On the evening of March 12, 2015, Critical Role had its first public showing. In a livestreamed event from a dimly lit studio in Burbank, eight players sat at a table immersed in a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game for nearly three hours — their first foray in a form of storytelling that would bloom into an indie media empire, complete with an upcoming Amazon show.

Before C.R. began streaming shows on Twitch and YouTube, it started as a group of friends who knew each other from voice-over gigs in animation and video games playing D&D together. The first two sessions were at the L.A. apartment of Matthew Mercer, Critical Role’s long-standing dungeon master, and Marisha Ray, who is now the company’s creative director; they then moved to the house of Travis Willingham (now CEO) and Laura Bailey (who handles C.R.’s merchandise business). “It was an excuse to hang out together,” says cast member Liam O’Brien of the original D&D gathering. “It was just going to be one night of dumb fun, but we kept doing it.”

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