Okay.
Yeah.
I know, I know.
I get it.
Totally understand.
Indecision is the death of us all.
But hear me out.
So I am super gung-ho to get the Exandria nautical campaign going. Like, I love sea-games and the idea of sailing into adventure & exploration really makes me kind of giddy (despite my real-life distaste for the ocean). Swashbuckling games like Sea of Thieves or Assassin's Creed IV mixed with orc and elves and shit? Sign me up.
And Exandria is a fantastic setting! The continents/nations as written in Tal'dorei Reborn, Explorers Guide to Wildemount, and Call of the Netherdeep are just top notch. I dig the lore and history, The Legend of Vox Machina is super good, and there's enough stuff out there to get a good feel for how the world works.
...unfortunately, that's also sort of a problem for me. TLoVM is great, so I started to listen to Campaign One on Spotify. And it was super cool to hear all these "pros" that went from Pathfinder to 5e learn the rules & to hear how Mercer's DM style works. And my goal was to binge Critical Role to get more exposure beyond the sourcebooks as I'm not a Critter in general and only know the major beats of the campaigns. Given my... distaste... for Campaign Two (and Jester in particular, sorry), I added watching Campaign Three on YT to the listening of Campaign One and as I'm watching it... I realized I don't actually enjoy Critical Role that much.
HOLD UP BEFORE YOU COME AT ME WITH PITCHFORKS.
The cast is great, Matt is great, the stories are great, I just suck at enjoying watching other people play a game, for one, and for two... I started thinking about the -entire- CR arc, not just the individual campaigns. And it made me think of when I first started gaming back in the 90s.
This is an aside, but it's relevant. HeroQuest was my original entry point into the nerdy gaming lifestyle but Magic the Gathering was definitely me jumping in face first. And because the internet wasn't a really big thing then (Win95 was still fairly new even), if we wanted to know about new sets and card value and stuff like that, we had to buy InQuest (later InQuest Gamer) magazines. I think it was made by the same company that did the Wizard magazines for comic book collectors. Anyway, I mostly got it because of Magic obv, and BattleTech which I was just starting to get into as a game (it had a section on new game releases and would talk about the sourcebooks, also the short-lived CCG which was awesome) but it also had a ton of articles about roleplaying games. In the late 90s, I got into Legend of the Five Rings (also because IQ) and went heavy into their RPG so I'd read these articles that were mostly fantasy oriented and try to apply them, like "Don't Fear the Reaper" on killing PCs as a GM and whatnot.
And an article is where this is heading. I read about how your player characters are the most important people in the story, but not necessarily the most important people in the world/universe. Over a series of articles, Star Wars was mentioned frequently. I guess because it's relatable? Luke, Han, and Leia are important for all of the plot purposes in the original trilogy, but in the grand scheme of things, Leia is the only one of the trio that is an important figure in the Rebellion. Sure, Luke is eventually revealed to -be- more important than at first glance as a Jedi, but overall, Luke is a level one player on a desert world in the ass-end of no where until the droids end up in his lap. Han is entirely replaceable by any other smuggler in the entire galaxy. But by the end of the campaign, these three & their supporting cast, have saved the whole entire universe (for now) from the evil Empire.
They blew up the Death Star. Not once, but twice. Woohoo.
Now, how much fun will it be when your characters blow up the Death Star the third time?
Episode VII and the "super weapon" thing aside (which, that's a whole 'nother discussion), it wouldn't really be much fun, make much narrative sense, or be a great way to end a campaign. Further, if you were to ignore the canon setting and have your PCs take down the original Death Star, it's again, less fun 'cause you know Han, Leia, and Luke done already did it.
That's where I'm at with an Exandria campaign. Based solely on Tal'dorei Reborn and Wildemount, we can probably ignore Campaign Two and Three entirely and find some other directions to go in. Could probably Downplay the Vox Machina accomplishments or move another decade or two up in the timeline so that it's more in the past than the sourcebook sets it. But, at the same time, delving into campaign recaps and knowing what is happening in Campaign Three right now, it just feels like literally any game in Exandria is going to be a retread of what Matt & crew are doing or have done. I'm struggling to find an angle or a way to visit established places/unlock certain lore that isn't just an internet search away, to say nothing of people that actually dedicate themselves to watching live. The Vestiges are awesome and fighting against dragons, a lich demigod, uncovering a plot of war, knowing what's going on with the red moon? All awesome. But have been done. Or are being done. I imgine Campaign Three will see the Gods being wiped out so the CR team can move Campaign Four into their own system and not 5e.
I can write original stories. And even if I'm adapting something else, like using Saltmarsh as our starting base of operations (whether I use anything else from the module or not), I still feel... I dunno. Like maybe any story I can write on a Critical Role world, has already been done or overshadowed by actual Critical Role.
Note that I also had a subplot set for my last campaign involving some Mindflayers that really would have seemed like some Campaign One stuff now that I've actually listened to Campaign One so maybe it's just an overlap or parallel thought process...
Which leads me to think I can still do the same type of campaign I want to do (and hopefully that players wanna play in) by switching the setting over to Midgard instead of Exandria. In that case, as well, I have some other swashbuckling ideas that'd fit -really- spot on to the setting. But, and maybe it's just me, I've also really wanted to get into Exandria since I started reading a pdf of the old Tal'dorei sourcebook so...
Midgard offers most of the same perks, a suite of other PC ancestries to explore, and a LOT more support via being the flagship setting of Kobold Press so I very well might just shift gears a bit here. Plus, the Artisan Guild miniatures that I'm currently printing have an aesthetic feel that might actually work well here. Aaaaaaaand maybe I can place Ixalan....
