Critical Role Isn't Launching a West Marches Campaign, However You Can

Having watched the premiere of Critical Role Campaign 4, it is clear that labeling this latest undertaking as "West Marches-style" was a bit misleading. The fresh Dungeons & Dragons narrative set in the world of Aramán, crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan, promises to be an grand and entertaining tale, yet the first episode demonstrates it will not follow the West Marches model.

The Elements That Defines a Rotating-Player Game

The new season boasts an expanded group of 13 players who will rotate at the session by dividing into multiple shifting groups. Although changing participants is a core concept of a West Marches campaign—first pioneered by game designer Ben Robbins—the actual gameplay and structure are quite distinct from what the show is offering in this newest installment. But, if you are curious about West Marches and wonder why it might be a good option for your own campaign, read on.

The Origins of the West Marches Format

West Marches was originally the backdrop for a campaign run by Ben Robbins, who also designed the games Microscope and Kingdom. To address the common problem of inconsistent player availability, Robbins introduced the idea of not maintaining a fixed group. Since he could select from a large group of players, he let them to schedule sessions on their own. Once a sufficient number of players settled on a date, the game would run as needed.

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

For a DM, however, it demands a particular approach when constructing the campaign. West Marches is, at its core, a sandbox campaign where players explore the world without being tied to an overall plot. At the conclusion 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 rotating players and flexible scheduling. Imagine designing a big, sweeping 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 Avoids Plot Cliffhangers

I'm sure every DM has had a session conclude on a huge cliffhanger involving a specific character, only to discover that the participant could not make the next session. It's like if Frodo had to step away from Mount Doom for a moment before destroying the Ring. West Marches prevents this by essentially removing the main plot. But, that doesn't mean a West Marches-style campaign has zero narrative.

As stated by Robbins: "There was background and interconnected details. Clues found in one place could provide insight elsewhere. Rather than just being an interesting detail, these clues result in concrete discoveries."

How Critical Role Differs from the West Marches Approach

Initially, I thought something similar would occur with Critical Role Campaign 4, with the lore of the world developing naturally and slowly through players’ decisions in each episode, but I was mistaken. Episode 1 is heavily filled with established lore, and there is a powerful, dominant plot that drives the characters. No issue with that, of course, but West Marches offers a quite different experience from many D&D campaigns, one that is worth trying at least once.

Tips for Running Your Own Sandbox Adventure

In my initial, long custom D&D campaign, I began from a premise like the iconic The Keep on the Borderlands D&D module, which in turn influenced Robbins’ original West Marches. After an introduction, the players were placed in a frontier town, a traditional "final bastion of civilization" setting. From there, they have the opportunity to venture into the surrounding wilderness, either prompted by quests found in town or by their own interest. This style of play is strongly location-based, so if you're going to try it, ensure to fill your wilderness with engaging locations to explore. The last thing you want is your players saying, "Today we want to check out the mysterious ruins in the Swamp of the Dead," and you have nothing prepared.

• Personally, I like having a strong plot in my campaigns, so I also disseminated several hooks for an overall narrative, both in town and in the wilderness.
• I think that complete sandboxing and aimless dungeon crawling can grow tiresome after a while, but Robbins made an key 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 unthinking 'plot following' by putting the players in charge of both scheduling and what they did in-game."

Finding Equilibrium in Every Game Type

The takeaway 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. Whether you're designing a intricate death maze for a classic dungeon crawl or determining the fate of the world in a narrative-heavy campaign, consistently consider what your players may want to do. You set up the table, but they choose what to eat.

Why Now Is a Perfect Moment to Begin a Sandbox Campaign

It might be the ideal time ever to start a West Marches-style campaign. D&D’s newest starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands, is a comeback to the Keep on the Borderlands, offering the perfect setup to pull 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 expand it as it continues.

In fact, the coolest element of the original West Marches is the collaboration between the changing players. The town tavern had a map of the nearby areas carved into a table, where adventuring parties added information and drew new areas as they found them. This not only ensured that players could help each other even while not being at the table at the same time, but also that the world of West Marches grew naturally as the players ventured through it. If you're a DM who is attempting to build a custom campaign or world for the first time, West Marches could be exactly what you need.