#But I don't think that Matt CAN'T design combats that way

[midground]

I think it’ll be really neat to see how Matt Mercer fares with the Dimension 20 format. Matt tends to favor attrition-style encounter design (lots of smaller, narratively inconsequential combats meant to drain party resources ahead of the Final Fight). This style is sort of the default for how 5e assumes you’ll play (hence why Short Rests exist), and it’s a perfectly valid style choice, especially for home play and for long-form campaigns.

While I don’t mind playing that style, I find it way less engaging as a viewer when it’s used in Actual Play. As a viewer, I generally prefer the D20 format of (what I refer to as) Set Piece Encounters. Big, story-relevant fights where the PCs have most if not all of their resources and abilities from the start, often with multiple paths to victory that the PCs need to discover as they interact with the encounter.

To be clear, it’s not like Matt CAN’T do this, there are tons of examples of this kind of encounter design across all 3 campaigns (C1 BBEG fight, C2 Cathedral Fight, C2 BBEG fight, C3 Museum Heist), it just tends to be reserved more for special occasions rather than being the default. But that makes sense because Critical Role is long-form as opposed to Dimension 20′s limited-run seasons.

(I really can’t emphasize enough that Dimension 20s limited-run nature is what makes it possible for every Encounter to be a big Set Piece Encounter.)

And because Dimension 20 has SUCH a strong format of alternating Roleplay and Combat episodes, because Dimension 20 seasons are limited in scope, and the Encounters are worked out with the production team ahead of time, I’m hoping that Matt really leans into it. I’m so excited to find out what he does with a limited-run season (REALLY can’t wait to know how many episodes there will be). I’m really hoping to see him flex his Set Piece Encounter design skills in the dome.

[the-firebird69]

There's a huge number of idiots who are doing races that are weird and meaningless and we have to tell you they are stupid these are some short track on the middle of Los Angeles for some sort of NASCAR races way too small and the cars are not designed for it and they don't seem to know what they're doing I hear Matt grumbling saying they went ahead and forced it and their idiots and it looks stupid and they should be using short you know smaller cars funny cars and things like that even a small Indy car race but they're not doing that. So what kind of pissed off does it looks stupid it doesn't show anything about anything it's NASCAR and it's got the official emblem and stuff and they say that they're approved and so forth it's probably the max saying look how awful this is and stuff and they're mocking people and we don't care we know what we're doing. The robots are gone believe it or not they're gone all those robots there's remnants around and and you see them in New York and people trying to use them as service robots but can't get them to reprogram 100% cuz John remillard is there a screen around them and that's iRobot that's why it came comes from so somebody makes the killer robot and goes after the mall and kills them all really it's just destroying the hardware but that's what it's all about it's about this failed maneuver and he tries to take over New York City to prove that he's King and stuff any gets thrown out of window and we know who did it and everybody knows cuz he's always killing him. There are several other things happening one of them is the death Star the death Star is currently under siege and all of them are by the max and it is a fight and that's why Mac go support the death Star is to challenge Stan and his leadership there is an episode that happens before he gets electrocuted and that's with Mac it is a huge huge event and it's coming up real quick when he finally gets to board that death star and has control over the fleet most of it he goes boarding Darth Vader's hair ready to fight him for possession of the death Star in single combat. And there's more to it and he tells a story to stand and Stan has to stay. But it seems like it's going to be momentarily and after that Biden returns from his ship and Luke Skywalker makes his way up and he's looking for Obi-Wan Kenobi and says you kill them and no he goes up there with him and that's how he gets up there and they they are up there in the stolen ship and Luke Skywalker leaves temporarily in the millennium falcon comes back in a different ship from the empire and people wondering why and it's because he wants to try and retrieve Obi-Wan Kenobi and it is BG and he is the one with the museum so it's going on and shortly too. There's a number of people have been called out as being heinous to the morlock and they say a big list they say sons doing it but all these people are having him and he doesn't notice it all the time he's tired exhausted he's a man is powerful but these people are nasty and I think they have to run everything through one person cuz you're small it's terrifyingly bad and it ruined them and it's ending soon and possibly tonight

The scene with Luke Skywalker in the two sons is coming up today very soon

Thor Freya

[utilitycaster]

Hi, different anon- while I’m not sure I agree with you about otohan being a boring villain, I am really interested in your railroading take. Is…I dunno, mechanical railroading a thing? From an encounter design standpoint? The thing I keep coming back to is that 200+foot per round move, plus teleports and psionic leap. That’s not an encounter you can run from without big conjuration spells. 60-odd damage a round? Not a good place at level 7. What was supposed to happen, dyou think?

Hi anon! If you don't mind, I'm going to package my answer to this with a response to this really good comment from @hexagonalpeg and then I'm going to go do some work for a while.

So for what it's worth Otohan is mechanically quite interesting, and purely from a mechanical standpoint, I'd love to see a combat like that at like level 15 or something. I just found her to have no discernable personality other than GOOD EMBRACE THE DARKNESS and like, that's boring as shit to me. I don't know why she feels this and I don't care. But that's an aside.

Mechanical railroading is kind of a thing in that you absolutely can have a battle that was always intended to be virtually unwinnable. It's something Matt has done very well in the Chroma Conclave initial attacks in which the dragons were clearly stated to have a sky-high AC, and with the first fight against the Tomb Takers in Campaign 2. It's a good way to impress upon the party how strong the enemy is and give them clues on how to counteract them in the future.

Here's the problem: if you have an unwinnable (or near-unwinnable) fight, you need to have a not terribly difficult way to stop it. You can have this by having the enemy say "not worth it" or be called away before destroying everyone (Chroma Conclave); you can make running away possible (Tomb Takers); or you can convince the enemy to stand down, either by giving them what they want or showing you're not a threat, which often overlaps with the enemy deciding it's not worth the effort.

Alternately, you can have a TPK. If you are having a TPK on purpose, that is in fact valid (especially if there's going to be some group vision/turn back the clock/alternate future stuff)...but you need to make it fast. You don't draw it out.

This combat had one very specific answer reliant on only one party member in an incredibly high pressure situation in which every other thing tried had failed. Half the party is down, everyone's in single digits and low on resources, Otohan is killing her best friend, and here's the other thing. Imogen's backstory, and Laura has said as much both in and out of game, is that she feels like going into the storm means dying. Most of Imogen's meaningful conversations have been about fighting her power or learning about it but never, ever giving in. It feels entirely in character, to me, for her to resist it to the very end and ultimately have to be forced into giving in...and that's not good if the answer to the puzzle is "give in."

I think another really important factor is that the narrative leading up to this fight seemed, at least from my perspective as a D&D player, and I'd guess the cast's perspective, a slam dunk. They need to get Treshi, a plot that has already been dragging on for quite some time. They're finally in. They were planning on taking some time to get the lay of the land and call the skyship but oh look, here's a seemingly golden opportunity of a distraction, inclement weather to hide your way, and a tentative ally in this quest! Of course they'd seize it.

So anyway I think the ending - of Imogen giving in, and whatever is going to happen with the white light and everything stopping - is exactly what was intended to happen, but I think that the setup was absolutely not there for anyone to realize this, and that's a pretty significant DM-ing misstep in my eyes. It doesn't mean the story on the whole can't recover, but this just seems clumsy.

[redjennies]

I 100% agree that PCs shouldn't be dying like this to further another character's development. I wouldn't like it for any character but I'm already lukewarm bordering on uninterested in Imogen, no flack to Laura, so not my cup of tea.

Credit to Matt where credit is due, he does a lot for these stories and elements that seem rough or odd can turn around, but oh boy. If he can turn this around I'll be impressed because this was so railroaded (derogatory). Otohan was designed to jump around the map and had no trouble reading the Hells' minds so any attempt at negotiating could just become: I'm going to steal the information from your head and continue killing because Imogen still hasn't done what I wanted. Once they entered that encounter, barring miracle rolls, they weren't getting out until they were let out.

Then there's the final wisdom save which felt like an "oh shit if I don't do something the whole party is going to die" decision. Because yes it made sense for the character but it took the decision to not let go out of Laura's hands because killing her friends apparently wasn't motivating Imogen to pick the "right answer" and if she didn't let go the rest of the party would be taken down because Otohan is just Like That apparently.

It was just frustrating.

was kinda holding onto this one because it is honestly summing up everything I feel about the situation once I put my emotions aside.

the one thing I'll extrapolate on is as you touched on, I don't think Matt is a bad DM. I think Matt is normally a very good DM but this was bad DMing and I think these almost rookie-ieh cheap tactics are beneath his ability. this was bad DMing regardless of anything else. there were ways to up the stakes, there are ways to kill player characters, without doing -- *gestures broadly* that. I saw someone describe this combat as "feeling like a cut scene where you're supposed to lose" and I fully agree. this was some Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3 bullshit and that is one of the worst insults I can give a RPG, even more so to a TTRPG. it stops being D&D and starts being just a show when you start doing stuff like this and if people like that, then that's fine for them, but I'm not watching if that's the direction the series is going in. I'm not wasting hours of my life listening to other people argue about what to do next just so combat can become essentially cutscenes. I'm not getting invested in characters who are considered secondary.

like as it dragged on even Laura couldn't stop it and what is the point of roleplay or combat or player choice if we're doing that? I can't get into the whole Poetic Dice Rolls when bad dice rolls are the only way to end it. what should have been a beautiful moment in Imogen and Laudna's relationship, regardless of your read on it, is undercut by Matt making it all feel so forced. Laudna's decisions didn't matter, Chetney's decisions didn't matter, and Imogen's decisions didn't matter. Orym wasn't even given a choice. the only people you can even remotely argue had any agency were Fearne who kept wandering back into the fray and Ashton who successfully ran away. in my book, that's bad DMing no matter how you slice it, and my semi-sincere, semi-passive aggressive apologies for thinking Matt is so much better than that. he made a series of decisions that someone with his experience had to know would piss a bunch of veteran D&D players off and so long as I'm not harassing him over it, it's not really my fault as a viewer for hating it when it's breaking every common sense rule of how to be a DM. it doesn't make him a bad person or the Worst DM Ever, but he really should have thought better than to do something so tacky.

anyway this really is the last of what I have to say about it. I really appreciate everyone thanking me and sending me well wishes in the inbox. 💕 the good has truly outweighed the bad both in the past 24 hours and in the past two years, but this is my stop and I have to get off now.

[asteria7fics]

Alright goobers, it's time for Asteria's review. If you don't want potential spoilers, then bow out now.

My short review: it's aaaalright.

My long review:

Full disclosure, I have not finished the game, nor am I much of a video game critic, but I have played a few games in my time.

Let's get the big question out of the way. Does it stand up to SOT or TFBW?

Eeeh, so far? Not really. In terms of story or gameplay, imho.

Look, I think you really have to ask yourself what exactly you look for in a South Park game. Is your top priority to have a story heavy experience that really feels like an episode of the show? Then Snow Day might be a skip for you.

I, personally, really enjoy hack-and-slash style combat. I'm a huge Bayonetta and DMC fan, so this style of combat is very fun for me. I disagree with the argument that there's no strategy required, as the weapons and abilities you go into a level with, as well as the upgrades you choose along the way, do have a decent impact on how easy/difficult combat feels. Get the right combo of power ups and it feels very, very satisfying to use them to their full potential.

I will say, movement isn't as snappy as in games like Bayo or DMC, and dodges don't cancel attack animations, so there's definitely a learning curve, but once it clicks it does feel pretty satisfying.

I think my biggest takeaway so far is that it would be objectively much more fun to play with friends, which I have yet to do. It was definitely designed with this in mind, so I don't believe we're getting the full experience by playing alone. Still, I'm enjoying the experience as a solo player.

I can't say if the game is objectively good or not, and I haven't bothered with watching reviews because frankly? I don't really care what other people think. I had already preordered the thing, and as long as I'm having fun with it who really cares?

People will probably be disappointed with the lack of customization options, or the fact that the main boys aren't playable characters but rather fightable bosses, or the fact that many, many iconic side characters are missing entirely from the game (so far for me, anyway!) The likelihood of some of these things changing in the future is very good though, since a season pass is already purchasable and Matt commented in the IGN interview about wanting to add more to the game as the show airs.

I'm still laughing at the jokes, the boys are all still adorable, and, quite frankly, I'm having fun. Is it a perfect game? Absolutely not. But sometimes you have to look at a $30 video game and decide if that price of admission is worth it for a few hours of silly, poop filled tomfoolery, esp. considering most games these days are selling for more than double that.

At the end of the day, I can still light my farts on fire, and that pleases and sparkles immensely with me.

has anyone played snow day? i was thinking of playing it but the reviews are not looking so good

[rainwolfheart]

last minute c3 predictions/hopes

putting them out into the world before the premiere tonight

Travis: an INT or WIS-based character, someone who can be tactical but in a different way than Fjord. wizard or monk?

Marisha: a race that isn't a classic humanoid. I can't see her going all the way into, like, lizardfolk, but who knows? I feel like she would have fun with something like an aarakocra or a centaur. not a full caster, idk why, just a vibe.

Liam: bard. I just feel like he would enjoy it. maybe a female character. will be bisexual even if we don't know that until much later. a character whose backstory really ties into the new lore of Marquet.

Sam: either another small race (kobold, fairy, harengon, grung, and verdan are the ones we haven't seen yet) OR a ridiculously tall race (firbolg, goliath, orc). ranged combat with partial or full magic--sorcerer? wizard?

Laura: warlock or blood hunter? I think she would have fun with a darker character who keeps secrets from the party. also I love it when she does an irish accent I think she should do that.

Ashley: she tends to play soft quiet characters who have stellar moments when they do speak up and I think that will still be the case. melee rogue or ranger? a character who's an outsider to Marquet.

Taliesin: whatever he does it will be goth and queer. a race and class that don't have obvious synergy but actually work really well together. super iconic name, at LEAST three syllables in the first name. the party immediately finds a shorter nickname within the first episode.

someone will play a brand-new race or subclass Matt designed for Marquet

the story will start in a small desert or mountain town

someone will have a mount, pet, or beast companion, on the larger side, right off the bat. Sam will mock it, even if it's his own.

Marisha will accidentally call someone by their old character's name in the first episode

a character will originally be from another continent

if nobody begins as a sailor/pirate, someone or everyone will eventually become one during the campaign

[bigdipper24]

I've really enjoyed reading this post series! As a GM myself, I have often run into the issue of the game mechanics and the game's story coming into conflict with each other. I've heard this same statement echoed before from Matt Colville, and that D&D is a game that is designed to focus more on combat than an overarching narrative.

The solution for those who are looking to get a satisfying narrative experience from a TTRPG is either to 1) Ignore / Modify the rules of a combat based system, like D&D, for the sake of creating a narrative. 2) Find a different game system that allows for the kind of game you want to run / play in. I think that as TTRPG's become more and more popular, many people are looking for an experience outside of the one D&D provides. But because D&D is what they are familiar with, it can be hard to start from scratch and learn a brand new system in an effort to find game mechanics that allow for the kind of experience you want. It takes time, money and a coordinated effort for a gaming group to switch systems. And this new system STILL might not provide what the group wants, meaning they need to start over again. Thus what I think the majority of gaming groups are doing right now is just taking D&D (and similar challenge based systems) and trying to modify it with homebrew rules, and additional elements, to force the mechanics into a new shape. I don't think this method meets with consistent success, but many D&D based podcasts / live plays have given good examples of how it might be done. This is not to suggest live plays are a good example of what normal gaming tables should be like, but rather that there are ways to push the game and get the experience you want. Ultimately, D&D is not the built to be an all purpose game system. The rules as written can't satisfy every player's need. And I don't think it should. Game systems are best when they are used for the intended purpose they are designed for. And that means players either need to invest in new game systems, or modify their current one, if they want to get a rewarding experience.

D&D is actually pretty good

Unless you're trying to do something that it actually sucks at

This is part 3 of my big post about why D&D, structurally, works for a very specific type of gameplay and actually resists other types of gameplay. As I have pointed out in previous parts, none of this is to say that D&D is a bad game, but that it's a very bad fit for gameplay outside of its specific niche and might not produce meaningful or desirable gameplay when twisted into other types of narratives.

In the first part I discussed the terminology that I'm using, namely the two different playstyles of Challenge Mode and Story Mode, and in the second part I talked about what it is about D&D's structure that makes it a good fit for Challenge Mode. In brief, D&D has many parts that allow for meaningful gameplay to emerge simply from developing system mastery, allowing players to make meaningful assessments of risk and reward. You can find the previous posts here:

Part 1: Terminologie

Part 2: What is it that D&D actually do?

This third part will be covering what it is about D&D's mechanics and structure that make it not great for Story Mode gameplay. Once again I will be tagging this as #the big damn post for easier finding.

Part 3: Mismatched Expectations

D&D is fun as a game. It has a very clear gameplay loop of going into a place where there is danger, overcoming that danger, being rewarded with better abilities, and thus being able to overcome greater dangers, rinse and repeat. That gameplay loop can be in and of itself fun and rewarding.

Problems arise when that gameplay loop is placed on top of an extended narrative with greater stakes. D&D's rules are a great fit for narratives about some fellas going into a dangerous place and engaging with that danger for the sake of reward. It is very good when placed in the hands of players for whom the gameplay loop itself is its own reward and who are thus willing to engage with the gameplay on its own terms.

But okay, what is it specifically about D&D's rules that clashes against Story Mode gameplay?

Firstly, resource management and the adventuring day does not model rising action very well. Rising action refers to the rising narrative tension leading up to a climax when the tension is finally resolved. In a way the D&D adventuring day (which can be variable in length depending on edition but let's be fair even though 5e claims it's supposed to be 6 to 8 encounters long it doesn't actually work out like that in actual play lmao) represents rising action: tension rises throughout the adventuring day as player characters have their resources taxed, and thus the gameplay becomes more risky. However, this rarely leads to a satisfying climax because players will either choose to rest and recover their resources. DM's can of course always arrange for a narrative contrivance to take away the players' ability to rest, but more often than not this won't actually achieve the desired result. It will result in greater tension, yes, but it comes with its own dangers.

But by default, the game expects players to be able to make the meaningful decision to rest and recover their resources, although this often comes with its own opportunity costs as well as the risks inherent in either resting in a dungeon or returning to home base to recover. By default players have access to a method of resolving rising action themselves. This is intentional, which is why I refer to denying players access to this as a contrivance.

As said, the DM can arbitrarily deny access to recovery to amp up the tension until the last encounter of the adventuring day, a type of "boss fight" if you will. Here once again D&D's structure butts heads with the desires of the narrative: while a boss fight that resolves the tension can be narratively satisfying, it is a very risky proposition for a group that has been denied access to rest and recovery. This easily risks a total party kill due to the inherent swinginess of D&D's resolution, which can jeopardize the story.

The easy solution to making sure the players have a chance of surviving the boss fight at the end of a long adventuring day as a means of resolving tension is to make the boss fight easier than the previous fights. Which runs counter to the demands of the narrative. The boss fight should be more of a challenge, not less of a challenge than the guards posted outside of their chambers.

This is where we see D&D's challenge game, soft sim nature butt heads with story structure: D&D has an inbuilt story structure of players being able to take on challenges on their own terms, taxing their own resources, the tension rising naturally due to their resources being taxed, and with players having access to the pressure release in the form of choosing to rest and recover.

You may have noticed that all of my examples thus far assume that the ultimate cost of failure is death. Now, while D&D does have the tools for representing consequences other than death, all of the meaningful consequences amount to the loss of resources that relate to Challenge Mode. D&D does not quantify the emotional impact of the loss of their loved ones, nor the sting of being rejected by the one you love, but it does model the loss of spell slots and hit points and torches throughout the adventuring day. Taxing resources like hit points is the most meaningful way the game provides for modeling defeat, so players will be losing them, bringing them closer to 0 hit points and thus risking death.

I say risking death because while 4e and 5e allow for the blow that sends you to 0 hit points to be a nonlethal one and thus only render you unconscious (but in 5e it is only allowed for melee attacks), the default assumption is that a blow that takes you to zero hit points is potentially a lethal one. Enemies may have their reasons for not immediately killing characters that fall unconscious, but they would have very little reason to stabilize characters that are already dying. Outside of narrative editing, character death is always a real possibility in D&D.

Now, death being a consequence isn't in and of itself a bad thing. It's a great way to add tension. But the way D&D models death, as the default consequence for accidentally going into a fight you weren't expecting to be that tough while not at your full resources, produces narratives that most people playing in Story Mode generally don't want. And that's also why arbitrarily denying players access to their resources also produces an extra risk of death and is, like, actually pretty Bad and Not Good.

D&D's model of death always being on the table runs counter to the expectations of Story Mode. Deaths can happen even in the most incidental encounter, which can be frustrating. However, beyond a certain point in D&D death simply becomes a temporary obstacle. As long as the group has a character who can cast Raise Dead and enough gold (and in most editions of D&D characters have less to spend money on than they have money available) players have a rules-mediated way of removing death. Thus, the only meaningful consequence for failure in the game is robbed of narrative weight.

The only option is the dreaded total party kill, which is not desirable because it completely breaks narrative continuity. Outside of narrative editing it forces the group to create a whole new cast of characters, thus breaking whatever personal continuity the story thus far had.

To reiterate: D&D doesn't model meaningful consequences for failure beyond losing combat, because it is a combat-centric game. Losing in combat is often lethal and there are no guardrails to protect characters from meaningless death in a low stakes fight. The DM can not effectively build tension with multiple combats that then gets resolved in a climactic fight without risking a total party kill and the loss of narrative continuity. This leads to a story structure where the party has to keep on winning in order for the narrative to continue.

And that is supremely narratively satisfying. If players can't ever meaningfully fail (because the only meaningful rules-mediated consequence of failure is death) then every twist in the narrative has to be extrinsic to the player characters. This risks giving off the impression that the player characters are hypercompetent and the world around them is constantly getting into trouble that only the player characters can fix. Which can often feel contrived.

None of this is to say that satisfying narratives can't emerge out of D&D gameplay, but those narratives will emerge almost incidentally, without actual help from the game itself. For every story of the rules coming to save the day by sheer providence you will hear another story of accidental TPKs that ended up bringing the campaign crashing down or a group ignoring the rules themselves or fudging the results for the sake of a satisfying narrative. Which, again, goes to show that the rules themselves resist satisfying narratives, because if the rules themselves produced the types of narratives the group desires they wouldn't need to ignore the rules, right?

Anyway, that's it for now. The next and final part will discuss what can be done to resolve these issues. Warning: my advice mostly boils down to "accept that D&D is a challenge game and play it to its strengths" or "play another game that better supports your desired narrative structures," but like idk you can also house rule D&D all the way to hell if you like, I'm not your boss.