that im gladly doing dont get me wrong

good-experience:

cgkpluie:

A thought hit me late last night that The Adventure Zone and Critical Role make for really good examples of linear vs. open stories in dnd. Both are really well crafted shows that handle their stories insanely well, but are both structured pretty differently.

Matt Mercer generally lets his players find the story that they want to follow, and then continues to build for that story hook while still weaving an overall arc to make sure all of their free-range shenanigans make sense in the world. He still has tricks up his sleeves and can push them in the general direction, but he tends to work more around what his players do.

Griffin on the other hand knows what he wants to be happening for any given arc and puts the players into a new piece of the continuing story that they then have to figure out how to deal with. He paces out the story beats roughly how he wants to, then lets the players come into his playground and just lets them go.

it’s pretty interesting, but also a cool difference and good reference to note for new dms who are unsure what kind of story they’ll want to work with!

it’s also worth remembering that critical role is an “actual play” show, while TAZ is edited. That makes a HUGE difference with pacing and tone.