BRANDON: No one has ever really
tried to adapt an RPG campaign
into an animated series.
So we're actually breaking new ground.
JEN: They created something
that we didn't know
the world needed.
Really, there's something
there for everyone.
MARC: Even if you are steeped in this world,
there's still a couple of moments I think
we can surprise you.
MATT: All the stuff coming out
is just so freaking cool!
(dramatic orchestral music)
So the story of Vox Machina takes place
on Tal'Dorei, which is a continent
in the world of Exandria.
It is an area of smaller nations,
but there is an overall
Sovereign Uriel, who is kind of
the leader of the area.
Vox Machina are a bunch of--
I can't say heroes really--
but they are people that
are trying to get by
and they found that it's
easier to survive and succeed
as a group than independently
and so out of necessity,
they became a party.
The series begins with a new story.
This is a telling of Vox Machina as they come
into their own as a group.
EUGENE: It's a fantasy series, it's mature,
it is fun, it is about comradery,
it's about friendship.
We are going to explore all of these amazing
fantasy elements that people shied away from.
We embrace that, we love that stuff.
BRANDON: It's a completely unique
thing in terms of high-fantasy.
There's be no high-fantasy
that's even remotely similar
to "Legend of Vox Machina."
MAE: I think people will be able
to look at this and be like,
oh, this is a show with dragons and demons
and everything in-between, but ultimately
it's about this group of friends.
MATT: We wanted to capture kind of the spark
and the magic of when we
were playing at the table,
just in a different form of media.
MEREDITH: I'm just really excited
to see the really heartfelt,
touching scenes.
That's what got me into the
stream in the first place.
MAE: This is something that is
very serious and dramatic,
but has moments of intense
and beautiful levity
and lightheartedness and
that comes from literally,
this was a group of friends having fun
and we as the writers'
room should also be a group
of friends having fun.
And that was the moment
I was like, we got this.
(regal orchestral music)
BRANDON: Well the writers' room
was just a blast.
Getting to work with all
these amazingly talented
writers who are all big fans
of fantasy and RPGs.
EUGENE: God, the writers were
all amazing and they all
brought different things to the table.
JEN: We had a mix of seasoned and new.
There's young and excited
energy and then wise,
laid back energy, a little bit.
KEVIN: There was sort of a
who's who of what sort of
action animation we've done, have been
some of the top tier people.
Some really great new voices that come from
science-fiction, from live-action.
It's really been a nice mix.
("Critical Role" theme)
MATT: We've never worked with Brandon before,
so this is the first time me and him
were able to collaborate on something,
but he was just a great
idea guy as well as being
the person who's guiding the production side.
BRANDON: Eugene Son, our story editor,
he's been incredibly
helpful along the way.
Really implementing all of our notes,
coming in and having all kinds of great ideas.
EUGENE: Jen Muro knows so much
about Critical Role,
she's been a fan for a while
and she could recall
a lot of the things like
the adventures and such
that the characters have gone through.
Mae Catt is so much energy and so many ideas.
She was fantastic in the
writers' room that way.
Kevin and Doc, our amazing writing team
that I've gotten the pleasure
to work with over the years.
Their dynamic as a writing
team is fantastic.
I'd never worked with Marc
before, but he brings
a wealth of experience in
comics and live-action TV.
MATT: We also work with
Daniel Thomsen, who came
from the live-action world
and brought a whole different
kind of storytelling to the room.
Ashly Burch, I'd never
worked with before until
"Vox Machina", but she's fantastic, beyond
just being a talented writer.
She's actually played with us.
She played Keg in our
second campaign for a number
of episodes as well as a live show.
And so I think bringing that to the table
made her even that much more of a powerhouse.
MARC: Everybody was soup to nuts,
like really, really nice
and really, really smart.
MATT: I love when a writers'
room is everyone throwing
out ideas and everyone's
building on each other
and it's from all different facets,
just kind of brick after brick you can see
the wall coming to fruition.
EUGENE: It's fascinating adapting
"The Legend of Vox Machina"
from a role-playing game campaign and trying
to translate that and bring that to life
in an animated series.
MAE: An adaptation need
not be beat for beat
and so our job as the
writers was to maintain
the spirit of the story
and the spirit of each
character and the character arcs
and what they're going through and act
as the translators from what
it was into what it can be now
in the animated form.
BRANDON: There's gonna be surprises,
there's gonna be things
that are changed, but also at the same time
we wanna do that because
we want the die-hard fans
to not just come in and
know everything.
Like, you wanna be surprised,
you want things to change just enough.
MARC To find a way to get
to a place in the story
where you're giving the
audience the thing they didn't
know that they wanted
but they actually needed.
EUGENE: When you're dealing
with a preexisting property,
like say a graphic novel, you say, okay,
we have to keep this moment,
this is a pivotal moment.
Maybe we can lose this,
maybe we can plus this.
When you're going with a
campaign where it's hundreds
of hours of material and
a lot of it is brilliant.
It's like, okay, now
what are the things
that will translate really
well to animated series?
What have they not seen
that we think wow,
okay, we can take this and
we can really do something
fantastic with it and those are the things
that really, really excite us.
JEN: Whittling down source
material was an undertaking
that I was terrified about because Matt
has such a clear vision and I definitely
did not want to step on that.
MATT: Certain ideas have to
be changed or altered
as part of the adaptation.
It's a hard process.
JEN: There's things we were
like, "Oh, my god.
"He'll kill us."
And then he was like,
"No, that's fine."
We're like, "We were worrying
for three days about this."
MARC: Matt would always sit down
and say, "Yeah, no,
"this is the way it was in the campaign,
"but this is better, let's talk about it.
"Let's litigate it, let's investigate it.
"Let's rattle test it."
MATT: Sometimes the harder ideas,
the ones that go against
what you initially expected,
make the most important changes.
EUGENE: Every project I've ever taken on,
research is a huge part of it.
You want to dive and get in that mindset
and that mentality of the
world you're exploring.
MAE: "Critical Role" is an IP,
is a legacy IP,
but it's happening right now.
You can interface with the
creators of this thing
that you love immediately.
MATT: Everyone, for the most part,
were able to make it
for an element of the writers' room to answer
questions about their particular character,
how they would react to certain elements.
Questions that I couldn't have answered
anywhere near as good as they could've.
CHRIS: The fact that the cast
created their own characters
and that Matt, as the game master,
created the scenarios
and then you're in the writers'
room with those people,
with that cast.
You get to feed off that immediacy.
It's like writing a "Spider-Man" script
in the room with Stan Lee.
MEREDITH: It's working very hard to
honor the original canon
and the original content
and the original game.
BRANDON: Nothing is getting past these guys.
We're making sure that this
is very much the show
that they wanna make.
MATT: It's been really cool
to watch it all come together
as each thing gets approved
and we see every facet
begin to come more and more realized.
You can just feel the
palpable energy of excitement,
not just within us, but the animation studio
and everyone who's working on it
on the actual production side.
It's already turning into
something very, very special.
KEVIN: We are as excited as
any fan of Critical Role
to see how these things turn out.
There's nothing better than
if you love a property
and you see it expanded to a new world.
It just takes it in a way you never even
could envision as a fan.
MATT: We wanted to capture
the spark and the magic
of when we were playing at the table,
just in a different form of media.
MARC: It will be like drinking a
drink that you really like
by a bartender you've never met before
who adds a little something
and you can't quite
put your finger on what it is.
It's like, "Did you put nutmeg in this?"
And like, "Ah, not sure,
but I love this drink.
"Oh, it's delicious.
"Give me more of this drink
because I like being drunk."
If you like being drunk on Critical Role,
then I think you'll like what this series
of bartenders have done to it.
(epic orchestral music)
("Critical Role" theme)
