{"id":1345913,"date":"2025-10-03T13:27:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T13:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/g4az9eRYRfwkPbrBFk28Y9"},"modified":"2025-10-03T13:27:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T13:27:27","slug":"critical-role-campaign-4s-first-13-player-ensemble-episode-is-chaotic-messy-and-gripping-dd-and-i-feel-like-ive-just-seen-a-magician-pull-a-fully-formed-rabbit-out-of-a-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/critical-role-campaign-4s-first-13-player-ensemble-episode-is-chaotic-messy-and-gripping-dd-and-i-feel-like-ive-just-seen-a-magician-pull-a-fully-formed-rabbit-out-of-a-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Role: Campaign 4’s first 13-player ensemble episode is chaotic, messy, and gripping D&D\u2014and I feel like I’ve just seen a magician pull a fully-formed rabbit out of a hat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have to tell you something, and it might be a little scary\u2014this 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<\/a> was well-placed.<\/p>\n

Critical Role Campaign 4 is a ‘planets aligned’ moment\u2014run 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.<\/p>\n

Nope, it’s an ensemble. I’ll be getting into spoilers for the first two and a half hours of the episode<\/strong>\u2014mostly because I’ll have to in order to describe the magic trick I just witnessed.<\/p>\n

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