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

I'm looking forward to this new mini-series.

I was an "N" away from being concerned

8 parts is fine and they haven't yet announced what system they're using for their Next Big Thing but I'm a bit surprised if that's the showcase campaign for their heavily promoted Daggerheart system. Maybe they want to see the viewership numbers (and sales numbers) if they step away from 5e for a fantasy campaign first before they commit to Daggerheart for something long-form.

It vaguely feels like a vote of low-confidence in their own new rpg.

Elvish Lore said:

It vaguely feels like a vote of low-confidence in their own new rpg.

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I don't think the only choices are "all-in on Daggerheart" or "feed it to the landfill."

No one -- even them -- knows how important D&D is to their existing audience. This is a good way to test that question. If the numbers are comparable to other mini-series they've done, that might inform what system Campaign 4 uses.

But even if the numbers aren't great, that doesn't mean that they'll be dropping Daggerheart; it might just mean more effort spent on marketing before they use it for a full-length campaign, including running more mini-series and maybe getting more actual play groups to try it out.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

I don't think the only choices are "all-in on Daggerheart" or "feed it to the landfill."

No one -- even them -- knows how important D&D is to their existing audience. This is a good way to test that question. If the numbers are comparable to other mini-series they've done, that might inform what system Campaign 4 uses.

But even if the numbers aren't great, that doesn't mean that they'll be dropping Daggerheart; it might just mean more effort spent on marketing before they use it for a full-length campaign, including running more mini-series and maybe getting more actual play groups to try it out.

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I think it is interesting that they are starting with the dark fantasy game, given DH's more heroic default. I'm excited, though, both to see how the group does with something darker and how Daggerheart plays for them.

Elvish Lore said:

Maybe they want to see the viewership numbers (and sales numbers) if they step away from 5e for a fantasy campaign first before they commit to Daggerheart for something long-form.

Click to expand...

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

No one -- even them -- knows how important D&D is to their existing audience. This is a good way to test that question. If the numbers are comparable to other mini-series they've done, that might inform what system Campaign 4 uses.

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They ended campaign 3 back in... February, right?

So, they aren't even set on system for the next thing yet, and will probably not be doing much development on it until the end of the summer, after they have numbers for this?

That's going to end in a gap between campaigns a lot longer than their usual four months or so.

They don’t want to hurt their own game as it comes out. It would be bad marketing to announce a D&D campaign at this time. They have to juggle being a publisher and a D&D channel at the same time. I’m convinced the décision is already taken and the D&D team is currently creating the next campaign for the Fall.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

I don't think the only choices are "all-in on Daggerheart" or "feed it to the landfill."

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Yeah, exactly so. There's a vast excluded middle between those.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

No one -- even them -- knows how important D&D is to their existing audience. This is a good way to test that question. If the numbers are comparable to other mini-series they've done, that might inform what system Campaign 4 uses.

Click to expand...

The arguments typically go something like: only the main show (running D&D) draws in the big numbers and the one-shots or mini-campaigns (that use any other system) draw in much lower numbers, therefore they should stick with D&D for the main show. That misses three big issues. First, none of the one-shots or mini-campaigns feature the entire main cast, and; second, by definition, those one-shots and mini-campaigns aren't part of the major ongoing story so there's less draw, and; third, even CR's worst performing one-shot pulls numbers the closest competition (besides Dimension 20) would be over-the-moon excited about pulling in.

To me, the full main cast engaged in a long-term, on-going campaign is the two main draws. I don't care what system they play. The real question is can they pull enough numbers to keep their media empire going if they switch full-time to Daggerheart.

This will be a test of the numbers, but I think it's setup to fail. Looking around at the world, this is not when I want to watch an utterly bleak, grimdark nasty fantasy game. I have zero interest in it normally, but especially now it's a hard pass. I want to support them, but I'm not watching grimdark.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

But even if the numbers aren't great, that doesn't mean that they'll be dropping Daggerheart; it might just mean more effort spent on marketing before they use it for a full-length campaign, including running more mini-series and maybe getting more actual play groups to try it out.

Click to expand...

Yeah. I'm not sure what the numbers on Candela Obscura are, the game sales not the live play views, but they seem to have simply dropped it like a rock. I really hope they don't base their support for Daggerheart on the numbers from this mini-series. Again, that seems like setting it up to fail.

Have all of the frameworks included in Daggerheart been revealed? I'm on the fence about the system, but intrigued.