When the Kickstarter ended after 45 days, the Critters–the loving name for Critical Role’s vast fanbase–had raised a whopping $11.3 million, making the Vox Machina special one of the most funded Film & Video projects in Kickstarter’s history. Not only did the fans succeed in funding the project, which had an initial goal of $750,000, but they surpassed it–by a ton. “They really kind of came through for us there,” Ray says.
The group quickly realized their fans didn’t have these same mental barriers, so they took the project directly to them. “Everybody was wondering, ‘Wait, are you animating you guys sitting at a table? I don’t understand,” Bailey recalls. And when it came to adapting the stories to an animated series, many people had trouble wrapping their heads around the concept. “There’s a lot of layers to it, and we learned that really quickly the more we pitched it.” There were countless barriers the Critical Role team faced, Ray says, including having to explain tabletop RPGs and the concept of streaming on Twitch. “Our show is a lot to explain,” Ray admits with a laugh. Before turning to fan-funding, the group tried pitching the show to Hollywood, but despite their enormous online popularity, it proved to be a hard sell. Those eight friends–Johnson, Mercer, Ray, Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, and Liam O’Brien–soon found themselves as the founders and stars of the most popular D&D streaming show.Ĭritical Role had already garnered millions of fans on its official Twitch channel by March 2019, when they launched a Kickstarter to fund a 22-minute animated special based on the Vox Machina campaign. “It's where we all connected and where all of our lives took a complete turn in the best way,” Johnson says. That night laid the foundation for Critical Role. I was just like, ‘Sure, I'll go to this thing and bring a pencil and see what happens.’ And then Laura ’s doing an accent,” Ashley Johnson tells The Daily Beast with a laugh on a joint Zoom call with Bailey and Ray. “I had no idea what the fuck was gonna be happening. It all started back in 2012, when a group of voice actor friends gathered at the apartment of Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer for a night of Dungeons & Dragons, a popular tabletop role-playing game (RPG). But despite trending on Twitter every Thursday evening, garnering millions of streaming views, and creating an online empire, the impetus of Critical Role will always be the same: a simple game played among friends.
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When the group of friends behind the web series Critical Role–aptly named after this particular throw–rolled the dice on their business, they undeniably hit that Natural 20. The outpouring of support from CR’s fans (aka Critters) caught the eye of execs at Amazon Studios, which picked up the series to bolster its adult-animation slate.There is a term for the perfect roll of the dice in Dungeons & Dragons it’s called a Natural 20, which gives the player the maximum possible value on a 20-sided die to make a move, attack an enemy, or cast a spell. They surpassed their original funding goal of $750,000 in less than an hour - ultimately raising $11.39 million and setting the record for the most-funded film and video project in Kickstarter history. “The Legend of Vox Machina” animation project kicked off in 2019, when Critical Role launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce a 22-minute animated special. Brandon Auman (“Star Wars: Resistance”) and Titmouse’s Chris Prynoski (“Metalocalypse”) serve as executive producers alongside the eight CR founders. The series stars Critical Role founders and cast members Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham and game master Matthew Mercer. “The Legend of Vox Machina” is a production of Amazon Studios, Critical Role and animation studio Titmouse for Prime Video.Ĭritical Role, which began livestreaming the Vox Machina campaign in March 2015 (and concluded in November 2017), was formed by a group of friends who met as voiceover actors and began playing D&D role-playing games together.
From a sinister necromancer to a powerful curse, the group confronts a variety of obstacles that not only test their skills, but also the strength of their bond. In a desperate attempt to pay off their mounting bar tab, the unlikely heroes end up on a quest to save the realm of Exandria from dark magical forces. SEE ALSO: Inside Critical Role’s Growing D&D Fantasy Empire and the Making of ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’īased on the characters and adventures of Critical Role’s first livestreamed D&D tabletop campaign, “The Legend of Vox Machina” follows Vox Machina, a band of misfits with a fondness for boozing and brawling.
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