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

[Fizban Kainenminster]

I think the show is goldilocks.

I came back to D&D from Pathfinder 1e sort of silently kicking and screaming in my head. The main reason was that my group gets together twice a year only for a long weekend getaway, and 5e seems less complex and we could finish campaigns faster
While I prefer Pathfinder still because of the APs, Critical Role has reminded me that less complex is just as fun, and I actually am just as happy with streamlined. The published campaigns need work, but then all of them need to be tailored imho.
The only negative for me is the wonky CR system, which Mercer and Co. make home brewing look easy.
Overall, love the show for easing my transition away from Pathfinder.

 

[CleverNickName]

I have to say, I'm enjoying Campaign 3 more than I thought I would. I thought that the first campaign was amazing, and it was really a tough act to follow. They tried to recapture some of that lightning in a bottle with the second campaign, but it never really landed with me. So when they announced Campaign 3, I was careful to temper my expectations.

It's really, really good. A bit of a slow start, but I'm liking what I've seen so far.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

But literally nothing in your examples references the game mechanics. If the wizard says "I'll hang back because you have more hit points than me", that's playing into the mechanics of the game. If the wizard says "I'm physically weak and I'm going to hang behind this big strong guy in armor when the goblins attack", that's just tactics. No mechanics of the game involved at all. There is no reason delegation can't happen completely in character, when totally immersed in role playing, with no knowledge of the game mechanics whatsoever.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I see that as playing into the mechanics. When characters don't do it, it stands out. I had a half-orc wizard that used to use a quarterstaff all the time during combat when things got close to him. It was in his nature to smack things that got too close. That stands out as most wizards would play to their class's strength and use their cantrip or spell.
I feel like that is what the CR players do sometimes; play their characters, not their characters' numbers.

I'll have to agree with @Deset Gled . Calling out for the rogue to come and open a door because your character has clumsy hands is not playing into the mechanics, it makes total sense in the fiction. There's other examples of things that the characters couldn't really know, or wouldn't realistically consider and then it would be leaning into the mechanics. But the examples listed so far are totally on par with the fiction. It would make sense for characters to do these choices even in a mechanics-free full improv game.