Critical Role To Wrap Up Third Campaign, New Exandria Unlimited Miniseries Announced

Critical Role's third campaign will end next week with an extra-sized final episode. Today, the popular streaming series announced that its third campaign would wrap up on February 6th with an 8.5 hour episode. The series finale is being called the "conclusion to this chapter in Exandrian history, and the dawn of a new age." The third campaign followed a group of adventurers who got wrapped up in a plot to rid the fantasy world of Exandria of its gods via a god-eating entity trapped in one of Exandria's moons. Characters from Critical Role's previous campaigns made significant appearances in the campaign, with the cast playing their old characters for limited periods.

Following the finale, Brennan Lee Mulligan will lead another 4-part Exandria Unlimited episode, titled Exandria Unlimited: Divergence. The series will explore the Divergence, a moment when the gods of Exandria removed themselves from the world after a devastating war between pantheons. The cast will also include Matt Mercer, Liam O'Brien, Jasmine Don, Alex Ward, and Celia Rose Gooding. That series will air for four weeks starting on February 13th at 7 PM on Critical Role's various streaming channels.

No plans were announced for a fourth Critical Role campaign. Campaign 3 ended Critical Role's tradition of weekly live episodes, with the show shifting to pre-recorded episodes that aired three times a month. Speculation has grown that Critical Role's cast (which has remained the same for 10 years) would shift, or that the game would abandon Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition in favor of Daggerheart, a fantasy RPG developed by Critical Role's Darrington Press imprint.

 

[Seramus]

I would guess they record in Pasadena, which has a lot of Hollywood-related spaces, as opposed to Pacific Palisades (unless you're a millionaire with a home studio) or Altadena (which is more working class).

3727 W Magnolia Blvd #817, Burbank, CA!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

3727 W Magnolia Blvd #817, Burbank, CA!

I wasn't far off! And just down the street from the iconic (seriously) Burbank Bob's Big Boy.

 

[strawpberry]

Personally, my favorite of all the campaigns was campaign 1.

The maps were hand drawn, the rules knowledge by most of the players was spotty at best (Though Mercer was generally spot on) - but it was just brought with such fresh faced and fun energy. There was a blip in the first series of episodes with a a problem player, but I even enjoyed that, because it really felt like something that would happen at a table. IMO, the later series, while good, just don't have that kind of energy.

100%. I also feel that the freshness and novelty of C1 played out in the simplicity of the characters and stories in a really satisfying way - they lean on basic archetypes like "Friend to nature" and "Edgy rogue" and "Evil dragon attack" in ways that are really easy to vibe with, then the creativity and charisma of the cast magnifies those simple tropes into really compelling narratives.

I can understand, especially as actors, wanting to have higher-concept characters and stories as you go on, avoiding stock archetypes and building more interesting arcs. But I think there's an inverse correlation there with how satisfying they are to watch. Having your barbarian be a punk with a magic glass skull and gravity powers is definitely more unique than one who's just a sweet dumb angry guy who likes drinking, but it's harder to engage with as an audience - especially because the latter allows the performer to embody an excellent example of a familiar archetype.

I think this disconnect is probably best shown in C2, where the audience just wanted Caleb to be happy because they liked the character, while Liam wanted him to be miserable because that's what made it an interesting story to him!

 

[OB1]

I'm always in the market to find a new actual play podcast to get into. Been trying to get season 1 of Not Another D&D Podcast to stick for me. 9 episodes in and it still hasn't won me all the way over yet. Really enjoyed Dimension 20 season 1 and CR season 1 (Only 40 episodes into season 2 but am enjoying it. The episodes are just way too long for me)

I will say that always and forever "The Adventure Zone Season 1: Balance" will go down as my favorite actual play listening experience.

Like I said earlier I'm going to try C4 whenever they start it and try to listen weekly as it's released to see how that experience goes.

You may want to try Critical Hit, season 1-3 are freaking amazing (note that they are playing 4e) and they eventually finish a single 1-30 campaign in season 5 or so, before moving on to other systems. The episodes are mostly 60 minutes long (slightly edited for long pauses or rules lookups) thought they go back and forth on whether to break up long combats into multiple episodes or not, ocassionaly leading to a 3h episode.

My D&D Liveplay listening went Nerd Poker -> Critical Hit -> Adventure Zone -> Critical Role. Critical Hit is still my favorite listening experience (I find Crit Role to be a better viewing experience) and Rodrigo's DMing IMO rivals Mercers. The only reason we probably don't hear about the Rodrigo effect like we do the Mercer effect is that they decided to stick with 4e in '14-'15 and got swamped by AZ and then CR.

 

[Bomberooski]

You may want to try Critical Hit, season 1-3 are freaking amazing (note that they are playing 4e) and they eventually finish a single 1-30 campaign in season 5 or so, before moving on to other systems. The episodes are mostly 60 minutes long (slightly edited for long pauses or rules lookups) thought they go back and forth on whether to break up long combats into multiple episodes or not, ocassionaly leading to a 3h episode.

My D&D Liveplay listening went Nerd Poker -> Critical Hit -> Adventure Zone -> Critical Role. Critical Hit is still my favorite listening experience (I find Crit Role to be a better viewing experience) and Rodrigo's DMing IMO rivals Mercers. The only reason we probably don't hear about the Rodrigo effect like we do the Mercer effect is that they decided to stick with 4e in '14-'15 and got swamped by AZ and then CR.

That’s funny you mention Critical Hit. It’s the first podcast that got me into DnD when I stumbled on it in 2010. Only listened to first season but loved it

 

[Reynard]

Since we are here: what is your absolute favorite battle from CR?

 

[OB1]

That’s funny you mention Critical Hit. It’s the first podcast that got me into DnD when I stumbled on it in 2010. Only listened to first season but loved it

Def recommend listening to the Celestial Crusade (season 2) and the Lords of the Feywild (season 3). Incredible worldbuilding, great character arcs, and some of the best combat of the series.

 

[Bomberooski]

You may want to try Critical Hit, season 1-3 are freaking amazing (note that they are playing 4e) and they eventually finish a single 1-30 campaign in season 5 or so, before moving on to other systems. The episodes are mostly 60 minutes long (slightly edited for long pauses or rules lookups) thought they go back and forth on whether to break up long combats into multiple episodes or not, ocassionaly leading to a 3h episode.

My D&D Liveplay listening went Nerd Poker -> Critical Hit -> Adventure Zone -> Critical Role. Critical Hit is still my favorite listening experience (I find Crit Role to be a better viewing experience) and Rodrigo's DMing IMO rivals Mercers. The only reason we probably don't hear about the Rodrigo effect like we do the Mercer effect is that they decided to stick with 4e in '14-'15 and got swamped by AZ and then CR.

I think the guys name is Matthew but I forget his characters name. It was like “Glarg” or something. Anyways, I remember laughing about how often he lied about rolling 20’s. Core memories unlocked

 

[OB1]

I think the guys name is Matthew but I forget his characters name. It was like “Glarg” or something. Anyways, I remember laughing about how often he lied about rolling 20’s. Core memories unlocked

Torq was the name, a half-orc funnel cake loving fighter. And yeah, Matthew's nat20's mysteriously deminished when they started using Roll20 for dice years into the campaign.

 

[TiQuinn]

Personally, my favorite of all the campaigns was campaign 1.

The maps were hand drawn, the rules knowledge by most of the players was spotty at best (Though Mercer was generally spot on) - but it was just brought with such fresh faced and fun energy. There was a blip in the first series of episodes with a a problem player, but I even enjoyed that, because it really felt like something that would happen at a table. IMO, the later series, while good, just don't have that kind of energy.

Oh so much this...Critical Role worked best for me when I could see them playing a game that was maybe a couple steps removed from what I was playing at a table. They were obviously doing it "better", with them being actors and so forth, but there was a common language with the system being run, and the characters were all pretty familiar. It was a Dungeons and Dragons campaign come alive. I think they kept this going in C2 for the most part, but when they hit C3 - it was starting to feel less like something I would encounter at my own table, and it became more unrecognizable to me. Every PC was custom made. There was more effort to disassociate from D&D from what I could see. I think the only character that I could identify with was Orym as a PC that I would see at a regular gaming table. That really had a distancing effect for me.