More dramas for Wizards Of The Coast?

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It's honestly good for the hobby as a whole. As much as it's become a cliche that most modern 5e fans came to the hobby because of Critical Role, there is a nugget of truth to it. If CR can show the more casual audience that other games exist than D&D and its clones, that can only be good for other developers.
 
I don't think CR is particularly a driver for bringing new people into D&D - Stranger Things is much more influential (see Bob's video on that) - and I don't believe it has anywhere near the influence needed to topple D&D as the King of the Jungle. What Critical Role does have the weight to do is propel their own RPG into the mainstream of RPGs and that can only be a good thing. Unless it's complete trash, of course.
 
I doubt it'll change the course of nuWotC, but it'll definitely modify the zeitgeist in terms of people being exposed to more games.

And I'd be interested in a non-CoC 19th/early 20th century horror game for a bunch of reasons.
 
And I'd be interested in a non-CoC 19th/early 20th century horror game for a bunch of reasons.
Chill? Link is to 2nd edition from the 90s, which is my preferred version. It defaults to modern day but it would be easy enough to use in 19th/early 20th C.

Or, I understand Raiders of Rlyeh has a ton of 1910s period info in it. Presumably it would be easy enough to swap in non-Mythos monsters. But it's a BRP family game. Not sure if you want to get away from the rules or the Mythos or both.
 
I doubt it'll change the course of nuWotC, but it'll definitely modify the zeitgeist in terms of people being exposed to more games.

And I'd be interested in a non-CoC 19th/early 20th century horror game for a bunch of reasons.
The Between is a fantastic game that fits the bill - its essentially Penny Dreadful the RPG. It's PbtA based, so there's that, but I love it. I've written a bunch of shit for the system as a measure of how much I like it.
 
It relies on the fans of Critical Role being attached to the personalities of Critical Role and not D&D.
Which is probably a fair bet. I don't know. I've never watched it or care about it one way or the other.
My mid-adolescent sons tell me there are a reasonable number of teens now who consider themselves into "D&D", but they rarely play; mainly watching Critical Role, buying the WotC merch (and now Critical Role merch), and wearing stuff at Comic Cons and Gaming Conventions. Alot of these probably don't care what actual mechanics are used in rpgs, just as long as it's simple. The main thing for them is swooning over gentleman all-round nice guy Matt Mercer, and following the hijinks of the various exhuberant personalities as they prance about and perform their way through the gameplay episodes.

So yeah there may be a sizable group of youths who just follow wherever Critical Role goes
 
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I bounced off Chill, but Raiders of Rlyeh and The Between sound right up my dark, crooked alley.
Raiders of R'lyeh is pretty much BRP Mythras set in the late 1910s, with a Cthulhu Mythos background.
Given all the system changes between the various BRP games that Chaosium puts out, I decided that I would just use Mythras for a default consistent system, as it's easy to convert any BRP stats to it on the fly, and Mythras does things the way I prefer - so Mythras Core covers RuneQuest, Stormbringer, etc and Raiders of R'lyeh covers Call of Cthulhu stuff (because the systems are almost the same, Raiders of R'lyeh is practically Mythras).

If you are wanting to go a bit darker and more gothic, then I really like the indie rpg Ghastly Affair. It's set about mid 1700s to mid 1800s, and it uses a straight-forward D20 core mechanic for resolution.

The core rules are in two books, the Players Manual and the Presenters Book.

1684792682813.png 1684792751102.png

The hardcover books are on DrivethruRPG, and they are really good for capturing that romanctic period gothic horror flavour (with some mature content in places). The only issue is that the line is very slim on resources, so you would have to create your own plotlines or retrap them from elsewhere.

But well worth checking out in any case
 
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Raiders of R'lyeh is pretty much BRP Mythras set in the late 1910s, with a Cthulhu Mythos background.
Given all the system changes between the various BRP games that Chaosium puts out, I decided that I would just use Mythras for a default consistent system, as it's easy to convert any BRP stats to it on the fly, and Mythras does things the way I prefer - so Mythras Core covers RuneQuest, Stormbringer, etc and Raiders of R'lyeh covers Call of Cthulhu stuff (because the systems are almost the same, Raiders of R'lyeh is practically Mythras).

If you are wanting to go a bit darker and more gothic, then I really like the indie rpg Ghastly Affair. It's set about mid 1700s to mid 1800s, and it uses a straight-forward D20 core mechanic for resolution.

The core rules are in two books, the Players Manual and the Presenters Book.

View attachment 61218 View attachment 61219

The hardcover books are on DrivethruRPG, and they are really good for capturing that romanctic period gothic horror flavour (with some mature content in places). The only issue is that the line is very slim on resources, so you would have to create your own plotlines or retrap them from elsewhere.

But well worth checking out in any case
Fuck! Ghastly Affair! I have those hardbacks in storage! Thanks for the timely reminder!
 
I don't think CR is particularly a driver for bringing new people into D&D - Stranger Things is much more influential (see Bob's video on that) - and I don't believe it has anywhere near the influence needed to topple D&D as the King of the Jungle. What Critical Role does have the weight to do is propel their own RPG into the mainstream of RPGs and that can only be a good thing. Unless it's complete trash, of course.

While Stranger Things would prove to be huge for drawing eyes to D&D, Critical Role certainly did help get people interested in D&D who might not have been otherwise during it's first year before Stranger things dropped.

Even after Stranger Things, it still helped draw people into gaming. When I started running a game for teenagers back in 2020, in was in part because some of them had watched Critical Role (and I had to temper expectations by giving a 'I am not Matt Mercer' speech).
 
I think Critical Role has been hugely influential in keeping players in 5e, as a lot of frustrated players seem to see Critical Role's campaigns as something to aspire to and want to have a kind of critical role experience.

So Critical Role moving to other games might possibly have some influence on D&D players coming to see role-playing in general as the thing they are into, and not just D&D.
 
There were people playing CoC in The Void? I must have missed that scene.
No but it opens with a party of CoC investigators if I remember right, it has been a few years since I’ve watched.

if you are willing to accept Unknown Armies instead of CoC I’ll point you to Lord of Illusions.
 
I don't think CR is particularly a driver for bringing new people into D&D
It may surprise people familiar with my preferences in gaming, but Critical Role is responsible for getting me started on ttrpgs. Obviously, I am only one man (albeit an incredibly important and dashingly handsome one), but I suspect that these types of actual play streaming shows have played a big part in nudging people like me who enjoyed adjacent hobbies into thinking that this roleplaying business might be a laugh after all. And Critical Role is far and away the biggest of those shows.
 
I don't think CR is particularly a driver for bringing new people into D&D - Stranger Things is much more influential
Anecdotally I can also confirm that I've met people who got interested in the hobby specifically because of Critical Role.

However, one of them lost interest when he realized that it wasn't as exciting and polished of an experience as the show :sad:
 
Anecdotally I can also confirm that I've met people who got interested in the hobby specifically because of Critical Role.

Anecdotally, everyone I know who follows Critical Role is already a roleplayer; whilst I have known several people express an interest in D&D off the back of Stranger Things (although, we never actually got it off the ground for various reasons).

But we can trade anecdotes all day and be none the wiser. I wonder whether anyone has collected any decent data on this?
 
And I'd be interested in a non-CoC 19th/early 20th century horror game for a bunch of reasons.

Leagues of Adventure, which is (not too over-the-top) pulpy Victoriana using the Ubiquity System, has two lines of horror supplements branded as Leagues of Gothic Horror and Leagues of Cthulhu. It's good stuff and, if you wanted to, you could use the horror supplements with Hollow Earth Expedition which is set in the 1930s.
 
Anecdotally, everyone I know who follows Critical Role is already a roleplayer; whilst I have known several people express an interest in D&D off the back of Stranger Things (although, we never actually got it off the ground for various reasons).

But we can trade anecdotes all day and be none the wiser. I wonder whether anyone has collected any decent data on this?
Collected any data? I guess a big company like Wizards has probably done surveys and stuff like that to determine marketing strategy and what kind of reach they are getting by sponsoring Critical Role, but I strongly doubt there is anything that would be publicly available, like academic research or whatnot.
 
Collected any data? I guess a big company like Wizards has probably done surveys and stuff like that to determine marketing strategy and what kind of reach they are getting by sponsoring Critical Role, but I strongly doubt there is anything that would be publicly available, like academic research or whatnot.
I recall WotC saying a few-ish years ago that some survey said a significant percentage of new players to 5E discovered it through Critical Role. I don’t remember the number, but it was notable (way higher than like 2% or something).

Stranger Things was much smaller. But that sounds right to me because Stranger Things isn’t as big a hit with teens as it has been with Gen X and Millennials (I figure the nostalgia factor is big for older viewers).

My son doesn’t know a single other teen who is remotely familiar with Stranger Things, but many of them are at least passing familiar with CR.
 
So out of curiousity I dipped into a non-curated TL on 'rpg' Twitter and it as dumb as one would expect, although no dumber than the nonsense you see on Reddit. That's why I largely only follow game designers I like on there, who tend to be more professional and have these things called a sense of humour and perspective.

But one thing that struck me was how many were advocating 'fuck WotC man, pirate their terrible books.'

What a strange attitude, not try CoC, or Free League, PbtA, a weirdo storygame or RQ/Mythras. Not even OSE or Beyond the Wall.

Do they really believe they are 'sticking it to the man' by continuing to play D&D books they've stolen?

It's like instead of creating punk rock people advocated buying bootleg recordings of Van Halen or something. What an odd world we live in.
 
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So out of curiousity I dipped into a non-curated TL on 'rpg' Twitter and it as dumb as one would expect, although no dumber than the nonsense you see on Reddit. That's why I largely only follow game designers I like on there, who tend to be more professional and have these things called a sense of humour and perspective.

But one thing that struck me was how many were advocating 'fuck WotC man, pirate their terrible books.'

What a strange attitude, not try CoC, or Free League, PbtA, a weirdo storygame or RQ/Mythras. Not even OSE or Beyond the Wall.

Do they really believe they are 'sticking it to the man' by continuing to play D&D books they've stolen?

It's like instead of creating punk rock people advocated buying bootleg recordings of Van Halen or something. What an odd world we live in.
This is a repeated complaint on the "I'm begging you to try another game" RPG. Although if people do and it's Pathfinder they complain about that. They're a grumpy bunch.
 
Leagues of Adventure, which is (not too over-the-top) pulpy Victoriana using the Ubiquity System, has two lines of horror supplements branded as Leagues of Gothic Horror and Leagues of Cthulhu. It's good stuff and, if you wanted to, you could use the horror supplements with Hollow Earth Expedition which is set in the 1930s.
Holy Shizendizer! I have Ubiquity Leagues of Adventure and completely forgot about it - I was always going to get that Gothic Horror add-on book for it, so thanks for the reminder :thumbsup:
 
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Do they really believe they are 'sticking it to the man' by continuing to play D&D books they've stolen?
It's like instead of creating punk rock people advocated buying bootleg recordings of Van Halen or something. What an odd world we live in.
I love this analogy!!!
And it perfectly sums up my views on the whole thing :thumbsup:
 
This is a repeated complaint on the "I'm begging you to try another game" RPG. Although if people do and it's Pathfinder they complain about that. They're a grumpy bunch.
Yes I was really amused by the "Play Another Game" mantra and then it's a straight line to Pathfinder, or possibly OSE, as if they are not variants of D&D?
Just not D&D 5E, WotC's version of D&D.
I'm all for Pathfinder and OSE, but only a few presenters actually recommended Other RPGs beyond D&D variants
 
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Because people don't have a problem with the game. They have a problem with the corporation. So how do I play the game without that corporation? Pick any of the well done knock offs.
 
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