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]

So I did watch it (waiting for something else and I can replay at 1.5 speed). His whole spiel seems to be based on annoyingly implying that he has insider info and "Taking an upfront payday just to continue to run the game they're already playing is a no brainer" at around 4:40. Then he goes on to say other things like "CR is responsible for how popular D&D becomes." Really? Whether or not people enjoy playing the game has nothing to do with it? AL, support for gaming at schools, every other stream that uses D&D has no impact? Towards the end he just throws in more speculation, ties in the franchise idea that doesn't really prove anything, on and on.

But the funny thing is that he claims specific numbers of how CR is making tens of millions of dollars per year which, if true, why would they take the gamble of switching to DH? Why not have Matt take the lead of DH games, do separate streams for those, and pull in even more money? At this point it sounds like their stream and the deal with Amazon for their show are their main money-makers, DH is practically just a side gig for them. If DH takes off, fantastic! Now they have two potentially equally profitable streams. It would be a win-win for them. If DH doesn't take off, they've hedged their bets and maybe they do something else down the road.

I guess I'm not surprised they're sticking with D&D for campaign 4. Maybe WOTC is spending a big percentage of their D&D advertising budget on CR, maybe they aren't. We simply don't know.

So it is speculative?? I am shocked. I thought for sure we found an internet rando who had sources on the inside willing to risk everything by breaching the multiple NDAs the CR members undoubtedly had to sign to make this happen.

 

[Valetudo]

Well how many of these yt guys are actually close enough to cr for real I fo always. He's doing what everyone else is doing. Trying to make a buck. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[AlViking]

So it is speculative?? I am shocked. I thought for sure we found an internet rando who had sources on the inside willing to risk everything by breaching the multiple NDAs the CR members undoubtedly had to sign to make this happen.

Well he did, indeed, repeat numbers gathered by other internet randos so it's got to be true!

 

[TiQuinn]

So it is speculative?? I am shocked. I thought for sure we found an internet rando who had sources on the inside willing to risk everything by breaching the multiple NDAs the CR members undoubtedly had to sign to make this happen.

Yeah, he wants it both ways. Suggests heavily he has insider info and uses that to bolster everything else without real attribution. Real piece of work he is.

 

[CleverNickName]

True or false, sensational or plain, soothing or aggrivating, good or bad.....whatever it takes to get you to click the link. Even better if it starts an argument.

There's no such thing as 'bad attention' on YouTube. They get paid either way, so might as well go the easy route and manufacture some unfounded outrage!

 

[Clint_L]

CR also employs somewhere around 80 people now, so they have a lot of factors to consider when making a huge decision like this - that's a lot of livelihoods to be responsible for, and it's clear they take that very seriously. Above all, I think they are large enough now that they have to be very thoughtful about how each choice affects their overall brand. Walking away from D&D, with its millions of players, and which is so completely tied to their brand, would be a huge gamble with a lot of jobs at stake. And they still love playing D&D, so, to me, they made the obvious choice. I would not have been completely shocked if they had switched to DH, but I would have thought they were taking a massive risk.

 

[kermit4karate]

True or false, sensational or plain, soothing or aggrivating, good or bad.....whatever it takes to get you to click the link. Even better if it starts an argument.

There's no such thing as 'bad attention' on YouTube. They get paid either way, so might as well go the easy route and manufacture some unfounded outrage!

Yeppers. The smart ones also incorporate and form LLCs, so you can sometimes see those little letters somewhere on their profile, and also carry multimillion-dollar professional liability insurance policies with riders like errors & omissions to help them pay legal fees in the event they get sued for their claims, which they often claim to be "mistakes" later (instead of fabrications). In the good ol' U-S-of-A, land of the free, anyone can sue anyone for anything, but when someone can prove that a made-up claim caused reputational or professional harm (monetary damages, like when one party backs out of a contract)...there's a whole lotta lawyers out there who'll take cases like that on contingency, i.e. for free, where they're only paid if they win the case for you or the defendant settles $$$.