Six stars isn't a bad review, it's actually a raving positive review because most D&D streams are 2 star at the best.
Yes Matt Mercer is an awesome DM, though egregiously gentle. Six plus years of this show and 0 tpks and only one DM PC kill? Not realistic.
Yes it sucks that most new DMs now try to be Matt Mercer clones not realizing this guy has decades of practice. But hey, there are NEW DMs now because of him. So good on him for that.
The show is very entertaining. The most watchable D&D show being streamed. Is it 'scripted'? Yes, mostly. The outcomes are predetermined (they have let that slip numerous times). They have to be given the guests who show up and how many things end on point to make the next plot narrative thread work. But that's okay because if you watch the online play streams, not scripting the narrative arc can really bog down a stream as a DM tries to cover for the fact that he wasn't expecting the party to go all murder hobo and set themselves up as feudal lords of the gnomish fishing village they were only supposed to spend a day in. Fun for players, but boring to watch. That said I do think the moment by moment interactions are improvised.
Yes, some of the players are long winded emo edgelords. If you don't like those scenes skip the 20 minute angst-fests and fast forward back to the narrative, you aren't missing anything. If you like emo edgelord roleplay, then enjoy.
Yes there is a ton of virtue signaling (but seriously, not as much at the game producer, WotC, does) and yes one of the characters spews their RL political views through their character enough to catch a lot of nerdrage. So what? In the six years of the show that character's annoyingly uneducated (they obviously don't realize one of the parent companies they shill for got busted using slave labor in China) political rants make up about ten minutes.
Yes the shows fans are legendarily thin skinned and have toxic reactions to any criticism of the show or characters. Look at all the downvotes for anything that isn't a 10 star review here. But unless you leave a comment that isn't absolutely glowing in a forum/youtube comments section about the show you can easily avoid the "leave Britney alone" types that make up a majority of the show's fan base.
Final conclusion. Worth watching if you are curious about D&D or want to a D&D fix between your own sessions, just avoid interacting with their fans. Not worth watching if you are wanting to know the hard mechanics of how a D&D session actually work or want instruction on being a DM. Matt Mercer and other, even better, DMs have a bunch of separate series of DM'ing tips on Youtube for that.
Yes Matt Mercer is an awesome DM, though egregiously gentle. Six plus years of this show and 0 tpks and only one DM PC kill? Not realistic.
Yes it sucks that most new DMs now try to be Matt Mercer clones not realizing this guy has decades of practice. But hey, there are NEW DMs now because of him. So good on him for that.
The show is very entertaining. The most watchable D&D show being streamed. Is it 'scripted'? Yes, mostly. The outcomes are predetermined (they have let that slip numerous times). They have to be given the guests who show up and how many things end on point to make the next plot narrative thread work. But that's okay because if you watch the online play streams, not scripting the narrative arc can really bog down a stream as a DM tries to cover for the fact that he wasn't expecting the party to go all murder hobo and set themselves up as feudal lords of the gnomish fishing village they were only supposed to spend a day in. Fun for players, but boring to watch. That said I do think the moment by moment interactions are improvised.
Yes, some of the players are long winded emo edgelords. If you don't like those scenes skip the 20 minute angst-fests and fast forward back to the narrative, you aren't missing anything. If you like emo edgelord roleplay, then enjoy.
Yes there is a ton of virtue signaling (but seriously, not as much at the game producer, WotC, does) and yes one of the characters spews their RL political views through their character enough to catch a lot of nerdrage. So what? In the six years of the show that character's annoyingly uneducated (they obviously don't realize one of the parent companies they shill for got busted using slave labor in China) political rants make up about ten minutes.
Yes the shows fans are legendarily thin skinned and have toxic reactions to any criticism of the show or characters. Look at all the downvotes for anything that isn't a 10 star review here. But unless you leave a comment that isn't absolutely glowing in a forum/youtube comments section about the show you can easily avoid the "leave Britney alone" types that make up a majority of the show's fan base.
Final conclusion. Worth watching if you are curious about D&D or want to a D&D fix between your own sessions, just avoid interacting with their fans. Not worth watching if you are wanting to know the hard mechanics of how a D&D session actually work or want instruction on being a DM. Matt Mercer and other, even better, DMs have a bunch of separate series of DM'ing tips on Youtube for that.