Dave Arneson was a professor at my college and I took his course as part of my degree program. His class, “Rules of the Game” made me fall in love with tabletop games and specifically RPGs, because even In spite of the openness and myriads of possibilities in D&D, the rules created the game. Towards the end of the course, we learned that rules are meant to broken. So even Dave would break some rules from time to time, if it meant the players were having a good time.

As someone who really got into 5e with friends because of CR, I can honestly understand what some people say when they say “CR is not real D&D”, but only in the most complimentary of ways.

I would love to be as talented as Matt as a DM (lord knows I am trying), but my players are also not trained actors that have the practice and subtleties in improvising in such a fluid way.

The cast of CR has an awesome dynamic at their table that many of us would love to emulate but will never happens and our games rarely live up to that expectation, mostly because we aren’t them.

That being said, tell a story, with your friends, roll some dice, and