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


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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.
Perfexct storm, and the best part is that we know the 5E team didn't plan it. It just...all came together.
 

Also we are in a world where we are kinda verging on the idea that writers and developers should get something more like 15c a word!

What?!

Just a couple years ago, h*ck past year, it was ten wasn’t it?

Do not get me wrong, I think that’d be great!

But it’s not what I would have expected.
 

It's a growing part of the acceptance of nerd culture and fandom. Doctor Who, Star Wars, LotR, Harry Potter, Marvel, D&D. I don't credit 5e or Critical Role for any of this cultural change.
We all know it was Big Bang Theory.
 

No need to even bring Critical Role into it: the 4E success of Acquisitions Incorporated are a drop in the bucket to the success of Acquisitions Incorporated in 5E. It went from a fun sideshow to a whole media franchise.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The growth of Acquisitions Inc coincides with a massive growth of streaming of games in general, many of which have nothing to do with D&D. So attributing it to the change of rules is a bit of a stretch.

_
glass.
 

It's a growing part of the acceptance of nerd culture and fandom. Doctor Who, Star Wars, LotR, Harry Potter, Marvel, D&D. I don't credit 5e or Critical Role for any of this cultural change.
We all know it was Big Bang Theory.
I actually credit the Internet. I think that prior to the late 90's people like Travis Willingham from CR felt that they had to hide that they liked "nerdy" things, and it took a few years of Internet access for people to begin clueing in that "hey, do most of us actually like Spiderman and Lord of the Rings?' and stop hiding. Now we have 14 year olds who grew up with smartphones, and have known their entire lives that the Avengers and Star Wars are actually popular.

What's doubley funny to me is that I have been reading some of C. S. Lewis' literary criticism lately for fun (English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama" is actually a very fun read), and he basically goes on elongated rants about how what most people really want are Romantic stories of Adventure and Magic, and that the establishment at the time was out of touch with that. With the MCU and D&D on top of the world now, he seems to have had a point.
 

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The growth of Acquisitions Inc coincides with a massive growth of streaming of games in general, many of which have nothing to do with D&D. So attributing it to the change of rules is a bit of a stretch.

_
glass.
Correlation is not causation...but correlation is not necessarily not linked to causality, either. You have to look at other factors to see whether they are connected. And I think that looking at other factors here indicates that, yes, changing the Edition was a big help.
 

Correlation is not causation...but correlation is not necessarily not linked to causality, either. You have to look at other factors to see whether they are connected. And I think that looking at other factors here indicates that, yes, changing the Edition was a big help.
I don’t disagree but in the case of the Acq Inc games I think it was because more people could slide into playing vs the actual streamed game being all that different.

Watch the 4e streams and the 5e streams and the game is mostly the same. IMHO.

Though I give a ton of credit to the DMs, especially Chris Perkins.

This realization, for me, helped a ton.
 

What's doubley funny to me is that I have been reading some of C. S. Lewis' literary criticism lately for fun (English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama" is actually a very fun read), and he basically goes on elongated rants about how what most people really want are Romantic stories of Adventure and Magic, and that the establishment at the time was out of touch with that. With the MCU and D&D on top of the world now, he seems to have had a point.
I attempted to make the same point in my creative writing classes in college. The professor kept encouraging us to write transgressive fiction and serious literature, and I was snubbed for writing comedy and lowbrow pulp fiction.
Joke's on them though. My classmates may have published some award-winning novels, but I've started some threads on ENWorld with hundreds of replies.
 

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