Thoughts on Tal'Dorei, the new campaign setting for Critical Role?

skipped a lot of it cuz it was boring the fuck outta me. that james "hack" tool needs to not be a part of the next one if there is one and lower the fuckin ridiculous price for god's sake 40 bucks for this thing? fuck that shit.

I kinda bounced off it. Had more fun with Friends at the Table and The Adventure Zone more readily. Crit Role starts slow and apparently gets slower, and cuz they're streams they don't edit for time like those previous two do.

I don't really mind that opening though because an egalitarian society is maybe the least boring thing about this fuckin place if they still have standard Elf Dwarf Shit for little reason other than 2 cultures made to hate each other.

>Critical Role

Kill yourselves.

>the kingdom of cloud giants always has two wedded kings
How do they produce an heir?

Male pregnancy.

Real question: is there actually any interesting conflict in this setting? For all it's talk about how it's an alternative take on traditional fantasy it gives very little.

Speaking as WoW nerd, it would mean children (or people) of earth (or "earth elves") in thalassian (language of high elves), assuming the meaning of the word "Tal" stayed the same as in darnassian (night elf language. In darnassian), it wouldn't have the apostrophe.

On the same note as night elves call themselves Kaldorei (children/people of stars) and high elves call themselves Quel'dorei.

Is that quote real? I could believe it

Always disliked the lack of realism in Critical Role, there's a dozen gay characters, and they're all good and kind people (gays can be assholes too, but apparently not in Tal'Dorei),the most anit-gay conflict we've seen was from Taryon's father and honestly he seemed more bothered by Taryon wanting to be an adventurer.
On a similar tangent the ruling class are all kind and respectable people, everywhere seems to be a democracy or at the very least ruler's interests seldom ever clash with the interests of their people. it's all pretty dumb
At the very least he seemed to have thought about his politics a small bit, but only for the book, and then exclusively for Emon, and even then it was a very old D&D trope. He suggested that because the city was so indebted o the mages who helped them rebuild they're at risk of the mages taking over and becoming the ruling class. But even that would be more interesting than the feel good politics he's been working with for 105 episodes

Stop shilling

Mpreg

>discussion is shilling
Guess you need to stop shilling for Warhammer, D&D, and MtG then.

Oh gods, this sounds like what people think Blue Rose is.

What is Blue Rose? And what do people think it is?

I think that's a very fair reasoning, actually. "Real life morals in a fantasy world" is very well suited to more lighthearted and gung-ho gameplay, which is probably the most common gameplay in roleplaying.

The setting is at best ok, honestly it's pretty shit, but then again there are very few ready made settings that are good. What we really should be discussing are the archetypes, feats, etc which I feel are between shit and should be standard (e.g. resurrection tests that can lead to a major quest arc).

>can envision a world with wizards, dragons, gods, elves, orcs , multiple planes and reality bending magic

>Can't imagine a world where people don't care that much about what type of relationships consensual adults choose to have

It's an RPG inspired by writers like Mercedes Lackey. People tend to have a very negative view of the setting because the "protagonist nation" of Aldis is extremely progressive and egalitarian, and it superficially comes across as bland and trying too hard to be a really nice place by modern standards. It has free primary education for everyone, its universities have access programs for disadvantaged students, being straight and being gay are seen as equally unusual, men and women are completely equal, etc. It doesn't help that the nobility are chosen using a magic sceptre that detects if you're corrupted, so people assume that that means the ruling class are all good people (nobility isn't hereditary in Aldis, and works on an Imperial-Chinese-style examination system).

However, there's nothing stopping nobles from becoming corrupt after they join the nobility, Aldis has a huge and very powerful nationwide organised crime syndicate, one of its neighbours happens to be ruled by the local evil overlord, and it's not on great terms with the other country that wants to help with the evil overlord problem. Aldis is a lot the United Federation Of Planets; mostly a good place let by well-meaning leaders, but far from free of corruption, and sometimes too idealistic for its own good. Not super often, though; Blue Rose, like Star Trek, is a basically optimistic setting.

Okay well imagine something like that, only no nations have empires or wars with each other, not even disputes over land. All the rulers genuinely are good people who prioritise their citizens as much as possible. The crime syndicates are incredibly tame and somehow seem to mostly inconvenience people who deserve it. The only time a ruler is corrupt or when there is an invading force, it's never a pre-established person or nation causing the trouble, it's a blue dragon who got himself into a position of power, a family of vampires who killed the previous virtuous leaders etc etc, all of whom are defeated by the party of course.

At best the elf city and the dwarf city are isolated and mistrusting of outsiders, other than that living in the setting is basically paradise except for the monster attacks

Wow. If what you're saying is true, it makes Blue Rose sound like Exalted.

show us how it's done bitch

>VICTORY AT SEA!

I'm not asking to be facetious, but why does "too many gays" trip your lack of realism peeve, but not things like dragons and magic and elves and shit like that?

>but why does "too many gays" trip your lack of realism peeve
That's not at all what I said. I said theres about a dozen gay characters and not a single one of them could be considered a bad person, none of them are even slightly rude, and only a single character has ever had something negative to say about someone being gay (his son), and even then as I said above really he seemed more upset that his son wanted to be an adventurer than that he was gay. And we know why. Matt had a gay uncle who died of AIDs when he was young, when they made a PC gay the Tumblr fan base flipped their shit saying how they didn't represent gay people well enough or some shit, and Matt broke down crying in a live streamed Q&A talking about his gay uncle and how it wasn't his intention to offend and he's sorry.

But I can answer your question despite it being based on something I didn't say. Conflict is written into the very core of D&D, most races don't trust tieflings, elves don't like half elves, orcs are literally evil by nature so people expect similar things from half-orcs.
Those sorts of things give a sense of realism to a fantasy world because they reflect reality, they work as we expect them to. Dragons and magic don't disrupt the reality of a fantasy world because usually they're written in a way that makes sense, sometimes mages become a ruling class, sometimes dragons takeover a land because no one is powerful enough to stop them. They're things that don't exist in reality but the way we imagine they would behave reflects how we imagine things would occur if they were part of reality. Whereas we know gay people exist, and we know how they can sometimes be treated even today, so a fantasy setting in which they are abundant and no one seems to take issue with it literally stretches fantasy more than draconic tyrants.

>BLOOD AND THUNDER

The sheer number of butthurt faggots in this thread is astounding. So much salt because of a Twitch show.

No wonder the gaming community is such cancer. So many edgelord cannibals.

>lol having opinions on things is dumb
Wow you're so cool!

>I AM KRONAR

I honestly have to agree with this guy.

I mean sure, critical role is pretty boring and mediocre, but the faggots in this thread are being such doggedly cynical contrarians about it that they honestly just come off as desperately wanting to fit in on fourchins.

Don't reply to your own post, man.

Critical Role is doing well and good for them- I'm not a fan but their formula for a setting doesn't impact me in any way so no jimmies rustled here

Tal'Dorei isn't a setting that tries to be "biologically accurate" in its fantasy by including sexual dimorphism, internal fertilization or an XY sex-determination system like Game of Thrones, for example. Other than fantasy staples like "rogues do it from behind" that sort of real-world baggage doesn't exist. I find that sort of thing tiresome; there are plenty of other more interesting fetishes to explore in a fantasy setting than copulation. This isn't just pandering or lip service, either. I made a big effort to include a wealth of characters that supported this narrative design. The goddesses of civilization and nature are engaged in a deep cloacal kiss, and the kingdom of cloud giants always has two kings 69-spermatophoring each other, for instance.

you should kindly fuck off to explore the other communities that police, forbid and blacklist having negative opinions about things. Many people have done so before and they are happy now that they can get gold and never have to read anything they don't agree with

I refuse to believe anyone actually said that, and that you aren't making this up to trigger people. If anyone did say that, then they're stupid and refuse to care.

If it turns out to be a bad setting, it looks like it'll at least be a useful example of a bad setting. I don't know of a lot of settings that are bad because of a lack of conflict, and the designer trying so hard to make the setting nice that they forgot to give the PCs anything to do. Usually settings are bad either because they're too dark, or they have overpowered NPCs and/or loads of metaplot making the players redundant.

i only care about it insofar as it gives information about critical role which i like, but it seems pretty generic otherwise
let's get on track and start talking about how keyleth is fucking retarded
i assumed this is a veiled critical role general thread anyway

Or because they try to cram too many disparate elements together and don't actually bother making the world feel cohesive. I forgot about that one.

I think it's a massive misunderstanding of how and why Spartans had two kings

It's completely real and actually worse when you see the full quote
>My favorite aspect of Tal'Dorei, however, is a little more subtle than that. This is something I want to leave open for interpretation, but I always hoped to portray Tal'Dorei as a fantastical version of an ideal America. You can see the influence even in the geography; the capital of Emon is about where Los Angeles would be, the Cliffkeep Mountains are similar to the Rockies, the Dividing Plains mirror the American Great Plains, and so on. The core value for me in creating this fantasy ideal was having the struggle for equality already be over, in human society at the very least. Tal'Dorei isn't a setting that tries to be "historically accurate" in its fantasy by including gender stratification, racism, or homophobia like Game of Thrones, for example. Other than fantasy staples like "elves and dwarves don't get along," that sort of real-world baggage doesn't exist. I find that sort of thing tiresome; there are plenty of other more interesting conflicts to explore in a fantasy setting than prejudice. This isn't just pandering or lip service, either. I made a big effort to include a wealth of characters that supported this narrative design. The goddesses of civilization and nature are engaged in a tempestuous but loving relationship, and the kingdom of cloud giants always has two wedded kings, for instance.

enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?567429-Delve-into-Critical-Role-s-campaign-setting-with-co-writer-James-Haeck!

>I always hoped to portray a fantastical version of an ideal America.
I'm stealing this for my own setting, which is basically 'every state is run by assholes with magic, everyone different from us must be purged, female wizards are glorified political pawns'-type of affair.

how boring

This.

Cease your.gibbering

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Dumb, overarching social norms in fantasy are dumb

I can totally understand creating egalitarian societies but there will always be some diversity of opinion

Adoption of a meritorious underling, like the most competent Roman Emperors did?

fuck off you bitch ass cunt

>Los Angeles

fuck all you faggot ass retards lol

It's hardly an original idea. I think the area around Greyhawk was supposed to be to map of Gygax's home state turned upside-down

>Based on America
Dropped. I'm an Eaglelander but if you want to bring real-world politics and geography into a fantasy realm then you can fuck off.

This.

I always have one egalitarian society in the world, but making the whole setting egalitarian? Boring and makes every settlement the same shit

>ideal America.
>the capital of Emon is about where Los Angeles would be,

But that's an awful place for a capital. The place is consistently up it's own ass, even if you fucking LIKE it you know that.

>Tal'Dorei isn't a setting that tries to be "historically accurate" in its fantasy by including gender stratification, racism, or homophobia
>image is all white people

Then you assumed wrong, fuck off.

Eh. The guy's an actor. Being up his own ass is his job

Better yet in the guide itself :
>human supremacy
>gentrification threatens to eradicate the culture of one of Emon's oldest immigrant district

>Translation: We think Asians are elves
I love how people who are trying too hard not to be racist just end up digging themselves into a hole.

> racism does not exist in my setting
> immediately insert people being racist to 'immigrants'
there are people here who will defend this

> We think Asians are elves
My dick concurs

>poor Asian.. I mean Elves getting gentrified while they gentrify every other neighborhood

>The Scholarly Elite of the Erudite Quarter like to pretend they are too enlightened to succumb to bigotry, their wealth and power allows them to leave their own prejudices unexamined
Oh I am laffin

so wait, the ideal America according to Mercer is the one with bigoted ruling overclass?

What the hell is los angeles?

>This isn't just pandering
This is exactly pandering.

No, no, I can do you one better:
>Fantasy WWII happens
>High elves are the Japanese
>Wood elves are the Chinese
>Dark elves are, I dunno, Korea?
>Humans and high elves genociding dwarves
Then you get stuff like:
>Dwarves fear the Bladesinger!
I find it fucking incredible that they don't see the blatant hypocrisy in pretending to be non-racist while placing humans in the 'white people parallel' slot.

Looked through it a bit last night. Most of the stuff is more or less average "generic fantasy with 21st century progressive values" world with not a lot of historical accuracy or, for that matter, reasonable geography, but some of the plot/quest hooks are reasonable enough that I might steal them for my own campaigns. Doubt I'll bother playing in the setting itself though.

So worth the browse I had.

>Grog Strongjaw, Grand Poobah De Boink, In Charge of All This-and-That

I had a sensible chuckle.

Someone mind posting the feats from this?

>SON OF MAN

Google "Tal'Dorei pdf", 3rd result.

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>Dual Focused
Absolutely not.
>Mending Affinity
The fuck?
>Rapid Drinker
WHY is this a feat?

I like critical role. I like their voices.

>Dual Focused
Holy shit what.
>Mystic Conflux
Four attuned items? Well, I guess that UA Artificer can have 5-6 by 20th, so precedent for mucking about with number of attuned items is there, but still, makes me uncertain.
>Flash Recall
mite b gud

rapid drinker is just turning his house rule into a feat for no particular reason

The druid and the cleric have Spelldriver, right?

that's another houserule turned into a feat

>multi concentration
wew lad.

No, hold up a minute.
>Fate-Touched
>Not supposed to be a player selection
Then why even list it as a background? Just add it as a template or call it a Boon or something. Christ, I thought Matt helped write the rules, he ought to at least know how they work- Oh, who am I kidding, it's MERCER.
>It's a nerfed Lucky feat
Oh, wow, and NOBODY CARED. Just give your NPC legendary resistance or something you shameless bastard.

It's a thing you attach to a player, not a NPC.

Liam's character Vax has it.

4 luck O'Brien

Scanlan and Grog are freaking great, though, and Percy's genuinely enjoyable when he's not trying too hard to be cool.

Not what I meant.
>Players are not intended to select this background
Which means it should be a Boon like in the Dungeon Master's Guide, instead of being called something it fucking isn't.
>"It's added onto the background"
Then tack on a character trait like how the Shadowfell makes people depressed and shit, I don't care. If it walks like a Boon and quacks like a Boon, why is he calling it a Background?

Don't tell him that, he may malfunction

>when they made a PC gay the Tumblr fan base flipped their shit saying how they didn't represent gay people well enough or some shit, and Matt broke down crying in a live streamed Q&A talking about his gay uncle and how it wasn't his intention to offend and he's sorry.

What a faggot.
Also, apologising? Worst move he could have made, pandering is almost as bad.

He tries to hard to please everyone, poor guy

>He tries too hard to please obnoxious, self-righteous people
FTFY

>Trying to please SJWs
>Crying Wedon.jpg

Whedon is a literal rapist and hates women more than /r9k/ does, why would he try to appease them?

Wut?

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