Critical Role The Legend of Vox Machina: Bawdy, Bloody, and Funny

With The Legend of Vox Machina, Critical Role comes full circle from being voice actors playing D&D (first in a private game, then streaming on Geek & Sundry) to an $11 million Kickstarter for an animated special. That success attracted streaming network interest, which then morphed into a 24-episode animated series where they're voicing their own characters.

If you've never watched Critical Role Season 1 or read any of the stories, TLoVM the animated series is easy to jump into. Instead of being exposition heavy or thrusting viewers into a lot of world building, it starts with some classic fantasy – especially fantasy RPG – tropes like a drunken bar brawl and mercenaries being killed (a TPK) by a mysterious force. Those scenes are delivered with hefty dose of humor, a bit of blood, and some nudity.

This isn't the '80s Saturday morning Dungeons & Dragons cartoon for kids. While there is gore, it's less than an episode of Invincible and far less than that show's season 1 finale. Similarly, TLoVM has nudity and a bit of sex in the first few episodes, but far less than Game of Thrones.

Vox Machina is an established group at the start of the series, but one that needs money and has a less than stellar reputation. The land of Emon is being ravaged by a mysterious threat. A bit of desperation on both sides leads to the bickering heroes taking the job.

TLoVM is bawdy, bloody, and funny, but it also has heart. The first two episodes tell a complete story with an obvious hook at the end that leads into the rest of the episodes – and a stinger hinting at new threats.

The animation style has clean lines with some anime influence, but nothing excessively intricate or artsy. At the same, the art direction has style, like a scene that adds interest to the characters walking by showing it through a spider's web dotted with raindrops.

The first episode establishes the eight members of Vox Machina quickly with the following episodes building nicely upon each character's traits. Matthew Mercer voices several of the supporting characters, but in this format he doesn't have to cover all of the NPCs. The guest star talent includes David Tennant, Stephanie Beatriz, Tony Hale. Felica Day is the voice of a bandit.

And if they don't sell a stuffed toy bear version of Trinket at some point, Critical Role is missing out on a merchandise opportunity. TLoVM hits the perfect sweet spot between making Vex's companion bear fierce in battle, amusing when waiting, and adorable the rest of the time.

No critic has been given advance access to the entire first season, let alone all 24 episodes, so it's impossible to say how well the entire story arc plays out, but the first few episodes are entertaining and well made.

You don't have to be a fan of Critical Role to enjoy The Legend of Vox Machina, but if you're a fan of fantasy adventure, TLoVM might turn you into Critter. The Legend of Vox Machina debuts on Amazon Prime on Friday, January 28, with the first three episodes. Critical Role will be holding watch parties on their Twitch channel at 7pm Tuesdays.

 

[TheSword]

Not saying it does, just that Rick and Morty has intensely, deeply worse toilet humor when it brings it to bear. R&M, for all of its smart writing, falls back to just plain gross-out humor a lot.

And again, not saying R&M's writing isn't good but it itself can't hold a candle to Futurama, even for the crowd that thinks cynical=mature/good writing.

Can you give an example. Because I’m very skeptical there is anything as bad on R&M as watching feces drop out of someone’s ass on screen. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen on screen in 42 years of television.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Can you give an example. Because I’m very skeptical there is anything as bad as watching feces drop out of someone’s ass on screen. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in 42 years of television.

honestly, I have seen worse things in this world none of which can be spoken of.

 

[Randomthoughts]

I'm not a fan of CR (actual play) but I'm really enjoying the show. It's humorous but also brutal, akin to the level of violence in Goblin Slayer (minus the controversy in that series' first episode).

I like the world too, specially how magic is portrayed, de Rolo's seemingly new "character class", etc. Knowing it was adapted from a D&D campaign, I actually prefer that [edit:world] over typical D&D. For example, healing (and magic it seems) isn't as powerful as it could be in D&D. Did CR make up its own rules to limit magic in game?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Can you give an example. Because I’m very skeptical there is anything as bad on R&M as watching feces drop out of someone’s ass on screen. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen on screen in 42 years of television.

The superhero HQ covered in Rick's drunk diarrhea that covers the janitor (mouth included).

 

[TheSword]

The superhero HQ covered in Rick's drunk diarrhea that covers the janitor (mouth included).

Yeah, not even on the same league. R&M wouldn’t show Rick actually defecating everywhere in front of people in action on the screen - it’s that step to far.

 

[billd91]

For example, healing (and magic it seems) isn't as powerful as it could be in D&D. Did CR make up its own rules to limit magic in game?

Limit? Mixed. Healing isn't limited, per se, in fact Matt house ruled it so drinking a potion is a bonus action rather than an action. So that kind of magic and healing is easier. But magic used to undo death, whether revivify or raising the dead, was made harder. Even so, they still made quite a bit of use of those spells in campaign 1.
In campaign 2, they got a lot better at fleeing fights before they needed to use them as much.

I think you're just looking at a certain literary license to increase the tension of the scenes for viewers - which were made tense in the game play by action economies and hit point ablation.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Can you give an example. Because I’m very skeptical there is anything as bad as watching feces drop out of someone’s ass on screen. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in 42 years of television.

It honestly didn't even really register with me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Limit? Mixed. Healing isn't limited, per se, in fact Matt house ruled it so drinking a potion is a bonus action rather than an action. So that kind of magic and healing is easier. But magic used to undo death, whether revivify or raising the dead, was made harder. Even so, they still made quite a bit of use of those spells in campaign 1.
In campaign 2, they got a lot better at fleeing fights before they needed to use them as much.

I think you're just looking at a certain literary license to increase the tension of the scenes for viewers - which were made tense in the game play by action economies and hit point ablation.

One could argue that the much more limited magic seen in Vox Machina (for whatever in-universe reason) done for the sake of drama is evidence that D&D magic really is too much, as some people say.

 

[Amrûnril]

I like the world too, specially how magic is portrayed, de Rolo's seemingly new "character class", etc. Knowing it was adapted from a D&D campaign, I actually prefer that work over typical D&D. For example, healing (and magic it seems) isn't as powerful as it could be in D&D. Did CR make up its own rules to limit magic in game?

One could argue that the much more limited magic seen in Vox Machina (for whatever in-universe reason) done for the sake of drama is evidence that D&D magic really is too much, as some people say.

I'd say the magic in the show is limited in frequency and versatility rather than power. (though healing's hard to judge given the ambiguity about what hit points represent). This definitely has advantages for the show, as combat with more spells would be hard to follow in real-time animation, but it could be worth considering for some styles of gameplay too.

But magic used to undo death, whether revivify or raising the dead, was made harder. Even so, they still made quite a bit of use of those spells in campaign 1.

I'm curious how the show's going to handle this. The resurrection rituals made excellent dramatic moments in the context of a 400 hour show, but I feel like they'd get a lot more repetitive and less suspenseful if you tried to incorporate all of them in the more condensed animated format.

 

[billd91]

I'm curious how the show's going to handle this. The resurrection rituals made excellent dramatic moments in the context of a 400 hour show, but I feel like they'd get a lot more repetitive and less suspenseful if you tried to incorporate all of them in the more condensed animated format.

They can probably skip over most of them. There are a few that are really character-driving and those might turn up, but the rest don't need to do so.