If you’ve ever participated in a role-playing game, you know that moment: when everything is on the line, the monster is this close to defeat, and you have the perfect opening. All you need is a little cooperation from your dice. You take a breath. Your party holds theirs. You toss the dice. And when it’s a success—or even better, a crit—that blooming bubble of joy, giddiness, and celebration bursts from you and your party, as your DM describes the moment of victory. If you miss that feeling of unrestrained, breathless happiness at the twists and turns to be found in a roleplaying game, then you’re probably the perfect audience for Critical Role.
Started by gaming and nerd channel Geek & Sundry in late 2014, Critical Role chronicles the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition adventure of eight professional voice actors and friends. They started playing Pathfinder together a year or so before Geek & Sundry asked them to take the game live and the show was born; now through the magic of the livestream channel Twitch, having migrated over to DnD, Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer and his seven friends gather together every Thursday at 7PM West Coast time to continue the harrowing, hilarious, and dramatic adventures of Vox Machina. A group of noble, lovable misfits who have become a family, our adventurers have fought everywhere from the depths of the Underdark to the heights of Gatshadow Mountain; they’ve traveled between planes, battled vampiric lords and ladies, savage Beholders, nobility from the Nine Hells, and most recently have dedicated themselves to the destruction of a vicious group of chromatic dragons who have razed the country they love.
Grog Strongjaw (Travis Willingham) is the group’s tank, a goliath barbarian whose rage and strength will never be as great as his honor. His best buddy is Pike Trickfoot (Ashley Johnson) the gnome cleric, whose devotion to the goddess Sarenrae is only matched by the love she has for her adventuring family. Scanlan Shorthalt (Sam Reigel) is a fellow gnome and a bard to boot, whose dulcet tones, scandalous behavior, and hilarious misadventures do their best to hide a heart in turmoil. Percival de Rolo III (Taliesin Jaffe) is a member of nobility turned gunslinger; his tormented soul has had to navigate a labyrinth of vengeance, and come out the other side. Keyleth (Marisha Ray), the half-elf druid, is on pilgrimage to become worthy of leading her people, but her love for the world and its inhabitants grows ever more fragile as she discovers how much pain exists within it. And finally, the twin half-elves: the rogue-paladin Vax’ildan (Liam O’Brien), whose brooding heart has found purpose, is learning he may be capable of more than death, and ranger Vex’halia (Laura Bailey), with a wit sharper than her arrows, whose walled heart and devil-may-care attitude are melting in the face of self-acceptance.
Critical Role taps into that beautiful, wonderful high that you get from a truly stunning campaign or game of DnD. Matthew Mercer is a fantastic storyteller, able to juggle dozens of characters no matter the terrain, imbuing each with a distinct personality, history, and of course, voice. Because that’s the beauty of Critical Role: since each of the players are professional voice actors, when they sit down at the table with the dice, they’re doing more than just playing a game—they’re bringing years of voice acting history, technique, humor, gravitas, and improv with them to the table. It adds a whole other level of drama, hilarity, and tension to their games. Each of the main players have created some truly memorable and complex characters, and every one of them gets a chance to stand in the spotlight. Special kudos must be given to Matthew Mercer, who continues to shine as, game after game, he deftly brings to life some of the most bizarre, wonderful, and fully-realized characters. Just look up clips of Mercer doing Victor the Black Powder Merchant—you won’t regret it. And it’s worth noting that Mercer makes sure to incorporate positive representation into his game, with prominent LGBT characters featured within the party as well as NPCs; for example, there was recently a new non-binary character introduced (who is also a Brass Dragon, which is badass as hell).
It’s also an amazing venue to watch geeky icons visit the show and guest star with the cast for an episode or two. Sometimes, they’re fellow voice actors, such as Mary Elizabeth McGlynn who plays Zahra Hydris, a tiefling warlock, or Will Friedle who plays Kashaw Vesh, a human cleric. But there have also been such famous guest players as Felicia Day (playing the human wizard, Lyra), Patrick Rothfuss (playing the human paladin, Kerrek), Chris Hardwick (playing the dragonborn wizard, Gern Blanston), and Wil Wheaton (playing the dwarven fighter, Thorbir Falbek). Each of them brings their own energy and love of the game to the table, and watching their new characters interact with Vox Machina is a delight.
Critical Role is perfect viewing for anyone who’s ever played DnD, loved it, and (as so many of us do) finds themselves too short on time to start a new campaign of their own. Watching Vox Machina’s adventures brought me back to college when we’d sit for six hours on a Sunday and plan a siege, or fight a dragon, or try to trick a sphinx. Episode after episode, you get drawn in and become more invested in these characters, who are all engaging, and complex, and not always good people. The cast’s acting ability and knack for improv (both comedic and dramatic) result in a show that not only soothes my DnD-loving heart but, at the end of the day, makes for some truly amazing storytelling.
In Critical Role, it’s not all fun and games and monster-fighting. Characters get hurt, and broken, and beaten, and even die. Enemies from the past rise again and threaten everything. Characters fall in love, and fall out of love, and then back again. Nations collapse. Friends are lost. Wars are fought. Demons return to haunt our band of adventurers, both literally and figuratively. Everyone has their moment to shine, and there are far too many of these moments to list here. But even better than the larger fights are the small character moments that really make the show such a success: Percival finally forgiving one of his worst enemies, Vax quietly taking Keyleth’s hand, Vex declaring her love in order to bring someone back from the brink of death, Scanlan talking to Pike about what to do should he die, Grog confronting his own mortality and fears.
To balance out the drama, there are moments of such hilarity and good fun that at times it gets hard to breath: Scanlan and Grog going hat shopping, Pike getting hammered on ancient alcohol and failing her Constitution rolls, two characters’ first kiss in the snow, Scanlan turning into a triceratops and taking out a whole mansion on his own, Vax and Vex pulling pranks on one another, Keyleth’s awful social skills, Percy’s insanely good rolls, and pretty much anytime Scanlan sings a song of inspiration. They all make fun of one another other, with Matthew Mercer a favorite target of jokes during play, and often times the game has to pause as they burst out laughing at something someone has just said.
Critical Role is a show that makes me yearn for my more active DnD days, and keeps inspiring me to start working on a campaign in the present. Because what Critical Role has taught me, and continues to teach me, is that the best magic that exists in this world is telling stories with your friends. There’s honestly nothing better.
With such a beautiful mixture of roleplaying, action, and intrigue, this show is not to be missed, so if you’ve been longing for the sound of your dice against a table, or that moment the DM looks at you with a twinkle in their eye and asks, “How do you want to do this?” as you fell a monster, then consider checking out Critical Role. There is a whole backlog of adventures to catch up on, but don’t worry, you have plenty of time. And who knows? Maybe like one of Scanlan’s songs, it’ll inspire you to get back to playing again, too.
Top image: Critical Role fan art by Amanda Oliver Elm for the show’s 50th episode (April, 2016)
Martin Cahill is a contributor to Tor.com, as well as Book Riot and Strange Horizons. He has fiction forthcoming at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Fireside Fiction. You can follow his musings on Twitter @McflyCahill90.
I’ve watched it regularly, not quite since the beginning, but for about a year and a half (started watching live roundabouts “5k and a bear”) and yeah, it’s an awful lot of fun. Just a couple notes for anyone reading this and thinking of jumping in:
The backlog is intimidating particularly when it’s rare for an episode to be under 3 hours long, and the first episodes occasionally have sound issues and other things that make them a bit more awkward to watch (not a fatal flaw, but some people might have sensitive ears). However, the very first episode starts in the middle of an adventure (they were continuing their private tabletop game, as was mentioned in the article). So, in some ways, starting from the newest episode, or any episode, is pretty much the same experience as starting from the beginning, except in this case if you find you love it you can go back and see the older ones (although, of course, you miss various running jokes and such that other fans will get).
Guest actors are fairly rare, but Patrick Rothfuss has been on the two newest episodes and if scheduling works out will be on the newest live episode this Thursday on twitch.tv/geekandsundry (7pm PST, 10pm EST is the estimated start time).
And, also, the Twitch channel has a variety of other fun live programming, including RPGs, which may not have the same zazz or polish but are still fun if you’re into that sort of thing… one of the newest of which is a Doctor Who RPG (Fridays, noon PST, 3pm EST) with a female regeneration of the Doctor (played by Amy Dallen) and one of the cast members (when schedule permits) is voice actor Darin DePaul, who does a very amusing Sontaran librarian (which is pretty much like a Sontaran soldier, except he’s slightly less likely to shoot).
Martin, this is so lovely! Bravo!
After attempting to jump in at the beginning of Critical Role, and not being able to properly focus, I gave it another shot on Episode 27 – The Path to Whitestone. I was immediately pulled in to the story, and have continued to watch ever since. The group has only gotten better with time, giving the characters more depth with every episode. If anyone has never watched a master of storytelling at their art, they owe it to themselves to spend some time watching Matt Mercer craft this world. It’s magical.
I would add one thing – the worldwide community of ‘Critters’ that has arisen from the show’s following is one of the best fandoms out there. Yes, there are some rules lawyers and RP-bashers in the bunch, but avoiding parts of the r/Critical Role commentary and only partially reading the Twitch chat will eliminate most of the relatively small amount of negativity. Critters are brilliant artists and writers in their own regard, and are the impetus behind ‘Critmas’ … the gifting of things to the cast, crew, and community of Critical Role. (if you haven’t watched a Critmas event, I strongly suggest finding the November or December 2015 episodes…or any of the Periscopes).
I would point out that at the beginning of the article it points out eight(8) players but when introducing them only name seven (7). Tiberius Stormwind, a Dragonborn Sorcerer player by Orion Acaba, was the eighth member of Vox Machina when the game started on Twitch. He played for about 30 episodes before leaving to grow his character, Tiberius, as a personal business IP. After leaving the game, Tiberius was written out of the ongoing story (no spoilers on how). It was sad to see Orion go since Tiberius was the favorite of many viewer.
This article beautifully captures why I love Critical Role. The genuinely amazing cast, both as characters and as people, the stunningly immersive worldbuilding; I had never played before and it made me realize what D&D was, and what it could be. I started playing with a group of friends last year and now I’m getting ready to run my own game. And I second the awesomeness of the Critter community- so many fantastic artists that create fanart for each episode, and all the Critters I have met at conventions have been so friendly and welcoming and excited to share how much they love the show.
My one and only must watch thing. Critical Role keeps me going through the darkest times my life has known of late. Not just for the fun and drama, but the truly wonderful people involved, who somehow manage to find time to connect with their fans. That fan community, the Critters, is such a great extension of that, too, just full of wonderful people.
Critical Role has brought so much joy into the world.
I have enjoyed friends at the table. http://friendsatthetable.net/. Especially good for the far left as Austin the leader is basically a communist. Also very good at writing stories and is fun stuff.
My roommate is good friends with artist Brandi York, who contributed some lovely fanart among the thousands generated for the show and got roommate interested. At first I couldn’t figure out how watching someone else’s D&D game could be compelling. Then roommate kept telling me about moments from the show: Grog attempting to haggle like Vex, the Trial of the Take with the guest stars, Vax’s emotional monologue when he faced two major villains alone–but what got me was when she came in practically shell shocked by what I refer to as the show’s “Red Wedding moment” (way less violent for the main cast at least) at the end of episode 39, when what seems to be the start of one kind of plot becomes something else entirely and the characters’ world is thrown into disarray, which has taken up half the series so far.
I got into it, and despite sound issues and getting used to things in earlier episodes–when they also had their 8th player, who left around ep 28 for personal reasons and his own creative projects–it drew me in. Some enterprising “Critters” have made some helpful aids to get through the MASSIVE amount of watchable hours for the show. The GoogleDoc for the Primer slideshow is here and can help jump into any point of the story, and let you go back to catch up later. It’s become my go-to for people wanting to get into the series and not sure where to start, with links to a fantastic fan video that acts like a trailer for the series, the pre-stream adventures illustrated by show artist Wendy Sullivan (@WendyDoodles on twitter), and the original audio intros. Language warnings, though!
There are a lot of other great D&D podcasts and Twitch programs out there, but CR has definitely changed a few things about the ways I view gaming and storytelling, and has helped inspire me again in a few ways.
Also, check out their new sister program Talks Machina on Tuesdays at 7pm Pacific, hosted by writer/singer Brian Wayne Foster (friend of the cast and Ashley Johnson’s sig-o) for time to talk with the cast, crew, and guests about the show, answer questions, and just relax a bit. It’s spoiler-heavy, though! Both shows run simultaneously on Legendary’s new Alpha channel, with additional stuff added on, but that’s not needed.
Previous week’s eps will be on Geek & Sundry’s website the following Monday, and their youtube channel will list it publicly a few weeks later. Talks Machina’s much shorter backlog is only found on Alpha aside from the first couple eps and the last Critmas episode, though.
I love Critical Role. Thanks to Force Grey Giant Hunters I found Critical Role on YouTube back in September/October of last year and haven’t stopped watching since. Took me a few months to catch up. But I’m so glad I did. I’ve become emotionally involved with these characters and what happens to them. It’s my favorite thing to experience each week. I know I’m gonna be either laughing or crying or both every Thursday night. The ever so flawed and heroic adventurers of Vox Machina keep me on the edge of my seat. It’s like watching Friends mashed with Game of Thrones. It’s an epic comedy drama (dramedy) with heros, villians, plot twists and COWS!!! Thank you guys for giving us such great entertainment by living vicariously through your characters every week. I hope this campaign goes a lot longer. Love you guys!
Please consider making Patrick Rothfuss a semi regular on the show. I have a ton of respect for him and feel that he adds to an already amazing cast on the show.