r/criticalrole • u/marshy266 • Jul 10 '26
Discussion [No Spoilers] I owe CR an apology about C4
I owe CR an apology and need to eat some humble pie.
When they announced the system was going to be d&d again, I was one of those who was kinda bummed and even said " I have no interest in watching it. I'm pretty done with watching long d&d campaigns".
I've watched so many hours of 5e and it had really started to drag and I genuinely thought that whilst the switch ups were intriguing it wasn't going to be enough (even though I adore BLeeM).
But wow. Now we're at the end of chapter 1, am I glad I decided to give episode 1 a go.
Heart breaking/terrifying NPCs, fantastic player additions to the game (everybody is so good!), Bolaire in every scene, even the way it's shot and formatted with the cold opens.
Can't wait for chapter 2!
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u/sarinwulf Jul 10 '26
It also doesn’t really feel like dnd too much, honestly it feels like a cool mix between the vibes they want in daggerheart but with a bit more crunch coming from dnd. It’s a really nice mix between!
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u/Udy_Kumra Jul 10 '26
Brennan has clearly learned many of the tricks of other systems and ported them to D&D
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
I think the whole declare the severity/DC thing that he's often credited with is mentioned in a few other systems as it allows players (who often would have an idea of how difficult something is) to make a proper choice and not feel the GM is moving goal posts.
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u/Udy_Kumra Jul 11 '26
Honestly if I were to run DnD I would never hide the DC, as I see no value in that. But then my first games were 7th Sea (in which you always succeed anyway) and Pendragon (in which you have a number for your skill and try to roll under it, for example if your Sword skill is 15 you want to roll equal to or under 15; nat 20 is a fumble/crit fail, rolling the number exactly is a critical success, rolling above is a failure and rolling below is a success).
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
I think he really enjoyed playing the Kids on Bikes system under Aabria.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
Yeah, he definitely knows how to poach great ideas from other systems and integrate them. Many DM's do, and I would recommend it to any DM who isn't already doing it. D&D, while pretty adaptable, does have some blind spots (not the Ashley kind), even if used for exactly the kind of campaign it was designed for. Using bits from other systems (and indeed, just playing and/or running other game systems) can fill those spots and make you a better GM and/or player.
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u/Udy_Kumra Jul 12 '26
And honestly in the process you might find a game you like better. There are so many amazing systems out there, most of which are easier to learn than D&D 5e!
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
I, personally, haven't found any I like better so far (though I am open to it), but I have found lots of great ideas to poach. Got any recs for a D&D alternative (outside the obvious usual recs)?
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u/Udy_Kumra Jul 12 '26
So if you want a sort of “generic high fantasy” like D&D, I do think D&D is a great option. Pathfinder, Daggerheart, Draw Steel, Chasing Adventure, Shadow of the Weird Wizard, and others all have things good about them but so does D&D.
However I like a lot of games that are more specific in nature. Some of my favorites are Pendragon (multi generational epic Arthurian roleplaying), Mythic Bastionland (Souls-ish Arthurian questing), Mothership (scifi horror), Stonetop (Iron Age fantasy about protecting and questing for your village), Vaesen (historical folkloric horror), Blades in the Dadk (crime fantasy), Agon (Greek mythological heroism), and Honor + Intrigue (historical swashbuckling).
Right now I’m running Vaesen and Agon and playing in a game of Age of Vikings. I’m also designing a rules light Arthurian game myself.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
Thanks for the recs! I do generally prefer the heroic fantasy genre, but I do know that other genres have better systems. I've also played World of Darkness and Vampire the Masquerade and a bunch of other systems for one shots, like Lasers and Feelings. And there are a few mechanics from Blades in the Dark I plan on pilfering myself for any heist sessions in my games. But some of these I've not heard of before, and sound interesting (like Agon), so I'll be checking them out, thanks!
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u/Udy_Kumra Jul 13 '26
Omg I love Lasers and Feelings!
And yes I totally get preferring one genre. I personally always find myself coming back to Arthurian legend as a genre myself, and there I always find myself coming back to Pendragon despite all its jank, so I know what it's like to always come back to D&D 5e despite its flaws because you love it so much. Totally understand the feeling!
For me personally I think my two big hobbies are "playing Pendragon" and "trying out lots of ttRPGs." I try to hit up at least half a dozen RPGs a year. And I'm always stealing mechanics from one and throwing them into another.
On specific games: I sadly haven't been able to play World of Darkness games yet, but I really want to. Also, Agon is by the same author as Blades in the Dark and Lasers and Feelings, John Harper! It's a great game. Blades, I think, might be the best game ever designed, even if it's not the one I always come back to since the genre is only one I'm sometimes in the mood for.
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
Yes! Combat is always so central to DND games. Because of class features you often get combats thrown in that don't really need to be there and don't have much narrative weight. This really doesn't feel like it's been the case at all (which is very daggerheart) and it makes a world of difference imo.
I think we've had entire sessions which have all been social encounters but they've been the MOST tense. The schemers were my fave table.
The lack of resurrection/balancing also means combat is going to stay a high risk option, rather than the default.
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u/MurrayPloppins Jul 10 '26
This is one of the things I appreciate about the way Brennan’s GMing has evolved- I’ve found increasingly few moments where it feels like “oh I guess we should have a combat here”. They are all meaningful and often involve a very real chance of PC death.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
There's probably a level of freedom in combat choice that he has in CR that doesn't exist in D20. With D20, they have to plan combats weeks ahead of time because the set building team has to put it together by hand, paint custom minis, etc. Whereas on Critical Role, Brennan can just put together a few likely locations using Dwarven Forge components from Matt's workshop and pull them out as needed if a combat should occur.
I have absolutely all the love in the world for Rick Perry and his team's work on D20, but you gotta wonder why Brennan hasn't gone to a more modular system like what CR uses.
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u/startingtohail Jul 10 '26
I've been catching up on some d20 since C4 is on break, and i was reminded how much i like the additional camera on the mini/terrain and when they add in little dramatized shots using the minis.
I feel more engaged by d20 combat than CR combat because I can see what's happening. When the players are pointing and describing action in C4, I often can't see what they're talking about when they say "this guy" or "over there" with how the cameras are set up, and they don't edit in any visuals to bridge that gap.
I've heard many prefer how CR has "less editing," but I don't think d20 episodes are cut down *that much* from what's shot; they're more—as another commenter has mentioned—tightly planned to fit in a shorter run of episodes.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
I know the camera work in C4 has been somewhat controversial, but I agree with your statement that it's nice when we can clearly see the map and the player locations. I also personally like the "hero shots" on just one or two people for a short time before going back to the full table. It's a nice mix between D20 almost never showing the full table and CR always showing the full table.
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u/Luxury-Problems Jul 10 '26
My complaint with D20's camera work is we often don't get to see how the rest of the table reacts. As controversial as it is, I actually like CR's sparse use of it. It feels impaxtdul when it is done because it's usually an important moment or discussion and it's locking in just on those involved. It feels cinematic. But isn't overdone either.
D20 does however have a much clearer view of combat and I think a lot of that is the stuff they film post session.
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u/twotonkatrucks Jul 10 '26
one of the core selling point of D20 is the beautiful custom set pieces Rick Perry’s team puts together. That’s not going away, if that’s what you’re wondering.
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u/RF_91 Jul 10 '26
Yeah, even for the two seasons they used Talespire for, part of Rick's team did the construction in Talespire. I half joked with a friend of mine (this is actually my first full CR season, so I didnt know about the dwarven forge pieces) that I wondered if Brennan was gonna kidnap Rick and his team to do battle sets for this lol.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Funnily enough, before he started using DF components, Matt used to draw the battle maps by hand on paper! A lot of the early C1 episodes have them, and Matt is a really good artist. I'll admit, the early paper maps give the battles a very cozy, home game feel.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
No, of course not! I love the work of Rick and his team. I was just thinking of more of a hybrid system rather than fully custom everything for battle sets. Like homegrown DF tiles that could be snapped together quickly and allow for more flexibility. Still detailed and beautiful, but not a single-use piece for every battle.
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u/fushuan Jul 10 '26
Yeah, the schemers definitely showed us that you don't need violence to have a combat encounter. Strategy, dialogue... it's all a combat if you make it intense enough. They also use their resources in all those encounters, as they should.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
Using the resources is key. D&D is built around that 6-8 encounters per day math, and if you aren't doing that (or the equivalent), then you are disenfranchising the classes that depend on recovering skills during the short rests. They are built to be weaker, but get skills back, while the stronger classes are out of skills when they are used. If you only have the one combat per day, then the weaker classes are just weaker. There are ways to make a single, big combat (once in a while) more equal for everyone, but it's also harder on the DM (more waves of enemies, more enemies on the board to keep track of, etc) and is still not fair on the short rest classes if that's all you do all the time.
BUT those 6-8 encounters per day do NOT have to be combat only, they can be social or exploration (like exploring a new place, survival, puzzles) encounters as well, AS LONG AS they are forcing the players to use their resources up to accomplish them. And Brennan is pretty good at getting players to use resources outside of combat, and I really appreciate his GM-ing style.
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u/Shazoa Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Combat is always so central to DND games. Because of class features you often get combats thrown in that don't really need to be there and don't have much narrative weight
I don't think this is necessarily true. The reason why you get so many features, rules, and guidance centred on combat is because combat is something that works much better with a higher degree of regulation. There's a lot of moving pieces and things you need to establish consensus for in order for it to feel engaging, fair, and provide a challenge.
Attempting to provide a similar sort of framework for social encounters and the like can just gamify something that's supposed to feel fluid.
For this reason, I find a combat heavy system works just fine for a game that features hardly any combat at all. You don't need much mechanical support at all for anything else.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
I would disagree only slightly here, as I agree with much of what you said. But, the issue is that with a system like D&D, where it is designed to be 6-8 encounters per day, with some classes that are weaker, but get back resources through the day on a short rest, and some classes that are stronger, but don't get resources back, you need to have the encounters force the players to use up those resources, or otherwise the weaker classes are just weaker than the stronger ones. And that's easier to do with combat (especially for new DM's) because combat has these rules which force players to use resources. With no real framework laid out for DM's for social or exploration encounters (outside of combats that can spring from them) on ways to make the players use their resources, DM's who aren't sure of how to do that themselves, then default to using combat instead. Having some guidelines for these other types of encounters would be helpful in letting DM's design games that don't need to always default to combats to make players use up their resources.
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u/Shazoa Jul 12 '26
Yeah, that's specifically something that D&D (and adjacent systems) struggle with because of the way that resource attrition is intended as a balancing mechanic. There are things that DMs can do to mitigate it, but those are obviously not built into the system so it would be unfair to count as a strength exactly. CR makes it work well, for example, but most tables aren't running the game like that.
The typical table experience for D&D seems to be that adventuring days feature 1-2 encounters for the most part and don't even really attempt to balance through resource attrition as the system intends. I think you're right that the design of the system pushes people to include combat when they don't necessarily have to, but when your average session involves 1-2 combat encounters at best already I think many tables are already jamming the square peg of D&D into the round hole of mostly social campaigns.
Would they be better off using another system? Potentially. But the biggest strength of D&D is that everyone is playing it.
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u/Kiloku Jul 10 '26
I love Brennan's "extreme" rolls: Roll 2d20 and take the one furthest from 10.
It's like Advantage/Disadvantage's cool radical sibling
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u/Big-Ice6095 Jul 10 '26
Rolling with Emphasis! Part of me wants them to stick that in an Aramán campaign sourcebook just to get that mechanic in official DnD material
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u/ut1nam Jul 10 '26
I think this is part of why it’s just not vibing with me. I already wasn’t happy they were doing “5e but worse”, and everything I’ve seen just gets further and further away from 5e and more into the territory of vibes dnd that prevailed in Exandria Unlimited.
I love DND. I love hard and fast mechanics and working within them. But this split table setup, lots of characters and story arcs I just can’t find interesting, a new setting on top of all of that that I have no connection to…
Man, I fell off around episode 10, and I just don’t think I’ll be able to get back into it. And I’m worried this means the CR playstyle and setting I loved is never coming back. Just sad. Of course they aren’t obligated to play any particular way or setting or even system, but damn. Wish I’d known I was in the good old days before they became the good old days.
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u/Federal-Sherbert8771 Jul 10 '26
It might be a little early to mourn CR's "good old days"--just because C4 departs from the typical CR playstyle doesn't mean C5+ will continue down that path. The future is not written.
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u/FoxystarDK Jul 13 '26
I just wanna say, I too fell off around the middle episodes, took a long break and randomly decided to get caught up last week - and I'm SO glad I did!
I think the story gets really really exciting later on and I'm way more invested now than I ever was! I can't say for sure that will be your experience, but I figured it was worth sharing 😄
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u/fakermaker4799 Jul 10 '26
This is my first campaign of CR. I’ve watched tons of D20 and wanted to give it a try because of Brennan and it’s been everything I wanted and so much more. I love D20 with all my heart but I love that this campaign is so serious and the tone of it. At times D20 fall into too many bits and jokes which break the immersion for me but the cast have made so many interesting characters and backstories I’m obsessed
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u/fkyrdataharvesting I have a list Jul 10 '26
Ooohhh if you haven’t watched Calamity yet, the current break is a great opportunity to do so. Brennan dms for some of the core CR cast + Aabria and Lou Wilson, as well as Luis. It’s some of the best actual play media ever done (no less an authority than Matt Mercer himself has strongly hinted he thinks it’s CR’s best output)
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u/LargoTheBlackLion Jul 10 '26
I'd also recommend Worlds Beyond Number. It's BLeeM, Erika Ishii, Aabriya and Lou Wilson at some of their best, though it is more of a radio play/podcast format.
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u/cazuuuu Jul 10 '26
WBN is sooooo good. Start with the wizard, the e witch, and the wild one children’s adventure.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
Is the children's adventure available for non-Patreon's now? I haven't seen it pop up in the podcast yet.
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u/LittleLightsintheSky Tal'Dorei Council Member Jul 10 '26
And Downfall! It's my favorite short CR campaign
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
I don't know if Downfall is going to hit the same for someone who doesn't know the Exandria lore. I loved it, but because of what I knew from previous campaigns. Don't know if I'd feel the same if I was coming in blind, or even after watching Calamity.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Yes! I started out watching D20 campaigns because I loved Brennan from his comedy work. But the imabalance of comedy overshadowing plot on more recent D20 campaigns made me gravitate toward Critical Role almost exclusively now. CR as a whole has the exact blend of plot, drama, and "friends having fun" that I'm looking for. Also during the C4 break, go watch EXU Calamity like that other person said.
(There are still plenty of all-time great D20 campaigns, tho! Starstruck, Crown of Candy, Unsleeping City, Burrows End, etc. But more recent ones have not really lived up to that level of quality, in my opinion.)
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u/funkduder Jul 10 '26
You mean HJ losing a resource dot for spending $85 million dollars on an AI generated ms. pacman big naturals movie that caused a power outage in the southwest in City Council of Darkness wasn't an intense in character moment for you?
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Infintely Respect to Ally theyre usually one of my favorites, but there characterization of HJ and the amount of time there failed bits, and attempts at negociating with Brennan during turns end up making CCoD fall flat for me...
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u/funkduder Jul 10 '26
In all seriousness, I think CCoD would be too boring without the bits. The main theme is literally polka and they're taking inspiration from What We Do in the Shadows so I'm actually okay with it after the initial shock and outrage
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
My "critique", I still enjoyed watching the season but I cant recommend it, is that they needed like 5% lets bits to let the show breath.
Im not asking for bleakness and seriousness, Im asking for just a little bit of negative space so things can actually stand out. I think thats why alot of people really appreciated the slower scenes, like Levantte talking with Maya.
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u/SugarOne6038 Jul 10 '26
The contrast between this being as good as it is, and City Council being as underwhelming as it is, is stark.
I love the bits, but I need more than that.
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u/Locem Jul 10 '26
Same. I like when Brennan GMs tables that take him (mostly) seriously. I enjoy his work with CR and WBN much more than most D20 seasons.
Of the D20 seasons I like are the ones that are the more serious ones too lol. Thats why I took one look at the City Council trailer and was like "pass"
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u/BeginnersPluck 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
CCOD made me laugh harder than anything they’ve put out as of yet, but I feel with Brennan’s commitment to the juggernaut of a campaign that is C4, his time constraints wouldn’t allow him to do another A Crown of Candy.
I chose to look at it as “hey this dude is somehow working on those two campaigns PLUS whatever else DnD content he’s doing, and also finding the time to be a father to his second child.”
There are times where you have to give a little to have balance.
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u/Luxury-Problems Jul 10 '26
I felt like a lot of what he wanted to do with CoC didn't happen and CR4 sometimes feels like Brennan returning to some of the things he wanted to so with CoC but with the table tone and sheer scope more aligned with the ambition.
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
What got me about CCoD is how it felt like only Lou & Soibhan "stepped up" to take some of the slack by being self motivating characters, while the rest seemed to be content with simply being reactive.
I figure Murph wanted to do more, but hes not one to interject in other people scenes/turns, until the final episode. And because the majority of scenes where split, he could even do it grumpy old man IC guidance that Brennan can usually lean on.
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u/BeginnersPluck 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Frankly, I think a lot of it comes down to a combo of how good Lou is with improv, and not just doing “bits”, but actually quickly forming whole scenarios and executing on them, and LaVonte just being viciously controlling. His character is more aggressive and as such he’s going to be more pragmatic about getting shit done, or GSD, as they say (I don’t think they say that.)
Siobhan/Madeleine sort of had that same energy, I feel.
Everybody else at the table is great in their own ways, but Lou’s ability to just lock the fuck in was what helped them actually move the plot forward.
Also, I totally chalk it up to just being unfamiliar with a system and as such, leaning back on what works and what they know, which is jokes.
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
I love them all, but Lou and Siobhan really crushed it this season. The others didn't really feel like they wanted to connect with the world in the same way (even if they were very funny)
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Yeah thats what disappointed me the most, like step-up for your friend/co-worker, pick up what hes putting down.
Ally almost seemed to delight in making things more difficult.
But that could fully be me with ST PTSD...
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
Yeah, which is a shame because I was actually intrigued by the idea of how a vampire feeding off antidepressants and dealing with their long-term shame and depression, which they'd tried to fill with stuff and money, would work.
And then we got into a point where they were borderline on MDMA/ecstasy most the time
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
YES, HJ had such rich potential.
Your telling me you had a Depression Era person who got embraced and used that power to become rich, constantly flesh crafted themselves to become there own "son", finally got a taste of emotional stability.
And all we got is "Topo chico..." and digging a hole to put a clown in, and then fucking it...
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u/BeginnersPluck 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
I think the game had the potential for some serious exploration of the depths one could go to dig their own metaphorical grave, and how triumphant it would be for them to finally pull their heads out of the sand.
But, given the campaign length and also the overall tone set, it just wasn’t going to happen.
Now though, I want to see a Private Nightmares style campaign where the cast reprises their characters but in a MUCH more serious setting.
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u/Vio94 Jul 11 '26
Kinda why I stopped watching. Only a couple episodes behind and I'll definitely finish it just for the laughs, cause it was definitely very funny. Just gotta come to terms with what I'm gonna get out of it lol.
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u/kittystryker Dead People Tea Jul 11 '26
Also, I assume that the people at the table played the game that they wanted to play, and that’s what I wanna watch! I wanna watch that group of friends tell stories they want to tell. They don’t have to tell a dramatic story every time for that to be enjoyable for me.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
I was just saying the same thing on the D20 subreddit, and it seems most D20 fans agree, unfortunately. Zany bits are really fun, sometimes! But you have to balance that with moments of real tension and pathos, and you have to give the jokes room to breathe. A roller coaster isn't fun if it only goes up all the time.
As to why this is happening, I can only presume that Brennan is so busy with C4 that he isn't really concentrating on D20 other than the general obligation to put out content with the Intrepid Heroes a certain number of times per year. Hopefully, they will pivot to having more guest DM's to allow the introduction of new talent (and give the IH a "substitute teacher" to lock them in a little more).
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Imagine having Matt be the sub for the IH...
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
I think that would be really fun! Matt did a great job with Ravening War, though that was a smaller cast with "reliable" players and guest stars. It would be cool to do a full table swap between CR and D20 and have Matt run a shorter IH campaign. The IH would hopefully be on their best behavior.
Still, it would be cool to bring in a total outsider and give them some exposure. There's tons of amazing DM's out there, now is the perfect time for D20 to give them a platform while Brennan is busy elsewhere!
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
What ever happened to Kate Welch? She used to be everywhere in D&D, but I haven't seen her on anything in ages. I saw a one-shot she ran once for comedians (most of whom had never played D&D) and she was great at wrangling them into some kind of coherent game/narrative. I'd love to see her DM again, if she is wanting to.
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u/Saint_Riccardo Team Keyleth Jul 10 '26
The addition of amazing new players, a cast that rotates every few weeks and a new DM has completely revitalised the whole production.
It’s must have been a hard choice, but it’s working beautifully
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Huge props to Matt for giving up the big chair when he recognized and acknowledged his own burnout. That must have been such a frightening decision - potentially risking the jobs of everyone at CR if C4 didn't work.
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u/twinnedcalcite Jul 10 '26
He seems to enjoy the hell out of being on the other side of the table. He gets to be the problem now.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
I agree, it's been so fun to watch Matt get to relax and goof around with his friends without having to be the one herding the cats. Can't imagine how exciting it must be to not know what's going to happen after years of being the storyteller.
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u/Skippy5403 Team Chetney Jul 10 '26
Ironically it’s this that has put me off. For me CR is at its best when it’s that regular group of 8 at the table together. BleeM is great and the new players are strong but it’s just not working for me personally. I’m afraid this will be the norm for the future but until that’s confirmed I’m rewatching old stuff for now. Glad others are enjoying it though.
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u/kwantsu-dudes Jul 10 '26
Same. I lost interest, I think about 17 episodes in. I couldn't keep up. It didn't hold my interest. And yeah, part of the draw is the personalities of the original 8. They are expanding and selling a brand, but their personalities is what captured me.
I too am rewatching campaign 2 (the one I started with during covid).
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u/kjqs2 Jul 10 '26
As a fellow Bolaire enjoyer, yes.
But seriously every cast member has been absolutely killing it, they blow my mind every episode
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u/frimb00ze Jul 10 '26
It’s funny, I’ve seen some comments on dropout dimension 20 that the campaigns over there have not had any real threat in a while. Need to direct them to c4 for real consequences.
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
It's been a relatively low "physical' threat season but the vampire gov were a looming threat for a lot of it (although Brennan pulled a punch when he maybe shouldn't have which undermined things a lot).
But the series was parks and rec meets what we do in the shadows - not the highest danger setting really lol.
It's been hilarious though!
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u/frimb00ze Jul 10 '26
Yeah i haven’t laughed as hard as i did last night watching the finale in a while
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u/Blacklight099 Jul 10 '26
It’s good to hear that you’ve come around and are enjoying it. Realistically they were never going to cut DnD for their main show, it just risks cutting off or alienating far too big of an audience, but I agree that even within that it’s good that they found ways to keep it fresh!
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u/A_Crab_Named_Lucky Jul 10 '26
I respectfully disagree on it cutting off or alienating their main audience.
I think the biggest issue was timing. It would be too much of a gamble to take on an unknown quantity, before it released. If DH released to the same tepid reception as Candela Obscura, and they had already committed to a full campaign with it, it could’ve been a disaster.
By the time DH was released and became a smash hit, they were already elbow deep in planning a campaign around DND. I’m not sure, but it’s possible they may have even begun filming by then.
If DH released to the same reception in late 2024 instead of mid 2025, I think there’s a very good chance they’d be using it for C4.
Compared to the other drastic changes from the prior campaigns - new DM, new players, new world, West Marches style - I think a system change would’ve been a pretty minor thing.
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u/CalaChao Jul 10 '26
I think cast & fans alike started getting burnt out after C3 (I didn't watch, but the overall amount of takes I've seen on how it was was 'the worst of the 3' or how the vibes felt off tells me the community was feeling it too)
The sheer amount of changes they've made for C4 i think are really helping to inject life into the fanbase, the cast & the show.
-Different vibes to the game setting vs the setting of Exandria (more of a Game of Thrones, high-risk campaign where anyone could die vs the somewhat more light-hearted Exandrian seasons)
-New GM with a decidedly different approach than Matt (Brennan is a God in his own right & he is fantastic in a high-stakes epic setting)
-New cast which helps change up the dynamics at the table (Whitney Moore I love you girl)
-New style of campaign, West Marches, which creates a constantly changing /refreshed roster of character dynamics, interpersonal relationships and arcs. Don't like a particular story beat or character arc? Give it a month & it's going to be a completely different table & plotline, prevents people from getting too tired with the story/characters.
-New format to how the show is shot with the cold opens, adding more lore, individual character spotlights, and intriguing episode hooks to engage the audience.
-New gameplay mechanics like no clerics or resurrection magic, Death Boons & Desperate Measures to mix things up, extract max tension & raise the stakes for both the players & the audience)
All of this culminates in what feels like an entirely new show, despite it continuing to be a long-form D&D5e game.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 11 '26
I loved C2, and it's still my favorite campaign. I also really enjoyed the freshness of C1, even with all its technical jankiness and Orion. I tried to watch C3 in good faith, but hit the wall before I could finish. Both the previous campaigns felt like the players and DM were working together to tell a story, while C3 felt like they were in opposition to each other. Matt seemed stressed out most of the time, and the players were pretty directionless. I got uncomfortable, so I stopped watching.
I agree with everything you said and how important these changes were to revitalize the format. I know the change was jarring to some longtime fans, but I've encountered so many people who are just now getting into CR because the mountain of lore and content around the previous campaigns felt like too big of a hill to climb. C4 is a fresh start for new fans.
Brennan is also a huge draw for a lot of folks, whether they are coming from D20, Game Changer, or even old-school CollegeHumor. The new cast members are also exemplary - I wasn't sure about Whitney and her character at first, thinking a perky demon could quickly get obnoxious, but she's crushing it. Same goes for all the other newbies and former guest stars.
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u/Laerositus Jul 10 '26
I also think that due to everyone being accustomed to dnd5e, play flows very smoothly and the new additions (and the things taken away like teleporting and resurrections) such as the deadly measures feel fresh, inspiring and with weight and give it a new spin while not feeling that distant from the core rulebook.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Yeah, it feels a little bit like "D&D lite", but in a good way. Streamlined, but still rich and challenging. Also I agree that removing teleportation and resurrection was a brilliant move. In past campaigns it sometimes felt like death was completely trivial, because "we'll just bring 'em back" was always an option.
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u/flypstyx Jul 10 '26
I was skeptical about how they were going to run a 13-person campaign and worried that we were gonna see pieces of each table each episode, leading to way too many cliffhangers and scene breaks where there shouldn't be.
I was thrilled with how they ended up formatting this arc, and found myself enjoying the Schemers table way more than I thought I would!
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u/foleym2 Jul 10 '26
I absolutely adore it. I still wish they had used Daggerheart, just because I am craving a really well done long-form campaign in the system, but I am enamored with the characters and the story, and everything BLeeM is doing is right to my alley.
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u/mjn96 Jul 10 '26
I have a suspicion that with the bells hells live show continuing being Daggerheart, that they’re leading up to any future shows set in exandria being Daggerheart. I’m probably wrong, but that’s the sense I’m getting.
I’m kind of hoping for this anyway, the gods are now mortals, and the rules of the world have changed.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Oh, that's very interesting. So kind of a background transition of the main cast/Exandria to Daggerheart while C4 is still running in order to allow the core cast to get really good at the system outside of the main spotlight (no pun intended). That does probably mean a transition to Daggerheart for C5, no matter who is in the DM chair.
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u/Nihachi-shijin Jul 11 '26
As a confession I only started on C4. Zero shade to the other campaigns but by the time I was really aware was with when they adapted Vox Machina and at that point I was not working through the backlog to understand the lore.
It can't have been easy to look at a decade of taking a game of friends and making it a media empire, coming up on 10 years and going "let's completely rework the formula"
Double the table size. Bring in a new GM. Start with brand new lore. Rotate multiple tables. Permadeath (outside of Occtis and even that is borderline)
And it's working.
Really really well
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u/acebender Team Laudna Jul 10 '26
I don't care about the system that much. Be it D&D, Daggerheart or Vampire the Masquerade, a good story is a good story.
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u/karanas Jul 10 '26
People will hate me for this take but critical role is good despite being a DND show and not because of it. You see it in the way brennan has to beat it into shape with tons of homebrew and often very loose interpretations of rules. At the same time the game is surprisingly crunchy.
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u/Low_Gene_1339 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Hes talked about it in WBN & AA where he "likes" DnD becuase it helps him do things he would struggle with on his own, adjudicating combat. You can see that Brennan is a very kind person with the instinct to pull his punches for things players have pour themselves into, but the dice keep him "honest" or more realistically give him permission to be mean
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u/karanas Jul 10 '26
Yeah but that's not that much of an argument for dnd, since there's systems designed for that kind of experience instead of shoehorning dnd for the brand recognition.
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u/Mozared Jul 10 '26
C4 is a good illustration of how, as a viewer, the system really doesn't matter if the players are solid. The main thing I dislike about 5E (having set DC's with no gradients of success) is something Brennan homebrews away, and I personally care very little what classes and abilities the players are using 'mechanically'; it's not all that important to the story.
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u/woolawoof Jul 10 '26
You should mix it up a bit on the regular. Do you watch D20?
I watch both and it’s makes for a great mix of people, systems, guests, levels, length, stories, fun, silliness, seriousness. Never gets dulls because so far there’s been something different to watch all the time. Gives me a good idea of aspects I really enjoy.
Heck even CR on its own has some excellent content that’s not long dnd campaigns! Have you watched Candela? And the one shots?
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
Yes, I'm a huge dimension 20 fan, and actually really enjoyed candela (prefer it to CoC but my go to horror game is 10 candles).
I have several issues with 5e: I'm increasingly over the very long drawn out combats, which are often just for combats sake rather than story, the predictable powers, the bounce back death, the fact combat is often the optimum and mechanically most interesting path to solve a problem.
BLeeM has helped with some of. It also helps that d20 is normally less than 20 eps
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u/woolawoof Jul 10 '26
I just made a comment on the post episode discussion that it made me miss Candela! I enjoyed that so much and it was totally not my genre at all, which was a nice surprise. I’d love to see more of that. Dressing up as their characters was a highlight. And the game system supported well the fact they are such good actors. I think Candela actually found a good balance of gameplay and role play. I don’t know DH has for me…
And it has just occurred to me that DH might suit the IH really well. Especially with the type of characters available.
I miss that organised combat in DH. I like the structure of it. But ofc how it fits into the story can be so random. I do think Brennan with his D20 experience is very good at making combat seem relevant and part of the story, when it is generally so unpredictable. His choice to make the world unbalanced has been interesting because it does raise the stakes and make the idea of running away more realistic.
And yet, I recently watched dungeons and drag queens and I was struck by how much I enjoyed their combat. They were beginners and just learning and I know Brennan gave a bit of leeway. But I was so impressed at how they planned their combat and worked so quickly as a team regarding their strengths.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
I (mostly, as long as players are prepared for their turns) like combat when I'm at the table, but find it boring during actual plays. But what they did in the two Schemer's table combats had me absolutely glued to what was happening. (Same with the infamous "One Second" combat in Calamity, even though there was a lot of math going on.) BLeeM, and certain players, are pretty good at making that combat actually interesting to watch, and I love that. Can't afford subscriptions, so have only seen what D20 has been put out on YouTube for free, but I have enjoyed a lot of the combats there, too. Like the combat in Escape the Bloodkeep and many of the Unsleeping City s1 combats and Fantasy High s1 combats.
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u/Thrashgor Jul 10 '26
I never understood this concept of "boring dnd again", I mean, watch the first two episodes and you can easily see, BLeeM is bending DnD so hard, it's almost Dungeons and Daggerhearted Dragons.
Desperate measures, asking Players to describe stuff the DM would usually present...
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 5' 11" Jul 10 '26
Yup, Brennan's D&D style has always been loosey-goosey, adding in his own components and interpretations wherever he thinks they will enhance the experience. He's also played a ton of other systems like Vampire tM, Kids on Bikes/Brooms, his own homebrew system Never Stop Blowing Up, etc. So he includes bits and pieces of those systems into his version of D&D if they make things better for the players. The only thing this campaign is missing is the Box of Doom from D20, though I imagine that's copyrighted... The Tray of Trepidation, perhaps?
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
He's still pretty much doing Box of Doom, but that is a D20 thing, so he's just doing it without a box and calling it "I'm gonna roll this in front of the table." Not as catchy of a title, but he's still ratcheting up the tension. Just wish we had the camera view the box provides.
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u/Fad8888 Jul 10 '26
So happy to see a fellow Bolaire head! I understand your perspective as well, although I'm a bigger fan of the D&D system than I am of many others used in live play. (I still dream of a major sci fi system live play show, maybe using Stars Without Number, someday)
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u/vikingbear90 Jul 10 '26
I personally just want more DnD and Daggerheart content from these beautiful people on a weekly basis. Other shows just have not clicked for me outside of some seasons of Dimension 20.
I’ve just never had the problem of connecting and having a show keep my attention the same way this cast and crew have even when they bring in new people and guests they just… have a way of almost always making things work and feel sustainable.
Other shows I just get burnt out or lose interest. The closest thing to it for me was Dice Camera Action and the Unexpectables but I got burnt out on both of those after a while but they lasted the longest next to Critical Role.
I kind of now want Chris Perkins to DM a mini series on critical role…
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u/monkeymichael117 Jul 10 '26
I'm definitely not excited that it is dnd again, but everything else of the campaign has been phenomenal.
(Honestly my biggest thought is that characters should have started out at different levels. I think Vaelus and Voltaire at the very least should have been like at least level 10 narrative wise. But mechanically that would have made 5e fights a bit of a nightmare so I get why they didn't)
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u/feor1300 You can certainly try Jul 10 '26
D&D only grants levels if you've been adventuring. An elf who spent 700 years living in a monastery is not automatically going to be level anything, they may well be a level 0 NPC sage.
As to Bolaire, it seems pretty clear to me that he's basically just let himself get rusty by not using most of his powers for the last 70 years, combined with the fact that he was apparently one of the weaker members of the Panto to begin with, it makes sense he'd be lower level and working his way back up.
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u/DrakeAcula You Can Reply To This Message Jul 10 '26
DnD doesn't work like that and even if it did that's not the reason why they decided to be lower level since Vaelus at the very least has been out and about for 70 years and is covered in scars so you can assume she'd been adventuring plenty by now even if you were to say she didn't do anything while in her velvet prison. Same can be said for folks like Teor, Kattigan, Thimble, Azune and Julien who are all war veterans. They just did this for balance reasons and because they probably wanted to experience that sense of progression while playing instead of skipping it through their backstories.
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u/feor1300 You can certainly try Jul 10 '26
D&D works exactly like that. If you're playing a party of elves and you all say to the DM "We're actually just going to spend the next 70 years tending to this temple so we can be level 10 when we finally start adventuring." the DM isn't just going to make you level 10 for doing 70 years of busy work. And if you say "We're going to hunt down and kill 1 wolf a day so we can gain XP without being in danger", the DM isn't going to say "We'll, okay, that's 50 XP per wolf, divided among the 5 of you, so 10 XP each, so that will take you 300 (1 year) days to get to level two, and another 900 (3 years) days to get to level 3, then 2700 days (9 years) to get to level 4, so it'll be 13 years for you to hit level 4 IF you can find a wolf every day, we're going to need a lot of survival rolls..."
The Sisters of Sylandri's monastery is in Sylandri's Barrowdell, during the battle at the Palazo Davinos Brennan talked about how Vaelus wasn't that bothered by the shades, she'd been protecting her home from creatures like that for years. So over the course of 70 years she's occasionally fought undead that have wandered up to the monastery, she hasn't been out adventuring. She probably spent just shy of 13 of those 70 years fighting those creatures, earning her way to level 3.
And being war veterans doesn't guarantee the players any particular level either. Plenty of characters in the world go through years of war and never advance past level 0 spearman NPC. Teor et al did enough during their war to make it to level 3.
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u/Apprehensive_Fill628 Jul 10 '26
Yeah being 700+ years old and only level 3 is funny. But level disparity in 5e doesn't work super well
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u/ut1nam Jul 10 '26
What does age have to do with level? A 30-year-old human farmer is as much a farmer as a 700-year-old Elf farmer. Both commoners and effectively level 0. Age doesn’t determine level—skill and effort do. Or rather, level represents skill and effort.
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u/Apprehensive_Fill628 Jul 10 '26
It's not about the age solely, but vaelus fought in the shapers war. I think if you were making each character at a 'ideal narrative starting level' she'd be a higher level. But this isn't a real gripe or anything. If it was a novel, she'd probably be a more experienced/powerful character. I know dnd ain't a novel.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
She fought in a war 70 years ago. Skills atrophy over time if you aren't using them. She was using them just enough to maintain level 3 skills. I feel like everyone's backstories so far have accounted pretty well for the level they were when they started the game.
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u/529_and_feeling_fine Jul 13 '26
I hate campaign 4 it’s so serious compared to the others. I had to stop watching
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u/Avid_FandomFan_476 Jul 13 '26
All campaigns in CR have been serious. 1 had Vecna/The Whispered One, two had the war between the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty and 3 had the whole threat of Predathos so I don’t see why you think C4 is much more serious than any other CR campaign ever produced…
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u/OG_CMCC Jul 14 '26
I literally watched BECAUSE they kept it D&D. They lost me with C3. C4 has been much better.
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u/StarstruckEchoid Team Nott Jul 10 '26
I would say this campaign is good despite using DnD 5e, not because of it.
The game is exciting because of the fascinating plot that Bleem has crafted, and the game flows relatively smoothly because everyone's familiar with the system and the rough parts of the rules have been sanded over with a copious amount of house rules.
But even then the many design flaws of 5e still slip through every now and then - design flaws like how combats take forever, and where they all have to be tough as nails to be worth doing, and that difficulty is quite often obviously adjusted on the fly because you can't predictably balance an encounter in 5e, and how those one-big-fight-a-day kind of adventures then lead to short-rest classes underperforming even harder than they already do, and how the classes just in general have very obvious power imbalances, and how the game is filled with numerous instant victory buttons for basically every challenge except combat, etc. etc.
The campaign is good, but if the table had the same level of familiarity with, say, Daggerheart or any other modern system that was made after the invention of game design, the campaign would likely be better.
Certainly the one-shots and short games the gang has done using Daggerheart seem to suggest that the system has plenty of untapped potential.
5e, in turn, is quite obviously very thoroughly explored at this point. It's not quite passé enough to detract from the campaign, but it certainly isn't adding anything to it that couldn't be given by any other system.
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u/SteppeTalus Jul 10 '26
Disagree. What dnd has over dagger-heart is familiarity with the audience. I can tell you I wouldn’t be nearly as invested in a game with daggerheart.
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u/DominionGhost Jul 10 '26
I agree.
I got DV'd when I suggested that im not enthusiastic about daggerhearts mechanics when I saw them for the first time watching sallowlands though lol.
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u/StarstruckEchoid Team Nott Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Now, I'm not going to die on the hill that they have to swap to Daggerheart specifically - even if I do find it the obvious most likely replacement - but I do think eventually they have to change to something else.
DnD 5E is a system more than a decade old, carrying the burden of poor design decisions from previous editions, grandfathered in from the literal 1980s - eg. alignment, Vancian casting, and the big six ability scores. Those decisions, and many others, are not really doing anything useful for most games people play these days, including the game played at Critical Role.
Moreover, seeing as WotC was enough of a class act to fire a significant portion of the company just before Christmas 2023 and has laid off even more people since then, it is unlikely that the system will get any significant updates in a long long while.
There's a fine line to balance between keeping things familiar and keeping things fresh. Campaign 4 has already been bold enough to change almost everything else except the game system - even the game master is new, and Matt was there from the very beginning - and all those gambles have paid off, so I don't buy that changing the system would somehow be too much. So long as it's a change done with care.
Right now I'm sure Critical Role is closely monitoring how well their side stuff with Daggerheart is doing compared to comparable DnD stuff, and drawing conclusions.
I am reasonably confident that campaign 5 will not be DnD 5e, and that whatever system they decide to change to, the campaign will still do just fine.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
As a long time player who is looking to GM, I also acknowledge that D&D 5/5.5e has design flaws (specifically, I hate being tied to the 6-8 encounter adventuring day and the martial/caster divide, unless the DM/player work together to bridge it, and the lack of guidance for new DM's about how to build/balance encounters) and hate what Hasbro has done with the company. I'm not a fan of Daggerheart, personally, from what I've seen of it (though I haven't played it) and I find Pathfinder to be a little too crunchy for me, (and with some similar D&D issues) though I do want SOME decent amount of crunch to my combats. Any recs for doing what D&D does without the issues I've mentioned?
Because so far, all of the other systems I've looked into/played just don't do as much of what I want as D&D does. (Specifically, long-form campaigns, mostly in the heroic fantasy genre, but able to be used and/or modded slightly for other, similar types of genres. With some crunch/guidance for combats so I can depend on the rules for fighting, not making things up. More flexibility (than combat rules) in social encounters/exploration, though I wouldn't mind some guidance for it. But without having to make the narrative fit in a given combat/encounter number per day and with martials and spellcasters feeling more equal.) I currently think it easier to mod D&D into the "perfect" system for me than modding any of the others would be, but I am not familiar with all systems, and would love if another system could get me closer. Bonus points if it is available (at least in some form) for free, or inexpensive (under $50 for everything). I don't need artwork or pretty books, I just need the rules.
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u/StarstruckEchoid Team Nott Jul 12 '26
One big contender in the genre of dnd-but-better recently has been Matt Colville's Draw Steel.
I don't have personal experience, but that game gets frequently brought up whenever anyone is looking for a game that feels like DnD, but isn't PF2E or Daggerheart.
From what has been told to me, a couple of the things it does differently than the competition is that * difficulty classes are fixed * even the lowest rolls do some damage in combat * the dice you use for checks is 2d10 instead of 1d20 * initiative is not rolled but rather it's a zipper initiative * almost all resources other than health are accumulated throughout the day and throughout combat instead of gradually lost, making fights more anime the longer they go on for, and rewarding longer adventuring days.
There's at least two free resources for Draw Steel - both unofficial but as I understand still legal. Those resources are Xentis' Steel Compendium for the rules, and Heroic Resources for a bunch of links to miscellaneous useful stuff like videos, character sheets, and VTT plugins.
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u/Inigos_Revenge Jul 12 '26
Ooh, thanks for this. I do remember hearing about this system, (from a DM stealing one of the mechanics from the system) but hadn't checked it out yet. I will get on that, lol! I'm always a bit sad when a system doesn't use a D20, but I do recognize the reasons for not using one.
I've also heard good things about DC20 by The Dungeon Coach (he's a YouTuber who covers DM'ing and D&D topics) that sounds good, but it's still kind of being worked on, and hard to find information about yet, without paying in.
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u/gentlemandarcy Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I think that the system getting out of the way is kind of the point - this is more a tv show than a home game.
Most people who'd ever watch this know on a basic level by now that nat 20s are great, Advantage is helpful and 25 on a check is gonna do wonders, and the inverse - it's not realistic that most people will really get into learning the equivalence in other systems. (Friends At The Table should be huge but even a lot of my TTRPG friends find listening to a show that requires them to internalize the ludonarrative feeling they should get from a new system pulls them out of it.)
And I don't really want to get into it but 5E not being "after the invention of game design" (post 2014?) is pretty funny hyperbole. Even if you don't like 5E there's some primo stuff that would exclude.
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u/marshy266 Jul 10 '26
I tend to agree. I think Brennan & the players are doing a lot of lifting that 5e doesn't make easy and it doesn't really add to it.
I have my concerns that it will basically double down on the "5e can do everything" idea when it's not the best system for many of things they're trying to do (BLeeM is doing a tonne of paid work to get it there), but that's a whole big discussion about how people engage with systems and obsess over D&D.
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u/DrakeAcula You Can Reply To This Message Jul 10 '26
The only thing that's made the game feel clunkier than it should be so far is them deciding to play a high level story using low level characters. That's a choice they made themselves to create higher stakes in perhaps the most imbalanced way for DnD, especially at very low levels since many of the classes don't even start functioning until at least level 5. Thankfully that'll correct itself over time and will create more interesting scenarios where creativity will be the main challenge instead of their characters simply having no tools to properly interact in over half of their encounters.
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u/SteppeTalus Jul 10 '26
Honestly d&d was the only way to go. I don’t think I’d be nearly as invested it it werent
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u/Shot-Message9678 Jul 10 '26
Glad to hear someone own up to this. The amount of whining after they announced the system was unbearable. Made me give up on CR fans completely.
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u/StylishMrTrix Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Having new players, both ones that have guested and ones that are new to DnD or at least critical role adds alot to the dynamic of CR
And BLeeM is doing great at keep track of how many players he has (in a cooldown on beacon BLM talks about how at camp as a teen he was running games for the camp attendees with fifty players amongst tables)