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Dungeons & Dragonshas surged in popularity in recent years, hitting the mainstream at full force. And with the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons has come the desire to either play or watch others play it, so shows likeCritical Rolesurfaced and gathered devoted fans.
With long-term campaigns, sprinkled with the occasional one-shots, Critical Role has a lot of content that will entertain you for hours on end. Of course, the sheer amount of content can be overwhelming, and it might leave you wary of where you should actually begin to get the best experience possible from each campaign and one shot.
What Is Critical Role?
Critical Role is a Dungeons & Dragons show, primarily streamed with the videos later uploaded to YouTube.
The primary cast is a group of voice actors(some of whom you may be really familiar with) consisting of Laura Bailey, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Taliesin Jaffe, and Marisha Ray. The Dungeon Master, Matt Mercer, takes this group of adventurers oncampaigns throughout the world of Exandria, a homebrew worldthat he has crafted with a great deal of careful thought and time.
The tales are fantastical and the players are relatable and enjoyable to watch grow and change throughout the different stories told. Occasionally,Critical Role does guest spots, with some guests, like Robbie Daymond, making frequent reappearances.
Where Can You Watch Critical Role?
The easiest way towatch the pre-existing Critical Role campaigns is on theirYouTube channel. Every long campaign, short campaign, one shot, and sideshow is available and organized in various playlists. However, if you do manage to get caught up, thenyou can watchCritical Role live or during a rebroadcast on Twitch.
They stream everyThursday night at 7 pm Pacific Timeand put out the rebroadcast the following Friday morning.
Although the show is best watched in the stream format, where you may have visuals for the various visual gags and gestures,you can also listen to it in a podcast formatwherever you listen to podcasts — however, you won’t find campaign one as a podcast or the entirety of campaign two, given thatthe podcasts start off at campaign two, episode 20.
The Best Place To Start
Given that there are three different central campaigns in Critical Role and that they all take place in the same universe, you might be wondering just where you should start. Although you’re probably fine to pick up the one-shots wherever you’d like, the samecannotbe said about the central campaigns.
The campaigns are connected because they all exist within the same world, though measures have been taken to try and keep them separate to some capacity — at least up until you get to the third campaign.
Vox Machina - The Best Starting Point
Vox Machina is the first campaignthat Critical Role started with. However, it’s also one of the hardest ones to understand at first given that it starts off right where they were in the middle of their home game. There are some fans who do recommend that you start off in some of the later episodes,specifically after Orion Acaba left the show at episode 27.
There’s a whole host of reasons why this is recommended, notably that the cast tends to be a lot more comfortable from this point on and the story is pretty easy to pick up from that point and onwards.I, personally, believe that Vox Machina is the essential campaign to start fromgiven that it’s, truly, a tried and true Dungeons & Dragons story of intrepid adventurers coming into their own and growing in strength and power.
Vox Machina provides a solid foundation that will allow you to appreciate the other campaigns all the more. Plus, it will allow you to get a good grasp on the cast and grow endeared with their antics all the more.
If you have Prime Video, you’re able to skip over a good portion of the first campaignby watchingThe Legend of Vox Machina. It follows the streamed campaign’s story almost exactly, lending you a solid grasp on the characters (and what they look like), and it eases you into the story in a way that isn’t as jarring as the actual stream.
Season 3 of the Legend of Vox Machina is coming on May 13, 2025. Until then, if you watch season 2, you can pick up the Vox Machina streams around episode 55.
The Mighty Nein - The Second Best Start
The Mighty Nein is mostly unconnected from Vox Machinaand can be watched separately, though there may be jokes and references scattered throughout that you probably won’t be able to fully appreciate or understand without Vox Machina as a good foundation. That said,if you really want to, you can start here with The Mighty Nein, just to get a good feel for whether or not you like the cast.
There are some perks if you start with the Mighty Nein over Vox Machina. Notably, the cast is a lot more comfortable on stream and they all are, generally, much more well-versed in Dungeons & Dragons. Plus, you don’t really have to pick and choose where you start -you may head straight from the beginning without much issue, if any.
Given that you’re likely watching the videos on YouTube, you can also head to the comments, where time stamps are usually helpfully supplied — just be careful about spoilers.
Bells Hells - Do Not Start Here
Yes, Bells Hells is the newest campaign. Yes, the cast is probably at their most comfortable streaming and playing in this campaign. Yes, Critical Role probably has the most resources to put on the best show possible in this campaign. But you should, under no circumstances, start here.
Bells Hells has a lot of callbacks, references, and charactersfrom both Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein. to fully appreciate the campaign, the characters, and the NPCs, you should really watch the previous two campaigns first.The existence of The Legend of Vox Machina should make getting through the story a lot fasterso you won’t have a ton to catch up on when you do, eventually, get caught up on Critical Role.
