 2015, less than a year after 5E was released. June 2018, the start of the data, was when they launched their own separate Twitch channel after realizing that they had outgrown their "parent". It was only a few months later when they moved into their own studio space, but the ability to even do any of that was driven by how enormously successful they had already become. Critical Role "took off" in 2016.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Ironically, I think that Exandria's use of the Dawn War pantheon has been done more harm than good for the Nentir Vale. There have been a handful of people here who expressed the opinion that Exandria made the Nentir Vale redundant. The death of the Dawn War pantheon in Critical Role would probably benefit both settings.

How big a deal was the Nentir Vale by the time Critical Role came around in May 2015, almost a year after 5E launched and Forgotten Realms had been once again clearly established as "the" setting of Dungeons & Dragons? By the time Critical Role started, we already had the two Tiamat modules as well as Princes of the Apocalypse, and Out of the Abyss was just a few months away. I'd be surprised to hear that a ton of players were still embedded in the 4E setting (that I have to assume had already been competing against Forgotten Realms).

I myself never played 3E (owned the books but resigned myself that I'd never find anyone to play D&D again at that point in my life and where I lived) or 4E, so I had no "baggage" so to speak when I happened to find myself potentially getting back into the game with 5E. The "Dawn War Pantheon" was nothing more than a one-sentence reference in the DM's Guide since I didn't have that prior investment.

 

[Parmandur]

If things like Stranger Things and Critical Role never came around, 5E would still have been the number one TTRPG. It just wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is now or reached the levels of their multiple, consecutive "best years of D&D ever" numbers.

Those things helped, but...no one of them is a decisive factor, in and of itself.

 

[Parmandur]

Those stats aren't necessarily helpful. Critical Role has been around for significantly longer than that. They started off as just one of many programs under Geek & Sundry's banner, way back in May 2015, less than a year after 5E was released. June 2018, the start of the data, was when they launched their own separate Twitch channel after realizing that they had outgrown their "parent". It was only a few months later when they moved into their own studio space, but the ability to even do any of that was driven by how enormously successful they had already become. Critical Role "took off" in 2016.

It shows that Critical Role has grown considerably since they set up their own channel, and dteadily so it not just people transitioning to the new channel. Critical Role is big, but their audience is still just a Alice of the overall scene.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wait they putting out a DnD competitor? Or simply a different game which isn't like DnD as they've done before?

Yes.