User:ByteBard/ArcsExplainer

What are arcs?
The main campaigns of Critical Role have over 100 episodes each and hundreds of hours of content. Unlike traditional tv shows which have seasons, there are not official, smaller divisions to navigate stories within each campaign. Arcs hit the major narrative beats in the campaign, and provide a method for dividing up the overall List of episodes, story summaries, and a way of organizing related characters, locations, and creatures.

Why this system?
Paradoxically, the goal in creating arcs is that they can fade into the background of the campaigns. Episode numbering is only at the campaign level. Arcs are supposed to help cluster related episodes together, but you should not need to use an arc page to find an episode. More like, an arc should be something interesting you see in the full list of episodes, or at the bottom of an episode page if you want to dig in further.

How did you come up with these episode divisions/arc names?
These arcs were the ones used in official campaign wrap-ups for Campaign 1 and Campaign 2, while sub-arc names for Campaign 2 are from Crit Recap Animated. They correspond to at least how the cast sees and names divisions of the story.

What about the chapter system before?
The original system for dividing up campaigns, Chapters, was initially created when there was only a single campaign on the stream. It helped to be able to divide the growing number of episodes, but it created a legacy system that left complications: 1. Episodes had two codes: their position in the campaign, and their position in the chapter. So as soon as campaign 2 started, 2x01 became an ambiguous code that could mean two different things. This created a problem for consistent and accurate episode numbering. 2. Chapters were numbered continuously through Campaigns 1 and 2, meaning Campaign 2 started at Chapter 9. Once Exandria Unlimited came along, and three characters from that campaign joined Campaign 3, it became even more clear that implying Campaign 3 came directly after Campaign 2 wasn't going to work. 3. Chapters were often referred to by number within articles and infoboxes (e.g. 'Chapter 14'), which could be confusing to locate if you weren't immersed in the chapter system. For arcs, we wanted to preserve that same sense of narrative structure and excellent recaps that chapters provide, and we adapted chapter summaries directly into arc summaries. Especially for Campaign 1, arc boundaries correspond pretty closely to chapter boundaries. (See also the original discussion and poll about chapters, prior to the development of the arc system.)

I have feedback/ideas about arcs!
Create a discussion topic at Category:Arcs.

Explore arc pages

 * Vox Machina Arc 1: Kraghammer and Vasselheim (1-23)
 * Vox Machina Arc 2: The Briarwoods (24-38)
 * Vox Machina Arc 3: The Chroma Conclave (39-83)
 * Vox Machina Arc 4: Taryon Darrington (84-99)
 * Vox Machina Arc 5: Vecna (100-115)


 * Mighty Nein Arc 1: Come Together (1-25)
 * Mighty Nein Arc 2: The Bad Guys (26-47)
 * Mighty Nein Arc 3: The Bright Queen's Favor (48-69)
 * Mighty Nein Arc 4: Swords and Angels (70-91)
 * Mighty Nein Arc 5: Family Ties (92-112)
 * Mighty Nein Arc 6: Weird Magic (113-141)