Quick question before I get to responding to people:
Anyone know of a good brand for mini paints that isn't hideously overpriced (Citadel) or that has gone woke (Reaper)?
I know no one is actually supposed paints their minis only talk about how they'll get around it - and its not that I intend to break with tradition, but its hard to be convincing when I say I'm going to paint them someday when I'm missing some colors.
Sorry for being late, but what's the consensus about these guys? Is Critical role a good watch for someone new to TTRPG?
They announced the third campaign and people are expecting it like the third coming of Christ, is it really that good or is just social network buzz?
I've always being fascinated by TTRPG but I don't know anyone who plays, so to have an idea how they work in practice I'm searching for some Youtube campaing to listen to in the background... possibly without weird accents and the mic in a toilet.
For example I watched a couple campaigns of Forbidden Lands (a smaller RPG by Fria Ligan I wanted to try), but it's either a fun group with zero knowledge of the rules (Jowzam's Den) or the most boring group ever with a perfect knowledge of the rules (Three Skulls Tavern).
The latter also started to put in the interface links to BLM, trannyrights and shit... which is another issue I didn't expect, the genderblob infestation is huge, it's difficult to find a campaign without one of them.
I've skimmed a couple Critical role videos and I didn't find anything intrusive, yes they def are twitter-adjacent but keep it quite neutral... am I wrong?
To echo
@Corn Flakes solid points, Critical Role is more like a show about a group of people playing a TTRPG than actually watching a TTRPG group. Its terrible for new players because it sets unrealistic expectations for what the game will be like, and how much their special snowflake character will get to shine once a night. Forgetting that the game is scripted, forgetting that its professional VAs, the people in CR - Matt Mercer and the character - are also playing for an audience, not for the people at the table. There is a reason I dismissively refer to Critical Role followers in TTRPGS as Theater Majors.
Matt Mercer also never tells his players no, because again as Corn Flakes pointed out, everything in session is pre-arranged or at least pre-agreed, so players just assume the GM will greenlight whatever freakshit they want to bring to the table and (Especially if they are the only newb at the table) feel singled out. CR also doesn't show any non-table communication; I've had a newb shocked and appalled that when I said "If you aren't pulling from vanilla PHB1, let me know before session so I can review" I meant "respond to the email during the week before we start" and not "five minutes before when we're setting up, show me a homebrew vampire class on their phone". Which I don't mind telling players no, but even if they're in the right the GM having to hand-of-god a player really fucks up the nights energy. I give my players homework almost every week, never more than a hours work, just to keep them in the right mind set. And I've had one person do the J/k-but-not-actually-kidding passive aggressive 'the mighty nein never have homework'. Everything goes generally right for the players, there has never been a TPK or even TPK adjacent events. The group has never been put any sort of real inter-personal stress.
I have never watched it, but the fact that you describe Three Skull Tavern as boring makes me think that's the closest to a real table top experience.
Also echoing Corn Flakes, try to find a group to observe. If you want to dip your toes, ask the DM if you can run some of the monsters trying to kill the party. If its not a special encounter they'll probably let you run some goblins.
Sounds blessed. As GM I've had to grit my teeth several times when my group played freakshit. I could put my foot down on homebrew fuckery. But I've had several instances where I've told my group we're playing a low fantasy world without Elves, Dwarves or fucking Trannyflings, and they start crying that because they're in the 5E rulebook I should let them play freakshit no matter what I warned them about before the game even started.
For low-fantasy human-only worlds, if someone comes to me demanding to play a non-human core race, I give them a chance to make their case. I don't require a huge burden of proof, but I want them to put some thought into why they want to be one of those. If they make a good enough argument to show they've thought about this for 5 minutes and not just having a tantrum because someone told them no, I just reclass those races as special groups/cultures of humans. Elves are usually from a mystical order of monks who have learned to mediate instead of sleep. Half-Elves went to Monk school but declined taking monastic vows because the world was too enticing. Gnomes are annoying shits who got lynched or burned alive in their homes so your character died during creation get that shit out of my game sit in the corner for an hour and think about what you did and then roll a new non-gnome character. Tieflings are already just humans who made deals with dark powers. Dwarves... I mean even in the book they're practically just human miners.
Everyone has normal human lifespans (The Elves just sort of work like 3.5 monks and are spry until they fall over). In my low-fantasy worlds there are effectively halflings, they are just the Thieves' guild so they are all normal human sizes. Want to be a halfling cleric? You can be a reformed thief, or a Guild chaplain, or maybe a fallen cleric.
They shut up after they started enjoying B/X. It actually really opened their mind to roleplaying different characters and not just being Critical Role style overdramatic and overdesigned characters. They actually have to roleplay when talking to NPCs or figuring out how to progress in a dungeon as opposed to just rolling for skills. A player has to think logically about their character's abilities and how to use them. It's the difference between "I roll to sense motive" and actually analysing an NPCs words and actions to deduce with their real world, barely used headjelly if an NPC is trustworthy. So far my players seem much more satisfied and engaged than just rolling skills and getting automatic results without having to think.
I have learned to stop worrying and love skill roles. I do try to encourage my players to use their player brains instead of just the dice. But its one of those things that unless I'm hooking up a LA Noir face tracker and getting full Man of a Thousand Voices, I have to accept they are going to be missing facial queues and other subtleties and accept that skill rolls help compensate for missing context they can't fully see. Usually for sense motive/insight things, I use it not tell the players the answer but to give them body language hints from the NPCs. I also average their roll with a hidden one, so their roll is how confident they feel in their ability to detect lies or how well they feel they searched that wall.
I do make my players at least think when they make their roll. No "I sense motive", I make them say/think about what they aren't certain of, or what they are checking for, at least in broad terms. If they come up with something remotely sensible but not wholly applicable to the current situation I'll slow-walk them to a useable action if they're in the ballpark.
This being made to actually describe what they're doing really irks one of my players who seems to believe that it should be select skill, roll die, receive answer - which is fucking bizarre being they otherwise roleplay their character & backstory.
Not sure what Genasi are like in 4e, but they're nothing terribly special in 5e. Haven't had anyone try to roll up a birdperson in the game I'm running yet, but they'd be using the Kenku statblock and they don't have flight.
4e doesn't have ECL, I was referring to 3.x.
But they are less of an issue in 4e, especially since the rules in 4e make it clear that Fire Damager/Magic Fire =/= Actual fire. If you douse a guy in latern oil before casting fireball, that doesn't mean he's going to take extra damage. Mostly in 4e they just get a themed enocunter power. Most are pretty good, but far from OP. One type can breathe underwater which is either amazing or useless, and I'd probably tell them "Lose that and take a +1 to REF and +2 racial to endurance checks to not drown".
