Dungeons & Dragons Across Mediums

To jump off one point made in this video; my games are almost always hexcrawls first and foremost. I run open world games where there is actually a lot of story and prep I put in, but its interspersed with a ton of exploration and emergent story which comes from whatever the players wanna get up to. I plan an adventure with several key places of interest where major story beats happen, but also my players run into some random bandits on the road and decide its their mission to track the bandits down to their lair and wipe them out, and now the bandit leader who got away is a major character who the players are just as invested in taking down as the bbeg. As long as your hexcrawl mechanics are simple (I have three phases of the day; morning, afternoon, and night, and it takes one phase to travel one hex or players can make a con save to avoid exhaustion to travel two hexes, I don't track rations and have very simple rules around travelling more than three phases without having a rest) and you prep random encounters beforehand so they feel a little less random and more like part of the world, playing games this way really brings the exploration of play back into its place as one of the three core pillars without making it that much more complicated or difficult to run.

Where the hell is a movie 7 bucks? It's no less than 15 bucks where I live.

HOMESTUCK JUMPSCARE

Raise your hand if the "6 to medium to hard encounters per adventuring day" from the 2014 DMG has ever happened to you.

The best version of d&d is Dragon Quest imo and the franchise that followed

Ethan talked plenty in Re7 what are you on about

I love seeing someone with your writing ability talk about the importance of medium and then do this fantastic cross analysis of a similar piece of entertainment through different mediums. And I'd be excited to watch your take on more rpg systems, as the exercise is pretty similar: they are a change of the entire framework of the piece of media itself.

I watched this whole video but I'm still not sure what a CRPG is

Thank you for this video, this is gonna go into my bachelor's thesis

There is precisely 0 wrong with inherently evil sentient monsters. What is wrong with creatures having a good or evil nature?

ADAM MILARD GANG

Read the Sugar Book by Dr. Eric Berg.

Big Sugar has absolutely been spreading misinformation for decades. They knew that sugar negativelt affected heart health and weight. And purposfully made fat the diet enemy. Any food advertising fat free is a result of this.

They used the same tactics and literally the same law firms as big tobacco to mislead medical professionals, flood scientific dstabases with multiple 'inconclusive' results so 3rd parties would think science is 50/50 on the subject.

I won't compare bg3 to other rpgs, but I sure as hell will compare Larian to other studious. Going from the release of bg3, Larian's openness, excitement and willingness to engage with the community, to Bethesda's handling of Starfield's release in the space of a month was like getting hit in the face with a bucket full of cold water. I genuinely can't stand Todd Howard and his usual routine of dodging critisism and lying outright anymore.

i can’t imagine what was left on the cutting room floor for this video, it just talks about everything. love this vid

surprised you didn't mention vox Machina

I think it’s such a cop out to be like “we can’t expect video game studios to make games as good as baldur’s gate.” No we can. And we should. It is not “wrong” to expect the absolute best possible product from game developers.

Great video man! I will say though that it's important to know that the combat in 5e is very clunky compared to Baldur's gate 3, and that it's much more akin to pathfinder 2e :)

a VR ttrpg as in there is a gm and they make the game its just all in VR would be awsome

My biggest problem with characters in BG3 is how they interact with you, mostly just the affection system. I have to actively fight them to off they get so horny so fast.

Thank you for using Ender's Game as an example during your talk about adaptations, I absolutely hate the movie with a burning passion simply for badly thwy disrespected the book!

My favorite ttrpgs are the ffg wh40k games, mostly cause warhammer but also their brutally funny

i like how you used Pillars of Eternity music while talking about books , that games was a colourful interactional book

I like how intrigue is "intreej"

Fucking killer video

Awesome video man, you made an 1 hour video essay seem lile 10 minutes. Love it, keep up the good work

The comment about the romance is both true and false. While yes they are fast in starting (mainly to allow the set up of later scenes), I would say their pay offs are overall well written especially for characters like astarion and laz'el who very much change and become so increadibly different from how they started out. (well depending on how you interact witb them (cough cough AA cough cough) ) From the video it seems you hadn't yet finished the game so maybe you haven't experienced a full romance path of one of the characters but I would say I've never felt such strong emotions towards a cast of romancable companions.

I might not be able to compare BG3, maybe not to their Divinity, but I am happier to wait more years for a game to be better baked than the usual mentality running amok with famous studios. And Larian dosen't publish new games often and clearly they take proper pride in each new title they push. You cannot say the same with others basically doing tax writeoffs with theirs.
And I think that mentality is something I miss dearly. This is why my allegiance nowadays is with only indie titles and older games. I genuinely didn't touch a game made in the same year I was playing besides BG3 and now Palworld. That's it. All others in my Steam library I look sorta surprised they got made in 2015.

I loved this video, super interesting! I do wanna gently push back on the “stop trying to make DnD into other things” argument though.

I don’t disagree that other games do a loooot of things better. The point isn’t that you’ll get a lesser experience though. It’s that many players start breaking into making their own adventures as a DM, which becomes how many DMs start designing their own mechanics, and eventually how many people decide to make their own tabletop game! I mean hey we both love MCDM, and how do you think they got here? :)

Looking forward to binging your videos now, keep it up!

i finally finished bg3 so i could finally watch this video. it was worth the wait, what a banger

Jj abrum book sounds interesting and reminded me of undertale who story would not work anywhere else because the game mechanics are apart of the story

I love baldurs gate and I love that the characters are deep and serious their stories are a big comfort especially Astarion's (also I have almost 300 hours on it and am in my second playthrough lol)

I realyyy liked honor among thieves because like you said it's very silly the way actual dnd games are that made for a really enjoyable movie cause it's like dnd but you also get the cool visuals you can only make up in your head at the table

I have not played dnd for very long but I DMed a prewritten oneshot (pointyhats feywild adventure I recommend it) and it was very fun though dming was harder than i expected it to be

I dont have much to add I just really like all of these

I'd like to get into vampire the masquerade and perhaps the werewolf version too I've also written up multiple pcs I'd like to play someday lol

S: isn't that just JJ Abrams' version of House of Leaves? I feel like that's a more compelling example of a book as a primarily physical artifact, immune to adaptation by its very structure.

Next time someone tries to convince you to watch One Piece, remember: It could be WAY WORSE.

What bogs me the most about the whole "praise" of Baldur's Gate 3 and how similar It is to a table-top role-playing game experience is that the majority of the dicussion revolves around it's D&D tie in. Completely ignoring even the existence of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and all other two decades of game development of games NOT tied to D&D that have took those steps further in therms of making you feel like your decision matter, you can interact with the world freely and there are lots of non-orthodox ways to progress in the game.
When D&D fans discuss Baldur's Gate 3. They discuss in a vacuum where Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas don't exist; The Witcher 3 doesn't exist, DISCO ELSIUM: the game that 2 years ago was praised as the game that better encapsulates the TTRPG experience doesn't exist. Even Larian Studios previous games, which the most remarkable diference from Baldur's Gate 3 is that the camera doesn't get as close to characters face when they talk (like in the Witcher 3, best conversarion system in an RPG so far) and all other systems were there already.

You know what? Thinking about it, Dark Urge and it's "custom character, but with story created for them to walk down" are basically the same thing that Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous does with its Knight Commander main character, with many different roads to walk down (some more fleshed out then others).

Hot take: a world where alignment exists and creature are naturally evil or good are cool as hell. Specially when both can take unexpected turns (like Angels destroying evildoers before a chance of redemption comes)

What you described as the GMs buy-in is something that's adressed by pretty much every other new TRPG. Being the GM shouldn't be like being the engine for BG3. You are there to guide and mediate. The great thing is, that the world can and shouldd be flexible to what your players need. A videogame will never have that flexibility but a GM can throw out their selfmade dungeon (or module) and react to what the player's want. I seriously hate how D&D acts like you have to be BG3 or Mathew Mercer of CR. In my experience, it is way more fun asking a lot of questions as a GM, instead of having an answer for everything. Try out or at least read games like Blades in the Dark or The Wildsea and you'll see what I mean.

I could never get into these unfortunately.

your CR comparison just made me consider getting back into one piece, it was daunting at first but I've watched (and rewatched) all CR campaigns, whelp
wild how the difference in medium can make things seem longer or shorter in comparison, i always think about how there's many fanfics that are longer than the bible that people read in a handful of days

Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for explaining the pop, and that there's a description on the screen. That sounds weird but honestly it's super thoughtful for people like who get up and multitask while listening to what you're saying. Now, I can hear a pop, then run over to the computer and check for the description.

Also also, I've enjoyed dnd the ttrpg the most when coming in. I've watched the movie, and x.x have not really gotten into the game yet because my computer would explode. Interested to hear comparisons from the outside looking in on the fresh new blood the vid game has created.

Edit: I'm gonna have to politely disagree that many table tops fights have a certain lack of tactics and 'people just do their own thing'. Sir.... There are entire classes built on buffing, healing and positioning players/enemies around the arena. I've been in fights where if we as players didn't fight with tactics in mind, we would be tpk'd.
Even better, I've been in a group where except for myself and one other, everyone was noobs, and we struggled with tactics. People almost got killed. Then as time went on everyone got better.... It's so cool to see a party not even level up but be more effective combatants as people get used to the system, and start using all their abilities/items they previously forgot. Better yet if we're able connect these bits of natural growth to the character themselves. (wow sorry that went long)

As soon as you said the word "webcomic" I felt that foul beast creeping up my spine. How dare you summon that thing. You know I can't fight it.