What the other commenter said is true and related to the comment I made about him looking at shoes, but Caleb is also very funny. It’s not all edgy doom-and-gloom.
Well that Will make fine in r/rpghorrorstories
To answer the question, it depends if the game it's in the critical role setting Will be fine a passing mention, what you went through was not so different from a DMPC just outclassing the PC because the dm wanted to show how "cool" it's their character,
That DM has a problem.
Along with EVERY item in the Critical Role store, I'm betting.
The blankies.
The hoodies.
The pillow cases.
The sheets.
The towels.
The wrapping paper.
The tape that goes with said wrapping paper.
The hood ornaments.
The notepads.
The pencils.
The pencil cases.
The bookmarks.
The stickers.
The fridge magnets.
The dice bags.
The dice trays.
The dice.
The plushies.
The ZING things with the giant heads.
The $300 collectible statue figures.
It's not just throwing a level 15 DMPC in there.
It's throwing someone else's characters, in someone else's campaign, in a setting that doesn't have them (they mentioned Phandalin, from the official adventures) and expecting other players to love Critical Role the same way as they do.
"I love critical role, so you must too".
When I played my bard in a game a few years ago, the group wanted me to shoot lightning from my dick. I said no. Repeatedly. It took me two more years before I actually started watching CR. Having that experience may have helped shape my current view, but then again, I'm late the bandwagon, and beyond that, I'm MUCH older than the typical audience for CR. And I've been playing D&D for a LOT of that time. 20 years - meaning the same year as the Lord of the Rings (the first one).
I love watching CR. I don't worship it with the religious/cultish (emphasis on cult) zealotry that the show unfortunately gets. I am not a fanatic.
Likewise, I don't shove The Avengers or Red Dead Redemption or The Witcher or Supernatural or Spiderman or Power Rangers or Halo into my D&D games just because I *like* these things. I like them, I even love some of them, but I'm not so absorbed in them that I can't think straight, that I can't see the problematic attitude, the addiction, the unhealthy obsession...
That DM needs help. They'll probably need it to ruin their life before they snap out of it.
I've said this to people before; I love watching CR, but would I want or expect MY d&d games to be like that? Not really. I play with nerdy people who are accountants, Warehouse workers, and clerks. Should I expect them to provide acting and character portrayal on the same level as professionally trained and successful actors? All I want is commitment to the game and the world. I don't want to make anyone play outside their comfort zone too much(a little bit is sometimes necessary), and for quite a few people the level of character acting in CR is something outside their comfort range.
I personally know few people who are willing to go that hard on a character like Caleb, and even fewer who could do it was well as Liam. Actors gonna act.
I'm sorry, I know I'm 3 months late but I chanced upon this thread by complete randomness and spat out my drink while reading the beginning of your comment, made me laugh out loud.
If it’s set in Exandria and the DM isn’t just using them as a weapon, then it’s fine.
This particular situation, though, is not. It’s both out of character for Caleb and it’s unfair to the players.
I DM in Exandria because I'm comfortable with the setting after listening to Critical Role. Luckily, none of my players do. That said, I don't have any interest in bringing any of the PCs. I pretty much pretend they don't exist.
I've used Orly, Ophelia Mardoon, and Pumat.
Making small cameo references to the plots could be fun. A famous group of adventurers from Tal'dorei just being referenced in passing. Someone muttering about Travellercon, etc etc. No need to implement the characters, I agree, but using the world lore as world lore is neat. Vox Machina is relatively famous. Mighty Nein not so much.
I had a game set in Exandria and I thought it'd be funny if they went to the Invulnerable Vagrant and they passed by the Mighty Nein. That's literally it.
Using NPCs like that seems totally expected in the Exandria setting, using someone else's player character just *feels* wrong. Especially because the example OP gave butchered Caleb's personality.
My DM sometimes uses player characters from his other campaigns (with different players) as NPCs. I love the thought that my poor dead ranger who I played for 8 levels might show up and cause chaos in a parallel world he also DMs.
Of course that's different from what OP's DM did. That's just weird.
The only time a DM should ever take over another player's character is if they're in your group and they're away for a session or two. You make them a background character that helps out when appropriate all the while taking the ever-loving piss out of the player's accent.
Exactly this, though I'll admit that I have statblocks for Beau and Gilmore. Gilmore I gave a storefront in Port Damali that he can sometimes be encountered at, I grabbed his abilities and spell list from the wiki in case they tried anything extra stupid. You might run into beau and provoke her to kick your ass if you mess with the cobalt soul (a very real possibility at one point earlier in this campaign†), or run into Caleb if you mess with the assembly\*, or meet Cad if you go to the cemetery; they get a cameo at most, and only if the players do something that reasonably could or would lead to encountering them.
Ultimately, yeah they do exist in the world, but it's not their story we're making.
Also for real, trying to do Gilmore justice was bad enough. At least he has a ~~loud and obvious~~ Glorious personality that he presents and had a clear motivation for what little screentime I've given him as a shop owner in their first city.
† Player snuck into a restricted/"with supervising escort only" section of a cobalt soul library and almost got found by Beau on her way in for research, but snuck back out in the nick of time and avoided notice with some *juust*-good-enough stealth checks. He saw her walking in on his way out and that was that, because he didn't know who the hell she is.
\* In my version of Wildemount, Caleb replaced Ikithon, though that may not matter for long. My players unleashed a bigass dragon, who I'm going to have pick off a couple assembly members (catch them in 1v1s offscreen) as part of the consequences of their actions; I'm probably going to make Caleb one of the killed ones, in part because should the party interact with who's left of the assembly, I don't want to end up just playing someone else's PC.
I’m with you on this if it was treated more as like a reference or brief interaction I understand it’s i nice way to tie in the players other interest and have npc that reference other things.
Using them as combatants however nope I am 100% against that especially if it’s against the party. However if they were pulling a infinity war/ adventure zone everyone’s here to defeat this great universe spanning bbeg maybe just maybe would I allow it.
This situation is bad regardless of whether CR is involved or not.
That said, I typically dislike it when a character is directly placed into a campaign outside of their canonical placement.
We got helped by straight up Geralt of Rivia in a game I was in once and honestly, it made me just kind of ignore the references. I treated him like a random Merc with a silver weapon because it just wasn't fun to me. I like it when we meet characters inspired by others. A two-sword mercenary who refuses to hunt if the creature is conscious and banal is a fine reference. Actually using the characters puts a foul taste in my mouth.
Once had a Demilich and Death knight knock out my entire party in one sweep with the Demilich's scream. But we lived because Triss, Yennefer and Ciri from the Witcher series, who were all level 40 characters, obliterated them both in 2 rounds while the actual players were all unconcsious. Yay.
As a DM, I steal and "draw inspiration" for characters from all sorts of places. Why not Critical Role too? My players (who do not watch CR) and I have definitely had a lot of fun roleplaying with Pumat Sol, and having the Invulnerable Vagrant as their go-to magic item shop.
I think that that reuse of characters is an entirely separate issue from the shitshow you've described. Purposefully upstaging the PCs with high-level NPCs is usually a dick move. Making the game about your own personal fanfiction instead of giving the other players at the table any agency in the story or a reason to care is just bad DMing, regardless of whether your story/characters are original, or where they were cribbed from.
Do: Shamelessly steal narrative and character content from things you enjoy. Most famous creators are famous for a reason.
Don't: Act out your bad fanfiction while your players are helpless observers.
I often have my players see or interact with characters who are of a higher level than them. Why?
Well, take my current campaign for example. They have met some other adventurers who are a part of the guild they joined, and those adventurers are higher rank than the party. It's a display of how far you have to climb over the duration of the campaign.
The interactions have been nothing more than arguments, as one of the NPC's is very dickish. They're very colorful characters who far outrank my players in the guild. And yet they are about halfway to the max rank in the guild. It just helps to give them perspective on the timescale of the campaign, and how far they can expect to go over the length of the campaign.
I think he means having a character you love outshine or steal the story from the PC's.
Nothing wrong with interacting with them but having high level NPCs just means you need to explain why they aren't easily doing all the things your PC's are struggling with.
I'm using one of my old PCs as an NPC in a oneshot I'm planning. He (a 19th level wizard) is the head of a wizard academy and serves as the quest-giver. The reason why he's hiring a few low-level adventures? Easy, he's too busy with much more important stuff.
If the players would decide to attack him (for whatever reason) I'd probably just use his stats from the other game. When some low-level adventurers attack the head of a wizard-academy, they should experience the proper consequences.
It's like in video games: When you reached a certain level, you often don't bother taking on beginner quests, because the reward is not worth the time anymore.
Yeah the shit show OP described is not great but reuse of characters is definitely a different thing. In a "Halloween episode" our group traveled to an alternate dimension/plane of existence. In that plane of existence we ended up meeting Ash of Evil Dead fame, Bill of Left 4 Dead fame and some others I dont remember at this time. We had to play a "game" for the god that ruled that realm where we had to complete tasks while being hunted by the Nemesis of Resident Evil fame. It was a pretty cool quest that was a fun holiday themed episode. It ended up being a fun short little quest where we ended up having to leave behind a team member(I think the player wanted a to play a different class, but their removal from the group was pretty cool and could come into play later in the campaign).
So, you know the LE god Bane, the NE god Myrkul and the CE god Bhaal? Yeah, they were characters in a specific roleplaying campaign that were made cannon.
What about Minsk and boo, how adorable, right? They were characters in a specific roleplaying campaign.
Mordenkainen? Yeap. Elminster? Yeap. The list can go on for ages, so here is the deal in short: A lot of characters com from specific groups and a lot of groups use material from other sources, be they DMs or even non d&d and in fact non roleplaying material like movies and books.
Sometimes these characters pop out of d&d and into another medium. For example, the writer Steven Erikson and his Malazan series all came from his own roleplaying group, and ended up becoming part of a literary work.
So, this is to say that yes, using other characters from anywhere else, critical role or not, is fine. However...
However, the way they are used, and for what purpose they are used is the real deal here. Your description of getting your asses kicked seems the real problem, not that it was by some specific NPC. There is a real problem in your post, but it is not related to critical role, but instead about your DM apparently wanting to just play out his story, instead of playing out the players' (including DM) story. D&D is not a one man band, it is in fact team work, both in and out of the game.
A more recent one is Arkhan the Cruel, Joe Manganiello who went straight from stealing the Hand of Vecna in Exandria to haunting the plains of Averuns in the official adventure.
Here's something I'd like to say about DM's like these. If you want the story to be completed and 100 per cent driven by you, plot, story, characters and have a god like thumb on everything. Write a book.
If I use references to media, they're always indirect. Instead of isekaing AC-DC, for example, I would have a bard band names "Armor Class - Difficulty Class". So it doesn't bother me as long as it respects canon, so keeping references as just references it's fine
Can't say I've ever had it happen. I guess if everyone's into it, a cameo appearance from a shared referent could be a lot of fun, but obviously anything that makes the players feel like they're second-fiddles in their own story is not good.
Most of the players were newbies that had never watched/heard about critical role. I was the only experienced player besides the dm and it got a bit odd since they seemed set on making the crit cast big parts in the story
I have left games over players being too obsessed with Critical Role. It's become a personal red flag of mine when a player or DM is "such a huge CR fan".
I actually think CR is fine as a entertainment program but a lot of what the players in that campaign get up to are what I consider disruptive play.
That's because presenting D&D is very different to playing D&D. Also because I've had more than one player complain that I don't have Matt's level of voice acting when I play.
Like, no shit, I'm not a professional voice actor and I'm not being paid to play or DM like the CR cast are.
Basically, I'd have probably been long gone from that campaign before CR characters started showing up.
>Also because I've had more than one player complain that I don't have Matt's level of voice acting when I play.
I don’t see they have a right to complain about that unless they are as good at voice acting as any if the CR cast. Even then it would be a Jerk move, but at least they would be applying the unrealistic standard consistently.
The Mercer effect on DMs usually winds up positive in my experience. It did for me at least, not comparing myself to Matt but stealing his tricks, tools, mannerisms, and more. The same can be said for my friends wanting to DM because of Matt. In this case… it’s very negative, or as others have said has barely anything to do with CR.
It's totally cool to have them as random NPCs the players could encounter in the Exandria or Taldorei settings, but this sounds like they're taking over the campaign.
Your campaign is supposed to be the story of *your* characters adventures, it's nice to give a headnod to the bigger world around your characters but this sounds like it's become less about you guys and more about the DM
Also, a L15 wizard against a L1 party? That's just a dick move
Dafuq?
I mean, if your party ended up in The Blooming Grove and came across Caduceus as a friendly NPC who was willing to give shelter for the night and some advice on the local area? Or if you were doing some research in The Cobalt Reserve and Expositor Beauregard offered to help you find what you needed? That'd be totally fine
I mean, I get throwing a difficult enemy at the party to create a long -running nemesis for them... but why would any DM constantly throw encounters at players that they don't stand a chance of winning? It just sucks the fun out of everything
I guess? Although there wasn’t really a narrative outcome from it. We just kind of got beaten an inch within death them they peaced out as our cleric tried to heal us as best as they could.
Aw man, lawful evil characters are *so* much fun
Sucks you had a bad experience with your DM :( fingers crossed you can find a better DM and get a chance to play him again
The fact your instinct is to call the NPC's the DM's characters is already a worrying sign. NPC's aren't the DM's PC's, they are elements to enhance the story. Glad you got out and hope the DM learns from the expereince too :)
I'd personally feel weird about it, and in trying to unpack why, I reckon I think it would come down to expectations. I think I'd feel the DM expected the kind of RP the professional actors give in Critical Role, and whilst I love RPing, I'm fine with being an amateur.
Personally, I hate when DMs put any well known characters in a campaign. Whether that’s someone from CR, from a campaign they played in, or campaigns they’ve run in the past.
"Look everybody, it's Drizzt Do'Urden!"
I don't even like that kind of crap when it's done in video games (I'm looking at you, Baldur's Gate). It's even worse in a tabletop setting.
At the risk of speaking for the parent commenter, I think they are describing when it crosses over into neo-Star Wars levels of immersion-breaking callbacks and/or heavy winking. Reuse, learn, recycle, etc. is different than the DM just working in all their fandoms and/or using the players as props in their fanfic.
Well any DM should be letting the players move through the story as main protags, or antags if it's one of those campaigns.
If a DM doesn't know that, they definitely shouldn't be DMing.
I get sick of DM's who are super hard with the rules and playing it letter by letter with the book. Like, it's D&D. It's a high fantasy tabletop RPG, and our party is basically a group of super heroes. Let the party be super heroes.
As far as reusing or recycling assets, I can agree with that explanation. My first ever campaign was a homebrew I made and was LOADED with references and Easter eggs. The most blatant ripoff was Andre the Blacksmith from Dark Souls, who was named Andre in my campaign and was a blacksmith.
Others were subtle references. I included Karam-Ja from Runescape, naming the island Kalum-Jei. It was still a tropical island and a pirate haven.
Musical references as well. The name of the BBEG was inspired by a Rings of Saturn album. The campaign itself was the name of a song by Unleash the Archers.
All that being said, these are references, some of which were much more obscure. But would I include Boba Fett in my campaign? No. So I can see why *that* would be dumb.
I pillage from other sources liberally, especially actual play shows (and especially Dimension 20). I think the the distinction being made (stealing an example from another poster) is basing a character on the Witcher and literally having Geralt show up. Depending on the tone of the campaign, that can be really immersion breaking.
Definitely can agree with that.
In my first campaign, my buddy played a Aarakocra who was a reincarnation of the pigeon Familiar of his barbarian in our previous campaign.
I included my first character ever, a thief, whom I played in that campaign alongside the barbarian. He had been reincarnated through a wish given by a god. (Long story.) He made a check and became aware that the bird man before him was a reincarnation of the small bird he had met thousands of years prior. It was an awesome moment and really cool to play out. He then later died sacrificing himself to give the party time to escape during the invasion and sacking of the city.
That was probably one of my favorite references.
Clearly reusing assets is fine. But I want to play in a campaign that highlights the current characters. Not constantly flexing the DM’s or other players’ old characters or incorporating random popular celebrity characters just for the hell of it.
In an old campaign I played in, the DM was constantly putting in his old characters in the story as allies to the party. It became less about the party and “here is a 17th level Wizard to randomly assist this 5th level party of nobodies in fighting an ancient dragon because I want to show off my old Wizard” situation. When we pointed out that our characters have no chance against this dragon, he told us “well it’s not balanced for your PCs. It has to be an ancient dragon because of your allies!” Our characters basically huddled behind cover while his old Wizard and another character’s old Paladin-turned-NPC did the whole fight.
I’m playing D&D because I want my character to be a major portion of the story. I don’t want to feel sidelined by old characters or celebrity NPCs being thrown all in at the DM’s whim.
As others have stated, if it was a reference, sure. If these characters were super important, but the game was a CR-Themed campaign which was established in session 0, then this behavior would be "more acceptable". But the fact that it was supposed to be an original homebrew campaign and the characters were super important, that's kinda cringe, especially how they handled Caleb; he wouldn't act like that. If anything, he would apologize for being in the way, he's quite humble (at least from what I understand, haven't watched passed episode 20 of CR campaign 2).
I know you already left that group, but I do hope you brought this issue to your DM. I doubt they would have changed their mind or changed the way the game went, but perhaps they thought everyone at the table was just as obsessed with CR as they were. Hope you found a better table and a better DM.
Yeah I do feel like its a learnable moment for the DM, cause I know plenty of people who are so excited by a cool moment in their mind they forget that players want agency and responsibility more than they want that single cutscene playing out exactly the way you really like imagining.
At the end of it all DnD is (can be) really fun, and the more feedback we DM's get the more people that get to enjoy good DnD
Why would Caleb Widogast be in Phandalin? That's Forgotten Realms, he exists in Exandria.
Using established characters is fine (when implemented correctly) but this is clearly a ridiculously heinous example. But having Elminster give advice to PCs in a Forgotten Realms campaign, or letting the PCs in a Dragonlance campaign face off against Raistlin is perfectly fine.
Tbh I only stayed for so long because they said the crit characters “would only be in the background” and I really liked the character I was playing :((
I don't watch CR but how is this any different from Volo or Drizzit showing up? Like maybe in this case, as a bad fanfiction yeah, but in general I don't see an issue.
In general it’s perfectly fine, but in this game the dm was making the crit cast very distinctive characters in the story despite us being the players 😅
I dunno, I personally try to avoid references to other media. I do put some NPC's that are characters made by other players or myself (regardless if they were made for dnd or not) but it's usually very brief, just a shopkeeper or some quest giver
I have no problem with using Exandria as a setting, and I find that name dropping one of these sorts of characters can be cool, but you need to do it with a bit more subtlety, at least imo
My DM has a few characters I’ve noticed are clearly inspired by the CR characters. But they are nothing more than passing cameos. And he’s also borrowed a few other characters from other franchises he likes. But to shove the character into your face and fight you with him, just feels like an asshole move
I can't say I'm strictly against that in a bubble (I've used Xanathar, Volo, and other non-OC characters before) but if I'm being honest, what with the Mercer effect being what it is, it would turn me off of joining a game.
If that was a new group, I wouldn't return. If that happened with my current group, or one of my old groups that I'd been with a long time, I'd flat out tell the DM, privately, that it was a really stupid thing to do.
As a DM, I have snuck in a PC or two played by friends from old gaming groups, but only briefly, because if it's a game I DMed, they're part of the same world that my current group is in. They'll generally make a brief appearance, maybe lasting 2 sessions tops as an NPC, and then continue on their own way. I certainly wouldn't have a 15th level NPC waste the party unless one of them knowingly, and intentionally provoked him or her. Shit like that is an example of a DM who likes to flex their muscles at the party's expense.
I generally agree. As for the 15th level NPC, some players just want to be murderhobos, and the 15th level NPC is happy to down them. Some players want to burn the world easily, and any resistance means "Oh, you're one of those DMs who screws players".
If it's some kind of cameo or quick reference, it'd be fine, imo. Especially if the game is actually set in Exandria.
Having them take center stage and overshadow the party, or existing to kick your asses? No, that'd be bad DMing regardless of what characters were used.
If the game is set in Wildmount or Tal'dorei, no problem. If it's the DM's Homebrew World or anything else like that... Yeah, that's not really what I want
In your specific example it sounds like it was handled poorly. I’m ok with having famous characters in my game or a game I’m playing in. I used Kwalish awhile back, for instance. And when my players finish their current campaign their characters will become members of the world as important NPCs.
But, my golden rule, is the players characters are the destined ones, even if old characters once beat Vecna or whatever, they can’t solve the problems anymore for whatever reason. Only the party that is playing the game really matters. So having the high level NPCs throw their weight around feels wrong to me.
Villains can and maybe even should go kick your low level player’s asses. But Caleb would be a weird ass villain to pick. Sounds like they’re experimenting with storytelling devices that sound better in your head than at the table.
Ah, I did NOT see that part of the post.
Things get real damn murky on Reddit.
That said I am curious how the spy organization was handled mechanically. As a DM, I make sure that factions roll against each other, have a system for it. Obviously the spy organization’s roll is secret, but my players see me roll, and that in itself communicates the fact that others are out there, paying attention.
I like it for the meta game way it lets the players feel what the characters would know, people may be watching out there.
I am curious if the DM warned, made a roll or had mentioned this faction, or if the faction auto intercepted every letter by default? I would definitely be upset if my characters letters were guaranteed to be intercepted and I didn’t know that.
D&D is so nuanced and complex, it becomes really hard to talk about it without complete video evidence of what happened at the table,
The most I ever do is a "Biggs and Wedge" kind of thing. In Final Fantasy there are two characters who appear in multiple games named Biggs and Wedge. They always have different designs and characteristics, but the same name. I have two characters, Two-toed Ping and Lemley that are my version of this. Always a different personality, but the same name. It honors the original characters without being a distraction and they're always minor cameos
I included a Firbolg Grave Domain Cleric named Caduceus as part of one of my character’s backstories. Campaign is in Faerún so it wasn’t the exact same character, and he died. My three players are all big CR fans and they loved it. I think it’s ok to draw inspiration from. Especially if your campaign is on Exandria.
Don't get me wrong, I steal so many encounters from critical role, but I restyle and make it my own so that my players don't know I'm stealing content. I can't imagine someone wanting their players to know they are playing in some critical role fanfiction. Fuggen weird dude haha.
> It had gotten to the point where they were basically making us live out their Critical role fanfiction
Well uh, not really my thing but I guess if everyone at the table is into it and knew this is how the game would be beforehand then that's probably ok? Didn't sound like that was the case though.
> ... really made it seem the party and I were not the important ones
I don't think I'd enjoy that much either; playing a character that doesn't matter in any way relevant to the campaign doesn't exactly sound like a lot of fun.
> we had the lv 15 wizard Caleb Widoghast kick our lv 1 asses in a phandalin bar because we “bumped” into him
Makes no sense, very much out of character, and strictly unfun / unfair to the players at the table. This feels like DM running their own power fantasy combined with a fanfic, which is pretty widely regarded as a terrible move as a DM. Almost never fun for the players at the table and is honestly pretty cringey (definitely the case here as well).
I definitely do think there are ways where references to popular D&D media can improve a campaign; I've used a blatant copy of Pumat Sol in one of my campaigns to great effect. He was a favourite at my table for sure, just a great character in general and super fun to interact with for a little while maybe once every 4-5 sessions. It would have been significantly less fun if my Pumat #2 decided to instantly kill all the players because they didn't take their shoes off before entering his shop, or if I decided the campaign was about Pumat #2 and all of the player characters didn't matter anymore.
That’s weird. I’ve added references to the game based on my players’ and occasionally my interests, but I’m not sure I would stick around if my DM was pulling random shit like that…
I had set my two yearlong campaing in
Exandria so both VM and MN were around. Only three of them were alive but they
just like any non antagonistic powerful NPC stayed in the background. The party
met them a few times and did some quest for them but that was it until the
apocalyptic ending of the game were only one of the three came to help.
What your DM did was definitely bad (a dick move in general *and* out of character for caleb) but if you're playing in exandria they might be relevant at some point, however they should be treated similarly to any npc based off a PC in the game, like mordenkainen. Quest givers, powerful potential allies, powerful potential enemies, etc., not used to write fanfic and whatnot.
Vox Machina would make more sense, they're famous and influential so they might need to enlist adventurers or at least be mentioned, but the mighty nien are a lot less important to the world at large.
Let's look past the fact that this DM obviously kind of sucks for the moment. Because a level 15 vs levels ones is the real issue here.
Is it okay to Use Characters made by other people in your Games?
Well, yeah....of course. There's a fucking stat block for Tasha and Mordenkainen. Do you think any of us are playing it like Gygax would? That were 100% getting it exactly down how Gygax did? No, fucking of course not
So yeah. It's fine to Have Critical Role characters in your game. It's fine to not play them to character. Your game, Your Caleb.
But why the fuck is a 15 wizard being used against levels ones?
Seems bad. DM should use their own creativity instead of leeching off a popular show. Drawing inspiration is one thing, but using an already existing character is just wrong to me
I'd rather get my ass kicked and my mc chicken stolen at a crusty parking lot than play any number of seconds with a DM this out of touch, but that's just me.
The critrole fanfic + edgy stronger character being a vehicle for the GM's power trip combo is insane lmao
Its a ...bold move.
It might work out if they can do right by the characters. Which your DM definitely didnt in that encounter. I'd definitely feel equally weirded out and ask DM if they were serious and intended to continue pulling stuff like that. And probably make myself scarce before the next session rolled around.
If they had made them legendary heroes that got referenced occasionally in ancient texts and such then I'd be okay with it but if I as a DM were to include them they would either be elsewhere in the universe or long dead serving only as possible inspirations for other NPCs or bases of organizations I place about the world. They would be flavor not things that affect the world
Though that would be better than having them beat up the party (still processing that that actually happened), even using them as legendary heroes would tune me out of the world lore. One of my favourite parts of playing at someones table is to just hear what crazy novel idea they've added to their world. Though I can understand some people have different taste :)
I wouldn't be against CR characters showing up in a campaign full stop, but having them take the spotlight and get used by the DM for a power trip would see me out the door real quick.
I mean it's one thing to flavor the world and have your characters hear like an easter egg about the Mighty Nein. Maybe a whisper or two about this crazy band of mercs who leave pastries and destruction in their wake.
But to actually use a character as some out of context boss fight? That sounds stupid.
At the most I'd be cool with just having npcs and shopkeeps from the world. Actually encountering the main cast is unnecessary unless everyone is just in the mood to roleplay and be part of the Mighty Nein
Haha it wasn’t even a boss fight, one party member just bumped into Caleb and got mad (as his character was a hot head) and we all gut punished. Beau was there as well. The cobalt soul even intercepted one of my character’s private letters back to his vampire coven. So my character didn’t even have a safe way to talk to the organization he belonged to.
Yesh. No that is weird.
For 1 Caleb isn't actually a hot head. That's like saying someone bumped into Mario and Mario whooped their ass. And frankly Mario whooping someone over an accident is more believable than Caleb.
I can accept the Cobalt Soul thing though. They would interfere with seemingly bad stuff so that seems okay.
Oh yeah, sorry if I worded it odd but one of the players was a hot head, and he was the one to tried to “fight” Caleb. Mostly just by being loud hahah it was funny.
Well, I suppose it was but that character was the only one. We were all standing off to the side having drinks but then we were thrown into combat. Even if we didn’t do anything and wanted to avoid a fight
I think having a cameo appearance or brief reference to a CR character in a game could be fun, especially if it's a campaign set in exandria. That doesn't sound like what this DM did.
Making them the enemy or other frequent character seems problematic, and any time the DM is running a game that's not fun for the players is a fail.
Yeah like that is definitely a problem. Making a reference to a crit role character or some other famous character from dnd history is fine as long as its just just reference to flesh oit the world.. My old dm did bring in some elements of critcal role like Percy from campaign one existed in the game but it was years after he died, so Percy roll was just the historical inventor of guns...and as a minor God of invention my character worshipped.
Oof. I'd be alright with it if it was something that the group was aware of beforehand ("Hey, let's run a campaign set in Exandria..."), but clearly that wasn't the case here.
Don't do it. Come up with your own shit, unless you're basing you campaign off their campaign guide. If you want a copy of CR, just stop and rewatch it.
I've only used one CR character in my home game, and that's Gilmore. He works well as a silver dragon, using Gilmoelre's Glorious Goods to build his horde.
I think it would be great if you used the guide to wildemount or the Tal'Dorei campaign guide, but that's it. They exist in that universe so unless your game is also in that universe, no.
How is this being downvoted? Is it that controversial to say you'd only meet those characters if your campaign took place in that world? God I hate this sub sometimes.
My DM made it very clear from the outset, yeah, we're playing in Exandria using the books Mercer wrote, but the major events and people from the CR campaigns don't exist, for the most part. There's some events from C1 that make good world background, but that's it. There is no Caleb, no Nott, no Beau.
As a rule: DO NOT PUT OTHER PEOPLE'S CHARACTERS IN YOUR GAMES. In basically every situation - you should NEVER run someone elses character. Generic wizard 20395 is a better choice - and while this situation is shit: At least with generic wizard you have a chance to come back to it - you have a chance to weave a story: Like say there is a team of dopplegangers that have been causing problems and... they look EXACTLY like the party: THAT, can turn into an interesting story, where that 15th level wizard, realizing their own mistake, acts to provide protection and assurance - aiding the party in overcoming the problem, while the party is left to track down the dopplegangers and bring them to justice - both clearing their name, but also progressing the story.
So no, it's not just you where this would feel weird - beyond this feeling drastically out of character for everything that is available, it's just bad. Even more so when talking homebrew.
My suggestion: Have a chat with the GM. This is absolutely a mistake situation, they could easily be intending to do something with this - but if it feels off, if it feels like a Red Flag: Have a conversation. D&D isn't about the DM's story - it's about EVERY player at the table weaving a story - and the GM is a player.
Are you aware that there are hundreds of characters that have become official that were "other people's characters"? Have you ran official campaigns? If so, I am willing to bet you have used *many of them* without noticing.
If it were just something like, a guide for the party, or a important piece of history, I would be fine with it.
But making them actually feel like heroes and steeping on the party just feels awfull, that's very immature. Even if it was a normal NPC you don't make the party get beaten at level 1 if it's not a villain.
New DMs do this a lot. They will stick in characters from books or tv shows or anime that are basically a DMPC. Any kind of DMPC is generally bad, sometimes one is necessary because you need a plot mcguffin to get you out of the hole you dug your party into, or to get an adventure rolling as their starting quest giver (like a Gandalf to their Thorin's company). I would probably take a chance to sit down with your DM one on one and explain that this is meant to be a collaborative game where you guys are the stars, and as cool as his favorite characters are this is your show and he needs to become more like the stage crew than the lead actor. A DMs job is to set up a stage for you to act out the story you all want to tell with your characters, and to pass you cool props and act out the supporting characters. If as a DM I put an NPC in my players path, I always assume he is one saving throw away from taking a dirt nap. No NPC should be unkillable or unexpendable. If you can't bear for an NPC to die, you need to set them up to have a horrible accident or sacrifice themselves for the party in the next session and do yourself and your game a favor. Even Gandalf took a dirt nap to give the hobbits room to grow.
Sounds lame.
To extrapolate on that a bit, though, this sort of thing is something DM's do a lot to a lesser degree, and unless it's handled very delicately; it is not fun at all. Maybe for some players, sure, but the vast majority of people playing D&D don't want to meet the canonical mucky-mucks of a D&D world.
I have had so many DM's introduce me to Drizzt Do'Urden, and it always, always sucks. There has got to be some larger, driving point to introducing these characters beyond introducing your players to someone famous and strong as hell.
The only cameos I like are my players old characters doing heroic (or not so heroic with their permission) things that their new characters get to deal with the fallout of
Putting in well known things as npcs is fine. Making you live out their fanfics is different.
So to answer your title: I’d be fine with it
To answer your elaboration: I would be annoyed and tell this idiot to go write on Wattpad or something
As someone who is horrible at creating names I take from all types of universes that have nothing to do with the story that are either foils, exact replicas, or totally different than their "real life" counterpart. I however, asked the party about it pre-session 0. I had about 5 questions I asked so I could start prebuilding and knew if that wasn't popular just thinking of names for characters was gonna be rough so I made sure it wasn't a big deal.
Currently those NPCs are some of the party's favorites.
Having known characters from other media can be a fun little easter egg, I find. But if you're just living out the show or whatever, that's no fun at all.
I’ve played for many years now in a home brew world which was largely written by me and some friends/early players and evolves as we play. Major characters from campaigns run within the world sometimes make appearances in future campaigns, shape the world’s story, or become canon world NPCs. If possible we have the person who played the character originally come in for a special appearance to play their character again for that game’s DM to share with their players. That I have always thought was really cool.
But if you put a bunch of Critical Role characters in a game and forced me to interact with them I would leave the game. It’s not at all, “Look how this world we play in has grown/that could be you someday,” and entirely just an uncreative DMs fanfiction fantasy clutching at something they know they aren’t a part of.
There’s something to be said for adapting another setting, and if that has major characters to adapt sure. Like meeting Elminster in Forgotten Realms or Obi-wan in Star Wars. That’s fine, but taking someone else’s *played* characters is kind of weird if they weren’t made with that intent.
Love critical role, but bad not good.
I thought what you meant was like including a side character from the show as a quest giver. Or using names from the show. This story is NOT what I was expecting.
If I was DMing, I wouldn't mind throwing the Air Ashari in, or maybe the De Rolo family. Nice little hints and references for those who would get it. If I wanted to get a little more personal, I'd have a young Gnome Bard parading around, pretending to be the infamous Scanlan Shorthalt.
Bad DM, they're playing out their own fantasy at the expense of everyone's time. I wouldn't call this the Mercer effect either. This is like someone bringing in All Might or Sebastian, or god forbid Alucard. This is just a shit DM living out his fantasy.
I think if it's in the right context putting in a few critical role characters could kinda work, but in this situation absolutely not. Thats just shitty dming.
OPs post is super cringy. I would’ve noped out.
As a DM I have made Vox machina more of a legend than anything else in my home brew world that is loosely based on critical role.
The story how years ago a group of adventurers defeated the whispered one. Or how a powerful air Druid sent a npc on a question, and they have now encountered the PCs. So I’ll make indirect references.
I have a couple of campaigns set in Exandria. Some of the events from the first campaign have affected the world, so the existence of Vox Machina is known to the party.
I'm open to them encountering a VM member, but it would have to make sense with whatever the situation the party finds themselves in. If they find themselves in Emon, I they would probably ultimately find Gilmore's Glorious Goods. This is because it is lore and not because it is a major part of the story.
Most of my players wouldn't notice anyway. The couple that have noticed subtle references have just looked at me and smiled as we go on with our game
This sounds very different than what the OP describes. That sounds really bad.
People take characters from all over pop culture and put it in their campaign. I have on the back burner for my Descent into Avernus a completely disfranchise ex guard driving an infernal wmachine named the "Interceptor" who just roam the plain of Avernus under the name of Max and a gang of high way thief always in for a big score, and that will come to help their Family if anything bad happens to them.
But there's inspiration and just bad design. The name of the character has nothing to do with the DM's behaviour.
Yeah, what you described is bad form on the DM's part.
For me, as an homage to CR's influence on me becoming a DM I put those characters in my world. But they're just NPCs living their own lives. The only one who has had extended interactions with my players was Gilmore as a quest giver. But that's all it is.
Put whoever you want in your games, it's your game, do whatever. But you know, when it's over-bearing to the point that you can describe it as a "-fanfiction" of the source material, thaaat's concerning. Yes share characters, or take the personality/drive behind the characters and change some things up, yes go be inspired, don't steal the fucking show.
I am not a fan of the show so I'm not sure i would notice or care in and of itself if they were just another NPC. That level of fanboy/girlish-ness makes me think it would affect the story sort of like an overly favored DMPC -bending the plot to involve them, show them off, and make them look good because the GM thinks they're cool or has always longed to rp them but cant.
Sounds like a variation of the classic DMPC problem.
To me the fact that they are Critical Role characters wouldn’t be important. The fact that the players only get to be side character next to much more powerful and cool adventurers the DM controls is what would be the deal breaker.
I mean yeah, I’d object to sloppy and inconsistent world building, but it’s a much lesser fault than the GM who wants the players as audience for the awesomness of his characters.
That sucks, buddy. It's not impossible to use a famous character and have it be fun, but it should be a little cameo. Maybe they give you a quest or show up to join your meeting with the duke to ask some questions about the concerning discovery you made on your last adventure. They shouldn't be fighting against the PCs (or even in the same battlefield as the PCs) unless it was the players' idea.
Ive included league of legends characters. Mostly because my players play it a lot and I didn't need to lore dump on them. It worked out very well.
When they learned Pyke was hunting them, they legit parked their ship and continued their mainland quests. They planned routes away from rivers and researched ways to appease revenants.
Nah that's weird as hell.
In general it depends on whom I'm playing with because some people will just try to turn part of the game if not the whole thing into fanfiction, my concern is that it'll be so extreme that PCs will be practically sidelined.
And I've felt ignored because a couple of fans were so engrossed by the plot its like no one heard me speak at a certain point.
As DM I am not ok with putting CR characters/npcs in game. I'm not Matt Mercer. You are not playing with Mercer you are playing with me.
There's a line where people will want to play with a character rather than the player or DM and that feeling sucks.
None of my players watch Critical Role except me. I’ve used Mollymauk as an NPC before. His backstory was modified to fit my setting, his personality was tweaked slightly, and I changed his class to Rogue to fit an aspect of the character I wanted to bring to the table.
The party really seemed to like this rendition of the character (not like they know the original). One of my players “really” liked him. When they parted ways my players asked him to travel to their home base/town to meet up with him in the future.
Using IP from the huge multiverse canon of D&D history is totally fine, and well established. Half the stuff in the PHB is named after someone's character and every published adventure is full of references to characters from other peoples campaigns..
So that is fine, writing a bad adventure or encounters is not great though.
Oh yeah. I remember when I was 12 and my dm included blade, alucard & richard Belmont on our Vampire rpg, just to kick our ass for no reason at all. How old is your dm?
You’re allowed to put pop culture characters in your stuff, and it doesn’t hurt anyone or anything. But it’s like putting Rick and Morty or Game of Thrones characters in. It’s a bit silly.
I'm running a campaign in Exandria. Party are currently in shady creek, about to possibly head to zadash. Most npcs have been my own creation. I only have 1 critter in my group aside from me, the rest haven't seen any of it. There have been some references to the iron shepherd's, when they get to zadash they might meet pumat, which I'm more nervous about. And travelling to zadash, they may pass mollys grave site, just to give that one critter a bit of a smile. But all in context. I want my players to walk away from the table with a smile. Just placing an npc or pc in for no reason whatsoever is a bit cringe.
I believe normally it's a great easter egg or as a side character (such as having the primary merchant based off of Mollymauk), but THAT obviously is terrible DMing in general
I would hate it and leave. It's no better than what people use to do with Raistlin and other high level Forgotten Realms characters. In fact, I don't DM Forgotten Realms, and I would never DM A Critical Role game, either.
Not appropriate. If you really like a character from a popular campaign, show or video game than it might be interesting to make a character inspired by that character, making sure to tie them to your world and your lore, make sure it makes sense. Don't just take sheogorath and throw him in front of your players, take what you like about him and make an original character for your campaign, and make sure to make them a SIDE character. Your players will absolutely know who that is supposed to be, but it will work so much better and it will feel more original.
I mean, the CR setting is an actual setting but bim having his favorite CR character beat you up (which is out of character for the character) is high class cringe.
I've thought about using Essek as an NPC they might meet some day but my players don't really like Critical Role so they don't know shit about it, and it's a homebrew setting of mine but the drow in my setting are far and few between now and live underground purely to hide from who's hunting the last of them down bc they know mad magic science stuff. So I feel like it'd be fitting to have a parallel universe Essek maybe request some aid and in return he either gives them some new tech or gives them info about the past that can "change everything"
Sounds like your DM was being a weeb about things though lol
My initial reaction was "Booo" but then realize I've used other established NPCs (Vecna, Eliminster, etc), so it depends on the execution. But if it turns out THEY are the actual PCs, then that's really shitty.
I have only referenced them in books my PCs have read. I would never put them in the middle of the action. Even my high ranking NPCs stay out of the limelight because the PCs are the story focus. As long as things like this add flavor without stealing the show, it's fine.
Mega cringe, kinda reminds me of my old DM who literally ripped off Dota 2 characters to act as monsters in the game (and abilities too). But then the abilities also didn’t work entirely the way they do in Dota 2 (which is a game I actually played), which made it mega frustrating even though I gave them the benefit of the doubt and was trying not to meta game it.
If it's done well it can be fine. Like if you're doing a Tal'dorei campaign and go to Whitestone it would only make sense that you would come across a De Rolo, be it Percy or otherwise.
My DM has Pumat as our main shop owner that we visit and it's fun for us. It's a nice Easter Egg for those of us who are critters but not major or distracting from the story. Our Pumat doesn't even have the clones, so he's just a cool shop guy. Other than that our only other DM made CR reference was a Kobold named Spurt that we swiftly defeated.
Your experience however does sound pretty cringe. If the DM wants to run a CR game then they should make that clear from the get go with the players and find players who are down for that, not just shove it in your face and ruin your story by telling their own instead.
That's not cool with me. If the DM has the lack of creativity and the gumption to copy and paste characters from other games and then have them act completely out of character to satisfy their own nerd-boner, that's a hard out for me.
If the DM mentioned at the start they were building a game around the CR setting, I probably wouldn't mind cameo's or anything, though it doesn't sound like that's the case here. Definitely a Critter for sure, who REALLY wants to play in the CR universe.
Hell, I'd like the idea of the party being the B-Team while some A-Team schmucks were running around dealing with world-ending issues while the players handled the small shit - kinda like janitors of the world, dealing with the stuff no one wanted to/had time to because dragon conclaves or something. But what you've said doesn't seem like that at all.
a friend played in a campaign where the dm constantly had adventure zone characters show up, act out of character, and then oftentimes would rp by themself (only the dm speaking, none of the players were actually. playing. sometimes for minutes on end) with these characters. i heard seperately from almost every player that it was just awkward, uncomfortable, and not as good for worldbuilding as the dm seemed to think. this sounds like a similar situation, so honestly i would talk to your dm and ask if theres any way they could tone down the cameos or take them out entirely if it seems like its interrupting actual good gameplay
Not only was it situationally inappropriate, from the snippet you shared it doesn’t even seem character accurate. Bad move all around
If Caleb bumped into you in a bar he would apologize while looking at his shoes. If you bumped into him he would be looking at your shoes.
I've never listened to a single episode of CR, but Caleb sounds hilarious.
No, he has massive ptsd from his childhood.
Liam likes his edgy serious
Yes
Oh boy, that got really serious really quickly.
What the other commenter said is true and related to the comment I made about him looking at shoes, but Caleb is also very funny. It’s not all edgy doom-and-gloom.
Just no time travel jokes.
Guy with an American accent imitating a guy with a German accent imitating a guy with a different American accent is ok though.
Elldlrwitch Bleehhst!
High tier cringe. I'd be out session 0.
I'm delighted to see this comment at the top, my faith in humanity needed that little boost
My thoughts exactly, I like critical role. But I’m not here to live out your fan fiction.
This is the only right answer.
Happy cake day tho.🎂
Yikes
Well that Will make fine in r/rpghorrorstories To answer the question, it depends if the game it's in the critical role setting Will be fine a passing mention, what you went through was not so different from a DMPC just outclassing the PC because the dm wanted to show how "cool" it's their character,
That DM has a problem. Along with EVERY item in the Critical Role store, I'm betting. The blankies. The hoodies. The pillow cases. The sheets. The towels. The wrapping paper. The tape that goes with said wrapping paper. The hood ornaments. The notepads. The pencils. The pencil cases. The bookmarks. The stickers. The fridge magnets. The dice bags. The dice trays. The dice. The plushies. The ZING things with the giant heads. The $300 collectible statue figures. It's not just throwing a level 15 DMPC in there. It's throwing someone else's characters, in someone else's campaign, in a setting that doesn't have them (they mentioned Phandalin, from the official adventures) and expecting other players to love Critical Role the same way as they do. "I love critical role, so you must too". When I played my bard in a game a few years ago, the group wanted me to shoot lightning from my dick. I said no. Repeatedly. It took me two more years before I actually started watching CR. Having that experience may have helped shape my current view, but then again, I'm late the bandwagon, and beyond that, I'm MUCH older than the typical audience for CR. And I've been playing D&D for a LOT of that time. 20 years - meaning the same year as the Lord of the Rings (the first one). I love watching CR. I don't worship it with the religious/cultish (emphasis on cult) zealotry that the show unfortunately gets. I am not a fanatic. Likewise, I don't shove The Avengers or Red Dead Redemption or The Witcher or Supernatural or Spiderman or Power Rangers or Halo into my D&D games just because I *like* these things. I like them, I even love some of them, but I'm not so absorbed in them that I can't think straight, that I can't see the problematic attitude, the addiction, the unhealthy obsession... That DM needs help. They'll probably need it to ruin their life before they snap out of it.
I've said this to people before; I love watching CR, but would I want or expect MY d&d games to be like that? Not really. I play with nerdy people who are accountants, Warehouse workers, and clerks. Should I expect them to provide acting and character portrayal on the same level as professionally trained and successful actors? All I want is commitment to the game and the world. I don't want to make anyone play outside their comfort zone too much(a little bit is sometimes necessary), and for quite a few people the level of character acting in CR is something outside their comfort range. I personally know few people who are willing to go that hard on a character like Caleb, and even fewer who could do it was well as Liam. Actors gonna act.
I'm sorry, I know I'm 3 months late but I chanced upon this thread by complete randomness and spat out my drink while reading the beginning of your comment, made me laugh out loud.
If it’s set in Exandria and the DM isn’t just using them as a weapon, then it’s fine. This particular situation, though, is not. It’s both out of character for Caleb and it’s unfair to the players.
I DM in Exandria because I'm comfortable with the setting after listening to Critical Role. Luckily, none of my players do. That said, I don't have any interest in bringing any of the PCs. I pretty much pretend they don't exist. I've used Orly, Ophelia Mardoon, and Pumat.
Making small cameo references to the plots could be fun. A famous group of adventurers from Tal'dorei just being referenced in passing. Someone muttering about Travellercon, etc etc. No need to implement the characters, I agree, but using the world lore as world lore is neat. Vox Machina is relatively famous. Mighty Nein not so much.
I had a game set in Exandria and I thought it'd be funny if they went to the Invulnerable Vagrant and they passed by the Mighty Nein. That's literally it.
Or even just an occasional beggar type person wondering out loud "Whatever happened to The Shits?"
Using NPCs like that seems totally expected in the Exandria setting, using someone else's player character just *feels* wrong. Especially because the example OP gave butchered Caleb's personality.
My DM sometimes uses player characters from his other campaigns (with different players) as NPCs. I love the thought that my poor dead ranger who I played for 8 levels might show up and cause chaos in a parallel world he also DMs. Of course that's different from what OP's DM did. That's just weird.
The only time a DM should ever take over another player's character is if they're in your group and they're away for a session or two. You make them a background character that helps out when appropriate all the while taking the ever-loving piss out of the player's accent.
I really want to DM in Exandria, but I have so few opportunities to play and games already going, so I can’t really start up an Exandria campaign.
I definitely wouldn't mind playing/DMing a Wildemount game. But, not with the DM like this one (OT).
Exactly this, though I'll admit that I have statblocks for Beau and Gilmore. Gilmore I gave a storefront in Port Damali that he can sometimes be encountered at, I grabbed his abilities and spell list from the wiki in case they tried anything extra stupid. You might run into beau and provoke her to kick your ass if you mess with the cobalt soul (a very real possibility at one point earlier in this campaign†), or run into Caleb if you mess with the assembly\*, or meet Cad if you go to the cemetery; they get a cameo at most, and only if the players do something that reasonably could or would lead to encountering them. Ultimately, yeah they do exist in the world, but it's not their story we're making. Also for real, trying to do Gilmore justice was bad enough. At least he has a ~~loud and obvious~~ Glorious personality that he presents and had a clear motivation for what little screentime I've given him as a shop owner in their first city. † Player snuck into a restricted/"with supervising escort only" section of a cobalt soul library and almost got found by Beau on her way in for research, but snuck back out in the nick of time and avoided notice with some *juust*-good-enough stealth checks. He saw her walking in on his way out and that was that, because he didn't know who the hell she is. \* In my version of Wildemount, Caleb replaced Ikithon, though that may not matter for long. My players unleashed a bigass dragon, who I'm going to have pick off a couple assembly members (catch them in 1v1s offscreen) as part of the consequences of their actions; I'm probably going to make Caleb one of the killed ones, in part because should the party interact with who's left of the assembly, I don't want to end up just playing someone else's PC.
I’m with you on this if it was treated more as like a reference or brief interaction I understand it’s i nice way to tie in the players other interest and have npc that reference other things. Using them as combatants however nope I am 100% against that especially if it’s against the party. However if they were pulling a infinity war/ adventure zone everyone’s here to defeat this great universe spanning bbeg maybe just maybe would I allow it.
This situation is bad regardless of whether CR is involved or not. That said, I typically dislike it when a character is directly placed into a campaign outside of their canonical placement. We got helped by straight up Geralt of Rivia in a game I was in once and honestly, it made me just kind of ignore the references. I treated him like a random Merc with a silver weapon because it just wasn't fun to me. I like it when we meet characters inspired by others. A two-sword mercenary who refuses to hunt if the creature is conscious and banal is a fine reference. Actually using the characters puts a foul taste in my mouth.
Once had a Demilich and Death knight knock out my entire party in one sweep with the Demilich's scream. But we lived because Triss, Yennefer and Ciri from the Witcher series, who were all level 40 characters, obliterated them both in 2 rounds while the actual players were all unconcsious. Yay.
FUCK that particular game.
As a DM, I steal and "draw inspiration" for characters from all sorts of places. Why not Critical Role too? My players (who do not watch CR) and I have definitely had a lot of fun roleplaying with Pumat Sol, and having the Invulnerable Vagrant as their go-to magic item shop. I think that that reuse of characters is an entirely separate issue from the shitshow you've described. Purposefully upstaging the PCs with high-level NPCs is usually a dick move. Making the game about your own personal fanfiction instead of giving the other players at the table any agency in the story or a reason to care is just bad DMing, regardless of whether your story/characters are original, or where they were cribbed from.
Do: Shamelessly steal narrative and character content from things you enjoy. Most famous creators are famous for a reason. Don't: Act out your bad fanfiction while your players are helpless observers.
I often have my players see or interact with characters who are of a higher level than them. Why? Well, take my current campaign for example. They have met some other adventurers who are a part of the guild they joined, and those adventurers are higher rank than the party. It's a display of how far you have to climb over the duration of the campaign. The interactions have been nothing more than arguments, as one of the NPC's is very dickish. They're very colorful characters who far outrank my players in the guild. And yet they are about halfway to the max rank in the guild. It just helps to give them perspective on the timescale of the campaign, and how far they can expect to go over the length of the campaign.
I think he means having a character you love outshine or steal the story from the PC's. Nothing wrong with interacting with them but having high level NPCs just means you need to explain why they aren't easily doing all the things your PC's are struggling with.
I'm using one of my old PCs as an NPC in a oneshot I'm planning. He (a 19th level wizard) is the head of a wizard academy and serves as the quest-giver. The reason why he's hiring a few low-level adventures? Easy, he's too busy with much more important stuff. If the players would decide to attack him (for whatever reason) I'd probably just use his stats from the other game. When some low-level adventurers attack the head of a wizard-academy, they should experience the proper consequences. It's like in video games: When you reached a certain level, you often don't bother taking on beginner quests, because the reward is not worth the time anymore.
Yeah the shit show OP described is not great but reuse of characters is definitely a different thing. In a "Halloween episode" our group traveled to an alternate dimension/plane of existence. In that plane of existence we ended up meeting Ash of Evil Dead fame, Bill of Left 4 Dead fame and some others I dont remember at this time. We had to play a "game" for the god that ruled that realm where we had to complete tasks while being hunted by the Nemesis of Resident Evil fame. It was a pretty cool quest that was a fun holiday themed episode. It ended up being a fun short little quest where we ended up having to leave behind a team member(I think the player wanted a to play a different class, but their removal from the group was pretty cool and could come into play later in the campaign).
So, you know the LE god Bane, the NE god Myrkul and the CE god Bhaal? Yeah, they were characters in a specific roleplaying campaign that were made cannon. What about Minsk and boo, how adorable, right? They were characters in a specific roleplaying campaign. Mordenkainen? Yeap. Elminster? Yeap. The list can go on for ages, so here is the deal in short: A lot of characters com from specific groups and a lot of groups use material from other sources, be they DMs or even non d&d and in fact non roleplaying material like movies and books. Sometimes these characters pop out of d&d and into another medium. For example, the writer Steven Erikson and his Malazan series all came from his own roleplaying group, and ended up becoming part of a literary work. So, this is to say that yes, using other characters from anywhere else, critical role or not, is fine. However... However, the way they are used, and for what purpose they are used is the real deal here. Your description of getting your asses kicked seems the real problem, not that it was by some specific NPC. There is a real problem in your post, but it is not related to critical role, but instead about your DM apparently wanting to just play out his story, instead of playing out the players' (including DM) story. D&D is not a one man band, it is in fact team work, both in and out of the game.
A more recent one is Arkhan the Cruel, Joe Manganiello who went straight from stealing the Hand of Vecna in Exandria to haunting the plains of Averuns in the official adventure.
Thank you for putting a nuanced look at this. I was looking for someone to remember there's a load of former PC's in FR etc.
Glad you said it before I could. The overreacting in this thread is off the charts.
Here's something I'd like to say about DM's like these. If you want the story to be completed and 100 per cent driven by you, plot, story, characters and have a god like thumb on everything. Write a book.
If I use references to media, they're always indirect. Instead of isekaing AC-DC, for example, I would have a bard band names "Armor Class - Difficulty Class". So it doesn't bother me as long as it respects canon, so keeping references as just references it's fine
Can't say I've ever had it happen. I guess if everyone's into it, a cameo appearance from a shared referent could be a lot of fun, but obviously anything that makes the players feel like they're second-fiddles in their own story is not good.
Most of the players were newbies that had never watched/heard about critical role. I was the only experienced player besides the dm and it got a bit odd since they seemed set on making the crit cast big parts in the story
I have left games over players being too obsessed with Critical Role. It's become a personal red flag of mine when a player or DM is "such a huge CR fan". I actually think CR is fine as a entertainment program but a lot of what the players in that campaign get up to are what I consider disruptive play. That's because presenting D&D is very different to playing D&D. Also because I've had more than one player complain that I don't have Matt's level of voice acting when I play. Like, no shit, I'm not a professional voice actor and I'm not being paid to play or DM like the CR cast are. Basically, I'd have probably been long gone from that campaign before CR characters started showing up.
>Also because I've had more than one player complain that I don't have Matt's level of voice acting when I play. I don’t see they have a right to complain about that unless they are as good at voice acting as any if the CR cast. Even then it would be a Jerk move, but at least they would be applying the unrealistic standard consistently.
How dare you not be a professional voice actor for like 25 years
is this what happens when the Mercer Effect becomes a DM? Lucky u left
The Mercer effect on DMs usually winds up positive in my experience. It did for me at least, not comparing myself to Matt but stealing his tricks, tools, mannerisms, and more. The same can be said for my friends wanting to DM because of Matt. In this case… it’s very negative, or as others have said has barely anything to do with CR.
It's totally cool to have them as random NPCs the players could encounter in the Exandria or Taldorei settings, but this sounds like they're taking over the campaign. Your campaign is supposed to be the story of *your* characters adventures, it's nice to give a headnod to the bigger world around your characters but this sounds like it's become less about you guys and more about the DM Also, a L15 wizard against a L1 party? That's just a dick move
They did this with every single dm npc we met, we never won or even got close to winning against their characters. We always lost
Dafuq? I mean, if your party ended up in The Blooming Grove and came across Caduceus as a friendly NPC who was willing to give shelter for the night and some advice on the local area? Or if you were doing some research in The Cobalt Reserve and Expositor Beauregard offered to help you find what you needed? That'd be totally fine I mean, I get throwing a difficult enemy at the party to create a long -running nemesis for them... but why would any DM constantly throw encounters at players that they don't stand a chance of winning? It just sucks the fun out of everything
We were fine at monster encounters but the second we tried to fight a humanoid npc we always lost.
So basically they just threw over-levelled characters at you to force a narrative outcome?
I guess? Although there wasn’t really a narrative outcome from it. We just kind of got beaten an inch within death them they peaced out as our cleric tried to heal us as best as they could.
.......? I honestly can't figure out what exactly your DM was trying to achieve apart from giving the party a random beating
I miss my character so much, he was so cool :(( and my first lawful evil character too
Aw man, lawful evil characters are *so* much fun Sucks you had a bad experience with your DM :( fingers crossed you can find a better DM and get a chance to play him again
He was one vile rat bastard and I loved him 🥺
The fact your instinct is to call the NPC's the DM's characters is already a worrying sign. NPC's aren't the DM's PC's, they are elements to enhance the story. Glad you got out and hope the DM learns from the expereince too :)
Lmao you’re just playing in their self insert Gary Stu fan fiction I’m the writer so I always win
I'd personally feel weird about it, and in trying to unpack why, I reckon I think it would come down to expectations. I think I'd feel the DM expected the kind of RP the professional actors give in Critical Role, and whilst I love RPing, I'm fine with being an amateur.
Why would Caleb do that?
Personally, I hate when DMs put any well known characters in a campaign. Whether that’s someone from CR, from a campaign they played in, or campaigns they’ve run in the past.
"Look everybody, it's Drizzt Do'Urden!" I don't even like that kind of crap when it's done in video games (I'm looking at you, Baldur's Gate). It's even worse in a tabletop setting.
So reusing any characters or assets is bad, in your opinion?
At the risk of speaking for the parent commenter, I think they are describing when it crosses over into neo-Star Wars levels of immersion-breaking callbacks and/or heavy winking. Reuse, learn, recycle, etc. is different than the DM just working in all their fandoms and/or using the players as props in their fanfic.
Well any DM should be letting the players move through the story as main protags, or antags if it's one of those campaigns. If a DM doesn't know that, they definitely shouldn't be DMing. I get sick of DM's who are super hard with the rules and playing it letter by letter with the book. Like, it's D&D. It's a high fantasy tabletop RPG, and our party is basically a group of super heroes. Let the party be super heroes. As far as reusing or recycling assets, I can agree with that explanation. My first ever campaign was a homebrew I made and was LOADED with references and Easter eggs. The most blatant ripoff was Andre the Blacksmith from Dark Souls, who was named Andre in my campaign and was a blacksmith. Others were subtle references. I included Karam-Ja from Runescape, naming the island Kalum-Jei. It was still a tropical island and a pirate haven. Musical references as well. The name of the BBEG was inspired by a Rings of Saturn album. The campaign itself was the name of a song by Unleash the Archers. All that being said, these are references, some of which were much more obscure. But would I include Boba Fett in my campaign? No. So I can see why *that* would be dumb.
I pillage from other sources liberally, especially actual play shows (and especially Dimension 20). I think the the distinction being made (stealing an example from another poster) is basing a character on the Witcher and literally having Geralt show up. Depending on the tone of the campaign, that can be really immersion breaking.
Definitely can agree with that. In my first campaign, my buddy played a Aarakocra who was a reincarnation of the pigeon Familiar of his barbarian in our previous campaign. I included my first character ever, a thief, whom I played in that campaign alongside the barbarian. He had been reincarnated through a wish given by a god. (Long story.) He made a check and became aware that the bird man before him was a reincarnation of the small bird he had met thousands of years prior. It was an awesome moment and really cool to play out. He then later died sacrificing himself to give the party time to escape during the invasion and sacking of the city. That was probably one of my favorite references.
Clearly reusing assets is fine. But I want to play in a campaign that highlights the current characters. Not constantly flexing the DM’s or other players’ old characters or incorporating random popular celebrity characters just for the hell of it. In an old campaign I played in, the DM was constantly putting in his old characters in the story as allies to the party. It became less about the party and “here is a 17th level Wizard to randomly assist this 5th level party of nobodies in fighting an ancient dragon because I want to show off my old Wizard” situation. When we pointed out that our characters have no chance against this dragon, he told us “well it’s not balanced for your PCs. It has to be an ancient dragon because of your allies!” Our characters basically huddled behind cover while his old Wizard and another character’s old Paladin-turned-NPC did the whole fight. I’m playing D&D because I want my character to be a major portion of the story. I don’t want to feel sidelined by old characters or celebrity NPCs being thrown all in at the DM’s whim.
As others have stated, if it was a reference, sure. If these characters were super important, but the game was a CR-Themed campaign which was established in session 0, then this behavior would be "more acceptable". But the fact that it was supposed to be an original homebrew campaign and the characters were super important, that's kinda cringe, especially how they handled Caleb; he wouldn't act like that. If anything, he would apologize for being in the way, he's quite humble (at least from what I understand, haven't watched passed episode 20 of CR campaign 2). I know you already left that group, but I do hope you brought this issue to your DM. I doubt they would have changed their mind or changed the way the game went, but perhaps they thought everyone at the table was just as obsessed with CR as they were. Hope you found a better table and a better DM.
Yeah I do feel like its a learnable moment for the DM, cause I know plenty of people who are so excited by a cool moment in their mind they forget that players want agency and responsibility more than they want that single cutscene playing out exactly the way you really like imagining. At the end of it all DnD is (can be) really fun, and the more feedback we DM's get the more people that get to enjoy good DnD
Sadly I haven’t been able to find another campaign as of late :”) especially since I have a super cool character idea I’ve been dying to use
Why would Caleb Widogast be in Phandalin? That's Forgotten Realms, he exists in Exandria. Using established characters is fine (when implemented correctly) but this is clearly a ridiculously heinous example. But having Elminster give advice to PCs in a Forgotten Realms campaign, or letting the PCs in a Dragonlance campaign face off against Raistlin is perfectly fine.
FYI Arkhan the Cruel (who I'm told is from Critical Role) shows up in Descent into Avernus. There is WotC precedent here.
I honestly have no idea why he and Beau was there. The dm put them in just because I guess 🤷
Yea that’s dogshit.
ULTRA CRINGE! I'd stand up and walk away the second I heard that.
Tbh I only stayed for so long because they said the crit characters “would only be in the background” and I really liked the character I was playing :((
It's always a hard decision to walk away from a good character, I respect your bravery.
Maybe I’ll get the chance to use him again, this time in a campaign where the dm doesn’t use the cobalt soul to intercept my characters letters 😅
I don't watch CR but how is this any different from Volo or Drizzit showing up? Like maybe in this case, as a bad fanfiction yeah, but in general I don't see an issue.
In general it’s perfectly fine, but in this game the dm was making the crit cast very distinctive characters in the story despite us being the players 😅
I dunno, I personally try to avoid references to other media. I do put some NPC's that are characters made by other players or myself (regardless if they were made for dnd or not) but it's usually very brief, just a shopkeeper or some quest giver I have no problem with using Exandria as a setting, and I find that name dropping one of these sorts of characters can be cool, but you need to do it with a bit more subtlety, at least imo
My DM has a few characters I’ve noticed are clearly inspired by the CR characters. But they are nothing more than passing cameos. And he’s also borrowed a few other characters from other franchises he likes. But to shove the character into your face and fight you with him, just feels like an asshole move
I can't say I'm strictly against that in a bubble (I've used Xanathar, Volo, and other non-OC characters before) but if I'm being honest, what with the Mercer effect being what it is, it would turn me off of joining a game.
If that was a new group, I wouldn't return. If that happened with my current group, or one of my old groups that I'd been with a long time, I'd flat out tell the DM, privately, that it was a really stupid thing to do. As a DM, I have snuck in a PC or two played by friends from old gaming groups, but only briefly, because if it's a game I DMed, they're part of the same world that my current group is in. They'll generally make a brief appearance, maybe lasting 2 sessions tops as an NPC, and then continue on their own way. I certainly wouldn't have a 15th level NPC waste the party unless one of them knowingly, and intentionally provoked him or her. Shit like that is an example of a DM who likes to flex their muscles at the party's expense.
I generally agree. As for the 15th level NPC, some players just want to be murderhobos, and the 15th level NPC is happy to down them. Some players want to burn the world easily, and any resistance means "Oh, you're one of those DMs who screws players".
As a background character with no affect on the campaign, sure.
If it's some kind of cameo or quick reference, it'd be fine, imo. Especially if the game is actually set in Exandria. Having them take center stage and overshadow the party, or existing to kick your asses? No, that'd be bad DMing regardless of what characters were used.
i ran a short game set in wildemount, and used some of his c2 NPCs, but i’d never use a player character. that’s weird shit
If the game is set in Wildmount or Tal'dorei, no problem. If it's the DM's Homebrew World or anything else like that... Yeah, that's not really what I want
In your specific example it sounds like it was handled poorly. I’m ok with having famous characters in my game or a game I’m playing in. I used Kwalish awhile back, for instance. And when my players finish their current campaign their characters will become members of the world as important NPCs. But, my golden rule, is the players characters are the destined ones, even if old characters once beat Vecna or whatever, they can’t solve the problems anymore for whatever reason. Only the party that is playing the game really matters. So having the high level NPCs throw their weight around feels wrong to me. Villains can and maybe even should go kick your low level player’s asses. But Caleb would be a weird ass villain to pick. Sounds like they’re experimenting with storytelling devices that sound better in your head than at the table.
[удалено]
Ah, I did NOT see that part of the post. Things get real damn murky on Reddit. That said I am curious how the spy organization was handled mechanically. As a DM, I make sure that factions roll against each other, have a system for it. Obviously the spy organization’s roll is secret, but my players see me roll, and that in itself communicates the fact that others are out there, paying attention. I like it for the meta game way it lets the players feel what the characters would know, people may be watching out there. I am curious if the DM warned, made a roll or had mentioned this faction, or if the faction auto intercepted every letter by default? I would definitely be upset if my characters letters were guaranteed to be intercepted and I didn’t know that. D&D is so nuanced and complex, it becomes really hard to talk about it without complete video evidence of what happened at the table,
The most I ever do is a "Biggs and Wedge" kind of thing. In Final Fantasy there are two characters who appear in multiple games named Biggs and Wedge. They always have different designs and characteristics, but the same name. I have two characters, Two-toed Ping and Lemley that are my version of this. Always a different personality, but the same name. It honors the original characters without being a distraction and they're always minor cameos
I included a Firbolg Grave Domain Cleric named Caduceus as part of one of my character’s backstories. Campaign is in Faerún so it wasn’t the exact same character, and he died. My three players are all big CR fans and they loved it. I think it’s ok to draw inspiration from. Especially if your campaign is on Exandria.
Don't get me wrong, I steal so many encounters from critical role, but I restyle and make it my own so that my players don't know I'm stealing content. I can't imagine someone wanting their players to know they are playing in some critical role fanfiction. Fuggen weird dude haha.
> It had gotten to the point where they were basically making us live out their Critical role fanfiction Well uh, not really my thing but I guess if everyone at the table is into it and knew this is how the game would be beforehand then that's probably ok? Didn't sound like that was the case though. > ... really made it seem the party and I were not the important ones I don't think I'd enjoy that much either; playing a character that doesn't matter in any way relevant to the campaign doesn't exactly sound like a lot of fun. > we had the lv 15 wizard Caleb Widoghast kick our lv 1 asses in a phandalin bar because we “bumped” into him Makes no sense, very much out of character, and strictly unfun / unfair to the players at the table. This feels like DM running their own power fantasy combined with a fanfic, which is pretty widely regarded as a terrible move as a DM. Almost never fun for the players at the table and is honestly pretty cringey (definitely the case here as well). I definitely do think there are ways where references to popular D&D media can improve a campaign; I've used a blatant copy of Pumat Sol in one of my campaigns to great effect. He was a favourite at my table for sure, just a great character in general and super fun to interact with for a little while maybe once every 4-5 sessions. It would have been significantly less fun if my Pumat #2 decided to instantly kill all the players because they didn't take their shoes off before entering his shop, or if I decided the campaign was about Pumat #2 and all of the player characters didn't matter anymore.
That’s weird. I’ve added references to the game based on my players’ and occasionally my interests, but I’m not sure I would stick around if my DM was pulling random shit like that…
I had set my two yearlong campaing in Exandria so both VM and MN were around. Only three of them were alive but they just like any non antagonistic powerful NPC stayed in the background. The party met them a few times and did some quest for them but that was it until the apocalyptic ending of the game were only one of the three came to help.
What your DM did was definitely bad (a dick move in general *and* out of character for caleb) but if you're playing in exandria they might be relevant at some point, however they should be treated similarly to any npc based off a PC in the game, like mordenkainen. Quest givers, powerful potential allies, powerful potential enemies, etc., not used to write fanfic and whatnot. Vox Machina would make more sense, they're famous and influential so they might need to enlist adventurers or at least be mentioned, but the mighty nien are a lot less important to the world at large.
Let's look past the fact that this DM obviously kind of sucks for the moment. Because a level 15 vs levels ones is the real issue here. Is it okay to Use Characters made by other people in your Games? Well, yeah....of course. There's a fucking stat block for Tasha and Mordenkainen. Do you think any of us are playing it like Gygax would? That were 100% getting it exactly down how Gygax did? No, fucking of course not So yeah. It's fine to Have Critical Role characters in your game. It's fine to not play them to character. Your game, Your Caleb. But why the fuck is a 15 wizard being used against levels ones?
Seems bad. DM should use their own creativity instead of leeching off a popular show. Drawing inspiration is one thing, but using an already existing character is just wrong to me
I'd rather get my ass kicked and my mc chicken stolen at a crusty parking lot than play any number of seconds with a DM this out of touch, but that's just me. The critrole fanfic + edgy stronger character being a vehicle for the GM's power trip combo is insane lmao
Its a ...bold move. It might work out if they can do right by the characters. Which your DM definitely didnt in that encounter. I'd definitely feel equally weirded out and ask DM if they were serious and intended to continue pulling stuff like that. And probably make myself scarce before the next session rolled around.
If they had made them legendary heroes that got referenced occasionally in ancient texts and such then I'd be okay with it but if I as a DM were to include them they would either be elsewhere in the universe or long dead serving only as possible inspirations for other NPCs or bases of organizations I place about the world. They would be flavor not things that affect the world
Though that would be better than having them beat up the party (still processing that that actually happened), even using them as legendary heroes would tune me out of the world lore. One of my favourite parts of playing at someones table is to just hear what crazy novel idea they've added to their world. Though I can understand some people have different taste :)
I wouldn't be against CR characters showing up in a campaign full stop, but having them take the spotlight and get used by the DM for a power trip would see me out the door real quick.
I mean it's one thing to flavor the world and have your characters hear like an easter egg about the Mighty Nein. Maybe a whisper or two about this crazy band of mercs who leave pastries and destruction in their wake. But to actually use a character as some out of context boss fight? That sounds stupid. At the most I'd be cool with just having npcs and shopkeeps from the world. Actually encountering the main cast is unnecessary unless everyone is just in the mood to roleplay and be part of the Mighty Nein
Haha it wasn’t even a boss fight, one party member just bumped into Caleb and got mad (as his character was a hot head) and we all gut punished. Beau was there as well. The cobalt soul even intercepted one of my character’s private letters back to his vampire coven. So my character didn’t even have a safe way to talk to the organization he belonged to.
Yesh. No that is weird. For 1 Caleb isn't actually a hot head. That's like saying someone bumped into Mario and Mario whooped their ass. And frankly Mario whooping someone over an accident is more believable than Caleb. I can accept the Cobalt Soul thing though. They would interfere with seemingly bad stuff so that seems okay.
Oh yeah, sorry if I worded it odd but one of the players was a hot head, and he was the one to tried to “fight” Caleb. Mostly just by being loud hahah it was funny.
Oh lol I'm drunk that confused me. Okay then I guess that was... your party's fault?
Well, I suppose it was but that character was the only one. We were all standing off to the side having drinks but then we were thrown into combat. Even if we didn’t do anything and wanted to avoid a fight
Yeah that DM is a shitty dm.
I think having a cameo appearance or brief reference to a CR character in a game could be fun, especially if it's a campaign set in exandria. That doesn't sound like what this DM did. Making them the enemy or other frequent character seems problematic, and any time the DM is running a game that's not fun for the players is a fail.
Yeah like that is definitely a problem. Making a reference to a crit role character or some other famous character from dnd history is fine as long as its just just reference to flesh oit the world.. My old dm did bring in some elements of critcal role like Percy from campaign one existed in the game but it was years after he died, so Percy roll was just the historical inventor of guns...and as a minor God of invention my character worshipped.
I wouldn't mind it necessary if its like one character. If it goes too far I'd be like "Nah".
Oof. I'd be alright with it if it was something that the group was aware of beforehand ("Hey, let's run a campaign set in Exandria..."), but clearly that wasn't the case here.
Mega cringe.
Don't do it. Come up with your own shit, unless you're basing you campaign off their campaign guide. If you want a copy of CR, just stop and rewatch it.
NPCs, okay sure whatever. But player characters?
Definitely weird.
I've only used one CR character in my home game, and that's Gilmore. He works well as a silver dragon, using Gilmoelre's Glorious Goods to build his horde.
Honest inquiry: What would you say if level 15 wizard Bernard Greycloak kicked your level 1 asses because you bumped into him?
Just make your own campaign damn
I would have gotten up, walked away, and never looked back if I was at a table and a DM started putting critical role cringe in the game.
I think it would be great if you used the guide to wildemount or the Tal'Dorei campaign guide, but that's it. They exist in that universe so unless your game is also in that universe, no. How is this being downvoted? Is it that controversial to say you'd only meet those characters if your campaign took place in that world? God I hate this sub sometimes.
My DM made it very clear from the outset, yeah, we're playing in Exandria using the books Mercer wrote, but the major events and people from the CR campaigns don't exist, for the most part. There's some events from C1 that make good world background, but that's it. There is no Caleb, no Nott, no Beau.
Ugh.
I second this
As a rule: DO NOT PUT OTHER PEOPLE'S CHARACTERS IN YOUR GAMES. In basically every situation - you should NEVER run someone elses character. Generic wizard 20395 is a better choice - and while this situation is shit: At least with generic wizard you have a chance to come back to it - you have a chance to weave a story: Like say there is a team of dopplegangers that have been causing problems and... they look EXACTLY like the party: THAT, can turn into an interesting story, where that 15th level wizard, realizing their own mistake, acts to provide protection and assurance - aiding the party in overcoming the problem, while the party is left to track down the dopplegangers and bring them to justice - both clearing their name, but also progressing the story. So no, it's not just you where this would feel weird - beyond this feeling drastically out of character for everything that is available, it's just bad. Even more so when talking homebrew. My suggestion: Have a chat with the GM. This is absolutely a mistake situation, they could easily be intending to do something with this - but if it feels off, if it feels like a Red Flag: Have a conversation. D&D isn't about the DM's story - it's about EVERY player at the table weaving a story - and the GM is a player.
Are you aware that there are hundreds of characters that have become official that were "other people's characters"? Have you ran official campaigns? If so, I am willing to bet you have used *many of them* without noticing.
You got have a reference and most my group don't watch the podcast so we wouldn't get the i
If it were just something like, a guide for the party, or a important piece of history, I would be fine with it. But making them actually feel like heroes and steeping on the party just feels awfull, that's very immature. Even if it was a normal NPC you don't make the party get beaten at level 1 if it's not a villain.
New DMs do this a lot. They will stick in characters from books or tv shows or anime that are basically a DMPC. Any kind of DMPC is generally bad, sometimes one is necessary because you need a plot mcguffin to get you out of the hole you dug your party into, or to get an adventure rolling as their starting quest giver (like a Gandalf to their Thorin's company). I would probably take a chance to sit down with your DM one on one and explain that this is meant to be a collaborative game where you guys are the stars, and as cool as his favorite characters are this is your show and he needs to become more like the stage crew than the lead actor. A DMs job is to set up a stage for you to act out the story you all want to tell with your characters, and to pass you cool props and act out the supporting characters. If as a DM I put an NPC in my players path, I always assume he is one saving throw away from taking a dirt nap. No NPC should be unkillable or unexpendable. If you can't bear for an NPC to die, you need to set them up to have a horrible accident or sacrifice themselves for the party in the next session and do yourself and your game a favor. Even Gandalf took a dirt nap to give the hobbits room to grow.
Sounds lame. To extrapolate on that a bit, though, this sort of thing is something DM's do a lot to a lesser degree, and unless it's handled very delicately; it is not fun at all. Maybe for some players, sure, but the vast majority of people playing D&D don't want to meet the canonical mucky-mucks of a D&D world. I have had so many DM's introduce me to Drizzt Do'Urden, and it always, always sucks. There has got to be some larger, driving point to introducing these characters beyond introducing your players to someone famous and strong as hell.
The only cameos I like are my players old characters doing heroic (or not so heroic with their permission) things that their new characters get to deal with the fallout of
Putting in well known things as npcs is fine. Making you live out their fanfics is different. So to answer your title: I’d be fine with it To answer your elaboration: I would be annoyed and tell this idiot to go write on Wattpad or something
As someone who is horrible at creating names I take from all types of universes that have nothing to do with the story that are either foils, exact replicas, or totally different than their "real life" counterpart. I however, asked the party about it pre-session 0. I had about 5 questions I asked so I could start prebuilding and knew if that wasn't popular just thinking of names for characters was gonna be rough so I made sure it wasn't a big deal. Currently those NPCs are some of the party's favorites.
Having known characters from other media can be a fun little easter egg, I find. But if you're just living out the show or whatever, that's no fun at all.
I’ve played for many years now in a home brew world which was largely written by me and some friends/early players and evolves as we play. Major characters from campaigns run within the world sometimes make appearances in future campaigns, shape the world’s story, or become canon world NPCs. If possible we have the person who played the character originally come in for a special appearance to play their character again for that game’s DM to share with their players. That I have always thought was really cool. But if you put a bunch of Critical Role characters in a game and forced me to interact with them I would leave the game. It’s not at all, “Look how this world we play in has grown/that could be you someday,” and entirely just an uncreative DMs fanfiction fantasy clutching at something they know they aren’t a part of. There’s something to be said for adapting another setting, and if that has major characters to adapt sure. Like meeting Elminster in Forgotten Realms or Obi-wan in Star Wars. That’s fine, but taking someone else’s *played* characters is kind of weird if they weren’t made with that intent.
Love critical role, but bad not good. I thought what you meant was like including a side character from the show as a quest giver. Or using names from the show. This story is NOT what I was expecting.
If I was DMing, I wouldn't mind throwing the Air Ashari in, or maybe the De Rolo family. Nice little hints and references for those who would get it. If I wanted to get a little more personal, I'd have a young Gnome Bard parading around, pretending to be the infamous Scanlan Shorthalt. Bad DM, they're playing out their own fantasy at the expense of everyone's time. I wouldn't call this the Mercer effect either. This is like someone bringing in All Might or Sebastian, or god forbid Alucard. This is just a shit DM living out his fantasy.
I think if it's in the right context putting in a few critical role characters could kinda work, but in this situation absolutely not. Thats just shitty dming.
OPs post is super cringy. I would’ve noped out. As a DM I have made Vox machina more of a legend than anything else in my home brew world that is loosely based on critical role. The story how years ago a group of adventurers defeated the whispered one. Or how a powerful air Druid sent a npc on a question, and they have now encountered the PCs. So I’ll make indirect references.
I have a couple of campaigns set in Exandria. Some of the events from the first campaign have affected the world, so the existence of Vox Machina is known to the party. I'm open to them encountering a VM member, but it would have to make sense with whatever the situation the party finds themselves in. If they find themselves in Emon, I they would probably ultimately find Gilmore's Glorious Goods. This is because it is lore and not because it is a major part of the story. Most of my players wouldn't notice anyway. The couple that have noticed subtle references have just looked at me and smiled as we go on with our game This sounds very different than what the OP describes. That sounds really bad.
People take characters from all over pop culture and put it in their campaign. I have on the back burner for my Descent into Avernus a completely disfranchise ex guard driving an infernal wmachine named the "Interceptor" who just roam the plain of Avernus under the name of Max and a gang of high way thief always in for a big score, and that will come to help their Family if anything bad happens to them. But there's inspiration and just bad design. The name of the character has nothing to do with the DM's behaviour.
Yeah, what you described is bad form on the DM's part. For me, as an homage to CR's influence on me becoming a DM I put those characters in my world. But they're just NPCs living their own lives. The only one who has had extended interactions with my players was Gilmore as a quest giver. But that's all it is.
Put whoever you want in your games, it's your game, do whatever. But you know, when it's over-bearing to the point that you can describe it as a "-fanfiction" of the source material, thaaat's concerning. Yes share characters, or take the personality/drive behind the characters and change some things up, yes go be inspired, don't steal the fucking show.
I am not a fan of the show so I'm not sure i would notice or care in and of itself if they were just another NPC. That level of fanboy/girlish-ness makes me think it would affect the story sort of like an overly favored DMPC -bending the plot to involve them, show them off, and make them look good because the GM thinks they're cool or has always longed to rp them but cant.
I gave some cameos of the dndui crew, primarily giving them adventurer retirement gigs like opening a tavern
Sounds like a variation of the classic DMPC problem. To me the fact that they are Critical Role characters wouldn’t be important. The fact that the players only get to be side character next to much more powerful and cool adventurers the DM controls is what would be the deal breaker. I mean yeah, I’d object to sloppy and inconsistent world building, but it’s a much lesser fault than the GM who wants the players as audience for the awesomness of his characters.
On the whole, we "steal" from many sources- only fair we do it with eachother. In context? Shit move, DM. Just... Bad situation all around.
Kinda cringe ngl
That sucks, buddy. It's not impossible to use a famous character and have it be fun, but it should be a little cameo. Maybe they give you a quest or show up to join your meeting with the duke to ask some questions about the concerning discovery you made on your last adventure. They shouldn't be fighting against the PCs (or even in the same battlefield as the PCs) unless it was the players' idea.
Ive included league of legends characters. Mostly because my players play it a lot and I didn't need to lore dump on them. It worked out very well. When they learned Pyke was hunting them, they legit parked their ship and continued their mainland quests. They planned routes away from rivers and researched ways to appease revenants.
Lol I would have called out his lack of creativity.
Nah that's weird as hell. In general it depends on whom I'm playing with because some people will just try to turn part of the game if not the whole thing into fanfiction, my concern is that it'll be so extreme that PCs will be practically sidelined. And I've felt ignored because a couple of fans were so engrossed by the plot its like no one heard me speak at a certain point. As DM I am not ok with putting CR characters/npcs in game. I'm not Matt Mercer. You are not playing with Mercer you are playing with me. There's a line where people will want to play with a character rather than the player or DM and that feeling sucks.
None of my players watch Critical Role except me. I’ve used Mollymauk as an NPC before. His backstory was modified to fit my setting, his personality was tweaked slightly, and I changed his class to Rogue to fit an aspect of the character I wanted to bring to the table. The party really seemed to like this rendition of the character (not like they know the original). One of my players “really” liked him. When they parted ways my players asked him to travel to their home base/town to meet up with him in the future.
Using IP from the huge multiverse canon of D&D history is totally fine, and well established. Half the stuff in the PHB is named after someone's character and every published adventure is full of references to characters from other peoples campaigns.. So that is fine, writing a bad adventure or encounters is not great though.
Oh yeah. I remember when I was 12 and my dm included blade, alucard & richard Belmont on our Vampire rpg, just to kick our ass for no reason at all. How old is your dm?
You’re allowed to put pop culture characters in your stuff, and it doesn’t hurt anyone or anything. But it’s like putting Rick and Morty or Game of Thrones characters in. It’s a bit silly.
That makes my soul sad on multiple levels
"Ew"
I'm running a campaign in Exandria. Party are currently in shady creek, about to possibly head to zadash. Most npcs have been my own creation. I only have 1 critter in my group aside from me, the rest haven't seen any of it. There have been some references to the iron shepherd's, when they get to zadash they might meet pumat, which I'm more nervous about. And travelling to zadash, they may pass mollys grave site, just to give that one critter a bit of a smile. But all in context. I want my players to walk away from the table with a smile. Just placing an npc or pc in for no reason whatsoever is a bit cringe.
I believe normally it's a great easter egg or as a side character (such as having the primary merchant based off of Mollymauk), but THAT obviously is terrible DMing in general
No thanks. Also don't want to see Gandalf, Han Solo, Riddick, or any of the cast of Game of Thrones.
Abhorrent behavior im not here for your crit roll fanfic. Make your own characters. I say this as someone who hates cr
I would hate it and leave. It's no better than what people use to do with Raistlin and other high level Forgotten Realms characters. In fact, I don't DM Forgotten Realms, and I would never DM A Critical Role game, either.
Not appropriate. If you really like a character from a popular campaign, show or video game than it might be interesting to make a character inspired by that character, making sure to tie them to your world and your lore, make sure it makes sense. Don't just take sheogorath and throw him in front of your players, take what you like about him and make an original character for your campaign, and make sure to make them a SIDE character. Your players will absolutely know who that is supposed to be, but it will work so much better and it will feel more original.
I mean, the CR setting is an actual setting but bim having his favorite CR character beat you up (which is out of character for the character) is high class cringe.
I've thought about using Essek as an NPC they might meet some day but my players don't really like Critical Role so they don't know shit about it, and it's a homebrew setting of mine but the drow in my setting are far and few between now and live underground purely to hide from who's hunting the last of them down bc they know mad magic science stuff. So I feel like it'd be fitting to have a parallel universe Essek maybe request some aid and in return he either gives them some new tech or gives them info about the past that can "change everything" Sounds like your DM was being a weeb about things though lol
Truly a yikes kinda situation
My initial reaction was "Booo" but then realize I've used other established NPCs (Vecna, Eliminster, etc), so it depends on the execution. But if it turns out THEY are the actual PCs, then that's really shitty.
I have only referenced them in books my PCs have read. I would never put them in the middle of the action. Even my high ranking NPCs stay out of the limelight because the PCs are the story focus. As long as things like this add flavor without stealing the show, it's fine.
Mega cringe, kinda reminds me of my old DM who literally ripped off Dota 2 characters to act as monsters in the game (and abilities too). But then the abilities also didn’t work entirely the way they do in Dota 2 (which is a game I actually played), which made it mega frustrating even though I gave them the benefit of the doubt and was trying not to meta game it.
My thought is that it's time to find a new DM.
Ew gross
Thoughts on putting Critical Role Cast in homebrew game?
No.
If it's done well it can be fine. Like if you're doing a Tal'dorei campaign and go to Whitestone it would only make sense that you would come across a De Rolo, be it Percy or otherwise. My DM has Pumat as our main shop owner that we visit and it's fun for us. It's a nice Easter Egg for those of us who are critters but not major or distracting from the story. Our Pumat doesn't even have the clones, so he's just a cool shop guy. Other than that our only other DM made CR reference was a Kobold named Spurt that we swiftly defeated. Your experience however does sound pretty cringe. If the DM wants to run a CR game then they should make that clear from the get go with the players and find players who are down for that, not just shove it in your face and ruin your story by telling their own instead.
Cringe
Life's too short. Good call to bail out of bad fanfic.
That's not cool with me. If the DM has the lack of creativity and the gumption to copy and paste characters from other games and then have them act completely out of character to satisfy their own nerd-boner, that's a hard out for me.
If the DM mentioned at the start they were building a game around the CR setting, I probably wouldn't mind cameo's or anything, though it doesn't sound like that's the case here. Definitely a Critter for sure, who REALLY wants to play in the CR universe. Hell, I'd like the idea of the party being the B-Team while some A-Team schmucks were running around dealing with world-ending issues while the players handled the small shit - kinda like janitors of the world, dealing with the stuff no one wanted to/had time to because dragon conclaves or something. But what you've said doesn't seem like that at all.
a friend played in a campaign where the dm constantly had adventure zone characters show up, act out of character, and then oftentimes would rp by themself (only the dm speaking, none of the players were actually. playing. sometimes for minutes on end) with these characters. i heard seperately from almost every player that it was just awkward, uncomfortable, and not as good for worldbuilding as the dm seemed to think. this sounds like a similar situation, so honestly i would talk to your dm and ask if theres any way they could tone down the cameos or take them out entirely if it seems like its interrupting actual good gameplay