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Arthil posted:Well in this case, there was. It's why everyone already have backups not only planned out, but literally following their current characters orders as junior officers in the mercenary company. Man that's great! Guess it was a real good long con to have Lars be unsure what he was going to play and rolling up stats just for show I guess. Maybe I missed it but what's his new character and when did he get introduced? EDIT: To be less sarcastic I think we are talking a past eachother about whats happening now. Now admittedly I didn't watch to the end as I had my game to prep and run but it didn't seem like he was ready go right then and there, plus on twitter Lars seemed like he was disappointed he didnt get to share any of his characters backstory which makes me think he didn't know he was going to die and didn't have a second character sheet to pull out and keep playing after the fight ended. Maybe thats just my interpretation. Again this conversation started with me saying he seems like a nice guy and he seems like he does a good job encouraging people to just give GMing a shot, hell he even talks about the same things I complain about with 5e and how much better monsters were in 4e (to the point of recommending that GMs go and get those monster manuals and pull ideas and abilities from it into 5e to make fights more interesting). But ultimately I would not enjoy playing in his games. For the many reasons I've talked about. EDIT2: Hope that wasnt custom art/commission for that dead character too lol. kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 02:21
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Finster Dexter posted:Did anybody watch his campaign stream last night? He killed one of the characters pretty gruesomely... like splatted him straight to death w/o saves. I don't think I'd like him as a DM, either, as some of the stuff smells like DMPCing, but I'm not sure as I wasn't giving the stream 100% of my attention. I'm late to Colville chat but he's a bad DM and a bad design apologist. His only contribution to the D&D scene is making long-winded videos about how "the rules are just, like a suggestion, man" *proceeds to massively profit off self-publishing homebrew rules*
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Feb 1, 2019 02:38
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Conspiratiorist posted:I'm late to Colville chat but he's a bad DM and a bad design apologist. His only contribution to the D&D scene is making long-winded videos about how "the rules are just, like a suggestion, man" *proceeds to massively profit off self-publishing homebrew rules* I think I realize why you grate on me sometimes man, you try to put what you say off as absolute fact. He isn't a bad DM, he runs differently than you do. Get off your high horse for once. kingcom posted:Man that's great! Guess it was a real good long con to have Lars be unsure what he was going to play and rolling up stats just for show I guess. Maybe I missed it but what's his new character and when did he get introduced? Even if it was sarcastic, which I'm not sure why you feel the need to be since it's a legit question. He has his replacement character, he didn't play him for the last third of the stream. The name of the character is King, he is a cleric and the Chronicler for their mercenary band(basically some important position that gleans ancient knowledge from a tome linked to the past deeds of their mercenary company). Yes, the character had custom commissioned art. I'm sure that it felt just as lovely when it happened in the second season of Critical Role too, despite there being more sessions of using the art and mini. Arthil fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 02:48
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Arthil posted:I think I realize why you grate on me sometimes man, you try to put what you say off as absolute fact. He isn't a bad DM, he runs differently than you do. Get off your high horse for once. I felt like my tone during that was unfair sarcasticly for the phrase and I'll take your word on Critical Role cause I stopped watching that. Plus idk I feel like that would be a pretty different and comparable situation. I personally if I was expecting to have to go into this with knowledge that my character is going to die would not have custom commissioned art. Look I get what he was trying to do and run a Black Company style campaign, I've run that before as a warhammer 40k style Gaunts Ghosts campaign. It can work but a big key to it is a) having everyone create and run 2-4 different characters as part of the company and have people rotate in and out about who they will be playing for the current scenario/arc etc (having your players open to their other PCs still operating and being vulnerable when you're not controlling them b) setting and creating a pile of npcs with your players so everyone has quick and direct investment for the people your are working this c) letting them get a win before a defeat This means when things go bad and players are forced to start eating that military attrition, its a real rough emotional journey because of everything your set up He may have some brilliant plan and ideally hes that why hes funnelling them through a tunnel so far he on top of that he may not even be doing this type of game anyway but I feel its not some outrageous attitude to be skeptical about this especially for those of us who watched his last set of streams and games and watched his campaign diaries about the kind of stuff he loves doing and seeing in his games. Hes enthusiastically talked about the 'Colville Screw', which is a reason you want to systematically exterminate everything in a dungeon or the second you gently caress up that stealth he'll drop everything you skipped on your way there. It's a very old style kind of gameplay which is not necessarily a good spotlight. kingcom fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 03:12
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koreban posted:I'm pretty sure that was planned ahead (at least by himself) as a means of showing his players that death is a possibility, as well as giving them a chance to balance their 4 melee, 1 arcane caster party to include a divine caster. if he didn't think the party composition was great, why did he have to kill one of the characters instead of just talking to them about how maybe they should switch out one of the classes for something else?
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Feb 1, 2019 03:18
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kingcom posted:I felt like my tone during that was unfair sarcastic for the phrase and I'll take your word on Critical Role cause I stopped watching that? Plus idk I feel like that would be a pretty different and comparable situation. I personally if I was expecting to have to go into this with knowledge that my character is going to die would not have custom commissioned art. It seems like they are kind of doing a) with the retainer/junior officer thing. They may not all be fully fleshed out sheets, ready to go at a moments notice. But they have personalities, backstories etc and they've outright worked out a system where your replacement can receive some of your stuff if you die. The only thing that didn't happen is Lars just picking up right away with King, and I can't rightly blame him whether it was planned or not. Losing a character sucks, you're rarely gonna see someone pumping their fist in the air and going "gently caress YEAH! Next character!" b) seems to be covered by the entire idea of the merc company. Now they also have the need to bolster their numbers. When it comes to c) a crushing defeat was known to be how the campaign itself would start. I think the major thing is we're actually seeing all of this, rather than from Session one Colville going. "The Chain Is Broken, used as a pawn by Lady Sariel to attempt to kill Lord Ajax, The Invincible, their Commander slain by an abominable creature from hell itself and his very soul left to the devices of demons. They lick their wounds across the sea, only now arriving to the great city of Capital to rebuild. What will The Chain do, in the end? Continue as mere mercenaries, or seek revenge for their fallen?" and then rolling in like that. Mercer had some smaller pre-game sessions for Season 2 and by the sound of things poo poo got dicey in a couple of them, but we'll never know, it was never streamed.
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Feb 1, 2019 03:25
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koreban posted:I'm pretty sure that was planned ahead (at least by himself) as a means of showing his players that death is a possibility, as well as giving them a chance to balance their 4 melee, 1 arcane caster party to include a divine caster. Arthil posted:Well in this case, there was. It's why everyone already have backups not only planned out, but literally following their current characters orders as junior officers in the mercenary company. Actually another separate point, as multiple people have point out and after watching his older videos I remember Lars definitely and most of the others I've seen in his videos at some point as his players. Wouldn't this kinda mean that they all know that death is a possibility because hes talked before about killing players in his game and going through the motions about if he felt it was right at the time etc. I'm not sure why this needed to be demonstrated to the players at all really and I'm assuming (if its not for the audience) its purely to make the players emotionally invested but that still seems like a really rough way to get that investment? Again the better way to do it historically is to always build up then knock down to make them want to build back up again.
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Feb 1, 2019 03:28
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kingcom posted:Actually another separate point, as multiple people have point out and after watching his older videos I remember Lars definitely and most of the others I've seen in his videos at some point as his players. Wouldn't this kinda mean that they all know that death is a possibility because hes talked before about killing players in his game and going through the motions about if he felt it was right at the time etc. I'm not sure why this needed to be demonstrated to the players at all really and I'm assuming (if its not for the audience) its purely to make the players emotionally invested but that still seems like a really rough way to get that investment? Again the better way to do it historically is to always build up then knock down to make them want to build back up again. I didn't feel very good about it seeing it happen live myself, to get everything straight. But dwelling on the experience of the players, and everyone there as a group made me realize that this is just how they play. I'd never want something like this dropped on me without any kind of expectation, but I'm pretty sure that isn't what's happened here. People harp on about it being Bad DMing, when given the stories of previous campaigns, this is just the style of game they play. I've also seen people complain about the heavy third person/OOC talk, the cross-talk etc. Which is obviously them coming in expecting CR when that isn't what was promised. These are nerds in the industry, without the years of voice acting/theater/etc experience behind them, playing their home game. It varies a lot I'm sure, but on average It feels like their type of game with people not deep-diving into character etc is more common than becoming your character as soon as you sit down. Despite my feelings about what happened in the moment, I did love the line from Anna's character, Judge. "I don't take orders from dead men."
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Feb 1, 2019 03:36
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Arthil posted:I didn't feel very good about it seeing it happen live myself, to get everything straight. But dwelling on the experience of the players, and everyone there as a group made me realize that this is just how they play. I'd never want something like this dropped on me without any kind of expectation, but I'm pretty sure that isn't what's happened here. People harp on about it being Bad DMing, when given the stories of previous campaigns, this is just the style of game they play. Couple of things, firstly I don't care about the OOC/third person who cares a huge number of people dont play in first person at all and dont play for that and also are not voice actors I don't care. Thats an impossible standard and is real dumb be upset about. What I do care about is that a lot of these players especially these ones don't really play rpgs before Matt and hes talked about introducing them to D&D in the first place so a big part of it I think goes back to that they don't necessarily choose to play this way this is just the way they've played period cause its how Matt runs things. I harp on it because building up then knocking down is a pretty tried and true way of pulling this stuff off, it gives a good experience players can draw that they can all recount together so that its meaningful when your success is broken. You need pride before the fall fundamentally. I've played in games where GM's do that, multiple in fact and for a while I thought it was just me who wasn't enjoying themselve but realised very quickly most of the group was kinda miserable and set the tone for the rest of the campaigns as one not of rising to become better which is usually the intent but instead to set a tone of defeatism which is kinda rough to pull out from. So unless the idea is that this is a defeatist style of campaign (something that can theoretically work in something like 40k game but even then its a bit of a risk) its not usually a good path to go down.
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Feb 1, 2019 04:04
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That feels like a weird way to approach it. It's like you're viewing it as if they have only ever played with Matt running a game, period, and that they are trapped by it. Given their age I highly doubt that's the case. If I'm recalling correctly, someone at that table has run a game that Matt has played in himself and it might be Phil but I'd need to check.
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Feb 1, 2019 04:16
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Arthil posted:I think I realize why you grate on me sometimes man, you try to put what you say off as absolute fact. He isn't a bad DM, he runs differently than you do. Get off your high horse for once. Look, it's fine to like bad things. If his players enjoy the type of gameplay he provides, and his viewers enjoy watching it, that's great for them. If. But it's still bad. And yes, that's my opinion, because if you want to be pedantic then it's impossible to truly quantify what constitutes good or bad DMing. Him being a hypocrite and bad design apologist is an absolute fact, however.
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Feb 1, 2019 04:35
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There is a difference between bad and not liking something.
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Feb 1, 2019 04:47
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Arthil posted:That feels like a weird way to approach it. It's like you're viewing it as if they have only ever played with Matt running a game, period, and that they are trapped by it. Given their age I highly doubt that's the case. If I'm recalling correctly, someone at that table has run a game that Matt has played in himself and it might be Phil but I'd need to check. Whoever played the warlock in the older game I think was the one who ran a no-magic until the players showed up setting that Matt played in I believe. It's not like 'they dont know any better'. It's more like these are kind things that have been learnt over the last 20 years of game design and narrative design and Matt is very much that type of GM who found the thing they enjoy and is very comfortable sticking to it. Nothing wrong with that but you then up with kinda rough stuff like that. One thing I actually watch Matt for was when he would discuss things that went wrong in his games or particularly mistakes he made as a GM. From him reading scripts for characters when normally likes to improv and it made everything inorganic to him admitting he genuinely doesn't know a lot of the spells and how they work or how he realised how much of a mistake it was to combine his two parties together and not realising they have zero reason to actually stay together after the immediate problem is solved since they both had gravitated to deal with different people and problems. Failure and commenting on failure is aces and is the single best way to improve yourself and prevent it happening in others. It's why I watched his videos so I look at this and feel that same kind of issue is taking place but this seems like something hes done in other games for similar dramatic purposes and I'm suspicious if they've seen and run through games the other way and what their feelings are on that more traditional build up. EDIT: The way to unironically make this all worth it is if the first act 'ah gently caress now we need to take lovely jobs to get enough money together to pay for the boss' resurrection'. kingcom fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 04:57
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My first exposure to Matt was "The Map is Not the Terrain" so that may have soured me on him.
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Feb 1, 2019 05:13
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Kaysette posted:My first exposure to Matt was "The Map is Not the Terrain" so that may have soured me on him. Oh no, do not get me wrong, the guy absolutely says some dumbass stuff but on the flip side hes the one person to try and go Mearls about admitting they hosed up some stuff in D&D like the 8 encounters a long rest being crazy advice and design (I think that was him, I'm all blurred now but I'm convinced it was that thing with Matt, Matt, Mearls and Adam).
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Feb 1, 2019 05:19
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I think I know the one you're talking about, and I actually found that to be a really great video. It sort of pushed against the kinds of people that would get mad about Critical Role, when they'd make mistakes and just roll with it instead of wasting time looking up the specifics. Edit: Watching that podcast with the Matt's, Adam and Mearls really was pretty great just to see Adam and Mearls butt heads.
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Feb 1, 2019 05:20
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Arthil posted:I think I know the one you're talking about, and I actually found that to be a really great video. It sort of pushed against the kinds of people that would get mad about Critical Role, when they'd make mistakes and just roll with it instead of wasting time looking up the specifics. It made me respect Matt Mercer too because he described the reason people go for D&D is very much that its the 'Comfort Food' of rpg systems. I may not enjoy his GMing style but I very much get why this is the system they're playing as a result and why runs things the way he does. He's really good at that style at the very least. Arthil posted:Edit: Watching that podcast with the Matt's, Adam and Mearls really was pretty great just to see Adam and Mearls butt heads. Adam "gently caress Pathfinder" Koebels going up against Mearls was nice. Really that stream was the only time I've seen Mearls have to confront or deal with different ideas at all and maybe rethink some of his stances so I can respect it even if it was people going pretty safe and not wanting to push too much. kingcom fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 05:22
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kingcom posted:Oh no, do not get me wrong, the guy absolutely says some dumbass stuff but on the flip side hes the one person to try and go Mearls about admitting they hosed up some stuff in D&D like the 8 encounters a long rest being crazy advice and design (I think that was him, I'm all blurred now but I'm convinced it was that thing with Matt, Matt, Mearls and Adam). I'll have to check that out, thanks!
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Feb 1, 2019 05:32
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gradenko_2000 posted:if he didn't think the party composition was great, why did he have to kill one of the characters instead of just talking to them about how maybe they should switch out one of the classes for something else? Drama marketing for his stream duh, which worked with nerds that like to argue this poo poo.
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Feb 1, 2019 06:22
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clusterfuck posted:Drama marketing for his stream duh, which worked with nerds that like to argue this poo poo. It was definitely done for the stream’s benefit, not the players. YMMV as far as opinions on how that goes over with folks here. He posted to his subreddit quoting a convo he had. I was wrong that Lars didn’t know explicitly that he was going to be the one to die, and apparently he was upset about wasting the javelin of lightning more than his character. Hot takes to follow.
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Feb 1, 2019 08:38
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koreban posted:It was definitely done for the stream’s benefit, not the players. YMMV as far as opinions on how that goes over with folks here. Yeah thats good, I'm glad he did the correct thing here.
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Feb 1, 2019 09:58
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koreban posted:It was definitely done for the stream’s benefit, not the players. YMMV as far as opinions on how that goes over with folks here. Yeah I didn't mean to sound quite the shitbag in my remark as it may have come across. It did sound like a marketing move is all.
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Feb 1, 2019 14:00
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To be clear, he didn't know for sure, but he was reaaaallly sure it was likely to be him.
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Feb 1, 2019 14:50
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I don't actually care one way or the other whether a group decides necromancy is inherently evil or taboo, but Speak With Dead can only give you access to what a corpse knew in life. so it can be used as an organ donors mark on an id.
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Feb 1, 2019 20:25
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I think almost every big stream of funny comedic or serious drama d&d are run by bas DMs, because they all ignore the strengths of D&D to instead push at its flaws constantly, in form of stupid focus on social or other non-supported play styles, using varieties of house rules to force D&D to comply to be a better game for the story. This is done entirely for the benefit of being promoted as playing the largest trpg out there, and is a great marketing move, but every attempt at these things I've tried to watch I've gone 'well this should be played in something else instead, if he wants it to be fun'
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Feb 1, 2019 21:54
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I don't actually care one way or the other whether a group decides necromancy is inherently evil or taboo, but Speak With Dead can only give you access to what a corpse knew in life. Is this explained? Are the memories written into your bones, or is your spirit trapped in your rotting body or do they make you sign an afterlife nda? Deep spell thoughts. kingcom posted:It made me respect Matt Mercer too because he described the reason people go for D&D is very much that its the 'Comfort Food' of rpg systems. It is difficult for me to get this through my thick head, but this “comfort food” thing certainly seems to be accurate. I ran into an old friend once who explained to me that the only board game his group plays is Settlers, so I try to keep that in my head as a touch point.
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Feb 1, 2019 22:18
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DalaranJ posted:Is this explained? Are the memories written into your bones A necromancer asking the dead questions and receiving answers by an invisible force carving words into a dead guy's bones is pretty rad
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Feb 2, 2019 02:38
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This goes back a bit far, and I don't necessarily agree that you have to kill a character to scare them into being careful, but the Hoard campaign, lovely as it is, tries really hard to do this too. You encounter a dragon at level 2 or 3, there are lots of kobolds at level 1, etc. I had to start thinking about this early. I don't think this is a requirement for Appropriate Fun, but I always wonder about the ideal time for the first PC to die. The real answer is that there isn't one, but if you're shooting for that moment where they start caring about their character in the longer view, just after when they "get used to them", you get a different effect than delivering death at the opening. You risk being too early and punishing characters for investing in their chars or too late when the investment seems stolen from you and the investment feels futile. I think this must be different for players that are used to rerolling. As the DM, I'd just thinking it's just a fun way to try something new out. You get another dude at-level anyway. Then again, I would never have a grand plan at the onset that I wouldn't be willing to discard. It's the artist's dilemma -you have to be proud of your work while being able to destroy it. Forest fires and whatnot. ILL Machina fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 04:04
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Glory to Italia!
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Gharbad the Weak posted:A necromancer asking the dead questions and receiving answers by an invisible force carving words into a dead guy's bones is pretty rad Also the replies exclusively take the form of Magic Eight Ball results
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Feb 2, 2019 04:42
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We had babby’s first TPK in the Undermountain last AL session and that was a wild feeling. I’ve had individual character death before but never a straight assbeating like that. Apparently there are mechanisms in place though if TPKs happen because now we’re in the 17th level or some poo poo with a mind flayer who put us in VR? I don’t think I’d be down for killing a character off in session one to prove a point but I do like knowing that this place doesn’t mess around. The kid gloves have been off since we left Waterdeep.
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Feb 2, 2019 06:54
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DotMM is definitely brutal from the get go if your party is bad at pacing themselves for dungeoncrawling or does dumb poo poo like carelessly interacting with magical objects. During a run that fizzled out had a Cleric who thought it'd be a good idea to attune to a shriveled heart we found without identifying it first. It instantly kills you upon completing attunement.
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Feb 2, 2019 07:00
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I think people are overreacting to that death thing. He told them before hand that the first session would basically be an interactive cutscene showing how they they lose as a prologue. The guy who died said he had a feeling that he was going to die. He has to spend time making a new character but it's literally part of his job so he's doing it on company time. Overall it seems like a much more memorable way to tell the backstory than handing out an A4 printout with a description of what happened.
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Feb 2, 2019 11:43
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CJ posted:I think people are overreacting to that death thing. He told them before hand that the first session would basically be an interactive cutscene showing how they they lose as a prologue. The guy who died said he had a feeling that he was going to die. He has to spend time making a new character but it's literally part of his job so he's doing it on company time. Overall it seems like a much more memorable way to tell the backstory than handing out an A4 printout with a description of what happened. it's still pretty bullshit if it's just DM fiat with no rolling allowed. Did the guy targeted even have a chance via dice ? If not the DM should have handed him a pregen to play, said trust me, then let the guy actually play his character he put time and effort into rolling up
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Feb 2, 2019 14:40
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To me that's masochism but it's not my job nor do i find that kind of game enjoyable. Presumably they do, though!
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Feb 2, 2019 16:32
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In the context of suggesting DMs for newbies to see themselves after rolling stats in 5e and "The first two sessions are gonna be railroady" are both terrible advice.
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Feb 2, 2019 20:22
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I used to put a lot of effort in fleshing out my character's personalities and backstories. Then I started playing D&D, and it's become an exercise in putting in the least amount of effort without making it seem like I just don't care, then convincing the DM to accept a reworked character fluff several sessions in.
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Feb 2, 2019 22:11
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What's the best armor for Stealth? Hide
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Feb 3, 2019 08:48
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Razorwired posted:In the context of suggesting DMs for newbies to see themselves after rolling stats in 5e and "The first two sessions are gonna be railroady" are both terrible advice. The stream is not where someone should be trying to learn from Colville, at all. They are playing a game, not putting on a show after all. It's the post-game videos he'll be putting out after each session which is where one would learn anything, and given what he's said on reddit that video is probably going to preface with. "Don't do what I did, unless there's already a lot of trust built between you and the player." It isn't like the guy is springing this randomly, people that look at his youtube channel can see he's been keeping the community that watches him up to date on how the beginning of the campaign will be. But people like to paint things with their own brush, rather than pay attention.
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Feb 3, 2019 22:16
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Don’t learn how to play the game by watching the game be played is certainly a stance to take, I suppose.
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Feb 3, 2019 22:17
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Mr. Maltose posted:Don’t learn how to play the game by watching the game be played is certainly a stance to take, I suppose. A group that's already well established, they're all friends. Have played the game, other games, and whole campaigns together. Not the place to necessarily learn if you're brand new to running, or are dealing with a table full of random people or friends that haven't played together before. As someone in the CR thread also said, I also definitely wouldn't want someone learning D&D directly from CR either.
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Feb 3, 2019 22:22
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