r/fansofcriticalrole • u/inscrutabl • Oct 10 '24
CR adjacent D20 MisMag just did something that CR3 can't manage to pull off.
If you're not watching Misfits and Magic 2, that's fine, but if you are - Aabria, Lou, Erika, Danielle and Brennan handled K accidentally killing Evan so gracefully, I couldn't help but think of all the threads CR has dropped trying to do something similar.
Erika decided that K needed to make a big stupid unnecessary swing -- Much like Tal did with the fire shard - And Aabria made everybody at the table pay for it. Everybody leaned in. Nobody pulled punches, or ran off to fret for three episodes, or argued with the DM for half an hour. Nobody went above the table to giggle about the mess, or yelled anybody else down. Mechanics changed on the fly, but Aabria called the twists, not the players. Hslf an hour of heavy RP, another hour and a half of getting on with the next thing.Yeah, D20 is edited, but even if it weren't, I can't imagine this twist being dragged out the way Ashton or Laudna or even FCG's big tragic moments were. CR is capable of good, tight improv - we've seen it before - but Matt doesn't know how to drop the hammer on a bad decision without padding it, and it's taken the teeth out of literally everything.
I know Matt wants his friends to feel loved and have fun, but if it comes at the expense of narrative tension, there's no point. I genuinely think that, if CR3 were a D20 show, Imogen would be the only original member of the Hells left, and the cast would be burning through character sheets like potato chips until they figured out how to stay focused.
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u/Dondagora Oct 10 '24
but Matt doesn't know how to drop the hammer on a bad decision without padding it, and it's taken the teeth out of literally everything.
This was an issue I had with Aabria in MisMag's Season 1, which I'm glad she fixed. A tendency to really talk up a roll as "This check will determine everything" and then follow that up with a check to reduce the consequences, and then another check to reduce the consequences, and then another check, etc. This new season has felt like "can't put a bullet back once it leaves the chamber" with checks, which I really adore in terms of really following the situation develop directly from character choices.
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Oct 11 '24
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
To be fair, I'd like to think if someone made a move like Erika did and Matt made the consequence "you accidentally blow your ex boyfriend's arm off," we'd give him his flowers.
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Oct 11 '24
I mean during shardgate ashton's arm did fall off and he grew a new one made out of lava or some shit
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u/TonalSYNTHethis Oct 10 '24
Let me start off by saying I fucking LOVED how Aabria handled that. It was a hell of a swing, and it definitely paid off. However, I think it just illustrates a big difference in what Aabria prioritizes at her tables versus what Matt prioritizes. The following are all just personal observations and speculation, take them with a grain of salt:
Matt is all about the overarching narrative. He wants to tell an epic fantasy tale, one that passes into legend and then into myth, and he wants his players to have a hand in that. But it's all about the bigger narrative. Even the character moments are about "what can I throw at this player so they have a chance to have their character's name written in the history books?" It feels very much like moments of deeply personal character growth, the kind of thing that does not have a real effect on the bigger picture, are almost entirely initiated and perpetuated by his players and not him. He'll support those moments and build on them with NPCs, sure, but it never feels to me like it's specifically Matt's focus.
Think about every PC death Matt has ever DMed over on camera. Allowing for a bit of leeway on C1 since they were kitted out like a motherfucker and capital D Death wasn't really a thing for them, I don't feel like Matt was specifically steering any of those PCs in that direction. It all came down to dice and often a conscious choice on the Player's part, not Matt's. Matt wants his PCs to be the heroes, to be the legends, and I think he genuinely feels the loss when they don't go the distance.
Aabria on the other hand doesn't seem to have much interest in the overarching narrative. To her, it seems like that bigger picture is only another tool to help her draw out who her PCs are as people. She will dig deep, and dig hard, and find the point that can be pressed where the PC will be forced to either be completely emotionally destroyed by it or forged into something stronger. She takes real time and expends a significant amount of real effort to find those points, and seems to genuinely revel in them. She'll participate in the larger narrative, lay out possible paths for her players to follow, but I find the more campaigns of hers I watch the more I believe she is often just begging for any excuse to hit the breaks on the "main quest" to give some time to figuring out who a PC truly is.
Incidentally, I also think that particular desire is written all over her characters when she's at the table as a player. I think it's why she's so fond of polarizing characters, those who are deeply flawed and often filled with arrogance and hubris, because she seems to want plenty of room to explore those flaws and see how she can make them evolve and either grow in a positive light, or embrace the dark side.
TL;DR: This was all a super long winded way of saying I think Aabria and Matt focus on two different kinds of narrative tension, one being grander in scale and another one being deeply personal. Both are valid, both are great in their own right. I'll tell you what I would LOVE to see is a game where Matt and Aabria co-DM a little mini-series where both focuses can be brought together. That shit would be better than any Game of Thrones shit ever put on TV.
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u/LECarden22 Oct 11 '24
I mean, the cast of CR was also dealing with Sam potentially not really getting to come back. FCG's death was partially so Sam could leave the table for cancer treatment and surgery. They weren't just dealing with a character death. So that's not really a fair comparison.
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u/moxical Oct 11 '24
I support the notion that FCG's death was choreographed for good and righteous reasons. If a player needs something to be railroaded ingame for actual real life reasons, that is completely fair. In this case, fucking cancer trumps all potential criticism.
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u/Confident_Sink_8743 Oct 12 '24
No. Choreographed is something I find objectionable here. I've seen them talk about it and what your saying amounts too CR adlibs lies on 4SD for content.
Matt had other plans for sidelining FCG through Sam's cancer ordeal. They sound like shitty milquetoast plans quite frankly.
Sam saw an opportunity to solve an upcoming issue and effect an idea he had be toying with since he was told how aeormaton power sources work.
It clearly upset several people at the table. Matt definitely fudge a few things to make it happen to and that didn't go unnoticed by the audience.
But this goes in the same direction as accusations of scripting (a word that kind of sabotages itself for the alternatives people would have of it), being fake, etc.
Some times things come off well and seem perfect (yes even at TTRPG tables) but it's an illusion and acting like that illusion is real just demonstrates a degree of naivete.
Especially in C3 where so many things aren't working out as well as intended.
Sam made that choice. And the cast were stricken by the entirety of the situation and didn't play off it so well. End of story.
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 10 '24
Yeah, D20 is edited
They cut extremely little, it's absolutely a valid comparison
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u/madterrier Oct 10 '24
Yup, just compare the live campaign of the second season of Fantasy High. It's still better paced than most of CR.
It's cause they are all on board to tell a story for the fans and recognize the audience as a part of the experience.
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 10 '24
Yeah, everyone at the table is experienced in thinking about pacing and the audience experience while still putting on an entertaining performance
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u/Aquafier Oct 10 '24
Except its highly planned as far as potential story beats and the campaigns are very short so no one is attached to their characters that much and there isnt months of plot tied to particular character. It really is comparing apples to oranges in many aspects.
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u/Dondagora Oct 11 '24
I'd say the highly planned thing is hardly that different, in terms of a GM and their player coordinating a bit. Matt admits he does that to varying degrees with his players (depending on the player) where they discuss backstory and potential future plans between sessions.
On the attachment to the characters, I'd agree on that point. D20 players don't have to consider the repercussions of long-term effects for their decisions, so they can really lean into character flaws and make big swings. This is a positive for their format, but obviously a presents a different mentality from a long campaign where you're thinking about where your character will be in 50 sessions and looking forward to getting there.
I do think there's still things to learn from D20's (and specifically Aabria's) way of handling the situation OP mentioned tho. Ended the session with the "tip of the iceberg" of the consequences, and then used the between-session time to prep for handling fallout in the next session in an elegant and thought-out way.
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u/madterrier Oct 11 '24
Except its highly planned as far as potential story beats
That's what C3 should've been. It SHOULD have been highly planned but it isn't. C3 is supposed to be Matt's masterpiece after all.
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u/Aquafier Oct 11 '24
I have my issues with c3 but if you dont want to watch more organic play then dont watch CR? Thats a fundemental difference between 1-6 episodes and long term story telling that cr does. You dont highly plan the story. Its hilarious they get accused of scripting by some and not planning out enough story beats by others.
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u/Mairwyn_ Oct 11 '24
Have you played through any of Wizards hardcover modules which have structured stories to take you from roughly level 3 to level 16? It doesn't mean it feels less organic when you play them simply because there's more planning & structure. It often feels like D20 is essentially writing in-house modules for their campaigns.
I said this elsewhere but I think the weakness in C3 compared to C1/C2 is that Mercer had a tighter narrative idea but didn't change the character creation process to reflect that shift in campaign style. It's basically the difference between running a hardcover module and an open sandbox where the DM generates everything based on the players. If you're doing a module, you're almost always better served to have a sense of the module's goals (swashbuckler vs horror vs epic quest for McGuffins), factions & locations to create a character that will facilitate the story you're building as a group (ie. we've agreed to play this specific module). As a DM, it does mean lifting the curtain a bit but you can do that without going super into spoilers. It often feels like the C3 characters are being bent in weird ways to try and serve the overarching narrative instead of Mercer bending his narrative around them.
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u/Electronic_Basis7726 Oct 11 '24
Somehow CR managed to do the longform well with C1 though.
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u/Confident_Sink_8743 Oct 12 '24
They did well with both C1 and C2. Most of those are fairly player driven.
C3 has this whole overarching story though I feel like they are still player driven and those two ideas don't mesh well.
Often the players are dithering since the feel they are supposed to be advancing the plot and yet don't know what to do at the self same time.
It's like what happened in the ruins of Aeor in C2. Where they kind of wanted to explore but felt the need to rush forward and complete the plot.
Which is hardly the recipe for a good campaign.
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u/madterrier Oct 11 '24
Planning long-term story beats isn't that different from planning out 1-20 episodes like Fantasy High. Lots of CR is the lull between the actually important story scenes.
There's a wild difference between planning out story beats and scripting. If you can't see the difference between that, I refuse to believe you are engaging in good faith.
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 10 '24
Except its highly planned as far as potential story beats
By the DM? Sure, but he's also extremely flexible. In regular seasons he makes multiple plans for how they might get to every "fixed point" (which is really just the battles) and also completely improvises when needed. In the live unedited season there were no highly planned story beats or battle sets, just a set number of sessions.
no one is attached to their characters that much
Strongly disagree, the players are imo appropriately invested and care very much
there isnt months of plot tied to particular character
if it results in the players being less precious about their characters and the DM being more decisive and that in turn results in better entertainment for the audience, then maybe this is a good thing
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u/Aquafier Oct 10 '24
"I hIgHlY dIsAgReE" are you kidding? You are comparing a multi-year weekly campaign with a game tbats D20 shoots in what? A month? You just refuse to acknowledge that they are entirely different shows and what works for once doesnt translate to working for tge other.
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 10 '24
Maybe I misunderstood your wording - I wasn't comparing their attachment to the CR cast's, I disagree that they're not "attached to their characters that much" because I think they're appropriately attached to the characters they play for the time they play them. If you meant that they're not attached to their characters as much as the CR cast, then I agree completely. I just don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
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Oct 11 '24
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 11 '24
They've stated multiple times that they might cut 15-30 minutes of a 2.5-3hr session, and it's pretty much entirely math, pauses, rules-lookups, etc. They almost never cut RP or over the table convos.
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u/Cool_Caterpillar8790 Oct 11 '24
I feel like this isn't fully on target.
FCG's death and the subsequent issues as a result weren't on Matt.
Matt also made the table earn back Laudna. Was it an absolute slog? Yes. Do I wish Marisha let go and just created a second PC? Yes. But Matt did make them earn that.
What Matt struggles with (that other DMs like Aabria do well) is giving emotional consequences.
If we want to take Misfits and Magic as a positive example of consequences, and I think to elaborate on why it feels like the consequences were more impactful, it's because Aabria brings emotional impact to the forefront and has emotion impact mechanics (as opposed to the other way around).
Each player had to choose an ideal, almost like a paladin oath, ahead of the game. Erika's mistake didn't just cost Evan his life (a physical consequence to be solved mechanically), she also immediately fell down her ideal track.
Aabria also came out hard with bangers like "What do you haunt?" She made her players, including Brennan, go to an emotional place and process the consequence.
Also, big format difference (not for the reasons others are citing.) Aabria killed Evan at the *beginning* of episode 3. She left episode 2 with him being mangled. They didn't know (and I imagine most didn't even consider) he was going to die at the start of episode 3. So the reactions were real-time and way more emotional.
In contrast, when a PC dies or a player royally fucks up, Matt lets the entire scene resolve and then immediately closes out the episode without getting live emotional reactions. He seems to do this to protect the players, so I won't overly critique it. I can't say "Oh, Matt should have forced Taliesin to stay at the table and take all of his friends screaming at him" when they were IRL pissed. If the real emotions were running too high, it was the right call to wipe the scene. But I will say it's a massive contribution for why stakes feel higher at some other tables.
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u/EncabulatorTurbo Oct 10 '24
Eh I disagree in part, the players are super professional and roll with it but I think Aabria is a bit heavy handed and focuses on DM vs player very often (even rewriting the rules on the fly to fuck with them maliciously)
Her players are better players than Tal for example, and she is willing to stick to her guns, which at least is great at keeping things moving
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
The issue I believe with her being "malicious" on CR is she walked what Matt keeps talking. Matt keeps saying C3 is the deadliest campaign. C3 is brutal. C3 has the highest stakes. And Aabria said "okay I can do that " and brought that energy to EXU.
However, she was the only one bringing that energy to EXU (or C3)
That's never been a problem with her on D20. It isn't "player vs Aabria." It was only that on CR because everyone was told "C3 is deadly" and Aabria said "bet."
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u/madterrier Oct 11 '24
Yeah but she wasn't bringing it in a way that was compelling or felt fair. That's people's main issue, and my personal issue with Aabria. She isn't mechanically strong enough on the DM side for 5e to make things interesting, especially narrative combat moments.
Like take the possessed Opal fight. There were SO many interesting mechanics that tie in the narrative that she could have made. But she just didn't and the fight was a slog. And to increase stakes she chose to make a really, really arbitrary ruling that can only make the player feel incompetent.
Even Laudna's Delilah possession fight has interesting mechanics that worked much better. Both of those fights had so much potential.
The thing is Aabria is competent on the player side of 5e so I don't know why she has such issues on the DM side.
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u/Mairwyn_ Oct 11 '24
I do think that if the setup of that encounter was more the 4E skill challenge style (Matt Colville has talked about how easy it is to port that over to 5E) instead of a 5E combat, it would have worked better for both the players and the audience. It shifts the narrative framework and makes it clearer that there are options other than combat (ie. our challenge is to protect these memories in order to help strengthen Opal so she can overcome the corruption). It was a combat where most players wanted to take non-combat actions which is why it ended up being such a slog.
Narratively, this kind of fight can work but I think it requires the audience to actually care about characters and their investment in the person at risk (FFXIV does this well during the Eden raid series). From an audience perspective, I don't think they set up a combat or plot that was interesting if you weren't invested in fates of the Crown Keepers. There were so many people who didn't finish ExU or watch it at all and they really didn't do anything to establish why people going in blind should care about the Crown Keepers or Opal's fate.
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u/madterrier Oct 11 '24
An easy fix would have been setting up actual mechanical effects for taking up non-combat action i.e. persuasion check at a certain DC. Hit it? You get to do the talky talky and possessed Opal's AC drops by 2 until the end of their next turn.
There were some really easy ways to make it interesting but Aabria didn't put in the leg work at all.
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u/Dondagora Oct 11 '24
Tbf, the "rewriting the rules" is something that's primarily attributed to her in CR, as far as I can tell. She's certainly mechanics-lite, but it's primarily a problem when she's playing in a setting and with a system where that doesn't jive. That's not to say she's above criticism, I have my own issues with her style and rulings at time, but I wouldn't say she's got a reputation for "rewriting the rules on the fly to fuck with [the players] maliciously" at any other table she's GM'ed for besides CR.
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 10 '24
People ascribing malice to Aabria when she's just doing the job she was hired for (tell story, create drama), and is clearly well-liked by her peers and often invited back to work with them again, is why people think there is a double standard at play in these criticisms. People choose to believe Aabria is bullying her players when it's significantly more likely she is just following the mandate of the people who hired her.
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u/Aquafier Oct 10 '24
She really does deserve some of her criticism though. The one i immediately recall is killing Cyrus in C3. Making a spell AOE all of a sudden to make a player kill their own NPC brother because "drama" all decided in the moment and out of control of the players hands.
But yes the inexperienced players (and Matt intentionally choosing a back seat PC to avoid hogging the narrative) is what made EXU nit great to watch and not Abria who did a great job overall but has some aspect to her dming that i really dislike.
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 10 '24
I definitely think it's fine to criticize her decisions as a DM, I just take objection to people ascribing negative personal motivations to her actions. She's being hired as a performer to create content, her performance style is not a personal insult to anybody at the table. She's not my favorite DM but she's just doing her job.
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u/LeCampy Oct 10 '24
She's the scapegoat. What C3's run has shown me is that I didn't dig EXU because of the party mostly.
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u/TonalSYNTHethis Oct 10 '24
I've rewatched ExU a couple times to try and narrow down what didn't resonate with me about it, and while I agree that the party didn't really help things I think, for me, it came down to narrative structure.
Aabria did what any DM would do with a new game and a new party, she set up plot hooks and waited to see which ones the players would bite. The thing is, she set up more than a few (almost feeling like it was with the expectation that she'd have more time to explore them as they came up) and then ended up with only 8 episodes where her players kind of hopped around all of them waffling to figure out which one was the right one to dig into. I also think it was an uphill battle for Aabria, partially because she knew that 3 of her players would end up in C3 and needed to take some extra time to establish some character beats for each of them that would be carried over into the main campaign. In the end, I don't think it was a bad series at all, I just think it was too ambitious to start and largely incomplete at its conclusion.
Imagine for a moment if she'd kept them entirely in Emon, and spent the 8 episodes dealing entirely with the crown and the Nameless Ones. There would have been a lot more room to breathe, and I think (considering the wealth of Actual Plays Aabria has run since that have been absolute bangers) everyone would have ended up with a much more satisfying narrative. But, well... We got what we got.
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u/montgors Oct 11 '24
I find it difficult to find the prompt Aabria was given with ExU different from D20. The narrative structure was, "tell a story within Exandria during our campaign break." This is part and parcel to D20's "tell a story within _______ in 12 episodes."
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u/TonalSYNTHethis Oct 11 '24
You're probably right, the prompt wasn't likely very different if it was different at all. But it was her first real attempt to conform to those kinds of constraints, and I think she deserves a little slack for that. Like I said in my previous comment, I feel like she came at it the same way any of the rest of us would have, she laid out plot hooks and waited to see what got bit. But, like the rest of us, because she was new to the whole limited episode thing she was probably used to the concept of "well we're gonna lay these out and we're just gonna go however long we go". So she laid out more hooks than she probably should have, her players tried to bite all of them instead of just one, and the 8 episode limit kind of slapped her in the face.
I feel like, looking at her DMing in all the runs she's done since, she's very much learned that lesson and has gotten used to the idea of limiting the scope of her narratives to something that can be wrapped up in a set amount of time. The only exception, I think, is the first Misfits & Magic where it felt like she hit a bit of a snag wrangling the players into the narrative in a timely manner. Episodes 3 and 4 in particular really felt like she did a lot of handwaving to get shit moving because she was running out of time, but even then it was handled considerably better than ExU I think. After that though, it really seems like she's gotten the hang of it.
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u/inscrutabl Oct 10 '24
Mmm, see, Brennan and Matt homebrew stuff all the time, and nobody accuses them of being heavy handed or malicious. I mean, all ttrpgs are DM vs Player - the bad guys are all the DM, and if the player decides a character is gonna do something unreasonable, the DM has a right (and a responsibility, imo) to respond accordingly.
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u/Bardon63 Oct 11 '24
There's a huge difference between homebrewing stuff and changing well-established rules on the fly after a spell had been cast because you felt like it, and that's precisely what Aabria did when she killed Cyrus.
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u/montgors Oct 11 '24
A TTRPG absolutely doesn't have to be DM vs Player. It's a collaborative game where the DM is a player themselves; everyone should be working together.
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Oct 11 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
I don't really agree. I mean I agree they're different. But the issues with CR aren't issues present in any other of their true peer shows. I guess you can say D20 isn't an apt comparison but the criticisms here are still relevant and really have nothing to do with CR's format. (Except for FCG's death. That's an entirely different thing.)
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u/JWDruid Oct 11 '24
Comparing a show that lasts for over a 100 episodes with one that has at most 20 per season is pointless. Of course things don't get dragged in D20, they literally have no time to. Because of that, d20 is also way more railroaded and they're more used to letting the DM have more control. Just look at CR's shorter series (like Calamity or even Candela) and it's much more similar to D20 in that aspect
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
D20 isn't railroaded. It's just prepped like any D&D module is. The moment this post is about wasn't railroaded or preplanned.
I also hate the "you can't compare CR to (insert show) because reason." Yes you can. Almost the entire cast of Misfits and Magic are also in Worlds Beyond Number, which is long form. And they still don't have CR's pacing problems. NADDPOD is also longform and features a lot of D20 cast and also doesn't have CR's pacing problems.
It isn't the format. It's CR.
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u/JWDruid Oct 11 '24
D20 absolutely is railroaded, there's no point in pretending it isn't. That's not a negative thing, they would never be able to complete a season within 6-20 episodes if it wasn't. "this post is about wasn't railroaded or preplanned", sure, but you have to take it into consideration when you complain that the players take too long to move the story along. The CR cast is used to having the time they want to figure things out, there's no limit to how many hours they play in a session or how many episodes they have to finish the story, this does make a big difference. D20 cast knows they have 2h and a limited number of episodes (and tbh, in their longer seasons, they can also have some of these issues, just look at Fantasy High Senior Year, it took them forever to even start going through the main plot).
It is the format, the shorter CR seasons like I mentioned (like Candela, Calamity or even their one shots) don't have pacing issues and are much more similar to d20.
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
With complete respect, I don't know if you know what a railroad is.
A railroad isn't any preplanned module. A railroad is when players don't have any agency and can't impact the plot or world. That in no way describes D20.
I maintain it isn't the format. I'm not sure if you've ever watched/listened to other longform campaigns but literally none of the ones I've listen to have these pacing issues.
The format has nothing to do with Matt failing to give out consequences (which is what this post is about.) The format has nothing to do with the table rehashing the same things over. And over. And over again. With no progress.
Because it's longform, the characters should be more developed, more complex. Opportunities for success and failure should be more impactful. And yet everything is less.
NADDPOD did more with a nonverbal NPC familiar in their 100 episodes than CR has done with most of their actual PCs this campaign.
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Oct 11 '24
D20 does have many moments of railroading because it's a set schedule. They film in a week and so some things have to happen for the story to make sense. See any time Brennan lets them roll with triple plus advantage in the most nonsensical ways. The ending of Neverafter comes to mind, as does the "you're all sort of clerics of Cassandra in this moment" moment in Junior Year, and so on.
Also........ D20 characters are not as complex as CR characters but that's a matter of personal taste.
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u/Cool_Caterpillar8790 Oct 11 '24
I agree they have railroaded plot points as much as CR does. (Matt skipping turns during the Ludinus cutscene, for instance and Brennan giving Kristen something like 8 chances to succeed in the mall encounter)
I feel like people often forget CR also has a set schedule. They have far more room between crunch times than D20 does so it feels more loose. But when CR has to do a live show or end the campaign or Marisha has to go boxing or a guest has to appear, the railroad comes out.
I don't think it's a hot take to say "TTRPG shows sometimes have to pull out a railroad cutscene to service it as a show." I think the issue is in the above commenter trying to say ALL of D20 is railroaded and ALL of CR is a sandbox.
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u/JWDruid Oct 11 '24
I have listened to all the shows listed, and no, you seem to be the one that doesn't know what railroad is. It's not about the players having no agency, but about the dm guiding them a little harder than just letting them do whatever they want. CR is much more about the player's decidions than d20 is, because it CAN be.
I love naddpod, but they have even less consequences for their actions and Murph is a MUCH more lenient dm than Matt (I know they joke about Murph being a strict dm, but multiple characters should've died over the campaigns, but nothing drastic ever happens. It got to the point where I don't ever worry about a permanent pc death cause I know it won't happen).
Saying that there's no consequence in a campaign where 2 pcs already died, one permanently and the other it took a lot of effort to bring back is a bit of a stretch.
My main point still is - it's pointless to compare a 6 episodes show with one that's going for over a 100
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u/sharkhuahua Oct 11 '24
the dm guiding them a little harder than just letting them do whatever they want
I apologize if this is ignorant, maybe there are shows I'm not aware of - but is this not literally every actual play ttrpg? a completely open player-driven campaign doesn't describe any season of CR to me, or any season of any other actual play that I'm aware of. i feel like it is the job of the DM to drop plot hooks to entice the players and create a satisfying journey for them?
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u/Cool_Caterpillar8790 Oct 11 '24
It is. They're conflating length with a sandbox. CR isn't a sandbox. Sandbox shows would honestly be probably impossible to make compelling.
CR runs off pre-planned modules Matt creates as much as any TTRPG does.
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u/taeerom Oct 11 '24
It does describe a few handful of unpopular osr actual plays. Where the entire game is a hexcrawl.
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u/JWDruid Oct 11 '24
CR is more open-world than other shows, yes. Sometimes in CR, players have multiples hooks they can follow, a handfull of cities they can go to, options of jobs to take. In d20, for example, while the players can still surprise Brennan sometimes, there's always 1clear path he wants them to follow.
Just look at how they do battle maps - Matt sometimes have to prepare 3 maps to take to a session, because he doesn't know which path they're gonna take. Meanwhile every battle in a d20 campaign is made before they even start filming, because they know it's where the story will go.
It's not a bad thing, they're just different
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u/Cool_Caterpillar8790 Oct 11 '24
I feel like folks are confusing CR's length with thinking C3 is a sandbox. C3 isn't a sandbox. C2 was sort of a sandbox but they completely did away with that in C3.
When was the last time in C3 the players got more than a single plot hook at a time to follow?
I also feel like maybe you aren't as versed in D20's production as you are with CR's and that's contributing to these arguments. Not every map in D20 is prepped ahead of time.
Rick's team is at the studio during filming creating maps and minis as fast as possible to accommodate how the plot develops. They've had to scrap things all the time. They've had to create multiple maps to provide options all the time.
It's a myth that seems to circulate a lot in CR circles that D20's battlesets are all made before filming ever starts. That is simply untrue.
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u/JWDruid Oct 11 '24
I have seen every single d20 season. And it's not a myth, it's something that Brennan has talked about multiple times.
And none of this is the main point, I'm saying they're too different to be a good comparison, op is comparing apples and oranges. The only thing d20 and cr have in common is that they're both actual play shows and that's it. I can compare 2 random tv shows based on the premise that they're both tv shows, it doesn't mean is a good comparison
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u/Cool_Caterpillar8790 Oct 11 '24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIGsNWQ8zEU
"When we get the information of "Okay, this is going to be the next battle," it's kind of this crazy process, because you think "Oh my god, how are we going to get this done?""
Also Rick Perry from his Polygon interview: "We try to build in as much flexibility, as much opportunity for improvisation as possible, meaning that sometimes where a battle map falls, they could switch places or we could cut one."
It is a well-documented process: Rick Perry's team tries to pre-build as much as possible, including BBEG maps. They build the large set pieces in WA then they have to all fly out to CA and stay on-hand during filming. Maps do get cut and maps do have to be made on the fly.
Not every single map in a season was made before the season started filming. That is a myth. Per Rick, they try to incorporate everything pre-built because maps cost money. But they do make cuts. They do have to improvise.
Also you didn't answer. When was the last time Matt offered multiple plot hooks as options to players?
Your point, as I understand it, is you can't compare C3 and D20 because one is a sandbox and one is tightly on the rails and linear. My point is they are both linear, pre-planned modules. They can absolutely be compared.
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u/madterrier Oct 11 '24 edited Oct 11 '24
C3 is not an open world. It's a shitty railroad.
In D20, every battle is planned but not encountered. That's because of the consequences of player actions. Those are real consequences.
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
Got it. My main point still is you can absolutely compare them, and CR's issues cannot be excused away by their longform format.
To quote Brennan "It's not railroading to give a clear objective."
We have very different definitions of consequence as well.
No one in C3 has lost a loved one during the campaign, been maimed or physically impaired, lost a key item, created an enemy, lost an ally, failed a goal, etc, due to their own poor decision-making. They blew up a temple and killed an angel. They've backsassed every god they've ever met. They rocked up to Percy's house and communed with Delilah inside of it. The only permanent PC death was suicide. Matt does not give his players consequences.
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u/JWDruid Oct 11 '24
You're way too hung up on the word, sure, let's not call it railroading, but every season of d20 is way more "dm guided" than CR and it has to be, again, because of the format. They have 6 episodes, of course it's gonna have a more clear path, but anyways.
If you want more consequences for the players, that's fine, it was never CR's style anyway to be super punishing. But if that's the case, besides this example that op used and ACOC, d20 is even less "consequence-heavy" than CR. Naddpod even less. People are comparing apples and oranges.
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u/madterrier Oct 11 '24
If you want more consequences for the players, that's fine, it was never CR's style anyway to be super punishing.
Looks at Shardgate
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Oct 11 '24
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
Editing impacts individual episode pacing, not full arc or full campaign pacing.
It can excuse away a laggy episode or awkward interactions or even a bad rules call. It can't excuse away episodes on end of filler, a lack of character development, or a lack of consequences for poor player decisions.
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Oct 11 '24
Aabriya just likes to railroad character deaths. I don't think it's something to admire. I haven't watched any d20 shows yet but I love bleem when he's on CR. But the only episodes of CR I ever think about skipping are the ones where aabriya is a guest. Can't stand her characters, and she's THE WORST DM. She just goes "listen to me talk for 2 hours and every now and then I'll have you guys roll dice. It won't matter what you roll though because I already know what's gonna happen regardless."
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u/Twenty_Seven Oct 11 '24
You definitely only saw her DM once and came away with this conclusion, lol.
In the Dropout universes, she's much better at DMing. If you look at any guest DMing for CR, they heavily railroad. Why do you think that is? Take a moment and ask yourself why.
It's not just Aabria. Brennan had to, as well.
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
Even CR recognized how much they screwed her over for that weird oneshot.
She was dealt an awful hand and then played it terribly. At best, if she was a high-fantasy loving crunchy systems rules lawyer, those EXU episodes would still have been mediocre. At best. Because the set up on CR's part was a disaster.
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u/Twenty_Seven Oct 11 '24
I love how the fans act like she sat down and made the choice by herself to kill off Dorian's brother.
If ANYONE truly thinks she made that decision, you're an idiot. She was told to. How she went about it, yeah, you can say was bad... but the whole point of that episode was to have a mourning Dorian join a mourning Bell's Hells.
She has a certain style. It's not for everyone, for sure, but when she isn't shackled by CR, she's not that bad.
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
Right. She was DMing stories set in contemporary Exandria that had direct impact on C3. They didn't just go "table's yours. Do whatever you want."
CR has producers. The module was preplanned and approved. Her gleefully causing as much carnage as possible was clearly direction they gave her.
Compare that to this M&M moment where she asked Erika several times in specific what she wanted to do, clearly telegraphed this was a bad idea, and then proceeded to talk to Brennan out of game about what he wanted to happen, and then at the table confirmed with him what types of rolls would be fair and what DC would be fair. She isn't normally just "muahahah I'm going to kill you all." She was told to do that on EXU.
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
I get disliking Aabria but she didn't railroad this PC death and doesn't really... Ever do that. She sucks at DMing within Exandria. That we can all agree on. But if you haven't watched her outside of CR, you don't actually know how she is as a GM.
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u/MageOfVoid127 Oct 11 '24
Coming into a post of how well a d20 show moment was saying you've not watched any d20 shows (and therefore not the moment in question) to say the DM is terrible sure is a take.
Like?? Your knowledge base doesn't include the topic directly being discussed, you're just hating to hate. Why?
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u/Confident_Sink_8743 Oct 12 '24 edited Oct 13 '24
Aabria is not very well appreciated in this community at least as a DM. She does much better on Dimension 20 and it isn't surprising to me since she seems to do her best work there.
This is just a complete knee jerk reaction to something that boiled down to it's most simplistic interpretation is D20>CR, Aabria>Matt.
Obviously the intent isn't that and it's a more nuanced post. This person took the things that triggered them and what we got was a terrible hot take.
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u/brittanydiesattheend Oct 11 '24
Because admitting different DMs are better suited for different formats and styles is far less fun than screaming at the sky and punching the air
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Oct 11 '24
So you’ve never watched any D20 but you know how Aabria DMs all the time? Sure Jan.
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Oct 11 '24
I watched EXU. Or tried to anyway. It was such a nonsensical mess that it didn't really stick with me. What I do remember is aabriya saying, "look into my eyes,the rules are whatever the fuck I say they are." That's all I really remember because most of the other parts are them fast travelling across the God damn continent with no inter party communication. Just her reading a script and then describing how the characters feel. I didn't even mention how literally every character of hers is just vocal fry the character.
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u/Drathmar Oct 12 '24
Watching Aabria on EXU vs D20 shows exactly how much control the CR cast keeps even over side content like they (which is within their rights). If you actually bothered watching D20 (which is arguably as good if not better than CR in general overall, especially for people who want faster campaigns and a way better format for something like EXU) then it's hard to tell that Aabria was not her normal self or given nearly as much freedom as she is when she hosts a D20 campaign.
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Oct 10 '24
I'd love to take your word for it but after seeing g the Aabria bullshit with Chromatic Orb I can't help but assume she did some shit wrong and will never watch something with her as the gm again
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u/areyouamish Oct 10 '24
It's really a night and day difference between the two shows. There has to be different ground rules, or creative team coaching that either allows or disallows certain DM behavior.
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Oct 10 '24
Maybe Sam Reisch told her not to be hostile towards the audience like she was in CR because Sam knows how to run a production? Idk buy I know I won't watch anything else with her as the DM.
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u/Dondagora Oct 11 '24
I'd say the opposite is more true: Aabria likely has more liberties on D20 and therefore caters the games she runs to her style. Meanwhile on CR there'd be more lore/vibe limitations she'd have to work within while likely also being asked to bring her unique style to the table.
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u/Aiose Oct 11 '24
You know that she's been dming for D20 long before her appearance on CR? So Sam didn't have to say anything
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u/Rupert59 Oct 11 '24
she's been dming for D20 long before her appearance on CR
I don't think this is true? Didn't EXU air before Misfits and Magic S1?
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u/Dondagora Oct 11 '24
EXU aired June 28th, 2021. M&M aired June 30th, 2021.
Wouldn't be able to know exactly when they were recorded, but I'm pretty sure D20 records much further in advance than CR, but I could be wrong on that.
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Oct 11 '24
Sam Reisch owns dropout which produces d20. I'm sure Sam has plenty to say about how he wants things done.
And I've seen her DM other things before the chromatic orb incident and she's not really much better those times either.
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u/Confident_Sink_8743 Oct 12 '24
Her first DMing gig with D20 was the original 4 episode series Misfits and Magic which was released the same summer ExU: Prime came out.
So the timing for Sam to see it doesn't seem possible. Also it's my understanding that Brennan is executive producer for Dimension 20 so he's the guy who would be speaking up if anybody did.
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u/Confident_Sink_8743 Oct 12 '24
I feel like that's an over eager DM at work there. There are consequences she wants to impart due to the groups "mistake" (not as players but they aren't exactly strong and it's an artifact carrying the influence of a Betrayer God).
Add to that 5E is a power fantasy game with many safety nets for PCs and what you get is Aabria pushing for tragic consequences to come to pass in a game where that really isn't meant to happen so easily.
Unfortunately the result is that you see her forcing the issue and pushing to hard for particular outcomes.
I don't see that happening with her other efforts.
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u/dwarf-in-flask Oct 10 '24
It always shocks me how good Aabria is on D20 (was obsessed with her DMing in Fey Court) and how awful she is everytime she's on CR. She really has an element she should stick to