D&D General D&D Survivor - Dungeon Masters: Matt Mercer Wins!

[Argyle King]

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" 1
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 12
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 8
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 9
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 5

 

[Torquar]

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" 1
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 12
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 8
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 10
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 3

 

[Zio_the_dark]

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" 1
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 12
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 9
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 8
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 3

 

[CleverNickName]

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" 1
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 12
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 9-2=7 You're on my railroad now.
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 8+1=9 Get 'em, Mercer. Lead the Venture Maidens to victory!
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 3

 

[TheSword]

Oops 2 posts came in as I was typing

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" 1
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 12 - 2 = 10
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 7
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 9
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 3 + 1 = 4

 

[CleverNickName]

Corrected numbers are:

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" 1
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 10
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 7
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 9
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 4

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Dave Arneson, "Blackmoor" -1 My first fatality in this Survivor
Jasmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 10
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 8
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 9
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 4

 

[CleverNickName]

And there are only 6 people left now. (And only two that I have no idea who they are.)

Well then, get to know them!

Up top at 13 points, we have Celest Conowitch. She's the Dungeon Master of the highly-successful podcast "Venture Maidens." VM recently funded a Kickstarter by the same name, and it looks pretty spectacular. (I've got my eye on their "School of Song" wizard, which just might be the "bard" that I've been looking for.) You can check out her work wherever you download your podcasts.

In second place with 10 points, we have Jasmine Bhullar. She's a writer, actor, and internet personality, and the creator of "Shikar." You might have seen her most recently on Critical Role's channel for the DOOM Eternal one-shot.

In third place with 9 points is Matt Mercer, dungeon master for Critical Role (you might have heard of it; it's the gold standard of actual-play D&D broadcasts.) He's an incredibly talented voice actor, a creative and flexible actor, and a genuinely nice guy who just wants people to treat each other better.

In fourth place with 8 points is Matt Colville, the dungeon master for "The Chains of Acheron" and producer of the YouTube series "Running the Game." When he's not Dungeon-Mastering or teaching others the finer points of Dungeon-Mastery, he is writing amazing stuff like the Evolve video game, the Mercenaries video game franchise, and Critical Role's Vox Machina: Origins comic book series.

And in fifth place with 4 points is Chris Perkins, the last of the "old guard" of Dungeon Masters, getting his start in 1988 with writing for Dungeon Magazine. When he worked for WotC, he led the team that updated the setting and cosmology for the 4th Edition game. Most recently he is the Dungeon Master for "Dice Camera Action."

That's a solid Top Five, folks.

 

[TheSword]

So just throwing this out there. We’ve bumped the old school DMs and are down to the Internet personalities and streamers (with CP falling into both camps)

Celeste/venture maidens 2,470 subscribers on you tube.
Jasmine/Shikar 4,200 subscribers
Dice Camera Action 330,000 subscribers
Matt Colville 385,000 subscribers
Matt Mercer/Critical Role 1,360,000 subscribers
I’ve referenced subscribers because that indicates not just how many people watch a video but how many like it enough to want to watch more.

Now I get that a lot of people don’t equate popularity with quality (though all things being equal it’s a damned big indicator) but there is a world of difference of the scale of operations between these entries. I can certainly be critical of Matt Mercer, but there is no arguing with what he’s built. He’s released his campaign world as a finished product and no doubt will release more.

If Perkins gets knocked out soon (which seems likely, despite his impact on 5e, editing the best years of dungeon magazine, excellent curse of strahd adventure and brilliant DMing skills) then I’m doing a u-turn and throwing my weight behind Matt Mercer. I’ll be downvoting Celeste and Jasmine, not because they aren’t good… they clearly are. They just aren’t in the same league yet. If it comes down to the Matt’s, then I’m still gonna stick with Mercer. For all we talk about the Mercer effect he added to the sum total of ranting videos on internet for which he has my thanks.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

asmine Bhullar, "Shikar" 10
Celeste Conowitch, "Venture Maidens" 13
Matt Colville, "The Chain of Acheron" 8-2=6
Matt Mercer, "Critical Role" 9+1=10
Chris Perkins, "Dice Camera Action 4