If you’re plugged into the tabletop world – or at least Dungeons & Dragons – you’re likely familiar with the cultural phenomenon that is Critical Role. Filled with a group of best friends/voice actors, Critical Role has grown to be one of the biggest and most popular entities in nerddom, and are only continuing to grow.
It’s gotten so big, in fact, that Wizards of the Coast has collaborated with dungeon master Matthew Mercer to release a campaign setting guide based on Wildemount, the continent where the majority of the group’s second campaign takes place. This was confirmed earlier today by both Wizards of the Coast and Mercer himself after Amazon posted the listing for the book before the announcement.
But Matt Mercer isn’t encouraging fans to purchase the book from Amazon, or even from Wizards of the coast. In fact, he isn’t even encouraging fans to purchase/pre-purchase the campaign guide from his own company, Critical Role! Instead, Mercer is helping to support small businesses and local shops by urging fans to pre-purchase the Wildemount campaign setting from your “friendly local game store,” or FLGS, as he states.
“These businesses may not be able to necessarily compete with the pricing of online competitors, but they are the lifeblood of tabletop gaming communities since they began,” Mercer says in a follow-up tweet. “Plus, you never know what friends you’ll make while doing so. :)”
Seeing such a massive figure lending as much support as possible towards local businesses is a fantastic thing. Critical Role and the members therein have always supported smaller businesses though, often being sponsored by (or sponsoring) them as a show of support. They’ve also made it a point to use their brand to raise awareness of charities and smaller companies that others might not be aware of, such as their long-standing support of A26LA.
So is it surprising to see Mercer continuing this theme and urging fans to support local businesses? Not at all, but it’s always heartwarming to see that it continues. Throughout his career, Mercer has been very outspoken about the impact that local game shops and comic shops had on him during his adolescence. It’s clear that this is an experience that he wants to continue enabling to make sure that as many gamers as possible are able to have.
Regardless of where you pre-purchase the Wildemount Campaign Guide from, the release will be coming in just over two months on March 17th.
