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Critical Role
Critical Role is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after 115 episodes, and campaign two started in January 2018 and ended in June 2021 after 141 episodes. A number of one-shots were aired in the hiatus between the two campaigns. After campaign two was completed, the spin-off limited series Exandria Unlimited aired from June 2021 to August 2021. The third campaign aired from October 21, 2021 to February 6, 2025 with 121 episodes. The fourth campaign premiered on October 2, 2025. The first three campaigns featured Matthew Mercer as the show's Dungeon Master and were set in the Exandria campaign setting; Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 serves as the Game Master for the fourth campaign which is set in Mulligan's setting of Aramán.
The series is broadcast on Thursdays at 19:00 PT on the Critical Role Twitch and YouTube channels and the Beacon streaming service, with the video on demand (VOD) being available to Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch subscribers immediately after the broadcast on their respective platforms. The VODs are made available for the public on Critical Role's website and uploaded to their YouTube channel on the Monday after the live stream. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the show had broadcast live, but has been pre-recorded since its return for episode 100 of campaign two.
The cast own the intellectual property from the show, and the show also lends its name to the studio owned by the cast—Critical Role Productions. The studio has produced Critical Role since 2018. A number of licensed works based on the show have been released, such as several comic books and two official campaign setting guides. The Legend of Vox Machina, the animated series based on the first campaign of Critical Role, premiered January 28, 2022 on Amazon Prime Video. The Mighty Nein, an animated series based on the second campaign, premiered on November 19, 2025.
Critical Role is a creator-owned streaming show where the cast play an ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign, initially with Matthew Mercer as the show's Dungeon Master for the player cast.
The group's first campaign began two years prior to the start of the series as a one-off, simplified Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition game for Liam O'Brien's birthday. At the time O'Brien was acting as Mercer's voice director on Resident Evil 6. Mercer had been encouraging O'Brien for some time to join a game, but O'Brien had been declining up to that point due to his new child. He eventually agreed to do a game for his birthday, and the bulk of the cast were present at that first session. The players enjoyed the game so much that they continued to play it while switching to the Pathfinder ruleset. O'Brien spoke with Ashley Johnson while the two were working on The Last of Us, and invited her to the campaign's second session. The home-game ran for two years, with the cast meeting approximately once every six weeks and playing for up to 8 hours at a time.
After Felicia Day heard about the private home game from Johnson, she approached the group about playing it in a live-streamed format for Geek & Sundry. The version G&S pitched would have had the players switch over to a video game to resolve combat. Mercer was against this, preferring instead to continue to play at the tabletop as the group had been. The players also vowed to halt the show if it compromised their enjoyment of the game. Geek & Sundry would ultimately host the show until February 2019. In order to streamline gameplay for the show, the game's characters were converted from Pathfinder to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition before the web series began airing on March 12, 2015. There were initially eight cast member players; Orion Acaba left the show after episode 27 of campaign one. His character, Tiberius, appeared in the first seven issues of the prequel comic series Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins.
Fans of the show are termed "Critters". The name was suggested by O'Brien during the Q&A session at the end of episode 10 of campaign one, which was popular with the chat at the time.
The Critical Role company, Critical Role Productions LLC, was incorporated in 2015. As of 2019[update], Travis Willingham serves as chief executive officer, Matthew Mercer as chief creative officer, Marisha Ray as creative director, Ed Lopez as chief operating officer, Rachel Romero as senior vice president of marketing, and Ben Van Der Fluit as vice president of business development.
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Critical Role
Critical Role is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after 115 episodes, and campaign two started in January 2018 and ended in June 2021 after 141 episodes. A number of one-shots were aired in the hiatus between the two campaigns. After campaign two was completed, the spin-off limited series Exandria Unlimited aired from June 2021 to August 2021. The third campaign aired from October 21, 2021 to February 6, 2025 with 121 episodes. The fourth campaign premiered on October 2, 2025. The first three campaigns featured Matthew Mercer as the show's Dungeon Master and were set in the Exandria campaign setting; Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 serves as the Game Master for the fourth campaign which is set in Mulligan's setting of Aramán.
The series is broadcast on Thursdays at 19:00 PT on the Critical Role Twitch and YouTube channels and the Beacon streaming service, with the video on demand (VOD) being available to Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch subscribers immediately after the broadcast on their respective platforms. The VODs are made available for the public on Critical Role's website and uploaded to their YouTube channel on the Monday after the live stream. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the show had broadcast live, but has been pre-recorded since its return for episode 100 of campaign two.
The cast own the intellectual property from the show, and the show also lends its name to the studio owned by the cast—Critical Role Productions. The studio has produced Critical Role since 2018. A number of licensed works based on the show have been released, such as several comic books and two official campaign setting guides. The Legend of Vox Machina, the animated series based on the first campaign of Critical Role, premiered January 28, 2022 on Amazon Prime Video. The Mighty Nein, an animated series based on the second campaign, premiered on November 19, 2025.
Critical Role is a creator-owned streaming show where the cast play an ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign, initially with Matthew Mercer as the show's Dungeon Master for the player cast.
The group's first campaign began two years prior to the start of the series as a one-off, simplified Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition game for Liam O'Brien's birthday. At the time O'Brien was acting as Mercer's voice director on Resident Evil 6. Mercer had been encouraging O'Brien for some time to join a game, but O'Brien had been declining up to that point due to his new child. He eventually agreed to do a game for his birthday, and the bulk of the cast were present at that first session. The players enjoyed the game so much that they continued to play it while switching to the Pathfinder ruleset. O'Brien spoke with Ashley Johnson while the two were working on The Last of Us, and invited her to the campaign's second session. The home-game ran for two years, with the cast meeting approximately once every six weeks and playing for up to 8 hours at a time.
After Felicia Day heard about the private home game from Johnson, she approached the group about playing it in a live-streamed format for Geek & Sundry. The version G&S pitched would have had the players switch over to a video game to resolve combat. Mercer was against this, preferring instead to continue to play at the tabletop as the group had been. The players also vowed to halt the show if it compromised their enjoyment of the game. Geek & Sundry would ultimately host the show until February 2019. In order to streamline gameplay for the show, the game's characters were converted from Pathfinder to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition before the web series began airing on March 12, 2015. There were initially eight cast member players; Orion Acaba left the show after episode 27 of campaign one. His character, Tiberius, appeared in the first seven issues of the prequel comic series Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins.
Fans of the show are termed "Critters". The name was suggested by O'Brien during the Q&A session at the end of episode 10 of campaign one, which was popular with the chat at the time.
The Critical Role company, Critical Role Productions LLC, was incorporated in 2015. As of 2019[update], Travis Willingham serves as chief executive officer, Matthew Mercer as chief creative officer, Marisha Ray as creative director, Ed Lopez as chief operating officer, Rachel Romero as senior vice president of marketing, and Ben Van Der Fluit as vice president of business development.