D&D General Critical Role Ending

[jgsugden]

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

My expectations force nothing. I was speaking specifically of my (and Matt's, seemingly) expectations.

Saying that what they did was illegal, immoral and irresponsible is not saying it was a bad RPG choice. In game, characters can make horrific decisions and it advances a story, even when the decision is unexpected. If they made those decisions in real life, it would be entirely a different situation. However, when PCs make a decision in game that I did not expect and that throws my world into chaos ... I salivate.

And Taliesen gets forgotten, even in the analyses.

We dare not speak its name. And it is Taliesin. He always ends in sin. Right there in the name.

He falls in with the majority in the group - he makes interesting choices, but not for commercial reasons. He is just enjoying the game.

 

[BrokenTwin]

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.

I think this is the long and short of it. It has nothing to do with D&D or any other system specifically, just the general truth that rules you've internalised are easier to work with than rules you haven't.
Different rulesets certainly encourage different forms of roleplay, but few negatively impact or constrain your ability to roleplay once you've internalized their quirks.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

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!

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!

You seem to be doing a lot more trying to win an argument than trying to hear people’s experiences, so I’m done here.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

This is true for pretty much all games, though. Unless the game's only rule is that there are no rules, the rules that are in place to give the game structure will constrain in some way, which will impede improv. The best you can say is that this game over here impedes less than that one over there.

 

[Burnside]

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

I don't think the story should have been FORCED to go anywhere. But I think it's not unreasonable that there would turn out to be in-game consequences to cozying up to a mass murderer. He didn't crash someone's car. He started a war in which thousands of people died. The consequences would be something you'd run into almost daily in either country. In most towns, in both countries, there will be traumatized family members of people Essek caused to get killed - VERY recently. As a DM, I wouldn't have hand-waved all that just because they got in a hot tub with him. And I think it was also a case of the players liked their Essek jokes and just kinda didn't want to deal with bringing him to justice, so as a result their characters behaved in largely inexplicable ways. Veth certainly should have wanted his head on a platter. As a game, fine. As a show, I hated this part.

Obviously, it scarcely matters what I think of CR. But this particular issue is something I was never able to get over in the past third or so of the campaign.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think this is the long and short of it. It has nothing to do with D&D or any other system specifically, just the general truth that rules you've internalised are easier to work with than rules you haven't.
Different rulesets certainly encourage different forms of roleplay, but few negatively impact or constrain your ability to roleplay once you've internalized their quirks.

That’s a small part of it. The rest is that different people experience encouragement or impediment from different stimuli.

Just like some folks improvise more in D&D out of combat than in combat, or with the simpler classes but not as much with the complex ones, etc, different people are going to improv more or less in different types of games.

 

[billd91]

I don't think the story should have been FORCED to go anywhere. But I think it's not unreasonable that there would turn out to be in-game consequences to cozying up to a mass murderer. He didn't crash someone's car. He started a war in which thousands of people died. The consequences would be something you'd run into almost daily in either country. In most towns, in both countries, there will be traumatized family members of people Essek caused to get killed - VERY recently. As a DM, I wouldn't have hand-waved all that just because they got in a hot tub with him. And I think it was also a case of the players liked their Essek jokes and just kinda didn't want to deal with bringing him to justice, so as a result their characters behaved in largely inexplicable ways. Veth certainly should have wanted his head on a platter. As a game, fine. As a show, I hated this part.

Obviously, it scarcely matters what I think of CR. But this particular issue is something I was never able to get over in the past third or so of the campaign.

He also helped research a cure for Nott’s/Veth’s curse. Starting a war is big but, for the Mighty Nein, impersonal as doing evil goes. Getting involved in a major boon for a member of the Mighty Nein is very personal as far as doing good goes. Essek isn’t a mustache twirling bad guy, he’s complex and so their relationship isn’t and shouldn’t be a knee jerk response. Out here in the peanut gallery, I think a lot of people forget that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think the story should have been FORCED to go anywhere. But I think it's not unreasonable that there would turn out to be in-game consequences to cozying up to a mass murderer. He didn't crash someone's car. He started a war in which thousands of people died. The consequences would be something you'd run into almost daily in either country. In most towns, in both countries, there will be traumatized family members of people Essek caused to get killed - VERY recently. As a DM, I wouldn't have hand-waved all that just because they got in a hot tub with him. And I think it was also a case of the players liked their Essek jokes and just kinda didn't want to deal with bringing him to justice, so as a result their characters behaved in largely inexplicable ways. Veth certainly should have wanted his head on a platter. As a game, fine. As a show, I hated this part.

Obviously, it scarcely matters what I think of CR. But this particular issue is something I was never able to get over in the past third or so of the campaign.

What boggles my mind is simply that you think it was unrealistic behavior. Maybe Veth should want him dead. You think that just inevitably means she will? Do you know people? People aren’t like that. People are primarily emotional. If there is a way to transfer one’s rage from a friend onto a stranger you already hated, most people will do that, regardless of whether it makes sense.

Besides which Essek isn’t a “mass murderer”.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

He also helped research a cure for Nott’s/Veth’s curse. Starting a war is big but, for the Mighty Nein, impersonal as doing evil goes. Getting involved in a major boon for a member of the Mighty Nein is very personal as far as doing good goes. Essek isn’t a mustache twirling bad guy, he’s complex and so their relationship isn’t and shouldn’t be a knee jerk response. Out here in the peanut gallery, I think a lot of people forget that.

Yep. That and, while he had a part in reigniting the war, he didn’t start it, and he was manipulated into his role. He didn’t go, “Well, starting a war is how I’ll get this research done, so I’ll just do that.” He pursued a treasonous course of action to get intel, and didn’t think about it’s potential to turn regular conflict into all out war.

Between his help with the Bright Queen, his help with Veth, and his close friendship with them, and the fact that his guilt is a mirror to Caleb’s both in terms of being genuinely guilty and in terms of being manipulated and used, it’s not remotely surprising that the Nein haven’t thrown him to the wolves.

It also isn’t surprising that they are very distrustful of him, and sometimes harsh with him about the fact that he is guilty and may never find redemption.

Another thing I don’t think people take into account is that none of them live in or come from a just society. Protecting friends from the law in a lethally unjust society is literally the norm.

 

[jgsugden]

What boggles my mind is simply that you think it was unrealistic behavior. Maybe Veth should want him dead. You think that just inevitably means she will? Do you know people? People aren’t like that. People are primarily emotional. If there is a way to transfer one’s rage from a friend onto a stranger you already hated, most people will do that, regardless of whether it makes sense.

Besides which Essek isn’t a “mass murderer”.

Well, he murdered the Scourger personally to cover his tracks (2X77) clearly, and under the various felony murder rules out there he would be liable for all the deaths in the war caused by his thefts. So ... you might argue mass murderer may not be technically true under some definitions, but under others it is clearly true.

Regardless, what he did caused horrific deaths on a monsterous scale - and the only thing he has ever said he regretted was betraying his new friends. He even called regret a new sensation to him.

He recognizes there is no redemption for him. And when he notes that, his focus is on his own safety, not on morality.

Matt has hinted that the ability to avoid death forever using the beacons allows some beings more freedom to be immoral as there is no punishment in the afterlife to 'pay' when the end comes. He did not say he was speaking of Essek specifically, but Essek's complicitous role was unknown at the time.

Essek seems to be neutral evil. "... do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms..." That is exactly how Matt played Essek. There is no concern for the greater good - just what is good for Essek. Amongst what is good for Essek is the benefits of a friendship with the Mighty Nein... so he is not the epitome of Neutral Evil, but he is clearly Neutral Evil.