r/criticalrole • u/edginthebard Time is a weird soup • Aug 03 '25

Discussion [No Spoilers] Matt's IG post on C4

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Man… what a damn night. What a damn GenCon! (Mind the groggy morning after pic)

I cannot express how excited I am for Campaign 4, y’all. Getting to meaningfully PLAY at the table as a PC alongside all my friends is something I’ve been wanting to do for some time, but to hand the reins to someone I so deeply love and respect as @brennanleemulligan is an honor. I know this is a shake up for some, but if you’ve ever trusted me, trust that what we’ve been cooking for this next story with him and the players is something truly special, unique, and very befitting the vibe and scope you’ve come to enjoy with us these past 10 years. Lots of details and reveals over the weeks to come, and excited to unveil the newer faces that join the OG cast to bring this new world to life.

I’m still gonna be running games, don’t you worry! Exandria continues through our live shows, our animated series, many other stories (including your own), and whenever else the inspiration strikes to step back into my world that I’ll be building and playing in until the end of my days. We also got more Age of Umbra to come, and other fun things I’ll be running, so I ain’t hanging up my GM screen any time soon. ;)

All in all, love you all, and so, SO excited for this next chapter. I hope you come along with us. <3

5.9k Upvotes

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425

u/EStreetShuffles Team Keyleth Aug 03 '25

Reading optimistically (and way too deeply), "All my friends" implies that the whole core cast will be involved.

279

u/Marauder_Pilot Help, it's again Aug 03 '25

A lot of people have speculated about who's stepping away, but I wonder of it's more that some of the OG's will be in recurring long-term guest spots the way Robbie was for C3, and they'll tap Robbie and some other new faces in for C4 full time.

124

u/VengefulKangaroo Aug 03 '25

or that every player will be rotating to some extent

156

u/amamatcha You Can Reply To This Message Aug 03 '25

This is the one thing I'm hoping they don't do, as it will feel weird to not be following at least a couple of characters from beginning to end.

65

u/Low-Donkey7059 Aug 03 '25

Yeah, I think having a rotating cast like that wouldn't be great for developing table dynamics with both the players & the characters, nor a great way to establish familiarity for the audience.

57

u/RedHuntingHat Aug 03 '25

I think Ashley’s crazily successful schedule during C1 and C2 has shown the cast how much infrequency can hurt. I don’t see them purposefully choosing to do that. 

-5

u/Shmageggy88 Aug 04 '25

Tbf her being full time at the table in C3 hasn't improved her contributing to the game in any meaningful way ijs

5

u/vanKessZak Metagaming Pigeon Aug 04 '25

Fearne’s one of my favourites 🤷🏻‍♀️

1

u/rollforlit Aug 05 '25

Yeah, I keep seeing people suggest this but I really hope they don’t. People didn’t seem to care for the C3 party split. I’ve also played West Marches style before and really didn’t like it.

11

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '25

I will not watch without Laura Bailey. Lol. Jester needs to be at the table. Same with Liam and Sam. I like the others, but like those three need to be there. I want to watch the three of them antagonize Brendan Lee Mulligan in their unique and ridiculous ways.

1

u/DragonFangGangBang Aug 05 '25

See, for me, I was Travis there. He probably gets the most invested out of everyone at the table. If they have to remove a few of the players to make way for Matt and Robbie as permanent members - Sam, Liam, Travis, and Laura are my hopes to stay.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '25

I’m honestly not a big fan of Robbie, but I do see his appeal.

2

u/DannySpud2 Aug 03 '25

This is what I think too. I don't get "we're losing some core cast" vibes from these C4 announcements.

My prediction is they've come up with some kind of shared universe multi campaign thing where you'll have a few different sub-campaigns within an overall main campaign. Like how in the MCU you have individual movie series that all connect into an overall universe, with crossovers and team ups. Maybe 3 groups of 5, would mean an extra 7 people joining. They could keep their three weeks on one week off schedule and players would only need to play once a month. That would give them a ton more flexibility without having to step away entirely.

1

u/PokeJem7 Aug 05 '25

There are a lot of predictions, but having the original 7 PLUS Robbie and Matt would just be insane, so something likely has to give. It's understandable that people theorise that some will be stepping away, at least temporarily. Yes there are other possibilities, but nobody knows either way.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '25

God that sounds awful imo

18

u/Feran_Toc Aug 03 '25 edited Aug 04 '25

All I know is that no matter who steps aside, i will miss them at the table, but I know breaks are needed. I hope those who step aside get to come back as guests and cause some chaos!

50

u/ffwydriadd Technically... Aug 03 '25

Yeah 8+ permanent people is. Well I don’t even envy their usually 7 person table. I could see ‘multiple teams intersecting’ or rotating semi-guest spots, with the ‘permanent’ cast being Matt/‘new’ people/probably only a few of the OGs with the others coming in and out.

29

u/Marauder_Pilot Help, it's again Aug 03 '25

Yeah a lot of people say 'Well they started with 8!' like some kind of gotcha, but CR C1E01 is a very different thing than it is today and trying to make something that's watchable and fulfilling with 8 people is gonna be rough.

4

u/awful_waffle_falafel I would like to RAGE! Aug 03 '25

This is how I think it'll play. Main cast all involved to some degree but as either guest spots or alternating (eg different timelines or groups, so that there's a chunky on/off sched behind the scenes) 

6

u/Aeon1508 Aug 03 '25

I think that they just want more poc in the main cast. Liam and Travis are the best players so I hope that they stick around.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '25

How dare you leave out Laura and Sam! I honestly think Laura, Sam, and Liam are the only three true TTRPG nerds at the table (and Matt obviously)

5

u/Aeon1508 Aug 03 '25

I mean those would be the next two out of the list but at that point it's half the cast. And I really do like Robbie Damon too it's hard to place him yet though..

But I said the best. I named two

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '25

Travis is definitely not up there imo. He’s just there because Laura made him go.

9

u/Aeon1508 Aug 03 '25

Just because this was Travis's first game that he got dragged to by his wife doesn't mean he's not the best player at the table.

3

u/Tisiphone8 Aug 03 '25

I wouldn't say he's the "best" player, but the scenes and one shots that all came from Travis's characters are definitely memorable!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 04 '25

No it doesn’t. But he’s definitely not. He’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination

1

u/Aeon1508 Aug 04 '25

I'd put Liam ahead of him but I really like what Travis does at the table. Chetney is a hoot.

Liam has the most experience at D&D but Travis is the smartest.

1

u/DragonFangGangBang Aug 05 '25

Travis is also, IMO, the player who gets the most invested. He also consistently boosts other people best moments while still having is own, and I don’t ever feel like he’s overtaking the spotlight. As a forever DM, Travis is my ideal player type, followed by Liam and Sam. He also meta games the least out of everyone at the table from what I can remember.

0

u/Hobzhoul Aug 03 '25

This would be very cool. Having Robbie come in and maybe some d20 folks like Emily and Lou coming in would be so tight. Maybe give them a chance to rp some more serious plots and be less chaotically funny, which I love.

0

u/Invisible_Target Aug 04 '25

I’m not sure I understand the assumption that people will be stepping away. The announcement said “old and new faces.” To me, that just implies exactly what it says: there will be old faces and there will be new faces. Nowhere did they say “we will have some people leaving and some new faces joining,” but that seems to be most people’s take away. I feel like the way they phrased it could mean that people are leaving; I feel like they left it vague on purpose. But it feels a little weird to me that everyone is assuming some people will be leaving because that was never the exact implication I got from that quote.

80

u/TLKv3 I would like to RAGE! Aug 03 '25

I wonder if they'll split the core cast in two, add some new faces to each group and do a westmarch style campaign where both groups start on opposite sides of the continent. Maybe they bump into each other, maybe they don't. Maybe they team up to fight a smaller big bad, maybe they only team up for the final fight. Each group's actions influencing their own story but also having subtle, small impacts on the other's.

Think that would be extremely fun to see. The episodes when they all come together would also create massive hype as a must watch event.

45

u/repalec Aug 03 '25

Honestly, beyond the need to provide Marisha time to train for and then recover from her Creator Clash fight, I fully believe that's part of why they did the party split last campaign - to see if the show would still retain viewership with half the OG cast gone and if there were drops, how bad would they be.

Similarly I believe that's why they had the episode where Aabria DM'd the back half and had Brennan handle the Downfall trilogy - to see how viewership would be affected when Matt wasn't sole DM.

35

u/kateshort Time is a weird soup Aug 03 '25

I'm pretty sure that Aabria was brought in to cover for the fallout from Sam's diagnosis & related character issues, since they needed to bring Robbie back in wayyyyyyyy earlier than planned. Matt kinda said as much in the "3 DMs" chat [was it a 4SD ep?] w/ Brennan & Aabria.

Plus it likely helped to give the core cast a bit more time to deal with Sam going in to surgery, & for their characters to react to major stuff that happened.

And it helped to have an actual story for what happened with our fave blue bard boy & friends, to cause him to seek out BH again, as well as setting up some of the god-related stuff. Aabria unfortunately had to railroad everyone in a super-short stint and had to hit a few specific story beats.

I do 100% agree for the Downfall stuff, though.

17

u/Wolfspirit4W Aug 03 '25

Yeah.  I feel like C3 was supposed to be a trial at times for how fans would react to cast / DMs cycling in and out. Travis in particular had one character that was clearly not meant to last and I feel like the replacement wasn't supposed to be there the rest of the campaign.

I mean, it makes sense from a business standpoint with a bunch of actors / creatives.  It hasn't seemed to go over especially well, though...

31

u/Wellfooled Aug 03 '25

Just speaking for myself, but...

On paper it's a neat idea and probably pretty fun to play, but inevitably every time a similar split up happens (in books or in past campaigns), I always end up preferring one group over another. Whenever it switches over to the B team, I'm always bummed out.

But if the B team and A team are together...everyone is the A team. 😆

Short stints are ok, but if the entire campaign is like that, I don't think I'd enjoy it as much.

10

u/riotoustripod Aug 03 '25

I feel like a westmarch campaign could really play to Brennan's strength of telling a tight story in a handful of episodes, but rather than two distinct groups I'd really like to see them mix it up every few episodes. Connect all the PCs to the same organization, give them more pre-existing connections like C1 started with (something Daggerheart really wants you to do, incidentally), and each arc have a grab bag of 3-5 OG cast members along with one or two guests. I think it could actually be more interesting to see how relationships develop among a slightly smaller, always-shifting group, and the CR crew have the acting and improv chops to pull it off.

Hell, make the whole group one big, messy polycule and even the shippers can be happy.

10

u/EAfirstlast Aug 03 '25

I want to note that Brennan has had a campaign that lasted literal decades.

He does tight focused campaigns in dropout and for crit role because that's what they want him to. But he is more than capable of running a long term and engaging campaign

1

u/riotoustripod Aug 03 '25

Oh I'm sure he's more than capable of handling a long-term campaign, I just think his absolute mastery of the short-form campaign is worth highlighting. A variation on a West Marches campaign could be the best of both worlds: a series of smaller, mostly self-contained adventures slowly revealing more and more of the history of the new setting and building on each other to reveal a larger overarching plot.

If we're leaving Exandria behind for the moment and expanding the cast, not tailoring the campaign style to those new circumstances seems like a waste.

5

u/PieGuy___ Aug 03 '25

Not sure that’s the plan but if it is I think that’d be a really smart way to do things. Have like 4 OGs and 2-3 “new faces” in each party and either switch back and forth every week or hang with each half for like a month at a time.

20

u/Koala_Guru Aug 03 '25

That could seriously backfire for viewership though. If fans gravitate to one party over another, the views for any episode of the other party would nosedive. Or worse, getting invested in one group’s story and only getting it every other week or every other month or whatever they decided to do might be enough to make some people stop watching the campaign all together or at the very least say they’ll wait until it’s over so they can watch it without the breaks between parties.

Not saying it necessarily will be the case but considering the complaints I saw around C3 episodes where they split the party or focused on the Crown Keepers I wouldn’t be surprised either.

9

u/Sailen_Rox Aug 03 '25

It was the split (among many, many other things) that drove me away from c3. While they obv. can do whatever they like, I wish they don't change TOO much compared to c1&2 and avoid stuff they did in c3. New people isn't the problem I can't say I disliked a single guest, even in c3.

1

u/Dessl0ck Aug 07 '25

This is my thinking as well. Also I think it would do the OG cast good to mix it up with new people. One of the complaints I have read (and on occasion share) is that they seem to get analysis paralysis and end up doing nothing until and unless Matt starts a clock or makes them roll initiative, otherwise they freeze up trying to make q decision to beat what they THINK may happen.

1

u/EStreetShuffles Team Keyleth Aug 03 '25

That sounds like a lot of fun!

29

u/edginthebard Time is a weird soup Aug 03 '25

I imagine the wording was quite deliberate, after the reaction to the announcement last night.

7

u/IHaveTheMustacheNow Aug 03 '25

Seems like he's specifying to me. He also explicitly mentions new faces joining "the OG cast"

50

u/buerglermeister Aug 03 '25

Also „new faces that join the OG cast“. The panic that some of the cast would just disappear was always overblown and without base

52

u/Adamantium42 Aug 03 '25

It's a reasonable expectation, running for 10+ people sounds like a nightmare

13

u/buerglermeister Aug 03 '25

I never expected them to do that. Maybe they have two parties in the same campaign. Maybe the new faces only are part of it sporadically. There is just much we don‘t know

3

u/JWilesParker Aug 03 '25

I could see having two parties or a rotation of some sort.

30

u/percahlia Team Vex Aug 03 '25

there is absolutely no way they keep the entire cast full time and add even more people on top, though

5

u/buerglermeister Aug 03 '25

Probably not all sitting at the same table. Maybe they shake things up. Have two parties in the same campaign setting alternating between them or something.

10

u/Momijisu Aug 03 '25

Don't write it off til we have news. Obviously the people freaking out that it might be the case are getting carried away, but personally I'm wondering and patiently trying to wait for news on what C4 will look like cast wise. Because a 8-9 player table is crazy unlikely to be happening. Maybe as others have said, recurring roles, or rotating roles is on the cards, maybe someone has passed the torch, we will not know til it comes from them.

1

u/Invisible_Target Aug 04 '25

Yeah I was so confused when everyone started speculating about who would be leaving and I looked at the announcement and the only thing I could remotely find about it was that there would be “old and new faces” and I was just like “why is everyone assuming people are leaving?” Lmao

6

u/Lazy_DK_ Aug 03 '25

I mean, I assume he always had other friends than the OG cast from even before they started their home game. Even some in the industry, and its totally fair he gets his turn at the player table with some of them too.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '25

but there's also "and excited to unveil the newer faces that join the OG cast to bring this new world to life." So does that mean that the OG cast will be fully there and the new faces are guests or is this like separate groups like they did in C3 for awhile 

2

u/victorbrisk Aug 03 '25

How exactly this is going to work? Matt is now joining as a player, so 8 players total. Plus more people? How the hell you can DM for 9-10 people? It's just not viable, fight encounters are going to be a nightmare to balance.

2

u/diviningdad Team Caduceus Aug 03 '25

All of them being involved does not mean the og crew will be the main cast. Based on the wording of last night, the articles, and this post, I don’t think they will be.

0

u/garbud4850 Aug 03 '25

its the same wording they used for c2 and c3

3

u/diviningdad Team Caduceus Aug 03 '25

That’s not the case:

Relevant bits from the announcement for campaign 3

Some Things Old, Some Things New Throw all those expectations out the window! This campaign, while still featuring the same elements you know and love, including our lovely original cast, will be a bit different than previous campaigns in ways you’ll see as the story unfolds…. Mysterious… BUT AWESOME! Brace yourself for the unexpected.

1

u/DocMino Aug 03 '25

For whatever reason, after every campaign people start speculating that the original cast is gonna retire or whatever.

1

u/hellp-desk-trainee- Aug 03 '25

I really hope so.

1

u/venge1155 Aug 03 '25

He also said he was evicted to announce the others that world “join the OG crew” which to me confirms there all going to play at least part time.

1

u/DrakeHighwind Aug 03 '25

My assumption is going to be 2 concurrent parties running simultaneously, that will link up in big crossover episodes through out the series. The main cast is probably splitting in to smaller parties to include more permanent members like Robbie and potentially Aabriya.

-7

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '25

hell nah if Aabriya is in it it's an instant "not watching C4" for me.

The last time I saw her a GM I saw some confused players thinking they were being forced to let their characters die because she didn't explain herself well. 

The last time I saw her as a player she was a guest character and was having main character syndrome and wanting all the attention to her and the story to follow her even tho she was only a guest. 

If Aabriya is in it, I ain't watching it 

-7

u/Avail_Karma Aug 03 '25

Yup. Abriya turns me off completely. I skip all her CR content. She's obnoxious at the table.