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We thought that the announcement of Brennan Lee Mulligan as GM for Critical Role Campaign 4 would be the biggest news out of the TTRPG world this summer, but my gosh, were we wrong. Critical Role has announced a host of new info about their fourth campaign, including a wildly expanded cast list, a brand new setting, and plenty more. We're going to break down all these major announcements below, so go ahead and roll a perception check for me.

Who are in the cast of Critical Role Campaign 4?

Let's start off with perhaps the most surprising news out of this most recent announcement - the Critical Role cast for Campaign 4 will consist of a whopping 13 players. Those of course include the original Critical Role cast (including Matthew Mercer, who will be joining as a player rather than GM), as well as a host of other familiar faces in the TTRPG liveplay space. That cast list, in no particular order, are:

• GM Brennan Lee Mulligan
• Laura Bailey
• Taliesin Jaffe
• Ashley Johnson
• Matthew Mercer
• Liam O’Brien
• Marisha Ray
• Sam Riegel
• Travis Willingham
• Luis Carazo
• Robbie Daymond
• Aabria Iyengar
• Whitney Moore
• Alex Ward

With a cast list this long, you might be wondering just how the hell this game is going to come together, to say nothing of wondering how the they're going to find a table big enough. But the thing is, this Campaign is going to look a little different than the three previous entries, so let's get into that...

How will Critical Role Campaign 4 work?

Critical Role Campaign 4 will be told in the West Marches style of D&D - that is, a style of TTRPG play that hops back and forth through different companies of adventurers who are all taking part in the same larger, overarching story. (Remember how the Hobbits had different storylines than Aragorn & Co. in The Two Towers? It's that.) With that in mind, the first 4 episodes of Campaign 4 will serve as an "overture," according to CR, and then the story will split into three different groups at three smaller tables.

Those tables, as Mulligan explains in the accompanying announcement video, are broken down into three different sects of adventurer types, laid out (by Brennan Lee Mulligan himself) below:

• Soldiers - "The Soldiers' table were the players who were interested in a traditionally charged combat and conflict driven story mode, where a non-violent answers are few between."
• Seekers - "The Seekers [are] essentially tied directly into lore, cosmology, magic; big questions around problems facing this universe that are in the weave of [dancing] between divinity, arcane, magic - demons and fairies and dragons and these big questions."
• Schemers - "The schemers table is very much set in intrigue, espionage, skullduggery, and relationships with these other NPCs and institutions and the machinations of power. Their adventuring looks like 'cloak and dagger,' that there are enemies right here in your hometown, and they are moving against you as we speak."

If you've gotten this far and think that this looks very, very different than the CR campaigns before, well, you don't know the half of it. Not only will the "hows" and "whos" of C4 be new territory for your favorite live players, the "where" will change as well. Speaking of which...

Where is Critical Role Campaign 4 set?

Critical Role Campaign 4 will be sat in a new land called Aramán, which the cast were sure to emphasize is not a part of the larger Exandria. Mulligan does, however, say that the world is "in conversation with" the show's previous setting, in that both lands are shaped by the relationship between gods and mortals. In Aramán, however, that relationship is a lot more adversarial - the campaign takes place 70 years after human revolution against their godly overlords, where magic is "wild and chaotic and unpredictable," and the issue of "where souls of the dead go" is thrown out of whack, per Mulligan.

Will Critical Role Campaign 4 use the Daggerheart system?

To put a fine point on it, no. Critical Role Campaign 4 will use a standard D&D gameplay system, although it's important to note that will be the recent, 2024 edition of said system. However, cast members like Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer made sure to let fans know that there was plenty in store for the future of Daggerheart in the liveplay space, with folks like the Dungeons & Daddies and Legends of Avantris crews taking part in on-camera Daggerheart adventures in the coming months.

Which, if recent history is to be our guide, will also involve some pretty huge announcements.

Critical Role Campaign 4 debuts on October 2 on Critical Role's Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch channels.

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