Having watched the premiere of Critical Role Campaign 4, it becomes apparent that labeling this new venture as "West Marches-style" was a bit misleading. The fresh Dungeons & Dragons narrative set in the realm of Aramán, crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan, promises to be an grand and enjoyable journey, yet the first episode shows it won't adhere to the West Marches model.
Campaign 4 boasts an expanded group of thirteen players who will take turns at the session by dividing into three shifting groups. While changing participants is a fundamental concept of a West Marches campaign—originally developed by game designer Ben Robbins—the actual execution and structure are quite distinct from what Critical Role is offering in this newest season. But, if you are intrigued about West Marches and wonder why it might be a good option for your own game, read on.
This style started as the setting for a campaign led by Ben Robbins, who also designed the games Microscope and Kingdom. To solve the common issue of inconsistent player schedules, Robbins came up with the concept of not maintaining a fixed group. Because he could draw from a big pool of players, he allowed them to arrange sessions on their own. Once enough players settled on a date, the game would run as needed.
Having a rotating "group" is beneficial for players: It doesn't matter if you can participate weekly or once a month, you will consistently have a place at the table.
As a Dungeon Master, however, it demands a specific approach 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 end of each session, they go back to town to rest and plan their next expedition. This is essential to allow DMs to run a game with changing players and flexible scheduling. Consider designing a big, sweeping narrative, packed with villains, factions, and plot milestones, but without knowing who the protagonists will be at each session.
Certainly every DM has had a session conclude on a massive cliffhanger involving a particular character, only to find out that the player was unable to make the next session. It's like if Frodo had to step away from Mount Doom for a moment before tossing the Ring. West Marches avoids this by effectively removing the main plot. However, that isn't to say a West Marches-style campaign has zero narrative.
As stated by Robbins: "There was background and linked details. Tidbits found in one place could shed light elsewhere. Rather than just being an fascinating detail, these clues result in concrete discoveries."
At first, I thought something similar would happen with Critical Role Campaign 4, with the lore of the world developing organically and slowly through players’ actions in each episode, but I couldn't be more wrong. Episode 1 is strongly charged with pre-existing lore, and there is a strong, dominant plot that drives the characters. No issue with that, of course, but West Marches provides a quite different gameplay from many D&D campaigns, one that is valuable to experience at least once.
For my initial, long homebrew D&D campaign, I started from a premise similar to the iconic The Keep on the Borderlands D&D module, which subsequently influenced Robbins’ original West Marches. After an intro, the players found themselves in a frontier town, a traditional "final bastion of civilization" environment. From there, they get the opportunity to venture into the surrounding wilderness, either motivated by missions gathered in town or by their own curiosity. This method of play is strongly location-based, so if you're planning to attempt it, make sure to stock up your wilderness with engaging places to discover. The last thing you want is your players declaring, "Today we want to investigate the mysterious ruins in the Swamp of the Dead," and you have nothing prepared.
The lesson here is that no matter the style of campaign you're playing, it's crucial to strike a equilibrium between your role as a DM in steering the narrative and players’ agency. Whether you're designing a intricate death maze for a classic dungeon crawl or shaping the fate of the world in a narrative-heavy campaign, always consider what your players may want to do. You set up the table, but they decide what to eat.
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 foundation to draw new players into this style. The following add-on suggests how to more effectively link the various 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 coolest aspect of the first West Marches is the collaboration between the changing players. The town tavern had a map of the surrounding areas carved into a table, where groups included information and sketched new areas as they discovered 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 evolved organically as the players explored 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.
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