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.

 

[Marc Radle]

I thought that they were moving away from D&D? Why the change?

...did WotC deliver a dumptruck of money?

To be fair, I don’t think they ever said that, it was always just speculation …

 

[mamba]

Only they can use options from 2014 with little to no problem if they need to or want to.

in theory, I doubt they will. Still, what is DH missing to allow for such a campaign?

 

[OB1]

what is it missing, or are you looking at this from the perspective of attracting a big enough audience?

The gameplay loop was already becoming stale after 8 episodes of Age of Umbra. I can't imagine it after 50 or 100 episodes. There just isn't enough substance (monsters, spells, abilities, magic items, lore) to easily hang a long form campaign on the system yet. I also strongly believe some of the mechanics will need to be revised, such as the crit on any double (probably should be reduced down to crit on a double that also hits, or some other metric) because as is the system is too player friendly, and that drains tension quickly.

Again, I think it's a good base and I've enjoyed using it to run a short 6 session sci-fantasy campaign (2 sessions to go), but my experence from playing it and watching my players respond to it is that the system needs more expansion and refining before it's ready to be a long term workhorse.

 

[bedir than]

The gameplay loop was already becoming stale after 8 episodes of Age of Umbra. I can't imagine it after 50 or 100 episodes. There just isn't enough substance (monsters, spells, abilities, magic items, lore) to easily hang a long form campaign on the system yet. I also strongly believe some of the mechanics will need to be revised, such as the crit on any double (probably should be reduced down to crit on a double that also hits, or some other metric) because as is the system is too player friendly, and that drains tension quickly.

Again, I think it's a good base and I've enjoyed using it to run a short 6 session sci-fantasy campaign (2 sessions to go), but my experence from playing it and watching my players respond to it is that the system needs more expansion and refining before it's ready to be a long term workhorse.

Isn't part of the design intent for Daggerheart to be smaller campaigns?

 

[Imaro]

in theory, I doubt they will. Still, what is DH missing to allow for such a campaign?

For starters I'd say....
With 13 players (I think??), character options.
For the DM.... a variety of monsters & antagonists.

 

[Imaro]

Isn't part of the design intent for Daggerheart to be smaller campaigns?

It was advertised as a system to handle long and short campaigns.

 

[Afroconan]

The moment they announced BLM as the GM I knew D&D wasn't off the table.

Daggerheart fans are taking it rough though, like this is some sort of betrayal and will doom the game... And I just don't see it unless the fans themselves leave the game because of this decision, which is a bit dumb IMO.

Any ways. Big win for Hasbro. I don't discard the possibility they made some deal for this though.

 

[kapars]

The moment they announced BLM as the GM I knew D&D wasn't off the table.

Daggerheart fans are taking it rough though, like this is some sort of betrayal and will doom the game... And I just don't see it unless the fans themselves leave the game because of this decision, which is a bit dumb IMO.

Any ways. Big win for Hasbro. I don't discard the possibility they made some deal for this though.

I honestly think it could be the other way around. They could lose audience if it is not D&D.

 

[Parmandur]

interesting, I thought they would switch to Daggerheart, both to give it a boost and because they said they created it for their style of play.

The moment they announced BLM as the GM I knew D&D wasn't off the table.

Daggerheart fans are taking it rough though, like this is some sort of betrayal and will doom the game... And I just don't see it unless the fans themselves leave the game because of this decision, which is a bit dumb IMO.

Any ways. Big win for Hasbro. I don't discard the possibility they made some deal for this though.

I mean, if WotC were smart they would have made some sort of IP sharing deal to allow for Vecnato beVecnain the upcoming Vox Machina campaign...

I doubt this move has any impact wither way on the long term viability of Daggerheart.

 

[Celebrim]

Ummm... did Hasbro deliver a bunch of money?

I thought the whole Daggerheart thing was because Hasbro wouldn't pay them.

If they don't even support their own system, what was the point of it? I mean the campaign was originally in Pathfinder (Percy was a Gunslinger). They dropped that for endorsement money, but that's a bit different than dropping your own product.