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]

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

I think this is friendly. We can be friendly. Just trying to spare your typing fingers if you'd intended to convince me of how swell and selfless the CR gang is and how they're all only motivated by the desire to make the world a better place.

Good people are also selfish and self-serving. I'm OK with the actual reality we live in is what I'm saying, friend.

 

[Clint_L]

Oh, please. Free publicity and "free" are not the same things.

You’re aware that CR started as a private game, right?

 

[Clint_L]

Did I say anything about it being "better"? Better is in the eye of the beholder. Matt has stated that they decided to use D&D instead of PF because 5e was better for streaming because of its relative simplicity. Having looked into PF, that simplicity also made 5e a better game for me.

My understanding is that Felicia Day suggested the switch because D&D is better known.

 

[kermit4karate]

You’re aware that CR started as a private game, right?

And then it turned into a business. Your point is?

 

[Clint_L]

My understanding is that Felicia Day suggested the switch because D&D is better known.

Causal factors in the rise of D&D (IMO):

1. The demographics of Gen X.
2. The publication of 5e
3. Pop culture tie-ins (see 1)
4. The growth of streaming
5. Lost Mine of Phandelver

I’ve probably forgot something, but those are the big five in my mind, and I think 1 dwarfs everything else.

 

[kermit4karate]

Causal factors in the rise of D&D (IMO):

1. The demographics of Gen X.
2. The publication of 5e
3. Pop culture tie-ins (see 1)
4. The growth of streaming
5. Lost Mine of Phandelver

I’ve probably forgot something, but those are the big five in my mind, and I think 1 dwarfs everything else.

Ha! Or, summarize them by simply saying, "business decisions."

 

[mamba]

The situations are different, though there are similarities.

yes, they are not identical, but both can choose what to work on and there are risks and potential rewards whichever way you choose.

The business is much bigger on the software side, that is the main difference

Doing non-Wondows software is the path to irrelevance and lack of money, like doing an App for smartphones other than iPhone or Android.

Minecraft was one person in Java, they sold their company for $2.5B. Torvalds wrote the initial kernel for Linux by himself, filling the last piece in the puzzle for a complete open source OS and it now dominates smartphones (via Android) and servers, the last holdout is the desktop because MS has abused their monopoly position for decades and still does.

Google took Linux and spun Android off it, akin to Pathfinder from D&D by Paizo.

There are probably more such success stories on the software side than on the TTRPG side.

 

[billd91]

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

I'd be pretty sure Geek and Sundry were paying them. If not, G&S would have been horribly exploiting them.

 

[The Soloist]

My understanding is that Felicia Day suggested the switch because D&D is better known.

Matt Mercer is on the record for saying that he switched to D&D 5e because it was easier for him to run live.

 

[CleverNickName]

My point was that D&D is not inherently better than 80% of other games on the market and its brand does more to keep it dominant than its system.

Better how? and to whom?

I agree with you of course, but those two questions are the crux of the issue. D&D isn't a better game than most for realism, and it isn't better for solo play, or for certain playstyles, etc. But it is the best at what it's trying to be: a genetic TTRPG with wide market appeal, tailored to new players.