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After viewing the first episode of Critical Role Campaign 4, it becomes apparent that labeling this latest venture as "rotating-player format" was somewhat misleading. The new Dungeons & Dragons narrative set in the world of Aramán, crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan, vows to be an epic and enjoyable journey, yet the opening episode demonstrates it will not adhere to the West Marches model.

What Defines a Rotating-Player Campaign

Campaign 4 features an large group of thirteen players who will rotate at the gaming table by splitting into multiple shifting groups. While rotating players is a core concept of a West Marches campaign—first developed by game designer Ben Robbins—the actual execution and structure are quite distinct from what the show is presenting in this latest installment. But, if you are curious about West Marches and wonder why it might be a great choice for your own game, read on.

The Origins of the Player-Rotating Style

This style started as the backdrop for a campaign run by Ben Robbins, who also created the games Microscope and Kingdom. To address the frequent issue of inconsistent player schedules, Robbins came up with the idea of not having a set group. Since he could draw from a large group of players, he allowed them to schedule sessions freely. Once enough players settled on a date, the game would proceed as needed.

Using a changing "group" is great for players: It doesn't matter if you can participate weekly or once a month, you will always have a spot at the table.

As a Dungeon Master, however, it demands a specific mindset when building the campaign. West Marches is, at its core, a sandbox campaign where players investigate the world without being bound to an overall plot. At the end of each session, they go back to town to rest and organize their next expedition. This is necessary to allow DMs to run a game with changing players and flexible scheduling. Consider designing a large, epic narrative, packed with villains, factions, and plot key points, but without knowing who the main characters will be at any given time.

The Reasons This Style Prevents Story Cliffhangers

Certainly every DM has had a session end on a massive cliffhanger featuring a specific character, only to discover that the player could not make the next session. It's like if Frodo had to leave Mount Doom briefly before destroying the Ring. West Marches avoids this by essentially eliminating the main plot. But, that isn't to say a West Marches-style campaign has no story.

According to Robbins: "There was background and linked details. Tidbits discovered in one place could provide insight elsewhere. Instead of just being an fascinating detail, these clues lead to concrete discoveries."

The Way Critical Role Diverges from the West Marches Approach

At first, I believed something similar would happen with Critical Role Campaign 4, with the lore of the world emerging naturally and slowly through players’ decisions in each episode, but I couldn't be more wrong. Episode 1 is heavily filled with pre-existing lore, and there is a powerful, dominant plot that drives the characters. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but West Marches offers a pretty distinct experience from many D&D campaigns, one that is valuable to experience at least once.

Advice for Managing Your Personal Sandbox Campaign

For my initial, extended custom 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’ original West Marches. After an introduction, the players found themselves in a border town, a traditional "last outpost of civilization" environment. From there, they have the chance to explore the surrounding wilderness, either motivated by missions gathered in town or by their own interest. This style of play is heavily location-based, so if you're going to try it, make sure to fill your wilderness with interesting places to explore. The last thing you want is your players saying, "Today we want to check out the enigmatic ruins in the Swamp of the Dead," and you have no content prepared.

• Personally, I prefer having a defined plot in my campaigns, so I also disseminated several hooks for an overall narrative, both in town and in the wilderness.
• I believe that pure sandboxing and aimless dungeon crawling can grow boring after a time, but Robbins made an important point in this aspect when he explained 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 Balance in Every Campaign Type

The lesson here is that regardless of the type of campaign you're playing, it's important to strike a equilibrium between your responsibility as a DM in guiding the narrative and players’ agency. If you're creating a complex death maze for a traditional dungeon crawl or determining the fate of the world in a narrative-heavy campaign, always think about what your players may want to do. You set up the table, but they decide what to eat.

Why Now Is a Great Time to Start a West Marches Adventure

This could be the ideal time ever to start a West Marches-style campaign. D&D’s latest starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands, is a return to the Keep on the Borderlands, providing the ideal foundation to pull new players into this style. An add-on recommends how to better connect the various quests in the set, but you can also run this as the core of a sandbox campaign and expand it as it progresses.

Actually, the most interesting element of the first West Marches is the interaction between the rotating players. The town tavern had a map of the surrounding areas etched into a table, where groups included information and drew 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 time, but also that the world of West Marches grew naturally as the players explored it. If you're a DM who is attempting to create a homebrew campaign or world for the first time, West Marches could be exactly what you need.