Here's my unpopular opinion surrounding Critical Role and The Mercer Effect
I’ve seen a lot of talk recently about the so-called ‘Mercer Effect’ when it comes to the average, home D&D game, and as a huge fan of Critical Role, I thought I’d take today to say a little bit about my experience with it.
For those who don’t know, Critical Role is an online stream where, every week, 8 voice actors sit down and play Dungeons & Dragons. It’s really good. Over the years, we’ve watched the production team grow, the set become more professional, and the actors we know and love really come into their own with their collaborative storytelling.
Unfortunately, for some people whose only experience of D&D is watching the show, their first time as a real-life player (or DM) often falls a bit flat. This is allegedly due to what the internet has called ‘The Mercer Effect’.
Now, while this admittedly makes logical sense to me, I’m still someone who really doesn’t believe that there’s much merit to this effect at all. It seems incredibly odd to me that people are willing to blame the adored show for being, what is essentially, too good. I mean, we don’t watch professional football and then go play a game ourselves just to be disappointed that it’s not the same as on TV, do we?
I’ve played games where the session definitely fell flat in some way, but I’m not sure there’s any ‘effect’ to blame for it.
I’ve played with a DM who was far too theatrical so that rules fell by the wayside if it didn’t fit with their idea; I’ve played a game where flavour for the fun of it was just not acceptable so play was too rigid; and I’ve played a game where no one engaged in RP at all so we just went from battle to battle with little in between.
These styles of play all work for some and not for others, which is why I honestly think it just comes to finding a group of people who have the same play style as you.
While we can all agree that Critical Role seems like the pinnacle of D&D, it's important to remember that at its heart, it is just a show. It’s made to entertain. Games take on a whole different dynamic when they’re purely just for the players.
Let me know in the comments what you think! Agree with me? What are your D&D horror stories?