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.

 

[Parmandur]

I was responding to the part I quoted, which was “Software has to be designed with the operating system in mind. For games it's their choice.”

At that time I asked for clarification because much like game designers have a choice what to work on, software developers do too, so I was not seeing the distinction you were making.

Anything you have written since has not helped with that.

The situations are different, though there are similarities. If an RPG developer wants to really sell, they have other viable options: indeed, the largest TTRPG Kickstarters are all non-D&D. And if they do something else and find a small audiwnce...ot can be viable.

Doing non-Wondows software is the path to irrelevance and lack of money, like doing an App for smartphones other than iPhone or Android. Few people can use non-Windows software, whereas WotC doesn't own a platform thwt excludes other games from being possible to use at the dinner table.

 

[thatOneLinuxDM]

It seesm strange that you really, really want streaming to not have contributed to the rise in popularity of D&D. Why?

That's... not what I said in the slightest?

 

[kermit4karate]

You said.


What, then, do you think sustained 5E?

I know this wasn't directed toward me, but I'm French and tend to be rude so will answer anyway...

Lots of things. Lots of things sustained 5E.

 

[kermit4karate]

This may be true, but I think that mechanically it is in the sweet spot for a lot of players and GMs

Exactly. Sometimes being first, lucky and good enough are more important than everything else.

Now...before someone attacks the use of "first" here, I encourage you to take a few deep breaths and count to 10. Ask yourself, "Does it really matter?" before you respond.

 

[AlViking]

You said.


What, then, do you think sustained 5E?

It's a game that works well for a lot of people. That and enumerable other factors that nobody really understands.

 

[mamba]

Nothing is stopping other companies from creating new games. With crowdfunding options available it's even easier than before. D&D may be dominant but it's still an open playing field unlike operating systems.

eh, there are other OSes too, the barrier to entry is higher, but then the market is a lot bigger too

If you really wanted to, you could create your own OS, see Torvalds. It won’t unseat Windows, but your TTRPG will not dethrone D&D either

 

[kermit4karate]

It sounds like what you’re looking for is a smoking gun in the data which is hard to find largely because the actual full success of D&D and the TTRPG industry is obfuscated - by Hasbro or Google not wanting to publish certain metrics or by the difficulty of gathering that data from the smaller players in the industry. But that doesn’t mean than data doesn’t exist. It’s just not everyone agrees on what it says.

And I'd go even further to say that current commercial success for something as established as D&D doesn't reflect "popularity" in the same way it might for a game just starting out.

Like, there are tens of millions of D&D books in circulation already. The actual gaming community, along with those crazy kids in college dorms and bored parents at those 30-something dinner parties, would barely notice a 180-day freeze on new D&D 2024 book sales.

The inertia that keeps D&D dominant comes from more than just WotC and CR at this point. There's also an entire shambling army of olds!!!!

 

[SkidAce]

It being about money doesn't annoy me because that's what's expected. It's a bit annoying seeing so many folks carry on like it was about something else.

This is a job for the CR cast and crew and a significant time investment. Do we think they do it for free and work at Starbucks to pay their bills?

Nothing wrong with working at Starbucks, but I seriously doubt someone would agree to star on CR if they still needed a second job as a barista.

It being about money isn't a bad thing. It's normal.

They started (and the main reason I supported them) by raising funds for kids to read in LA.

Nobody was paying them. That all started when they got popular, most proximately, D&D Beyond, which wasnt WotC at the time.

Is there money involved now? Of course. Good for them.

Wish I could have done it too.

 

[kermit4karate]

Inertia is the most powerful force in industry

They started (and the main reason I supported them) by raising funds for kids to read in LA.

Nobody was paying them. That all started when they got popular, most proximately, D&D Beyond, which wasnt WotC at the time.

Is there money involved now? Of course. Good for them.

Wish I could have done it too.

None of the members of CR are now, and never were, doing it for purely altruistic reasons, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're (mostly) all grownups here. Positive PR is worth money. Ask every company that donates 5% of profits to <insert worthy cause here>.

Nothing wrong with that either. It's the way the world turns.

Save further breath if you intend to try to convince me otherwise.

 

[SkidAce]

Save further breath if you intend to try to convince me otherwise.

As you wish, but I would have preferred a friendly discussion.