Critical Role Fantasy Series Runs Over 100 Hours and Streams Free on YouTube

Epic fantasy with plenty of politics and skulduggery is hard to beat, and George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones franchise is the standard. The TV adaptations include Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and House of the Dragon. All three have star-studded casts and detailed worldbuilding woven into the story.

Few shows or movies match that scale. Some come close, such as The Wheel of Time and The Witcher. None dig as deeply into each character’s political schemes and motives as Martin does.

There is still a good option for fans. At least one 100-hour dark-fantasy epic may be what you’re looking for: Critical Role.

What is Critical Role?

Critical Role is a show in which well-known voice actors sit around a table each week and play Dungeons & Dragons. Episodes usually run 4 hours or more. Unlike TV and film, they are shaped by the improvisation of tabletop role-playing.

The main cast and company co-founders are Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Liam O’Brien and Taliesin Jaffe.

Critical Role has played three campaigns so far. All took place in the high-fantasy world of Exandria, which the group’s Dungeon Master, Mercer, created.

The current campaign is set in the world of Aramán and led by Dimension 20’s Brennan Lee Mulligan. Luis Carazo, Alexander Ward, Whitney Moore, Robbie Daymond and Aabria Iyengar have joined the main cast for Campaign 4.

What is Critical Role Campaign 4 about?

If you had to describe Game of Thrones in two words, “gritty fantasy” would work. In typical high fantasy, good usually triumphs over evil. In Martin’s world, ruthless political maneuvering often makes good people suffer.

Campaign 4 follows the same pattern. In Aramán, people are learning to rebuild after The Shapers’ War, which led mortals to slay the oppressive Gods who ruled over them. Killing the Gods didn’t fix everyone’s problems. It made them worse. Magic no longer works as well as it once did, and only a select few, such as the Druids of the Old Path, can still access the afterlife.

Slaying the Shapers also poisoned and transformed certain places into wastelands. Among them are the ancestral lands of the Shapers’ worshippers, such as House Tachonis and Halovar. With so many souls stuck in purgatory, the undead have risen and started causing trouble. That sounds a lot like the White Walkers from Game of Thrones.

The loss of divine rule and the change in how magic works have also left a huge power vacuum. Members of the Revolutionary Council in the city of Dol-Makjar have tried to keep the peace. Real power rests with the Sundered Houses, five magical noble houses that belonged to the Obridimian Empire before it fell alongside the Shapers.

The Sundered Houses compete for control of the people of Aramán, seeking to win them through religion, magic or martial prowess. Meanwhile, a group of revolutionaries, the 13-player main cast, plots to bring the Houses down in the name of freedom.

How is Critical Role Campaign 4 like Game of Thrones?

Campaign 4 and Game of Thrones use very different formats. One is an actual-play D&D campaign and the other is a live-action show. They still share many similarities, both small and large.

Magic is less prominent in Westeros than in Campaign 4, but Game of Thrones has plenty of it. Examples include Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons and abilities like face-changing, green-sight and skin-changing. Magic also signals power, and its return is one of the show’s major developments across eight seasons.

Fans who enjoy watching characters go to great lengths to claim the Iron Throne will find a lot to like in Campaign 4. Its revolutionaries aren’t fighting to rule a kingdom like the warring houses in Game of Thrones. They are willing to do whatever it takes to overthrow the Sundered Houses and let the people of Aramán choose how they want to live and die. Along the way, the campaign has featured plenty of spying, lying and old-fashioned murder, which is typical Game of Thrones fare.

The biggest similarity is the constant threat of death around every corner. Viewers remember how shocked they were by the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones season 3, an episode that killed several major characters. D&D’s format and the randomness of dice rolls mean the risk of death is built into Campaign 4 from the start.

Mulligan’s homebrewed death-and-dying rules raise the stakes further than in an average D&D campaign. One example is the absence of resurrection magic. The rules add tension to every combat and role-play encounter. Campaign 4 has already lost one player character, and that number may grow.

Now is also a good time to jump in. Critical Role campaigns usually run for 100+ episodes, so the cast aren’t even halfway through yet. Game of Thrones gave fans just under 80 hours of storylines. By the time Critical Role wraps up this campaign, viewers can expect over a hundred hours of magic, betrayal and political intrigue.

Source: Polygon