I enjoy the show. I actually went back and tried to watch episode 1 and after the introductions I found it really boring. The story does pick up and I’ve found myself invested in the characters. I can’t tell if this is a thread about CR or playing D&D lol. PLAY D&D! Not everyone is going to be like that. But a lot of the CR fandom can be intense, as others have said they treat it like it’s an anime/TV show/movie.
If you’re going to watch just one episode I’d recommend C2E45, you don’t need a ton of context for it and it’s a good episode imo. If you still don’t like it then so be it, it’s just not for you. But I do think watching a D&D stream of some sort is a good way to learn the rules without having to do it in a tedious manner while also getting some entertainment.
I can’t tell if this is a thread about CR or playing D&D lol. PLAY D&D! Not everyone is going to be like that. But a lot of the CR fandom can be intense, as others have said they treat it like it’s an anime/TV show/movie.
Your second sentence is sort of what this thread is about. Someone who tried to play D&D with CR fans was recommended to watch it, dared to say he didn't like it, and got kicked from his game group because he didn't like the TV show they like. And a lot of the thread is, to be honest, the rest of us trying to wrap our heads around how a group of people could kick someone out of a game group over a difference in taste in TV shows. Because literally that is what they did.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Joking aside, you do you. I'm a Critical Role fan through-and-through. Love it, it's my favourite show. However, I can understand it won't be everyone's cup of tea. If you don't like it, then you don't like it. Everyone is an individual and will have individual preferences. People being toxic to you for not liking it is inexcusable. You should be free to like or dislike as you want, and be free to explain why you like or dislike it. You could absolutely hate the show, that's fine and I'll still be happy to play D&D with you. To each their own.
If a group is being toxic to you over something so trivial then they're not worth your time.
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It does make me laugh when people say to “just try one episode”. Those episodes are over 4 hours long man! I prefer myself some bitesize dnd when I’m just listening to it.
In my isolation I've become pretty obsessed with CR. I love it and I have watched an obscene number of hours. I have it on as I am typing this, lol. But yeah, it's a show. And not at all representative of a "typical" D&D game. And if people are tasking it so seriously to treat you that way, as others have said, you're better off without them. As a beginning player, you need a group with the patience to show you the ropes and ease you into things, both on a mechanical level and especially wrt roleplay. I would guess these guys would be the type to berate you for every "rookie mistake" and that's no fun.
As far as videos you can watch to learn how the game works, I really like WebDM. They know their stuff, but don't take things too seriously. Their videos deal with all aspects of the game. I highly recommend them to a new player.
Don't let that group of dopes sour you on D&D in general!
Critical Role is nice to watch but I can never do what members of my own group do and watch the entire series. Repeatedly. I watch it once and go "right I'm never having to touch that again." While it IS enjoyable for me, I find this whole trend of worshiping them as being a bit OTT. They are just another group of people that have taken their sessions online and because they're all well-trained voice actors who can bring their characters to much more life than others do, they are seen as being very inspirational.
Saying that, it is nice to talk about and being able to discuss Critical Role with other people. What their thoughts and opinions are, the best or worst episodes, etc. With my worst episodes being anything that was done before a live audience where their characters seem to change into completely different people... otherwise, I think Mathew Mercer is a great example of what it means to be a DM and I hope that he and his group continue to find success in what he enjoys doing most.
After playing a couple of games in role-playing (D&D and Only War) I find that trying to voice act is far too much cringe for my liking to get into. Be it virtual or real-life, just move your body around in the way that the character you are perceiving would. Tall, strong and imposing? Back straight, chin up and talk down to your players. Timid? Shy? Quiet? Squeeze your shoulders in and lower your voice a little bit and try to avoid eye contact. I took this tip from a Ravenloft rulebook back from 3rd edition and saw there was an entire section to people who didn't enjoy voice acting. After seeing that I wanted to do my best to try and give off that image.
I put an episode on 1.25 youtube speed. Fast enough to keep up and doesn't take the full 4 hours of watch time. I did give up on watching it when I tried the first four episodes of CR and then I went back and tried again. It is cringe at first if you are not used to this kind of thing and your ears WILL bleed out from the awful sound quality sometimes, but the more you stick to it the better it gets.
Ugh. I tried CR again. Made it to about an hour in just listening while I was playing a video game.
Nothing happened, it's like they're just goofing off as their characters and not doing anything- no quest, no direction, just talking about random crap I either don't understand or have no reason to be interested in. And half the voices are super grating. I don't get it at all.
I think at the end of it, the group you were attempting to join has a very different idea of enjoyable playstyle than you do. What you see as 'talking about random crap' can be the most enjoyable part of the experience for players who enjoy the actual character-driven role-playing aspect of D&D. Conversely, you seem to be more interested in following a more guided/focused quest towards a specific goal. Nothing wrong with either of these perspectives, but it is important to find a group that has similar expectations for fun\good play that you do. So, basically a mismatch between you, and the desired play of an already established group is probably the major cause here.
Also, while there is nothing wrong with speaking your mind, I'm willing to bet that the manner in which you did so in this case may have rubbed members of the group the wrong way. Being honest\straightforward does not preclude the use of tact. No idea if that actually happened here, but I would consider it a possibility. Understand that because it can take a LONG time to find a group that one meshes well with, players in such a group will sometimes become very wary very quickly, if a new person attempts to join and (rightly or wrongly) doesn't have similar goals\playstyle\expectations.
Edit: As far as the Critical Role show itself goes, if you didn't enjoy the RP involved in introducing the characters, you are very unlikely to enjoy the show. Again, just a question of people having different subjective tastes. Some people enjoy very focused action-oriented shows, others enjoy a heavier focus on character dialogue\development.
My point is, you don't have to. I know several people who love GOT (some the novels, some the show, some both). I just don't comment on it. I do not volunteer my negative opinion to them of something I know they love. They love it... that's fine.
Now, if they try to push me on it... read it... read it... why won't you read it??? Then I might crack and offer a blistering rebuke of a series that I personally feel is the worst fantasy I have ever read, and exactly why in great detail. But it would take a heck of a provocation to get me to rip it to shreds to a person I know is a fan. And honestly I have not ever done that.. I've never been provoked like that.
All you have to do with your next group is play D&D. If they love CR, when they talk about it, just hold your peace. There is no reason to volunteer your opinion on it unless asked.
^^ This. All of this. Honestly, trashing something people obviously like just because you don't can be a bit of a dick move.
Ugh. I tried CR again. Made it to about an hour in just listening while I was playing a video game.
Nothing happened, it's like they're just goofing off as their characters and not doing anything- no quest, no direction, just talking about random crap I either don't understand or have no reason to be interested in. And half the voices are super grating. I don't get it at all.
That's called "role-playing". It's the "RP" part of an RPG...
Conflicting ideas in how the game should be played isn't always going to be unavoidable. So on one end "they are talking to much" and the other side says "that's the role-play side!" People have different ideas in how to play a role-playing game. This essentially boils down to the Dungeon Master of the group that you were going to join and it was his job to inform you what they were going to expect; I agree on the note it can feel a bit off-putting if you joined a group who are very fond of something like Critical Role. Saying that, if someone walked in and smack talked one of my favourite anime I would feel like someone just stood on my newly polish shoes but I wouldn't cause any drama because of it.
Role-play
Roll-play
One-shot/campaign
Casual
From the sounds of it I reckon you to be the sort that falls in to the "casual" swing of things. I enjoyed a lot of D&D games and one of the main ones that shone for me was Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition; it was my first experience in the role-playing part of things back in 2012 and I've loved it ever since. Unfortunately I do have the tendency to automatically know what creatures we're about to go up against as a player of the group and the DM has accused me on multiple occasions of reading the Monster Manual. I find myself on the "casual" side because I would rather like to continue the campaign without too much dissing around on things that I personally found trivial.
Trivial things (from my perspective) being spending more than 20 minutes in a shop just trying to grab potions. A session lasts for about 3-4 hours on average and this time flies way too fast which is incredibly unfair. I do not rush the party because they are the ones taking part in this and they seem to be having fun. Only one time did I have a fun time in a shop and that was as a DM, watching one of the players trying to intimidate the shop keeper and smashing up his shelf full of snow globes.
I mean, I'm not against the character roleplaying aspect of it, just their characters and the things the players chose to focus on (ordering breakfast? talking about a circus they don't end up going to?) just sort of strikes me as wasting time. For like 10-15 minutes it's dialogue just between two characters and everyone else is just held hostage while they talk to each other.
I'm not one to defend Critical Role ordinarily, because they do a lot of things I don't like. However, this was the first episode. They were introducing characters. None of the characters knew each other, so the DM was giving them a chance to get to know each other before introducing the action. By the end of the episode, I believe, they actually DID go to the circus (either that or early in ep. 2), and there was a battle with zombies and a giant toad demon. The demon escaped, and the party was blamed for what happened, and to clear their names they had to solve what was going on at the circus. So they did ultimately get a quest and there was some action. It just took them a couple of hours to get there because they were meeting each other.
Although what CR did was perhaps and extreme version of this, it happens in every first session. Even mine, which coincidentally also began with a zombie attack (not planned this way due to CR -- it has to do with a the main storyline of my world which Mercer's attack did not), and involved battles using unit rules from Strongholds and Followers (the players controlled a Roman Century and a group of Temple Priests while I controlled the Zombie Horde, and these units fought while the party individually battled 3 zombies in the Forum to protect innocents), still started with the players RPing. The cleric went to the temple to ask about visions he was having. The bounty hunter rogue turned in a bounty and asked if there were others. The sorcerer went shopping, etc. Before the attack began... and it probably gook about an hour before the "action" started. This is not uncommon. CR just took longer because there were a LOT of them (7 players is rather a lot for D&D... I only have 4).
That I find several of the voices to be grating on my nerves arguably isn't going to help.
Yes, that won't help. I don't like all of their voices (or characters) either. I like enough of them that it is worth continuing, and it's something to watch while doing, say, house cleaning. If it were standard TV episodes of 20 or 40 minutes I'd have to keep stopping to put on another episode.
I mean, the appeal of playing a role playing game to me doesn't involve the mundane things you can do as a normal person in the real world every day. Just like when watching a movie I don't need to see every single time someone eats, brushes their teeth, or uses the bathroom. To keep a narrative flowing you edit those things out. My reading was in the past and may be faulty but I always thought it was the DM's job to keep things moving along.
Depends on the style of DM. What makes a good DM is knowing what his or her players want, and giving it to them. Mercer is a good DM. Not because of the adventures he creates (a lot of those are pretty simplistic and the mysteries are rather obvious, at least as a spectator, although the players are either oblivious or pretending to be). But because he gives his players what they want. Knowing they like to be melodramatic and RP about their "breakfast order," he gave that to them. That's what a DM is supposed to do if he's any good -- know his table, and give the players what they enjoy. That's the goal: have fun.
I will also say, in Mercer's defense, that he has to please not just his players but his audience of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions now. Not only does he have to know what his players want but he has to figure out what the audience will want to see them do and give them that as well. He let's the players get away with a LOT of nonsense that I would not as a DM in a private session. He does this because (a) he knows the players will enjoy it, and (b) he knows most of the viewers will enjoy it. Not because he doesn't realize that it's nonsense. (He's a good actor, but you can see in some of his expressions that he does realize this.) Most of the party should be dead or jailed by episode 48 (which is where I am) if he were actually having them suffer real consequences for their in-game actions, but he lets them get away with it because the players like it, the audience like it, and having everyone enjoy things is his job as a DM.
I also agree that the level of RP-time doing mundane things would be inappropriate for a one-shot. But CR is on almost it's 100th episode of season 2 and if I'm not mistaken they're still only like 11th level, so they are setting up a 3 or 4 year, probably 800 hour show. That's why they took it slowly.
My expectations of what D&D is supposed to be were heavily shaped by computer games like Baldur's Gate and Temple of Elemental Evil. Does that create incorrect expectations? I mean there's plenty of well-developed characters (well, plenty in Baldur's Gate), but talking to them never gets in the way of the adventure.
That's because you are playing the video game solo. Your character is the only one who matters in a solo game, so everything -- every quest, every conversation, every investigation, is about your character. Additionally, creating game quests and texts is labor intensive and time consuming, so the developers only put in things that are relevant to gaining XP, because to put in things that aren't takes as much digital effort but gains them nothing in terms of game play for the solo player.
In D&D, with a game group, it cannot be that way. You are going to have to sit and be patient while things are happening about other characters. In our session last week, the ranger player went to bed early while the cleric and the sorcerer went to a tavern to have a good time. The ranger's player did not object to sitting quietly while those 2 played out their tavern adventure. The cleric got drunk and had all of us, including the ranger's player, in stitches with how he did it. It was truly fun to watch. The ranger's player talked to me on the phone yesterday, and about that session, this moment came up as her favorite part. She was just watching, but it was funny, and she enjoyed it.
In a game group you have to accept that not everything is about you and your character. And not everything will be "group stuff." In a party of 4 you can logically expect the time to be divided up into about 50% group stuff, 50% individual... and about 12% of that time (1/4 each) would be spent on each character. That means mathematically, 62% of the time in a party of 4 would be about you or the whole group (i.e. you are directly involved) and the other 38% is going to be about some character other than you, and you will not be very involved. In a 3 hour session, that means you will actively doing things for 2 hours, passive for 1. Normally this won't happen all at once, but 5 minutes here, or there. But if you put a stop watch on it, that's about what you should expect. If sitting quietly "watching other people play" for 1 out of every 3 hours is not something that you can tolerate, don't play D&D with a group. Maybe try one-on-one D&D instead.
I mean, I'm not against the character roleplaying aspect of it, just their characters and the things the players chose to focus on (ordering breakfast? talking about a circus they don't end up going to?) just sort of strikes me as wasting time. For like 10-15 minutes it's dialogue just between two characters and everyone else is just held hostage while they talk to each other. That I find several of the voices to be grating on my nerves arguably isn't going to help. I mean, the appeal of playing a role playing game to me doesn't involve the mundane things you can do as a normal person in the real world every day. Just like when watching a movie I don't need to see every single time someone eats, brushes their teeth, or uses the bathroom. To keep a narrative flowing you edit those things out. My reading was in the past and may be faulty but I always thought it was the DM's job to keep things moving along.
Critical Role is not the poster child for D&D games. There is massive difference between watching 6 voice actors having fun entertaining house wives and teenagers for streaming entertainment versus 6 strangers coming together for a game. Every DM has a different style. My old games with friends in college were high paced, high action, dangerous, competitive stuff going on, with lighter role playing. I enjoyed the DM vs the players atmosphere with them pretty sure I was trying to kill them 1/2 the time (when really I was just making fair but very competitive games)
I suspect the OP would prefer Colville's style (and that of his group) to Mercer's. Try watching the first episode of Chain of Acheron. There is no down time RP. It starts with a botched assassination attempt, and there is a chase through the streets, a battle on a ship, and travel to another dimension by the end of the first episode. And it only gets wilder from there.
They RP some, but nowhere near what the CR guys do. However, the players are insanely good at the game mechanics of D&D.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Why is my opinion worth less than theirs because they like it?
You absolutely have the right to your opinion. It's worth just as much. But... just because you can say something doesn't mean you should or have to say something. And when you do, you must be willing to accept the consequences of your actions. Right to free speech =/= Freedom of consequence of such speech.
You badmouthed ("sugar coated" or not) something that you knew the group liked. They reacted to it. Now you're upset that they didn't like what you said? You're the new guy/gall in the group. It's not their responsibility to adjust to you. They have their group dynamic. You're the new variable. Adjust or move on.
Plus, as Biowizard kinda said: That's sort of a dick move. You'll have to deal with the fallout and dealing with this will be going through the long, drawn-out process of finding a group that meshes with your idea of a preferred play-style. Luckily for you there are hundreds, thousand, hundreds of thousands!(Woohoo!) of groups out there. It'll take time and a bit of effort but somewhere out there is a group that'll play D&D and other RPGs in the manner you'd like. My suggestion is that, once you find a group you think you might like, don't rag on something you knowthey like.
Not that you'll be interested, but: Here's what I would have done/said: "I didn't care for it. When do we play?" There is no need to elaborate unless they question why I didn't care for it. And then there is the distinct possibility that they are using it as a litmus test to see if you'll mesh with the group. A good group is just too valuable of a commodity to risk ruining it with a new player who doesn't mesh.
I enjoy the show. I actually went back and tried to watch episode 1 and after the introductions I found it really boring. The story does pick up and I’ve found myself invested in the characters. I can’t tell if this is a thread about CR or playing D&D lol. PLAY D&D! Not everyone is going to be like that. But a lot of the CR fandom can be intense, as others have said they treat it like it’s an anime/TV show/movie.
If you’re going to watch just one episode I’d recommend C2E45, you don’t need a ton of context for it and it’s a good episode imo. If you still don’t like it then so be it, it’s just not for you. But I do think watching a D&D stream of some sort is a good way to learn the rules without having to do it in a tedious manner while also getting some entertainment.
Your second sentence is sort of what this thread is about. Someone who tried to play D&D with CR fans was recommended to watch it, dared to say he didn't like it, and got kicked from his game group because he didn't like the TV show they like. And a lot of the thread is, to be honest, the rest of us trying to wrap our heads around how a group of people could kick someone out of a game group over a difference in taste in TV shows. Because literally that is what they did.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well, OK, that is a little better (that they didn't boot you) but not much.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
You don't like Critical Role?
That's B L A S P H E M Y !
Joking aside, you do you. I'm a Critical Role fan through-and-through. Love it, it's my favourite show. However, I can understand it won't be everyone's cup of tea. If you don't like it, then you don't like it. Everyone is an individual and will have individual preferences. People being toxic to you for not liking it is inexcusable. You should be free to like or dislike as you want, and be free to explain why you like or dislike it. You could absolutely hate the show, that's fine and I'll still be happy to play D&D with you. To each their own.
If a group is being toxic to you over something so trivial then they're not worth your time.
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It does make me laugh when people say to “just try one episode”.
Those episodes are over 4 hours long man! I prefer myself some bitesize dnd when I’m just listening to it.
Dnd is not bite size. But you can break them up, I never watch an episode all in one sitting.
In my isolation I've become pretty obsessed with CR. I love it and I have watched an obscene number of hours. I have it on as I am typing this, lol. But yeah, it's a show. And not at all representative of a "typical" D&D game. And if people are tasking it so seriously to treat you that way, as others have said, you're better off without them. As a beginning player, you need a group with the patience to show you the ropes and ease you into things, both on a mechanical level and especially wrt roleplay. I would guess these guys would be the type to berate you for every "rookie mistake" and that's no fun.
As far as videos you can watch to learn how the game works, I really like WebDM. They know their stuff, but don't take things too seriously. Their videos deal with all aspects of the game. I highly recommend them to a new player.
Don't let that group of dopes sour you on D&D in general!
Critical Role is nice to watch but I can never do what members of my own group do and watch the entire series. Repeatedly. I watch it once and go "right I'm never having to touch that again." While it IS enjoyable for me, I find this whole trend of worshiping them as being a bit OTT. They are just another group of people that have taken their sessions online and because they're all well-trained voice actors who can bring their characters to much more life than others do, they are seen as being very inspirational.
Saying that, it is nice to talk about and being able to discuss Critical Role with other people. What their thoughts and opinions are, the best or worst episodes, etc. With my worst episodes being anything that was done before a live audience where their characters seem to change into completely different people... otherwise, I think Mathew Mercer is a great example of what it means to be a DM and I hope that he and his group continue to find success in what he enjoys doing most.
After playing a couple of games in role-playing (D&D and Only War) I find that trying to voice act is far too much cringe for my liking to get into. Be it virtual or real-life, just move your body around in the way that the character you are perceiving would. Tall, strong and imposing? Back straight, chin up and talk down to your players. Timid? Shy? Quiet? Squeeze your shoulders in and lower your voice a little bit and try to avoid eye contact. I took this tip from a Ravenloft rulebook back from 3rd edition and saw there was an entire section to people who didn't enjoy voice acting. After seeing that I wanted to do my best to try and give off that image.
I put an episode on 1.25 youtube speed. Fast enough to keep up and doesn't take the full 4 hours of watch time. I did give up on watching it when I tried the first four episodes of CR and then I went back and tried again. It is cringe at first if you are not used to this kind of thing and your ears WILL bleed out from the awful sound quality sometimes, but the more you stick to it the better it gets.
I think at the end of it, the group you were attempting to join has a very different idea of enjoyable playstyle than you do. What you see as 'talking about random crap' can be the most enjoyable part of the experience for players who enjoy the actual character-driven role-playing aspect of D&D. Conversely, you seem to be more interested in following a more guided/focused quest towards a specific goal. Nothing wrong with either of these perspectives, but it is important to find a group that has similar expectations for fun\good play that you do. So, basically a mismatch between you, and the desired play of an already established group is probably the major cause here.
Also, while there is nothing wrong with speaking your mind, I'm willing to bet that the manner in which you did so in this case may have rubbed members of the group the wrong way. Being honest\straightforward does not preclude the use of tact. No idea if that actually happened here, but I would consider it a possibility. Understand that because it can take a LONG time to find a group that one meshes well with, players in such a group will sometimes become very wary very quickly, if a new person attempts to join and (rightly or wrongly) doesn't have similar goals\playstyle\expectations.
Edit: As far as the Critical Role show itself goes, if you didn't enjoy the RP involved in introducing the characters, you are very unlikely to enjoy the show. Again, just a question of people having different subjective tastes. Some people enjoy very focused action-oriented shows, others enjoy a heavier focus on character dialogue\development.
^^ This. All of this. Honestly, trashing something people obviously like just because you don't can be a bit of a dick move.
That's called "role-playing". It's the "RP" part of an RPG...
Conflicting ideas in how the game should be played isn't always going to be unavoidable. So on one end "they are talking to much" and the other side says "that's the role-play side!" People have different ideas in how to play a role-playing game. This essentially boils down to the Dungeon Master of the group that you were going to join and it was his job to inform you what they were going to expect; I agree on the note it can feel a bit off-putting if you joined a group who are very fond of something like Critical Role. Saying that, if someone walked in and smack talked one of my favourite anime I would feel like someone just stood on my newly polish shoes but I wouldn't cause any drama because of it.
From the sounds of it I reckon you to be the sort that falls in to the "casual" swing of things. I enjoyed a lot of D&D games and one of the main ones that shone for me was Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition; it was my first experience in the role-playing part of things back in 2012 and I've loved it ever since. Unfortunately I do have the tendency to automatically know what creatures we're about to go up against as a player of the group and the DM has accused me on multiple occasions of reading the Monster Manual. I find myself on the "casual" side because I would rather like to continue the campaign without too much dissing around on things that I personally found trivial.
Trivial things (from my perspective) being spending more than 20 minutes in a shop just trying to grab potions. A session lasts for about 3-4 hours on average and this time flies way too fast which is incredibly unfair. I do not rush the party because they are the ones taking part in this and they seem to be having fun. Only one time did I have a fun time in a shop and that was as a DM, watching one of the players trying to intimidate the shop keeper and smashing up his shelf full of snow globes.
I'm not one to defend Critical Role ordinarily, because they do a lot of things I don't like. However, this was the first episode. They were introducing characters. None of the characters knew each other, so the DM was giving them a chance to get to know each other before introducing the action. By the end of the episode, I believe, they actually DID go to the circus (either that or early in ep. 2), and there was a battle with zombies and a giant toad demon. The demon escaped, and the party was blamed for what happened, and to clear their names they had to solve what was going on at the circus. So they did ultimately get a quest and there was some action. It just took them a couple of hours to get there because they were meeting each other.
Although what CR did was perhaps and extreme version of this, it happens in every first session. Even mine, which coincidentally also began with a zombie attack (not planned this way due to CR -- it has to do with a the main storyline of my world which Mercer's attack did not), and involved battles using unit rules from Strongholds and Followers (the players controlled a Roman Century and a group of Temple Priests while I controlled the Zombie Horde, and these units fought while the party individually battled 3 zombies in the Forum to protect innocents), still started with the players RPing. The cleric went to the temple to ask about visions he was having. The bounty hunter rogue turned in a bounty and asked if there were others. The sorcerer went shopping, etc. Before the attack began... and it probably gook about an hour before the "action" started. This is not uncommon. CR just took longer because there were a LOT of them (7 players is rather a lot for D&D... I only have 4).
Yes, that won't help. I don't like all of their voices (or characters) either. I like enough of them that it is worth continuing, and it's something to watch while doing, say, house cleaning. If it were standard TV episodes of 20 or 40 minutes I'd have to keep stopping to put on another episode.
Depends on the style of DM. What makes a good DM is knowing what his or her players want, and giving it to them. Mercer is a good DM. Not because of the adventures he creates (a lot of those are pretty simplistic and the mysteries are rather obvious, at least as a spectator, although the players are either oblivious or pretending to be). But because he gives his players what they want. Knowing they like to be melodramatic and RP about their "breakfast order," he gave that to them. That's what a DM is supposed to do if he's any good -- know his table, and give the players what they enjoy. That's the goal: have fun.
I will also say, in Mercer's defense, that he has to please not just his players but his audience of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions now. Not only does he have to know what his players want but he has to figure out what the audience will want to see them do and give them that as well. He let's the players get away with a LOT of nonsense that I would not as a DM in a private session. He does this because (a) he knows the players will enjoy it, and (b) he knows most of the viewers will enjoy it. Not because he doesn't realize that it's nonsense. (He's a good actor, but you can see in some of his expressions that he does realize this.) Most of the party should be dead or jailed by episode 48 (which is where I am) if he were actually having them suffer real consequences for their in-game actions, but he lets them get away with it because the players like it, the audience like it, and having everyone enjoy things is his job as a DM.
I also agree that the level of RP-time doing mundane things would be inappropriate for a one-shot. But CR is on almost it's 100th episode of season 2 and if I'm not mistaken they're still only like 11th level, so they are setting up a 3 or 4 year, probably 800 hour show. That's why they took it slowly.
That's because you are playing the video game solo. Your character is the only one who matters in a solo game, so everything -- every quest, every conversation, every investigation, is about your character. Additionally, creating game quests and texts is labor intensive and time consuming, so the developers only put in things that are relevant to gaining XP, because to put in things that aren't takes as much digital effort but gains them nothing in terms of game play for the solo player.
In D&D, with a game group, it cannot be that way. You are going to have to sit and be patient while things are happening about other characters. In our session last week, the ranger player went to bed early while the cleric and the sorcerer went to a tavern to have a good time. The ranger's player did not object to sitting quietly while those 2 played out their tavern adventure. The cleric got drunk and had all of us, including the ranger's player, in stitches with how he did it. It was truly fun to watch. The ranger's player talked to me on the phone yesterday, and about that session, this moment came up as her favorite part. She was just watching, but it was funny, and she enjoyed it.
In a game group you have to accept that not everything is about you and your character. And not everything will be "group stuff." In a party of 4 you can logically expect the time to be divided up into about 50% group stuff, 50% individual... and about 12% of that time (1/4 each) would be spent on each character. That means mathematically, 62% of the time in a party of 4 would be about you or the whole group (i.e. you are directly involved) and the other 38% is going to be about some character other than you, and you will not be very involved. In a 3 hour session, that means you will actively doing things for 2 hours, passive for 1. Normally this won't happen all at once, but 5 minutes here, or there. But if you put a stop watch on it, that's about what you should expect. If sitting quietly "watching other people play" for 1 out of every 3 hours is not something that you can tolerate, don't play D&D with a group. Maybe try one-on-one D&D instead.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Critical Role is not the poster child for D&D games. There is massive difference between watching 6 voice actors having fun entertaining house wives and teenagers for streaming entertainment versus 6 strangers coming together for a game. Every DM has a different style. My old games with friends in college were high paced, high action, dangerous, competitive stuff going on, with lighter role playing. I enjoyed the DM vs the players atmosphere with them pretty sure I was trying to kill them 1/2 the time (when really I was just making fair but very competitive games)
I suspect the OP would prefer Colville's style (and that of his group) to Mercer's. Try watching the first episode of Chain of Acheron. There is no down time RP. It starts with a botched assassination attempt, and there is a chase through the streets, a battle on a ship, and travel to another dimension by the end of the first episode. And it only gets wilder from there.
They RP some, but nowhere near what the CR guys do. However, the players are insanely good at the game mechanics of D&D.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
You absolutely have the right to your opinion. It's worth just as much. But... just because you can say something doesn't mean you should or have to say something. And when you do, you must be willing to accept the consequences of your actions. Right to free speech =/= Freedom of consequence of such speech.
You badmouthed ("sugar coated" or not) something that you knew the group liked. They reacted to it. Now you're upset that they didn't like what you said? You're the new guy/gall in the group. It's not their responsibility to adjust to you. They have their group dynamic. You're the new variable. Adjust or move on.
Plus, as Biowizard kinda said: That's sort of a dick move. You'll have to deal with the fallout and dealing with this will be going through the long, drawn-out process of finding a group that meshes with your idea of a preferred play-style. Luckily for you there are hundreds, thousand, hundreds of thousands! (Woohoo!) of groups out there. It'll take time and a bit of effort but somewhere out there is a group that'll play D&D and other RPGs in the manner you'd like. My suggestion is that, once you find a group you think you might like, don't rag on something you know they like.
Not that you'll be interested, but: Here's what I would have done/said: "I didn't care for it. When do we play?" There is no need to elaborate unless they question why I didn't care for it. And then there is the distinct possibility that they are using it as a litmus test to see if you'll mesh with the group. A good group is just too valuable of a commodity to risk ruining it with a new player who doesn't mesh.
--Everything I do is a work of Art.
Art the Rat Bastard DM