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I enjoyed the first season. I never followed them beforehand so I wasn’t familiar with any of the characters or plots.

100% do it. You wont regret

I think it’s pretty good; wouldn’t say it’s amazing or anything but definitely worth a watch

Very.

However, you may have to power through the first few episodes. They have a tone issue where the story wants to be taken seriously, but the humor is way too crass for the serious story.

The tone issue resolves itself after like episode 3 however, and its really fucking good.

Definitely worth the watch. The characters are great and it has a good story.

I thought it was great after the first episode

Very worth it. I went in with zero expectations and came out surprised.

The only problem is the community can be kind of toxic to people who only watched the cartoon and not the twitch streams

Wait what?

I wouldn't say it ever totally resolves itself. Basically any time Scanlan is talking or doing anything it's kind of jarring.

Yeah, it was a whole thing in the shitposting group I was a part of, a lot of people got kicked for being assholes for no reason

No I mean twitch streams. Was this something before the show?

Oh yeah, the show is based on a stream called Critical Role which is a group of video game voice actors that play Dungeons and Dragons. It’s highly entertaining but every season is like 100 4-6 hour episodes. The story is an original one created by the DM Matt Mercer

It gets less jarring tho, and Scanlon tones it down just enough after the first few episodes that the tone clash goes away, at least IMO. Like before then I was seriously considering not finishing the show because the tonal difference was so egregious, and I say that as someone who is totally down with crass humor.

Yep

It's one of the biggest communities on twitch. When somethings that big there's sure to be assholes. Sorry you had a bad experience with a specific group but I don't feel like the critters are hostile at all towards people who only like the show. As someone whos watched the 1000+ hours of content they have between their 3 campaigns I get watching only tlovm and not the d&d campaigns. Don't listen to the memes. Some people are losers and at the end of the day it's just memes

Part of the reason it settles in Ep 3 is that the first two episodes are based on an event that happened before the Critical Role livestream. They wrote the story for it as part of their Kickstarter. Ep 3 and forward is based on what happened live and they used the existing material.

Adding on, I would highly recommend, if you DO want to give Critical Role a go, watching Season 2 first. It’s a far more polished product and way easier for someone who perhaps doesn’t follow dungeons and dragons twitch content casually.

Oh you’re right, in general critters are aggressively supportive, almost to a fault, that’s why it was so crazy to me. Like, aren’t you glad they’ve found a way to bring this amazing story to people that don’t play D&D?

I always thought season 1 was stronger but the beginning can be pretty rough. In addition to finding their legs there was a lot of behind the scenes drama that they did a good job of hiding but looking back you can see the tension

I’d watch the first season of Critical Role instead. Vic Machina is ok, but it really fails to capture what made the show great, that it’s all a grand game. In Critical Role, there are the players and the characters, and in Vox Machina, there’s just the characters.

For example you have Grog, the barbarian of the party. In Critical Role, his player Travis is a smart guy playing a dumb character, so he is smart enough to comment on how dumb his character can be while he’s playing him, adding another dimension to the whole thing, slipping in comedic moments where he inserts his own intelligence into Grog, and it works because the context is a game. But in Vox Machina, Grog is a very flanderized version of how Travis originally played him, he is silly or tough, but it lacks that spark of his clever on-the-spot improv and self-inserts.

Critical Role shows the cleverness of its players, and after seeing that, Vox Machina feels so plain and hollow without the commentary of the players.

Yes 100% must watch

it is the single largest channel on all of twitch.

To be honest even though I enjoy playing 5e quite a bit, I'm really not a fan of watching other people do so. This format makes it a lot more enjoyable for me to see the tale unfold.

Honestly I just don't find the player aspect enjoyable, so it took me a long time to even give this a shot. Personally I found taking that out made it much better.

I think so. I’m a critter, full disclosure. For the animated series I would say it doesn’t really find its feet until episode 3, so if you can try to give it that far to figure out if it is for you.

I've been on the internet before too

It's great if you're a Critical Role fan.

It's good if you're a Dungeons and Dragons fan and never seen Critical Role.

It's alright if you're into fantasy but don't even know what D&D is.

Fully agree. It took awhile to hit its groove

Basically it's a group of voice actors(Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Fullmetal Alchemist, Overwatch, Naruto) that play dungeons and dragons on live stream almost every Thursday night on Twitch. The first season of Legend of Vox Machina is based mostly on the Briarwood Arc which I think starts at episode 25 of their live stream. It's pretty much a reinterpretation of this arc into animation form. They did a kickstarter like 4 or 5 years ago to get two seasons made. The cast of Critical Role actually voice their characters in the show as well.

My BF was so excited for this, as he loves Critical Role.

He had me watch, and I do like it!

Someone called into a podcast I listened to, and described it as: a r rated animated show, thats like Guardians of the Galaxy meets LOTR

I'm the same way. I love running and playing in RPGs, but I get absolutely zero enjoyment out of watching anyone else do it.

Seems like the kind of thing I would love on paper.

I enjoyed it, it helps a lot if you like RPGs, dungeons and dragons/fantasy, and crass humor.

It was really a crazy year for sci fi/fantasy animated, a ton of great shows like Arcane, Vox, Pantheon, DOTA, Cyberpunk Edgerunner, Blade Runner, Love Death Robots, etc. Thats not even getting into anime's from Japan.

We really liked it for a while but it's a few episodes too long as the main plotline really drags out, basically like watching other people play D&D. We're going to watch the second season but probably drop it if the same problems hit.

As others have said, the first two are not as strong as the remaining 10.

Its overall a VERY good show IMO.

If you're a DnD player it will have a lot of inside nods and winks.

If you're not a DnD player its still an enjoyable cartoon with a second season out in a few weeks.

Fuck yes. That shit is halerious

To be fair, the tone issues are basically Dungeons and Dragons, but the complaint is fair. Either way I love the series and second the recommendation.

It was my favorite show of the year, and I had no clue this was derived from a twitch DnD campaign until later. I think watching it without the expectations made it a better experience for me. (expectations are the thieves of joy)

Very much recommended. Start with the first season.

Hell yes. It is an excellent show. I discovered it by accident and was hooked from the very first scene. Highly highly recommend.

Never played DND, never heard of critical role. I had no idea about the show before hand. I just saw a trailer on Prime. Liked the animation style and thought it looked interesting.

And I loved it. Can’t wait for more.

They are all voice actors. Ashley plays Eliie and Laura plays Abby in the game Last of Us. Also that’s a hbo series coming out soon. They’ve all been in a ton of stuff. You have heard their voices for years and probably never knew.

It's difficult for me to be completely objective about it because I came into it having been a long-time Critical Role fan. I will say though, I enjoyed season 1 of LoVM MORE than I expected to. I was extremely excited for the show and was a Kickstarter backer, but there was always going to be a risk when it comes to this sort of an adaptation. It's hard enough to adapt source material like video games and comics into a TV property, but when the source material is an actual-play D&D game, there was just no telling how well it'd translate. Even though everyone involved in it's production were animation-industry veterans (both as voice actors and directors), given this un-tested territory I intentionally kept my expectations tempered.

All of that being said, I was genuinely blown away by just how good a show it is. The pacing, the character moments, the quality of the animation, the action directing, the humor, the music, just all around, top notch stuff. It has it's up's and down's for sure and like many other comments here, I do agree that the introductory 2 episodes are probably the weakest of the season, but on the whole, it's fantastic.

Completely anecdotal, but I've also spoken to several folks who have zero knowledge of Critical Role or even D&D that have watched it and felt the same way.

Absofuckinlutely. First five seconds is a hoot by itself

I’m a fan of the livestream D&D show so I suppose I’m sort of biased but yea it’s worth the watch. The first two episodes of season 1 are a quick here’s the world and main character intro jut the rest of the season is an excellent storyline with really compelling villains. And season 2 and 3 will be covering an amazing, giant storyline from the first campaign where the heroes have to get weapons of the gods to fight a bunch of dragons that have teamed up. It’s awesome.

Yep. Episodes 1 and 2 were concepted when they thought that would be the whole thing. They thought they would get 50 minutes of animation to give everyone a taste of the crew, and show a story that happened before critical role (not required viewing) began.

Then everything exploded and a month later and they were pretty much guaranteed 24 episodes, so they started planning much more long term.

Duh

It's great.

Unlike a lot of other people here, I was not into Critical Role (had never even heard of it) before this. I really enjoyed the show from episode one and it has made me way more interested in DnD and CR as a result.

Plus its the perfect time to watch as S2 is coming out soon.

It's great. I knew nothing about the source material before watching the show and it is what pulled me in to watching Critical Role. Only issue I had was Scanlan's humor in the show is a little much. I have zero problems with the humor itself, raunchy humor is fine with me, it just felt like it wasn't well balanced and there's a couple dramatic scenes in the first couple episodes that get stepped on by a Scanlan joke. It's a lot more balanced in the source material because those episodes are 3-5+ hours long. Still the series finds its footing and does start to balance out pretty quickly. By the end I found it really great, though I admit I am a sucker for Found Family fantasy stories which is what this is through and through.

Also having seen the show originally without knowing what it was based on I still think the coolest aspect is that, since the source material are a DnD game, it means any time a character- hero or villain- survives or dies in a fight its only because that's what happened in the game. There's no plot armor or hand of the author as a result: if a character gets away from seeming certain death in the show you can go to the stream and see how the players managed to accomplish it within the rules of a game where any character can die. It's a fascinating way to tell a story and there are some really cinematic moments that happen in the original streams completely organically as a result.

I think the worst instance of it for me is the song in E3. It's a funny gag on its own but its juxtaposed with a really dramatic sequence and kinda steps on it. I was surprised when I finally saw the original stream that inspired that episode: There was no equivalent Scanlan song or joke in the original dinner-party episode of the stream, that whole sequence post dinner is played as basically straight drama and was surprisingly gripping to see play out despite the shoe string production CR was working with back then. While Scanlan's humor persists through the rest of the season I did feel like it found a better balance after E3 as the real season plot kicked in. Also helps that since I've seen the campaign now I know the fact early Scanlan's a bit of a manchild is only the start of his story and not the single note he's stuck on forever.

WOoooooo season 2!!!!!!!!

So thats a yes from me.

Imagine you had cartoonists drawing you..erm.. I mean. your friend that played dungeons and dragons *wink wink* campaign and.. thats what you've got.

Good to know because the 1st episode was a bit much for me and I didn’t finish it. I will definitely give it another try.

Yes. The season picks up as it goes along. It does have crude humor and adult language.

Yeah, best new animated show this year.

It's painfully unfunny.

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They definitely tried way too hard to show "this ain't your grand daddy's D&D"

Thats a 100% yes.

It was good enough to make a scarf to, but not much more than that.

I'm pretty sure originally it wasn't going to include the first few episodes. The original kick starter was just trying to raise enough for the whitestone story. Then critters broke the Kickstarter record so they knew it they could do a whole season

First episode is horrendous cringe. Everything after that is incredible. Give it a shot, you won't be disappointed.

Cyberpunk Edgerunners literally exists.... Pantheon exists....Literally tons of new anime exist.

Vox Machina is good but pretty much a 7.5/10

I guess different tastes.

It's not perfect, but it is worth the watch

Gotta disagree, if they're having to ask about they probably don't watch RPG streams and that's not a format everybody likes. It's hard to get into especially with a show that considers 3 hours a short episode. I was obsessed with it back in campaign one but shut it off the first time I watched when I saw the run time. Only reason I gave it a second is because I watched titans grave and got used to the format and got introduced to Laura Bailey(Vex and Jester are great but I loved Lemley)

One of the best things about the show is that you can introduce new people to the characters without a 500 hour commitment.

I'd be disappointed if it wasn't at least a little like watching people playing D&D lol.

Absolutely! I am anxiously waiting for season 2.

Nope. Originally it was for an episode or two (then 4–then back to what we eventually ended up getting) of pre live stream story arc. The live stream started a couple of years into their already ongoing campaign and they wanted to catch viewers up on what happened pre stream. Once they started getting the amount of donations that they did, they switched it over to being the Whitestone arc. They genuinely didn’t think they’d get enough money for more than a handful of episodes. The Critter Crush was real.

You spice?

Yeah as someone who watched all of the first campaign, most of it twice, and half of the second, I wasn't a fan of the first couple episodes. I may have to try it again.

Quite worth it. Good campaigns (and this is a great one) and good roleplayers (and these are basically professionals) make for compelling stories. Just ignore the bard, he gets less out of place as the story progresses; when the vampire shows up is when the real story starts.

That’s actually really good to know, I couldn’t get into ep 1. I’ll give it another go.

I find the third campaign to be a better version of the first, in a way. C2 didn't have as much of the fun chaos of the C1, but it also didn't have the growing pains, and long boring stretches that c1 had. C3 has the fun chaos, while also being more polished and streamlined.

C1 still has some of the best moments, but that is balanced out with a lot of slow, boring, and annoying moments.

Nope

C2 was pretty terrible IMO. Too much angst and self hate. For pseudo bad guys they were really just mopey.

C1 would be hard to beat. Heck Sam's apology to Liam in the finale was a small thing that nobody noticed and it had me in tears. C1 got vastly better after Orion was kicked out.

They all felt like recovering addicts in C2, in a way. They didn't like who they had been and were redeeming themselves, which made Cad a great addition as basically the therapist. Unfortunately, that came at the price of the fun Molly was bringing to the group. I thought it was a good story, but it was a more serious story.

C1 had some great highlights, with sam's apology, and everything surrounding it being some of the best anything I have watched, but boy did it have a lot of growing pains to slog through to get there. Shopping episodes, learning to play for the audience, he-who-shall-not-be-named.

Yes

Watched the first episode laughed my ass off, never turned it back on.

This is exactly the impression I got.

Don't get me wrong, being crass and gross for no reason, is very funny when you are goofing around with your mates RPing and getting drunk. However it gets a little dull/annoying when overdone in a series like this.

Might give it another shot.

It isn't for everyone. Personally I did not enjoy it at all.

Apparently if you like DND, or something called "Critical Role", this may be more up your alley. I think I was just not the right person to tune in.

Didn’t enjoy it at all mostly because of the characters. The podcast sounds fun but, as a tv show, it didn’t work for me. Only got to episode 5 though, so maybe it gets better after that. I prefer the DOTA animated shows.

Yes.

The first three episodes form a nice little self-contained story arc to get you in the swing of things, too.

Honestly I kinda feel the same way but I still enjoyed it if that makes sense.

YES

Yeah it’s awesome

I think the tone issue remained for the whole season.

Draconia got nuked out of canon lol

If you are into Dungeons & Dragons at all then it's definitely worth a watch.

Short: Yes

If you like coarse humor, a nice group dynamic and dragons.

It’s cringe but it has its’ moments.

No

Watch it and judge for yourself

Scanlan is actually a complicated garden. Season 1, you are outside, looking at the wall he built around it.

Scanlan’s jokes aren’t all supposed to be funny. And you aren’t supposed to like him in Season 1 either. In the original campaign, he was even worse in some ways, but especially towards Pike. They had to tone that down for the animated show, a lot.

I don’t know if it’s the largest, but it is the most successful and highest paid channel on Twitch, and has been for several years.

And they also have a deal that lets them simulcast their livestream to YouTube as well, which is an extremely rare thing in the streaming world.

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Ep 11 of Legend of Vox Machina is legit one of the best animated fight scenes anybody has animated this year, on either side of the globe.

Arcane was quite a technical achievement in anaimation, for sure. DOTA’s insane budget can’t be be a realistic bar to set though. If you make that your standard, you’ll be disappointed by everything, because they can rely on a huge videogame franchise to finance the show, and that isn’t the case for anybody else.

Absolutely

Hell Yeah!

Yes!

I’ve been told that if you want to find the originator of what all modern fantasy shows are styled after, you point to Critical Role, and this is it in actual show format.

Scanlon was always going to be the hardest character to translate to screen. Luckily the next season will have a lot of development for him.

After season 1, people may not want to get inside.

This attitude is why the art of screenplay writing peaked in the 1970s. Personally, I have more faith in the audience.

I very rarely watch animated series.
Mostly just a few netflix ones. But I did watch this and I enjoyed it.
I like anything within the epic fantasy genre.

Going off of the first season it is very much worth it! Also your avatar art stile comment is the exact thing my sister said when I recommended it to her (we both fans of Avatar and she was interested in shorter, I.e. non hour long shows) and when I told her the voice actress for Azula was on the show she was sold and she doesn’t even like DND like I do 😂

Jesus, buddy, we're talking about a character who makes a lot of raunchy jokes in a cartoon based on somebody's DnD campaign.

I watched a large portion of the first campaign of CR and they dialed up Scanlan's obnoxiousness about 1000% in LoVM compared to the way Sam played him then. They made a purposeful decision to use him for a certain type comic relief and "this is a show for adults" signaling in season 1. If you make being a loudmouthed randy attention whore a character's sole defining characteristic, the audience is going to decide whether they like him or not based on that, and a lot of them just aren't going to be interested when later you go "No wait he actually has hidden depths." That isn't a failing of the audience, that's a failing of screenwriting - and it's true whatever the era.