Critical Role Campaign Season 2 (First Thoughts)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with a brief look at one of the larger phenomena in our hobby, Critical Role. It’s a smashing success watching a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors sitting around a table playing a game with their friends and has drawn a lot of attention to the game and the hobby in general. With a table featuring Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Tallesin Jaffe, Sam Riegel and last but certainly not least, Liam O’Brien, Critical Role brings together storytelling, adventure and reminds a lot of us what kind of fun you can have with your friends playing D & D.

Last night, (January 11th) featured the kick off to a brand new campaign with this cast and I personally was excited to see what that was going to look like. The first time we joined up with Critical Role, we saw the adventures of Vox Machina part of the way through their story, and missed the first book in the series, so to speak. This time we get to watch these characters interact with each other from the ground up, and see how they interact with the world around them.


Now, a three hour show that starts at 9 p.m. my time doesn’t fair well with me catching all of it, but i caught the beginning and the introduction of the characters to each other. There are a lot of exceptionally nice story beats that we get from that opening scene and how the characters start to interact with each other. Matthew Mercer continues to be a fantastic world builder, and this new campaign region starts with a world overview and a brief description of the world at a Macro scale before he pulls it tightly down onto this one particular tiny little town where they have good crops and sell ale by the tun.


Now as i said, i made it through about the first hour of the game and the last thing i really remember is the introduction of Tallesin’s and Ashley’s characters to the world and just watching the interactions between everyone playing the game. Everyone is having a good time (and the voice work is what you would expect from this cast). I look forward to exploring this new world with these characters and seeing how much trouble they can get into.


In many ways it’s a brand new world for us to explore and we have a fine cast of characters to explore that world. It’s going to be a fun ride, and i hope that everyone who is participating in the Critical Role experience is having the best time. Look forward to updates about the characters (and they have a wonderful tie in with the DND Beyond platform where you can check out some more information). I’ll let you all know more as i get more time with the setting and i am sure that the Fandom is cranking out the fanart, the theories and all of the wonderful things that Critters put together.


You can catch the show live on Twitch, Thursdays at 7 p.m. PST on the Geek and Sundry channel, or you can follow it on any of the other platforms you find your Media content on the internet. Game on Game Fans.