Critical Role's Matthew Mercer on saying goodbye, but not yet

Todd Kenreck: Matthew Mercer and Critical Role have had a dramatic impact on the D&D community. I talked to him about this campaign, friendships, and what it feels like to say goodbye.

 Matthew Mercer: I feel very surreal. And it didn't really hit me until today.

I've only been able to really complete one other campaign and that was a two-year Expedition to Ravenloft campaign. And even that, being able to finish the narrative, is a wonderful and strangely sorrowful thing. Because you know there is an end coming, but you're excited to able to finish that story and send it off.

This ... you know, pushing on five years with the same people, with the same characters, with this world that's become something so much larger than our home game. It's every emotion. I've sobbed multiple times today, just looking at the community reactions online and how many people are excited for this, beyond just us. And scared for us. Scared for them, at least.

It's been surreal. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm overwhelmed. I'm looking forward to being able to send this story off, in a way that's fitting, and give the love to it that we have to this campaign, regardless of how it ends. And at the same time, I'm really excited to see what new adventures, what new stories and new relationships we get to forge with the next campaign.

Todd Kenreck: And do you know anything about the next campaign? Same universe? A new universe?

Matthew Mercer: The next campaign is going to be same universe, probably a different place in the world, but a generation later. I've had people ask, like, "Exactly when is the next campaign?" I'm like, "I have some ideas and, you know, they shift based on what I'm building, preparing." But it'll be about a generation later, and many of the decisions they've made, many of the things that they've done, will have some impact on how the world has progressed since then. I hope to kind of weave those into the narrative in the future, and if they succeed or if they fail, those will definitely have impact on the next adventure they play. Which is an exciting possibility, too. I ... As a writer it's a very surreal experience to be building a world and building a story that you have to wait to see how it plays out, before you continue the next major beat. It's fascinating.

Todd Kenreck: Your relationships with these friends of yours has to have irrevocably changed, because you see each on a regular basis and you're creating this show, for four years ... I can only assume that makes people a lot closer.

Matthew Mercer: I ... Anybody who's played a role playing game for an extended period of time can attest to the fact that you forge friendships and relationships at the table where you play these game, stronger than most. I mean, most of my closest friends I've ever had, are people that I gamed with. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that ... I mean, the experience of playing role playing game is the best team building exercise.

You're building relationships where you learn each other's strengths and weaknesses, both as people and as characters. And you know the insides and out of how they react to scenarios and how to prepare to best support each other.

And at the end of any major story, you can't help but come out of there with the memory, the visceral memory, of actually being immersed in the story. Not you playing a game, not this character existed. You talk to your friends like, "Remember that time that we were trying to jump across that bridge and it was collapsing beneath us, but you pulled out that rope ... ?" You know, it's always you and me, it's never when this character or your cleric did that necessarily, you know. When you've played enough to the point, it's like you were all there and you've been through this transformative journey together. And you can't help but have it impact your friendships.

And when we started this game, I was loosely friends with most of the people involved, and close friends with a handful. Me and Taliesin have known each other for years and me and Marisha began dating. Most everybody else was a, you know, an acquaintance. A work friend who, we were just trying to, just started hanging out a little bit. And through this game I've built some of the strongest friendships I'll have, hopefully, for the rest of my life. I've so much to thank for this game, to bring these people into my life and help forge these friendships. So, yeah, it's changed a lot. It's changed everything.

Todd Kenreck: What do you want people to feel about, I mean, this entire campaign, at the end of the day? When all is said and done?

Matthew Mercer: I want people ... I want people to understand that every heroic journey has sacrifices. That every person has moments in their life where they have to make tough decisions. And the people that can, in the face of great danger, of great sorrow, of great, seemingly unbeatable odds, can continue to find that strength in themselves and the people they care about, to still fight for what they think is important. I hope stories like this can resonate with people and inspire them to carry that energy into the real world. You know.

And that's what I think story telling, as a medium, is what it's best used for. I think it's so important and so powerful to use, to inspire people to be better people. It's inspired me to be who I am today and I still aspire to be a better person because of the characters that I read about and played, growing up.

So with this tale, I hope Vox Machina's story has been able to show people that every hero is, in their own way, broken and ****ed up. That you can still be a broken person and aspire to be better. You don't have to fix yourself, but you can still crystallize the idea of what's right, and how you see the world could be. And then make action to change it and bring it closer to that ideal.

Even if they fall tonight, the way the world has rallied behind them, the way that the people have come together through this narrative, will have an impact on the end. You know, I don't think loss in the face of this battle's going to be like a complete horrible TPK, world's over, death, hahaha, you lose. You know, it's not a game over screen.

They've sparked something, by their journey, their sacrifices, those that remain, those who survive, those who escape. The next world, the next story, will have that seed of hope of Vox Machina had left, that there is a chance, there are people still willing to make the sacrifice. And the next campaign may very, may be very much trying to rebuild the world in that shadow and continue where they left off.

As a Dungeon Master, you have to build challenges and build a story that has real stakes. That has the capability of loss and failure, because that's part of learning experience of life, too. And from failure you can pick up and still aspire to succeed in other ways. Not everything can be a victory. And anyone who's lived in the real world for a period of time, that's a very necessary lesson to have. Something I think that a lot of modern media shies away from, often, and it's frustrating in a lot of ways.

But I'd like to see them succeed. I hope they do. They have the tools to do so. If the dice are with them. If they're clever and their resolve is strong, I think they have a good chance of succeeding. Which, I think, is really the drive of any good story. You want to give them a good chance of succeeding, but the opportunity to fail, and see where the story takes you from there.

Todd Kenreck: How do you define success? Because when I was in college, we were in film school and we're in theater and we're prepping to be actors and directors and cinematographers and all this stuff.

You have this unique thing that didn't exist at that time, where you're not beholden to that, anyway. You created this universe. You and your friends created these characters. You've been creating this story and how you interact with each other, and that's it. I can't imagine anyone interferes with that. Right?

Like, this is all ... This is your baby. This is something that you've created and you've made, and now there's a book, and now there's a comic book. In terms of pure artistic aspirations, this is it, for a lot of people. Maybe they wouldn't recognize that right away because it's role playing and because it's a new thing, because it's on Twitch. But this art form has to be completely different for you.

Matthew Mercer: It's a very different art form. And there have been people that have tried to give suggestions or nudge how to elevate the media and it's been very much, no. It's not about this. We're not trying to build something. We're just trying to continue what we've been doing, and invite other people to be part of that.

I think when it comes down to it, for any Game Master, any Dungeon Master, you do it out of love. It's fun. It's a game, but it's a gift to your players. And in that sense, they gift it back to you. They take something that you've built, something you've made for them, and they bring it to life and change it and twist it and make it to something you didn't expect and hand it back to you and say, "What's next?" And it's that type of ... that dynamic, that relationship, that perpetual gifting back and forth that makes such a magical experience at the table.

I mean, I don't ... Calling it an art form is a strange thing because it's something that's so personal and so misunderstood for so long. It's just a game in a basement, from a lot of people's standpoints. But it is, it's an art form where you're creating art for your friends. And you hope they enjoy it.

And every now and then you get a rough game, you get a rough table or a combination of players and that just comes through communication in advance and making sure that you were all on the same page in what you want out of this experience. Not every game group's going to gel. Not every GM's going to be able to provide the experience you're looking for. But when you find those people, it is. It's just, it's an entrancing collaborative effort to create this space that doesn't exist anywhere else, and it's only for you.

And it's wonderful. It's magical. It's inspiring. It's made me a better person. And, by extension, this strange ... Almost two and a half, three years, now we've been streaming this community that's rallied around it. They've gone off and created their own stories, their own adventures. And now, [inaudible 00:10:47] in a world that's spun from my brain, unintentionally.

It's a ... It's a very surreal and very wonderful thing and I just don't ever want it to change or get ruined. I'm very, very protective of it. And ending this campaign has been a very nerveracking experience, knowing how many people are invested in this, beyond just our table, but at the same time, every story has to come to an end. But that end also leads to a new beginning.

Todd Kenreck: But they're more invested in you guys. And you. And the story that you're telling.

Matthew Mercer: I hope they are. Guess we'll find it out if the next campaign, all of a sudden everyone's like, "This is bullshit. I'm not going to watch it." Hope it's not the case.

Todd Kenreck: "I totally do not like Taliesin's new character."

Matthew Mercer: It's possible. But to be fair, sometimes you're introduced to a character, and you don't like that character, until a point in the narrative reveals an aspect of their personality that you can connect with. Or you misunderstood them at the beginning and now you're like, "Oh, I didn't like them because they're very much like me." I see that often. In a lot of streaming games. A lot of people will dislike a character and then they come around when they realize it was because it was a reflection of parts of themselves that they themselves weren't really a fan of. And once they realize that, and the narrative journey became one that they kind of want to go on for themselves, to better themselves, they become more invested.

And that's been a really fascinating thing I wasn't expecting either. The whole sociology ... The sociology of investing in another person's role playing experience and how that affects you, as a viewer, let alone a gamer at the table, is just an emerging, interesting form of psychology, I guess, that I'm now peering into.

Todd Kenreck: There's going to be a moment when you're at the table, and you're going to say goodbye, to the camera, and that's going to be it. How does that make you feel?

Matthew Mercer: I don't know. Goodbyes are always hard. Even just ending the story's a really emotional thing. Today's just been tears, driving, multiple times, seeing the messages and the Tweets and the art and how many people are with us on this journey and ...

I hope the day where I get to, have to say goodbye for the last time, is a ways off, and on my own terms, and after telling some good stories.

Todd Kenreck: But you know today it's going to be great.

Matthew Mercer: It'll going to be great, one way or another. It's going to be fun. Lot of surprises, lot of twists and turns, a lot of cool things to emerge, so I hope people enjoy it. I hope the players enjoy it, for as stressed out as they are about this, and glaring at me with the fear of, "What have you planned?" I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm overwhelmed.

Todd Kenreck: What effect do these fans have on you? Because you don't have a stand-off relationship with them, like I've known many people do, sometimes. But you directly connect with fans.

Matthew Mercer: I try to. And it gets difficult on a certain scale. I never expected this scale of a community to really give a shit who I am, years ago, so I can't connect with everybody. But I was and am a fan. I've been going to conventions, going to panels, about cartoons and video games, since I was in high school. I am the community, as well. I don't see a separation. And there are people that inspired me when I was younger and people that I aspire to be like, or asked to guide me in certain points where I needed some guidance, and if I can be that to, even a few people ...

Todd Kenreck: But now you are that person.

Matthew Mercer: I guess. And it's intimidating at times, but it's also ... it's really nice. It's really beautiful and I hope to live up to that and do good. Really, when it comes down to it, I just want to make the world a better place.

Todd Kenreck: You're doing that.

Matthew Mercer: I'm so emotional today. Shit.

Todd Kenreck: It is ... To be fair, it is the end of a four-year campaign.

Matthew Mercer: Yeah.

Todd Kenreck: So I think being emotional about it is the right response.

Matthew Mercer: I hope so. I think at this point, the Internet's used to seeing me cry on camera enough, to where it's not a big deal anymore. That's my hope.

Todd Kenreck: You're going to have a great show tonight.

Matthew Mercer: I hope so.

Todd Kenreck: All right.

Matthew Mercer: Thank you, buddy.

Todd Kenreck: I think I'll leave you on that one.

A huge thank you to Matthew Mercer and the rest of the Critical Role cast, and the community as well, for bringing us this amazing show. We're looking forward to the next campaign.