Critical Role Announces Age of Umbra Daggerheart Campaign, Starting May 29th

An 8-part Daggerheart miniseries is coming from Critical Role. Announced today, Age of Umbra is a new Actual Play series featuring Matthew Mercer as game master and co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham as players. The new miniseries will take up the bulk of the summer months, providing more of a break to the core cast ahead of an assumed fourth full-length D&D campaign.

Daggerheart is a new TTRPG developed by Critical Role's Darrington Press. Although the base game is intended to be a high fantasy RPG, the game includes several "campaign frames" that add additional rules for specific types of stories. Age of Umbra was developed by Mercer and draws inspiration from games like Dark Souls, Tainted Grail, and Kingdom Death: Monster.

The miniseries will air on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube, with episodes airing every Thursday. The first episode debuts on May 29th, with Session 0 airing on various Critical Role platforms on May 22nd.

The full description of the series can be found below:

Age of Umbra

is an eight-part Daggerheart mini-series from Critical Role of dark, survival fantasy, debuting May 29 on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube. Set in the Halcyon Domain, a world abandoned by gods and consumed by darkness, the series begins by following five people from the isolated community of Desperloch as they fight to protect their own in the face of rising horrors.

The Halcyon Domain is a lethal, foreboding land where the souls of the dead are cursed to return as twisted, nightmarish forms. A dark, ethereal mass known as the Umbra roams and holds these fiendish monstrosities, further corrupting anything it touches. Sacred Pyres keep the corruption at bay, and small communities endure through cooperation. Out in the beyond, whispers speak of ancient secrets and powers, wonders of a lost age, ready for discovery to those brave enough (or foolish enough) to seek them.

Game Master Matthew Mercer leads fellow Critical Role co-founders Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham in a high-stakes actual play exploring hope, sacrifice, and survival in a world where death is only the beginning.

 

[Reynard]

That is a potential contributing factor for why the miniseries don't hit the same numbers as the campaign, but doesn't explain ExU dominating the other miniseries, since it also has partial main cast.

I don't think anyone is disputing that the D&D stuff gets more viewers. We are disputing the idea that D&D makes better "story" than other games.

 

[Reynard]

You think the Baldur's Gate moniker was a larger draw than the D&D IP? No. The previous instalment was 23 years ago, and 5e was already massive when BG3 went into development.

And BG was still the bigger IP.

 

[nyvinter]

ExU is tied into the main campaigns in a way and come with their own fans of the guest DM.

Had it just been the system, then the oneshots and sponsored contents should have had a lot more viewers. I think the main things is the length and the cast but for quite a few then sure, 5e is also the main thing — quite a lot of the CR reddit are in the will not watch DH camp — it's complex and there are several different block of audiences with their own reasons.

 

[OB1]

What I am curious about is why you think this is true.

I think that D&D is created with the purpose in mind to be a fantasy story generator and that the combination of lore and rules refinement over the last 50 years has made it very good at doing exactly that. It's designed to enhance the storytelling abilities of those playing it. The better those natural abilities going into the game, the better the final product coming out. I think that's the real secret of the play testing they do. The metric is, does this rule lead to people having better stories to tell about their game session. Does it make for a more exciting session. A more memorable session.

And the game seems to have the right balance of structure and freedom. The structure (lore and rules) provides both the bones of conflict as well as inspiration for action. And it's all been tested and refined over decades, much in the same way comic book characters are before they make it to the big screen. Part of comic book movie success is the fans going to see it, but part of it is the characters and lore have already stood the test of time and gone through countless iteration before hitting the big screen so that the writers and directors know what kind of story works best with the character. But along the way, how many characters were let to disappear because they didn't resonate? The same is true with the rules and lore of D&D. But it takes constant work. Constant creative effort to reap those gains. If you sit on your hands, your whole product slides away into obscurity. But the amount of freedom the rules give you, like @Whizbang Dustyboots noted about BLeeM's observation with D&D is equally important and once again arrived at through years of steady refinement by the game system and the players.

So yes, D&D has a huge advantage because they've worked for 50 years to create it. CR has been around for 10, and if they play their cards right, could start building up their own set of lore and rules to create a system that will enhance other's abilities to tell stories in the same way.

 

[JConstantine]

ExU is tied into the main campaigns in a way and come with their own fans of the guest DM.

Had it just been the system, then the oneshots and sponsored contents should have had a lot more viewers. I think the main things is the length and the cast but for quite a few then sure, 5e is also the main thing — quite a lot of the CR reddit are in the will not watch DH camp — it's complex and there are several different block of audiences with their own reasons.

Yeah, I noted that. Main campaign, cast, setting and system are all contributing factors. My musing on hypothetical miniseries was to acquire data on which is/are the more significant.

 

[Reynard]

I think that D&D is created with the purpose in mind to be a fantasy story generator and that the combination of lore and rules refinement over the last 50 years has made it very good at doing exactly that.

In my opinion and experience, that just isn't true. Even Mercer acknowledges he sometimes has to fight the system to tell a story.

 

[OB1]

In my opinion and experience, that just isn't true. Even Mercer acknowledges he sometimes has to fight the system to tell a story.

Friction from restraints isn’t necessarily a detriment to the creative process and can in fact lead to better results.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe, but isn't it also possible that D&D enhances the abilities of storytellers in a way that results in a better end product than when they use other TTRPG systems?

I mean, it's possible I'm a little green man typing via hyperspace comms from three galaxies away, but it's not terribly likely.

For this claim to be taken seriously, you'd need two things:

1) A proposed mechanism of action - i.e. how it "enhances the abilities of storytellers".

2) A least minimal evidence of that mechanism of action being in place and having an impact.

And frankly, I'm not seeing either. So you're essentially saying, if you'll forgive me "Isn't it possible that D&D is magical and special and better in an entirely undefined and perhaps undefinable way!"? Which, like, that's bit My Little Pony for my liking.

That's Brennan Lee Mulligan's argument. He likes there being so few rules for the roleplaying aspects of D&D, so that his players feel free to go wild there without worrying about that conflicting with their character sheet. (This is, in a weird way, similar to why Mothership has no sneak rules.)

That argument immediately fails for the very simple reason that there are many games with as few rules for the RP aspects, and yet none of them are popular either, so we can safely dismiss that as any kind of possible mechanism of action.

Also my opinion of Brennan Lee Mulligan's critical thinking skills just very steeply dropped lol, if he was serious in saying that, because it's trivial to see how many other games have the same deal going on. Indeed, were his logic sound, older editions of D&D would be more popular than 5E, which has considerably more and more together social/RP rules. The top podcast would be doing 1E or OD&D or something.

 

[Reynard]

I caught the first 45 minutes or so of the Age of Umbra Session 0 last night, but then had to go to bed. I was going to watch the rest while I worked this morning but alas you must sub. I think I may anyway since there's no way i will be able to watch the full sessions live.

Anyway, one thing liked about what i saw is that Mercer showed how one could bend the core DH elements to fit his setting. I think that is important. It is good if everyone who picks up DH realizes they are free to change whatever they want to fit their campaign frame. And it was nicely collaborative with the players.

Also, it was nice to see that despite a grimdark world, the [redacted] jokes still flew fast and free.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I caught the first 45 minutes or so of the Age of Umbra Session 0 last night, but then had to go to bed. I was going to watch the rest while I worked this morning but alas you must sub. I think I may anyway since there's no way i will be able to watch the full sessions live.

Anyway, one thing liked about what i saw is that Mercer showed how one could bend the core DH elements to fit his setting. I think that is important. It is good if everyone who picks up DH realizes they are free to change whatever they want to fit their campaign frame. And it was nicely collaborative with the players.

Also, it was nice to see that despite a grimdark world, the [redacted] jokes still flew fast and free.

I should definitely watch that to see how they actually handle session zero there.