D&D General Critical Role: Overrated, Underrated, or Goldilocks?

[prabe]

Mama always said, "Life is like a box of analogies."

One thing is always like another?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

One thing is always like another?

If the meanings of true and false were switched, this sentence wouldn't be false.

 

[FrogReaver]

One thing is always like another?

Yes!. Everything is like everything else but also different.

"Life is like a box of chocolates" except when it comes to the actual taste.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, but that's the thing. No one is saying it isn't. In fact, I know I've said (and others too) multiple times that it's still D&D.

We got off on a sidetrack. Some people have said CR is like porn or the Harlem Globetrotters equivalent of D&D.

These things do not contradict each other. Adult film actors are actually doing the nasty, they’re just also making a performance of doing the nasty. The Harlem Globetrotters are actually playing basketball, they’re just also making a performance of playing basketball. The Critical Role cast is actually playing D&D they’re just also making a performance of playing D&D. That’s one of the levels the analogy does work on. Are there levels the analogy doesn’t work on? Of course. But the point being made by this analogy is that, like those forms of performance, Critical Role is also a form of performance in which the performers are legitimately engaged in the activity being performed - this as opposed to, say, a Hollywoos movie, where the actors are not really doing the nasty or playing sports.

Some other streams to me are improv sketch comedy bits disguised as D&D. CR doesn't give me that same impression. They look to me like a group of people playing D&D.

They are a group of people playing D&D. I mean, I would argue those other streams are also groups of people playing D&D, but that’s beside the point. If your objection to the analogy is that you think the Critical Role cast is actually playing D&D, you are objecting to something the analogy doesn’t actually imply.

 

[Charlaquin]

::Sigh:: I'm obviously not making my point. I think they're very polished, charismatic and engaging. I don't deny any of that, nor do I think I could replicate that aspect of it even if I wanted to. I just don't think that makes it fundamentally different.

I agree. The polish, charisma, and engaging…ness, don’t make CR fundamentally different than a home game. What does make it fundamentally different than a home game is its different target audience - millions of viewers at home, as opposed to (just) the people sitting at the table playing the game.

They aren't pretending to play D&D, they are playing D&D and happen to be a very polished, charismatic and engaging group of people.

I don’t claim that they’re pretending to play D&D. I claim that they’re really playing D&D for the entertainment of a streaming audience, as opposed to really playing D&D solely for their own entertainment and the entertainment of the other players. Like doing improv on a show like Who’s Line is it Anyway as opposed to playing improv games with your friends for fun. Which as I type it I realize is probably an analogy that won’t resonate with non-theater people…

 

[FrogReaver]

IMO, it's easiest to grasp from the competing priorities angle. D&D as a performance for an audience has some additional priorities that D&D as a home game does not. I don't think that's a controversial statement (though it is the internet). Anytime there are multiple priorities they will sometimes come into competition. I would suggest that CR prioritizes the performance for an audience piece. That doesn't mean both don't occur or that they never align - they probably do both most the time. But there's an extra decision parameter that's being evaluated that's not present in home games and that will cause differences in the final products. That's where the difference lies IMO. You may perceive that as a large difference or a small difference, but it's certainly a difference.

 

[Charlaquin]

IMO, it's easiest to grasp from the competing priorities angle. D&D as a performance for an audience has some additional priorities that D&D as a home game does not. I don't think that's a controversial statement (though it is the internet). Anytime there are multiple priorities they will sometimes come into competition. I would suggest that CR prioritizes the performance for an audience piece. That doesn't mean both don't occur or that they never align - they probably do both most the time. But there's an extra decision parameter that's being evaluated that's not present in home games and that will cause differences in the final products. That's where the difference lies IMO. You may perceive that as a large difference or a small difference, but it's certainly a difference.

Yes, well said!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm deeply confused as to what the hell difference it makes that they're playing to entertain an audience or not. Why does this matter?

If you want to imitate their style, you can, you just have to work at it like anything else. If you don't then why do you care?

This is like complaining about the World Cup because you can't flip kick a soccer ball at a billion MPH and also that you don't like soccer and wish they were playing baseball.

 

[OB1]

CR is different from your home game. Every D&D table is different than your home game.

While watching CR and applying what you see there won't make your home game just like CR (because they are talented voice actors and Mercer has spent decades honing his DM skills), you can watch CR and apply some of the techniques and ideas from it that resonate with you to your own home game in a positive way.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm deeply confused as to what the hell difference it makes that they're playing to entertain an audience or not. Why does this matter?

If you want to imitate their style, you can, you just have to work at it like anything else. If you don't then why do you care?

This is like complaining about the World Cup because you can't flip kick a soccer ball at a billion MPH and also that you don't like soccer and wish they were playing baseball.

We aren’t saying you couldn’t play your home game like you were playing for an audience. You certainly can! But that’s not typical.

playing for an audience will impact your decisions about what you say, do and most importantly what you have the character say and do - so it’s not quite the same as playing in a normal home game.

Also since you brought it up, the quality of what you produce and they produce even when both playing for an audience will be vastly different. That’s important to realize. Knowing your limitations so to speak. But it’s not so much the qualitative difference as the process difference that fundamentally matters.