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.

 

[kermit4karate]

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.

We'll have the answers to those questions soon enough. I want this to succeed and wish them well.

 

[Retreater]

Idk what GenCon you went to, but the one I attended this year had full D&D tables throughout all four days. I played at them constantly and it was almost always packed tables. The only time there wasn’t was for the learn to play events from my experience.

You can watch the Professor DM video. He said the majority of events were 2014 (not 2024). He said that D&D had lots of tables that weren't full and some that were cancelled because no one signed up.

Like, yes, absolutely! Absolutely D&D is the biggest RPG in the world. I was responding to a quote that "D&D has never been bigger." Like - since the very inception of the game it's never been bigger than it is in August 2025? That is what I'm refuting.

During the height of Baldur's Gate 3? Bigger.
During an active Critical Role campaign? Bigger.
During the release of the D&D Movie? Bigger.
During the excited leadup of 5.24 edition? Bigger.
During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Bigger.
During the height of Stranger Things? Bigger.

 

[Umbran]

Like, yes, absolutely! Absolutely D&D is the biggest RPG in the world. I was responding to a quote that "D&D has never been bigger." Like - since the very inception of the game it's never been bigger than it is in August 2025?

Let us not pretend any of us really knows how many people are actually playing in any given month. We don't.

 

[Reynard]

You can watch the Professor DM video.

Who is, of course, unimpeachably unbiased.

 

[Aldarc]

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 think that D&D for CR 4 was in the works before Daggerheart was released or Age of Umbra. From my understanding, some episodes have already been recorded for CR 4. So I don't think that it really matter if people watched or didn't watch AoU as D&D for DH was already in the works. Add to this, Critical Role/Darrington Press's own surprise at the success of Daggerheart.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

I think the simple truth is that the CR cast just enjoy playing DND. I don’t think there’s a greater meaning behind it. CR is a DND show, and will remain a DND show, and will continue to explore other games in small spinoffs like they did with Deadlands, and will continue to do with Daggerheart.

Daggerheart was created to support Darrington Press. And DP is sponsoring plenty of DH actual plays, both on their channel and others.

It’s possible to like and enjoy both games.

 

[nyvinter]

And DP is sponsoring plenty of DH actual plays, both on their channel and others.

Speaking only for myself, the sponsored actual plays had me go "oh cool, they're doing a campaign set in this frame! Wait, nevermind. It's just a oneshot. I'll pass."

 

[GarrettKP]

You can watch the Professor DM video. He said the majority of events were 2014 (not 2024). He said that D&D had lots of tables that weren't full and some that were cancelled because no one signed up.

Like, yes, absolutely! Absolutely D&D is the biggest RPG in the world. I was responding to a quote that "D&D has never been bigger." Like - since the very inception of the game it's never been bigger than it is in August 2025? That is what I'm refuting.

During the height of Baldur's Gate 3? Bigger.
During an active Critical Role campaign? Bigger.
During the release of the D&D Movie? Bigger.
During the excited leadup of 5.24 edition? Bigger.
During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Bigger.
During the height of Stranger Things? Bigger.

I’m not disputing that D&D isn’t at its peak right now. But I was at GenCon. I spent most of my time in the D&D area in Lucas Oil. I promise you every single table they ran in that space was 2024. Idk where Professor DM is getting their info, but my first hand experience tells me it’s bad info.

I was there every day, the tables for Legends of Greyhawk were always full. The Learn to Plays weren’t, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the entire second floor was busy the entire time I was there. To the point it was hard to hear the people at my table at times.

 

[EthanSental]

I recently did the do not recommend professor dm on my youtube account….just not a good match for what I enjoy now compared to his a good amount of his older stuff that I did watch.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

That's a valid feeling, but personally it feels very different from 5e as it was conceived in 2014, even if the changes are relatively small. It is for me the attitude and assumed playstyle presented in the new books.