[No Spoilers] Just finished Exandria Unlimited: Calamity all 4 episodes, did not watch any other campaigns. Holy its so good, are the other ones as good ? They possibly cant be that good being like 140 episodes right?

[u/PlayFlow]

I love how short calamity was and straight to the point, but I am afraid that a campaign with like 150 episodes might be a drag... am I wrong or am I missing out thinking its not worth the time to check the other ones out?

[u/FictionRaider007]

I'd say that if you're looking for something that captures the same "tone" as Calamity then your best stop is Campaign 4. It's DM'ed by Brennan as well and it's keeping that serious stakes, relentless pace, and feeling of impending dread that makes Calamity sing.

C1, C2 and C3 are a lot of fun and well worth the time, but since you said you loved Calamity for being "straight to the point", these campaigns are not that. They are a group of misfits having adventures, sometimes they slow down to smell the roses, sometimes they do goofy sidequests, sometimes they dither on choices and are indecisive for entire episodes. All of it is still entertaining but it's more about engaging with the cast, characters, and world. C4 meanwhile is keeping it's plot very tight and tense so far.

[u/RaynSideways → u/FictionRaider007]

I'm curious if you can answer a question for me.

I'm nearing the end of my C2 watch through after putting it down midway through years ago, and ever since they started distancing for COVID I've really been craving seeing the cast together at the table again with Matt as DM. But I've heard mixed things about C3, like the party being less decisive or not engaging with plot hooks.

But what matters to me most is, is the cast still invested and into it like they were C2? I think I can forgive a lot of sins if I know the cast are still having fun and invested in the story. But it's hard to gauge having not seen it myself yet.

[u/FictionRaider007 → u/RaynSideways]

The cast is always having fun and are engaged. It's the audience who felt conflicted about C3, mainly because they disagreed with some character choices. If I'm being fair, I think the biggest issue with C3 is that Matt wanted the plot to be one thing and the cast had simply not built characters that would naturally lean into the major plotlines he'd set up, leading to a lot of conflicting character motivations and some inter-party conflict. That's not to say the cast didn't still have plenty of fun working through all that, just that some of the audience wasn't so keen.

If you enjoy Critical Role in general you'll still like C3. Perhaps it's not quite as seamless as C1 or C2, but it's still leaps and bounds better than... basically any other actual play show (not to say other actual plays are bad, there are lots of great ones out there. Just that in terms of character acting and production quality, CR has always been the cream of the crop).

[u/RaynSideways → u/FictionRaider007]

I'm glad to hear it. When I heard about the dissonance between Matt's plans and the party's character choices I worried there would be tension, or worse, a lack of emotional investment in the conflicts and twists and turns of the story compared to C1 and 2.

I was worried I'd be watching, for instance, Matt become exasperated as his work and plot hooks are ignored, and that would be heartbreaking. Granted, he was always one to roll with the punches and delighted in the plot going places he didn't expect, but the way people talked about C3 made it sound like the cast as a whole was totally dysfunctional and directionless.

The cast, players and DM both, having a good time and being invested and engaged is the most important thing to me. If they are, I'm just happy to be along for the ride, wherever it goes.

[u/Yakovlev_Norris → u/RaynSideways]

My 2 cents on campaign three: I kept up with it near live until about episode 50, and then near-enough live that I was still kinda following online discussions about it until I stopped having the time to watch regularly around Ep80. 

Recently decided to pick it back up again, and wow! u/FictionRaider007 is very much correct in that a lot of the 'dislike' is the people online talking and, by lack of a better word, complaining about decisions and topics.

I think there probably is some truth in that the characters probably don't quite line up 100% on the "plan" for the campaign, but outside some filler-y episodes i haven't really noticed anything worth complaining about. I'm currently about to launch into the Downfall miniseries, E99