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

[CleverNickName]

...frankly, I cannot understand fans who spend hours listening to a D&D podcast rather than playing D&D...

"Rather than?" Many of us are happy to do both. It isn't an either/or situation.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, I'm not exactly able to play D&D while driving or at work.

 

[OB1]

A. Fiction isn't reality.
When it comes to the world of fiction, there are a whole host of things that people don't usually understand. And the reason why is that ... it's fiction. More importantly, it's entertainment. I certainly hope that none of the following comes as a shock to any person reading this:
i. Reality television is not just heavily edited, but is structured - which is to say, will often have particular bits that are emphasized, drawn out by the production team, or even scripted.
ii. The vast majority of what you see in a CSI-style procedural (or any police show that utilizes "CSI" technology) is either misleading, false, or (at best) changed to make dramatic sense.
iii. Medical shows will often be completely incorrect; when they are correct, they will emphasize incredibly rare but interesting conditions as opposed to the incredibly common things that are usually dealt with. The common joke on the differential diagnosis show, House, that "It's never lupus," should have been a stand-in for the truth; compared to what they were diagnosing, it was always lupus.
iv. And the common trope of a legal show with a masterful two-minute closing argument or opening statement before a jury is pure fantasy.

I could keep going on, but you get the idea. Generally, the concept that we are watching a performance, a fiction, is sufficient to have people understand that there will be difference between the fiction presented and reality for purely dramatic effect, but on occasion people have trouble understanding that; for example, the individual on a reality TV show isn't the character they were edited to appear to be. Sometimes, these misconceptions can actually be damaging. The public's belief in how forensics works in a typical case, information that is incorrect and based on fiction and entertainment, has been called the CSI effect, and can have deleterious effects on juries and on how people assume the police and the criminal justice system approach cases.

@Snarf Zagyg maybe I'm missing what you're trying to say here, but I don't think this is an apples to apples comparison of what CR and other live-play D&D streams are. They aren't a scripted television show about people who play D&D, they are a live recording of people actually playing D&D, just like watching people play golf, basektball, or whatever. So while I agree with your points above, I don't see how that connects to streamed, live-play D&D.

So sure, you shouldn't watch a medical show to learn anything about being a doctor, but a person who wants to create scripted entertainment can certainly watch it to learn about film making techniques. A scripted network show has a larger budget and a bunch of people who are professionals making it, but to say that an amateur or beginning filmmaker can't be inspired or learn about their own craft from watching professionals seems to be counterproductive advice.

Millions of kids watch sports on TV and also play in their back-yards or in little leagues or for their schools. Watching professionals doesn't detract from their own enjoyment of playing the sport, and I would argue that it enhances it. When me and a bunch of 14 year old friends spent the summer of '89 making our own Batman movie in our neighboorhood, we didn't care that we didn't have the sets, costumes, special effects or acting ability of the Burton film, we just wanted to make something that entertained us, and to have fun together as friends.

Critical Role is to D&D what the Harlem Globetrotters are to basketball. Yes, both play their games, but watching either really isn't going to give you a true understanding of how their game is normally played.

What is the "normal" way to play D&D? Isn't it telling a story about brave adventurer's facing deadly perils where the DM describes the scene, the players describe their actions, and the DM adjudicates the results, sometimes asking for dice to be rolled to determine the outcome? Sounds like CR to me.

 

[Bolares]

Man, you need to learn to be succinct. Seriously. These massive posts get in the way of your message. And this is me calling you out here on lengthy posts. You could cut that post down by 90% and get your message across more clearly.

I mean, I find this long post entertaining. Maybe it just isn't your cup of tea?

 

[Bolares]

Is this the place to say I hate the idea of the "Mercer Effect"?

 

[CleverNickName]

Is this the place to say I hate the idea of the "Mercer Effect"?

It's as good a place as any, I guess. For what it's worth, Matt Mercer agrees with you...there's a popular article floating around on the 'net where he talks about it specifically.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Millions of kids watch sports on TV and also play in their back-yards or in little leagues or for their schools. Watching professionals doesn't detract from their own enjoyment of playing the sport, and I would argue that it enhances it.

Sure! I mean, I like watching professional football. I also enjoyed throwing the pigskin around with friends.

...but I didn't think that my throwing the ball around with friends was the same as professional football. In fact, as someone who played (poorly) in school to a certain level of achievement, I am always panifully aware of how much better the professionals are.

There are many things that people watch professionals do that can inspire them! Good for them; but watching (say) Gordon Ramsay chop up some quick vegetables and insult some diner owner doesn't mean that your burnt offerings of pop tarts are going to be the same.

Look, I honestly do not understand why people who supposedly love the show are so ... determined to denigrate the achievements of the people who do it. More importantly, I truly believe that people don't realize just how much work (in terms of prep time, and in terms of talent + repetitions + hard work over the course of a life) goes into making something "look easy."

"Yeah, that Tom Brady? I coulda won all those rings. No big deal. He just got lucky. Playing a game."

YMMV. As it does. But I think it's almost tragic that Matt Mercer is so good at making people see what they believe is their idealized version of their home game, that many of them don't realize ... that it isn't their home game.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Well, these days kids get bullied for not having enough Twitter followers.

I wish I was joking.

man people are dumb.

 

[Seramus]

Yeah, Matt has gone on record as being firmly against the Mercer Effect. He's always encouraged different styles of play.

Seems like a pretty stand-up guy in general.

 

[Bolares]

It's as good a place as any, I guess. For what it's worth, Matt Mercer agrees with you...there's a popular article floating around on the 'net where he talks about it specifically.

Yeah, I've read that. Most of the time I've someone using "The Mercer Effect" in a discussion, it is just a fancy way of disguising their gatekeeping