Fionn Reid-Kelly examines the animated adaptations Critical Role.
It has been 11 years since the first episode of Critical Role aired online. The show has well and truly outgrown its humble beginnings, of being a bunch of nerdy ass voice actors sitting around a table and playing Dungeons and Dragons with webcams. Critical Role has grown into the most successful tabletop roleplaying game series on the internet. The series introduced many people to Dungeons and Dragons, as well as the Tabletop Roleplaying genre as a whole. Several books set in the Critical Role game world of Exandria have been released, and on top of that they have also recently published their own TTRPG system called Daggerheart.
The first two campaigns have received animated tv series adaptations on Amazon Prime. With Campaign One having finished 3 seasons so far, and another 2 seasons in the works. I watched the first season of Campaign 2 right after finishing up season 3 of Campaign 1, I wanted more to watch. I was blown away by the jump in quality between the two shows.
The animation in Campaign 2 in my opinion is an improvement. The characters flow smoother and the visuals are personally more appealing. Campaign 2 also switches from 20 minute episodes to 40 minute episodes. There’s a lot more focus on the narrative surrounding the non player characters, and the world gets a lot more time to establish itself. Another major change between the 2 shows is that the characters are introduced independently of each other, and you get to watch them meet and grow as a group from scratch.
Critical Role translates incredibly well from the original TTRPG web show to animation. Having a ready made main cast of professional voice actors certainly helps.
The beginning of Campaign 2 in the animated version is different from the original in several ways too. The animated version allows a lot more time to focus on specific characters individually for extended periods of time. As DnD is more collaborative the backstories of each of the characters are gradually revealed throughout the campaign.
Dungeons and Dragons is generally played collaboratively with a group of players and the DM guiding the narrative. With everyone at the table the focus of the characters ends up being one constrained to a narrative pushed by the group. While the Legend of Vox Machina remains primarily a group narrative, the Mighty Nein is able to bring a much more unrestrained narrative that not only focuses on the individual characters much more by fleshing out their backstories right from the outset, but also by dedicating a significant amount of time to the overarching narrative and the non player characters.
The main cast of characters are all brilliant. Each one of them brings their own flair and creativity which creates fun interactions between each other and the world around them.
The biggest difference is the run time. Each episode of Critical Role runs for in and around 4 hours, that’s almost as long as each season of the Legend of Vox Machina runs for in minutes. The adaptation of the show into an animated series makes the story far more streamlined for anyone that is purely interested in the story crafted by Matt Mercer and co.
Dungeons and Dragons campaigns can tend to take a while, with unexpected absences in certain sessions having to be worked around retrospectively for the sake of the plot as they happen. In Campaign 2 Ashley Johnson was absent for large chunks at the beginning of the campaign, but had appeared at the first session with her character Yasha. The animated series is able to work around this by having her character introduced at the end of the first season.