Some People Are Mad at Critical Role’s Latest Combat… it’s dumb

name's fcg Monami remember it it's been a while since we've done one of these the last time was the first time Bell's Hells fought the villain odan THU and spoilers for critical Ro campaign 3 in general in that first battle with odan THU half the party died so obviously the party were reasonably nervous when in this latest episode they encountered her in her place of power a place where her psionic abilities are probably way way stronger fighting her once again seven on-one when she killed a player character immediately now that death was not permanent chatney played by Travis Willingham came back to life soon after but fcg the party's cleric realizing that odan could not be beat fcg they sacrificed themselves and it was it was quite tragic it was quite sad now was going to make a video I was going to make a video talking about their sacrifice and talking about how Sam Regal made made everyone care about his character and made the cast cry in that moment I mean I've never seen so many tears sh K cor other than like the ends of campaigns it was a well done death but then I went to Reddit I know I know okay I I get it that's on me I know but while I saw a lot of people talking about how tear jerking the episode was I was shocked by how many people talked about how controversial the episode was because I didn't get it I tuned in to c c campaign 3 every once in a while but I'm pretty sure something big is going to happen and in this case I was right and yeah I didn't really see the big fuss about this combat I mean I was playing cyber Punk while listening to the session so I was a little distracted sometimes but the point is I didn't get it but as I read the post I slowly saw the picture starting to form and that picture is something that I talk about quite often the picture is difficult combat and how some people really don't like it when player characters die and today we're GNA be talking about it we're gonna be talking about some of the common criticisms of this latest combat of critical role and why I don't think Matt Mercer did anything wrong in this case at all I want to exaggerate by the way that this is a small vocal minority I'm pretty sure most people really enjoyed this session I've seen a lot of praise for it I'm not talking about some big controversy here but I am talking about something that I see frequently in ttrpg culture and some things that I want to see changed or at least things I think are doing DMS out there a bit of a disservice so without further Ado guys let's get [Music] started okay so for those of you not in the clear here let's establish what the heck is happening in this fight it is a one on seven boss the party are for the most part fighting just odan she has clones and Echoes to back her up through Echo Knight abilities dunamancy that she has access to as well as pionic Powers but for the most part yeah this is seven player characters against the singular odan duel empowered upon the moon of ruus her psionic abilities at Peak a legendary Warrior and fighter feared across the lands yeah she's an intimidating badass and Bell's Hells at this point are mid to high level they're doing pretty good in terms of power they're not a minmax party by any means but a lot of them have accumulated some pretty potent Powers over time okay mistakes are set this is supposed to be a difficult combat odan is a legendary figure she's not going to go down like some chump and Matt Mercer made her in a way that facilitated that she had access to multiple action surges her psionic abilities were Way Beyond what any player character could dream of she was beyond any boss the players had faced before and far beyond each individual player character themselves and the hot take that I saw was that some people were bothered by this some people were bothered that odah Han's abilities do not match What fighters can do normally What psionic fighters can do normally either for example abilities that Target one creature can now Target multiple what the heck action surge that could only be used once per short rest she shouldn't be able to use it multiple times what is this cheating from the dungeon master fudging your roles I mean fudging your roles doesn't really apply here but some people are saying that anyway which I think was dumb anyway why does this bother me so much because I am sick of people thinking that monsters and player characters need to be made the same way and have access to the same abilities that is dumb I think it is a symptom of how watsi has designed a lot of spellcasting monsters a lot of spellcasting monsters don't have access to custom spells or abilities that are unique to them instead they have access to abilities that player characters also have access to and rules as written work the exact same way which by the way I do not like I think it is a weakness of game design when you just reuse existing spells for Monsters like yeah sure stuff like thury or press digitation or sending like these spells are pretty generic I'm okay with adding those utility spells to monsters but when it comes to offensive or defensive abilities stuff that's actively used in combat I would far prefer to use a monster manual with custom abilities tailored to the creatures design that is so much more appealing to me that's why I praise mcdms flea Mortals so much odan did something that I also really like taking existing player character abilities and modifying them to work for a monster changing them to fit a boss rather than a player character the point of a player character is to exist in the party D and D is made to be a party game with player characters fighting against monsters that is the way the Character Creator was made and therefore the Character Creator is not meant to be used for Monsters I think furthermore it is a complete disservice to your players and to yourself as a dungeon master if you try to Jerry rig the Character Creator into making monsters because that's not what it was for why well number one let's take odan for example if she was just a 20th level fighter she would fold against Bell's Hells I mean yeah it would be pretty challenging I guess but at the end of the day one 20th level fighter ain't fighting Seven Player characters unless they're like level one to five player characters start getting some pretty impressive burst damage once you start getting the higher levels and bells Hells they're not 20th level or anything but I mean they have impressive abilities like I said before and unless odan can deal appropriate damage substantial damage to force them onto the back foot force them to burn turns on healing spells force them to retreat force them away from her she's just not going to stand a chance my point is that if she was just a player character this fight would be a joke of course Matt needs to change their abilities one of the top post of the critical roll subred for some reason was a guy postulating that Matt must have made some kind of mistake that odah Han's enhanced abilities were just an oopsy on his part he didn't mean it he didn't mean to make this boss so difficult no dude he probably did I mean I can't read his mind but Matt is not bound to the rules of player character creation when it comes to making monsters that would be silly I think using player character creation rules for Monsters is an active mistake he's not making a mistake by fixing that he's not making a mistake by doing what in my opinion and the opinion of many other dungeon Masters is best practice enhancing abilities so that they fit a boss yeah her abilities are going to be able to Target multiple creatures she is a singular Fighter fighting seven people if her abilities were only single Target if her psionic powers could only affect one person she'd be a joke odan is not powerful because Matt made a mistake or because he was evily trying to kill his player characters by by fudging her existing abilities no she was designed in a way to make her realistically challenging against Bell's Hells the dice simply weren't in their favor there was a lot of Mis attacks a lot of failed ability saving throws there was a lot of reasons why that fight didn't go their way in fact even though the fight wasn't going their way a lot of the time with a lot of failed dice rolls they were still doing pretty good I mean she was almost dead multiple times it was only when she drank a big old healing potion that she managed to get back on her feet something that as a dungeon master I actually wouldn't do I actually disagree with Matt's Choice here to give her that healing potion I think she was powerful enough as is to be a reasonable threat but Matt made a different call there because he's a different dungeon master from me this is the other reason why I think a lot of people got their knots in the twist over this whole situation and over critical role in general I mean there's a whole subreddit that seems dedicated to picking apart every little decision that Matt makes and every little Choice made by the cast to see if it's entirely optimal but frankly number one a lot of people don't play like that and and number two we're all human okay we all make decisions that other people are going to disagree with I mean to me giving a monster a healing potion is usually unnecessary I wouldn't do that I just increase their base Health from the beginning and call of the day but Matt made a different call a call that I wouldn't have made but a call that in my opinion is still valid I mean it's just a difference of opinion on how the game is run people run the game differently especially since Mercer is under a pretty specific set of circumstances the guy is running a streaming show with seven players I think people who are casually in the know about D dragons or people who just play D and D and have never dm'd who watch critical rle are often those people that get all twisted over the things that happen in the game not understanding the restrictions I mean just at a baseline Matt dming for seven people that's freaking hard like I don't think people talk about it enough Matt koville made a whole video where he talked about how people talking about D and D is usually really stupid because everyone assumes that everyone else is under the same circumstances playing with the same people and most importantly the same amount of people people have gotten upset at me for pointing this out which just boggles my mind cuz I'm sorry dude this isn't my opinion it's just the truth if you can't accept it that is not my problem but every table is different especially because of how many people are there seven people is different from three you need a different design philosophy in order to balance for it and frankly in my opinion the more players you add even one more person is going to make your game more difficult to run it gets harder the more people there are the more play Styles need to balance the more abilities need to factor into your encounter design it becomes a pain and the fact that Matt has done this for however many years critical role has been going at this point what what is it where we at like over seven Matt here was trying to make a combat that is kind of overtuned I mean odan is supposed to be the deadly threat I mean okay ludus is the the deadly threat but odan is you know the other deadly threat she's this legendary Warrior that is supposed to be unparalleled she shouldn't go down like a chump it should be a hard fight I think that's why he gave her that healing potion that's why he had that in her inventory because he knew that yeah this is one person fighting Seven Player characters the potion is basically mandatory in order to make sure that she has an appropriate amount of hit points to fight them the point I'm trying to get at is when you're balancing around seven people you need to make a lot of decisions to make the combats thrilling and interesting especially since Matt got a camera in front of him he needs to make this thrilling for the audience too A lot of people just don't think of that they assume that every decision made by a dungeon master is made to cater to the players and yeah they are but that doesn't always mean letting them off easy sometimes that means kicking their butt and in this case that is what he did so now let's talk about the other reason people are [Music] upset the last time Matt Mercer killed someone permanently it was the first time obviously for a lot of people who are watching critical rle for the first time and don't play a lot of D and D A lot of people were upset that Molly mock died permanently it was a lot more of a backlash back then than now I think more people are used to the concept of player character death especially since ladna also died but fcg going down I mean they're the party cleric they're the person with revivify and while yeah Fern also has revivify unfortunately fcg sacrifice in this case left them unable to be brought back and yeah that's tragic but I also think that's good we often talk about how DMS and players need to play ball with each other how players need to sort of suspend disbelief sometimes or maybe just kind of follow the DM's lead a little bit when they're getting into an adventure it's that whole thing I talk about you can't play curse of strad if you don't go to barovia that kind of thing the players need to play ball the DM but works the other way around DM also needs to play ball with the players some people were asking why fcg sacrifice actually killed odan it shouldn't have from a math standpoint which I actually think is dubious I looked at some of the math that people were doing online I did the math myself and it checks out as long as odan doesn't have resistance to fcg explosion at least to my estimation again we don't pay the math budget here at Krispies Tavern I could have done things very wrong but my point is is that if I'm right and fcg sacrifice only works if Matt takes out the resistance odan has to damage I still think it actually is a wellmade choice Matt was playing ball with fcg I mean his core is freaking overloading he turned himself into a nuclear bomb odan has damage resistances but like this is a pretty particular situation where I think those resistances may be overridden I mean there are plenty of monsters I throw at my players that override their damage resistances why not this if Matt was fudging or making a decision last minute just to save the party I mean what other situation are you going to do that I mean the dungeon Masters Guide itself talks about fudging as a reasonable option and if you're going to fudge anywhere in your campaign it's in a situation like this a situation where people are literally crying over a player character's death invalidating that I think would have been an irresponsible choice or at least a missed opportunity I'm not saying that having a tragic pointless sacrifice is bad for D and D games I mean hey maybe that's a plot Point you're interested in but Matt decision here is also a good one pretending it's a bad one just to keep the sanctity of the game balance and making sure everything and all the numbers check out would be ridiculous this sacrifice was well done Sam Regal made an epic decision that made the story so much more impactful and invalida that sure the tragedy could have been interesting but is it the only decision that's valid hell no Matt Mar's decision here was a great one and played ball with a player character death yeah player character death is touchy but I don't think it should be this touchy when a death is well done I think we should acknowledge when it is well done and if anything I think a lot of us should Envy it of course a lot of people most people like this moment I saw countless weeping the death of fcg I mean Twitter was mourning their loss for so long I think they still are at this point and good I think that's good but I do think that vocal minority also matters because it is something that affects D and games DMS are afraid of killing player characters I mean I'm afraid of killing player characters I think that's a big reason why it often doesn't happen and I think that in a lot of games that fits but if you're playing a game where you tell your players like hey player character death is possible make it actually possible even when we clarify that there is some fear there because of that vocal minority because of how many people get upset at moments like this one I think it discourages DMS it discourages DMS from having difficult combats in the first freaking place I see it constantly and I don't like that I hope that this combat this epic moment and the love that erupted from it can overcome the wiers out there and encourage DMS to try a more difficult and tense play style to try a style where consequences are permanent where death is possible and where the best choices come with heavy consequences I love moments like this I love tragedy I love drama and Trauma and obviously if you don't want that in your game that's cool but if you do I hope this encourages you not to be afraid of traumatizing your players as long as they're cool with it as well all right and that's a wrap I hope I've left enough room that we can do a sequel this video talking about why fcg works as a character and why so many people cared about them even though for a time they were actually pretty controversial but in any case until that next video If you guys enjoyed this one please do leave a like if you want to see more of our content then you can check out our RPG Horror Story series where we talk about actual bad things in dungeon dragons it's linked in the cards and while you're there subscribe to crispy's Tavern to get more of our content as it comes out and finally if you want to leave your own tips or thoughts go down in the comments down below if you can't think of a comment leave the comment smiley day to let me know you made it to the end of the video in essence like comment subscribe we'll see you all next time farewell but because [Music] she I got text that was [Music] DB oh

Channel: Crispy's Tavern: DnD Tips and Stories

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Keywords: dnd backstory advice, dnd backstory help, dnd backstory, dnd advice, dnd backstory guide, dnd backstory ideas, dungeon master advice, dnd problem player, critical role, crispy tavern, d&d horror story, ginny di, how to play dnd, terrible dnd advice, dnd ginny di, bad dnd players, bad dming, bad dnd advice, dnd characters, dnd habits, bad dnd homebrew, bad dnd characters, reddit dnd, dnd rules, critical role fcg, fcg death, matt mercer, matt mercer dming, dm advice

Id: kA_l5GASJo4

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2024