Wanted to add, if anyone’s curious: Critical Role is starting its third campaign tomorrow (Thursday, October 21)! If you’ve been looking for a jumping-on point for the show that doesn’t involve watching hundreds and hundreds of hours of content to catch up, this is it. Each campaign takes place in the same overall world as the previous ones, but at enough of a remove (different continent, set some time later) that the impact of prior campaigns is usually reduced to the odd NPC cameo and no knowledge of those plots is needed to enjoy the story.
I know D&D actual-plays are much more mainstream than they were back when campaign two was first getting started, but in case that hasn’t been your thing: it’s literally just listening in on someone else’s game of Dungeons and Dragons. They’ve got great production value and an absolutely absurd new set for the new campaign (projections????), but the game itself is totally unedited, which means you get the full experience of table talk, flubs, and occasionally having to take an early break because everyone has the giggles. The players are all experienced actors and longtime friends, though, so they’re very good at sharing the spotlight, building each other up, and occasionally messing with each other for maximum humorous effect.
Matt Mercer, the DM, is clearly living his Dungeons & Dragons dreams - he’s mentioned that this set is something he’s daydreamed about since he was DMing in high school, and on top of creating the world, he has control over the visual effects during the game and builds the battle maps himself. The seven players (plus occasional guest players!) buy in to their characters in a huge way; it really does feel like reading a book or watching a show where every single character has a writer who’s always in their corner. They’ve got a great crew (including, now that they’re pre-recording, subtitles for every episode as it airs) and the show’s getting more and more polished without losing the fun side of the chaos of it all.
The episodes are free-to-watch and air every Thursday (except, starting in November, for the last week of each month when a one-shot will air instead) at 7 PM Pacific Time on Twitch, typically running for around 4 hours. That’s long as heck, so if you’re not super into watching something for that long in one sitting or if the time zone’s not in your favor, you’re in luck: they rebroadcast on Twitch at midnight Pacific Time and 9 AM Pacific Time on Fridays, then post to YouTube the following Monday. You can also subscribe on Twitch to be able to watch the VOD immediately after (and even during) airing - if you have an Amazon Prime account, you get one free subscription.
They also post episodes in audio-only form to a podcast feed a week after airing - you may have to poke around a bit because the earlier episodes were on a different feed due to the changeover to CR becoming its own company.
Anyway, I do really love this show - I think it’s an incredibly fun example of creativity and communal storytelling, and the throughline always hews back to found family and deep friendships. It feels like watching a fantasy epic that’s somehow had the goofy cast shenanigans integrated right into it, with the added intensity of a really good sports game - after all, everything is unscripted and the nature of D&D means that a character can permanently die at any time.
It’s great fun all around, and even if you do fall behind on it and only poke your head back in occasionally down the line, jumping in at the start of a new campaign is a pretty wild experience all around.
If you’re interested, the Twitch channel is here and the YouTube channel is here. Watch live at 7 PM Pacific on Thursday, October 21st!
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