Critical Role to Use D&D 2024 Rules For Campaign Four, Expands to Three Tables and Thirteen Players

Critical Role will continue to use Dungeons & Dragons as the play system for its upcoming campaign, with the cast expanding to three distinct tables consisting of a total of 13 players. Today, Critical Role announced new details about its new campaign, which is set to air on October 4th. The new campaign will feature the full founding cast members as players, alongside several new players. In total, the cast includes Laura Bailey, Luis Carazo, Robbie Daymond, Aabria Iyengar, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Whitney Moore, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Alexander Ward, and Travis Willingham, with the previously announced Brennan Lee Mulligan serving as GM.

The campaign itself will be run as a "West Marches" style of campaign, with three separate groups of players exploring the world. The groups are divided into gameplay styles, with a combat-focused Soldiers group, a lore/exploration-focused Seekers group, and a intrigue-focused Schemers group. All three groups will explore the world of Araman, created by Mulligan for the campaign.

Perhaps most importantly, Critical Role will not be switching to Daggerheart for the fourth campaign. Instead, they'll be opting for the new 2024 ruleset of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Daggerheart will be represented at Critical Role via the Age of Umbra and "other" Actual Play series, as well as partnerships with other Actual Play troupes.

 

[Bae'zel]

Who actually wastes time with this stuff? Obsessing over someone else's dnd games is so strange and against the intention of the genre in the first place.

There's other ways to think of it.

1. Watching talented people play the game you like can be inspiring. I for one, learn cool DMing styles and even roleplaying ideas from watching socially competent people who are decent at improv.

2. Sports fans watching sports on tv / at a stadium instead of playing themselves. That's acceptable, why isn't this acceptable?

Plenty of people watched "Who's line is it anyway?" while they could have joined an improv club. Why? Because it's fun to watch people who are good at this sort of thing.

 

[OB1]

I have questions about Brennan Lee Mulligan's ability to run an epic CR campaign - his campaigns have always been much shorter and rely far heavier on improvisation than Mercer's. He doesn't do remotely the world-building prep that Mercer does, by his own admission.

Though splitting it into three sub-campaigns might make it more amenable to his style. And, let's face it, quite a few of us felt that Mercer was starting to get a little too epic.

I am also interested in table composition. For me, a big part of CR has been that particular group of nerdy-ass voice actors. I wonder how the chemistry will be with new additions and configurations.

If you haven't, check out BLeeMs Worlds Beyond Number podcast. It's longer format, has a ton of world building and is IMO, the best thing he's done.

As for table composition, as someone else said brilliantly upthread, this campaign CR will discover if they are the cast of Friends (irreplaceable) or SNL.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I wonder how many people who are disappointed that they aren't using Daggerheart for Campaign 4 actually watched 'Age Of Umbra' that did use it? CR have the numbers on what their viewership was. They know how their main campaigns have done versus how Umbra did (or indeed any of their other streams that used games other than D&D). If the numbers are exceedingly heavily skewed towards their main campaign (with its use of D&D), then of course they would be smart to stick with what has worked. And the people who wanted Daggerheart to be used for Campaign 4 but never actually watched the show that DID use Daggerheart have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[Afroconan]

I wonder how many people who are disappointed that they aren't using Daggerheart for Campaign 4 actually watched 'Age Of Umbra' that did use it? CR have the numbers on what their viewership was. They know how their main campaigns have done versus how Umbra did (or indeed any of their other streams that used games other than D&D). If the numbers are exceedingly heavily skewed towards their main campaign (with its use of D&D), then of course they would be smart to stick with what has worked. And the people who wanted Daggerheart to be used for Campaign 4 but never actually watched the show that DID use Daggerheart have no one to blame but themselves.

I'm finding the attitude of some DH fans very self defeating in this regard.

"How can I convince someone else to play the game when they see their creators don't have faith in it?"

My brother in The Everlight, YOU are the one generating the discourse.

 

[nyvinter]

All sidecontent has a huge drop in viewers. Umbra had far better view numbers than Wildemount Wildlings which was 5e. Age of Umbra session one have better views than the first Exandria Unlimited: Downfall.

 

[Afroconan]

All sidecontent has a huge drop in viewers. Umbra had far better view numbers than Wildemount Wildlings which was 5e. Age of Umbra session one have better views than the first Exandria Unlimited: Downfall.

Haven't they been dropping viewers in general since the end of Campaign 2?

 

[GarrettKP]

Apparently most of them were playing 5.0, not the new thing.

That is impossible. The games I’m talking about were Legends of Greyhawk, the new organized play campaign that is 2024 only. They had an entire floor dedicated to just Greyhawk and the tables were always full. I was there every day.

The truth is the casual DnD fan can’t really see the difference. It’s just 5e to them. Not one person at any of the 8 tables I played at called it anything other than 5e, even when it was all 2024 tables. The game still looks and feels like 5e, which is why WotC didn’t bother rebranding it as a new edition.

 

[The Soloist]

The future of voice acting is extremely uncertain because of AI generated voices, more so in the computer animation sector. The change to AI voices could happen very fast, maybe faster than we are ready to believe. The CR crew knows this.

It's prudent of them to keep playing D&D and slowly advance DH with mini series and supplements within a 2 year time frame. CR is their future, not voice acting. Darrington could be their last refuge when CR eventually dies out, as all good things come to pass.

 

[nyvinter]

Haven't they been dropping viewers in general since the end of Campaign 2?

I think the c3 opening session had the most views on their twitch history. But yeah, 140 session campaigns with four hours each will always mean they drop a lot in retention as it goes on. Especially if it doesn't speak to the viewer after a while.

 

[The Soloist]

I think the c3 opening session had the most views on their twitch history. But yeah, 140 session campaigns with four hours each will always mean they drop a lot in retention as it goes on. Especially if it doesn't speak to the viewer after a while.

Anecdotally, I quit season 3 after they failed to kill Ludinus the first time. The split into to groups didn't appeal to us. I only watched the last four episodes to see the ending.