I have repeatedly seen (most recently from "dude who liked his own post in the main tag just now, whom I have blocked") the statement of "Critical Role's TTRPGs are designed for Actual Play and it will ruin the industry" and literally no one has articulated how. This is why I am Child From The Emperor's New Clothes. People just say things all the time and assume no one will say "what do you mean by that" and like. If someone says this, they are required to explain:
1. How a TTRPG would be designed specifically for Actual Play without also by necessity being simply a story-driven TTRPG you could play without it being an Actual Play show, which is extremely normal for TTRPGs and something people like.
2. Daggerheart gets criticized for being both too like and too unlike D&D. Similiarly, Candela Obscura gets criticized for being both too like and too unlike Blades in the Dark. These are also both popular games for Actual Play. What gives. What specifically are you looking for from TTRPGs?
3. Kids on Bikes and Cortex, just to name two extremely open narrative systems frequently used for Actual Play that I'm familiar with: too Actual Play-y? If not, why? If so, why haven't you said this? Is there a grandfather clause? Do we judge TTRPGs on intent? Rusty Quill Gaming literally had Grant Howitt on and played like five of his games. Can you discuss what this means re: actual play and ttrpgs and if it's good or bad.
4. How this prevents people from making TTRPGs that are bad for Actual Play, or otherwise destroys the industry.
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the thing about imogen saying that "if getting rid of delilah means getting rid of [launda] too, it's not worth it" is that it doesn't really change anything, does it? yes it provides laudna with reassurance that she is loved regardless of what lives in her head, but it doesn't mean that imogen doesn't still have negative feelings about delilah being there. "I love you more than I hate delilah" doesn't mean she isn't still disgusted by delilah. I get the sense that this is not an important distinction for imogen--she's said her piece, she's told laudna that she matters more, and that's the end of it for her. laudna matters more. her meaning is crystal clear: I love you and I'm choosing you.
but laudna has been obsessed with imogen saying she was disgusted by delilah watching them. she said herself she can't stop thinking about it, and marisha has said she can't stop thinking about it either, out of game. as far as they know currently, delilah's soul is twined in and around laudna's to the point where they are indistinguishable. the only way to get rid of delilah is to lose laudna. laudna doesn't know where she ends and delilah begins. imogen loves her, but imogen is disgusted by delilah. how does that work if they are one and the same? how does laudna cope with the fact that an inextinguishable part of herself is both genuinely evil and hated by the person she loves the most? at what point does being disgusted by delilah become being disgusted by a piece of laudna herself?
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what are your thoughts on Larian walking away from BG3/BG4/DLCs?
What a great question!!
So, first to acknowledge my own feelings as a gamer, as a fan of BG3, of the franchise, and, of course, of Astarion : I'm naturally a bit bummed. I would love to play more, read more, watch something, anything really.
Added to that, I also don't trust an outside team to come in to pick up the vision of the original team. I've seen it happen with other games, where the base game was one studio and the DLC was outsourced or they onboarded a new studio to take on it on as the main development team moved on to the next big project. It rarely, if ever, has worked out well.
My hope on the Hasbro/WotC side is that they leave BG3 alone to live on as a behemoth in the history of gaming... however, knowing how game publishers are, how much money BG3 made, the player interest in more content, etc -- there is no way that Hasbro is leaving money like that to the wayside.
Best case scenario I see on this side: they make auxiliary content, like books, toys, comics.
Worst case scenario: they outsource a new game team for DLC.
As for BG4, I honestly didn't expect that to be Larian's next project anyway (I was expecting Divinity 3, so feeling a different disappointment there haha). That being said, I don't think WotC or Hasbro know (and I mean this at the executive level of course) why BG3 did well. There are honestly a ton of factors on why BG3 did well, but that's for another post lol, but I don't think they could replicate that for BG4 with another studio. Doesn't mean I don't think it will be good-- it might be! It will just be very different.
Best case scenario here: they have a good studio make BG4 and it's still good, but it's different.
Worse case scenario here: they try to have a studio replicate what Larian did instead of tapping into their talents, and end up with a buggy, unfun mess. Also they bring back characters just to try to get people to buy it. 🥲
Now, as a game dev, what do I think of Larian's choice in all of this?
I LOVE IT. Wow, Swen Vincke is doing what every single developer wishes they could do if they actually had the power, money, and the influence to do it.
I have wished in the past for my studios to abandon projects, but sometimes it really was necessary to try to keep the studio afloat. As much as you want to work on a passion project, very rarely is it actually something that will keep the lights on. Oftentimes you will have to make that deal with Hasbro for a license or that deal with Epic for exclusivity just to recoup costs. Making games is expensive and, if you want to make anything at the scale that BG3 is, you usually need a lot of partnerships (a lot of their GDC talks were part of partnerships, like Dolby, Amazon, Adobe).
So the fact that they had such a success with BG3 to actually, comfortably follow their creative passions? Wow, wow, wow-- I am rooting for them so hard. I want them to make exactly the game they want and take all the time they need to do it.
Now, even knowing that Hasbro had something to do with this, was what he said about the developers not feeling passionate about the DLC true? Yeah, probably.
I've never seen something kill creative passion more (even if it's for a franchise you like or a game you've loved working on) than a directive from the top for something that's clearly just meant to make people above you more money. And with each partnership comes approvals, comes red tape, comes stakeholders that want to dictate what's in the game (oftentimes to the detriment of the game)-- and the game team can't even object because it's not their license or their brand.
The fact that Larian can say, 'screw that, I don't need more money from you' is truly such an anomaly in gaming. I am so very in awe of them as a developer-- it feels like someone breaking free of the system and paving the way forward for the rest of us. So whatever they do next, I will be there to support them.
BG3 is their most successful game so far, and I'm hopeful they will continue to push those boundaries. They've proven with each release that the core of their studio remains the same: immersive/massive RPG experiences, community-feedback focused improvements, and a well-balanced studio.
The tldr for all of this: I've loved Larian's choices so far and, while I'm bummed as a player, as a game dev I can't wait to see where this one takes them!
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i'll start this with the caveat that my watching of campaign 3 is very tangential, largely through just seeing live blogs/tweets, gifsets, clips, etc. because i want to finish vox machina before jumping fully into bells hells. but i've still consumed a lot of it, especially post-laudna coming back (including full episdoes). and i just find it really interesting that the thing that seems to frustrate a lot of people about this campaign is exactly why i love it so much. i love that the bells are terrified and isolated from each other and so distrusting and that they feel like side characters being forced to save the world. i think it's a really nice change of pace after vox machina and mighty nein, two groups that mostly worked so cohesively and (especially with vm) were so clearly the main characters who were made to save the world. i love how much the bells have to scramble and how much they have to lose. also i just kinda fundamentally disagree that we haven't gotten enough time with the characters outside of Big Plot Things. firstly, a lot of those plot things are important for the characters and do inform a lot about them. but also, the entire first arc is pretty similar to c2 in that it's just them fucking around and getting to know each other. and there have been so many episodes and extended scenes since which have been so focused on the characters as opposed to the plot. i think it just doesn't feel that way because the bells are way worse at properly opening up to and trusting each other, which means they tend to go in circles.
iit's fine to not like campaign 3, this is just me talking about why i do like it, but i do think it's genuinely very dumb the amount of people i see who treat the players like they're stupid. watch some fucking 4 sided dive because they aren't making these frustrating choices accidentally. if i have to see one more person imply (or even outright state) that the players are just playing badly without any awareness that what they're doing will have consequences, i'll scream. don't think i've forgotten how you all treated laura like she was stupid during that big otohan fight or taliesin like he was ruining the whole game and their friendship with the shard.
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