At midnight on April 19th, 2019, the record-breaking Kickstarter campaign for the Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina Animated Special concluded with an astounding $11,385,449 pledged by 88,887 backers. This campaign, which exceeded its original goal of $750,000 by over ten million dollars, was a shock to not just its creators, but to the entire D&D media landscape. Fans of Critical Role and D&D fans longing for a new D&D animated series banded together to make this campaign the fifth most-backed campaign in Kickstarter history, as well as the fifth most-funded.
The cast and crew of Critical Role gathered on their “bar set” last night to count down the final 30 minutes of the campaign, and were joined by Joel Hodgson, best known for his performance on the original Mystery Science Theater 3000, who was until recently the record holder for most-funded Kickstarter campaign in the “Film & Video” category, for his revival of MST3K which raised $5.7 million in 2015. Hodgson (and the DM for his private home D&D game!) were greeted like old friends and celebrated the end of Critical Role’s Kickstarter campaign with drinks and a passing of a comically oversized, WWE-style championship belt.
Critical Role cast member Sam Riegel proudly displaying the championship belt as the cast cheers
At the celebration, Critical Role Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer said, “I couldn’t have asked for a better family to be growing around this insanity. I’m so proud. […] It’s unlike anything I ever thought possible. And at the same time, we very much understand…the responsibility of making good on all this good faith you guys continuously show in our direction.”
Critical Role cast member and community “Art Dad” Liam O’Brien said, “We are grateful for all of your help, and we don’t take one inch of it for granted. Thank you.”
The unprecedented success of this fundraising effort means that, in addition to providing a wide assortment of merchandise to high-level backers, Critical Role Productions will be able to partner with Titmouse Animation to create a full 10-episode animated series, initially covering a two-episode original story set before their D&D game began streaming, followed by an eight-episode animated adaptation of one of Critical Role’s most popular chapters, known as the “Briarwoods Arc.” The animated series will debut with full red-carpet regalia at a private screening in Los Angeles in 2020.
As this series goes into production and Critical Role shifts into blistering high gear to produce not only their current fusillade of livestreamed shows but also a full animated series, the question lingering in the community’s mind is: what does this mean for D&D? Though Legends of Vox Machina will not officially bear the D&D logo, it is the first attempt to adapt a D&D-inspired property into animation since the middling, direct-to-video Dragons of Autumn Twilight film in 2008, and many see it as the first “true” animated D&D adaptation since the beloved 1983 Dungeons & Dragons animated TV series.
Notably, Legends of Vox Machina will be geared towards a much older audience than the ’83 animated series, in keeping with the irreverent and occasionally bawdy tone of the improvised, livestreamed series. While it seems unlikely that Game of Thrones-level mature content will feature prominently in this show, Matthew Mercer’s gruesome and visceral descriptions of fantasy combat and the cast’s charmingly blue dialogue in the livestream will influence the content of the animated series.
Critical Role Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer joyfully embracing Critical Role Chief Operating Officer Ed Lopez
Critical Role's success is just another jewel in the crown of D&D's pop culture dominance, as a recent article in the Washington Post suggests, even if this animated series isn't officially affiliated with Dungeons & Dragons. In this instance, Critical Role’s distance from the official D&D brand may be a boon for everyone involved; with their animated series aptly filling the adult-oriented fantasy niche, D&D has been handed a prime opportunity to create or commission a more family-focused D&D series in the vein of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power or Voltron: Legendary Defender, both Netflix original series. Critical Role’s success also heralds potential interest in the enigmatic 2021 “Dungeons & Dragons” movie, produced by Paramount.
Images in this article are sourced from Critical Role's Twitch channel.
What does the success of Critical Role’s Kickstarter campaign mean to you? Are you excited? What would you want in an official “Dungeons & Dragons” animated series? Let us know in the comments!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He loves watching Critical Role and wants everyone he knows to get into it, too. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and his very own Frumpkins, Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
I feel like I owe a lot to Critical Role. I'd first started watching it when the show first began on Geek & Sundry, but for various reasons fell out of watching it rather quickly. A couple of years later, some fellow moderator buddies of mine from another forum board started talking about how much they loved it. I started listening to their podcasts and got really into it again, finishing Campaign 1 the day before Campaign 2 started.
I realized how much I missed D&D, so created a D&D Beyond account just to make theoretical characters. It didn't scratch that itch however, even after purchasing all the character creation options. So, I approached those same online friends about how I'd like to try my hand at being DM. A couple were stoked about the idea. Then one's wife wanted to join, she just got into Critical Role. The other guy and a friend of his had just left a toxic D&D game, could he join too. I bought the Legendary Bundle, the Master subscription, and have now been in a long-standing D&D campaign that has lasted just over a year.
I have never had more fun in my life. Playing D&D so irregularly in college, with different groups, doesn't compare to a consistent game between friends. Critical Role got me here, and now that I'm here, I am not leaving. I backed them at the highest tier I could do without travel being involved, and I have full confidence that what they finally produce will blow me away.
Now that Critical Role has brought me back into the world of D&D more fully than I ever was before, I can see how amazing the current Wizards team is. I am a fan of prior editions, but I fully believe this is the best team who has ever been in charge of the D&D property since Gygax himself. Critical Role has just picked up the torch, and I am certain that Wizards is paying a lot of attention to what is being illuminated right now.
I have so much to look forward to.
They broke down where their Kickstarter funding is going, and allotted 74% to Animation Production. That's $8.4M, or $840K per episode, $38k per minute. Well over their projected costs to achieve their expected quality, so yeah, I am equally excited.
The Critical Role cast have stated that animation at the quality they expect to deliver can cost anywhere from $20-30k per minute of animation. Their original stretch goal of $750k would have put it right in the middle of that, $25k per minute, or $555,000 for the entire 22-minute special. Their stretch goals moved the costs per minute up. The final stretch goal of $8.8M would have been right at the $30k per minute mark. We're now at 150% what they were originally hoping for with the initial $750k goal, which will apparently mean more dynamic fight sequences and hopefully dynamic facial expressions.
I'm not in the animation business, so I don't actually know why it costs that much per minute, but between Critical Role and Titmouse, they certainly would know
If they did this with the Legend Of Drizzt Book Series to live action or even decently animated.... It would smash every ****in record on the books... Prove me wrong. I'd seriously die a complete man.
I'm looking forward to The Legend of Vox Machina animated series, but I'm not sure it's going to bring as much attention to Dungeons & Dragons as Critical Role has.
When people watch critical role they see a group of people actually playing and enjoying Dungeons & Dragons. When people watch tLoVM they will only see the adventures of Vox Machina, not the fun the Critical Role cast has at the gaming table.
I hope that tLoVM will be a gateway for new fans to be introduced to Critical Role. No matter how good tLoVM ends up being, it will never be as good a spokesman for Dungeons & Dragons as Critical Role. I don't think any scripted series can capture the magic of shaping a story at the game table.
It doesn't mean a whole lot to D&D as a whole.
People coming at this from that perspective are the ones getting really bad takes. Complaining that they've been doing this a long time too, complaining about the fact that the cast and crew is predominately white, complaining that it isn't deserved and is money taken away from the TTRPG industry as a whole.
But this is a cartoon, which when pulled back has no real vague connections to D&D or TTRPG. Exandria is Mercer's own creation, everything used that is copyrighted will require renaming/a different look. Once completed it should feel no less it's own thing than Steven Universe or She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
Making those connections is unhealthy. Because it reinforces peoples anger. The TTRPG scene is a small thing with not a whole lot of money in it overall. People get defensive, protective.
Professional animation is expensive. The animators went to college and learned how to do it, and they need to be paid for the 8+ hours a day they sit in a chair perched over a screen drawing, shading, designing. And the studio has other employees than just the animators, like sound designers, janitorial services, and marketing people. Not to mention voice talents. Sure, the cast could record their audio lines without getting paid, but that's time when they can't get paid for other projects. Not to mention they've stated that there will be other voice actors, Matt won't be doing the hundred other voices in the show.
And then there's the fact that the studio needs to pay for dozens of licenses for the animation software so they can work on it, and those licenses are expensive.
Hopefully Wizards of the Coast will get their heads out of their you know whats and start taking the D&D seriously again. 11 mill is a pretty good indication that there is absolutely an audience for this stuff in various media.
I'm also hoping that the 11 mil goes toward securing a longer show plan of multiple seasons.
The Kickstarter to me means that Critical Role got their foot in the door of Big Media's Attention.
I pray to Moradin that Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast give CR full reign to use their IP in the LoVM for a big, juicy credit in the roll! The worse thing right now would be for them to strangle CR for licensing monies when the best thing they can do is fully support, in every way possible, the LoVM series. During/After the 2nd season of LoVM WizBro can jump in with a series of their own.
They have any number of realms to draw from...
Or, just someone please get Chris Perkins stoned out of his mind, set out the munchies and voice recorders, and just talk to him about what he'd like to see in an "Official D&D Series". Now that Game of Thrones is ending it's a perfect time to have WizBro partner with HBO on a different sort of series with a bit more Fantasy added to the gritty intrigue.
What I'd personally like to see is a gritty start to a series that doesn't waddle in High Fantasy, but doesn't shy away from it either.
You think Wizards aren't taking D&D seriously? Right now, along with Magic, D&D is one of Hasbro's more lucrative products. D&D is seeing an audience it hasn't seen in years. I, myself, only gotten serious about this hobby with 5th edition and I know many others like me. But Wizards are about making games not TV. They don't have the connections the CR crew has and couldn't risk so much on a whim. They are serious. They're just serious about the game and focus on that and not on ancillary projects. Consider the D&D team is about 30 people and they still have 3-4 books in some form of production at any one time.
At 74% used for production, it's about $842,523 per episode. The original single episode would have received $555,000 for production. So they exceeded the budget per episode by $287,523 or 51.8%
After you take out merch cost, goal expences, and kickstarters cut, it may not be that much per episode.
Expect to get your donations worth.
I've only recently joined the Critter Community, and it has been an absolute blast throughout. When they announced that they wanted to animate part of their Vox Machina adventure I was hyped to see it. I never doubted that all the critters could raise $750,000, I was already blown away when someone I play with told me that we broke 3 Million, but when I was told that the kickstarter closed with 11 Million dollar donated, I had to sit down for a second to really comprehend this.
I'm hoping this means good things For Joe Manganella's Dragonlance films, and maybe we can finally get the final episodes to 1983's D&D series?
This is so awesome, what a fun time to bring back the magic of playing games like this with our friends. So happy for the whole Critical Role Family!
I am also a season one critter, and am thoroughly excited about the future of Critical Role and Dungeons and Dragons as well. Being a novice DM, and player I look forward to our by weekly Dragon heist game. I hope D&D finally gets all the positive attention it deserves. Now I’m even more excited to play D&D next Sunday. In fact just printed my Heroforge Drow monk and painted him and some dragon coins for everyone as a keepsake.
So so SO EXCITED!!! Thank you CR!!!🙏😘👍
I'm glad "family friendly" came up in the article. I would like there to be more family friendly content produced. Be it high quality campaign streams, animations, books, or whatever. There is a lot of adult oriented stuff out there it seems, that has good content, but definitely not something I think a lot of parents or DM dads would want their kids absorbing. Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place.
There are some family friendly streams/podcasts out there (d20 Dames is a notable one, and created by people I can vouch for), but you're right, there are precious few of them. I think there's room for both, and more family friendly content will be produced as D&D continues to surge headfirst into mainstream media consciousness.
wow
Maybe the original players couldn't carry on the game when they were kids, but finally meet up as adults, dust off their character sheets and jump back into the game? Or since it was so long ago, their kids find their old character sheets and start playing?
There are so many ways they could do this, whilst updating it at the same time, and keep it family friendly as we know Vox Machina will not be family friendly lol
If you look at the work they're putting into 5e, I don't think they're not taking D&D seriously. They're just focusing on the game rather than a plethora of ancillary IPs like in previous editions.