Critical Role's third campaign is remarkable in many ways. By tying together several characters, plot points, and villains from the previous two campaigns, it feels like the end of a powerful (and unexpected) trilogy, with the narrative pressures, possibilities, and constraints that can entail. But by episode 92, which aired April 18, it's clear that something has gone a little awry.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the events of Critical Role: Campaign 3, specifically episodes 91 and 92.
Part of the show’s ambition over the past few years was to expand the world of Critical Role beyond its core cast and core system. We’ve seen Critical Role become a bona fide games publisher through its Darrington Press division, launch monthly streams of its spooky detective fiction RPG Candela Obscura, test out the alternative fantasy game system Daggerheart, and tell D&D stories with a different cast of characters in its spinoffs Exandria Unlimited, led by Dimension 20 alumni Aabria Iyengar and Brennan Lee Mulligan.
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Iyengar has directed two such spin-off series: the original EXU in 2021 and its sequel EXU: Kymal the following year. These series are closely tied to Critical Role’s main campaign, having marked the debut of faun druid Fearne (Ashley Johnson) and halfling fighter Orym (Liam O’Brian), as well as air genasi bard Dorian (played by Robbie Daymond), who appeared in the first 14 episodes of Campaign 3.
It was a bold narrative decision just as the main cast was recovering from a finished mission and a massive in-game loss.
Episode 92 of Campaign 3 marked something different. After the first half of the episode, which saw Bells Hells flee the moon and seek to reconnect with her allies on the homeworld of Exandria, Iyengar quickly took control of the action and turned the stream into a PvP battle between members of the EXU: Kymal cast, in which the “evil” Spider Queen goddess sought to bend Aimee Carrero’s warlock to her will. Filled with action, flashbacks, and interpersonal conflict, while shifting the focus to another part of the world entirely, it was a bold narrative decision just as the main cast was reeling from a finished quest and the massive in-game loss of the FCG group’s cleric.
The problem? Not everyone had seen EXU.
There will be plenty of viewers watching every bit of content Critical Role puts out on Twitch and YouTube, and more casual fans who dip in and out of episodes based on their tastes, with most people falling somewhere in the middle. But the decision to switch to this other cast of characters mid-stream, rather than creating a separate, one-off game that interested viewers could watch separately, is more than a little baffling.
The Critical Role Reddit sub has been filled with confused viewers, confronted with characters they weren't familiar with, asking for recaps of EXU spin-offs, or complaining about the lack of an introduction or explanation for “people who didn't watch EXU.” Even as someone who watched some Over the years, I still struggled to connect with what was going on.
Tuning in and seeing a bunch of unfamiliar faces, without knowing the backstories that are constantly being cited at the table, doesn't make for a great viewing experience.
It was doubly hard to watch given what had just happened in the main campaign. The main cast had a blast on the red moon Ruidus, where they encountered new species, made new allies, fought telepathic enemies, transformed into toothballs that could burrow underground, and learned a lot of crucial information about the mysterious moon — all capped off with a brutal, thrilling fight against legendary fighter Otohan Thull, who had already killed members of the party (and their loved ones) on several occasions.
Shortly after realizing that the group might be completely wiped out, Sam Riegel’s FCG cleric robot sacrificed his life to defeat Thull and save the rest of his companions, ending with a moving speech and leaving much of the table in tears. I can understand the desire to give the main cast members a break after such a heartbreaking finale, but it also struck me as a particularly bad time to jump to a different cast, with their own tone and lore, when viewers were already reeling from the events of the previous episodes — especially when the side story wasn’t signposted beforehand. Tuning in to see a bunch of unfamiliar faces, without knowing the backstories that are constantly being cited at the table, doesn’t make for a great viewing experience.
Iyengar's playful jokes about killing characters fit oddly into the context of the current campaign, and it's hard to understand why this disconnected story couldn't have been a separate EXU broadcast, rather than a bait-and-switch for those looking to continue the main campaign plot and process its consequences.
Episode 92 will continue the side story and presumably tie into the main adventure, so there may yet be a substantial denouement, possibly with the return of fan-favorite Daymond to the main table. And it's clear that Critical Role has more stories and arcs to juggle as it tries to expand its world across multiple simultaneous adventures.
But if players have to reluctantly tune into other streams to catch up on key plot points, or ask for information on Reddit, it's a sign that Critical Role has forgotten how divided its audience has become, and how its own media ambitions will likely further exacerbate the problem.