Critical Role: How Many Campaigns Are There & Which Are Just One-Shots?

Over the years, "Critical Role" has become a titan in the world of "Dungeons & Dragons," with a simple campaign among voice actors becoming one of the largest channels on Twitch. With their ever-growing popularity, "Critical Role" attracts more and more fans every day. However, with hundreds of episodes, keeping track of each campaign is getting harder and harder, especially with one-shots in play. 

Thankfully, there are only three "Critical Role" campaigns, but with each spanning multiple years, there's no shortage of episodes. Campaign One, titled "Vox Machina," introduces audiences to the continent of Tal'Dorei and the world of Exandria. Critical Role played in this campaign from 2015 to 2017, later partnering with Amazon Studios to bring "The Legend of Vox Machina" to the streaming service. 

Campaign Two, "The Mighty Nein," returns to Exandria, on the continent of Wildemount, roughly 20 years after the events of Campaign One. This story ran for about three years, from 2018 to 2021, and conveniently, an animated version of "The Mighty Nein" is also coming to Amazon Prime, making "Critical Role" two for two with their campaigns. 

Campaign Three, "Bells Hells," is their current campaign, which began in late 2021. Similar to the previous adventures, Campaign Three takes place on another continent, Marquet, further exploring and fleshing out Exandria. There are currently no confirmed plans of "Bells Hells" getting an animated-series adaptation, but judging by the previous campaigns, it seems likely to come one day. Anything outside these campaigns are one-shots.

If you thought catching up with the hundreds of hours of content in every "Critical Role" campaign was a tall task, you may not want to turn your attention to their one-shots. Thankfully, many are strictly for fun, like most "Dungeons & Dragons" one-shots, so not all are required viewing.

"Critical Role" has a fairly sizeable list of specials set in the world of Exandria, which are canon to their overall story. "The Story of Vox Machina" recaps the events of Campaign One before the group started streaming on Twitch, and "The Search for Grog," "The Search for Bob," and "Dalen's Closet" wrap up Campaign One's specials. "The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade" adds to Sam Riegel's second character, Taryon Darrington.

"Exandria: An Intimate History" and "Exandria: An Intimate Appendix – Ruidus and the Gods" are world-building specials with Matt Mercer and Dani Carr narrating the history of Exandria and its gods. There's also "The Mighty Nein Reunited" Parts 1 and 2 and "Exandria Unlimited" miniseries, "Prime," "Kymal," and "Calamity," which are also canon.

Outside the Exandria canon, there are plenty of fun one-shots "Critical Role" runs for various reasons, and they're all on a convientitly created YouTube playlist. None of these factor into the overall story of the campaigns, but they feature the beloved actors playing one-shots in popular worlds like "The Legend of Zelda," "Elden Ring," "The Elder Scrolls," and plenty more light-hearted adventures.