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.

 

[Scribe]

That's true even without D&D, though. It's a crowded market now, and D&D is just one game among many.

Nah, its not 'one among many' its the Kleenex.

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

Nah, its not 'one among many' its the Kleenex.

We're on a site dedicated to TTRPG news, most people aren't even aware sites like this exists. The majority of people I speak to, even in my friendly local game shop, might vaguely be aware of Pathfinder as that one game Sarah's table plays on a Saturday, with everyone else knowing of D&D. Daggerheart has a bit of cut through with the core crowd but it's a niche of a niche of a niche.

FoundryVTTs year in review is pretty good data for what people are playing (at least with a VTT) and I can't wait to see what happens with it next year, especially with Daggerheart and Draw Steel's release. We can even concatenate the different Daggerheart implementations for Foundry in that data (now that Critical Role have updated their whitelist in their license to include Foundry (you will never convince me that a license with a whitelist clause is a good license either.))

 

[Snute]

Nah, its not 'one among many' its the Kleenex.

Exactly. And I think that is how Matt and crew use the name when they say "nerdy-ass voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons" and how the public perceives it (or at least I do) -> not as an endorsement of the brand D&D specifically but of the great hobby TTRPG as a whole.

 

[Staffan]

Your thesis is that it's D&D's dominance that creates other games. That is a weird take considering other games essentially started to appear the moment D&D did. The fact of D&D existing drove the creation of alternatives because the value of the form was immediately apparent. What its dominance does is make it harder for those alternatives to get a foothold in the distribution network.

I remember seeing a quote by Steve Jackson, probably in the early 00s or so, saying something like "I love to see D&D grow and bring in new players. Because in a year or two some of those players are going to get bored with D&D and look for other options, and some of those players will become GURPS players."

 

[The Soloist]

I remember seeing a quote by Steve Jackson, probably in the early 00s or so, saying something like "I love to see D&D grow and bring in new players. Because in a year or two some of those players are going to get bored with D&D and look for other options, and some of those players will become GURPS players."

LOL! The man is right. That is exactly what happened to my first D&D basic group in 1981. After a summer of play, two of my players came back from the hobby store with the 1e Call of Cthulhu box set. They were super excited. After one game of CoC, our group effectively split in two. I lost three players to CoC. Never saw them again. They quit D&D. Thanks to FB, I can see they still play CoC and have no love for D&D.

D&D dominance is a FREE permanent add campaign for all other RPGs in the hobby.

 

[AlViking]

Anytime you answer your own questions with answers that support your own conclusions, you should reconsider your rhetorical strategy.

That said: if you can't fathom how one game's dominance in the distribution system harms other games, my guess is you haven't ever given it much thought.

"Saying that Windows' monopoly on the OS industry is bad is just sour grapes!" That is literally what you sound like.

Windows dominance is different for multiple reasons. First, the operating system supports a whole ecosystem of software. MS also bought other companies and engaged in anticompetetive practices.

D&D is popular, but how does that cause harm? They aren't buying and shutting down competition. They protect some of their intellectual property but openly share a lot of their core rules.

So the only harm I see is that other games aren't as popular. What else is there?

Edit - I don't think there's any reason to think there wouldn't just be a different dominant game. Of course that's speculation.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If WoTC D&D vanished in the morning, I think new player acquisition would slow, but I could see one of the near clones (Tales of the Valiant, or Level UP) would probably see an increase in sales. It would take some time though for one of them to ramp up to WoTC's level.

 

[Parmandur]

We're on a site dedicated to TTRPG news, most people aren't even aware sites like this exists. The majority of people I speak to, even in my friendly local game shop, might vaguely be aware of Pathfinder as that one game Sarah's table plays on a Saturday, with everyone else knowing of D&D. Daggerheart has a bit of cut through with the core crowd but it's a niche of a niche of a niche.

FoundryVTTs year in review is pretty good data for what people are playing (at least with a VTT) and I can't wait to see what happens with it next year, especially with Daggerheart and Draw Steel's release. We can even concatenate the different Daggerheart implementations for Foundry in that data (now that Critical Role have updated their whitelist in their license to include Foundry (you will never convince me that a license with a whitelist clause is a good license either.))

Daggerheart is doing extremely well, but that doesn’t even mean it is necessarily in some life or death contest with D&D. The TTRPG industry is not a zero-sum, winner take all scene, even if D&D is the lion's share of the market.

 

[Parmandur]

Exactly. And I think that is how Matt and crew use the name when they say "nerdy-ass voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons" and how the public perceives it (or at least I do) -> not as an endorsement of the brand D&D specifically but of the great hobby TTRPG as a whole.

The general "public" sees the brand D&D and TTRPGs as basic the same thing, let's be honest. Critical Role has probably been one of the best advertisers of the existence of other games in the history of the hobby, as well as being one of the best showcases of D&D specifically.

 

[GarrettKP]

The general "public" sees the brand D&D and TTRPGs as basic the same thing, let's be honest. Critical Role has probably been one of the best advertisers of the existence of other games in the history of the hobby, as well as being one of the best showcases of D&D specifically.

This. The average person would see a group playing Daggerheart and say to themselves “those people are playing D&D.” It’s like how the average movie going audience says “Marvel” for all things superhero now.