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I agree with your sentiments on many levels. The poorly worded, emotionally charged comments, whose hostility is redundant, against you are unwarranted. The one criticism I can offer is that your video also suffers more from the same flaws than logical fallacies or falsehoods. Revealing your distaste for a mainstream opinion in this crude fashion on social media is inadvisable. It would be ok in social circles. This harms your argument more than anything. People care how you say something more than what you say. (You may not care about poor reception which is fine) Market trends, human tendency, and the hobby's nature are prime motivators for the current industry, as another comment pointed out. I am not a philosophy bachelor video essayist British. This is a friendly note. (I don't even watch that Critical Role show or don't play DND5E) I love your work on the FNV modding community and (from the video) I can tell you have great taste. Wish you the best.

Lmao, buttbroken by romancable characters. A new RPG era has begun and theres nothing you can do about it, cope and sneed

Greatest video on TH-cam, best modder of all time. Saved a lot of time with this! Thanks.

thank you son im creating the greatest sex quest mod rn

Man, I was watching some of your recent videos and I think you have the same line of thinking as me. This people, woke or not, they are just the same. The two faces of the sams coin

Love this video, thank you for this craftian

Does this have any interactions with either vanilla serana or modded serana? I saw some other videos showcasing this mod but couldn’t find ones that had them two interact even though Orpheus has dialogue with the dawnguard questline

Absolutely agree, all that matters in life to me is that I make i through and have a positive influence! It's not wrong for people to be attached to their "identity" (political, gender, race, religious, ect.), but in the end, all that matters is everyone is safe and can live their lives in peace. Clearly none of the media is about that, it's about creating division and profiting off with ingenuine appeals to all sides

Thank you so much for your valuable informations !

I couldn't agree with you more man. Not only does this bs divide us, but it also plants wrong values into the people to later use it as a defense. I love that you brought up that both sides are equally wrong in their doings. It's not just big media that's effing us over, but also the people shamelessly using the terms 'woke' and similar, to have a single word to "describe" how a product "failed". Looking at gaming, it's a shame that a game can have it's dedicated hater-fanbase even before a game launches. It's also a shame that companies now use this fanbase as an excuse to release crappy products and blame the failure on the "bigoted haters" even though there are legitimate criticism to be had. I really thought the regulation of the internet as a whole in the year 2015/2016 would've brought some humanity into the whole thing, but I just look back and miss people spewing their own personal hatred on a thing or product, without hiding behind some movement of some sort. I don't care that all this diversity on the net and in our societies exist, but I hate how it has given people an excuse, to hate one another for their indifferences. Echo Bubbles are the death of unique perspectives and its effing terrible man.

Damn you made sense at first and went full retard pretty fast. You had me at the first half ngl

Why would there be zero gravity on earth, thats not how that works man

I felt very strange playing a custom, non-origin character in BG3, especially around the rest of the party I ran with. It occurred to me by Act 3 that my character wasn't the main character, but everyone else was the main character instead, and I was just in their story. I think your argument involving that is spot on and you have some strong insights with the general sexualization of nearly every character in modern media. It's irrelevant fluff meant to make a character seem more interesting when they rarely have anything more to offer. It seems up there with people including their pronouns and orientation in their twitter bios insofar that those become their only defining personality traits, rather than supplemental information about them as a person. Though when you point out that the people in charge of writing these games appear to solely focus on their own "unique" individualism in real life, then it doesn't come as much of a surprise when their characters have the same sort of sexualized lifestyles. At the end of the day, writers will always write what they know best - it just sucks that what they know best is empowerment fantasy with no reality left to create anything compelling with.

I'm glad you've pointed this out. I've never watched critical role but I am aware of the impact it's had on D&D, but the damage it's done on fantasy media is noticeable if you grew up on fantasy of the past. The characters don't feel real, they feel like archetypes you'd see in a tumblr persons fan fiction. Bulder's gate 3 is a good game on its own, but doesn't feel like it fits in the universe of BG 1,2 or even games like planescape torment and I completely get why hardcore BG 1 and 2 fans would hate 3, and as seen with its success, you're gonna have a bunch of copycats with the emphases on inclusion and romances. Like with dragon age the failguard, it doesn't look or feel like a dragon age game and feels like they're desperately trying to appeal to "those" types of people and automately is a betrayal of the series with them focusing more on who you can sleep with rather then the game itself. Edit: Vampire masquerade 2 looks dreadful btw. I'm more then happy with bloodlines 1 and redemption.

On your point about choices mattering between the first game and affecting the second game do you have any ideal examples where this has happened? I would love for that to exist, but I still kind of understand game development companies here especially rpg ones with multiple endings. It would require a massive extra workload taking all possible endings into consideration.

You got us in the first half, ngl.

So I like the topic of this video, and I see the outline of a really solid thesis, but I think you fumble at the 10-yard line if you will. I will agree that CR has probably influenced a lot of RPG writers to lean on the more 'quirky' style of character, which annoyed me when Marvel went full bore into and I hate now. It isn't charming that every character is now just the 'Well that just happened' type. I think the problem is more endemic, stemming even deeper into the writing of Joss Whedon, long before CR came on the scene. While it's fine to have A witty character, it's annoying when it's all the characters. I like C1 of CR, but to say that some characters aren't annoying would be a lie. Scanlan nearly made me drop the show twice because I hate that his character is just an obnoxious degen. But to circle back, this problem started long before CR. I have zero hope for Veilguard. Every time there's an article about the game, it's never about how DAV will bring the series forward, but instead how inclusive and diverse it is, and people should stop expecting carry over with world states even though those are foundational to the narrative. DAV suffers because it's not a world with characters. It's characters that eat up the world. They are so focused on making sure you know your entire party is bangable that they left the world and lore by the wayside. Which sucks because strict character preferences made Inquisition interesting. Like the Tevinter mage who is gay, that aspect of him is central to why he left Tevinter. So, to throw that away so you can sleep with everyone is a slap in the face to nuanced writing. When it comes to BG3, I heavily disagree with your assessment. Just because the game starts in Avernus doesn't mean there aren't low-level/low stakes quests. The entirety of Act 1 is solving a petty dispute between two camps while also hinting at the story of the Absolute. Though I wish a few companions/Origins were toned down. Like Wyll's connection to Ravenguard seems unnecessary, though the rest of the party makes some sense, in my opinion. Gale seems weak, given his backstory, but the context of the Orb kinda justifies why he's weak. Astarion makes sense. He wasn't allowed to feed on people and used his charm rather than his blade. Shart had her memories wiped, so it makes sense. Lae'zel and Karlach, while they are my favorites, don't work too well because Lae is portrayed as a seasoned warrior, as is Karlach. Though I don't think Karlach suffers from the OC/MC syndrome. The story easily works without her, and her quest is more about accepting her death and letting go of her past. My main criticism is that the cast is too quick to sleep with you, which IS annoying. This comment is unfinished, I'm writing it in my free time, so I will add more to it later.

I know as a viewer i don't have the right to request such, but i'm a developer working on a huge unrevealed project; and you seem to have far more insight to proper game worlds and RPG's than i do; perhaps through personal experience with them that i lack, as well as the same distaste in modern RPG culture be it table or video game wise for similar reasons. I havent played any of the games mentioned or even knew about critical role prior to this video though it explains alot in hindsight.. - I'm hoping if you do not mind sharing your wisdom and insight with me if youd make a longer video or set of videos discussing proper RPGs in comparsions to modern RPGs at points of contention that caused the major shift or straying away from the older more enjoyable styles of RPG worlds and games; with a few recommendations on which games lack this modern RPG OC style of gameplay and world building. I feel there's alot more to this topic you've covered in this video that may prove invaluable to developers trying to fix RPG's themselves going forward. If you've done this already please let me know i believe the first and last video i saw from your channel was "the gaming industry - perfect storm of disappointment a video i have watched over and over through the last year xD

I've definitely got my issues with BG3 but I wouldn't say it was disappointing. It was leagues better than I was expecting and did well standing on it's own. I do wish it hadn't tried to connect to the Bhaalspawn saga as to leave the other two alone.

...Why is the video titled after Critical Role when the meat of the video is about Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age 4? It literally just seems like rage-bait/algorithm fishing, and yet you're getting annoyed by people rightfully calling you out for it. >"Listen up, Crit Role fans. This is just my opinion on something endemic in CR, and even if they're not responsible for it, I need to say my piece. Don't get offended." *doesn't talk about CR at all and then veers off into babbling about "issues" in CRPGs that have been staples for decades and are not new whatsoever* We're not just getting heckin offended or whatever, it's just justified annoyance that you're seemingly comment fishing from a fanbase that you don't actually talk about. Like if I made a video titled "THE FASCIST POLITICS OF NEW VEGAS" and then proceeded to rant about Kingdom Come: Deliverance and imply that anyone who gets annoyed is coming from a place of bad faith.

Very good video. Don't worry about the CR fanbase hating you in the comments, because you are onto something very real, that has not yet been fully grasped by the online RPG community. Keep going!

Like other commenters have said your "too much main character energy/ too important" point kinda falls apart if you look at some of the games you referenced. like to criticize BG3 for rubbing shoulders with important people then praising game like Kotor 1&2 where your characters are legit THE MAIN reason for the plot happening seems outlandish I do agree that DA:V does look DOA though but I was never one for the Dragon Age games anyway so nothing really lost there.

Dragon Age Veilguard looks soo fucking bad.

You know BG3 is written well when it's being accused of making the whole cast main characters simply for having so much attention and connections to the greater world...yet the story goes on even if they die or abandon the party.

A question: Don't all RPG games suffer from the MC syndrome? In most of the TTRPG games that I play we have people who kinda act as MCs and just force the narrative. And isn't it the purpose of character narrative-driven games to be MC, because you are literally MC? :D I don't get the critique - and I hate both BG and Critical Role (with the exception of the Exandria Unlimited - Branon games are perfect). Besides I do not want to fucking play with a generic farmer/villager cuck in the party, MC should have a quirk (its important just not over-quirk yourself like CR does)

please, someone, enlighten me.. who are the 3 characters, besides Garrus, at 5:25 ?

Launched the career of Wil Wheaton?

yeah its not RPG culture in that abstract term that is dying, its your prefered subgenre thats dying and you are mad about it. Get a grip

I think your focus is a bit misguided here. Basically every traditional CRPG and RPG pits you as the main character and a lot of the older games put you as "the chosen one"; there is no stronger MC OC power fantasy than games like BG1/BG2/Planscape/Morrowind etc. I think what we are witnessing are games companies simply being able to better target what people want out of their power fantasies nowadays, especially what will sell to the modern audience. It's strange to blame Critical Role of all people when Marvel has really been a pioneer of the de-seriousness of current pop culture media, with every modern Marvel movie being a jokefest, "he's right behind me isn't he?" etc. I guess you would have to blame the liberalisation of western culture if you hate anyone, but at that point this becomes a completely differente discussion.

I think STTNG launched the carrer of Will Wheeton

Alone the concept of NG+ not being the same playthrough, but a completely altered world, run by different factions, changing interactions & alliances completely would've been so great. I would say they should hire you for story writing, but I believe it was more the technical problems and limitations that led them to this bland version of the story. Correct me if I'm wrong, but alone the fact they completely scratched House Verun from the game, led me to believe they were planing to expand the game in such a way. Just glad to see that people like you are still able to grab the mystical sides of the game and flesh 'em out in this way. Again, I got mad respect for ya man!

Ehhh.... I don't agree at all. Especially using Pillars 2 as an example of this point feels super untrue. This video really gives the impression that it's not "main character" syndrome that you dislike, but more just romances in your video games and that's fair, but several of the games you mentioned as being issues, the romance is such a minor point that it's really hard to understand how you could have this opinion. Each to their own, love or hate what you will, but I can't say I understand or agree with it.

I get where you’re coming from. I too don’t like what they’re doing to the shambling corpse of DA or how sanitized DnD has become. However, the root cause is money. Studios discovered watering down their content for mass market appeal is far more profitable than catering to a small sect of diehard fans. This has happened time and time again through. I’m old enough to remember Endless September when AOL decided it’d be fun to dump a plague of bored teenagers on the forums. Same thing around the time of DnD 4e when everyone switched back to Pathfinder or GURPS. Each time it just stirred the pot and people settled into new spaces. We’re already seeing this latest wave ebb, the Whedon/Marvel style movies can’t turn a profit no matter how much CGI they throw at it. That being said, I think you’re off-base with BG3. It’s a fantastic technical achievement, it blows every other translation of tabletop to video game out of the water. The writing is as solid as any DnD module, and I’ve played for enough decades to know everyone is happier when you start off as the main characters.

i understand the streamer bait section but getting onto the BG3 portion and dragon age, from what i have played of BG3 i don't see what you see i thought the story was rather good except for Wyll who has no story hardly at all due to it being cut.

I've not played through the game and only know the story through videos on YT, as Todd has managed to gatekeep the game by choosing to not optimize the engine a bit more and forcing users to get SSD's even though we have to sift through loading screens anyway, but damn. Even just to 12 min of this video, the story you put out here is much more appealing than any single story in the final game. It'd be so cool to witness real changes in the world or to have an overarching enemy in the universe, factions fighting or pledging allegiance to one another. I wished they wouldn't have fucked up modding for the game as much as they did, else creative heads like yourself could've given us so much more out of this game. Mad respect that you've managed to create a story with much more on the line and more emotions, just with concept art and a nice voiceover, great video!

Idiotic rage bait, Pillars of Eternity 2 is better than any of the “old school” RPGs you idolize.

I never like in rpg stories where characters start in 1st level, and for some reason they are so important, so long history, magic goddess is your ex. And game doesn't tell where those levels went. Maybe they were drained in those pods, but game doesn't really tell. Immersion breaking for me. Also every characters want to have sex, how about friendship, oh, no they don't speak to you anymore if you tell them "no". I really try to like this game. Uh, but when you stole something and you are invisible, for some reason combat starts, and they attack your party members unless they are on other area. Where is my rogue fantasy. Whole druid camp attack thieflngs if you steal that ritual statue invisible. Same happens in many maps, you start combat with everyone, when you want just steal stuff and kill some mobs, even if no-one see you.

I don't entirely disagree with your points, but these arguments seem too weak to convince me of your main statement. It just feels like this is unintentionally hipster/nerd gatekeeping at best, or ragebait at worst. "Your OC isn't cool and you are not important. Good writing is." you can't tell me you didn't feel some teenage edge writing that? Which is just ironic.

I’ll say that the point about the Baldur’s gate 3 characters being larger than life and deal with gods at every turn is in my opinion, very much a classic dungeons and dragons thing. Not liking a grand story of the heroes fighting off a literal big bad evil guy is fine, but that doesn’t necessarily make that story bad. Time and a place for everything, if you want expansive world building, Baldur’s Gate 3 is honestly not a bad starting point for learning about Faerun and diving into other written material about it.

The BG3 main cast are not "central characters" and the story doesn't revolve around them. Literally all of them can die and the story goes on. If anything, the illithid inside the prism is the main character, since without it there's no unlikely group of adventurers to save the world. The larger plot was set in motion by the dead three and their chosen. You just happen to go from a random kidnapped victim of their plan to an unlikely hero.

This video was very well made and your points were well spoken. I do disagree with your argument though. I think there is nothing wrong with characters being important in their story. I think fiction is just leaning towards more grand plot lines nowadays. Most anime and superhero movies do the same things. If the players are going to dedicate hours weekly to my game, i personally think they should feel significant and consequential as a result. Everybody is the main character of their own story. And your players are the main characters of your story.

Some of these criticisms are so personal and don't ultimately make a point. "BG3 is bad because you don't start from nothing and you and the NPC's are too special". The RPG genre is not defined by starting from level 0, hate to be the one to tell you this. There are plenty of games that do this, but there are plenty of games that don't. It's not a hard rule. And you're really that concerned about believability in the fantasy genre? I don't think you're playing the right types of games. You tout Mass Effect 2, yet that is also a game where you as Shepard are the most important person in the galaxy lol. Fact is a lot of people (not everyone) find greater importance in being able to relate and elicit an emotional reaction to characters and their personal stories over getting invested in an intriguing plot. A lot of tv shows/anime in all genres in fact go this route, and they're received very well. If you take issue with this culture, well, that's on you. But claiming it's the "death of RPG culture" is absurdly silly. Critical Role has not lead to this shift, it's symptomatic of it. Companies have realised that people care more about characters and getting an emotional response from them over a nuanced plot, they're the ones doing this. To single out Critical Role is just really weird and doesn't make sense imo. I think you just wanted to paint them as the reason because they're a symbol of what you dislike in the genre.

Your argument falls apart pretty quickly and really just screams 'I have an axe to grind'. "Everyone has main character syndrome, you don't start out from nothing like morrowind, the entire game world depends on the character existing" (paraphrased). This whole thing shows you're just colored by opinion based on rose tinted glasses of some games you liked over some you didn't. Morrowind literally starts out with the goddess Azura telling you the world depends on you, and that the emperor himself sent you to the island on her orders in order to save the world because you're the rebirth of a demi-god. Did you forget that part? You would have been closer to say that oblivion has you start out as nothing, except even oblivion doesn't because you're the aspect of THE god in that game. You're taking a problem that does exist, which is poor game writing, and ascribing it randomly to games you don't like, while ignoring 1) the problem has existed since video games were a thing and 2) that it happened with games you do like and you're just turning a blind eye to it. I mean hell, the bad writing your talking about has existed since MUDS were a thing. All this does is scream 'young person trying to figure out a problem they just realized while doing nothing to learn from history'. Like the tictok kids that hear an old song some new artist did a cover for and claim the original singer stole it. At this point I'm just going to assume that this video was just click bait.

As someone who loves Critical Role AND BG3, I think this was a very well thought out video with some great points. The kinds of RPG's you referenced in a reverent way for their worldbuilding and character writing (being informed by the world they come from) have never really attracted me in the past and likely won't in the future. However, the core of your thesis is incredibly sound and I hope you see a return to those principles in RPG writing and development in the future.

Its possible to like an old school game like Fallout 2 and Planescape and still embrace a game like Baldurs Gate 3 for its systems and design. Alot of fans and critics miss the mark on this. Would i say that an old school CRPG has tons of detail and reactivity in its combat, nah totally not, does Baldurs Gate 3, yeh. In that sense its not really fair to compare to say Skyrim becuase BG3 brings something new to the table in that sense which is immersive sim like qualities to RPG combat. As a huge fan of the old school CRPGS i would only assume youd be over the moon with the well thought out combat and systems design within BG3 encounters. In BG1 and 2 by comparison the fights were not as sophisticated and the RTWP is often buggy. On the character writting your argument is basicaly "they are good characters but bad ones at the same time" awsome. Also discounting Deadfire becuase it uses some random people from some random show is cap aswell, i dont care if critical role is in a game bro how does that discount J Saywers orginal universe in any way. For context i am a gen z rpg fan i guess but i respectifully disagree Dead and BG3 are some of the best the genre has to offer. Acting like BG3 and Deadfire are cut from the same cloth as Veilguard, the Outer Worlds or Avowed is disingenuois at best if you actually understand the context and circumstances inwhich the former 2 games were developed. Planescape Torment was a fantastic CRPG where the characters were central to the universe and plot also, thats easily done without grasping at a nonsensicle snowflake argument. So respectfully i disagree, terrible video.

Im far from agreeing with you 100% an honestly, that's genuinely refreshing. Feels like alot of people have gotten into the habbit of saying what the audience wants to hear vs their actual opinions. Ima check out more of your videos

Man are you really mentioning kotor 1 & 2 where both mcs are literally chosen ones? Were you even around when we played those games, because the most discussed topic of the community was "Who would you bang, Visas or Brianna?"

To address the broader points, I think that the very nature of RPGs attracts people who like to design OCs and/or "escape" into a world where they can live their idealized selves. Goth and TTRPGs have always been linked (since the very beginning of the goth movement in the early 80s) because the subculture is based around living a second life. I think the idea that the spaces have been "invaded" is somewhat reductive and obscures the actual issue of commodification and fads. But I just don't like engaging in the idea that "too many new OCs" is a new thing, and there's a reason everyone who makes this argument is under 30. TTRPGs have always been full of people creating characters with overloaded traits and backstories. "Drizzt ripoff" was the 90s precursor to "Jester clone". It's not some magic new issue that was caused by Matt Mercer and Tumblr. Matt actually described his first DnD experience as a teenager being a dude using his DMPC to steal gear from Matt and enact his own cringe self-insert fantasy. Don't think I don't feel the issues with CritRole. I do. C1 was a party full of fantasy archetypes. They had sad backstories, and cliches, but they were short and only became fleshed out as the game went along, in a natural manner, that felt earned. The world came first- it was a story about the party fighting vampires, a Dragon coup, and Vecna. Cliche, yes, but charming and existing in a fully realized world that Matt cared about and invested the players in. Come C2, and suddenly EVERY PC is a hyper-overloaded OC with too many secrets and too many LOOOONG scenes probing each other for info. The world was a background, and Matt gave them a billion outs to avoid interacting with it, which they always took. It wasn't the same, and I never felt the same connection. It's an issue, but I don't think CritRole is the cause of it, just a symptom. Back to the original topic, I feel like companies like Bioware and Larian (and "alt-fantasy" as seen in CRPGs in general) has always skewed very far-left. As such, they're obviously going to keep up with the times. That's not to say I enjoy every single companion in BG3 being a pansexual tragic past OC with way too many character traits, but I feel like the cultural shift is to blame, not the idea that the space was invaded by fandom culture and tumblrites and so on and so forth. To wit, I wanna agree with you. People care too much about OCs these days, instead of an actual story that enhances the characters. But I feel like that's simply due to human nature combined with ease of access that the internet has brought to "nerd" IPs. But you adopt a tired, disinterested, and derogatory tone towards CR and CR fans right from the start, then stop talking about CR entirely and pivot to cultural issues. It comes off like the ONLY reason you chose CritRole for this was because you know it has a very defensive and outright toxic fanbase that will flip if you put "CritRole killed RPGs" in the title. It's a low-brow move, and you should let your points stand on their own instead of using the most inflammatory stance you can think of.

I loved bg3. I have over 1600 hours in it. I also loved the DA games. I am not looking forward to this one very much. The continuity bothers me the most, the Keep was an amazing idea.

Honestly, i get the negative comments, although i mostly agree with what you said. The problem is, with how you said it. Hearing you talk about tumblr culture or how that one dev described herself, just comes off as a bad mouthing, even if its intended as a good faith critique of things. Like I said, mostly agree with you here, but you should've seen these comments coming with the provocative way you wrote your script