Brennan Lee Mulligan to GM Critical Role Campaign 4

Critical Role's fourth campaign will launch on October 2nd, with Brennan Lee Mulligan behind the GM Screen. Critical Role announced that Mulligan, best known as the DM for Dropout's Dimension 20, will be the Game Master for the entirety of Campaign 4. The announcement was made this evening ahead of tonight's live show in Indianapolis, with Mulligan running a campaign in a brand new world assumably created just for the show. Critical Role stated that more cast announcements and other details about the campaign, such as what game system it will use, will be revealed in the coming months.

Mulligan has worked with Critical Role in the past, with both of his Exandria Unlimited miniseries having received high praise from fans. The news is also a major shakeup as this will be the first time that a full-length Critical Role campaign has not featured Matt Mercer or the world of Exandria. Both Mercer and Exandria are "taking a break" according to a press release, although Mercer is working on a second Age of Umbra miniseries that will assumably be released sometime in 2026.

 

[bedir than]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here or how it relates to your claim that Darrington Press are competing with themselves beyond trying to move the goalposts.

The claim made is that they'd never play D&D in campaign 4 because it would be competing with themselves and showing a lack of confidence in their own game.
The reality is they already are playing D&D during their Daggerheart era. It's rather obvious that they love Daggerheart, as they are playing Daggerheart, talking about Daggerheart and selling Daggerheart. At the same time they clearly love D&D as they are playing it, talking about it and still are selling their modules for it.

They are a media company that operates several channels. They aren't a single game/channel organization and haven't been for many years.

 

[Stalker0]

They also still play D&D, in multiple shows. In fact their current longest active show is D&D.
Does playing two D&D shows and only one Daggerheart show prove that Critical Role isn't supporting their own game?

Or more likely it means that they're play multiple systems, as they've always done?

Daggerheart hasn't actually been officially released until pretty recently. Sure the early access version has been out for a while but its not the same thing.

So of course I would expect most of their ongoing shows to be still running dnd, they aren't going to switch systems in the middle of a campaign.

But would I expect as campaigns end and new ones begin that they would use their system instead of dnd....yes I would. Else....what is the point of daggerheart? If its not offering a better experience for the critical role team themselves, why would they ever expect regular people to use it over dnd?

There is a reason that when you become a spokesmodel for a brand that you are expected to use that brand. If you do apple phone commercials you better not be caught dead with a Samsung for example.

 

[bedir than]

But would I expect as campaigns end and new ones begin that they would use their system instead of dnd....yes I would. Else....what is the point of daggerheart? If its not offering a better experience for the critical role team themselves, why would they ever expect regular people to use it over dnd?

Because different games are better at different types of stories.
If that wasn't true we'd never have seen new games at all.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But then you get to Old World, and is it really offering a different enough experience from WFRP that it can escape claims of cannibalising it's own audience?

That's a real question but an unanswered question because Old World is an unreleased RPG until next year! AFAIK anyway.

Will a different system and what will probably be a different focus in the setting make for a different game? Like, sure, they've got Rat Catcher as a career as a sop to people who want it to be WHFRP, but... they also Wildwood Ranger and Wizard, which are way fancier than any WHFRP starting careers (which include Wizard's Apprentice and Woodsman, clearly lesser versions of the above). So I suspect this Rat Catcher will either be weirdly hypercompetent or have a massive "Luck"-type score or similar. I don't know but I suspect it'll be a lot less "you got hit with a shovel and died" or "you literally aren't good at anything" than WHFRP could be.

Daggerheart hasn't actually been officially released until pretty recently. Sure the early access version has been out for a while but its not the same thing.

Yup. And hell until relatively recently the rules were different enough (at least to my perception) that I wasn't very impressed with it. This seems like one they really nailed quite late in development to me.

 

[Vael]

I haven't checked the DH since the early playtest. How does it work?

Simply put, each player has 3 tokens. Spend one to take the spotlight, once each player has expended all three of their tokens, they all refresh.

I haven't had to use it, players are good about jumping in and making sure everyone is contributing.

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

Simply put, each player has 3 tokens. Spend one to take the spotlight, once each player has expended all three of their tokens, they all refresh.

I haven't had to use it, players are good about jumping in and making sure everyone is contributing.

It does seem like a good optional rule; I actually quite like a lot of the optional rules and think they should have been standard, gold units, standard distances, all those are good.

I didn't feel like we needed the token rule at my table because we're quite well balanced, but I did get feedback that the general lack of initiative wasn't to everybody's liking, and they would prefer to run with initiative afterwards.

 

[JConstantine]

That's a real question but an unanswered question because Old World is an unreleased RPG until next year! AFAIK anyway.

The physical products are expected to be available in Q1 2026, yes, but the PDFs for the Player's Guide and GM's Guide are available now.

Yup. And hell until relatively recently the rules were different enough (at least to my perception) that I wasn't very impressed with it. This seems like one they really nailed quite late in development to me.

I wasn't remotely impressed with the playtest either, so I'm curious what changes they made that changed your opinion.

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

I wasn't remotely impressed with the playtest either, so I'm curious what changes they made that changed your opinion.

The language tightened up a bit, things like the 'Action Tracker' were simplified (tokens) but on the whole I think it's pretty similar.

I do agree that it's improved for release, I think it's a good product, but I'm very excited to see what a 'v2' of Daggerheart has to offer, when it's had a bit of time to bake and they've had more feedback from the community (not just existing fans who are less likely to give honest critique.)

 

[Burnside]

Polygon is reporting that Critical Role will be using D&D for campaign 4.

DnD and Critical Role have entered the TTRPG Cold War era and I'm thrilled

After acquiring the top DnD creative talents, Critical Role keeps expanding its hold on TTRPGs, but Wizards is ready to answer with a new strategy

www.polygon.com

 

[Savage Wombat]

Polygon is reporting that Critical Role will be using D&D for campaign 4.

DnD and Critical Role have entered the TTRPG Cold War era and I'm thrilled

After acquiring the top DnD creative talents, Critical Role keeps expanding its hold on TTRPGs, but Wizards is ready to answer with a new strategy

www.polygon.com

I'd love to know what they're basing this on...