Video: CriticalRole Reaction Proves There's No "D&D Community"

nope · July 20, 2018, 03:15:23 AM

Quote from: The Exploited.;1049578Good vid mate...

To be honest, I've only heard about critical roll recently... I checked out one session and felt ill. WTF are all those insipid players doing? Screaming, shouting, hugging and high-fiving. Who actually games like that FFS? I'm far too old and cynical for that malarkey. It felt like I was watching some weird quiz show where the annoying people had just won a Ferrari or something. Ugh!

Really? I've heard of this show and some others like it (though I can't remember their names). I've never had an iota of interest in watching/listening to any of them, but what you've said here is the first thing that's made me even slightly morbidly curious.

It's like hearing about a televised chess competition where each player weeps, laughs uncontrollably or flips the table each time their opponent moves a piece.

If they're just acting or hamming it up for the camera, I'm not sure whether that's better or worse; though, I guess I don't have to worry about it as I'm clearly not in whatever target audience they've been appealing to.

S'mon · July 20, 2018, 03:24:39 AM

IME it has always been common for PCs above about level 3 to be Raised on death, unless the campaign disallows resurrection (eg for a low fantasy feel), which is rare and less popular than the default rules. "Fantasy Effing Vietnam" was/is only a very low level thing ca 1-3, and sometimes not even that - eg Mentzer Expert Set recommends a high priest with Raise Dead in the Starter Town. In Gygaxian 1e AD&D a raise might cost too much for a low level PC, but common enough after that.

Spinachcat · July 20, 2018, 03:36:47 AM

Raise dead being common in AD&D 1e made sense because of (a) it wasn't automatic success and got harder as your con went down, and (b) your suffered -1 Con penalty so the chances of permanent death kept increasing.

Opaopajr · July 20, 2018, 04:17:16 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat;1049732Raise dead being common in AD&D 1e made sense because of (a) it wasn't automatic success and got harder as your con went down, and (b) your suffered -1 Con penalty so the chances of permanent death kept increasing.

Preach it!

The four main classes (and sub-classes) had to always worry about CON & CHA because one meant how much you could endure and the other how others will react to you. Both were major survival values. So even if you did a more generous stat method, you always had to keep those two stats in mind.

Cave Bear · July 20, 2018, 06:06:10 AM

Quote from: Daztur;1049654There's long been a lot of people tangentially involved in the hobby who don't actually play. I was painfully shy in HS and subscribed to the Dragon magazine and dreamed up stuff for YEARS after I lost touch with my middle school group. I've also noticed that how much I play and how much I post on forums are inversely related. When my kids were young and I couldn't play regularly I'd spend most of my subway commutes writing homebrew rules, setting stuff and longwinded forum posts. Now that I have a regular weekly group I barely check in with online game chatting.

That's not necessarily a bad thing as these kinds of people help RPG gaming be a thing people have at least heard of. They're only really a problem when they post enough online to collectively become taste setters (big problem with Storygames and places like The Gaming Den) and drive sales towards products that read well instead of play well (hello there adventure paths). Having them hang out in youtube channels seems pretty harmless.

That's basically my situation now (with the exception of occasional online games via Discord.)

I work in a tier 2 city in China. There isn't a very active D&D scene here.

Omega · July 20, 2018, 10:54:23 AM

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1049676New players fear character death. Smart players fear level drain.

Smart players dont fear even that.

Omega · July 20, 2018, 10:59:35 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1049712You didn't watch the video, did you?

I did. But I still like to comment on salient points covered or not from a different perspective.

As for the commentors. So? What else is new? Its a video. Its like complaining about people commenting on the D&D movies. Of course theres going to be comments like that sooner or later.

tenbones · July 20, 2018, 01:05:07 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1049709These people are NOT playing, and are thus not gamers.

The problem is actually deeper than this (as you probably know). They *believe* they are. They believe they're the ones that have the right to dictate how things should be.

This is the whole point of all the Gate issues.

These fans of the show, these fans of Marvel comics, these fans of regressivism are the lemmings that follow the real people attempting to gatekeep via their shiny new brand of collectivism that they conveniently think won't end poorly as such things invariably do.

They exist to tell those that endeavor in these things the Right(tm) way to do it.

Christopher Brady · July 20, 2018, 01:29:18 PM

It's a taste-maker. It's just there to promote D&D. Not every one who watches will buy the books, but if one person does every so often? The show is a success. It's a marketing tool. A session long commercial. That's all it is.

Pundy is just ranting against a commercial.

Alzrius · July 20, 2018, 01:31:44 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1049709This wasn't the actors on the show, it was the viewers, the fans, who are clearly fans of the show, not of the game.

These people are NOT playing, and are thus not gamers.

I find myself inclined to agree.

Games aren't like movies or TV shows, where the main mode of interaction is inherently meant to be passive consumption. Games are interactive by their very nature; if you don't play video games, you aren't a member of the "video game community" even if you like to watch Let's Plays on Youtube. Likewise, if you aren't playing D&D then you aren't really a part of the D&D community. Rather, you're a member of an adjunct group that is - at most - consuming parts of the game experience without actually engaging with the game itself.

Skarg · July 20, 2018, 01:43:02 PM

Quote from: JeremyR;1049665While PC death is a reality, I think many people are deliberately ignoring that fact that spells to bring back the dead have existed in D&D since day one. When a character died and the party had enough money, you went to the Temple of Law (or whatever) and had him raised. Hell, in OD&D, a cleric only had to be 7th level to cast it.

This is really one of the revisionist strains of the OSR that I don't like, the absurd idea that back in the day it was gritty, grimdark, fantasy Viet Nam, where characters constantly died so there was no character development, just a meat grinder. But that's not the case, otherwise there wouldn't have been the back section of Rogue's Gallery.

It certainly existed in The Fantasy Trip, thankfully. (Well, there is a Revival spell, but you need IQ 19 (heh), to spend 50 fatigue (hehe), and to find someone who can & will do that less than an hour after death (muahaha), and even if successfully cast, it revives the person barely alive, unconscious, and having permanently lost 5 attribute points (actual serious consequences).

I gather that many D&D games also had pretty rare revivals.

Mistwell · July 20, 2018, 02:48:25 PM

RPGPundit · July 23, 2018, 05:11:40 AM

I quite like games where raise dead isn't possible. You don't have it in Lion & Dragon (or Albion, if you play it with some other system and follow the guidelines on modificiations to Vancian spells). You also don't really have it in DCC, which is one of my favorite OSR games.

But when you do have it, I like the AD&D "resurrection survival" roll. It means you have a good chance of being raised, but it's not a guarantee.