\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWorlds will soon collide for fans of tabletop roleplaying games as a major shakeup in the actual play community just hit. Critical Role returns! Albeit with some massive changes.<\/p>\n
\n\tDuring a live show in Indiana tonight, the cast of Critical Role announced their newest campaign (and fourth overall) will begin airing live on Oct. 2 and will break away from the existing lore of Exandria to introduce a new world. But more shocking is the news that the company\u2019s founding member and primary Game Master, Matthew Mercer, won\u2019t be leading charge \u2014 instead replaced by another beloved player, Dimension 20\u2019s <\/em>Brennan Lee Mulligan.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tIn an accompanying release, Critical Role confirmed that Mulligan will be take on the role of Game Master for the full duration of the campaign (rather than a guest stint), and reiterated that the campaign\u2019s new direction with leave the ongoing saga and narrative continuity of Exandria behind for a \u201cbold evolution for the franchise, ushering in a new era with new legends to be forged in a brand new world.\u201d Critical Role\u2019s previous three campaigns (Vox Machina<\/em>, The Mighty Nein<\/em>, and Bells Hells<\/em>) all told independent stories that were connected by a singular universe and shared history.<\/p>\n \n\tTravis Willingham, a founding member of the TTRPG troupe and CEO of Critical Role Productions, issued a statement saying, \u201cWe\u2019ve been enormous fans of Brennan\u2019s for many years now, and when it came to giving both Matthew Mercer and the world of Exandria a bit of a breather, Brennan felt like the perfect storyteller to take our community somewhere entirely new.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe announcement comes as a time when many fans \u2014 and the cast members themselves \u2014 have wondered what the future of the actual play show and company looks like. Celebrating their tenth anniversary this year, Critical Role has become a cultural phenomenon and partially helped revitalize the tabletop community in media.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tThe cast of Critical Role (back row: Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel; front row: Taliesin Jaffe, Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercer, and Liam O\u2019Brien)<\/span><\/p>\n \n\tThe group of voice actors (including Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Liam O\u2019Brien, Ashley Johnson, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Ray, and Matthew Mercer) began livestreaming their Dungeons & Dragons<\/em> play sessions back in 2015, amassing a huge following on Twitch, that\u2019s subsequently grown into an entertainment juggernaut with multiple animated series, digital spin-off shows, comics, novelizations, and more.<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tTeased in conversation with Rolling Stone<\/em> last year, Critical Role recently confirmed that they\u2019ve begun work on a video game, in addition to launching their own proprietary tabletop game called Daggerheart<\/em>, which was used as the framework for the group\u2019s latest actual play mini-series, Age of Umbra<\/em>. At this time, it\u2019s unclear if Campaign 4 will utilize the Daggerheart<\/em> system or if it\u2019ll stick to Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe inclusion of Mulligan is huge, but not entirely surprising. A well-established Game Master and comedian, Mulligan created Dimension 20<\/em> for streaming service Dropout, which quickly became its own titanic success; Dimension 20<\/em> even sold-out Madison Square Garden for a live play one-shot earlier this year.<\/p>\n \n\tAlthough he\u2019s appeared as a guest on Critical Role\u2019s show, Mulligan\u2019s lead role in Campaign 4 is akin to an Avengers<\/em>-level crossover in the tabletop community. Both Critical Role and Dimension 20 have established huge fan bases with parasocial relationships to the casts, stoking fear of what Critical Role\u2019s show will look like once its founding members ultimately move on.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the writing has been on the wall for some time, especially for Mercer. Speaking with Rolling Stone <\/em>previously, the Critical Role CCO suggested that he may eventually movie into a \u201cProfessor X\u201d role as a mentor to the next generation of storytellers rather than remaining the face of the brand in perpetuity.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been a process of introducing friends and new faces into the community. \u2018Look, we love them. If you like us, we know you\u2019ll learn to love them too,\u2019\u201d Mercer said to Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s less about us going away and more about bringing more friends into the fold.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCritical Role\u2019s third campaign ended earlier this year, with all episodes currently available on the group\u2019s YouTube channel and subscription service Beacon. New episodes of Critical Role<\/em> can be watched live on Beacon, Twitch, and YouTube when Campaign 4 launches on Oct. 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Worlds will soon collide for fans of tabletop roleplaying games as a major shakeup in the actual play community just hit. Critical Role returns! Albeit with some massive changes. During a live show in Indiana tonight, the cast of Critical Role announced their newest campaign (and fourth overall) will begin airing live on Oct. 2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4756,1972,1387,413,2577,7405,4757,572,2272],"class_list":{"0":"post-13754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-brennan","9":"tag-campaign","10":"tag-critical","11":"tag-game","12":"tag-lee","13":"tag-master","14":"tag-mulligan","15":"tag-reveals","16":"tag-role"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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