Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Yeah, in my experience, this Matt Mercer style of intense theatrics but minimal mechanical risk of character death is what I think the majority of players want from the game. Players tend to like their characters and don’t want them to die, they just want the feeling of their character being in danger, so they can overcome that danger and feel like awesome heroes. An occasional character death can be acceptable of course, but it should feel dramatically appropriate when it happens.Yeah, they are guidelines for a maximal experience, not the only way the game functions. Matt Mercer essentially never throws fights at the Critical Role crew that aren't cakewalks, because 7 PCs with no resource grind are basically unbeatable: but he still gives his players a fun time. He puts the fear of God into them with theatrics, rather than pushing the characters to their actual mechanical limits. The game plays fine that way, but yes without grinding PCs resources it will be hard to kill them.
I see no particular reason to suspect one or another about what newer players are doing with the grindiness: I see these complaints more on forums where more experienced players who like involved wargame scenarios are talking about the game. I think newbies are doing fine, whether they are pushing the resource limits or not.
Now, this obviously isn’t what everyone wants, but do I think folks (and especially DMs) who want more mechanical challenge are disproportionately represented in online D&D discussion spaces like forums. Obviously I don’t have data to back that up, but it’s the sense I get. And even in those spaces, we still see a respectable amount of advocacy in favor of that low-lethality, theatrical type of play.