Critical Role: A New Look at D & D
A little about the web series Critical Role: how your favorite actors, voice acting and TV shows re-discover the world of D & D.
Liam O'Brien is voiced by Gollum in the game Shadow of Mordor and William Shakespeare in Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. We can say that he is one of the most successful and productive actors in cartoons and video games. A few years ago, Liam wanted to get a special gift for his birthday - to play Dungeons & Dragons.
“We were still playing Pathfinder back then,” Laura Bailey admitted to the Polygon journalist. Laura is voiced by Nadine in Uncharted 4, The Black Widow in the Avengers animated series and Disney Infinity 3.0, Gwyn Whitehill in Telltale Games’s Game of Thrones and Fiona in Tales from the Borderlands.
')
So, having invited some more familiar actors, they decided to play D & D for O'Brien's birthday once more. Matthew Mercer was chosen to play the role of danager, who in narrow circles is famous for his ability to play games (Matthew is voiced by McCready and Z1-14 in Fallout 4, guards in Destiny and Robin in Gotham City Stories).
The game was attended by: Ashley Johnson (Ellie’s voice in The Last of Us and Gortis in Tales from the Borderlands), Travis Willingham (Infamous Second Son, Avengers Assemble, Sofia the First), Sam Riegel (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wander Over Yonder) , Persona), Marisha Ray (Persona Q, Phantom Pain), Orion Aqaba (Final Fantasy Type-0, Pillars of Eternity, Wildstar) and Taliesin Yaffe (World of Warcraft, Streetfighter, Hellsing).
It turned out to be so fun to play that the actors began to gather every month. For several years, the participants became even more, and then someone had a thought that it would be nice to make a show out of this idea. Well-known voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons - isn't it cool?
Very soon Felicia Day appeared on the horizon.
The game turns into a show
“A few years ago, my girlfriend, Ashley Johnson, whom I met in the Whedonverse community, briefly mentioned that she was playing D & D with other voice actors,” said Felicia Day. Felicia is the creator of the Geek and Sundry media network, dedicated to board and role-playing games. It was a perfect match, and so the Critical Role show was born.
“I immediately had the idea to invite them to Geek and Sundry. I love D & D and I was sure that our community would like another show like the Tabletop. We did not conceive it as a large-scale project. But when I decided to create a channel on Twitch this year, the guys were first on the list. ” The actors themselves did not immediately decide to take this step. “It was a bit exciting, because before we played only in a narrow circle of friends,” O'Brien admitted. - For a while, we doubted, fearing that a strange feeling would arise from the fact that your game was being watched. But in the end we finally decided: with the audience everything had to become even more interesting. ”
The shooting of the first episode was not entirely smooth. The team did not have a separate studio, and the sound quality was a bit lame. In addition, there was one participant who went to London to receive the BAFTA award for her role in The Last of Us. But even despite the fact that the show still needed to be finally brought to mind, success was not in doubt.
In the very first episode, Mercer showed his style of playing the game and made the audience understand that the official rules for him are not the ultimate truth. As a daning master, he added to the game a share of the “irrational toughness” (English rule of cool), allowing players to make non-standard decisions, even if they are not spelled out in the rules.
“If a player makes a very risky decision or comes up with something, I’ll rather break the rules and let him realize the idea than I will check with the management three hundred times,” Mercer explained his position. Before Matthew is, perhaps, the most difficult task. It depends on him at what pace the game will take place and how events will develop. Every week he spends about seven hours to prepare and calculate all sorts of options.
“I have to think carefully about plot twists and create enough content to give the guys free rein,” Mercer said. “They always do some unimaginable things, and I don’t want their next trick to take me by surprise.”
“I can't stop wondering how much stuff Matt has in store. We are going in one direction, and after the game we find a pile of cards that could lead us in another, ”O'Brien added.
“In addition to the main storyline, I am preparing a lot of minor details. But I don’t want the audience to see me as a robot, ”Mercer continued. “It is worth making the slightest mistake, and the next morning I will definitely find out about it on Twitter.”
Here is an example of such a message: “If a potion increased Grog’s power to 23, his every blow should have done at least 7 damage,” commented the viewer. “They did not take into account that the modifier of force became +6, and not +4”. In general, you understand. People are very picky.
According to the majority of participants, the awareness that they are being watched has hardly affected the game.
“We are still fooling around in front of the camera, throwing dice and playing roles. Nothing much has changed, except for less downtime, ”Mercer said. - We understand that we have an audience, and therefore we no longer discuss everyday affairs and do not tell jokes. Now everyone is focused on the game. ”
Bailey drew attention to another important change: “We began to eat much less during the game. Earlier, literally at every meeting we had a buffet table. ”
I asked O'Brien why voice actors are so naturally able to play role-playing games.
“I think the whole thing is a well-developed imagination,” Liam suggested. - We spend a lot of time in recording booths, creating something from nothing. Work in a room with bare walls is very different from shooting on the court or playing on stage. We have to imagine what is happening in our head, in such a holographic room from Star Trek. Add rules and cubes to it - and it turns out D & D ”.
“The game depends on our imagination. It must be trite, but as sound actors we do it professionally: we lose the plot in our imagination to get into the role while in a small booth, ”added Laura Bailey.
“As soon as we start to fantasize all together, we become, as it were, the heroes of one film. When I remember the previous games, I imagine not how we sit at the table, but how to carry out missions somewhere in a parallel universe. In addition, many participants have improvisation skills, and this is also important. ”
Instead of reading the finished script, the actors themselves come up with it on the go. “The skills we have perfected over the years now help us create our own stories in real time. It's incredibly fun and very addictive, ”O'Brien commented.
The show is gaining momentum
Show Critical Role quickly won its audience. According to statistics from Geek and Sundry, the total viewing time has reached more than 37 million minutes (about a million for each episode on the Twitch site). 1.3 million users have subscribed to the YouTube channel Critical Role, and over 10,000 paid subscribers watch it on Twitch.
Oddly enough, to follow the development of events, the viewer requires serious patience. Most episodes last for several hours, and sometimes even broken into several parts. According to O'Brien, estimating the duration of an episode in advance is like “calculating the accuracy of a parachute landing”.
Felicia Day believes that the success of the show depends in part on this format. “When I just opened my YouTube channel, I was told that long online videos were a deliberately disastrous idea,” she admitted to the journalist for Polygon.
“But over time it became clear that it was this kind of content that was becoming popular,” Felicia continued. - I like to experiment and unite users into one community. The advantage is that there is no need to try to please everyone and everyone on the Internet - you just need to attract enough people to support your business. In my opinion, this is wonderful. "
The show turns into a business
Critical Role is the most modern product. The show is broadcast live on Twitch every Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. At the end of the broadcast, subscribers can immediately download its recording. On Monday, the episode appears on Geek and Sundry and then on YouTube. “Potential sponsors sometimes have to explain how the whole process is organized,” said the employee of Geek and Sundry Claudia Contreras.
At the moment, the first episode of Critical Role has over 650,000 views on YouTube, and this number continues to grow every day. From the point of view of sponsors, such a solution is much more efficient than the purchase of airtime on television, since YouTube videos continue to gain views at the expense of the existing and new audience.
The non-standard, interactive format of the show allows sponsoring companies to show imagination, especially if they are also related to the field of role-playing games. One such company is Wyrmwood, a manufacturer of high-quality handmade accessories for role-playing boards.
“Especially for fans of the show, we have free coupons with the critrole code for free delivery,” said company representatives to a Polygon reporter. Moreover, Wyrmwood products are used on the set. “We made a set of dan-master custom Matthew. The tray is completely covered in leather, on which the large Critical Role logo is engraved, and on the cube tower it says “The choice is yours.” According to the company, this has significantly increased the number of visits to the site and sales.
Still, Critical Role is more a matter of soul than of earnings. “You don’t get rich with it, but we still like it a lot. Otherwise, we would immediately abandon this venture, ”admitted Mercer.
“We receive sincere pleasure from the development of the game. It’s unbelievable how much our community has grown and how many people share their stories and ideas. I could not even imagine that everything would go so well. The game really unites us and our viewers, and this is much more important than its profitability. ”
Every single member of the Critical Role has the same opinion. Some share stories about tweets and user comments, which the show helped to overcome the depression. Fans send pictures of their favorite characters, and the actors publish Spotify playlists on Geek and Sundry. By the number of discussions and disputes in the community, each episode of the show can be compared with the new series “Game of Thrones”.
After filming, the actors reread the viewers' tweets - attentive fans often remind of errors and inaccuracies. Bailey told how once she even hung a sign saying “Hunter's Label” in front of her, because she forgot to use this ability, which caused a lot of discontent in the comments.
In addition to the relatively high quality of wagering, the highlight of the show is that its participants are familiar with the gaming industry firsthand. For example, after the release of the game Mad Max at the beginning of the next episode, the actors spoke about their characters and speculated about the difficulty of realistic voicing of vomiting. Such fun "insider" conversations give a special charm to the game and really like the audience.
“I am very glad that we managed to combine work and a hobby. And this is just the beginning, ”O'Brien said. - Thanks to Twitch, we seem to be becoming one theater troupe. We are all very pleased to realize ourselves in this area. "
Critical Role is a modern product that continues to grow rapidly. Twitch subscribers can post comments live and others can watch any episode on YouTube. Mercer remarked that some of the characters were already balancing on the verge of life and death, and in the future there would be even more dangers. Anyway, ultimately it all depends on the dice and the resourcefulness of the players.
“Most of all, I’m afraid that all the characters will die at the same time," Bailey expressed concern. “Then I don’t know how we will get out.”
Liam O'Brien is voiced by Gollum in the game Shadow of Mordor and William Shakespeare in Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. We can say that he is one of the most successful and productive actors in cartoons and video games. A few years ago, Liam wanted to get a special gift for his birthday - to play Dungeons & Dragons.
“We were still playing Pathfinder back then,” Laura Bailey admitted to the Polygon journalist. Laura is voiced by Nadine in Uncharted 4, The Black Widow in the Avengers animated series and Disney Infinity 3.0, Gwyn Whitehill in Telltale Games’s Game of Thrones and Fiona in Tales from the Borderlands.
')
So, having invited some more familiar actors, they decided to play D & D for O'Brien's birthday once more. Matthew Mercer was chosen to play the role of danager, who in narrow circles is famous for his ability to play games (Matthew is voiced by McCready and Z1-14 in Fallout 4, guards in Destiny and Robin in Gotham City Stories).
The game was attended by: Ashley Johnson (Ellie’s voice in The Last of Us and Gortis in Tales from the Borderlands), Travis Willingham (Infamous Second Son, Avengers Assemble, Sofia the First), Sam Riegel (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wander Over Yonder) , Persona), Marisha Ray (Persona Q, Phantom Pain), Orion Aqaba (Final Fantasy Type-0, Pillars of Eternity, Wildstar) and Taliesin Yaffe (World of Warcraft, Streetfighter, Hellsing).
It turned out to be so fun to play that the actors began to gather every month. For several years, the participants became even more, and then someone had a thought that it would be nice to make a show out of this idea. Well-known voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons - isn't it cool?
Very soon Felicia Day appeared on the horizon.
The game turns into a show
“A few years ago, my girlfriend, Ashley Johnson, whom I met in the Whedonverse community, briefly mentioned that she was playing D & D with other voice actors,” said Felicia Day. Felicia is the creator of the Geek and Sundry media network, dedicated to board and role-playing games. It was a perfect match, and so the Critical Role show was born.
“I immediately had the idea to invite them to Geek and Sundry. I love D & D and I was sure that our community would like another show like the Tabletop. We did not conceive it as a large-scale project. But when I decided to create a channel on Twitch this year, the guys were first on the list. ” The actors themselves did not immediately decide to take this step. “It was a bit exciting, because before we played only in a narrow circle of friends,” O'Brien admitted. - For a while, we doubted, fearing that a strange feeling would arise from the fact that your game was being watched. But in the end we finally decided: with the audience everything had to become even more interesting. ”
The shooting of the first episode was not entirely smooth. The team did not have a separate studio, and the sound quality was a bit lame. In addition, there was one participant who went to London to receive the BAFTA award for her role in The Last of Us. But even despite the fact that the show still needed to be finally brought to mind, success was not in doubt.
In the very first episode, Mercer showed his style of playing the game and made the audience understand that the official rules for him are not the ultimate truth. As a daning master, he added to the game a share of the “irrational toughness” (English rule of cool), allowing players to make non-standard decisions, even if they are not spelled out in the rules.
“If a player makes a very risky decision or comes up with something, I’ll rather break the rules and let him realize the idea than I will check with the management three hundred times,” Mercer explained his position. Before Matthew is, perhaps, the most difficult task. It depends on him at what pace the game will take place and how events will develop. Every week he spends about seven hours to prepare and calculate all sorts of options.
“I have to think carefully about plot twists and create enough content to give the guys free rein,” Mercer said. “They always do some unimaginable things, and I don’t want their next trick to take me by surprise.”
“I can't stop wondering how much stuff Matt has in store. We are going in one direction, and after the game we find a pile of cards that could lead us in another, ”O'Brien added.
“In addition to the main storyline, I am preparing a lot of minor details. But I don’t want the audience to see me as a robot, ”Mercer continued. “It is worth making the slightest mistake, and the next morning I will definitely find out about it on Twitter.”
Here is an example of such a message: “If a potion increased Grog’s power to 23, his every blow should have done at least 7 damage,” commented the viewer. “They did not take into account that the modifier of force became +6, and not +4”. In general, you understand. People are very picky.
According to the majority of participants, the awareness that they are being watched has hardly affected the game.
“We are still fooling around in front of the camera, throwing dice and playing roles. Nothing much has changed, except for less downtime, ”Mercer said. - We understand that we have an audience, and therefore we no longer discuss everyday affairs and do not tell jokes. Now everyone is focused on the game. ”
Bailey drew attention to another important change: “We began to eat much less during the game. Earlier, literally at every meeting we had a buffet table. ”
I asked O'Brien why voice actors are so naturally able to play role-playing games.
“I think the whole thing is a well-developed imagination,” Liam suggested. - We spend a lot of time in recording booths, creating something from nothing. Work in a room with bare walls is very different from shooting on the court or playing on stage. We have to imagine what is happening in our head, in such a holographic room from Star Trek. Add rules and cubes to it - and it turns out D & D ”.
“The game depends on our imagination. It must be trite, but as sound actors we do it professionally: we lose the plot in our imagination to get into the role while in a small booth, ”added Laura Bailey.
“As soon as we start to fantasize all together, we become, as it were, the heroes of one film. When I remember the previous games, I imagine not how we sit at the table, but how to carry out missions somewhere in a parallel universe. In addition, many participants have improvisation skills, and this is also important. ”
Instead of reading the finished script, the actors themselves come up with it on the go. “The skills we have perfected over the years now help us create our own stories in real time. It's incredibly fun and very addictive, ”O'Brien commented.
The show is gaining momentum
Show Critical Role quickly won its audience. According to statistics from Geek and Sundry, the total viewing time has reached more than 37 million minutes (about a million for each episode on the Twitch site). 1.3 million users have subscribed to the YouTube channel Critical Role, and over 10,000 paid subscribers watch it on Twitch.
Oddly enough, to follow the development of events, the viewer requires serious patience. Most episodes last for several hours, and sometimes even broken into several parts. According to O'Brien, estimating the duration of an episode in advance is like “calculating the accuracy of a parachute landing”.
Felicia Day believes that the success of the show depends in part on this format. “When I just opened my YouTube channel, I was told that long online videos were a deliberately disastrous idea,” she admitted to the journalist for Polygon.
“But over time it became clear that it was this kind of content that was becoming popular,” Felicia continued. - I like to experiment and unite users into one community. The advantage is that there is no need to try to please everyone and everyone on the Internet - you just need to attract enough people to support your business. In my opinion, this is wonderful. "
The show turns into a business
Critical Role is the most modern product. The show is broadcast live on Twitch every Thursday at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. At the end of the broadcast, subscribers can immediately download its recording. On Monday, the episode appears on Geek and Sundry and then on YouTube. “Potential sponsors sometimes have to explain how the whole process is organized,” said the employee of Geek and Sundry Claudia Contreras.
At the moment, the first episode of Critical Role has over 650,000 views on YouTube, and this number continues to grow every day. From the point of view of sponsors, such a solution is much more efficient than the purchase of airtime on television, since YouTube videos continue to gain views at the expense of the existing and new audience.
The non-standard, interactive format of the show allows sponsoring companies to show imagination, especially if they are also related to the field of role-playing games. One such company is Wyrmwood, a manufacturer of high-quality handmade accessories for role-playing boards.
“Especially for fans of the show, we have free coupons with the critrole code for free delivery,” said company representatives to a Polygon reporter. Moreover, Wyrmwood products are used on the set. “We made a set of dan-master custom Matthew. The tray is completely covered in leather, on which the large Critical Role logo is engraved, and on the cube tower it says “The choice is yours.” According to the company, this has significantly increased the number of visits to the site and sales.
Still, Critical Role is more a matter of soul than of earnings. “You don’t get rich with it, but we still like it a lot. Otherwise, we would immediately abandon this venture, ”admitted Mercer.
“We receive sincere pleasure from the development of the game. It’s unbelievable how much our community has grown and how many people share their stories and ideas. I could not even imagine that everything would go so well. The game really unites us and our viewers, and this is much more important than its profitability. ”
Every single member of the Critical Role has the same opinion. Some share stories about tweets and user comments, which the show helped to overcome the depression. Fans send pictures of their favorite characters, and the actors publish Spotify playlists on Geek and Sundry. By the number of discussions and disputes in the community, each episode of the show can be compared with the new series “Game of Thrones”.
After filming, the actors reread the viewers' tweets - attentive fans often remind of errors and inaccuracies. Bailey told how once she even hung a sign saying “Hunter's Label” in front of her, because she forgot to use this ability, which caused a lot of discontent in the comments.
In addition to the relatively high quality of wagering, the highlight of the show is that its participants are familiar with the gaming industry firsthand. For example, after the release of the game Mad Max at the beginning of the next episode, the actors spoke about their characters and speculated about the difficulty of realistic voicing of vomiting. Such fun "insider" conversations give a special charm to the game and really like the audience.
“I am very glad that we managed to combine work and a hobby. And this is just the beginning, ”O'Brien said. - Thanks to Twitch, we seem to be becoming one theater troupe. We are all very pleased to realize ourselves in this area. "
Critical Role is a modern product that continues to grow rapidly. Twitch subscribers can post comments live and others can watch any episode on YouTube. Mercer remarked that some of the characters were already balancing on the verge of life and death, and in the future there would be even more dangers. Anyway, ultimately it all depends on the dice and the resourcefulness of the players.
“Most of all, I’m afraid that all the characters will die at the same time," Bailey expressed concern. “Then I don’t know how we will get out.”
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/396979/
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