Critical Role Campaign 4 Cast Interview: Character Creation, Incorrect Fan Collages, And Thankfully "Everyone's hot"

We're now only a week away from the first episode of Critical Role Campaign 4, where Brennan Lee Mulligan will lead a table of 13 different players into the world of Araman, where mortals turned on the Gods and won. Ahead of the release, I had the chance to sit down with half of the cast to discuss character creation, what it has been like seeing the public's reaction to their characters, how Critical Role has evolved, and what fans can expect.

For this interview, I sat down with Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Laura Bailey, Sam Riegel, Robbie Daymond, Aabria Iyengar, and Alexander Ward. This cast includes co-founders who have been a core part of Critical Role since it was a home game and those who have been embraced by the Critical Role family, whether it be as DMs and players for additional stories in the world of Exandria, or those taking part in other Critical Role productions like Narrative Telephone or Candela Obscura.

To set my own understanding of just how much of Campaign 4's track has been laid down, the first question I asked was to know just how much of the Araman campaign had been played so far.

There was an immediate pause around the room, eyes darted around, no one wanting to say too much. Marisha Ray, who will play Murray the Dwarf, was the first to break the silence, "A nice skosh," not wanting to give much away. Riegel confidently added, "More than an episode, less than 10."

This likely puts their filming past the four-episode "Overture" that GM Brennan Lee Mulligan previously revealed would introduce us to the cast and set each character on their journey.

Building A Character For West Marches

For Campaign 4, a West Marches approach is being adopted, where the story will shift between a few active casts whose tales intersect around a core narrative. Knowing that each character was crafted to be part of a tighter group, but ultimately a smaller cog in the machine, I was interested to hear what the difference in approach was and if plans had been made among the cast to ensure certain players were seated at tables with each other.

Daymond threw up his first, joking and complaining that "they don't let us pick our own seats… isn't that mean? It's like the first day of third grade!"

Alexander Ward, who gave an incredible performance as Crokas in EXU: Divergence, added, "You won't be able to tell, but I'm always seated in the corner."

"A bunch of us did get together and brainstormed character backstories that were together, or even goals that would intersect with other characters," Riegel said, offering up a serious answer on the character creation process. "But I don't think anyone requested or required to be sitting at a particular table in order to be with another cast member."

"We developed our characters kinda like we always do, figuring out their backstories and their goals and their features and then threw them together in a big pot and stirred it up."

When I penned this question, I thought about how each table might have felt like it's own smaller party to build around, but Riegel explained that it was quite the opposite. "The style of the campaign changed a little bit how we developed our characters just because there's so many of us we all needed to be more specific on what our short-term character goals were."

Not knowing how long they'll have the focus of the story before it wheels off to a different group also made the players feel like they needed to make sure their time counted.

"You kinda have to get your story out more quickly than in prior campaigns, and I think it made us all focus more specifically."

To not let the mood get too serious, Ward detailed the process between Taliesin Jaffe and himself had to "do a lot of rock, paper, scissors to figure out who could be more spooky. It was a long day of us both doing paper over and over again."

Mercer piped up to add, "The big difference for me is that I got to do this process finally." 

Various cheers rang out through the Zoom call as Matthew Mercer, DM of the previous Critical Role campaigns, reflected on getting to be a player for a full campaign.

Who Plays The Soldier, Seeker, and Schemer in the Group

When the party was introduced, the themes of the different smaller tables were Soldiers, Schemers, and Seekers. I wanted to hear how those groups were built and understand just how focused they were on their goals.

Jokingly, Bailey called me out, "Secrets, secrets, secrets!" while Ray defended me that I "had to at least try asking." We all mused how difficult it is to interview about something that is to come, and not something that is readily available.

For those on social media who have been concocting ideas of who will be present at what table, Riegel did reassure that "We've seen collages that people have made speculating about who is at which table… and not a single one is correct." The entire cast burst into a united laugh.

Iyengar did offer some compassion that these attempts at guessing the tables "are entirely well reasoned, but completely incorrect."

To talk more about the theme of "Soldiers, Schemers, and Seekers," Ray warned not to get too invested in the archetype. Just because a character is big and burly, swinging their sword around doesn't mean that they're going to end up at the soldiers' table. "Those are more encompassing of the current goals with the character and how they're aligned."

Knowing that Brennan Lee Mulligan has cited Lord of the Rings as inspiration, I asked just how set those tables were or if we could expect to see characters drifting from one group to another.

"We've talked about the possibility of tables cross-pollinating as the overall campaign progresses," Mercer explained. "We haven't explicitly planned for it because the story guides what happens, but that's definitely a possibility that we've all been ready for if it ever comes around."

Ray mused on the benefits of these smaller groups within the grander narrative. "It gives us the freedom to let the characters' individual goals guide their paths and not really be bogged down by one singular mission that another character may have that you don't necessarily share."

Character Reveals and Reactions

With a massive cast, I was excited to learn what they thought of fans' reactions to these mysterious characters that we'll be meeting on October 2. I made sure to bring up how much praise and excitement I've seen for Mercer to be playing a cunty character.

"I've been excited to see all of the reactions and so excited to see people's guesses about characters. Many incorrect, some very interesting. That's part of the fun of the pure speculation." Speaking to those assumptions, Mercer added, "A lot of people were expecting a dwarf and I thought 'eh, I've done dwarf twice, for the time being I've filled that personal scope.'"

Ray, who is playing a dwarf, sounded off, "I've got you, babe."

"As long as one person plays a dwarf I'm happy, literally that came up in our character creation meeting." Mercer added a stern tone as he comically re-enacted, "As long as ONE of you plays a dwarf, that's my only requirement."

"We nose goes'd and Marisha lost" - Iyengar

Speaking to the speculative nature of the fans, Iyengar explained, "I think there's something really fun, because we've only done a tasteful skosh we're still living in the 'what could be' as much as the fans are so there's a shared sense of 'I don't know either, I cannot wait to find out.'"

Bailey and Iyengar praised all of the shipping art that they've already seen for characters and how crazy it is to see when no one outside of the company has seen a single character interact with one another. Thankfully, "everybody's hot," Bailey reassured me.

Who Is Aabria's Campaign Ex?

My next question, I turned directly to Iyengar for as I asked, "Which character in this campaign was your character previously married to?"

Layering on a polite dose of sarcasm, Iyengar told me, "Oh my gosh, could you imagine doing that bit even more? That would be crazy."

Knowing that Ward is coming into a full campaign of Critical Role as a relative newcomer, I was interested to learn if there was any advice that other members of the cast had imparted upon him.

"Don't fuck this up" - Iyengar

Ward shared that he was told to, "'Do your thing' and that 'we brought you in because we trust you,' and that was all the encouragement I needed."

The Evolution Of Critical Role

Critical Role Campaign 4 is one of evolution; New faces, a new set, and a new storytelling style. I posed to the cast members who have been around since the beginning what they're most excited about in Campaign 4 to show off to the longtime fans.

"To jump in here with a quick little anecdote," Mercer began, "When we started playing at home, we already had a lot of players at the table. Doing this for 10 years, it's been so wonderful being us just playing as our friend group, but we've all tried our best every chance we've had to bring more of our friends in."

"I've fractured storylines specifically so we COULD bring more friends to the table to play for a little bit so that logistical challenge has always been a barrier, given that the core of everything we've done on this has been around our core friend group in this campaign, so this was the perfect opportunity to expand that in a meaningful way that we've been meaning to do for a long time."

"It was the right timing, and it's been very exciting to not just have guests but have our core cast expand with all of these wonderful people."

Riegel added, "and if this goes well. Campaign five: 25 people, Campaign six: 100 people, Campaign Seven: everyone in California."

To add a serious answer, Riegel also said he was looking forward to people getting to see Matthew Mercer play a character and "for everyone to realize he doesn't know how to do it… He's been DMing for so long, he actually doesn't know how to play, so we're teaching him a lot of rules along the way."