Critical Role Critical Role Season 4 DM says encounters will not be balanced.

[Retros_x]

Oh dear. I want fun, games night D&D, not heavy, serious D&D.

I played in a game like that and it was fun and games. Open World is more fun with unbalanced encounters IMO, with different danger levels for different areas. Can be great fun too try to sneak into that dragon lair where you won't stand a chance in combat, but if you have chance of grabbing some OP treasure. If your character dies, well roll a new one.


IMO the tone of the game has nothing to do with the difficulty. You can run a slaughterhouse gauntlet funnel dungeon with dozens of dead characters and it can be absolutely gonzo and hilarious. You can run a dreadful heavy serious depressing game without any character death.

I think this campaign tries to settle for a "dramatic" tone, but not as bleak as Age of Umbra. I also trust Brennan as a Comedian that he knows when to relieve the tension. The Calamity mini-campaign he did had also humor and fun moments and overall I enjoyed it a lot. If C4 hits a similar vibe I would be happy.

 

[TiQuinn]

Oh dear. I want fun, games night D&D, not heavy, serious D&D. Age of Umbra killed off almost everyone, and it was bleak, man. And when characters died, the player was permanently out of the campaign.

Nothing says fun like "oh, your character died? Take your dice and go home! No more D&D for you!"

I don’t know that one necessarily has anything to do with the other. Age of Umbra was a very short series so they did a different format. Every campaign of CR has dealt with some pretty dramatic deaths so far, and in each case, the player came back with another character.

 

[TheSword]

I find it interesting that encounters not balanced have negative elements around sudden player death but the flip side also applies and is rarely discussed.

Dull, performative combat, where a severely underpowered (but aggressive) foe is little more than a speed bump. Pointless combat that basically goes through the motions. Unless it’s part of resource depletion which will be situational.

My gaming time is short enough and combat is already long enough to wade through pointless combat.

 

[Reynard]

I find it interesting that encounters not balanced have negative elements around sudden player death but the flip side also applies and is rarely discussed.

Dull, performative combat, where a severely underpowered (but aggressive) foe is little more than a speed bump. Pointless combat that basically goes through the motions. Unless it’s part of resource depletion which will be situational.

My gaming time is short enough and combat is already long enough to wade through pointless combat.

Sometimes absolutely bodying an encounter is a joy.

 

[Lazybones]

Based on what I've seen of Brennan's DMing (both with Calamity and D20), I will give him the benefit of the doubt. I stopped watching C3 about halfway through, but I'll start with this one tonight and see how it goes. I think the new format adds some interesting possibilities.

 

[TheSword]

Sometimes absolutely bodying an encounter is a joy.

I agree. And mowing through foes like mowing wheat can feel boss. But the novelty wears off I think. Particularly if risk is linked to reward - which I think it should be.

Bounded accuracy is pretty forgiving and still lets underwhelming foes get a hit in every so often but there is a balance where the larger hp in 5e means they don’t fall easily and instead just sit there like stubborn piñatas with no sweets inside.

 

[Umbran]

Oh dear. I want fun, games night D&D, not heavy, serious D&D. Age of Umbra killed off almost everyone, and it was bleak, man. And when characters died, the player was permanently out of the campaign.

Nothing says fun like "oh, your character died? Take your dice and go home! No more D&D for you!"

West Marches play doesn't kick the player out if the character dies. Indeed, West Marches particularly supports you having several characters, and you pick from your stable the one that makes sense for a given mission.

 

[Clint_L]

trust Brennan as a Comedian that he knows when to relieve the tension. The Calamity mini-campaign he did had also humor and fun moments and overall I enjoyed it a lot. If C4 hits a similar vibe I would be happy.

That was my least favourite CR campaign, partly because of the overall bleak tone, but also because the story was entirely on rails; I almost didn't finish. To each their own, but if this campaign feels like that, it will likely be the first CR campaign I abandon. I am hoping that the tone is much more like earlier CR, or typical Mulligan Dimension 20. Obviously that doesn't mean there aren't serious memoments, but that the overall tone is "fun adventure with some serious aspects" not "dark and serious, with some fun aspects." I guess we start to find out tonight, but all of their communication over the past week has changed my mood from excitement to trepidation.

I find it interesting that encounters not balanced have negative elements around sudden player death but the flip side also applies and is rarely discussed.

Dull, performative combat, where a severely underpowered (but aggressive) foe is little more than a speed bump. Pointless combat that basically goes through the motions. Unless it’s part of resource depletion which will be situational.

My gaming time is short enough and combat is already long enough to wade through pointless combat.

Someone is advocating for "dull, performative combat"? Weird, but I guess there's no accounting for taste. Do you see a lot of that in earlier seasons of Critical Role or Dimension 20?

 

[darjr]

West Marches play doesn't kick the player out if the character dies. Indeed, West Marches particularly supports you having several characters, and you pick from your stable the one that makes sense for a given mission.

This.
I was recently in a sandbox game where I had several characters and a few died. My favorite ended up being one I didn’t really like in the beginning. But dang has he been through some interesting scrapes.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think this is to be expected with a West Marches campaign. Though, I think an element of good sandbox design is setting up different zones with challenges appropriate to different level ranges, and properly telegraphing the difficulty of the zones. “You can walk into a fight that’s over your heads” is theoretically interesting, so long as you can recognize where you’re more or less likely to find such a fight and can seek it out or avoid it according to your interests. Not so fun if it seems totally random and arbitrary.