I kinda thought it was sorta a chocolate and peanut butter sort of thing. CR & 5e brought each others flavors to new levels. :D.
Maybe the future will be "CRD&D 5e 2024 RED" we just need a AAA video game flop that seemed so promising in the build up to cement this.
I would definitely agree with that, and now I think I will have some chocolate and peanut butter!
True story, my favorite random tangent in one of my games: party was largely of "low birth" and via random encounter came across some arrogant noble types on the road. There was a child with a chocolate ringed face in the noble caravan and a after OOC being informed that the PCs likely hadn't seen chocolate before. One character asked the nobles what it was and was treated to a mouthwatering discussion of the distant lands from which cocoa beans came from and the great lengths some of the coastal cities moneyed powers went through to obtain it and refrain it into a dizzying range of confections ... confections which a party like the PCs will likely never have the means to indulge in (they were actually told this, because nobles).
So months of real time later, characters had achieved some heroic reknown and accompanying loot beyond civilization and had returned to the first major city they had been to since the campaign started. The player of the snubbed character as soon as they made it through city customs: "I WANT TO FIND THE CITY'S BEST CHOCOLATE AND EAT AS MUCH OF IT AS THE SHOP AND MY BELLY WILL ALLOW ME."
Seemed a sorta CR moment so felt like mentioning it.
Maybe I'll introduce peanut butter to the game world next.
I think it's interesting in the light of wotc planning to release a new campaign setting so that 5e can have "its" setting, much like how 3.5 had Ebberon, when, now that I think of it, Exandria and other CR content is already filling that niche for 5e.
And it almost seems fitting that Tal'dorae is rapidly becoming *the* 5e setting, considering the role CR (love it or hate it) played in 5e's popularity boom. Many new players were introduced to the game in droves through the show, they're familiar with the lore and invested in the world from the show, and now they're getting more content support than any other non-FR setting available for 5e (and FR is pretty generic fantasy with little actual 5e world support like an actual setting book) .
As not a crazy huge fan of CR myself (or most streaming shows, I learned a while ago that on the most part I don't find watching people play that interesting), I actually don't hate it as the near-ubiquitous 5e setting. CR has its place in gaming history now, and I don't think it's a good or bad thing, it's just one of those things people will talk about when reminiscing about the edition in the future. I think people think of Critical Role when they think of 5e, and vice versa.
I would be willing to bet that if CR switched systems, you would see a drop in sales for 5e and a marked rise in sales for what every system they went to. 5e wouldn't die, but you would notice a difference.
Yeah, and there's a reason they switched from using Pathfinder in their home game to 5e when they started the stream. Both the edition and the stream were starting up around the same time, and they both fed into each other to build this massive fan base that's essentially joined the two at the hip from the start. I think the history of 5e would've been very different if critical role hadn't hitched its wagon to it. In that light, it seems appropriate that 5e's presumptive setting is in the CR world.
Either way it's something I can observe from the sidelines, since I mostly run homebrew worlds and don't buy a lot of adventures.
No Matt Mercer picked 5E because he saw that the rules flow a lot smoother and faster which would make for better viewing experience on a stream and as someone who has played pathfinder I think he is right. Especially having watched the one shots for various alternate systems. There was no grand master plan to tie CR to WOTC, everything that has come for CR has genuinely caught them by surprise, especially in the early days. I remember watching them in the first few episodes shocked that a few thousand people wanted to watch them.
I also think the impact of CR is overstated, yes it has drawn in new players but I really wonder if it got as many people buying DND who wouldn’t have done anyway as people claim. For me a bigger drive has been the fact that certainly here in the UK DND is the only roleplay system available to buy in most large chain bookshops and toy stores and the starter set was even sold in supermarkets for a while. If you want a different system you have to seek out a small independent retailer. My bet is that that saturation of the market had a bigger role to play.
As I linked on the previous page, Hasbro has directly credited Critical Role and 5e with the current booming success of D&D (in more recent articles, the pandemic). I am not really sure why so many people stubbornly refuse to accept this fact aside from motivated reasoning. I am willing to bet that Hasbro is led by their own research teams which track the success of their products and what is contributing to that success.
Just as a reminder: discussing Critical Role's overall impact on 5e, while a fascinating subject and a good excuse for Internet fight goblins to have a go, isn't quite why I started the thread. Heh. I know there's not super much to discuss about the adventure itself, but I'd hate for this thread to get bogged down in the whole "Critical Role ain't shit" arguments I've seen a few threads in the past devolve into.
Whether one believes that CR was a factor in driving 5e's success or the other way around, at this point we have two entire books now to prove that Wizards of the Coast thinks Critical Role is big/important enough to include in their official release cadence. That should speak to the show's impact and quality both, ne? Either way, I'll be quite curious to see if this Netherdeep and elements from the adventure book end up impacting/influencing Campaign 3 to come. After all, you can't really say "no spoilers'" for a D&D campaign, not when the players could all a'sudden decide to charge bits-first towards Spoilers territory. I don't think that's anybody's intent...heh, but now there's a Netherdeep in Exandria and if I know Trumbus Willingblam the way I think I know Trumbus WIllingblam, he will not rest until he sees it. And frankly Ash and Marisha won't be far behind.
Just as a reminder: discussing Critical Role's overall impact on 5e, while a fascinating subject and a good excuse for Internet fight goblins to have a go, isn't quite why I started the thread. Heh. I know there's not super much to discuss about the adventure itself, but I'd hate for this thread to get bogged down in the whole "Critical Role ain't shit" arguments I've seen a few threads in the past devolve into.
Whether one believes that CR was a factor in driving 5e's success or the other way around, at this point we have two entire books now to prove that Wizards of the Coast thinks Critical Role is big/important enough to include in their official release cadence. That should speak to the show's impact and quality both, ne? Either way, I'll be quite curious to see if this Netherdeep and elements from the adventure book end up impacting/influencing Campaign 3 to come. After all, you can't really say "no spoilers'" for a D&D campaign, not when the players could all a'sudden decide to charge bits-first towards Spoilers territory. I don't think that's anybody's intent...heh, but now there's a Netherdeep in Exandria and if I know Trumbus Willingblam the way I think I know Trumbus WIllingblam, he will not rest until he sees it. And frankly Ash and Marisha won't be far behind.
I have no doubts that this is true lol. Luckily, the way they play, it will be several months before they are at a level that they could attempt such a thing I'm sure.
My apologies for the derailment. I consider myself a fairly patient person, but seeing persistent denialism gets irksome after a while. I’ll not comment on that side discussion further here.
As I linked on the previous page, Hasbro has directly credited Critical Role and 5e with the current booming success of D&D (in more recent articles, the pandemic). I am not really sure why so many people stubbornly refuse to accept this fact aside from motivated reasoning. I am willing to bet that Hasbro is led by their own research teams which track the success of their products and what is contributing to that success.
Which are two separate things. Critical role has a million followers on each twitch and youtube. Thats the people they affected directly. They also popularized D&D in the mainstream media which had a broad reaching affect. But 5e would have been successful regardless of those extra million or not because its a well designed system. If Critical Role had chosen Pathfinder, they still would have been successful because their show has nothing to do with the gaming system and everything to do with their personalities and interaction.
As for the thread topic, I am extremely excited for this release. Most of my campaigns and one shots have been in Forgotten Realms. I have had one campaign in Exandria (drawn from the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting). I loved both settings, but having a second WotC backed book is wonderful news. I hope this and the other projects WotC has announced is a strong indication that they intend to lean into these other settings a bit more in 5e (or 5.5e).
Apparently I'm the only one not digging the cover art? It just looks like a cartoon version of the Giant Floating Heads covers we used to see at Blockbuster. To me, at least - but I'm also the grump who's disliked most of the cover art for the 5E books. Exceptions being the core three (PHB, DMG, and MM) and Descent into Avernus.
Some of the alternate covers have been amazing, for sure. But most of the cover art for the standard books has been very ho-hum. NETHERDEEP's cover art just looks kinda cheap and uninspired to me...but again, I'm a Gen X grump who 99% of the time does not care for anime/manga-influenced art.
Apparently I'm the only one not digging the cover art? It just looks like a cartoon version of the Giant Floating Heads covers we used to see at Blockbuster. To me, at least - but I'm also the grump who's disliked most of the cover art for the 5E books. Exceptions being the core three (PHB, DMG, and MM) and Descent into Avernus.
Some of the alternate covers have been amazing, for sure. But most of the cover art for the standard books has been very ho-hum. NETHERDEEP's cover art just looks kinda cheap and uninspired to me...but again, I'm a Gen X grump who 99% of the time does not care for anime/manga-influenced art.
Hello Xukuri,
Art appreciation is subjective, but I love it. Minttu Hynninen is actually a traditionally trained professional artist whose inspiration is not anime/manga, but rather classical art. She uses a lot of oil-based themes in her work. Check out herTwitter page. You might find you enjoy her work the more you see of it.
It's no issue, Erriku. Threads meander, side commentary happens, and a lot of folks are oddly invested in the idea that Critical Role had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 5e's boom, which is absolutely bizarre to me. Conversation can happen, just seems counterproductive to make it the whole focus of the thread.
We'll have to keep an eye on further information as time goes on, there's not much to discuss on the adventure itself. But I believe I've come down on this being a cool idea. A lot of folks still think they need to follow CR closely, and to be super deep and conversant with the show, to play in Exandria. The more we can convince them "no, this world is free to use as your own even if you've never seen five seconds of CR!", the better D&D as a whole becomes. Call of the Netherdeep will help with that.
...also I wanna see Trumbus squirming in his boots to find the Netherdeep and go there in C3, so there's that. Heh.
Apparently I'm the only one not digging the cover art? It just looks like a cartoon version of the Giant Floating Heads covers we used to see at Blockbuster. To me, at least - but I'm also the grump who's disliked most of the cover art for the 5E books. Exceptions being the core three (PHB, DMG, and MM) and Descent into Avernus.
Some of the alternate covers have been amazing, for sure. But most of the cover art for the standard books has been very ho-hum. NETHERDEEP's cover art just looks kinda cheap and uninspired to me...but again, I'm a Gen X grump who 99% of the time does not care for anime/manga-influenced art.
Hello Xukuri,
Art appreciation is subjective, but I love it. Minttu Hynninen is actually a traditionally trained professional artist whose inspiration is not anime/manga, but rather classical art. She uses a lot of oil-based themes in her work. Check out herTwitter page. You might find you enjoy her work the more you see of it.
You're completely correct - art appreciation is 100% YMMV.
That said, I really like a lot of her work showing on the Twitter page - it has more energy and personality than the NetherDeep cover does (for me).
I'm not a fan of the cover for Netherdeep either. It strikes me as uninspired and boring; I don't want floating NPC heads, I want dynamic and eye-popping scenes and colors.
Look at this preview page from Critical Role's website and tell me this wouldn't make you pause and go "wait, what is this?" if you saw it on the shelf at your FLGS.
Also I dare you to tell me that if your character looked up and the sky looked like this, you wouldn't immediately start searching for a cave and praying to whichever god cared to listen that the SuperMegaUltracane doesn't start murdering you until you find shelter :P
I guess Explorer's Guide to Wildmont did not get an alt cover, so I'm guessing there won't be one for this either. Since I was on the fence about this more than other recent releases, I guess that's a good thing for my wallet, so I can wait on feedback from early buyers with this one.
As for a broader take on the work as advertised so far? I mean, if blending the sea and the Far Realm is a selling point (sorta hyped as innovation in the announcement language) ... I dunno. That's sorta in the DNA of Far Realm already from inspiration in Lovecraft to, dudes, Aboleths and a range of stuff between those points. I think it'll be a competent adventure with the usual suspects in authorial roles, but honestly the announcement got me more curious about the inside baseball between WotC and CR than it did the book itself.
I am actually super excited to learn more about the Netherdeep. A place that is a mix of the deep ocean and the Far Realm?! I want to know more about that!
I have been yearning for lore/mechanics on the other planes within 5e's canon for years*. I was stoked we saw some Avernus, then some Mists (arguably Shadowfell), recently some Feywild and now finally some Far Realm. Being a long time Lovecraft fan but having only joined the game with 5e, Im most excited to see what a WotC official Far Realm looks like (for homebrew worldbuilding fuel of course). The fact that its Critical Role affiliated is just gravy for me.
*Im aware of the sections in PHB and DMG, just they're meagre triflings for this lore-aholic.
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Hjalmar Gunderson, Vuman Alchemist Plague Doctor in a HB Campaign, Post Netherese Invasion Cormyr (lvl20 retired) Godfrey, Autognome Butler in Ghosts of Saltmarsh into Spelljammer Grímr Skeggisson, Goliath Rune Knight in Rime of the Frostmaiden DM of two HB campaigns set in the same world.
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I would definitely agree with that, and now I think I will have some chocolate and peanut butter!
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An excellent idea!
...
And now I'm stuck contemplating what it would be like to have peanut butter cups with peanut butter M&Ms in them.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
True story, my favorite random tangent in one of my games: party was largely of "low birth" and via random encounter came across some arrogant noble types on the road. There was a child with a chocolate ringed face in the noble caravan and a after OOC being informed that the PCs likely hadn't seen chocolate before. One character asked the nobles what it was and was treated to a mouthwatering discussion of the distant lands from which cocoa beans came from and the great lengths some of the coastal cities moneyed powers went through to obtain it and refrain it into a dizzying range of confections ... confections which a party like the PCs will likely never have the means to indulge in (they were actually told this, because nobles).
So months of real time later, characters had achieved some heroic reknown and accompanying loot beyond civilization and had returned to the first major city they had been to since the campaign started. The player of the snubbed character as soon as they made it through city customs: "I WANT TO FIND THE CITY'S BEST CHOCOLATE AND EAT AS MUCH OF IT AS THE SHOP AND MY BELLY WILL ALLOW ME."
Seemed a sorta CR moment so felt like mentioning it.
Maybe I'll introduce peanut butter to the game world next.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Those kinds of moments really make D&D for me. Thank you for sharing. :)
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No Matt Mercer picked 5E because he saw that the rules flow a lot smoother and faster which would make for better viewing experience on a stream and as someone who has played pathfinder I think he is right. Especially having watched the one shots for various alternate systems. There was no grand master plan to tie CR to WOTC, everything that has come for CR has genuinely caught them by surprise, especially in the early days. I remember watching them in the first few episodes shocked that a few thousand people wanted to watch them.
I also think the impact of CR is overstated, yes it has drawn in new players but I really wonder if it got as many people buying DND who wouldn’t have done anyway as people claim. For me a bigger drive has been the fact that certainly here in the UK DND is the only roleplay system available to buy in most large chain bookshops and toy stores and the starter set was even sold in supermarkets for a while. If you want a different system you have to seek out a small independent retailer. My bet is that that saturation of the market had a bigger role to play.
Hello Scarloc_Stormcall,
As I linked on the previous page, Hasbro has directly credited Critical Role and 5e with the current booming success of D&D (in more recent articles, the pandemic). I am not really sure why so many people stubbornly refuse to accept this fact aside from motivated reasoning. I am willing to bet that Hasbro is led by their own research teams which track the success of their products and what is contributing to that success.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
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Just as a reminder: discussing Critical Role's overall impact on 5e, while a fascinating subject and a good excuse for Internet fight goblins to have a go, isn't quite why I started the thread. Heh. I know there's not super much to discuss about the adventure itself, but I'd hate for this thread to get bogged down in the whole "Critical Role ain't shit" arguments I've seen a few threads in the past devolve into.
Whether one believes that CR was a factor in driving 5e's success or the other way around, at this point we have two entire books now to prove that Wizards of the Coast thinks Critical Role is big/important enough to include in their official release cadence. That should speak to the show's impact and quality both, ne? Either way, I'll be quite curious to see if this Netherdeep and elements from the adventure book end up impacting/influencing Campaign 3 to come. After all, you can't really say "no spoilers'" for a D&D campaign, not when the players could all a'sudden decide to charge bits-first towards Spoilers territory. I don't think that's anybody's intent...heh, but now there's a Netherdeep in Exandria and if I know Trumbus Willingblam the way I think I know Trumbus WIllingblam, he will not rest until he sees it. And frankly Ash and Marisha won't be far behind.
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I have no doubts that this is true lol. Luckily, the way they play, it will be several months before they are at a level that they could attempt such a thing I'm sure.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Hello Yurei1453,
My apologies for the derailment. I consider myself a fairly patient person, but seeing persistent denialism gets irksome after a while. I’ll not comment on that side discussion further here.
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Which are two separate things. Critical role has a million followers on each twitch and youtube. Thats the people they affected directly. They also popularized D&D in the mainstream media which had a broad reaching affect. But 5e would have been successful regardless of those extra million or not because its a well designed system. If Critical Role had chosen Pathfinder, they still would have been successful because their show has nothing to do with the gaming system and everything to do with their personalities and interaction.
Hello TwiddleDee,
100% agreed.
As for the thread topic, I am extremely excited for this release. Most of my campaigns and one shots have been in Forgotten Realms. I have had one campaign in Exandria (drawn from the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting). I loved both settings, but having a second WotC backed book is wonderful news. I hope this and the other projects WotC has announced is a strong indication that they intend to lean into these other settings a bit more in 5e (or 5.5e).
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
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Apparently I'm the only one not digging the cover art? It just looks like a cartoon version of the Giant Floating Heads covers we used to see at Blockbuster. To me, at least - but I'm also the grump who's disliked most of the cover art for the 5E books. Exceptions being the core three (PHB, DMG, and MM) and Descent into Avernus.
Some of the alternate covers have been amazing, for sure. But most of the cover art for the standard books has been very ho-hum. NETHERDEEP's cover art just looks kinda cheap and uninspired to me...but again, I'm a Gen X grump who 99% of the time does not care for anime/manga-influenced art.
Hello Xukuri,
Art appreciation is subjective, but I love it. Minttu Hynninen is actually a traditionally trained professional artist whose inspiration is not anime/manga, but rather classical art. She uses a lot of oil-based themes in her work. Check out herTwitter page. You might find you enjoy her work the more you see of it.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
It's no issue, Erriku. Threads meander, side commentary happens, and a lot of folks are oddly invested in the idea that Critical Role had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 5e's boom, which is absolutely bizarre to me. Conversation can happen, just seems counterproductive to make it the whole focus of the thread.
We'll have to keep an eye on further information as time goes on, there's not much to discuss on the adventure itself. But I believe I've come down on this being a cool idea. A lot of folks still think they need to follow CR closely, and to be super deep and conversant with the show, to play in Exandria. The more we can convince them "no, this world is free to use as your own even if you've never seen five seconds of CR!", the better D&D as a whole becomes. Call of the Netherdeep will help with that.
...also I wanna see Trumbus squirming in his boots to find the Netherdeep and go there in C3, so there's that. Heh.
Please do not contact or message me.
You're completely correct - art appreciation is 100% YMMV.
That said, I really like a lot of her work showing on the Twitter page - it has more energy and personality than the NetherDeep cover does (for me).
I'm not a fan of the cover for Netherdeep either. It strikes me as uninspired and boring; I don't want floating NPC heads, I want dynamic and eye-popping scenes and colors.
Look at this preview page from Critical Role's website and tell me this wouldn't make you pause and go "wait, what is this?" if you saw it on the shelf at your FLGS.
Also I dare you to tell me that if your character looked up and the sky looked like this, you wouldn't immediately start searching for a cave and praying to whichever god cared to listen that the SuperMegaUltracane doesn't start murdering you until you find shelter :P
Please do not contact or message me.
THAT'S a cool image/cover!
I guess Explorer's Guide to Wildmont did not get an alt cover, so I'm guessing there won't be one for this either. Since I was on the fence about this more than other recent releases, I guess that's a good thing for my wallet, so I can wait on feedback from early buyers with this one.
As for a broader take on the work as advertised so far? I mean, if blending the sea and the Far Realm is a selling point (sorta hyped as innovation in the announcement language) ... I dunno. That's sorta in the DNA of Far Realm already from inspiration in Lovecraft to, dudes, Aboleths and a range of stuff between those points. I think it'll be a competent adventure with the usual suspects in authorial roles, but honestly the announcement got me more curious about the inside baseball between WotC and CR than it did the book itself.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I am actually super excited to learn more about the Netherdeep. A place that is a mix of the deep ocean and the Far Realm?! I want to know more about that!
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I have been yearning for lore/mechanics on the other planes within 5e's canon for years*. I was stoked we saw some Avernus, then some Mists (arguably Shadowfell), recently some Feywild and now finally some Far Realm. Being a long time Lovecraft fan but having only joined the game with 5e, Im most excited to see what a WotC official Far Realm looks like (for homebrew worldbuilding fuel of course). The fact that its Critical Role affiliated is just gravy for me.
*Im aware of the sections in PHB and DMG, just they're meagre triflings for this lore-aholic.
Hjalmar Gunderson, Vuman Alchemist Plague Doctor in a HB Campaign, Post Netherese Invasion Cormyr (lvl20 retired)
Godfrey, Autognome Butler in Ghosts of Saltmarsh into Spelljammer
Grímr Skeggisson, Goliath Rune Knight in Rime of the Frostmaiden
DM of two HB campaigns set in the same world.