When it comes to the world of Dungeons and Dragons as a spectator sport, one series reigns supreme: Critical Role. For over a decade, a group of voice actors led by Game Master Matthew Mercer have livestreamed their sprawling, years-long campaigns on Twitch and amassed a vast fanbase along the way. Sure, 300-plus 4-hour-long episodes may seem like a daunting prospect, but cosplayers, fan artists, and fanfiction authors have flocked to the fantasy world of Exandria, and the franchise has inspired animated spinoffs and even a possible video game.
Now, the team is gearing up for its fourth campaign, and this time, things are going to be very, very different.
So far, Critical Role has released three campaigns: Vox Machina, which has been adapted into a five-season animated series; The Mighty Nein, which has its own adaptation coming this November; and now Bells Hells, which ended its regular run in February with a grandiose eight-hour long episode.
In that time, they’ve paved the way for a whole new genre of “actual-play” shows, which record tabletop RPG games for an audience. These range from TV shows, like indie streamer Dropout’s Dimension 20, to podcasts like Dungeons and Daddies and Not Another D&D Podcast. With that comes a whole new host of professional TTRPG gamers who have contributed to Critical Role projects like smaller campaigns and one-shots.
But at Critical Role’s recent live show in Indianapolis, they announced that Campaign 4, premiering October 2, will take this cooperation to a whole new level. Instead of being Game Master like in every other campaign, Matt Mercer will instead be a player, and Brennan Lee Mulligan will instead be GM. The campaign will also be set in a world entirely outside of Exandria, where all three of the main campaigns and a number of specials have been set. What’s more, there’s no confirmation of the rest of the cast returning, which has set fans on edge.
Mulligan is actual-play royalty in his own right. The Dropout cast member has often gone viral for his appearances on the streamer’s banner show Game Changer, but he’s best known as the GM of Dimension 20, which is now on its 26th season with Mulligan helming 19 and playing in five others. He also GMed Exandria Unlimited, the Critical Role anthological series of minicampaigns, so he has experience with the series already. He has also signed a three-year deal to develop more seasons of Dimension 20, so it won’t mean any less content over on Dropout.
After 10 years and with more projects in development, it makes sense why the cast of Critical Role would want to shake things up or even take a step down, but it’s shifting a formula that has worked time and time again. It could be the shot in the arm the franchise needs to attract new fans daunted by the sheer quantity of episodes to catch up with, or it could mean failing to recapture the magic that happened on Twitch in 2015.
