Acquisitions Inc.<\/a><\/em> and a few small examples. We didn\u2019t even plan to do this. We were asked to, and we didn\u2019t think it would go anywhere.<\/p>\nSo, it\u2019s been 10 years of trying to catch up to it and meaningfully maintain control in an industry that often likes to wrestle that away\u2014into the hands of people who shouldn\u2019t be in charge of creative decisions. We see that a lot in television.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a very meticulous process, as all of us\u2014both as individuals and as a brand\u2014work to safeguard this thing as it grows. Part of that means trying to move smoothly and steadily, taking it one step at a time. Then suddenly, we turn a corner and everything is escalating at such a rapid pace that we\u2019re like, \u201cOh God, what\u2019s happening?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. We\u2019re all very careful, constantly checking in with one another, and continuously blown away by what this has become. It\u2019s wild. We just launched our first video game collaboration a week ago\u2014that\u2019s still crazy to me. So, to answer your question: no, we had no idea. But we\u2019re doing our best to keep up with it, with all the responsibility we can muster.<\/p>\n\n\nCopyright (c) Lucca Comics & Games <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
You mentioned being part of nerd culture before <\/strong>Critical Role<\/em><\/strong>, but how has your relationship with <\/strong>Dungeons & Dragons<\/em><\/strong> and games like it changed\u2014both before working with <\/strong>Critical Role<\/em><\/strong> and now, as you\u2019ve become such a major part of nerd culture in general?<\/strong><\/p>\nMatthew Mercer:<\/strong> Oh boy, it\u2019s changed a lot. I grew up playing it in high school in the late 1990s, when it was still very much behind closed doors\u2014coming out of the satanic panic that many of us went through\u2014and surrounded by a lot of unfortunate and untrue assumptions about how Dungeons & Dragons<\/em> is played or the kind of people who play it. It was something I loved, but I had a hard time finding a community around it. So instead, I created one by inviting friends or co-workers to play a one-shot. Most of them had never played before.<\/p>\nI found that interesting, and I think that\u2019s part of why everything took off. A lot of people have always been curious, but never had an opportunity to feel invited to try it. People my age and older\u2014and people far younger\u2014often didn\u2019t have a way to understand whether they\u2019d enjoy it or how to get involved. So I would extend that invitation and then watch people realize, \u201cOh, I had no idea it was this fun, this engaging, this creative,\u201d and fall in love with the game the same way I did when I was a kid.<\/p>\n
Before Critical Role<\/em>, I was almost evangelical about it, telling people, \u201cThis is one of the best ways you can have fun with your friends.\u201d There are so many great tabletop RPGs out there. Dungeons & Dragons<\/em> is a great one, and it\u2019s the one everyone knows, but there are also so many incredible independent games in different genres and styles.<\/p>\n\n\nCopyright (c) Lucca Comics & Games <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Much like your favourite types of movies, there\u2019s an RPG out there that captures that same energy\u2014something you can experience and shape yourself. I always wanted the hobby to be more accepted and shared, because for me, it\u2019s one of the most healthy and creatively fulfilling experiences a person can have with friends. I was always frustrated that more people didn\u2019t play.<\/p>\n
When we were asked to do Critical Role<\/em>, that was part of the reason I agreed to it. I thought, hopefully, if this goes well, it\u2019ll be something I can point to when people ask me what it\u2019s like. I wouldn\u2019t have to stammer for 10 minutes at a party, saying, \u201cWell, because you\u2019re in a class and you have to roll your stats\u2014\u201d and then they\u2019d say, \u201cI\u2019m just going to go home,\u201d and walk away. Instead, I could send them the link, and maybe more people would discover it that way.<\/p>\nWe did it quite simply. We didn\u2019t know how many people would watch\u2014and it\u2019s exploded since then. The fact that we\u2019ve even been part of it is still a wild thought to me, 10 years later. I\u2019m technically canon in the Forgotten Realms\u2014that\u2019s crazy. I read the Drizzt <\/em>books when I was a kid, which means, technically, we could meet. I don\u2019t know about that, but yeah.<\/p>\nSince I was a kid, I\u2019ve seen this misunderstood, misfit, wonderful experience grow\u2014and now it\u2019s being embraced and expanded in so many ways. There are massive cosplay groups out there dressed as our Dungeons & Dragons<\/em> characters, and as their own. Events are growing year after year, showcasing and platforming new game designers who are drawing inspiration from games that have been around for 40 years, and finding new, creative ways to engage with both dice and diceless role-playing games. It\u2019s incredibly exciting.<\/p>\nI never would have expected any of this. My favourite thing to hear from people in the community at events and conventions is, \u201cThese games have brought me closer with my friends, or closer with my family, than I ever hoped I could be.\u201d That, to me, is the most important thing I\u2019ve ever heard in my life. The friends who mean the most to me are ones I made through games like this. To see other families and friends find that same sense of unity through it\u2014that\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucca Comics & Games feels like the ideal place to talk all things fantasy. The festival proved to be the perfect backdrop for a milestone conversation with Matthew Mercer, the voice actor and Dungeon Master behind Critical Role. What began as a small streaming experiment among friends has grown into a cultural phenomenon that now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2141544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[408614,370029,408612,408615,408613,408611,381314],"class_list":["post-2141543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-creative-control","tag-critical-role","tag-dungeons-dragons","tag-first-video-game","tag-lucca-comics","tag-matthew-mercer","tag-nerd-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Matthew-Mercer-Still-Cant-Believe-How-Big-Critical-Role-Has.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2141543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2141545,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141543\/revisions\/2141545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2141544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2141543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2141543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2141543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}