Game Design Article: Critical Role - Who are the Challengers?
Tim Frie
Critical Role is one of the most popular fantasy role playing actual play shows hosted on streaming services. The show stars prominent voice actors from the US animation and video game industry. The show began in 2015 and quickly found its way into the hearts of tens of thousands of fans. The show is currently on its third major campaign, but our Challenger Series decks focus on characters from the first two campaigns.
Vox Machina's Vax’ildan and Vex’ahlia
From the first campaign, Vox Machina, Vax’ildan is a thief and a master of small blades. Often juggling a trio of magical daggers, Vax is an expert at sneaking and sinking a well-placed blade into his foes. While many came to view him as ‘brooding’, he’s not without numerous moments of playfulness and mischief, engaging in a war of pranks with his fellow adventurers that lasted years.
With Vax, I really wanted to focus on his tendency to send a volley of daggers at his enemy. You can see this in the attack “Dagger, Dagger, Dagger” as well as some of the other attacks dedicated to him in the deck. This theme continues in his second ability, increasing the damage he inflicts the more times you’ve attacked with him in the turn. The speed bonuses he provides represent the thief attacking with an element of surprise. The more you attack, the less of a surprise it is.
While Vax enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the cities, Vex found solace in the woods and wilds. Spending her time hunting and tracking, she eventually stole her own little Trinket, a bear cub she freed from poachers. A peerless archer, Vex’ahlia is a master of ranged combat. She also enjoys the back and forth of securing a good deal from merchants.
The idea of sending a final arrow shot long into the distance is emulated with Vex’s enhance ability to play an attack ignoring progressive difficulty. In addition to this, I really wanted to focus on one of her primary abilities from the show. Vex has the ability to magically mark any target, focusing her attacks and increasing their potency against her mark. Vex has 3 abilities on her character to ensure she always has access to this specific spell “Mark Your Prey” and gets extra oomph with the card. You can definitely expect a fair number of Ranged Weapon attacks (that is, attacks with both the Ranged and Weapon keywords) to work with her character card.
Mighty Nein's Jester Lavorre and Nott The Brave
From the second campaign, Mighty Nein, we have two characters: Jester and Nott. Jester Lavorre grew up sequestered in the home of her mother Marion, a renowned performer and courtesan of the Menagerie Coast. If her patrons discovered Jester’s existence, it would not do well for Marion’s career or prospects, and so Jester was kept mostly a secret from the world. But Jester did not let this seclusion get her down. Boisterous and exuberant, Jester’s whimsical energy and gentle mischief brightened the mood of everyone around her. Still, a child secluded tends to come up with their own imaginary friends, but in Jester’s case, she seemingly made friends with an actual deity, and their friendship grew such that she was granted power due to her belief that he was “the coolest, most awesome guy”.
Jester has the ability to cause a little chaos for her rival, messing with their momentum, while also gaining her own bit of resources. To add to her trickery, she can trade a momentum for any Spell in her discard pile. Since Healers traditionally always have access to healing and curing spells, this was our way of letting Jester grab a premium heal effect during gameplay. Ultimately, this ability ended up a little more potent than simply grabbing the spell Wound / Restore. Jester can grab any spell she has access to in her discard pile, keeping her rival on their toes.
Nott the Brave is a goblin thief devoted to protecting her friend, the mage Caleb Widogast, so that he can one day repay her with his magical capabilities. She is often short-tempered, with a penchant for drinking and stealing. With a fear of water and a love for buttons and trinkets, Nott the Brave formed a fairly quick bond with many members of her adventuring party, including Jester. Over time, she extended her protective nature to all she considered her family.
Nott tends to have sticky fingers, not even necessarily out of greed. We used this tendency to give her the ability to grab the top card of her discard pile, but then replace it with something else randomly. Either way, you benefit from either a card you wanted to be able to play, or getting a momentum if you didn’t keep the original card you took in your hand. As a 7-hand-sized character, Nott will often have less health than her rival. Because of this, her damage bonus granting ability will regularly be useful. And since the cost is to mill the top card of your deck to your discard pile, it gives Nott the Brave extra options when deciding whether or not to use her other ability.
There’s so much more flavor in these decks and I can’t wait for you all to see them and get a hold of them. It was my pleasure to work on translating these beloved characters into our game system, and perhaps later on we can provide some more of the stories on how all the cards came to be. Thanks for reading, Tune in to our Critical Role: Enhanced tomorrow, and check your local retailer for these Critical Role Challenger Series decks! Is it Thursday, March 21 yet?
In the meantime, tune in Critical Role Enhanced, which will premiere on our YouTube at 9AM PT on 2/28.
Want to share your voice? Join in on the conversations happening at our:
Product information: Critical Role Challenger Series Product Page