Themetricsystem wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
One significant complication with Critical Role is the staff.
The main players could all walk away on principle, I expect. But doing so would have severe impact on the 50-100 people who work for them (those are the numbers Ive heard cited no idea of the accuracy).
The more I learn and the more that I think about it I am beginning to come around on my impression of the non-stance that the Critical Role business entity has put out because... well, you're right Steve, they're not a group of players, and GMs, they're not just voice actors, streamers, or influencers either, they are an IMMENSE international business entity with over 100 people who rely on a steady income from the money they generate. As big as their Twitch presence is, and it is immense (they are by far the largest channel and have a REAL sweetheart deal that nobody else on the platform could ever even dream to score) the money made from their Twitch subscribers and watch time ad-revenue split isn't even the biggest part of their income, that instead comes from sponsorships, merch, in-person appearance fees and the like.
As I understand it the contracts and official sponsorships that they established with D&D Beyond were subsumed by WotC and along with it the very standard anti-defamation clauses are bound to have transferred along with it which means that in all likelihood if the main faces of CR DID speak out in any meaningful way the entire business would be in jeopardy and given the kind of absolute snakes the multinational corporate lawyers held by HASBRO/WotC are in general there is an extremely high likelihood that doing so would result in FAR more than the loss of sponsorship and potentially end up having to sign CR over to WotC/HASBRO or otherwise permanently shutter the doors on the company. That would result in the loss of tens of millions of dollars, merch lines, their stream, their studio, and also most likely require the business and anyone who personally spoke out to pay hefty fines due to...
So I have quite a unique position on this entire situation. I am a fan of Critical Role and a third-party designer of custom homebrew content. I am also the Chief Operations and Creative Officer of an independent game development studio with a working tabletop department.
I have been spending the last few days gathering my thoughts on this entire scenario, but I will keep those for somewhere else as this thread is strictly about CR's role with the system it uses.
You hit the nail right on the head: they do have contractual obligations to WotC that they simply cannot walk away from.
They do have more than 100 employees working for them that produce additional content, merch, marketing, and provide these jobs largely on the premise of their contract with WotC.
It is much more likely that CR will choose to finish up their obligatory contracts and then slowly begin to move everything from WotC internally.
As for what systems they will use, it is much more likely that they will create their own RPG system, loosely based on PF2E and D&D5E. Mercer and Co have talked about this for years and while nothing is official, I know that everyone at CR cares more about their employees and community.
So until we hear officially from CR in any capacity... beyond a few twitter posts and such, we should just expect D&D5E for at least another year.
Quick EDIT: After some thoughts, in relation to other APs and similar streamed content: as far as I am aware, only CR is contractually obligated to WotC directly. Almost everyone else is system-agnostic or has no direct correlation to WotC other than just simply loving D&D5E. Content creators should be VERY careful right now until more is revealed by WotC and this is especially applicable to AP content creators.
