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

[Parmandur]

The show was just a tip of the iceberg. They turned away a lot of people and next year it was in a much bigger space, the biggest one they could get if I remember and still they turned people away.

At the time it was a shock.

Still it had little to no effect on 4e sales.

But that’s my point.

I dunno about the rest.

In part it’s such a weird world now. Not to much earlier than those shows lots of folks thought D&D was a dying hobby for old grognards and was slowly going to die off. That was accepted wisdom. 4e was the hail Marry.

Yeah, I'm not putting down how successful they were at the time: but they went supernova with 5E.

 

[HammerMan]

We once had six 20th level PCs fight a CR 30 lich and his CR 20 death knight lieutenant in 3.5, and it took roughly 6 hours to play out 10 rounds. One hour alone was spent redoing characters after the lich's opening attack was Mordenkainen's Disjunction...

I assume by 20th level my PCs would have 2 or 3 nuke/win buttons that would if not instant win that at least come close, and I know my lich would too... I can't imagine that fight going to round 3

 

[HammerMan]

In part it’s such a weird world now. Not to much earlier than those shows lots of folks thought D&D was a dying hobby for old grognards and was slowly going to die off. That was accepted wisdom. 4e was the hail Marry.

to be fair I heard that in the late 90's and the WoTC was going to put out Magic the Gathering Edition as a last hope, I heard it (and even still repeat it since it was true for me and my friends) that 3e was dead and 4e was a last grasp that brought us back... I don't believe it about 5 but I am sure someone will say it about 6e, 7e, 9e. hopefully 12e when my grandkids are down loading it.

 

[darjr]

to be fair I heard that in the late 90's and the WoTC was going to put out Magic the Gathering Edition as a last hope, I heard it (and even still repeat it since it was true for me and my friends) that 3e was dead and 4e was a last grasp that brought us back... I don't believe it about 5 but I am sure someone will say it about 6e, 7e, 9e. hopefully 12e when my grandkids are down loading it.

You kid, but only recently I didn’t talk about D&D outside of close hobby circles.

There used to be a special day to encourage folks to “read an rpg in public”!

Now the body builders at the gym ask me about it and we have real discussions.

After 5e I ran a lunch game when we were still in our office space, I had a wait list.

Man what?

 

[Parmandur]

You kid, but only recently I didn’t talk about D&D outside of close hobby circles.

There used to be a special day to encourage folks to “read an rpg in public”!

Now the body builders at the gym ask me about it and we have real discussions.

After 5e I ran a lunch game when we were still in our office space, I had a wait list.

Man what?

It's beyond a quantitative improvement in sales, it's a qualitative change in how D&D interacts with the culture.

 

[darjr]

It's beyond a quantitative improvement in sales, it's a qualitative change in how D&D interacts with the culture.

Absolutely. And a part of the culture. It’s not like the inline skate fad. It’s background assumed to be there now.

 

[Parmandur]

Absolutely. And a part of the culture. It’s not like the inline skate fad. It’s background assumed to be there now.

Less Pogs, and more Monopoly or Pokemon.

 

[darjr]

Oh and it’s the Actors golf now.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh and it’s the Actors golf now.

Creative people of all stripes, in my experience. Musicians and artists I know personally who were not into this sort of thing ten years ago now very much are.

 

[darjr]

And because of its “embedded in the culture” nature of it I think we’ve only seen the beginning.

I want to point at 5e and streamers and say, yeah that did it!

But now I’m not so sure. The more I consider the more I think that 5e and the streamers are the lucky beneficiaries of a zeitgeist that was going to lift off anyway.

Right time right set of rules the tech being just good enough, to hitch on to the Dragon lifting and taking off.