Critical Role Why Critical Role is so successful...

[robus]

Yeah it;‘s a click baity thread title but you know...

Anyway, I recently watched this YouTube video that makes the interesting, and entirely reasonable, claim that the exploration pillar is really the foundation of the game and the other two pillars (combat & social interaction) play supporting roles, and after watching the latest episode of Critical Role it got me thinking... Yes, Matt Mercer is a fantastic DM & voice actor; yes, the PC players imbue their characters with interesting motivations and role play. But I think the root of their success is Matt’s talent for dangling so many enticing invitations to exploration in front of his players and, as a side effect, their audience.

All three pillars obviously play their parts in the Critical Role campaigns, but I think (after watching campaign 1 and campaign 2) the exploration pillar is primary. There are just so many opportunities for the PCs to engage with the world and their backstories.

And given that and the original video (which is well done and the guy making them should really have a bunch more subscribers, so please check it out - I‘m thinking of him as the unholy love child of the AngryGM and Matt Colville, in other words insightful content delivered in a hyperactive mode, but without the misanthropy of the AngryGM or the high-speed-hirsuteness of Colville) it made me think. We really don’t need additional rules for exploration, we need more inspiration (not the mechanic, but actual, real inspiration). This is why the back of the DMs guide lists a library of reading to enhance a DMs ability to create interesting worlds. Rules or generators can’t do that, only a DMs mind, seeded with a fount of ideas.

And this also lead me to thinking about the age old argument regarding railroads vs sandboxes. These are, of course, the extreme delimiters of the exploration pillar. At one end, the DM brooks no deviation, in other words, exploration, from the path they have prescribed, and at the other, the DM offers little in the way of direction and lets the players chance their way to adventure. The most rewarding path, as evidenced by Critical Role’s success, is to offer a few intriguing paths to adventure and always make sure, once a path of exploration is resolved, an enticing new mystery lies ahead. How many episodes end with Matt dangling some new mystery in front of the players? In my opinion, easily the majority and that is why the players (and the audience) keeps coming back for more.

 

[Umbran]

I'm going to push back, and say, no, we don't need inspiration - we need TIME.

Matt Mercer is a professional. He gets to spend time professionally creating that content, and then do 3 to 5 hours a week of play.

I have a day job. As do my players. When covid-19 allowed us to play, I cobbled together what I could in off time, and got a session every other week when we were lucky, for about 6 hours a month of actual play.

So, Critical Role has 2 to 3+ times as much time in play that my group did, to go through professionally-crafted game content. No stuff he's successful! Comparing him with most of us is like comparing what professional filmmakers with real funding can do with what my friends and I can do with no budget and our cell phones in our garages.

During these covid-19 months, there's an added issue that prolonged stress tends to rob us of our focus and creativity. Criticizing how many tantalizing mysteries we give our players right now is waggling a finger at us for something we really don't have much control over.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

I'm going to push back, and say, no, we don't need inspiration - we need TIME.

Matt Colville is a professional. He gets to spend time professionally creating that content, and then do 3 to 5 hours a week of play.

I have a day job. As do my players. When covid-19 allowed us to play, I cobbled together what I could in off time, and got a session every other week when we were lucky, for about 6 hours a month of actual play.

So, Critical Role has 2 to 3+ times as much time in play that my group did, to go through professionally-crafted game content. No stuff he's successful! Comparing him with most of us is like comparing what professional filmmakers with real funding can do with what my friends and I can do with no budget and our cell phones in our garages.

During these covid-19 months, there's an added issue that prolonged stress tends to rob us of our focus and creativity. Criticizing how many tantalizing mysteries we give our players right now is waggling a finger at us for something we really don't have much control over.

While an amateur filmmaker can't produce the same results as professional filmmakers, they can still learn from the pros. So GMs can still learn from Matt Mercer (I presume that's who you meant, rather than Colville) even if they don't have the same time, resources, or skills.

 

[Zardnaar]

Critical Role is turning into a warning sign.
. By that I mean a new player says "I love critical role" you might not want them as a player.

Never seen a game IRL run like CR so it's creating unreal expectations IMHO.

 

[Umbran]

While an amateur filmmaker can't produce the same results as professional filmmakers, they can still learn from the pros.

Yes, but you don't do so by comparing yourself to the pros, and seeing where you are wanting - because it will be everywhere, and, as in this piece, I think tends to lead to misidentifying issues. The OP suggests we are lacking inspiration, when I think there are more fundamental things we lack that we should look to first.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think your thread tile here is doing you a disservice, because the conversation is going to end up being about Critical Role itself, the alleged “Matt Mercer effect,” personal DMing style preferences, etc. when the real meaty subject matter here is the exploration pillar and a better framework for how to think about it.

Recently there was that “exploration is the worst pillar thread,” and I said I had thoughts on the matter but needed time to gather them and write them up, but that the short version was that if you want to improve exploration in your game, you have to change how to think about it. I wasn’t able to find the words I wanted to elaborate on the matter before the thread lost momentum, but this guy NAILED it! I’ll definitely be giving more of his stuff a look.

For those who didn’t watch it, what he basically says, and what I failed to say in that other thread, is that exploration is the core of D&D. The books themselves actually define exploration as the back-and-forth between the players describing what their characters do and the DM determining the results. In other words, the rules themselves define exploration and the core play loop the same way. Exploration as the rules define it isn’t just traveling from place to place, it’s the fundamental mode of play.

The first step to improving exploration in your games is to understand this framework. All Interaction between the players and the environment is exploration. The second step is developing and honing your process for facilitating this exploratory play. Describing the environment in a way that invites exploratory interaction, resolving actions in a way that makes the exploratory process feel rewarding, and then repeating the loop with a new description that takes into account the way the characters’ actions have impacted the environment, and invites further exploration.

 

[rgoodbb]

Critical Role is turning into a warning sign.
. By that I mean a new player says "I love critical role" you might not want them as a player.

Never seen a game IRL run like CR so it's creating unreal expectations IMHO.

Interesting. I feel the opposite. If a new player says to me "I love critical role" I absolutely want that person as a player.

 

[rgoodbb]

Exploration is the pillar I struggle most with as a DM, but also the pillar I crave more of as a player.

 

[NaturalZero]

The table at Crit Role just runs differently than any table I've played at. The DM is interested in fleshing out EVERYONE's backstories instead of just running his plot. Each player is deeply invested in the story of their character AND everyone else's, instead of just killing stuff.

In most of the games I've played in during the past 20 years, I often find myself bored during the monotony of shopping or wandering and more engaged during combat. When I watch CR, it's the exact opposite - the characterizations and exploration is engaging and the combat scenes are often less engaging. I would love to play in a game where the DM was as invested in developing all of the character threads the way Mercer is, and that's the kind of DM I'd like to emulate.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We know the difference between watching sports in the TV and playing those same sports, or between playing a videogame and watching a e-sport.