Critical Role PSA: You are not Matt Mercer

[Jester David]

In a significant sense, it is. It certainly isn't Matt Mercer's fault that someone impressionable watched him and came away with unrealistic expectations of what they could accomplish themselves. But that doesn't mean we have to be unsympathetic - after all, they probably didn't have any other metrics to go by. They aren't absolved of any responsibility simply because they didn't know better.

Nobody gets to choose how something makes them feel.

So again, what we can do when we spot them is pick them up, dust them off, let them know that we all had our own disappointments, and help them move on to their next attempt.

And how we do that isn't to tell them it's their fault for having unrealistic expectations.

 

[S'mon]

Matt Mercer isn't victimizing us, true.
We're victimizing ourselves.

I guess then instead of blaming the victim, we should blame the perpetrator.

BTW, GMing really isn't hard. Grab a simple dungeon or roll up a random one, make or grab a newbie town (Hommlet, Phandalin), have players make 1st level PCs, and you're off. I do think there is less GM support in newer games; reaction tables, wandering monster tables, robust treasure tables, all make it much easier. if in doubt I recommend running Moldvay or Mentzer Basic D&D to get your mojo back - retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry are ok too, but I think the limited level range of Basic sets helps focus. The Pathfinder Beginner Box is also very good at supporting the GM.

 

[S'mon]

Nobody gets to choose how something makes them feel.

No, but we can choose how we react to that feeling. I tell my depressed students "Don't feel bad about feeling bad" - ie it's normal & common to get depression in Higher Ed, it's an occupational illness - and this always helps them IME. Likewise you can't help your reaction to Mercer, but you can help what you do about that reaction.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not blaming Mercer in any way shape or form.
I'm just saying I can understand people being intimidated by his skill and the impression he has made in the community.

Sure, I can see people being intimidated. I'm also seeing the other side of people being inspired.

And, I guess I'm missing your point since you seem to be focusing entirely on the negative aspects of what impact Mercer could be having on the community. There are also people who saw famous, successful, bad-ass actor Vin Diesel goofing around and playing DnD because of Mercer. How about the impact that might have had to show people ashamed of their love of fantasy games that there is nothing to be ashamed of.

You know, one of my memories from Middle School was doing a computer project for Dungeons and Dragons, one of the first links I found was to Dark Dungeons by Jack Chic. It was one of the first five links.

It isn't even in the first three pages anymore. Neither is Critical Role, but I don't doubt they had an impact in making the game so popular and changing this aspect.

YES!
The person who is exposed to something new and tries it out only to fall short on every concievable metric. Because being a DM is hard. Super hard. And being a good DM is even harder.
Even before Critical Role was around it was hard enough to get people to try DMing or run their first game because the position is intimidating. Now it's just that much more so.

I disagree, not only do I think it is less intimidating, I can guarantee more people are trying it than used to. Maybe that means more people are falling short too, but they never would have tried before CR, so that is still a net gain.

Yes.
But people aren't "continually exposed" to Dungeon Masters. Many people might only have seen one or two before trying the game.

It's a different situation than athletes or musicians when you know how rare talent is and how rare it is to be famous at it. It's common knowledge what they do is challenging.
But Matt makes DMing look easy. And running a game doesn't seem as hard as writing a song or making a three-point basket. So it can be that much more disapointing to crash and burn.

And those one or two didn't make it look easy?

The fact that I can watch a game with dozens of athletes makes it seem like it is pretty easy. I mean, there are literally hundreds of professional athletes and they make it look easy.

We know that it isn't the case, so why is it different for Matt? Because no DM has ever been famous before?

Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen to other people. Not everyone things and reacts the same.

But try and think back to that day. And after that disaster did you feel disheartened and disappointed? Did you run a second game the next week or take a break?

Yeah, I took a break. Yeah, I was discouraged. Hell, I thought I was a failure as a person.

Do you think seeing Matt being successful would have somehow made it worse? I was in a gaming club. We had dozens of successful games going. I knew people ran campaigns that lasted years and I had failed to run for two sessions.

Think about that for a second. I knew that "other people" could run for years at a time with "no problems" but I didn't know how they did it. With CR, you can literally watch and see how he does it. You can see him get caught off-guard, you can see his plans fall apart around him and he laughs about it in joy.

Isn't that better than having some imaginary bar that I can never see, some perfect ideal in my head that has no form except "better than me"?

Translation: "It's their fault they feel sad."

If you feel the need to assign blame, then who else should we blame?

You said Matt isn't to blame, so who is? Who should stop doing what they are doing so that these people aren't feeling bad about themselves?

And if it is no one's fault, why turn around and say "Mercer is having a negative impact because this is happening."?

Nobody gets to choose how something makes them feel.


And how we do that isn't to tell them it's their fault for having unrealistic expectations.

I don't disagree with either of these statements. I agree with both of them actually.

 

[billd91]

And how we do that isn't to tell them it's their fault for having unrealistic expectations.

Oh, I think we can definitely let them know their expectations were unrealistic. I think people who are disappointed with themselves need to be told that Matt Mercer's DMing skills weren't built in a day. He's played and DMed for 20 years. He's been developing his voice skills since he was in high school 20 years ago. There's no way he had the skills then that he does now. And yet, he obviously had fun or he wouldn't have continued.

 

[Jester David]

Sure, I can see people being intimidated. I'm also seeing the other side of people being inspired.

And, I guess I'm missing your point since you seem to be focusing entirely on the negative aspects of what impact Mercer could be having on the community. There are also people who saw famous, successful, bad-ass actor Vin Diesel goofing around and playing DnD because of Mercer. How about the impact that might have had to show people ashamed of their love of fantasy games that there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Because this isn't that thread. This is a thread about how you're not Matt Mercer and the "Matt Mercer effect".
I imagine a "hey, lets talk about all the awesome stuff Matt Mercer has done for the hobby" thread would be just as long. Heck, just discussing 826LA would take a few hundred words.

Yeah, I took a break. Yeah, I was discouraged. Hell, I thought I was a failure as a person.

Do you think seeing Matt being successful would have somehow made it worse? I was in a gaming club. We had dozens of successful games going. I knew people ran campaigns that lasted years and I had failed to run for two sessions.

Maybe.
Especially if you weren't in a gaming club and the only other person you saw running was Matt.
If you ran for your friends to introduce them to D&D and it was a disaster, it'd be very easy to give up than try again.

If you feel the need to assign blame, then who else should we blame?

You said Matt isn't to blame, so who is? Who should stop doing what they are doing so that these people aren't feeling bad about themselves?

And if it is no one's fault, why turn around and say "Mercer is having a negative impact because this is happening."?

As you say, no one is to blame. Mercer is having a negative effect AND a positive effect and I think it's clear the latter outweighs the former for a net positive. Which is the thing: Matt could be an overwhelming positive effect on the D&D Community and an intimidating figure that people have to live in the shadow of.

But blaming the people who are having problems or dismissing the problems doesn't fix things. Nor does it help those people move forward and keep gaming.

 

[S'mon]

I'm pretty confident in my GMing overall these days, but I've had a ton of screw ups and a ton of failed games. The '90s was particularly bad, but I remember a decade later it took me umpteen attempts at running the Wilderlands to get it right. I certainly felt bad about my failures. But I learned and eventually found or relearned stuff that worked.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because this isn't that thread. This is a thread about how you're not Matt Mercer and the "Matt Mercer effect".
I imagine a "hey, lets talk about all the awesome stuff Matt Mercer has done for the hobby" thread would be just as long. Heck, just discussing 826LA would take a few hundred words.

I've never seen the "hey, Matt Mercer is helping the community" thread. Not once.

And hey, that fits into the PSA. You aren't Matt Mercer. You haven't inspired hundreds of thousands of people. You haven't created more DnD campaigns across the world. You haven't helped donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity.

Obviously though, that sounds mean, telling people they aren't highly successful. Clearly, it is much better to hurl stones at the people who are successful.

Maybe.
Especially if you weren't in a gaming club and the only other person you saw running was Matt.
If you ran for your friends to introduce them to D&D and it was a disaster, it'd be very easy to give up than try again.

So, since it can happen sans Matt, why are we talking about it like Matt has something to do with it?

As you say, no one is to blame. Mercer is having a negative effect AND a positive effect and I think it's clear the latter outweighs the former for a net positive. Which is the thing: Matt could be an overwhelming positive effect on the D&D Community and an intimidating figure that people have to live in the shadow of.

But blaming the people who are having problems or dismissing the problems doesn't fix things. Nor does it help those people move forward and keep gaming.

If I ever run into a real person who has that issue (other than my friend who is a critter and has good ideas, but feels she can't DM, who I constantly try and support) then I won't dismiss their concerns.

But, in this entire thread, I think there has been only one person who personally saw or expeirenced this "problem" most of us don't.

And I don't see any threads started by those people asking for help.

I do see a lot of threads started abnout how CR is having a negative impact on the community.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think the difference is anyone who picked-up D&D blind 10 or 20 years ago had no idea they sucked as DM. I certainly had no idea in the early '90s how bad of a DM I was. I happily ran my games blissfully unaware I was making every DMing mistake in the book.

And many players took up DMing duties because their current DM was bad. The bar was lowered to "I can't be worse than this chucklehead..."

Now, we have a better idea of what a good DM is and what our players will be judging us against.

I picked up D&D roughly 30 years ago. I would have done just about any darn thing short of murder to watch a DM with even half of Mercer's skill DM. Instead I muddled through blindly, making just about every mistake a newbie DM could make.

If CR had been around, I very much doubt I would have been intimidated or disheartened by Mercer's skill. Rather, I would have been grateful for an example to learn from. I didn't really find one of those for a decade. I can only imagine how many less mistakes I would have made.

I certainly wouldn't have felt judged against Mercer. If my players want to compare me to Mercer than they're welcome to go play in his game instead.

I was overjoyed when I finally found an experienced group I could learn from. I never felt like the group was comparing me against the other DMs, though I was worse in many respects since I was still learning. But I also brought fresh ideas and perspectives that the existing DMs hadn't previously considered (some of which they ended up adopting).

It seems to me as though you're advocating for ignorance being bliss, which is not a viewpoint I can agree with. I know some people do see things that way, but IME their ignorance just makes them less consciously aware of their misery while simultaneously trapping them in a perpetual cycle of said misery.

 

[jgsugden]

...I very much feel exhausted and drained after a gaming session. I sleep like crap after, because my mind is going at 110%. I agonize over my mistakes. I try to be better and provide a great game and always try to be better than last time then beat myself up when I fail.

And I've been doing it for like 28 years, so I'm not some rookie...

Yeah, I took a break. Yeah, I was discouraged. Hell, I thought I was a failure as a person.

That is not healthy. At all.

Seriously - these are not healthy responses to a situation in which someone does something better than you. You could be well served to speak with someone that can help you address how you're responding to these situations.