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Having watched the first episode of Critical Role Campaign 4, it becomes apparent that describing this latest venture as "rotating-player format" was somewhat misleading. The fresh Dungeons & Dragons narrative set in the realm of Aramán, crafted by Brennan Lee Mulligan, promises to be an grand and entertaining tale, yet the first episode shows it will not adhere to the West Marches model.

What Characterizes a Rotating-Player Campaign

The new season features an expanded cast of 13 players who will rotate at the session by dividing into three shifting groups. While rotating players is a core concept of a West Marches campaign—originally pioneered by game creator Ben Robbins—the real gameplay and format are quite distinct from what the show is offering in this newest installment. However, if you are intrigued about West Marches and wonder why it might be a good choice for your own game, continue.

The Beginnings of the Player-Rotating Style

This style started as the setting for a campaign led by Ben Robbins, who also designed the games Microscope and Kingdom. To address the frequent issue of inconsistent player schedules, Robbins came up with the concept of not maintaining a fixed group. Because he could draw from a large pool of players, he let them to schedule sessions freely. When enough players agreed on a date, the game would run as needed.

Having a rotating "cast" is great for players: No matter if you can participate once a week or once a month, you will consistently have a spot at the table.

As a Dungeon Master, however, it requires a specific mindset when building the campaign. West Marches is, at its core, a sandbox campaign where players investigate the world without being bound to an main plot. At the conclusion of each session, they go back to town to rest and plan their next expedition. This is essential to enable DMs to run a game with rotating players and ad hoc scheduling. Consider designing a big, epic narrative, packed with villains, factions, and plot milestones, but without being sure who the protagonists will be at any given time.

Why West Marches Prevents Plot Unresolved Endings

I'm sure every DM has had a session end on a massive cliffhanger involving a particular character, only to discover that the participant was unable to attend the following session. It's similar to if Frodo had to step away from Mount Doom briefly before destroying the Ring. West Marches prevents this by effectively eliminating the main plot. But, that isn't to say a West Marches-style campaign has zero narrative.

As stated by Robbins: "There was history and linked details. Tidbits discovered in one place could provide insight elsewhere. Instead of just being an interesting detail, these clues result in concrete discoveries."

The Way Critical Role Diverges from the Sandbox Model

Initially, I believed something similar would happen with Critical Role Campaign 4, with the mythology of the world emerging organically and slowly through players’ decisions 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 offers a pretty different gameplay from many D&D campaigns, one that is worth trying at least once.

Advice for Running Your Own West Marches Campaign

In my initial, extended custom D&D campaign, I began from a concept similar to the iconic The Keep on the Borderlands D&D module, which in turn inspired Robbins’ original West Marches. After an intro, the players were placed in a frontier town, a traditional "last outpost of civilization" setting. From there, they have the opportunity to explore the surrounding wilderness, either motivated by missions gathered in town or by their own curiosity. This method of play is heavily location-based, so if you're going to try it, ensure to fill your wilderness with engaging places to discover. The worst scenario you want is your players saying, "Today we want to investigate the enigmatic ruins in the Swamp of the Dead," and having nothing prepared.

• Personally, I like having a strong plot in my campaigns, so I also disseminated several story leads for an overall narrative, both in town and in the wilderness.
• I think that complete sandboxing and purposeless dungeon crawling can become boring after a while, but Robbins made an important point in this aspect when he explained the genesis of West Marches.
• "The reason in designing it this way was to address player apathy and mindless 'plot following' by putting the players in control of both scheduling and what they did in-game."

Achieving Balance in Every Campaign Style

The lesson here is that no matter the style of campaign you're playing, it's important to find a balance between your responsibility as a DM in steering the narrative and players’ agency. If you're creating a complex 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 decide what to eat.

The Present Is a Perfect Moment to Start a Sandbox Adventure

This could be the best time ever to launch a West Marches-style campaign. D&D’s latest starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands, is a comeback to the Keep on the Borderlands, providing the perfect foundation to draw new players into this style. The following add-on suggests how to more effectively connect 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.

Actually, the coolest aspect of the original West Marches is the collaboration between the rotating players. The town tavern had a map of the surrounding areas etched into a table, where groups added information and drew new areas as they found them. This not only meant that players could help each other even while not playing at the table at the same session, but also that the world of West Marches evolved naturally as the players explored it. If you're a DM who is attempting to build a homebrew campaign or world for the first time, West Marches could be exactly what you need.