Critical Role Campaign 4 Will Have 13 PLAYERS – Everything You Need To Know

Critical Role finally revealed what campaign 4 will be about and what we can expect. And here we will talk about everything you might want to know, before the release of Episode 1 on October 2nd.

A Big Party

One of the most baffling reveals was the player size. Since Brennan Lee Mulligan will serve as the new DM as Matt Mercer joins the players this time, it was clear that the player size would increase. But nothing could have prepared me for 13 players and a DM for one campaign.

Just to be clear: A typical DnD Campaign feels comfortable with about 4 players. There is of course no limit to the number of players, but more players also means potentially more chaos. Here is a list of all the players joining this huge table:

The DM

• Brennan Lee Mulligan – Actor, Comedian and live play tabletop veteran (Dimension 20, Critical Role, Dropout)

Usual Cast

• Laura Bailey
• Taliesin Jaffe
• Ashley Johnson
• Liam O'Brien
• Marisha Ray
• Matthew Mercer
• Sam Riegel
• Travis Willingham

Non-Critical Role Cast

• Luis Carazo – Actor (NCIS:LA, Criminal Minds and more)
• Robbie Daymond – Well-known Voice Actor (Persona 5, Devil May Cry, Jujutsu Kaisen and more)
• Aabria Iyengar – Liveplay tabletop veteran (Critical Role, Dimension 20 and more)
• Whitney Moore – "Trash"-movie actor and voice actor (Birdemic, Satanic Panic, Young Justice and more)
• Alexander Ward – Monster actor (Salem's Lot, Annabelle Comes Home, Westworld and more)

In order to handle all of these players at once, the team wants to tackle campaign 4 in a West Marches style.

Three Smaller Tables

Brennan Lee Mulligan describes the West Marches style in the announcement video:

It's effectively a shared world with more players than can fit at the table in one session.

This means that the table will be split into three smaller tables. Yet, all players will play in the same world at the same time. During the adventure, they will also have the chance to meet the other player characters and players have the chance to swap between tables, so that the player constellations can be flexible.

The Table will be split into three different play styles. So the players got to pick the team that fit their play style the most. These play styles are:

• Soldiers – Traditional conflict and combat-driven story mode
• Seekers – Interested in lore, cosmology, magic and the big questions of the universe
• Schemers – Interested in intrigue, espionage, skulduggery and relationships with other NPCs

And to implement all of this and create a fun experience, Critical Role will obviously use their own newest addition to the tabletop world, Daggerheart...right?

No Daggerheart For Campaign 4

Instead of using Daggerheart for their next big adventure, Brennan and the others will stick to Dungeons & Dragons. But they won't be using DnD 5e, which is the edition that's the most popular and most used across the board. No, they will instead use the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Rulebook.

But don't worry. Daggerheart will still come into play in other formats on Critical Role, just not for the big main campaign.

Well, now that the logistics are out of the way. What is the setting of campaign 4 going to be about?

The Setting

This time, the team will leave the already established world of Exandria behind, to venture into the mysterious and new. Aramán will be the name of the new world, campaign 4 takes place in. In this world, the gods put the well-being of themselves over the well-being of the mortals. This lead to a conflict between the two factions

But the gods are defeated and killed. Whoops!

And now 70 years after the gods were killed, the players have to live in a world, where magic is wild and unpredictable and the afterlife is uncertain among other difficulties the lack of gods creates.

The story in this setting will look something like this:

Hero to many. Enemy to some. When Thjazi Fang is marked for execution, various figures from across his remarkable life unite to uncover the truth behind his grim fate. In a land still suffering from the fallout of dead gods and living in the shadow of a tumultuous rebellion, these disparate people will come together across the fractured world of Aramán and connect in ways they never imagined. As hope and victory fade, a question hangs over Aramán: without the Gods, what great deeds now fall to us? And who, or what, shall grab their crown for themselves?

Are you hyped about the new campaign? This would be the first time I get to witness it live instead of watching highlight reels to catch up on all the episodes. And to be honest, I am very intrigued on how this new approach and this fresh story will play out.