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CR could survive a change of systems at this point, but why would they do that? My hope is that they continue running other RPGs as side-content whenever they start back up again, as it's a great boost to the other systems. Monsterhearts benefitted greatly thanks to the exposure. Personally, I'd love it if the shows I watched left 5E for other systems when they started back up but I'm not holding my breath. CR isn't going to change, the rest of the Jace Belerin Must Die's cast is starting a new show set in Theros next week, and I expect the new Roll20 Presents crew will also be doing D&D when they start back up.
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May 23, 2020 16:43
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It's really annoying to see an awful game made by a monster like Mearls got popular just because some people made an improv podcast that barely uses the game's rules.
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May 23, 2020 16:46
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Roleplaying Public Radio cycling between a bunch of systems is part of why I really took to them. Oneshot podcast also is great for that, but I'm far too grumpy and cynical for their otherwise wholesome and welcoming content.
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May 23, 2020 16:48
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Evil Mastermind posted:If they did, people would abandon the ship so fast the whole project would crash. I mean, I'm one of those people. Their D&D game had all these goofy tools for them to interact with, spells that had very specific effects that they could get wrong and then argue about, and class features that did very specific things. It meshed well with their entertainment style, which is arguing about details. Then they switched to a PbtA system which Griffin did his utmost to ignore. Once Travis was fighting the possessed spirit of his bear mentor. The first two rolls, Travis rolled overwhelming successes, but didn't achieve anything because the story beats weren't done yet. The third roll he got a critical failure, but narratively it was time for him to succeed so he suplexed the evil right out of that dead bear. The system didn't matter any more, the dice didn't change anything, and there were no more surprises for the McElroys. The tone shifted from four idiots trying to decide if an illusion works, to four idiots sharing the first draft of their generic fantasy epic.
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May 23, 2020 16:57
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Turns out Griffin being a pretty garbage GM is worse when playing games that are good.
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May 23, 2020 17:06
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Absurd Alhazred posted:That's in any entertainment industry. You don't need an alignment system to deify prominent industry figures. I think gamers tend to be particular suckers for it though. Gaming's "celebrities" are gamers JUST LIKE US vs Hollywood millionaire yacht people. And they're much more accessible. It's possible to have a Twitter back-and-forth with someone like Rob Schwalb in a way that's impossible with Will Smith or Vin Diesel. I brought up alignment system light heartedly, but I do think tabletop generally considers its celebrities "friends" (or at least community members) in a way other industries don't. For better and worse.
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May 23, 2020 17:24
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I'm not saying Griffin was a good GM (let's be honest, he's not for a lot of reasons), my point was more about how the audience wants D&D above all. e: which I guess is another problem: listeners don't seem to care if the GM is doing their job right or if the players aren't having fun as long as they're hearing D&Disms.
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May 23, 2020 17:27
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moths posted:I think gamers tend to be particular suckers for it though. Gaming's "celebrities" are gamers JUST LIKE US vs Hollywood millionaire yacht people. It's less accessibility, and more things that can resonate emotionally with people. Like say anything bad about some music figure online like lets say R.Kelly, or hell even on the lighter end Beyonce, Swift, Jay Z or Drake etc etc, or say something bad/critical about the Marvel movies or any actor in them. It's just more "stan" culture than anything. People have an emotional tie to a piece of art, or "content". So they must defend it at all costs, because liking that thing has become core to their personality or existence. Trust me this phenomenon happens a tooon, in situations where none of these people will ever interact with the person they are making themselves seem foolish for. Or hell, Politics, as I watch a bunch of my peoples go out extremely sad trying to defend an extremely loving dumb and offensive statement by a person they have stupidly tied themselves to.
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May 23, 2020 17:45
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The last time Critical Role tried playing something that wasn't D&D it was Monsterhearts and then did a pretty lovely job of it so frankly maybe it's better if they don't make actual good games look terrible through not knowing how to run them.
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May 23, 2020 20:34
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Kai Tave posted:The last time Critical Role tried playing something that wasn't D&D it was Monsterhearts and then did a pretty lovely job of it so frankly maybe it's better if they don't make actual good games look terrible through not knowing how to run them. What was the outrage there?
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May 23, 2020 20:47
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Kai Tave posted:The last time Critical Role tried playing something that wasn't D&D it was Monsterhearts and then did a pretty lovely job of it so frankly maybe it's better if they don't make actual good games look terrible through not knowing how to run them. Didn't the person who wrote the system say it wasn't too bad? Also I do think that sometimes people hate people being connected to bad people because it justifies a lot of frustration about unjust power structures, without ever questioning the structures and makes it about "personal responsibility" to do something. When people say that "Matt Mercer is the reason that Mearls is still in place" I do have to wonder if it is rational or if it is justified anger being directed at someone you didn't like anyway. Mearls is the bloke who sent stuff on to RPGpundit, right?
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May 23, 2020 20:50
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It was fine, the Players were pretty good, Matt was pretty clearly the weakpoint and he clearly prepped like one would for a D&D game. Which is very much the wrong mindset, and led to less "play to find out what happens" and more rails. but even so people seemed to like it and the Author sold a bunch of copies because of it. The Author of it had very good critiques of their play in some twitter thread. But generally thought they did a decent enough job. Mostly they nailed the tone and general feel. It felt a bit too scripted but even so I don't think they made that game look terrible. But to each their own. Edit: https://twitter.com/lackingceremony/status/1230706588593217536?s=20 Dexo fucked around with this message at 21:03 on May 23, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 20:54
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Josef bugman posted:Mearls is the bloke who sent stuff on to RPGpundit, right? Worse, he sent the contact info of people providing receipts that Zack was lovely, directly to Zack. And then tried to lie about how hard he went to the mat for the rapist when the Mandy post happened.
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May 23, 2020 21:11
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TheArchimage posted:Worse, he sent the contact info of people providing receipts that Zack was lovely, directly to Zack. And then tried to lie about how hard he went to the mat for the rapist when the Mandy post happened. Ohhh that fucker. Is Zack still employed in anything? Also, does anyone know why he did this?
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May 23, 2020 21:17
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Josef bugman posted:Ohhh that fucker. Is Zack still employed in anything? He's a trust-fund baby whose art gets showcased in mainstream art galleries. Him being a literal rapist has done absolutely nothing to stop him from finding work in his actual career. Josef bugman posted:Also, does anyone know why he did this? Yes, because he's buddies with Zak and wanted to give Zak a heads up that all the evil Something Awful SJWs were trying to ruin his reputation.
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May 23, 2020 21:46
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Josef bugman posted:Also, does anyone know why he did this? If you want to assume incompetence rather than malice the most generous answer is that he sent them on to confirm they happened (naively thinking that's how such things work) and didn't scrub information. Still not a good answer.
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May 23, 2020 21:58
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Lemon-Lime posted:He's a trust-fund baby whose art gets showcased in mainstream art galleries. Him being a literal rapist has done absolutely nothing to stop him from finding work in his actual career. Urgh. Other than people knowing Zak S is a poo poo head, anything we can do? I know we all want to stick up for our friends, but it is always bad to do something like that. I'm just wondering about the thought processes of someone purposely doxxing someone, why would you do that, why would you believe that, etc. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 22:05 on May 23, 2020 |
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May 23, 2020 22:00
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Evil Mastermind posted:If they did, people would abandon the ship so fast the whole project would crash. In a hypothetical world where CR switched systems but kept the same cast of characters I don't see there being much outcry, but it runs into two problems: 1. Any system they shift to would just be a D&D knockoff anyway and not that much better mechanically, or have a high likelihood of being made by someone who blows and 2. Some specific D&Disms couldn't shift over, like if they were using any specifically distinct D&D races or monsters. They could drop it all entirely and I don't think it'd devastate them, like even if the bottom fell out of tabletop actual plays they'd still have their successful voice acting careers. It does drift away from the original premise of "Matt Mercer and his voice actor friends play some D&D" though and there'd be fan backlash from that. I'm not very confident that Matt Mercer has that much leverage with WotC or Hasbro, or that Hasbro sees the current surge in D&D popularity as more than a flash-in-the-pan trend they can cash in on before... idk the next Transformers movie comes out. I'd like to see them do more rules light games with improv stuff like PBTA systems where Matt doesn't over-prepare and lets the story flow out at a more natural pace. Leveraging their audience on those smaller indie games does a great job elevating them... shame they also just blundered into promoting that Wendy's advertisement game, too. I hope they realize bad of a misuse of their platform that was now.
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May 23, 2020 22:07
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They could switch to Dungeon World 
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May 23, 2020 22:27
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Dexo posted:They could switch to Dungeon World Bespoke: They could switch to 4E.
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May 23, 2020 23:04
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Meinberg posted:Matt Mercer is probably the person who is not a full time employee at Hasbro that has the most influence over Mike Mearls’ employment. Critical Role is vital to the D&D brand at this point in time. Mercer stance on Mearls’ continual employment has been to wring his hands and go “pity me” rather than taking a financially risky (not that risky) but morally sound position. There's so much insanely nu-sourced and unproven assumptions in this it's pretty loving amazing. "probably the person who is not a full time employee at Hasbro that has the most influence over Mike Mearls’ employment" well A) The probably is doing a lot of work here and B) That is to say he has none since he's not actually part of the company or any of that. "Critical Role is vital to the D&D brand at this point in time." is also a really stupid thing to say that sounds like it might be true cause it's popular but then you think about it for a few seconds and that doesn't hold at all ' "Mercer stance on Mearls’ continual employment has been to wring his hands and go “pity me” ' or your first point isn't actually true and these people playing D&D don't actually have control over this lovely people Hasbro employs. It's incredibly dense to see capitalism put yet another abuser and serial enabler hold a position of control or power in a corporate setting and then go "And it's actually really the fault of these tangentially related people." You might as well be saying the people that do art for their source books are the reason why. I mean the tweet sucks and Matt should be just online calling Mearls a piece of poo poo but to act like he's the reason mearls wasn't really fired and just moved titles to try an appease complainers by the people at WotC's corporate offices is just...your brain is flatlined. Dexo posted:They could switch to Dungeon World CR Should play Fiasco so i can see Sam Reigal get strangled on screen for his constant backstabbing.
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May 23, 2020 23:06
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:There's so much insanely nu-sourced and unproven assumptions in this it's pretty loving amazing. I’m hearing a lot of “don’t be mean to the incredibly successful and wealthy person” in this post.
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May 23, 2020 23:30
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Meinberg posted:I’m hearing a lot of “don’t be mean to the incredibly successful and wealthy person” in this post. So your only response to someone saying "Hasbro doesn't actually care what a C-Tier voice actor has to say about the handling of one of their IPs" is "I'm okay with being mean to the voice actor because he has money"? That's not even beside the point. These points reside on opposite ends of the same landmass.
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May 23, 2020 23:50
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Nuns with Guns posted:So your only response to someone saying "Hasbro doesn't actually care what a C-Tier voice actor has to say about the handling of one of their IPs" is "I'm okay with being mean to the voice actor because he has money"? I mean, the idea that folks are drastically underestimating the amount of influence that CR has is something I just assume is known.
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May 23, 2020 23:52
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I wonder what there was more of yesterday, usage of the firemikemearls hashtag or people commenting on Mercer's sad vaguepost jokingly offering to defeat his enemies for him.
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May 24, 2020 00:14
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Meinberg posted:I mean, the idea that folks are drastically underestimating the amount of influence that CR has is something I just assume is known. Once again, this is a weird assumption that you've got no proof of. It's just something you're stating is true. But go ahead and blow this off as me liking critical role too much instead of me saying "No Hasbro just doesn't actually give a poo poo about victims or LGBTQ+ People like every other corporation." theironjef posted:I wonder what there was more of yesterday, usage of the firemikemearls hashtag or people commenting on Mercer's sad vaguepost jokingly offering to defeat his enemies for him. I mean it's pretty easily (and sadly) the latter. There are more people that listen to critical role than there are people that know Mike Mearls even exists. Hell there's probably a large number of people buying D&D 5E poo poo that don't know he does than do. Nobody reads the credits to anything.
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May 24, 2020 00:47
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Meinberg posted:I mean, the idea that folks are drastically underestimating the amount of influence that CR has is something I just assume is known. Do we have any proof of anything that CR has some massive influence on the DnD brand? Like, they've got a couple sourcebooks, because the show is crazy successful, but that somehow translating into any sort of other influence on anything else in the company seems really unlikely to me. But I'm not a TG insider, so maybe there's something I'm missing. Also, while it's fair to say Matt Mercer hasn't used his influence to try and oust Mearls, CR does also run tons of fundraising for charities, and they're vocal about being inclusive in an industry that, as this thread points out often, is bad about inclusion. I dunno what kinda math people do to decide who's good and bad in the industry, but I'd suggest that CR has done more positive stuff for the hobby overall than negative by quite a lot. Also, a lot of their side games are really fun and good, the PbtA one was fairly off, and Matt addressed his mistakes on it afterwards as well.
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May 24, 2020 00:51
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The Gate posted:Do we have any proof of anything that CR has some massive influence on the DnD brand? Like, they've got a couple sourcebooks, because the show is crazy successful, but that somehow translating into any sort of other influence on anything else in the company seems really unlikely to me. But I'm not a TG insider, so maybe there's something I'm missing. I guess here's the actual question we should be asking. We know Critical Role is extremely successful, they have sourcebooks, an Amazon Prime cartoon, and a comic book, all based on an online streaming show. But how successful is that, really? Certainly successful enough to get them a ton of money, but is their popularity at a large enough scale that they could noticeably harm WotC's reputation, or even just D&D specifically? If they could noticeably harm the product line's reputation, that would harm its profit margins for the product. I don't actually know the answer to this question. I think the answer is actually yes, but D&D is such a small line item as it is that it's kinda hard to say.
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May 24, 2020 01:13
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Yeah, the defense of "Hasbro sees D&D as a brand grab only and doesn't give a gently caress about anything about it beyond that" is actually a great reason why someone with a platform as large as Critical Role's would be able to do something like make it very uncomfortable for Mike Mearls to continue to be employed by the company, because there's no investment in any specific flavor of white mediocrity to be the head of a department that only needs to not lose too much money while they leverage a new cartoon or movie out of the IP. I don't think anyone is saying Mercer can just make a phone call and declare the hirings and firings of WotC but maybe any sort of attempt to leverage the literal hundreds of thousands of fans Critical Role has (This is based on their twitch follower count of 500 thousand so there's probably a smaller segment that doesn't engage with that platform) to calling this poo poo out would have some effect even if Hasbro actively hated LGBT people instead of just hating us passively like all large corporations.
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May 24, 2020 01:26
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Edit: I should have refreshed before posting this thing I left sitting. King of Solomon posted:I guess here's the actual question we should be asking. We know Critical Role is extremely successful, they have sourcebooks, an Amazon Prime cartoon, and a comic book, all based on an online streaming show. But how successful is that, really? Certainly successful enough to get them a ton of money, but is their popularity at a large enough scale that they could noticeably harm WotC's reputation, or even just D&D specifically? If they could noticeably harm the product line's reputation, that would harm its profit margins for the product. I don't actually know the answer to this question. I think the answer is actually yes, but D&D is such a small line item as it is that it's kinda hard to say. Probably, for it to be noticeable it would have to be fairly loud, along with switching systems, and completely burning all bridges. It would essentially be mobilizing their stan army. edit Mr. Maltose posted:Yeah, the defense of "Hasbro sees D&D as a brand grab only and doesn't give a gently caress about anything about it beyond that" is actually a great reason why someone with a platform as large as Critical Role's would be able to do something like make it very uncomfortable for Mike Mearls to continue to be employed by the company, because there's no investment in any specific flavor of white mediocrity to be the head of a department that only needs to not lose too much money while they leverage a new cartoon or movie out of the IP. I don't think anyone is saying Mercer can just make a phone call and declare the hirings and firings of WotC but maybe any sort of attempt to leverage the literal hundreds of thousands of fans Critical Role has (This is based on their twitch follower count of 500 thousand so there's probably a smaller segment that doesn't engage with that platform) to calling this poo poo out would have some effect even if Hasbro actively hated LGBT people instead of just hating us passively like all large corporations. I will say the Cartoon doesn't have anything to do with Wizards, they got hit with a notice from Wizards/Hasbro when in their initial kickstarter video they said this cartoon is based off of a D&D game, and had to edit it to just say "game". Dexo fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 01:42
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Critical Role seems big enough that WotC would notice if they did something. I mean, what percentage of 5E books are about them? They are not going to do anything, so  It is a shame, but they know who writes the checks obviously.
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May 24, 2020 04:12
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Critical Role seems big enough that WotC would notice if they did something. I mean, what percentage of 5E books are about them? Huh? They have one book? As does Acquisitions Incorporated.
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May 24, 2020 04:20
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Were people engaging The Voice of McCree and Jotaro Kujo on the topic of Mike Mearls earlier or is this a like, hypothetical "Matt Mercer could probably say 'Mearls Sucks' and might have the juice to get it to happen" kind of thing.
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May 24, 2020 04:25
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Nessus posted:Were people engaging The Voice of McCree and Jotaro Kujo on the topic of Mike Mearls earlier or is this a like, hypothetical "Matt Mercer could probably say 'Mearls Sucks' and might have the juice to get it to happen" kind of thing. Mercer said some vague platitudes about just trying to be the best you you can be and not trying to be what others want you to be. People are taking that to mean he's talking about Mearls. Also Re Writing checks. They do get some from Wizards from the Wildemount book they released earlier this year. But the people who write the checks for them are likely twitch subs, people who donate bits, people who buy merch, their multiple advertisers, and The people who donated to to their kickstarter/amazon. Before everything went to poo poo they had like 30k twitch subs IIRC. Between that and what is probably a decent chunk of change from Amazon I don't think they are hard up for Wizard's money.
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May 24, 2020 04:34
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Dexo posted:Huh? Right. Out of how many books total.
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May 24, 2020 06:26
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It could be that Mercer’s never really had the idea to leverage his audience to try to get Mearls fired, or is fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea. That said, this is a lot of conjecture based on a guy vague posting on Twitter
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May 24, 2020 06:44
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Right. Out of how many books total. 25-30 I think depending on what you want to count as a book I think 26 soon to be 27 full book rear end books. I still fail to see your point. Dexo fucked around with this message at 06:58 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 06:56
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Dexo posted:25-30 I think depending on what you want to count as a book Ok. 
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May 24, 2020 14:46
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thetoughestbean posted:That said, this is a lot of conjecture based on a guy vague posting on Twitter Honestly, I thought he was getting heat from doing some kind of charity game he's doing with Satine Phoenix and one of the McElroys
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May 24, 2020 15:52
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Nuns with Guns posted:Honestly, I thought he was getting heat from doing some kind of charity game he's doing with Satine Phoenix and one of the McElroys Do gamers actually direct much outrage at Phoenix these days?
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May 24, 2020 18:05
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