When I wrote my previous blog entry about Force Grey (and Matt Mercer), I realized I needed to go back and watch more Critical Role so I could make a proper blog entry about that series (which is produced by the Geek & Sundry Twitch.tv folks). Basically, I spent the last 2 weeks using most of my free time to watch various D&D videos and I have had a really fun time. In fact, it's easy to get lost in the fantasy worlds of others; it doesn't help that we had to cancel the weekly sessions for both the game I DM and the game that I play in. But I digress...
Critical Role stands out as an amazing online RPG campaign series with superstar Matt Mercer as DM with his team of voice actor players. They originally played Pathfinder off camera (you know, for fun, as friends), but converted to the new D&D rules before going live with their Twitch stream sessions; they also have a large group with 7 players plus the DM. Thus have have some homebrew additions and some house rules, but the adventures mostly resemble D&D 5E (being played by theatre people).
I have read some criticism of the series that it seems a bit fake and I agree that when I first tried watching the series that some the characters seemed "too dramatic" or "over the top" at times, but I realized that's just because they are overdoing it because they are voice actors who enjoy playing to the camera. Once you get used to it, it feels more authentic and develops into something more watchable.
You can start with the beginning of the series at this link:
http://geekandsundry.com/shows/critical-role/page/5/
The series began in March of 2015 and continued regularly since then (and it's still going); the story arcs have some side treks and such, but mostly can be delineated as:
* Episodes 1-16 = Kraghammer
* 17-23 = Vasselheim
* 24-38 = Percy's family
* 39-83 = Chroma Conclave
Over time they have had a lot of guest stars come in for short bursts, including popular RPG nerds Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton, Chris Perkins, and Patrick Rothfuss. With the popularity and success Matt Mercer has received (in just 2 years of this - though clearly he was already a well-established anime and video game voice actor), I wonder how much longer the show will continue; they may decide they don't need him anymore if he permanently moves onto other projects (or they could stop at some point) so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
For now, I highly recommend the series - especially for people who are learning how to play tabletop RPGs (or just for people who have a lot of free time and want to be entertained). My main warning is that there are some repetitive video segments and such that can be skipped. I also remember reading advice on one of the Reddit forums that if something annoys you, just skip ahead 5 minutes and keep watching. Speaking of Reddit, Matt Mercer and the crew actually interact with the community and use the feedback from the online forums and social media (via Twitter).
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