IMO of course:Matt isn’t as loose with the rules as Aabria, which is more to her credit than his, IMO.
There's loose with the rules and there's the rules don't matter. Aabria seemed to clearly be in the latter camp. The whole show was very, very performance based. It seemed the people (especially some of the new ones) were treating it as an acting gig vs. a gaming session and she was the one driving that. And that's just totally not for me.
I caught the last session (too completist to miss it) and it was basically Aabria completely ignoring rules so the plot could get where she wanted it to go. Again, just not my thing.
Wow. Maybe it’s because I don’t need the MD to run the game how I do to enjoy the show, god knows Matt doesn’t, but I just don’t see what could be “unwatchable” about it to someone who likes CR in general.
I'm all for watching different DMing styles. It's one reason I like to catch actual plays on occasion, so I can see/learn a thing or two. But since you asked here are a couple of things:
1. The constant unprompted asking for checks (which is itself annoying and not necessary) but then having the checks not even matter (It seems she reacted and dictated the exact same thing whether a 5 was rolled or a 20 was rolled);
2. The blatant, you have to be kidding me, railroading. There was a scene where the DM says something like “You let me do this! I worked so hard on this map, you have to go in there!” Plus the DM is constantly telling the players both how they feel AND how they act;
3. This may have been because she was focused on the performance but the DM seemed, well, really hostile and confrontational to the players at times. There was at least one instance where she basically called a player stupid. And again, I think it was part of the performance (the player was interviewed and implied as such and seemed totally fine with it), but it was REALLY jarring and not something I'd ever want to see in a game session.
So, yeah, I couldn't get into it at ALL, it was not my cup of tea.