Down the rabbit hole: Critical Role

[owlmoose]

Thanks to the recommendations and enthusiasms of MANY PEOPLE (you know who you are), I took the plunge and started watching Critical Role, a Twitch show in which a group of American voice actors play an ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Chances are, the foregoing all you need to know. It's exactly what it says on the tin. If it's not your kind of thing, you'll know right away. If it is, you'll probably be like me and get sucked in, completely and immediately.

The downside: this is a deep, deep rabbit hole. It's an ongoing show, there are already over 60 episodes, and the episodes average three hours in length (a few are shorter, many are longer). There are skippable bits, outdated announcements at the beginning and non-game business at the end, but it's still a ton of content. Fortunately, thanks to a suggestion from violacea, I was able to skip a chunk of episodes at the beginning -- I started with episode 14, then jumped ahead to episode 18 and started watching from there. Normally, I have a hard time coming in on stories in the middle, but Ep.14 starts a breather period between the end of one arc and the start of another. The new arc starts in earnest with Ep.24, which I gather is the latest place you can really jump in. Although I normally hate coming in on the middle of a story, I've found it much less of a problem here. I think this is largely because the group had been playing these characters for a couple of years before the show started, so it's literally not possible to start at the beginning.

I'm about halfway in -- I most recently watched Ep.34, which I assume was the climatic battle of the Whitestone arc, although who knows what surprises are left in store -- and am thoroughly charmed by the cast, the characters, and especially the DM, and I can't wait to see where all this is going.

Comments

[schneefink]

It does sound very interesting, but the episodes are so long... I rarely have the patience to sit down and watch one thing for three hours or longer. I wish the episodes had marker points, like "this minor battle with the orcs takes an hour and a half, plot continues at minute X if you want to skip." I also want a "best scenes with the bear" compilations, because bear *g*

[owlmoose]

There aren't many random battles -- the DM is pretty good at setting the party against enemies that pose a real challenge -- and many of them include good character moments, so I am rarely tempted to skip them. The parts I could do with fast-forwarding through are the time jumps, when they spend several days shopping or leveling up skills or whatever to prepare for a journey or event. But of course there's no visual cue to know when those are finished.

One thing I haven't yet tried, but have been meaning to, is downloading the audio to my phone and listening to episodes podcast style. I gather that some people do this and find it works well. Although the visuals do add to the experience, I think it would still be perfectly easy to follow the story without them.

A "best of Trinket" compilation would be awesome. I wonder if anyone has made one?

[schneefink]

Maybe I just had bad luck. I started watching an episode twice and both of them started rather slow... I could give it one more try.

[ukefied]

why did you introduce me to critical role i don't have time for this

[owlmoose]

Welcome to the club! I didn't really have time for it either. But so it goes... ;)

[pete_thomas]

It's weird, I found out about Critical Role a while back, but never actually got into it until more recently when I started getting heavily involved in Twitch. It is such a great show, and the cast does such a great job with making their characters so lovable.

I'm still trying to catch up currently, but I hope that eventually I'll be able to soak in enough of it that I'll be watching in real time on Thursdays with everyone else. The one thing I do wish though when I watch it is that I could find a group to do an epic campaign like that with. It could be so much fun.

Glad you're enjoying it!