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

[Oofta]

no one has made this claim so I’m not tracking on why you think this claim is made.

If the sales history of 4E ever comes up it's always the reason given. That the only reason PF sold better than 4E was that things had been canceled . I think it's just that WOTC saw the writing on the wall and decided to stop throwing money at a product that was not succeeding so they decided to reboot and hope for the best.

 

[JEB]

If the sales history of 4E ever comes up it's always the reason given. That the only reason PF sold better than 4E was that things had been canceled . I think it's just that WOTC saw the writing on the wall and decided to stop throwing money at a product that was not succeeding so they decided to reboot and hope for the best.

Note it took nearly a year after Pathfinder first overtook them (2011) for an official admission that a new edition was in the works (2012). And again, it seems Pathfinder was gaining on them before support really declined, in Q3 2010, at which time Wizards was still trying to reignite interest with Essentials. Doesn't seem like they'd fully given up on 4E yet, but it wasn't helping.

I imagine Pathfinder overtaking them in 2011 was what killed their last hopes of pulling out of the decline, and spurred the move to Next.

 

[JEB]

But getting back to my original question... here's another option. What if Critical Role had stuck with Pathfinder during their first campaign, then switched to 5E when Campaign 2 started? Or, if they switched to 5E at some point during their first campaign, having concluded after getting started on stream that it wasn't as suited?

 

[darjr]

They were all very busy and working actors and I think I remember a time when they seriously had to think if they were going to go for it. Even as big of a thing it must have seemed. (Now dwarfed by their present success)

I think it’s entirely possible that if they hadn’t synergiezed with the booming popularity of the new hot thing they might have decided to not continue. Especially after their differences with thier original partner platform.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If Critical Role had stuck with Pathfinder?

5e would still be a thing, but it would not have taken off quite the way it has--especially if other streaming game things had similarly stuck with pathfinder (e.g. The Adventure Zone). Pathfinder gets extremely, I would argue overwhelmingly crunchy at high levels, so CR itself would have suffered some loss of influence purely due to the game becoming hard to follow.

If CR had stuck with 4e?

We might not even have 5e now--especially if CR had started a little earlier, back when 4e was still actively supported. Can you imagine how beneficial it would have been for 4e to get some actually positive marketing? Penny Arcade's occasional information about Acquisitions Inc. and Gabe's campaigns were already a big help. Having an effectively free active recruitment campaign would have been insane. Doubly so if the Critical Role people had done efforts to reach out to the masses--e.g., what if Mercer (or someone else math-inclined among them) had coded up really really well-made automatic character sheets for 4e in Roll20 or some other virtual tabletop? Suddenly all that "ew you have to TRACK things!!" becomes "Hey, you can have a computer handle all the crap you don't want to track!"

I admit this is at least somewhat optimistic overall but like...yeah. Had CR really stuck to its guns and promoted 4e as an option, especially if it had happened a few years earlier, it's entirely possible that 5e either would not exist right now, or would look radically different from how it does, because the "don't do ANYTHING that smells of 4e" (even though they ripped a lot from it...mostly without realizing why 4e did what it did, sadly) would not have been the design focus of the day.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

Apropos the discussion of social vs combat mechanics in other threads, I wonder if CR would feel different (as a game or as a show) if they used 4e instead of 5e. CR often gets cited as an example of what low-combat, high-RP improv style dnd looks like. Would this change using a different system? If not, is this an indication that edition doesn't matter so much; you can run your style of dnd in any edition more or less. Or, would the divergence between the type of game they want to play and what the edition emphasizes be more glaring?

Well, seeing as 5E already appears to have a reputation for being combat focused, I figure that you're right and the players, not the edition, determine the balance of RP and combat.

In my own group, too, regardless of whether we use 3rd or 5th (imo 3rd is even more combat focused), the play is still often highly improvisational and RP driven. The maps come out, for sure, but otherwise it's mostly theater of mind.

 

[teitan]

If the sales history of 4E ever comes up it's always the reason given. That the only reason PF sold better than 4E was that things had been canceled . I think it's just that WOTC saw the writing on the wall and decided to stop throwing money at a product that was not succeeding so they decided to reboot and hope for the best.

Yeah but even then when there WAS a D&D release it was back to number 1 for the next month or so before dipping back down so publication schedule had something to do with it. This trend continued with the adventures that were system neutral for Baldur's Gate and Siege of Dragonspear with the Next preview rules in them. So the Batman vs Spider-man analogy still stands. There was no Batman last week so Spider-man was more popular than Batman, there is Batman this week so Batman will stomp Spider-man for a few weeks and eventually there won't be either in the theater but Batman is the 800lb Gorilla of comic book movies. That is the standard bearer for the genre and while others have outgrossed in the meantime, it always comes back swinging and this is the first Batman proper since Dark Knight Rises after the Batman vs Superman sort of failure (872.2 million is massive) as representative of the 4e run and Justice League as Essentials.

Now I am not saying lack of publication killed D&D or trying to compare the model for 5e to late 4e. By then 4e was a confusing mess as far as what to buy, the errata, the sheer volume of material and the insistence and necessity of the DDI subscription to get things right. It was ahead of its time really because... 5e succeeded because of D&D Beyond, a slow publication schedule and higher focus on quality products with stringent criteria and telling a story. Then VTT helped D&D succeeded in the pandemic due to ease of access and the simplicity of the product line. "This is the core rule book set and these are adventures you can play if you want". That small product line that COULD have been a curse is a blessing to 5e in my opinion.

 

[Ancalagon]

Have they ever discussed their reasons for switching to 5E?

EDIT: Nevermind, I found Mercer explaining why:
Pretty much what you’d expect: 5E is much smoother at the table, especially with 8 players and with Pathfinder’s copious modifiers. Also, D&D had more brand recognition and would attract more viewers.

I think two things:

-Critical Role would still have been very successful, but somewhat less so and would have taken longer to catch on, due to the exact reasons Mercer identifies. Probably would never have gotten quite as big as it is now without switching to D&D at some point. But still viable.

-Pathfinder would be in a much, much better position today and have many more players.

Could you tell us at what time did he says that - I rather not watch 4 hours for a 2 min quote

 

[Audiomancer]

Could you tell us at what time did he says that - I rather not watch 4 hours for a 2 min quote

There’s a Q&A after the game. It’s one of the first questions he answers. Then he gives basically a shorter version of the same answer a few questions later.

ETA: The first iteration comes at about 3:14:30.

 

[Burnside]

Could you tell us at what time did he says that - I rather not watch 4 hours for a 2 min quote

3:14:40

This should be a direct link to the time: