Critical Role’s Campaign 4 is already surprising fans months before its official start. First came the announcement that Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 fame would be the Game Master, letting Matt Mercer finally break free of the “eternal DM” curse. Then, on Aug. 21, the question that everyone was asking was answered: Campaign 4 would not use Critical Role’s in-house game, Daggerheart, but would stick with Dungeons & Dragons.
The decision has sparked debate. I’ve read TTRPG players online claiming that, while they were on the fence about Daggerheart but looking forward to trying it on the heels of Campaign 4, they will now abandon that prospect completely. If Critical Role isn’t willing to bet on their own game, why should players? That’s a reasonable argument, but I also think that after taking a deeper look, it’s easy to understand why Critical Role decided to use D&D for their upcoming campaign.
The presence of Brennan Lee Mulligan as the new Game Master probably played a huge role in this decision. Mulligan will have to run a campaign with 13 players on three different tables, with the added pressure of making hundreds of thousands of Critical Role fans happy and not regretting Mercer in that role. It’s only natural that he wanted to do all that while using the system that he’s most comfortable with.
Brennan Lee Mulligan is not just the Game Master for Campaign 4, he’s also the creator of the world in which the new game will take place, Aramán. Much like Exandria (the world where the first three campaigns of Critical Role take place), it’s not unlikely that this setting will spark its own products, starting from sourcebooks and ranging to other media. If Mulligan is smart about his business, as well as his storytelling, he will be thinking about this. We also don’t know when his deal with Critical Role was finalized, and at the time Mulligan could have already had a deal with Wizards of the Coast to publish his products under the D&D umbrella.
Also, Mulligan has probably been working on this world for a long time, starting when Daggerheart was still in development. The most logical choice, thus, was to tailor Aramán for D&D rather than for a game that still had to come out. Could Mulligan adapt his work for Daggerheart? Absolutely, but something else has to be considered, then. Choosing Daggerheart for Campaign 4 was not convenient for Critical Role, either.
I wrote earlier this month that Critical Role and Wizards have entered a “cold war,” and I still think it’s an accurate statement. During the actual Cold War, the last thing that the United States and the Soviet Union wanted was to drop bombs on each other, aware of the mutual destruction consequences. Similarly, Critical Role has no interest in pissing off Wizards by dropping D&D from its most-watched actual play show. Their media powerhouse is built on Dungeons & Dragons, after all. And the group can always keep playing and showcasing Daggerheart on any other occasion. During the Aug. 21 announcement, Critical Role founders Matt Mercer, Travis Willingham, and Marisha Ray stated that more Age of Umbra and other Daggerheart content is on the horizon, plus more partners will be doing Daggerheart actual plays, including Dungeons & Dads and Legends of Avantris.
Considering that the game is already sold out, Critical Role probably wasn’t worried about pushing Daggerheart into every corner of the business. Instead, the creatives behind it took the more cautious approach and avoided two dangers: alienating part of their fanbase who could have been put off by the change in system, and souring their relationship with Wizards of the Coast. Finally, let’s not forget that Daggerheart is still a newborn game. It may simply not be ready to be showcased on such a stage during a years-long campaign. Meanwhile, Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford — the former creative director and game director for D&D — are working on their Daggerheart setting. Once that is ready, I’m sure there will be a good chance to see it showcased, perhaps during Critical Role Campaign Five.
Choosing Daggerheart for Campaign Four would have been a bold choice for Critical Role. Instead, they took the most business-savvy decision and went with Dungeons & Dragons. Time will tell what impact, if any, this will have on the future of the two games.
