Running an actual play is hard—especially one with the weight and heft of Critical Role. Originally a crapshoot by Geek & Sundry to see if folks wanted to watch voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons, Critical Role is now a small media empire. We're talking multiple animated series, entirely new systems. It is, to put it plainly, a bunch of pressure to play D&D in front of its now-sizeable crowd.
Which is part of why Campaign 4 has impressed me so thoroughly so far, because it's not staring down the barrel of that loaded gun with anything other than manic glee. A new DM, 13 players, a West-Marches style structure and—concluding (for the most part) on this Thursday—a 4-episode overture that's the mother of all session zeros.
If you've not yet caught a livestream, I'd wait until next week for the VOD before reading further, as I'll be getting into spoilers after this paragraph. I'll just say this: DM Brennan Lee Mulligan ain't screwing around, here. Not with worldbuilding, not with story pacing, and certainly not with the combats.
In Dungeons & Dragons encounter design, there's a consideration most DMs have to take into account called the action economy. Essentially, whichever side has more players on the board—more actions to spend—will have a major advantage. Even if you're up against a bunch of mooks, you're still in danger if you're sufficiently outnumbered.
The assault on the Palazzo Davinos, orchestrated by House Tachonis, is a complete nail-biter. A group of ghouls (who can all paralyze with their claws) swarming a level three wizard to quite literally cut him open. A mage capable of flinging high-level spells, far too jacked up to be a fair fight, backed up by an entire gaggle of Shadows capable of strength-draining everything but an immortal elf.
The overture's final episode starts with a nightmare of a combat where the numbers are rallied against them. I haven't been this enthralled by a fight in actual play since the finales of past campaigns; on paper, the four players present didn't stand a goddamn chance.
That's not to say Mulligan didn't pull any punches, some landed soft in between the haymakers. The Primus of House Tachonis had a plan, did his plan, and then left. His son ordered his ghouls to haul a jeopardised NPC through a window rather than bite through her death saves and, in what I imagine will be the most controversial element, Occtis' shocking death (and subsequent reanimation) was somewhat pre-ordained.
Not a sure thing, mind. If he'd rolled higher on that initiative count, if he'd had a chance to get out of that ghoul-infested room, or even if he hadn't tanked a crit the the clavicle, Occtis could've scrambled out of there alive. But in the post-show "cooldown" chat on Beacon, it's been revealed that his player, Alexander Ward, wanted his necromancer to be killed by his family at some point.
No, Occtis is just the set-dressing. I'm talking about Mulligan choosing to drop a Circle of Death spell on two other characters, scrambling to get to their already-dead friend, and narrow avoidance of a doom spiral due to two successful saving throws against that spell.
As someone experienced, at the very least, with running D&D combat? This episode was two dice rolls away from opening on catastrophe. I'm left feeling like I just watched a scythe graze past two player's ears.
In an alternate universe where both of them tank over 40 damage and hit the deck, nobody reaches jeopardised NPC ally Lady Aranessa Royce before she's thrown off an 80ft balcony. Ashley Johnson's character is forced to spend her turns trying to get her allies up while shadows swarm them, and that hoard of ghouls (if Mulligan was feeling particularly vicious) likely sweep downstairs to finish the job. Bare minimum, they probably don't get Occtis' body back, and Alexander Ward's left to puzzle over his backup character.
If Campaign 4 of Critical Role has started as it means to go on, coming to the end of these overture episodes? I am going to be sitting here with my jaw agape for many combats to come, with a deeply unhealthy blood pressure and a well-worn edge of my seat.
