Critical Role CEO clears up huge misunderstanding about The Legend of Vox Machina

The Legend of Vox Machina season 4 may be over, but we — and all other Critters out there — still have plenty of questions about Critical Role’s animated adaptation of their original Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Thankfully, Critical Role’s CEO, Travis Willingham, and co-founder and executive producer, Laura Bailey, were more than happy to answer those questions on a recent episode of Fireside Chat.

The Beacon-exclusive talk show addresses questions sent in by Critters via the company’s Discord server. Along with answering queries about future projects — which may or may not consist of a Critical Role What If… series — Willingham and Bailey took time to address questions about what goes on behind the scenes of The Legend of Vox Machina.

One question the pair was asked was whether there were any scenes in the animated series that the team had to fight to include. It was at this point that Willingham took the chance to clear up any misconceptions fans might have about who is in charge of Critical Role’s animated adaptations, and — spoiler alert — it is not Amazon.

“I think people might have the wrong idea. We are making the show; it is us,” Willingham explains. “It’s not a group of writers who are taking what we did and saying, “Oh, that’s good.” We’re in there, cracking everything open, throwing in surprises, adding things, doing the trims, all that stuff.”

Willingham went on to clarify that while Critical Role is making the story and pitching it, Amazon has been on board with all of their ideas. So, if you’re a Critter who isn’t too stoked about a change and feels that the fault has something to do with Amazon being overly involved, Willingham’s answer proves that isn’t the case.

That said, there is one thing that Bailey admits she did have to fight for. It was not the inclusion of any scenes from the original campaign; rather, it was a character that Vox Machina fans all know and love dearly: Vex’s armored bear, Trinket.

It’s an ongoing joke among Critters how much Bailey loves Vex’s fighting companion Trinket, so it’s no surprise that it would be one of the things that Bailey wanted to include in the show more than anything. In the show, Trinket is kept inside a magic locket and only comes out during certain scenes, such as when the gang are fighting, or when he’s lying in the hallway outside of Percy and Vex’s bedroom. The reason for this, Willingham reveals, is due to Titmouse, the animation studio behind the series, asking the Critical Role team if they could leave Trinket out of as many scenes as possible. Apparently, Titmouse already had a lot of bipedal character movement to work with, and adding a huge armored bear was just a step too far.

It’s perhaps not the most exciting reason why The Legend of Vox Machina rarely has Trinket and the full group in scenes together, but it does make sense when you think about animating six pairs of legs alongside a quadripedal creature too. The wonders (and horrors) of animation, everyone.

All four seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina are available to stream now on Prime Video.