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.

 

[OB1]

I can see them playing D&D on stream again, since it's what they became known for. But I can't see them running a long-form campaign again in D&D, but when they have a purpose-built system that fits their style better and is their own product as well.

Yeah. That's weird. In talking up the game they keep saying stuff like Daggerheart is designed to facilitate how they play or want to play...and yet Matt just runs it as if it were D&D. But, then he did the exact same thing with Candela Obscura.

So, I really wonder if in the lead up to the release of Daggerheart, some people weren't conflating what other people were saying about Daggerheart (that it's a system built specifically for CR) and what CR said about it themselves (that it's a system they are publishing via Darington and promoting by playing. Combined with some wishful thinking on the part of people who have a grudge against 5e and/or Hasbro that the popularity of CR could lead to Daggerheart taking down D&D, and I think we end up with a a story that doesn't match reality. The system was neither purpose built for CR nor was it created with huge input from the CR team. It's success or failure is not critical to the company.

And after watching episode 7 of AoU, I would be absolutely shocked if CR chose Daggerheart as it's main system for Campaign 4. The system simply doesn't facilitate the type of game that they like and are famous for, which is a heavily DM plotted, long form campaign in a densely built, interconnected world played over 100+ sessions. I like Daggerheart as a system (and will be using it for a SciFantasy campaign in the near future), but it doesn't fit CR. Even the fights, which I expected to be much more cinematic due to the DH system, have been a big letdown. I thought that even if Matt kept an iron grip on the plot, the DH system would shine through in combat, but it's just not happening, perhaps in large part due to not running it ToM.

Darington Press has a pretty good game on its hands (a bit underbaked, but I think subsequent releases will flesh it out). Unlike Candella, I think it's good enough to keep building on, and with the success it's had, I think they will continue to build on it. But it doesn't need CR playing it to be successful, it just needs time and development, and, most importantly, a live play group who fits its style. The best thing CR could do for Daggerheart is to find and promote a group of talented friends who's style matches the system, and give them time to find an audience the way that CR did a decade ago. Don't put the expectations of needing to pull in hundreds of thousands of views right off the bat.

 

[Elvish Lore]

To steer this thread in less weird direction than nitpicking about players forgetting items...

It was a good, instructive moment when in... ep5? maybe ep6?... one of the PCs was trying to get across the battlefield and MM told them they would have to make an Agility roll to do so. Travis says 'yea, but... then [MM's adversary] might get to go again [upon the PC rolling with fear or failing] and MM bluntly reminds Travis, the group and the viewers that "you can't win the game by simply not rolling."

He goes on, "to remind everyone, [it doesn't matter if you don't roll with fear or fail an action roll] I can take my spotlight [in the context, make a GM move] if ever it feels like it fits the narrative."

This was great to hear so explicitly because I've literally heard Travis' sentiment before from some folks playing Apocalypse World how they weren't going to make a move because that would give the GM a way to 'win'. (and, yea, that's a completely backwards way to approach this.)

Daggerheart's advice to Make a GM move when...

• They give you a Golden Opportunity
• They look to you for what happens next.

are both incredibly good qualifications that I've been noticing GMs forgetting about.

 

[Elvish Lore]

4. The system simply doesn't facilitate the type of game that they like and are famous for, which is a heavily DM plotted, long form campaign in a densely built, interconnected world played over 100+ sessions.

No idea what they'll be using going forward but I think CR is done with 100+ session campaigns. And I don't mean because Daggerheart might not be able to handle that, but because viewership has greatly fallen off as the very-long campaigns have plowed on and I think MM wants to produce more story-content and material for animation/video-game/TV adaptation at a faster pace. The good numbers for AoU are probably more due to accessibility for people not wanting to make the mega-commitment of a years-long campaign, than they are to Daggerheart popularity.

I think they'll be using both DH and 5e but in shorter form.

 

[OB1]

No idea what they'll be using going forward but I think CR is done with 100+ session campaigns. And I don't mean because Daggerheart might not be able to handle that, but because viewership has greatly fallen off as the very-long campaigns have plowed on and I think MM wants to produce more story-content and material for animation/video-game/TV adaptation at a faster pace. The good numbers for AoU are probably more due to accessibility for people not wanting to make the mega-commitment of a years-long campaign, than they are to Daggerheart popularity.

I think they'll be using both DH and 5e but in shorter form.

Fair enough. I think they'll do one more long form campaign before moving to the short stuff. Numbers might have been down for C3, but they are still on an episode by episode basis far higher than any of their other content and when taken as a whole represent 10s of millions of views. My own take on C3 it's popularity dropped partly because it was post pandemic and people started doing other things, but also because it stayed so far from traditional D&D (the end of C2 actually started this trend). C1 and the first 90 episodes of C2 are the most watched episodes and also the most D&D like.

 

[Clint_L]

[deleted]

 

[Clint_L]

Fair enough. I think they'll do one more long form campaign before moving to the short stuff. Numbers might have been down for C3, but they are still on an episode by episode basis far higher than any of their other content and when taken as a whole represent 10s of millions of views. My own take on C3 it's popularity dropped partly because it was post pandemic and people started doing other things, but also because it stayed so far from traditional D&D (the end of C2 actually started this trend). C1 and the first 90 episodes of C2 are the most watched episodes and also the most D&D like.

Yeah, the long form narrative of the last arc of season 2 and all of season 3 took forever for things to happen and I have no desire to rewatch any of them, while I still regularly rewatch/listen to earlier episodes. Also, Season 3 felt really pre-ordained in a way that the earlier arcs did not.

I'm really enjoying the dynamic combat system - it is much more appealing compared to a rigid initaitive system. I also like the way that "rest moves" mean that characters can substantially recover during long rests, but they still have to make some decisions and trade-offs so that it isn't a complete "get out of jail free" card.

Also, the campaign has become much less of a slog since Laura and Liam joined. Prior to that there were a lot of conversations where everyone spoke in an intense voice and paused...between...almost...every...word...to...show...that...things...were...serious. Marisha Rey's character is a particular offender in this regard.