On January 25, 2022, a new show was rolled out on Amazon Prime called The Legend of Vox Machina. It’s an animated series set in the Dungeons and Dragons universe about “a band of eight unlikely heroes” who find themselves on a quest to save the world. Sounds like pretty standard fantasy fare, right? Well, it is, unless you know the story behind “the legend.”
The Legend of Vox Machina was a massive hit almost instantly. But before there was a Legend, there was a weekly tabletop gaming campaign called Critical Role, broadcast on the streaming platform Twitch. It was a show in which, as the show’s host and Dungeon Master, Matthew Mercer, puts it, “a bunch of nerdy voice actors sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons.” Critical Role is a fun little show with a strong cast of characters and a devoted fanbase. One of my favorite parts is when one of the players defeats a major bad guy, and Matt looks at them and asks, “How do you want to do this?” It’s the signal that he is turning the narrative over to the player for a moment, so they can describe in detail how their character slays the big baddie.
Critical Role is still ongoing and is currently in its third “campaign.” Campaign One, which began in 2015, spanned 115 episodes, and Campaign Two ran for 141 episodes. A pretty impressive run for any weekly episodic program, made even more impressive by the fact that each episode is between 3.5 and 4.5 hours long, sometimes even longer.
But what’s really at the core of this story? How did a live-streamed tabletop roleplaying game turn into a massively successful animated series?
The History of Critical Role
Quick disclaimer: I am not a “Critter” (the term used for superfans of Critical Role), but I have watched the show on and off since about 2016. Back then, I was feeling nostalgic for nerdy game nights with friends in simpler times, and I stumbled upon this little streaming show. “Huh,” I thought. “What is this, anyway? Gamers broadcasting their D&D sessions? That’s different.”
I started watching the reruns but came to the obvious conclusion that I would probably not make it very far into the series, given how long the episodes were. I mean, 3.5 to 4.5 hours each? And there are over a hundred of them?! Yeah, right. Well, I have to admit, I’m currently up to episode 79 of Campaign One, and for a while, I was watching Campaign Three weekly, from the premier. By my calculations, that puts my own viewing/listening time at somewhere between 315 and 405 hours. To give you some perspective, you could watch the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe — every movie and every show — in like 80 hours. If I finish Campaign One, what’ll that be? Like, 400 to 500 hours of entertainment? And there are people who have watched this entire series multiple times.
Oh, and because Critical Role is available across multiple video-streaming services and as a podcast, I have literally never paid a single dollar to watch this show. Which is kind of nuts, actually!
But here’s the real question…
How did it evolve from a weekly tabletop gaming show to the massively successful Amazon Prime animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina? Where did it come from?
Answer: It came from the fans — people who enjoyed this completely free-to-watch streaming show so much that they donated money to a Kickstarter campaign to get an animated series made.
Critical Role’s epic Kickstarter story
Initially, the cast of Critical Role set a Kickstarter goal of raising $750,000, the idea being to produce a one-off animated special based on Campaign One.
Well, here’s how that went.
Donations topped $1 million… within one hour of the Kickstarter campaign being launched.
At the end of the first twenty-four hours, the total reached $4.3 million. And by the time the Kickstarter closed, there was WAY too much money for a standalone animated special! The project was instead upgraded to a full, multi-episode animated series. Out of their $750,000 goal, they made $11.4 million. That made it the most-funded Kickstarter for TV and film projects in the history of the site.
That is a lot of loot drops. But was it worth it?
Well, The Legend of Vox Machina currently sits at an impressive 9/10 on IMDB and a staggering, almost impossible 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, and the show was greenlit for a second and a third season practically the moment Amazon purchased Season 1.
But let’s rewind for a minute and go back to a pretty cool moment in Critical Role history.
Make cool stuff, then make some more
On November 12, 2015, at the start of Episode 32 of Campaign 1 of Critical Role — long before a full-length Amazon Prime animated series was ever a possibility — the players/actors were ecstatic to announce to the viewing audience that their weekly game would be spun off into… a web comic strip. I mean, seriously, you can see how amazing this is to them.
At this point in the show, Matt Mercer takes a moment to express his thanks to the audience and asks them to keep tuning in because they want to create more content.
With the benefit of hindsight, this moment hits different. Because it strikes me how significant Matt’s simple request was. This group wanted to make more cool stuff. To do that, they diligently, week in and week out, created more and more cool stuff.
For 32 episodes (up until that point), this group created new, original content for three to four hours, every week. Conservatively, that’s 96 hours. On the higher end, it’s 128 hours. And that’s just on-camera time. That doesn’t include the prep work. The writing. The technical work. The production. The promotions. The marketing. The fan engagement. Hundreds of hours went into this thing just to get it off the ground, and the reason it grew legs was because THEY SHOWED UP. And they did so without fail for 32 straight weeks, one night a week, for three to four hours every time. That is the definition of prolific.
Show up, and create. Consistently. It’s that simple AND that hard.
Roll for initiative: How to be an overnight success
The more content the Critical Role team created, the bigger their following became.
One of my favorite moments in Critical Role is Episode 60 of Campaign 1, in which the team performs their show in front of a live crowd for the very first time. That’s right. A crowd of cheering fans. For a tabletop roleplaying game! That’s a far cry from the shadowy corner of your nerdy friend’s basement.
Seeing the standing ovation Matt Mercer gets as he walks out on stage is just… It’s hard to describe.
The first time I watched it, it actually made me emotional. Here’s a guy who just loved what he did so much and worked so, so hard at it that he literally invented a career that didn’t even exist before.
A lot can be learned from the dedication, perseverance, and overall passion that led to Critical Role’s success and, ultimately, the creation of The Legend of Vox Machina. It’s a good reminder that every “overnight success” is really the payoff of massive preparation and dedication to purpose meeting opportunity.
To all the creators out there who are overnight successes in progress, this is the middle of your training montage — the central, necessary piece of the mosaic of your body of work.
So, I ask you, artists and creators: How do you want to do this?