Yea, pretty sure it’s hard to compare unless all of you are also professional voice actors

More importantly, do they forget they are playing for an audience? My games would not likely be nearly as fun to stream, there are a lot of inside jokes, we go on tangents so massive they can become the entire session. I have no idea how to set up cameras or microphones to film more than one angle. It is not going to work.

Professional? I thought they were the “nerdy ass” variety 🤔

@@grelkie RPers really like it when people play into their characters and voice actors, thanks in part to the range of voices and history of doing a plethora of characters, could be seen as having a slight advantage

@@TheOneWhoReportsForDuty Also, they have a very solid production team. And one of CR’s very own cast members, Marisha Ray, is the CREATIVE DIRECTOR of the group. Meaning that all the new programming, the new sets? Born from her creative process and her wolf pack of a team.

Exactly. The people who want to be CR forgot that the CR cast didn't need the money to begin with. They already had real jobs that bring in good money and exposure even before CR

@@Anon-qp3kt Yeah, it was just a hobby they had that they started streaming just cuz they thought it would be fun and entertaining, and it ended up being a media giant within D&D that has gone into the mainstream with the Legend of Vox Machina. If you are only doing something to top someone who is already famous for doing that thing, you are probably going to fail, especially without funding XD

Also that the CR fam is still super humble about their position after seven friggin' years of doing this.

@@nephicus339 More humble than some of their fanbase certainly…

@@stingerjohnny9951 Admittedly guilty. :P

They should just trying being original. Given with anything popular there's always going to be someone trying to profit or get popularity from it. But I personally find it much easier to be a trendsetter and gain popularity from there. Will it be hard? Yes. But it will only be worth it in the end.

JRWI has that so that's at least one

I thought first step to be the next CR, was to already be incredibly popular within the nerd sphere, so that you can get away with 50 episodes of atrocious sound quality.

Step 3. Profit!!

Oh I can "make you have fun" alright.

Brilliant response

Exposure can also be a crime.

Exposure is one of those things where if it comes from a platform that would actually be beneficial, they make enough money to not be cheap & actually pay the talent. Its either worthless or worth less than the money.

I usually say "I appreciate it, but I can't pay rent with 'exposure'."

@@daviddobarganes9115 hbbbhb

Or money. ^^

@@ArDeeMee Or connections. These are professional voice actors intimately familiar with "the biz", and with friends throughout the industry.

If people work for you they deserve to be paid. Critical Role started out as friends hanging out together, just to see what would happen. But that was years ago. I‘m not sure when they became an actual business, but they are right now, with enough income to support themselves, a tech crew, staff, editors, ads. The technical stuff alone costs a lot to buy, then there‘s upkeep. The set, rent, costumes, lighting, rigging, just so, so many things that can only be noticed if they are absent. Sure, they can do many things themselves - but „sharing the burden“ makes life easier and more enjoyable for everyone involved, in turn leading to a better on-set performance.

@@ArDeeMee CR has a gross income of nearly 10 million dollars a month. No clue why this college kid thought he could compare, let alone compete.

@@CaptainDCap Wow. Now THAT‘s a stable income. ^^

Basically this, Critical Role is fun but it's an unrealistic representation of the average game and players who think their DM should be Matt Mercer and DMs who think they need to be Matt Mercer aren't playing for the right reasons. Lot of other DnD streams out there that do a much better job of making the game feel accessible.

I've never watched critical roll, it falls into the category of: I would rather be participating in it then listening to it, as simply listening is kind of like one step below radio since radio has sound effects.

@@Nyghtking Confirmed; he's never watched critical role. Matt Mercer himself is basically a soundboard and a room full of different people if you are only listening to the show.

To be fair, if more men tried to be like Owen Gray then we'd have a lot of better men in the world, so porn is actually extremely good for your sex life if you're using it to heighten your partner's pleasure. But if you're using it to heighten YOUR pleasure only when in a relationship? That's called being a dick. Which is what Joey was doing. Instead of wanting to be the next CR because he wanted the world to have more fun D&D entertainment, he wanted to be the next CR so he could make money.

@@Forslimjims not to mention, the people with these expectations always seem to notice the most critical (pun intended) part of CR: the players, their interactions, and their dynamic

I think you mean rage inducing

@@morinomajou Tbh that's how most payments in 'exposure' work lmao

Artists everywhere: I CAN'T EAT EXPOSURE, NUMNUTZ! Joey just wanted to be the next Thomas Edison.

I can think of some “block chain” and “NFT”

I will exposure myself alright.

Character idea crazy cat lady but it's a bunch of cat dudes

@@pixelman6193 And instead of being a harem the cat chads/girls openly loath the PC. Maybe the PC doesn't even notice their dislike?

@@pixelman6193 The more I think about it, it could be pretty funny if the crazy cat lady doesn't even notice that they're all six foot four and built like brick shit houses. She just treats them like cute little kittens. That's some really good thinking, I'm writing that one down, nice work.

@@christopherhammond5142 YES EXACTLY

@@pixelman6193 I can't believe we just had a civil and collaborative exchange in the KZfaq comment section and no-one was told to commit suicide. The world's gone crazy! Thanks for the fantastic idea, mate.

and then you can tell them to be the first them firstception

Wow, that was awesome of him to say.

Amen to that

I hope jack sees this

That's a really good response from him, wow :0 I will be taking that into my own consideration lol

@Random Platypus with Internet Even Matt Mercer hates the “Matt Mercer Effect”. Thus why he keeps encouraging folks to just run their games their way, and not to feel like he needs to be emulated.

Also Matt dedicates some or alot of episodes for charities... I respect the Heck out of the CR crew both the players and DM and the crew behind-the-scenes.

Clearly a lot of DM tyrants don't understand that Matt takes each of them aside to talk about where their characters are going to end up. He didn't steamroll any of them, and when a character dies, he works with the player to achieve closure and the best way to make the death feel like a part of the story rather than just a bad roll. It's not one guy writing the story and the others just have to go with it, they ALL are writing the story together. That's why they work so well together.

As a game, I always considered the DM as another player on the table. You are there to experience the game as much as the PCs, you're just interacting with the "rules" differently.

@@AdamEspersona What I hate about the "Matt Mercer Effect" is that most people only see the negative about it. The "Matt Mercer Effect" is, at least in my opinion a two-sided medaillon. Side A is the exposer of DnD to the world, which led to a lot of people starting playing DnD and/or other TTRPGs which is great. Side B is that a part of those new players expect their DM and TTRPG to be like Matt and Critical Role. - While I can understand the aspiration to get there, it's ridiculous to believe that this is the norm and expected from DMs and other players.

And that's when you hit him with "I saw no documentation saying I automatically give permission for my video to be shown, and I certainly do not give you permission to video me or use my image or voice for your purposes. Persist, and I'll have you served with a C&D letter."

@@mikedethlefs6326 "Hi there, Joey. I'm Dr. Klepper. Now, how exactly did you get a webcam shoved up there?" "Well, you see..."

If someone walked up to my streaming setup with that phrase, the only response I would have would be, "Is that so? My lawyer will be in touch. Good day."

Ok, hear me out: warforged, cleric of purity

Only if it's not "He looks at you with his doll like eyes and says nothing" bad then it's fine.

@@thejkittymews9045 a true classic

if a DM runs an isekai world and doesn't deep rp the harem of every PC, they do not deserve their dmscreen.

the ideal thing is having everyone with the same idea on mind, take seriously or be goofy, everyone having fun is the best always

Bruh this story IS about you 🤣

XD

That other Joey is more like a Britta, as in he Joey'd his group to death.

*I'm sorry Joey, but you must repent for your sins*

Oh, please, this nonsense started in the tabletop hobby. Ever hear of a heartbreaker?

Or those games that tried to be "the Pokemon killer" or "the Zelda killer." Or really, any "popular thing killer." Usually, if something DOES manage to dethrone the popular thing, it's by accident, by someone who wasn't out to kill the current popular thing; they just wanted their own work out there, and dethroning the popular thing was simply a side-effect of that.

@@RRVCrinale actually on that note, you remember the ol satanic panic movements? they banned dnd because they thought it was too 'satanic' even though the early editions didn't even let you fight angels. but they ONLY banned dnd, which lead to people discovering games like world of darkness and call of cthulu.

@@surrealbrain4227 Granted, most "Pokemon killers" are labeled as such by media sources for clickbait. One was even another Nintendo franchise, why would Nintendo want to kill its own franchise?

@@surrealbrain4227 And just as often the popular thing dethrones itself by turning away from what made it popular to begin with.

You know I'm running a campaign...and I think that I need to work that in there somewhere...

@@cheshirenevande4701 If you want your party to be on the run for brutalizing a cheapskate king, then go for it! 🤣

"Usually exposure is what gets people killed" - Survivalist, Chemist, and or Nuclear Physicist.

Can someone tell me what Sonichu is? I have no idea what that is. By it's name, it sounds like something to do with Sonic and Pikachu, but I could be very wrong.

@@thesnep4757 look it up on KZfaq.

@@thesnep4757 it was a creation from a very deranged individual who would go on to be arrested for sleeping with his dementia ridden mother. There's an ongoing series called the Comprehensive History of Chris Chan if you want to spend 40 hours losing faith in humanity.

@@marquisealexander1371 @TheSnep DON'T DO IT!!! IT'S A TRAP!!!!

@TheSnep It was a character made by a notoriously unstable person, who dubbed himself as "Chris Chan." He also raped his dementia-ridden mother, and bragged about it to the internet. Pretty sure he's incarcerated now, which is why the comparison between Joey's World and Sonichu, carries a heavy weight. Lol

And they had Geek and Sundry as a launchpad.

Well that’s a smooth plug if I’ve ever seen on hahaha

@@er4din903 Caught that, too.

What's your podcast tho? I'm always looking for more DnD content!

They were also trying to be themselves. Instead of the next ______

Critical Role: Home game => Part of a channel specialized in nerdy stuff => Their own company => branching out because they were lucky that it became popular. Joey: I want to go straight to that third part, maybe even the fourth. "prep work"? Don't start making up words!

Honestly, I’ve thought about streaming a Changeling: The Lost game since it’s mainly DnD getting streamed.

You can stream DnD super-easy these days. Just don't expect to make any money out of it. And definetly don't think you can become the next CR.

Mercer is probably happy for the money he gets. Im not to keen on the effects his Critical Role had on roleplaying.

@@NWolfsson You forgot "Home game of professional voice actors > part of a channel with industry connections that can negotiate with voice actor agents and their schedules, but only after they kick out their problem child".

Acquisitions incorporated started out as a collaboration between Penny arcade and wizards of the Coast to promote the players handbook and the monster manual as a podcast. People forget about the humble origins of things And don't want to do in the proper word to get themselves up to massive proportions.

@@PandoraLockhart Wait, really? I thought it'd just started as a D&D campaign they ran during PAX, and it grew out from there.

@@ccggenius The earliest podcast they have is 2008.

@@ccggenius I think it started in Matts and Marishas home, as a birthday gift to Liam (or rather a birthday party). It was supposed to be a one-shot. Sam for example admitted that he didn't take it seriously at all and had no idea about DnD, so he just asked Liam what the whackiest class and the weakest race was and created the name via name generator.

@@ottokarl5427 I love how Scanlan characters was originally was supposed to be joke and Travis had no clue about dnd and now he runs CR

indeed. i mean, we all know fox girls are much better

@@ignacioperez5479 a man of culture, inspired from a certain KZfaqr I see

No no no, it's bear girls. Those need more love 💖

You are all wrong! It is actually Hyena Girls lol😉😂 This is just going to be a thing in this particular comment section, isn't it?🤣

Yo, tardigrade girls, though.

Ah, Machinima. May they forever rest in piss

At least ghostwriters get paid.

@@s.dalner7245 hahaha ...not everyone

@@Necroxion That just sounds like a bad way of using your time, then

There is a different though between an author and a writer. You can have great worldbuilding ideas but no prose prowess. Joey is not simply a bad writer, he's a bad _author_ and that's the problem.

Most ghostwriter authors are fake aliases too, not an actual person. *most.*

I’ve known tons of players in my life who were entertaining, engaging, and presentable in my life but the only ones I’ve ever known who tried to stream were the complete opposite.

Critcrab could, dummy

@Random Platypus with Internet that’s a very valid point. A lot do the ones I knew only ever really cut loose in our group and I definitely understand that!

No one would give a crab. =P

Lolz, I'd stream, but only bc Twitch saves the vids, and my memory is bad. I'm glad no one would check out my streams, that'd be hella cringe. XD I delete all the vids as soon as I save them onto my drive. ... x.x I've been looking for a video capture software but all of them typically automatically stop recording around an hour and a half ;-; I'm not so cringe as to think I'd emulate Critical Role, tho. That's like... Gross XD

All crab party, let's go!

Sounds dope

YESSSS LET'S GOOOO 🦀❤🦀❤

Will the characters be crabs or various other crustaceans?

Your tiny crabs will be getting credit right? Right? RIGHT???

Underrated comment right here!

^^ This ^^

Also, even if you do have all the things Critical Role had... you still won't be the next Critical Role because Critical Role still exists, and unless it stops doing what it is doing, you're never going to become as popular as them just by copying them. Because at that point people will just go: "Well why don't I just watch Critical Role?" The only way to become as popular as Critical Role is to do something better than them, basically. And if you do mange to do something better than them, then that still doesn't make you the "next" Critical Role - it makes you your own thing.

you're forgetting the biggest part. it was started, funded, and ran by one of the largest media companies in the world. G&S put just as much money into advertising for CR as they did to pay the employees both behind and in front of the camera. even shows that are objectively dog shit will pull in good ratings with that kind of marketing team, and CR is actually a decent show.

@@NoESanity I mentioned G&S, although they were not "one of the largest media companies in the world" - not even remotely close. By 2018 (CR left in 2019) they pulled in profits of about 225k a year. Most big media companies make millions, Amazon Prime made billions. It's actually why CR left - because CR was becoming too big for G&S. So, yes G&S was very helpful in starting CR on the path to success and I do mention that. But the idea G&S was one of the largest media companies in the world is laughable. Don't get me wrong, I liked G&S - Sagas of Sundry, Relics & Rarities, Callisto 6, LA By Night - they had some great shows. - great shows that were given the same amount of adveritising as CR but never took off as big. But let's be real, here. They helped - certainly, but a lot of CR';s success was due to CR.

Even Crit Role got beat to the cartoon punch by Harmonquest years ago. Granted, Crit's show is better animated, but the point stands.

Mind saying that again for the kids in the back. I don't think the MMO industry heard you, their still trying to copy WoW.

Moba games prove otherwise unfortunately

dude clearly wasn't around/hasn't heard about when at&t got sued into oblivion over being a monopoly

There are things near enough to monopolies. Like Disney as long as you stay away from essentials people are more lenient

And even that game isn't much of a game.

how much competition does your isp have? monopolies are not illegal, if they pay enough in taxes.

>The only monopoly is a board game bish have you seen america in the last few decades?

Or any other currency for that matter.

He paid them in his D&D themed NFTs XD

He paid them with in-game articacts xD

I'm imagining him with a rainbow journal with puffy clouds and unicorns on the front and written in marker are those exact words.

And you gotta remember... EVERYONE involved in Critical Role is a voice actor, so they saw little difference between their work outside of Critical Role and the show itself.

Lolz my friends don't mind. They know it's only for saving vids to take notes and stuff. Also... no one comes to my streams. :D Also I asked if they're all okay with it and stuff, obviously

We started streaming our various games not so long ago we had to get 100% agreement from every player to go ahead. That's why 2 of our games aren't streamed but 3 others are. Anyone streams without everyone's agreement needs to take a long hard look at themselves. We mostly stream them so we can watch them back later, surprised us that others have been watching them.

@@bonusactionheroes Lolz, congrats! I'm glad you do it ethically. x.x a lot of ppl are uncaring bastards nowadays, aha

Yeah no way would I ever agree to letting the world see me play DnD. Feel like that might show up in a job interview some day.

And tried to handle it with class and give the problem player a chance to save face.

who?

No-one who promises payment in exposure pays even in exposure. Excluding friends and such, how many creators do you know who work for exposure? Do you know who designed the menu at your local restaurant? Do you know who designed that neon sign? Even if you know the company that did, do you know the workers? The exposure is a lie. I'm saying this as a small-time producer based in EU, with a small team of creators under him. "Exposure" is what kills people.

@@TheRawrnstuff It's not even like every Crit Role show has a list of credits. Pelor knows they have the stream time to show it at the end along with all the fanart that does get credited.

@@TheRawrnstuff I wouldn't say its completely a lie. There are two sides to exposure and sadly most people are familiar with the snake oil version. Being paid in exposure can help you in dividends, from personal experience I've seen what it can do for someone, putting the right eyes in front of the right product. But unfortunately like I said most of the time it's just a trap for upcoming artist and a way to con people for free work, not all the time but most.

@@TheBomberman122 And winning the lottery is a valid reason to retire. Doesn't mean anyone should rely on that for a living.

@@TheRawrnstuff never said you should rely on it, all I said is that it does have its benefits.

Stupid question: if a half-orc and another half-orc of the same species origin have kids, do you technically get another half-orc since they're a 'new' species genetically speaking, or do you get one or the other for a kid? Like a pure orc or a pure whatever-other-race their other parent was?

@@WorldWalker128 The rule at my table is 50% chance of half orc, 25% chance of full orc, 25% chance of human-or other second species (based on very rudimentary biology lol)

3.5/pathfinder does have the human like alternate racial trait for those who want the half tiefling experience more or less.

#no1way2play

Oh no...someone homebrewed lore on a homebrew campaign...how shocking

*raises hand* Yes...

Amen!

Yeah. And yet somehow this felt even more unprofessional than that.

*cough*

Ahem **shifts uncomfotably**

Thanks! Will do!

Ur hay

I've never heard 'wangrod' before, that's a good one, dude.

@@christopherhammond5142 You can thank that one to Matt Colville. He's been using it at least since 2003 and became famous after he used it in one of his videos.

Wangrod, I'm using that one. Expect to see official documentation soon that it's a word I own all of the creative rights to, of course making sure anyone that was credited with saying it originally is strictly removed from said documentation. As well as if anyone else says it, I own any evidence of them saying it. Thank you.

@@davidribeiro1064 Thanks Matt!

@@thesnep4757 Damn dude, don't be such a wangrod. Oh shit, I didn't mean it, I didn't say it, it was someone else, I promise...oh no...

Was 7 minutes for me. :O

Yup! r/CritCrab on reddit or my email in the channel about page!

The Crab Council (Probably): Write that down, write that down!

@@CritCrab cool, internet is out right now and i dont wanna type it all out on mobile but i'll definitely email it at some point

That's all Critical Role did, so you're on the right path :) Just be yourself and see what happens. Worst case you'll have fun and a few other people will have fun watching you.

He didnt even bail. He found problems, brought then up. And in spite of everything even showed up for the first session (unlike everyone else)

@@sillyking1991 Thanks.

as a writer myself I also would have been screenshotting every single post on that discord before logging off so it wouldn't matter if he deleted it, then I screenshot that he deleted it. Then again I wouldn't work for "exposure" so I wouldn't have been in that mess to begin with lol

Feels appropriate though…

I think with stupid narcissistic people, they will not have that kind of real comeuppance resolution part of the story, because that requires them putting in actual work and effort to reach that stage. They will not publish a book thay fails to sell a single copy because they will give up after finding out how arduous the process is to make a book. They will not stream a failed channel with 0 audience because they will not have all the necessary equipment and art/media ready to do so (and speaking as an artist, yeah good luck paying people in 'exposure'). He will boss people around until people see his bullshit and leave, at which point, like on the story, he blames a singular reason (and never himself) on why the "awesome plan" failed.

Why did you think it was a good idea to make a list of things to do to be a good DM and ignore the number 1 advice Listen to your players

And that's before taking into account the production team and management team to make sure everything is up to scratch

Good to listen to, absolutely. Good to be apart of, I imagine not.

@@TheOneWhoReportsForDuty sorry I can't see well and typing in English is hard . What I meant is I have a feeling this will get good

Me too!! in here early hehe

@@TheOneWhoReportsForDuty honestly a “guilty pleasure” of mine that I’ve wanted to come true, is being part of one of these absolutely horrid DnD games, just to experience the genuine absurdity in person. haha

@@creepyangel5716 Nono ! Your English is fine! It’s very good actually!!

I wouldn't use actors if I don't want alot of the drama scenes. I enjoy Critical Role,but yes, they do enjoy their drama scenes.

WorldAnvil has videos for most of their features worked into the site iirc. It really depends what you want to do, you can start with basically anything.

That was my instant thought lmao

Meanwhile CR had a whole thing with sentient crabgrass that also basically did a mini lesson about consent. Nothing weird there I guess?

D&D has an oddly large crossover with the furry community - which is fine in and of itself, but the problem ends up being a lot of furries don't have fun without inserting anthropomorphic stuff everywhere, and a substantial minority use D&D as a chance to force people to nonconsensually take part in a kink. It's so common and uncomfortable I prefer "no furry stuff, no kink stuff, etc, allowed" groups. The "no furry stuff for this particular group" rule is I think the only thing Joey did I understand. EDIT: kept watching the video and got to the 2nd story - it's like it was custom-picked to give a perfect example of my point. A player who wants to insert furry stuff where the campaign has zero furry stuff otherwise, wants to forcefully insert a ton of things that go against the DM's vision for the campaign and player cohesion. The core mentality is "these specific things I want matter and other people are responsible for enabling me" versus "other people matter and I'm responsible for enabling them." In this case, an ancient demon lord, epic spellcasting at 1st level, with a cat girl harem, trying to force the cat player to be a part of harem. They would have coerced that player into nonconsensual furry kink roleplay had they been enabled. It literally hit on all the points I said for why I prefer no furries groups lol. Everyone feels uncomfortable but tries to play along, if they're told no then there's a flip out, pouting, anger, etc. A "no people who want anything furry related in the game please" rule would have solved the problem outright. Things like this are so over-the-top common that out of all the possible random example D&D horror stories, it came up literally right after I shared thoughts on it - point being it's worth addressing up-front to avoid things like story 2.

@Prey R I agree man! season three starts in a week or two , and in April the book comes out and I may try my hand at DMing

@Prey R also you are in for a real treat towards the end of season 2 ☺️

Wait, they do? That's awesome