D&D General Critical Role Ending

[overgeeked]

Letting the PCs be powerful, allowing them to use the high level abilities, allowing them to do so effectively, and allowing them to pass lower level challenges 'Like a Boss' seems like the most obvious thing in the world to me, but I see soooooooooooo (big breath) ooooooooooooooo many threads by DMs lamenting how unfun high level is because they can't X and Y like they do at lower levels, and how high level D&D can't be fun (despite countless examples that prove them wrong). And then I see so many threads by players that lament their DM ending the campaign because they 'run out of juice' just when their wizard/cleric/etc... was getting a chance to be really powerful...

You can't prove someone's style of fun wrong. Some people don't like high-level play. That's their preferences and enjoyment, not a math problem to solve or an argument to prove.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Uk'otoa. The Chained Oblivion. Trent Ikithon. The Aeor/Luxon connection. The Vengeance of Celia Ovesso (***** in a box). Meeting Vox Machina. Yasha's Celestial Heritage. Caleb's desire to change history. There are so many storylines left hanging right now... They could run for 100 more episodes, easily, without introducing new stories.

We'll see those after the wrap the Orcus storyline from Campaign 1

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You can't prove someone's style of fun wrong. Some people don't like high-level play. That's their preferences and enjoyment, not a math problem to solve or an argument to prove.

Sure, but you can prove their reasons for disliking a certain style of play to be wrong. I originally disliked Ravenloft because I thought it was all Gothic Horror, Strahd, and Vampires. I changed my mind on that when I learned a bit more about it. If someone doesn't like later-level play because they don't think PCs can be challenged at that level, that reason can be disproven and thus their opinion changed.

However, if someone doesn't like high-level play because they don't like powerful PCs, or they don't want the world to change too much, or they don't like the story arcs that happen at higher levels, those are all valid reasons to dislike higher level play.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sure, but you can prove their reasons for disliking a certain style of play to be wrong.

This is still unlikely to change their opinion, however "wrong" you manage to "prove" their reasoning.

"I like apricots, but I don't like peaches. It's a texture thing."
"Actually, peaches and apricots have the same texture."
"Well I still don't like peaches, so I guess the texture isn't the problem."

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is still unlikely to change their opinion, however "wrong" you manage to "prove" their reasoning.

"I like apricots, but I don't like peaches. It's a texture thing."
"Actually, peaches and apricots have the same texture."
"Well I still don't like peaches, so I guess the texture isn't the problem."

I never said it would work, but it can work. If the reason they think they dislike it isn't actually the reason, that could make this more difficult.

 

[CleverNickName]

I never said it would work, but it can work. If the reason they think they dislike it isn't actually the reason, that could make this more difficult.

True. And you don't always need a reason to like or dislike something.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

True. And you don't always need a reason to like or dislike something.

I disagree with that. I don't think that anyone dislikes something without a reason. They don't have to know the reason or be aware that there is a reason, but there's always a reason. (For example, I've always disliked sour cream, ranch dressing, and mayonnaise, but I never realized why until I was diagnosed with ASD and it's common for people on the Autism spectrum to dislike those specific condiments. I didn't know the reason for years and years, but it was there.)

 

[CleverNickName]

I disagree with that. I don't think that anyone dislikes something without a reason.

We can disagree, that's fine.

 

[Azuresun]

You can't prove someone's style of fun wrong. Some people don't like high-level play. That's their preferences and enjoyment, not a math problem to solve or an argument to prove.

I immediately thought of my nephew's parents attempting to logically explain to him why he should try a certain food.

 

[Azuresun]

High level D&D is a different animal than low level D&D. It is, frankly, a lot more work for the DM (and for the players, for that matter) than low level D&D is. It doesn't much resemble traditional fantasy adventures but is closer to magical superheroes. There's a lot less to do at high levels, especially in fifth edition, which doesn't do much to fold in new challenges like domain management (which plenty of people, including me, found boring in previous editions), meaning that, eventually, you end up just a little weaker than the average demigod and given the choice of fighting the same sorts of challenges your last high level game included (different gods, different fiendish leadership, etc., but similar kinds of problems), probably bouncing around the planes, etc.

In contrast, there's a much larger variety of games you can run at low and mid-levels.

If you wanted to run a campaign resembling Game of Thrones, high-level player characters are going to fast-forward right through it (and more than King's Landing will be going up in flames, so I hope you don't want your setting to remain intact for future use). Likewise, Lord of the Rings will be a handful of short adventures at most. Even the War of the Lance will be relatively brief, although it'd last longer than the other two examples.

I think the acid test for anyone who says they've run high level D&D is to ask them how many times they resorted to "[spell name] doesn't work here." The most common spells probably being Teleport, Detect Thoughts or Scrying. Even CR had to resort to "teleportation doesn't work here" in the final arc so that the PC's would actually experience the cool setting rather than teleporting to the objective.

More than anything else, the problem with high levels is the number of spells that might as well read "Remove Challenge" in their description.