D&D General Critical Role Season 4 and the Ship of Theseus

[Professor Murder]

So the question I am proposing is this: How will Critical Role Season 4 be Critical Role?
Well, what unifies the previous seasons? What traits do they share that make them Critical Role seasons as opposed to other APs that the Critical Role studio has released up to this point?

1) It's D&D. (For the pedants who may wish to speak to the origins of the game they are playing, we are only speaking about the public facing campaign, not what they privately played before.)
2) Matt Mercer is DM.
3) The setting backdrop is Exandria, a setting Mercer developed.
4) The players around the table are mostly consistent of a core group. People have left and been added and there have been guest players, but the core has endured.
5) Campaigns are drawn out. They take years to play out in their entirety.
6) The Campaigns are in order and exist in the same continuity and timeline. Campaign one happens before Campaign two and events in Campaigns change the setting in ways that affect future Campaigns.
7) The games try to balance drama with mechanics. The dice shape the story.

So given the shakeups for Season 4, how will it still be Critical Role? Of the above points, the only one we know for certain is changing is #2. Brennan Lee Mulligan is taking over behind the screen. Every other point we can only speculate that they may change. They are being coy about many of these, especially #1 and #3. There is also an assumption that while several players are returning, some may not and some new players may join up, so thats #4. #6 requires #3, so if we aren't in Exandria, it's a new continuity, but it's entirely possible that given a new DM, even if the setting is the same, we may see less looking backward.

I don't see #7 changing. It's been part and parcel to how these sort of APs work overall.

The wildcard for me is #5. I think that if this changes to something shorter, then it will be challenging to view the result as being in the same vein as the first three campaigns.

Change happens. The Superman film that came out this year isn't the Superman created by Siegel and Shuster in 1938 but it's still Superman. The differences are the result of many changes over the years. So will Campaign 4 still be Critical Role? I am curious to see what changes and how much it still feels like it to the fans.

 

[TiQuinn]

I’m fairly sure they said it was a new world, i.e. not Exandria, though who know if it exists in the same universe and there aren’t possible links. I just look at it as the same creative team. Critical Role, to me, is just another TV show, one where it’s been around long enough that the cast can change. I don’t think of it as the Ship of Theseus so much as Law and Order.

 

[billd91]

So will Campaign 4 still be Critical Role?

Of course it will be. It may not be exactly the same but it'll still be some iteration of Critical Role. Things may change a little more than between one campaign and another, but there have been significant changes every time they shift campaigns anyway and it still remained Critical Role.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think you are demonstrating the need to make a distinction between the original SHOW "Critical Role" that first aired ten years ago, and the BRAND "Critical Role" that exists now.

I'll be watching the new shows, certainly, but I don't feel this to be a continuation of the previous product. More like "from the people that brought you ..."

Also, considering it's been ten years, I think this is a lot better than "that's all, we're done". It's kind of ridiculous that people nowadays expect people to keep making the same series for this long.

 

[Professor Murder]

I think you are demonstrating the need to make a distinction between the original SHOW "Critical Role" that first aired ten years ago, and the BRAND "Critical Role" that exists now.

I'll be watching the new shows, certainly, but I don't feel this to be a continuation of the previous product. More like "from the people that brought you ..."

Also, considering it's been ten years, I think this is a lot better than "that's all, we're done". It's kind of ridiculous that people nowadays expect people to keep making the same series for this long.

I think this is a reasonable take and expectation. But it's not the branding. The branding is this is #4.

 

[Umbran]

3) The setting backdrop is Exandria, a setting Mercer developed.

6) The Campaigns are in order and exist in the same continuity and timeline. Campaign one happens before Campaign two and events in Campaigns change the setting in ways that affect future Campaigns.

#6 requires #3,

No it doesn't. D&D has worked with a multi-world and multiversal approach since the conception of a Prime Material Plane.

Honestly, they don't even have to use the same ruleset to share a continuity and timeline.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Really the inflextion point was back with the start of campaign 2, which established that Critical Role as a "franchise" was defined by it being the same (core) cast of nerdy ass voice actors playing the characters, not by the particular characters, which in the still developing media genre of ttrpg liveplays is not a given.

And really "Critical Role" is (to a degree) whatever the people who collectively own the brand name say it is at this point. They've had mini-side campaigns, soon to be a second animated series, spin-off novels, D&D supplements both official and independent, and a vast array of merch and people have accepted these things all, to varying degrees, as "Critical Role". While the big, numbered, streamed campaigns remain the flagship product in their empire (even if the animated series presumably has a wider reach outside the D&D hobby), that doesn't necessarily mean they are necessary at all, much less required to be in a particular format, for it to remain the "Critical Role" enterprise.

Now so far this flexibility has been possible because the core cast (the equity owners of the enterprise) have been remarkably good at maintaining a unified front on everything (which makes me suspect they are at least above average at being agreeable and supportive behind the scenes as well). Critical Role-ness will not really be questionable for any of their endeavors as long as they endeavor together. When core cast start leaving we can perhaps start questioning the Critical-Roleness of what those remaing produce. Having, in this case, effectively an additional cast member for a full campaign does, admittedly, test the boundaries, but when every co-owner of the enterprise is right there with him saying this is really critical role, I think most fans are inclined to believe them.

And yes I know they had an acrimonious departure early on, but they weren't really the Critical Role phenomenon yet, and the "franchise" hadn't yet asked us to switch to another campaign with anther set of characters on the basis of continuity of cast and continuing parasocial relationships with them.

 

[OB1]

I’m fairly sure they said it was a new world, i.e. not Exandria, though who know if it exists in the same universe and there aren’t possible links. I just look at it as the same creative team. Critical Role, to me, is just another TV show, one where it’s been around long enough that the cast can change. I don’t think of it as the Ship of Theseus so much as Law and Order.

Law and Order is an interesting comparison. It changes cast, directors and writers (PCs and DMs) all the time and remains Law and Order, but if it was suddenly set in Laos (Setting) and changed to a relationship drama about police and lawyers (system) I don't think people would consider it Law and Order.

In other words, the cast is less important to it's identity than the setting and structure. This is more like the Broken Lizard group doing something different with each movie. The question we're going to find out with the new season is how much the core audience considers the system and setting a major part of the show.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The only thing I accept as Critical Role canon are the Funko Pops. I will be taking no further questions.

 

[Professor Murder]

No it doesn't. D&D has worked with a multi-world and multiversal approach since the conception of a Prime Material Plane.

Honestly, they don't even have to use the same ruleset to share a continuity and timeline.

In what you are describing, they are still the same setting, just with the focus pulled further out. But if the next game is Cyberpunk Red for the system and setting, it's a new animal.