https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2025-06-16/critical-role-raids-dungeons-and-dragons-coffers-to-sign-storytelling-duo

Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford joined Matt Mercer's team, the one coincidentally doing Daggerheart.

>>95883920 (OP)
>despises anyone white, asian, cisgendered
>is all white, asian, and/or cisgendered
You love to see it

>>95883920 (OP)
>poach two of WotC's most worthless faggots at the absolutely lowest points in their careers
lol
lmao

>>95883920 (OP)
It's probably the first time in Crawford's career when he's straighter than the game he's working on.

>>95884459
He's gay, Jeremy Crawfood?

>>95884000
>>poach two of WotC's most worthless faggots at the absolutely lowest points in their careers
"Do I join Critcal Role or apply for food stamps? Hmmm..."?

>>95883945
Self-loathing is a thing, anon.

>>95883920 (OP)
WotC keeps slamming own goals huh.

I think Daggerheart is not a very good system and I don't rate Jeremy Crawford as a designer at all (I think Chris Perkins is better, but still very mid as far as work on 5e). That said, Jesus Christ Hasbro how the fuck do you just let some company you had a huge working relationship with poach two of the tiny number of recognisable names in your brand?

>>95884937
Inb4 Critical Role material gets delisted from D&D Beyond.

>>95883920 (OP)
>Crawford working on Daggerheart
It will now turn to shit, fail, and DnD will return to its place as the king of tabletop. WotC master plan.

>>95884548
Retirement usually means someone isn't looking for work. So what this tells us is that all those veterans at WotC who retired in the last few months, while telling everyone that WotC is doing great and the new D&D is a big hit, were actually just rats fleeing a sinking ship.

>>95885344
That would require a level of thought from WOTC.

>These two leave WotC
>D&D 2024 is legitimately a better game than 2014
This is a colossal L on their part.

>>95883945
Hm, it's almost as if your belief that they hate the core of your being is incorrect and comes from online slopaganda rather than reality

>>95885530
Looking at the whole situation its clear that the "retirement" was Wizards deciding to purge the last of the higher payed Old Guard as a part of their plans to scale back D&D.
The failure of Sigil got the eye of corporate on the team and heads are rolling.
Regardless expect D&D to go into pseudo-dormancy in the foreseeable future.

>>95885735
>Regardless expect D&D to go into pseudo-dormancy in the foreseeable future.
and that's a good thing

>>95884937
Hasbro has never been good at retaining star talent. Literally every “name” they ever get, they don’t keep for more than 4-5 years. Worse talent retention than Marvel back in the silver age. If anything these two were massive outliers.

>>95885344
They also sent Mearls to Chaosium to sabotage Runequest.

>>95883920 (OP)
>storytelling duo leaves D&D for Critical Role (collaborative play-writing show)
Not to say WotC will ever grasp D&D either

https://twitter.com/ToddKenreck/status/1934697867710746686
Todd Kenrick, the person who was doing most of the official D&D videos for WotC, has been fired.

https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/dnd-vp-jess-lanzillo-leaves-wotc/
Jess Lanzillo, the vice president of D&D at WotC, has left.

How skeletal is the skeleton crew now?

https://twitter.com/ToddKenreck/status/1934697867710746686
Todd Kenreck, the person who was doing most of the official D&D videos for WotC, has been fired.

https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/dnd-vp-jess-lanzillo-leaves-wotc/
Jess Lanzillo, the vice president of D&D at WotC, has left.

How skeletal is the skeleton crew now?

>>95886930
They were already barely releasing anything, I don't know how they can do less.

>>95883920 (OP)
That’s awesome. Can’t wait to see what those two have to add to Daggerheart. Both of them worked on 4e. Hoping that the design of the (good) 4e powers can make their way to Daggerheart’s domain cards in a way that feels cohesive to the game system. Also the enemy design shares similarities between the two game systems.

>>95886978
Both of them also worked on 5e. Also Daggerheart is already done. They didn't get hired to rewrite the core rules. They're probably just going to write some mediocre modules and some optional rules.

>>95885344
>return to its place as the king of tabletop
Despite what the discordfags on here will have you believe D&D is still the most popular ttrpg. It’s a shit game for so many reasons and floundering after releasing 5.5e which nobody wanted or asked for but still the “King”.

>>95886978
>Both of them worked on 4e.
Ah, it makes sense now.

>>95887176
I’m certain it’s still the most played by a wide margin but that’s hard to prove for sure. What I find more questionable is the implication that Daggerheart of all things was going to be the one to threaten that position. I’ve seriously never heard about it before I saw this thread.

>>95887199
There's no chance in hell that Daggerheart actually explodes in popularity. It will have it's small, dedicated fanbase, for sure, but it doesn't offer enough of anything to really rope in loyal D&D fans or people who need another fantasy RPG with lots of bells and whistles. There's already so many of those and anyone who has dropped D&D isn't going to go for something from fucking Critical Role, let alone a game that comes overloaded with overpriced cards and other bullshit.

hold on guys I think maybe we should give daggerheart a chance...

>>95885834
>Worse talent retention than Marvel back in the silver age
I think you're exaggerating your statement. A lot of talent swapped companies and even industries in multiple directions. I had a hard time finding someone who hadn't jumped between DC and Marvel in both directions like Marv Wolfman, Neal Adams, and Steve Ditko. Stan Lee didn't jump around then and neither did Sal Buscema but that was one year for Marvel in the last year of the Silver Age which barely counts.
Gene Colan jumped DC to Marvel. Stayed with Marvel for the vast majority of the SIlver Age.
John Buscema. Timely, then non-comics for nearly half the Silve Age, then the last few years with Marvel when he stayed for decades after the Silver Age ended.
Roy Thomas left DC for Marvel after 8 days. Spent the rest of the Silver Age and years after with Marvel.
Denny O'Neill left DC for Marvel thanks to Roy Thomas's advice so DC screwed up there then Marvel screwed up by not giving him enough work. He went to Charlston then finished the last couple of years of the Silver Age in DC before reviving Batman in the 1970s.

O'Neill is probably the person we can most thank for Batman being cool today, since without him no Frank Miller Batman would have been made, no Michael Keaton Batman, no Batman Animated, no Christian Bale Batman, no Arkham vidya, etc because Batman was a joke character by then before O'Neill revived him. I guess in that way we can be thankful that Marvel didn't keep him around.

>>95885716
>they personally and explicitly express hatred of certain groups of people
>"th-that's just slopaganda"

>>95883920 (OP)
I actually used to enjoy CR as a very occasional injection of reddit friend simulator, some friendly background noise while I paint, but being Americans they keep stealing and having backstab dramas lol. Pirate race

>>95887139
I never said they were going to rewrite the core rules. My point was that they probably have a lot to add to the domains and the adversaries.

>>95887199
>What I find more questionable is the implication that Daggerheart of all things was going to be the one to threaten that position.

Who the fuck is saying this? Even people playing Daggerheart don’t think this.

>>95887917
>My point was that they probably have a lot to add to the domains and the adversaries.
And the point was that the amount of good or bad they can do for this stillborn system at this point is already reduced significantly.

>>95885997
O, wise one. Do enlighten us with your esoteric knowledge of the One True Way-ism. Let us bathe in the knowledge of your superior gygaxian intellect.

>>95883920 (OP)
Critical Role is an entire brand built on the idea of spending 4 hours every thursday for 10 years getting caught up with a DnD campaign you aren't in and if you were you would feel iced out of the conversation because it's an actors literal job to pretend to be someone they're not which makes interacting with them irl venomously miserable.

>>95889835
DnD isn't a procedural generator for gay YA fantasy dramas. Simple.

>>95890091
Not to mention the shit's fake and fully pre-scripted.

>>95889835
>honest PC deaths (rip up the character sheet) can only occur if scripted. (just look at Vax's plot armor)
>rigged campaign outcomes, scripted PC arcs, and most encounters.
>any dice rolls can be (and often are) fudged.
>spell rules? HA!
>"Good" aligned PC fine with constant Evil actions of party all campaign? Sure! Fuck actual role-play!
The CR cast are still horrendous at basic mechanics and strategy for a reason.

Critical Role and its ilk are semi-improvised playwriting, not honest games. It is role WRITING, often with bloated backstories intended to dictate a tale to happen, not role playing. Approaching it in order to create a story will always "direct" it, rather than things happening organically. Doing so is not TTRPG as defined by those who created the genre. The hobby was meant to repel control freaks, not welcome them as is the trend. Check your ego and narcissism at the door.

Maybe someone else can 'splain it better.

>>95890355
To put it simply, they're actors. They're there because they're making money. Critical Role is the tabletop equivalent of Big Bang Theory, it's Hollywood actors pretending to be "nerdy" by putting on an ultra-distilled, hyper-consumeristic mask of what pop culture says tabletop players are. If you watch Critical Role, you aren't watching a game being played, you're watching an internet TV show.

>>95890355
>"Good" aligned PC fine with constant Evil actions of party all campaign? Sure! Fuck actual role-play!
The flipflopping of morals and very flexible boundaries of their characters always bothered me because otherwise they're perfectly capable of having heated in-character disagreements and arguments. They could've had an opportunity to really show actual roleplay done by good actors instead of theatre improv where the characters are all quirky flighty morally ambiguous sociopaths - which at that point is really no different from the average table so really what's the value of it when you can just play with your own group of quirky flighty morally ambiguous sociopaths.

>>95890523
Put anyone in front of cameras and tell them they have an audience watching and their behavior becomes completely unnatural. Even if they are enjoying the game and not being directed/scripted, being a show and their jobs puts an overt influence on their behavior and decision making. They might actually love the game and enjoy each other's company, they might not, but the fact that it is their job to put on a show means it's an extremely fake, inauthentic type of play.

>>95891238
An actual game of an RPG is quite boring to watch, even when the players themselves are rather enjoying themselves. The reason for this is that under normal corcu stances where people are actually playing the game, it's rather slow, and there isn't THAT much in character dialogue or "funny moments". A lot of it is gameplay. Saying what you're doing, where you're going, making rolls and so forth. Which isn't entertaining to watch for the average viewer.

>>95890355
>>95890105
One of the core concepts of Darrington’s most recent game, Daggerheart, is ‘Play to find out what happens’. Same can be said for many of the games that inspired Daggerheart. They are fundamentally designed NOT to be scripted. Gygax on the other hand is quoted saying “A DM only rolls dice for the noise they make.” He fudged. A lot.

I can’t speak for Critical Role. I’ve hardly ever watched them.

>>95891933
>Gygax on the other hand is quoted saying “A DM only rolls dice for the noise they make.” He fudged. A lot.
Gygax was massively hypocritical on the rules.

>>95891933
Gygax said a ton of contradictory shit because he wasn't actually speaking from authority or from some intended game design wisdom. He was speaking to, firstly, hear the sound of his own voice, and secondly, to sound witty and clever to try and impress whoever he was with at the time.

>>95883920 (OP)
I don't get the obsession over obscure internet celebrities. Did they do a thing? If so, was it good or not? And if not, why obsess over their minor celebrity status when there's thirteen-thousand, two-hundred and seventy three other ttrpgs on the market that you could be talking about, instead?

>>95887569
Post where they explicitly said they hated those people anon

>>95892138
A lot of the anons in this thread know an awful lot about CR, down to specific plot points. From what I understand it's a long running show, so it's pretty puzzling.

>>95892184
Personally I've never seen it. But it's awesome that our hobby is getting popular and people are becoming so financially successful at what my nerdy friends and I were playing in that-one-mom's basement back in the early 90s.

>>95892138
They aren't exactly "obscure" but I don't follow them either. Couldn't name a character or any of the people on the show except Mercer, but that's because he's name is easy to remember and he's been in other things.

>>95892473
>They aren't exactly "obscure"
Fair enough. Maybe I'm too old to know what's popular. Skoobi doobi toilet!

>>95892536
I'd equate knowing them to being along the lines of Channel Awesome in the sense that they're nerdy but dumbed down enough to allow the normal folk to enjoy it. In this case, they've got a lot more equipment to sell D&D as the kind of cinematic experience most regular people already have to use their imagination to achieve due to not being sponsored celebrities, so it makes it more appealing for the people who want the zoo experience of nerddom, aka they want to partake in the fun of D&D but don't want to get too close to the smelly unwashed nerds that the internet keeps telling them make fandoms terrible things.

>>95892607
That seems cool to me. More people in our hobby doing more stuff and making more things? I'm for it.

>>95892258
>>95892633
Yes anon, I too am glad this hobby is being sold out to massive corporations that hate me at worst and view me as a cash cow at best. I'm so happy a bunch of rich Hollywood celebrities can act out a D&D script for a couple hours, get paid, then go home and bitch about politics for the rest of the day. What a time we live in.

>>95892646
I really don't understand what you're so bitter and pissy about. Someone made something you didn't like? Cool: don't buy it. The result is that the market for the things you DO like is bigger than ever and only growing. Why so negative, anon?

>>95892633
Yeah, it is what it is, though it does have the unfortunate side effect of bringing in a lot of newcomers who have the preconception that more groups have money to throw around for presentation than they actually do, which has resulted in a bit of backlash of people complaining online about their "poor experiences" which amount to mainly the DM not copying Mercer's dming style pound for pound or for the fact they can't afford custom models and maps for their games and have to settle for budget substitutes.

Still, it is true that there are more groups doing podcasts and recordings of real-plays now that they know there's a market for it, so that is cool. I just personally wish more prospective players coming in from watching Critical Roll would temper their expectations a bit more when trying to join a game.

>>95892687
>The result is that the market for the things you DO like is bigger than ever and only growing
Either bait or you are beyond newfag-tier.

>>95892691
>I just personally wish more prospective players coming in from watching Critical Roll would temper their expectations a bit more when trying to join a game.
I guess. But it's always been the case that you've gotta cultivate your table and grow into a group together. Hell even a veteran of the hobby is going to have to change, to fit into an established group. They're all wildly different.

>>95892706
Been here for a really long time, anon. I just disagree with your pent-up, bitter internet anger. I'm sorry it's so hard for you to encounter other opinions on the internet, that you have to invent bogeymen to handle it.

>>95892721
I've admittedly had friends who've watched their DMs having to explain to newcomers who keep saying "That's not how Matt would do it" that his style of DMing is very different from how games normally run. Or they tend to passively sit there and when prompted try to argue it's the DM's job to give them a motivation, though I've seen that also come from a very specific strain of That Guy. It's lead to a so-called "Matt Mercer effect" that even the D&D reddits had to address. Which makes me think that something about the way Critical Roll is presented doesn't quite line up with how an actual ttrpg operates if viewers keep coming out of watching it with such a weird take on how games roll.

>>95892765
Sounds shitty for sure. But 'eh. You were gonna have to teach 'em how to play either way.

>>95883920 (OP)
Lol, lmao even.
See you in less than 5 years when they inevitable license dnd to another company.
Rolling for free league

>>95893708
Pretty sure the majority of WotC's D&D profits are already in licensing fees for plushies and movies and blah blah.

>>95886930
a dozen of people are still there

>>95883920 (OP)
>Two theater geeks leave D&D company (after destroying it) to join group that pretends they are playing D&D.
How long has this been planned? Master level long con. Maybe the real game can come back.

>>95892765
>CR Campaign 1: Scripted for no real PC deaths, no real consequences, and party to win (The cast are terrible players)
>CR Campaign 2: Scripted PC arcs (no unscripted deaths), no real consequences, and party to win (The cast are still terrible players)
>CR Campaign 3: Almost entirely DM scripted/railroaded (The cast are still terrible players) No consequences for that either.
Impressive. Newcomers want this shit instead of an honest game. "The Mercer Effect" needs to be re-defined.