Download Critical Role’s New RPG Quickstart

Arilyn · May 25, 2023

What about the adventure? Does it step you through the mechanics?

SteveC · May 25, 2023

darjr said:
Find out tonight?

Exactly! As someone who's played a fair bit of Blades, I think it will be an excellent fit for Matt's style. And it will get the players even more involved in the game. I will have to check it out, but my experiences tell me that this style of game will mesh perfectly with the group. And yes, I will be tuning in to check it out.

overgeeked · May 25, 2023

Arilyn said:
What about the adventure? Does it step you through the mechanics?

Doesn't seem to. It specifically calls out NPCs attacking the PCs...but no mention of how that's handled mechanically. Not that I can find. It mentions PCs simply gaining marks from various sources. And that PCs will need to have a variety of roles to successfully avoid taking marks, i.e. damage, but again fails to mention how that's handled mechanically.

It reads like they're going to be using 7-point plot structure as a framework for assigments. At least that's how this adventure is framed.

The adventure definitely could have used a flow chart or more bullet points. Other than a few subheads and bolded text, it's pages of text with a few pictures. The opening "read aloud" text is almost a full page. About 700 words long. Ugh.

darjr · May 25, 2023

overgeeked · May 25, 2023

But...there's a lot of cool stuff in there. I really love the direction this seems to be taking. A fantasy-horror alternate history setting, similar to the early 1900s, so easy to add in some steampunk, and some Great War vibes...plus it's filled with art nouveau...which I love.

The dice pool is cool. The more d6 games the better. I like the success ladder: 1-3, miss; 4-5, mixed; 6, success. Their marks, scars, and shifting points to reflect scars is a great touch. I really like that. I really appreciate the care they seem to have taken in representation and mental health. The dice, drives, resistance, gilded dice, marks, and scars mechanics seem to present an interesting play loop. Obviously I haven't played this yet (or seen it played), so I don't know. But it reads like it would be really interesting to play.

As an aside: the complaints I have come down to "no really, hire an outside editor." When you write a thing or are close to the project and know what it's supposed to say, you tend to fill in the blanks. So if those blanks aren't explicitly spelled out in the text itself...no one outside the project's team knows what's what.

BovineofWar · May 25, 2023

overgeeked said:
Doesn't seem to. It specifically calls out NPCs attacking the PCs...but no mention of how that's handled mechanically. Not that I can find. It mentions PCs simply gaining marks from various sources. And that PCs will need to have a variety of roles to successfully avoid taking marks, i.e. damage, but again fails to mention how that's handled mechanically.

If it's anything like Blades in the Dark (and it smells a lot like Blades in the Dark...) that's all free form and up to the players and DMs.
DM: Okay, the guard dogs see you when you walk into the courtyard and immediately spring up to attack.
Player 1: My charming rogue will use cunning to sway the dogs into not attacking me. Nice puppies.
Player 2: My brutish rogue will beat up the dogs, by using nerve to strike them. Bad puppies.
DM and players agree those are reasonable actions, decide on difficulties which effects the number of dice rolled, impact of failure.
Player 1 gets a critical success (6), and the DM decides that the dogs do not attack Player 1.
Player 2 gets a partial success (4-5), and the DM decides that the character manages to beat the dogs into submission, so the estate guards aren't alerted, but receives a body scar during the fight.

The DM could have decided no damage and the partial success means the alert clock goes up slightly. Or that these are demon dogs that do 2 marks of scar, why did you pick a fight with them? Nothing is set in stone.

So yeah, it's not as mechanically deterministic as D&D. I have to admit, I didn't even find the award winning Blades in the Dark manual all that good at explaining that. And my group mostly bounced off Blades because BitD/PbtA have a very different flow/mechanical loop than D&D. On the other hand, it is a very narrative driven game, so I'm not as concerned about the idea that Matt Mercer won't be able to tell a story or that his players won't be able to riff off of it.

overgeeked · May 25, 2023

BovineofWar said:
If it's anything like Blades in the Dark (and it smells a lot like Blades in the Dark...) that's all free form and up to the players and DMs.
DM: Okay, the guard dogs see you when you walk into the courtyard and immediately spring up to attack.
Player 1: My charming rogue will use cunning to sway the dogs into not attacking me. Nice puppies.
Player 2: My brutish rogue will beat up the dogs, by using nerve to strike them. Bad puppies.
DM and players agree those are reasonable actions, decide on difficulties which effects the number of dice rolled, impact of failure.
Player 1 gets a critical success (6), and the DM decides that the dogs do not attack Player 1.
Player 2 gets a partial success (4-5), and the DM decides that the character manages to beat the dogs into submission, so the estate guards aren't alerted, but receives a body scar during the fight.

The DM could have decided no damage and the partial success means the alert clock goes up slightly. Or that these are demon dogs that do 2 marks of scar, why did you pick a fight with them? Nothing is set in stone.

So yeah, it's not as mechanically deterministic as D&D. I have to admit, I didn't even find the award winning Blades in the Dark manual all that good at explaining that. And my group mostly bounced off Blades because BitD/PbtA have a very different flow/mechanical loop than D&D. On the other hand, it is a very narrative driven game, so I'm not as concerned about the idea that Matt Mercer won't be able to tell a story or that his players won't be able to riff off of it.

Sure. I'm not saying we can't reference BitD or FitD games, clearly we can. I'm saying it's not actually in the Quickstart how to handle those things. Even the "it's freeform, do what you want" is missing from the Quickstart. That's the point. Unless someone's willing to just make it up and decide (without the book telling them to), then they're up a creek.

For example, there's no clocks in the QS. No GM moves to reference. No mention of extra damage on a crit, nor of damage on a failure. Nor of how much damage an NPC can take. Nor of how many successes it takes to overcome any obstacle. Nor whether the GM ever rolls dice. It's all simply missing. As is any even rough advice on how to handle those things. If the QS had "just make it up" in there, I'd be good. It's blank though. And a lot of people are not okay with blanks. A lot of people are not okay with "just make it up".

Burt Baccara · May 25, 2023

darjr said:
View attachment 286091

That brings up a few questions:

If it is based on BitD, why does it not honor the FitD license and contain an attribution in the quick start?
If Candela Obscura and Illuminated Worlds are built on top of games with open licenses, then will it too have an open license?
While nice that they called out Vaesen, is it the mechanics they are pulling from or the setting? Seems like the latter for sure, is the setting open game licensed or only the YZE?
When indie designers and publishers open and license their systems for other designers to work with, did they ever expect a bigger fish with greater reach and deeper pockets than they use their system? Will indie publishers now think twice about open licensing their systems?

BovineofWar · May 25, 2023

overgeeked said:
Sure. I'm not saying we can't reference BitD or FitD games, clearly we can. I'm saying it's not actually in the Quickstart how to handle those things. Even the "it's freeform, do what you want" is missing from the Quickstart. That's the point. Unless someone's willing to just make it up and decide (without the book telling them to), then they're up a creek.

For example, there's no clocks in the QS. No GM moves to reference. No mention of extra damage on a crit, nor of damage on a failure. Nor of how much damage an NPC can take. Nor of how many successes it takes to overcome any obstacle. Nor whether the GM ever rolls dice. It's all simply missing. As is any even rough advice on how to handle those things. If the QS had "just make it up" in there, I'd be good. It's blank though. And a lot of people are not okay with blanks. A lot of people are not okay with "just make it up".

Fair enough! I didn't find it particularly well explained in BitD, so perhaps I didn't really notice in comparison.

BRayne · May 26, 2023

Burt Baccara said:
That brings up a few questions:

If it is based on BitD, why does it not honor the FitD license and contain an attribution in the quick start?

If Candela Obscura and Illuminated Worlds are built on top of games with open licenses, then will it too have an open license?

While nice that they called out Vaesen, is it the mechanics they are pulling from or the setting? Seems like the latter for sure, is the setting open game licensed or only the YZE?

When indie designers and publishers open and license their systems for other designers to work with, did they ever expect a bigger fish with greater reach and deeper pockets than they use their system? Will indie publishers now think twice about open licensing their systems?