Dropout’s Brennan Lee Mulligan announced as the game master for Critical Role Campaign 4

Dropout TV’s Brennan Lee Mulligan is formally the Game Master for Critical Role’s fourth campaign coming in October 2025. Mulligan, as the creator and creative force behind Dropout’s popular Dimension 20 series, is definitely no stranger to the tabletop world, but what does his role as GM mean for Critical Role’s Campaign 4? And on that thread, what is Critical Role’s Campaign 4 about anyways?

Watch the official (somewhat chaotic) announcement below, including the escalating number of turtlenecks applied to those presenting.

Yes, in that 11 1/2 minute window, there’s not actually a ton of detail (although a fair amount of humor). The biggest news was the shift for Matt Mercer from his “forever Game Master” (his words) role, to player. Mercer will be joined by both “familiar… and new faces” according to their announcement, but presumably (hopefully) the core group of eight persists for the new adventures taking place outside the familiar world of Exandria. After all, they are a big driving force of the camaraderie and comedy that transformed the initial campaigns into an absolute internet phenomenon.

Notably missing from the announcement is the game system. Critical Role released their own TTRPG, Daggerheart, this past May through their game imprint Darrington Press. The narrative-focused system went through a pretty hefty public playtest window for community feedback — Blizzard Watch even ran our own three-part run-through of the system that you should give a listen. But their announcement didn’t mention if they’ll be playing on Daggerheart or continuing with Dungeons and Dragons like their first three campaigns.

But this also means it is the perfect time for Matt Mercer to hand over the GMing reins to award-winning tabletop veteran Brennan Lee Mulligan. They have a well-established relationship, with both Mercer and Mulligan appearing in guest player and guest GM spots on their respective channels’ side campaigns — most recently with Brennan Lee Mulligan playing an adorable frog camper in the CR spin-off Wildemount Wildlings. Mulligan brings not only his past Critical Role experiences to the table, but seven years (and running, based on his new contract) of Dimension 20 success as well as the incredibly successful actual play podcast Worlds Beyond Number that Mulligan GMs with veteran players Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, and Lou Wilson. All this, while remaining devoted to his love of custom American Girl Doll shoes — where are you finding all this free time, Brennan?

Frankly, we’ve been in an absolute mental meltdown waiting for the next Critical Role campaign. They’ve done an amazing job filling the months with side campaigns and events, but the Critters are ready for the Next Big Thing. Now we know that it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan at the wheel and Matt Mercer playing? October can’t come soon enough.