Critical Role Releases New Campaign 4 Trailer

Critical Role has released a new trailer for their upcoming fourth campaign. The trailer, embedded below, lays out the overarching premise of the plot, as well as a look at the full 13-player table that will participate in the early parts of the campaign. The trailer not only explains the background of Araman, a world whose people overthrew the gods 70 years ago, but also hints at more recent conflicts.


A description of the show notes that the show opens with the planned execution of a person named Thjazi Fang. His scheduled execution leads to three groups coming together to seek the truth behind his grim fate, spinning off into its own series.

As announced earlier this year, Campaign 4 will feature three groups of players simultaneously exploring the world of Araman in what's described as a West Marches-style campaign. Early episodes will feature all thirteen players, but the show will eventually break the groups out into smaller tables, although there will still be some crossover between the groups.

Critical Role's fourth campaign starts on October 2nd.

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm not sure the majority WAS quite so different from that. Maybe not as over the top silly, but the cast of characters was chock full o' nuts or chaos agents. Chetney, Fern, Laudna (particularly with Pâté), Fresh-Cut Grass/Braius Doomseed... all generated a fair amount of weird comic moments.
The general storyline they were engaged in may have been fairly serious for Bells Hells, but then so were most of the story lines of the other two campaigns. Vox Machina goes from the Briarwoods, to the Chroma Conclave, and finally Vecna. That's also some pretty serious stuff.
There are times I wonder if our sense of how "serious" a campaign is can be affected by how familiar the stakes and situations are. As watchers, we were familiar with vampires, necromancers, dragons, Vecna in Campaign 1, while Campaign 2 and, particularly 3, took us viewers into less familiar territory with stakes we couldn't independently assess. That imposes stresses beyond what Campaign 1 imposed.

I think that’s a good comparison of the campaigns. I gravitate much more towards the traditional D&Disms of the first campaign and some of the second, but the majority of the third left me cold. I think I just don’t find the pantheon and ruminations about the roles of the gods of Exandria to be as entertaining to me. The first two campaigns had more varied arcs to it that I found more engaging. C3 was really one single major arc and if one didn’t get into it, well, that was it. I’ve also never been one for the weighty existentialism discussions that increasingly came about.

 

[Clint_L]

On the other hand, the reason these improv actors have embraced D&D is that the resolution mechanics allow for improv serious drama in a way that free-form improv did not.

In an RPG, Liam O'Brian was able to improv tragic romance with Vax.

Nobody’s denying that you can do serious story beats. It’s when they become the focus that improv acting becomes tedious - it’s the same conversation, over and over, as Campaign 3 richly demonstrated. It may have worked for some folks and that’s awesome, but there’s a pretty strong consensus that CR started to lose its mojo in the last third of Campaign 2 and through most of Campaign 3.

I’m current rewatchingly the early games of Campaign 2. There is plenty of drama but the story still moves. It feels like the player choices matter, and it’s fun because the drama accents the general tone of misfits on the run.

Campaign 3 always felt like the end was preordained: Mercer had a Statement to make about the relationship between gods and mortals, and the games were there to facilitate it. How many times did the players debate the exact, same issues while we always knew where it was going to go?

So I was pretty disheartened to see that the Mulligan campaign, though set in a new world, seems to be be picking up from where Campaign 3 ended; in a world where the gods have abandoned us, what do we do?

Age of Umbra already handled that theme, and it was a slog, basically Diablo the TTRPG. I was hoping this new campaign would be fun, not more existential angst. Maybe it will be, but this trailer makes it look bleak.

 

[nyvinter]

Do you need Gods to feel happiness and hope and fun? I've managed pretty good so far.

And I'd assume that if in a world where moral people killed gods, you can go pretty much anywhere. It says nothing about how everything suddenly becomes a dreary Dark Souls world just because the Umbra world did that.

 

[Parmandur]

Nobody’s denying that you can do serious story beats. It’s when they become the focus that improv acting becomes tedious - it’s the same conversation, over and over, as Campaign 3 richly demonstrated. It may have worked for some folks and that’s awesome, but there’s a pretty strong consensus that CR started to lose its mojo in the last third of Campaign 2 and through most of Campaign 3.

I’m current rewatching the early games of Campaign 2. There is plenty of drama but the story still moves. It feels like the player choices matter, and it’s fun because the drama accents the general tone of misfits on the run.

Campaign 3 always felt like the end was preordained: Mercer had a Statement to make about the relationship between gods and mortals, and the games were there to facilitate it. How many times did the players debate the exact, same issues while we always knew it was going to go?

So I was pretty disheartened to see that the Mulligan campaign, though set in a new world, seems to be be picking up from where Campaign 3 ended; in a world where the gods have abandoned us, what do we do?

Age of Umbra already handled that theme, and it was a slog, basically Diablo the TTRPG. I was hoping this new campaign would be fun, not more existential angst. Maybe it will be, but this trailer makes it look bleak.

I mean no argument particularly since I fell off about two thirds of the way through Campaign 2.

 

[bedir than]

in a world where the gods have abandoned us, what do we do?

There's no statement that the gods have abandoned the characters or the world.
The only line about gods is that the grandparents defied the gods during a revolution that failed.

Years later, mortal houses rule the land with a heavy hand.

The themes seem to be around revolution, around great houses controlling a world, about hope growing from the underbelly.

I hear the falcons cry

 

[TiQuinn]

There's no statement that the gods have abandoned the characters or the world.

The gods in this campaign have apparently been destroyed according to the CR wiki and the main CR site.

 

[AlViking]

On the other hand, the reason these improv actors have embraced D&D is that the resolution mechanics allow for improv serious drama in a way that free-form improv did not.

In an RPG, Liam O'Brian was able to improv tragic romance with Vax.

It seems to me the most likely answer for why they have chosen a theme for their next campaign is that these people are playing the game they want to play with the hopes that other people will continue to watch. This is not scripted TV that has been run by an analytics department (and we've seen how that results in mediocre entertainment time and again) even if I wouldn't be surprised if analyzed feedback and ratings. They are a weird combination of gamer and improv actors but they're still primarily playing a game I assume they want to be excited about.

Depending on the group, I have dramatic moments even if we are nowhere near the caliber of acting as the CR crew. We do it because it makes the game worthwhile to us. So what if they can't make the most dramatic scenes ever created on screen? Let them play the game they want to play and I hope that it is worth watching, if not for me then for someone else.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

Ugh...that trailer has lowered my anticipation for the new campaign, significantly. I did not particularly enjoy BLM's last time DMing CR precisely because the story was dark and apocalyptic. Same with Age of Umbra.

Remember when Critical Role used to be fun? A bunch of friends hanging out, laughing, joking, often being a bit smutty, occasionally eating snacks? For me, that was peak CR.

If the trailer is representative of the typical tone - dark, with occasional moments of levity, rather than light, with occasional moments of darkness - then this might be the campaign where I just give up and find something less depressing to listen to while I paint.

Yeah, I am bummed about it too. My reaction to the trailer was, "I guess I'll give the first few episodes a shot." It's a big contrast with D20 trailers—the trailer for Cloudward Ho had a sense of fun and adventure.

The direction Critical Role is going, reminds me of how all the superhero movies in the 2000s and 2010s got all dark and gritty.

 

[Scribe]

The direction Critical Role is going, reminds me of how all the superhero movies in the 2000s and 2010s got all dark and gritty.

The wheel turns.

 

[bedir than]

The gods in this campaign have apparently been destroyed according to the CR wiki and the main CR site.

Ah, I'd gone by the trailer only.

Here's the official site with two of the three total mentions of the gods.

Hero to many. Enemy to some. When Thjazi Fang is marked for execution, various figures from across his remarkable life unite to uncover the truth behind his grim fate. In a land still suffering from the fallout of dead gods and living in the shadow of a tumultuous rebellion, these disparate people will come together across the fractured world of Aramán and connect in ways they never imagined.

As hope and victory fade, a question hangs over Aramán. Without the Gods, what great deeds now fall to us? And who, or what, shall grab their crown from themselves?