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How Critical Role Twisted A Player's Expectations Of DnD
Hi everyone.
All Things DnD is back with another story.
Critical Role is to DND what porn is to sex.
Don’t let professionals twist your expectations on what a normal session of DND should be.
And please don’t be like the player in this story!
Tell us what you would have done after listening to this:
The Tale begins when I got a call from a coworker.
He had a game that was going to happen in a couple of hours with some brand new players,
however, his wife had gone into labor early and he knew the two newest players were super
excited and he didn't want to just cancel and he knew I had a One Shot I was wanting
to playtest.
His roommate was a player at the game, and they had already ordered pizza, would I be
able to do an one off?
Sure.
Easy Peasy.
I arrived about a half an hour before the game was supposed to pop off, the roommate
and his buddy were already there and I looked over their sheets, wizard and fighter, a few
minutes later the other three players arrived, the roommate's girlfriend, her new to the
game cousin and the cousin's friend.
The last player is who we are focusing this story on, we will call her Critta, because
she was decked out in as much Critical Role gear as she could possibly be wearing.
Cool, I love Critical Role!
I asked to see their sheets.
Girlfriend rolled up a criminal background bard, her cousin made a pretty neat little
Fey Warlock and asked if having a "pixie dragon" as a familiar was fine-- they'd just reskinned
a Pseudodragon with fairy stuff, so it absolutely was.
But Critta, blessed Critta, her red-head half elf Ranger was the daughter of a Druidess
and a Raven themed Rogue, Paladin and to top it off she had an Armored Bear named Bauble,
as her animal companion.
I mean I just smiled as I recalled my own Drow Ranger with dual scimitars and panther
pet and said everything looked ok, other than she couldn't have a +3 Longbow at level 4,
which was the level the game was set at.
We sat down and I explained some of my ways of doing things that might differ from other
tables and likely that my Coworker would change.
I run Mike Mearl's Crit Rule, Crits do max damage your attack would deal then you roll
the dice on top of that, that any roll made that isn't called for doesn't count.
You can't just say, "I'm doing X" then roll.
And I'm not looking to kill anyone.
I'm also not going to let them off the hook if they try and do something incredibly reckless.
Now the plot was pretty simplistic, the group is hired to recover a jeweled pendant for
a wealthy woman that was stolen from her, the pendant was in the possession of a werewolf
that wanted to use it to maintain human form for longer-- which is actually why the wealthy
woman had it as she was cursed with lycanthropy.
The party would have to track where the pendant went, and had a couple of ways of gathering
this information, either through the Thieves Guild, the Bard had contacts, or by meeting
with an informant the quest giver had set up.
The party chose the latter option, and I broke up the talking bits with a hilarious failed
mugging attempt by some unfortunate bandits so they could get a fight under their belts.
Also one of the bandits had a note that would lead to the location of the pendant, as I
like having multiple means of finding information.
The whole fight Critta was saying "Matt Mercer does this differently."
To which I sniped back, "Well when you are Sam Riegel, I'll do better."
The informant they were supposed to meet in a tavern which I described as "a well known
hang out for the city guard when they were off duty or after their shifts" in short,
a cop bar, for a "good sized city."
The contact was running a bit late, so they could do a bit of tavern nonsense role play
as that's a troupe for a reason.
Critta decided that she wanted to get a round of drinks for free and went to flirt with
the barkeeper.
Her persuasion check went splendidly well with a Nat 1.
The Barkeep laughed her off, and hinted that he was quite gay.
Now at this point, Critta thought her honor was shamed because the barkeep turned her
down, I honestly don't know what she was thinking, and swung her sword at him.
In the middle of a busy tavern.
That was filled with City Guards.
"Are you sure?"
I asked.
"I swing my sword"
"Roll to hit."
She drew blood, the barkeep screamed and Critta was then tackled to the floor by multiple
City Guards.
She complained that she didn't get to make a check to see if she could fight them off.
"There's no reasonable way your character with a Strength of 6 can successfully power
her way out of a dozen guards tackling you, but sure, for giggles roll a Grapple Check
at disadvantage."
I then rolled 24 grapple checks in the open for the guards.
"You escaped from the halfling city guard, all the other guards pin you to the ground,
and are starting to force manacles on you."
"My bear attacks them."
At this point the original DM's roommate steps in explaining that this is a very bad idea,
purely based on the numbers involved, just get arrested, and they could talk to the guards
and make things right.
"Baubles wouldn't allow anyone to touch his Mama like this, he'd attack."
She huffed.
I tell her that the guards in this town all seem pretty well armed, and that they won't
show mercy to a bear attacking them.
I tried to emphasize as best I could, the guards won't show mercy.
"My bear attacks."
Oooooookay.
Half a round later her bear is dead, because 34 hit points is nothing when there's a dozen
guards taking swings at it.
Critta screams out in agony, demanding to know why I killed her bear, that Matt Mercer
would never have killed her baby, that I'm the worst person ever and that I must hate
Critical Role and that I did this on purpose because I hate Critical Role.
At the point I admit to her that I actually ran one of the NPC Twitter gimmick accounts
for awhile and I love Critical Role, but that there's no logical reason that City Guards
would stand there and let a BEAR attack them in their own bar and do nothing.
Actions have consequences.
After she cried for twenty minutes and her roommate calmed her down she returned to the
table and we finished the session-- I quickly had their employer pay off her fine because
she desperately needed the pendant back because it was a full moon that night.
She still quipped in that "Matt Mercer has different accents" a few more times, but I
just smiled and kept the game moving, they killed the werewolf and got the pendant back
and the game wrapped up, I even threw in the fact they found a severely wounded black bear,
in the werewolf's den so she could train up another companion.
My coworker says she's been pleasant to deal with though, and Critta hasn't brought up
how Matt Mercer does things differently and that she thinks her coworker, the original
DM is a much better DM than I am, so I suppose killing her bear opened her eyes a little
bit and she's a better player because of it.
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Would you have killed her bear?
And just to be clear we all love Critical Role and what they have done for the DND community.
Just cut us not Matt Mercers some slack!
Please let us know what you think and comment below!
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