Brennan Lee Mulligan, Critical Role's current D&D Dungeon Master, might seem like he has all the answers. The man is a flowchart king, and campaign 4 runs as smoothly as a river. But a recent Instagram AMA shows BLeeM is often improving like the rest of us. Case in point: one small choice Matt Mercer made in episode one that changed the entire campaign.
During Thjazi's funeral, Mercer's character Sir Julien Davinos decided to spit on his corpse. It was a simple act of spite, but it would have lasting effects. We now know this disrespect meant Thjazi could curse him. Thjazi now, somehow, lives on as Julien's Shadow - meaning the knight cannot be rid of his most hated rival.
"When he spat on that corpse, my jaw dropped", Mulligan says in the official Instagram AMA. "I was so psyched."
It seems the shadow storyline had not been planned from the outset. "As a Dungeon Master, you want to plan a lot", Mulligan adds, "but if you plan everything, where's the room that's left for interesting player choices?"
"I had some ideas of what was going on with Thjazi on the other side." "I knew what his intentions were and what his plans were, but I didn't have everything lined up to the nth degree", he says. "When that spit happened, it all got thrown out." "You gotta let player choices matter - even those they don't know in the moment are going to matter."
The rest of the AMA covers broad ground. We learn more about Druidic beliefs, the official name for a citizen of Dol-Makjar, and Brennan's favorite ship (it's not what you might think). You can see the full thing on Critical Role's Instagram. Or, if you'd like to chat more about D&D, you can join likeminded fans in the official Wargamer Discord.