Critical Role: Campaign 4's first 13-player ensemble episode is chaotic, messy, and gripping D&D—and I feel like I've just seen a magician pull a fully-formed rabbit out of a hat

A half-orc stands with a blindfold on before his execution - with a stylistically rendered city placed atop his crown in a bed of clouds in Critical Role Campaign 4. — (Image credit: Critical Role)

I have to tell you something, and it might be a little scary—this entire world is actually a simulation designed to entertain me and my specific interests. I can draw no other conclusion from the fact that Critical Role: Campaign 4 is already everything I want out of an actual-play D&D game, and that my prior faith was well-placed.

Critical Role Campaign 4 is a 'planets aligned' moment—run by Dimension 20's usual host Brennan Lee Mulligan, starring Critical Role's typical DM as a player among 12 others, split into three groups, West Marches style. Any dungeon master will tell you that getting four players to glue in a tavern is hard enough, and I'd assumed we'd be spending this episode getting to know one of those groups, not all of them at the same goddamn time.

Nope, it's an ensemble. I'll be getting into spoilers for the first two and a half hours of the episode—mostly because I'll have to in order to describe the magic trick I just witnessed.

Critical Role IV | Official Trailer - YouTube

Watch On

Naturally, 13 players aren't all crowding around CR's set. Instead, this first episode operates like any good prestige fantasy drama, or the first chapter of a really good book. It flits between groups and perspectives, with a campaign opener I'm tempted to steal wholesale.

"Liam, someone you love is about to die." Brennan opens on the execution of one Thjazi Fang, sat across a lone Liam O'Brien, playing his brother. A man marked for death in a world where gods have been defeated by mortals—a revolutionary, now being slain by the new order (a literal "revolutionary council") for crimes that would threaten those left in charge.

Obviously, the first roll of the campaign is a natural 20 from Liam's character to recognise the dread on his brother's face. Thjazi's friends had a plan to get him out of there. The plan doesn't happen. The lever's flipped, Thjazi drops, and the inciting incident… well, incites. The rest of the episode is centered around his funeral—a great excuse to bring these characters together—but also the slow unravelling of what exactly went wrong, and why:

Fang's brother drunkenly confronts the foppish priest meant to see him spared; a straight-up demon gatecrashes the wake; and two soldiers who fought with Fang break off alongside a stammering diener to find Thimble, a tinkerbell to Fang's Peter Pan. Half-dead with the rune meant to save him clutched in her hands, a character that Brennan has the brass balls to have making death saves, session one.

It's chaotic, messy, and has convinced me we're about to see something very special. I am, naturally, looking forward to when this massive group splits into three—this pace can't be held—but I'm already smitten. Not only by Brennan flipping gracefully between perspectives and scenes, but by the A-game every player's bringing to the table already.

It's a culmination of some of my favourite players and DMs from across actual play coming together to tackle a game that's beyond ambitious—so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if the first swing fell flat. I am very glad it has not. You can watch the first episode right now on Beacon, CR's subscription service, or catch the VoD on Monday.

TOPICS

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.