D&D General Critical Role Ending

[doctorbadwolf]

D&D makes it really quite hard to adhere to these principles in the context of combat resolution: the real-world reasons for doing various things are rubbed in our faces all the time, and it's hard to present them as having fictional causes and fictional effects.

This I very strongly disagree with. Referencing AC and damage numbers isn’t any more out of narrative than announcing the check result and then announcing how much harm everyone takes. “The guy got a 21, he hit you for 6 cold damage” is just as in-fiction, just as determined by what just happened in the fiction, as the description you cited.

Hopefully, in both cases, there is more description than that. “X harm in an area” and “That’s a hit, 6 cold damage” are both boring gamey talk, that sometimes happens because the moment doesn’t demand more in-fiction description, but both can also be instead juiced up with some “The tough throws a small round object at your feet! A wave of concussive force and sound hits you, you take 4 harm as the attack staggers you. It may occur to you, in the oddly quiet haze that follows an explosion and sudden terrible pain, that you’d be dead if that had been a frag.”

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But Apocalypse World and Dungeon World certainly don't have any more rules to govern the above action declarations than D&D does!

In D&D a scene wherein someone is beseeching an old friend for aid in a complex social or political situation can interact with some very basic rules (roll persuasion or insight, mostly), but it doesn’t have to in order to move forward and shape the story. The DM isn’t ignoring any rules to just let the improvisation and narrative rule the scene, and just play the NPC as true to character and the moment as possible, and never roll a check. In most pbta games, the MC would be ignoring a whole system of moves-based causality by running an important scene that way.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

He didn't say "all I care about is combat."

There is a huge leap between saying, "As a show, I wish they would push the story along at a faster pace" and saying "GET TO THE FIGHT! ALL I CARE ABOUT IS FIGHTS!"

People can run their games exactly as they like. But this game also happens to be a performance, and, as such, subject to reasonable criticism. Not insults, but reasonable criticism.

"They're massively commercially successful" does not insulate them from criticism or mean they are flawless. Obviously. Or else Friends would be considered like one of the greatest pieces of art ever created by Western civilization. No one on Critical Role would assert that the show has no flaws.

In campaign 2 of Critical Role, part of the reason some storylines were never addressed is because the players chose to spend hours and hours and hours of the airtime chatting in character, shopping, describing their magic mansion, bullying monks at the library, doing guided meditation, and hanging out with blood-soaked mass-murderer Essek who they weirdly decided was a cute, funny pal. If those were your favorite parts, awesome.

If you would rather that the campaign had a bit more story momentum and better pacing, then I agree with that criticism.

And yet, often the most memorable moments and fun episodes are the ones between stories when they're just hanging out in hot tubs

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

To a lot of people, myself included, the decision of the Mighty Nein not to capture and turn in Essek was immoral, illegal and irresponsible. Veth nearly lost her husband because of the trickery - and easily could have seen her child killed. Yasha has every reason to hate mind games. Beau has every reason to hate people that abuse power. Caduceus is generally a moral person, although noncommittal. Jester, Fjord and Caleb are all well in character, however, to put a friendship above the impacts to so many people.

Had I been the DM, I would have been expecting that discussion to go very differently - and it seems like Matt did too.

But that would be forcing the story you want into the game rather than the one your players want

The Nein CHOSE to bond with Essek. The players WANTED to connect with Essek and singled him out for attention. They had extended scenes with the character that they initiated
Directing the story in another direction so Essek would be punished for his actions would have been removing the player's agency

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But that would be forcing the story you want into the game rather than the one your players want

The Nein CHOSE to bond with Essek. The players WANTED to connect with Essek and singled him out for attention. They had extended scenes with the character that they initiated
Directing the story in another direction so Essek would be punished for his actions would have been removing the player's agency

This. Pay attention to your players’ attention. And remember that it’s a game.

 

[Iry]

Even if you take the position that they needed to not bring him to justice due to wanting his help, that doesn't mean it makes any psychological sense to keep giggling about how cute it is that he floats around everywhere, and have drinks with him. Good old Essek, that war criminal scamp. I found it bizarre. I'd have had them meet the families of some of the people whose deaths he caused.

It's that old Vampire Dilemma: You have a vampire. He flips out and kills someone, but gosh guys, he's REALLY remorseful. Feels so tortured and bad about it, so he gets off the hook. Except he's a vampire, so he flips out and kills someone else. But gosh guys, he's REALLY remorseful. Feels so tortured and bad about it, so he gets off the hook. Except he's a...

But players will be players, where warcrimes take a backseat to adorable NPCs, and half the players have the escapist fantasy of mouthing off to NPC authority figures.

 

[pemerton]

5E characters do have abilities to contribute to narrative that are not resource based.

I'm not 100% sure what you have in mind by this, but on the most natural reading this is true of every RPG.

 

[pemerton]

The action economy. The hit point and damage rules. The rules for magic-use, based around spell slots and class abilities. The rules for recovery via rest periods.

How do any of those things impede improvisation? Some of them I would cite as directly responsible for more improvisation. Especially the magic system.

A lack of specifics can aid improv in some scenes, IME, but combat especially is a split between those who have an easier time with fewer mechanics vs those who use the mechanics as springboards for improv.

Hit points impede improvisation like knocking a guard unconscious from behind.

The action economy forces actions undertaken in combat to be funnelled through an artificial structure (and just as one example, one sees this in threads about "shifting hands" from item to item, and other parts of the "object interaction" rules).

Rules for class abilities, feats etc put limits around improvisation, because they establish minimum degrees of character-build investment to do certain things (like eg inspiring one's soldiers via a speech) and put hard limits around who can produce what magical effects.

Suppose, for instance, my fighter wants to utter a death curse; or my magic-user wants to push harder (Dr Strange-style) to produce a fiercer blast of magical energy? I don't think 5e makes improvising this particularly easy at all.

Referencing AC and damage numbers isn’t any more out of narrative than announcing the check result and then announcing how much harm everyone takes. “The guy got a 21, he hit you for 6 cold damage” is just as in-fiction, just as determined by what just happened in the fiction, as the description you cited.

What does it mean, in the fiction, to have been "hit" (qv damage on a miss)? What does it mean to take 6 hp of damage? What has changed in the fiction?

This discussion is as old as hit points as a mechanic. There's a reason that the simulationist reactions against D&D of the late 70s and early 80s (C&S, RQ, RM) used hit locations and damage to specific locations!

In D&D a scene wherein someone is beseeching an old friend for aid in a complex social or political situation can interact with some very basic rules (roll persuasion or insight, mostly), but it doesn’t have to in order to move forward and shape the story. The DM isn’t ignoring any rules to just let the improvisation and narrative rule the scene, and just play the NPC as true to character and the moment as possible, and never roll a check. In most pbta games, the MC would be ignoring a whole system of moves-based causality by running an important scene that way.

And so what? What would happen? Vincent Baker has expressly written about this:

Apocalypse World is designed in concentric layers, like an onion.

• The innermost core is the structured conversation: you say what your characters do. The MC, following their agenda and principles, says what happens, and asks you what your characters do next.
• The next layer out builds on the conversation by adding core systems: stats, dice, basic moves, harm, improvement, MC moves, maybe some setting elements like the world’s psychic maelstrom.
• The next layer elaborates on the core systems by adding playbooks, with all their character moves, gear, and additional systems; and threats, with their types, impulses, moves, fronts, and maps.
• The outermost layer is even optional: it’s for your custom moves, your non-core playbooks, your MC experiments, stuff that doesn’t even appear in the book.

A crucial feature of Apocalypse World’s design is that these layers are designed to collapse gracefully inward:

• Forget the peripheral harm moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but the rules for harm have got you covered.
• Forget the rules for harm? that’s cool. You’re missing out, but the basic moves have got you covered. Just describe the splattering blood and let the moves handle the rest.
• Forget the basic moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but just remember that 10+ = hooray, 7-9 = mixed, and 6- = something worse happens.
• Don’t even feel like rolling the dice? Fair enough. You’re missing out, but the conversational structure still works.

Or:

• Don’t want to make custom moves and countdowns for your threats all the time? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but the threat types, impulses, and threat moves have got you covered.
• Don’t want to even write up your fronts and threats? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but your MC moves have got you covered.
• Forget your MC moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but as long as you remember your agenda and most of your principles and what to always say, you’ll be okay.

The whole game is built so that if you mess up a rule in play, you mostly just naturally fall back on the level below it, and you’re missing out a little but it works fine.​

The idea that that system doesn't support improvisation baffles me!

 

[Aldarc]

PbtA and Fate are such different mechanical systems that I don't know what you have in mind in lumping them together. I'll leave Fate to @Aldarc as I only know it a bit by reading Fate Core and have never played it. But Apocalypse World and Dungeon World certainly don't have any more rules to govern the above action declarations than D&D does!

Same. Consulting the rules on light and darkness in D&D 5e versus Fate feels like the difference between night and day.

None of those things you listed interact with improvisation in play the way GM Moves in PbtA games do, or the way Aspects in Fate do.

Because games like PbtA and Fate attempt to codify how players and GMs interact with the narrative space of te game by way of rules, those games therefore complicate improvisation. I am not saying they stop it or that those tools are good under the right circumstances or whatever,just that because they exist they must be considered.

D&D does not have such rules. Therefore, there is nothing to complicate that improvisation. I am not saying that is better or even good depending on the circumstances.

I'm not sure though how this in anyway impedes improvisation anymore than the multitude of various minute rules that exist in and govern a plethora of ascribed actions in D&D. 5e may be lighter in its rules (or even rulings) than 4e and 3e, but it's definitely crunchier than any of the central Fate family of games (i.e., Core, Accelerated, Condensed).

Aspects simply serve as fictional tags that the GM and players can optionally mechanically interact with, typically by invoking for a slight mechanical advantage. That they exist simply means that something is meaningfully true in the relevant fiction. A cave in Fate may have the aspect "impenetrable darkness." It provides leeway for permissions in the fiction or setting difficulties. There is a lot of freedom in how aspects are named and interpreted that simply involve negotiating the fiction of the scenes. It's hardly different from a GM declaring that the darkness of the cave requires Dark Vision to see through properly or some other magical forms of vision or light and players arguing what rules do or don't apply.

But how this in anyway impedes improvisation is beyond me or any of my experiences running Fate, though I can say how arguing about rules surrounding lighting, darkness, vision, etc. have impeded my sense of improvisational play in at least three editions of playing D&D.

I personally have found that having to consider mechanics during scenes built primarily around narrative elements has the effect of pulling me out of the play in favor of the game. I prefer to just improvise my way through such scenes without having to consult any rules.

Again, I think that culture shock is a valid comparison, because we are sometimes jarred by cultural norms that lie outside of the ones we are most accustomed to while being perfectly content with the native ones that have psychologically internalized (and left unscrutinized) as normal.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Of the players, only Sam seems to be thinking about the audience when he makes game decisions. He does some things clearly to make it a better story. When he does so, he makes sure that it is earned by subsequent actions, but there are plenty of times he adds something to his characters to create a story for the fans that is a bit out of the blue... and he sometimes decides not to do things because the fans might find it less interesting (or so he believes) - he has commented on that approach a few times.

Laura, Ashley, Travis, Marisha ... they all trust Matt to take care of the story building. All they focus on is the game (for the most part). They occasionally get self conscious about doing things before an audience (well, not Laura), but for the most part they're just playing D&D and are immersed in Matt's world.

Liam is an interesting player. He tries a bit too hard at times to craft the story, whether it is for his character, or by stepping into situations that should not be about his characters (like Caleb did on the Yasha/Beau date night). However, I doubt this has anything to do with the audience. He'd be the same with no audience - he just enjoys being a part of such great stories.

And Taliesen gets forgotten, even in the analyses.