D&D General What if Critical Role had stuck with Pathfinder? Or 4E?

[Cruentus]

Critical Role is charismatic enough that they would have succeeded regardless of Pathfinder or 4E, but the amount of crunch would have done them no favors and just slowed things down.

There is definitely a market for that much crunch, but can you imagine the players on air counting each and every modifier? Insanity.

I don't know how much of their success you can also put down to the pandemic. Lots of people (and gamers) effectively cut off from their games and friends, with lots of time, watching anything gaming related on streaming platforms, etc. If CR launches during "normal" times, it probably has much less impact or goes largely unnoticed. Same with DnD spiking in popularity. People picking it up based on the above streaming options, plus various VTTs. But ultimately who knows. Mostly right place, right time (for both).

 

[billd91]

If they'd stuck with 4E, a few of the characters would have been more effective in combat and there would have been fewer deaths. Matt seems to have taken a lot from 4E even having only played it for one session with the group before converting to Pathfinder long term. The world-building and cosmology of Exandria is almost copy and paste from 4E points of light and the World Axis. So I doubt any of that would change.

Critical Role may have only played a single session with 4e, but Matt ran another campaign in 4e for a couple of years. So he had plenty of experience with it. But it’s also pretty clear that Matt prefers 5e.

If they'd stuck with Pathfinder, then it's quite likely that Paizo would be the 800 lbs gorilla in the room rather than D&D. Likely they'd switch spots, income wise. Not sure how the cast would react to the issues that have been revealed about Paizo over the years. Nor the critters. Likely they'd have either spun off their own game from Pathfinder or switched to 5E at some point when the Paizo stuff was coming out. Spinning off their own game would likely be the result. Custom build for them and their table and the ways they like to play. If they'd done that, then CR would be the 800 lbs gorilla in the room. Or things would fracture and you'd see a lot more indie games in a lot better positions. Maybe the OSR would be the dominant player. Who knows?

While CR’s success would have been a pretty big booster of Pathfinder, I seriously doubt PF would be the 800 lb gorilla in the face of 5e. That’s giving CR far too much credit for 5e’s success.

 

[payn]

5E's popularity is mostly due to Critical Role. So if CR had streamed Pathfinder games, then Pathfinder wouldn't be obscure. It would be the dominant d20 fantasy RPG.

I think CR helped 5E popularity for sure. I disagree that if they stuck with PF it would be the dominate game in town. CR is not that impactful and a little more credit is due to other factors like pop culture in general and a casual friendly D&D 5E system.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know how much of their success you can also put down to the pandemic. Lots of people (and gamers) effectively cut off from their games and friends, with lots of time, watching anything gaming related on streaming platforms, etc. If CR launches during "normal" times, it probably has much less impact or goes largely unnoticed. Same with DnD spiking in popularity. People picking it up based on the above streaming options, plus various VTTs. But ultimately who knows. Mostly right place, right time (for both).

They launched in 2016, and already had a million plus viewers by 2018: the pandemic didn't hurt them, but they were already a successful and independent company before that.

 

[Seramus]

If CR launches during "normal" times, it probably has much less impact or goes largely unnoticed.

CR started years before the pandemic.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I think two optional rules they had used helped streamline the gameplay, especially at higher levels.

In the old Tal'dorei book they put out with Green Ronin, the two optional rules at the table:
1) Drinking a potion is a bonus action. Feeding a potion to someone is still an action.
2) Spelldriver lets higher level casters cast two spells a round, with the second spell being limited to being under-Level-2.

 

[BRayne]

They launched in 2016, and already had a million plus viewers by 2018: the pandemic didn't hurt them, but they were already a successful and independent company before that.

2015 but yeah, the episode delayed by the beginning of pandemic lockdown was the 100th episode of their second campaign

 

[Cruentus]

CR started years before the pandemic.

Yeah, poor choice of words on my part. How about "Became runaway popular when?"

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Wasn't 5e already selling gangbusters before CR even started? If so, CR helped make D&D more popular and, in return, D&D helped make CR more popular. It's a half synergistic/ half symbiotic relationship.

Pathfinder, however, didn't have that going for it in 2015. It was already "on the way out" in comparison to 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, poor choice of words on my part. How about "Became runaway popular when?"

They already has their $11.3 million cartoon Kickstarter over a year prior to the start of the pandemic, and that wasn't even their first big Kickstarter.