The Popular Show Isn't Embarking On a Player-Rotating Campaign, However It's Possible For You

After viewing the premiere of Critical Role Campaign 4, it becomes apparent that describing this latest venture as "rotating-player format" was somewhat misleading. The fresh Dungeons & Dragons narrative set in the realm of Aramán, crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan, vows to be an grand and entertaining tale, yet the first episode shows it won't follow the West Marches model.

The Elements That Characterizes a West Marches Campaign

The new season boasts an expanded cast of 13 players who will rotate at the gaming table by splitting into multiple rotating groups. While rotating players is a core premise of a West Marches campaign—first pioneered by game designer Ben Robbins—the actual execution and format are quite distinct from what the show is offering in this latest installment. However, if you are intrigued about West Marches and want to know why it might be a good option for your own game, read on.

The Beginnings of the Player-Rotating Format

West Marches started as the backdrop for a campaign run by Ben Robbins, who also designed the games Microscope and Kingdom. To address the common problem of varying player availability, Robbins came up with the idea of not having a fixed group. Because he could draw from a large group of players, he let them to schedule sessions on their own. When a sufficient number of players settled on a date, the game would run ad hoc.

Having a changing "group" is great for players: It doesn't matter if you can play once a week or monthly, you will consistently have a place at the table.

As a Dungeon Master, however, it requires a particular mindset when building the campaign. West Marches is, at its core, a sandbox campaign where players investigate the world without being tied to an overall plot. At the conclusion of each session, they go back to town to recover and organize their next expedition. This is essential to enable DMs to run a game with changing players and ad hoc scheduling. Consider crafting a big, sweeping narrative, filled with villains, factions, and plot milestones, but without knowing who the protagonists will be at each session.

The Reasons West Marches Prevents Plot Cliffhangers

I'm sure every DM has experienced a session conclude on a huge cliffhanger involving a particular character, only to find out that the player was unable to attend the following session. It's similar to if Frodo had to step away from Mount Doom for a moment before destroying the Ring. West Marches avoids this by essentially removing the central plot. However, that doesn't mean a West Marches-style campaign has no story.

As stated by Robbins: "There was history and linked details. Clues found in one place could shed light elsewhere. Rather than just being an fascinating detail, these clues lead to tangible discoveries."

The Way The Show Differs from the Sandbox Model

Initially, I thought a comparable approach would happen with Critical Role Campaign 4, with the mythology of the world emerging organically and gradually through players’ decisions in each episode, but I couldn't be more wrong. Episode 1 is heavily charged with established lore, and there is a powerful, overwhelming plot that guides the characters. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but West Marches offers a pretty distinct gameplay from many D&D campaigns, one that is valuable to experience at least once.

Tips for Managing Your Own Sandbox Campaign

In my initial, extended homebrew D&D campaign, I began from a concept similar to the classic The Keep on the Borderlands D&D module, which in turn influenced Robbins’ first West Marches. After an introduction, the players were placed in a frontier town, a traditional "final bastion of civilization" setting. From there, they get the chance to explore the nearby wilderness, either motivated by quests gathered in town or by their own curiosity. This style of play is strongly location-based, so if you're planning to attempt it, make sure to stock up your wilderness with interesting places to explore. The last thing you want is your players declaring, "Today we want to check out the enigmatic ruins in the Swamp of the Dead," and you have nothing prepared.

• Personally, I prefer having a defined plot in my campaigns, so I also disseminated several story leads for an main narrative, both in town and in the wilderness.
• I believe that pure sandboxing and purposeless dungeon crawling can grow boring after a while, but Robbins made an important point in this aspect when he described the genesis of West Marches.
• "My motivation in setting things up this way was to address player apathy and mindless 'plot following' by putting the players in control of both scheduling and what they did in-game."

Achieving Equilibrium in Every Campaign Type

The takeaway here is that no matter the type of campaign you're running, it's crucial to find a balance between your role as a DM in guiding the narrative and players’ agency. If you're designing a intricate death maze for a traditional dungeon crawl or shaping the fate of the world in a Critical Role-style campaign, always consider what your players may want to do. You prepare the table, but they choose what to eat.

Why Now Is a Perfect Moment to Begin a West Marches Adventure

This could be the best time to date to start a West Marches-style campaign. D&D’s newest starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands, is a return to the Keep on the Borderlands, providing the ideal foundation to draw new players into this format. The following add-on recommends how to better link the different quests in the set, but you can also run this as the center of a sandbox campaign and develop it as it progresses.

In fact, the most interesting aspect of the original West Marches is the collaboration between the rotating players. The town tavern had a map of the nearby areas carved into a table, where groups included information and sketched new areas as they found them. This not only meant that players could help each other even while not playing at the table at the same session, but also that the world of West Marches grew organically as the players ventured through it. If you're a DM who is attempting to create a homebrew campaign or world for the first time, West Marches could be just what you need.