MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes had long avoided The Legend of Vox Machina. However, due to his colleagues, he caught up with the fantasy series on Amazon Prime and is thrilled. Now, he wants to dive into the world of Dungeons & Dragons himself.
I am not the biggest fan of fantasy. Although I really like movies like The Lord of the Rings or games like Dark Souls, I often avoid the genre. That’s why I ignored the fantasy series The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime Video.
However, after constantly hearing from my colleagues how great the series is, I started the first season. Well, now I’m done with season 3, I want to play Dungeons & Dragons myself, and I might even try Baldur’s Gate 3, a game that hasn’t grabbed my attention before.
Vox Machina is a really good series, mainly due to the childlike and absurd main characters.
You can find a trailer for the series here:
A group to laugh – and fall in love
The series rises and falls with the group itself. When you first meet them, the group Vox Machina seems like a motley crew of individuals who take on quests just for the money. They are goofy, quite brutal in combat, and they don’t seem to take anything too seriously.
But that changes pretty quickly, as it becomes clear in the first season: they have great heroic potential within them. Each member has a different class
, which is important not just for combat, but also for other situations. Thus, characteristics of these classes are represented without having to bluntly explain what exactly they can do. That’s good worldbuilding in a rather simple premise. After all, it’s about dragons and other fantasy beings.
The childish but effective humor would have probably been enough for me, but the greatest strength of Vox Machina is character development. Characters evolve, as do the relationships and dynamics within the group. This happens organically and always feels believable to me. Characters change, but never abruptly.
I was particularly impressed by how love relationships are handled. They are portrayed humorously, yet are also respected. Often, a romantic atmosphere comes through, with just enough time devoted to it so that later, perhaps even tragic moments are more effective.
I have come to love the group in Vox Machina over the 3 seasons because they are all lovable despite their flaws. They feel like real, existing characters, and that is one of the greatest compliments one can give to an animated series.
Vox Machina is so good that I am now even interested in D&D
Vox Machina surprised me and showed me how cool D&D can be. I knew in advance that the series is based on a campaign of the streaming group Critical Role. That’s why I was quite fascinated from the start by how much can come from such a campaign. It felt like a fantasy series based on a book or a comic.
This not only showed me how exciting and epic such a campaign can be, but also that totally absurd nonsense doesn’t have to clash with serious things. Baldur’s Gate 3 couldn’t excite me for D&D, but I find Vox Machina so good that I want to try being a game master to create and implement my own stories. Countless ideas rushed through my mind while watching that I want to try or implement in a campaign myself.
Of course, you can’t fully compare the series to a D&D campaign, but the potential is evident, and often I thought: there’s probably a failed roll
or someone made a bad decision
there. That brought me a lot of joy because it gave the series another layer.
I can only recommend Vox Machina to everyone, even if you’re not a fan of D&D, because aside from its origins, it is a great series that, thanks to its characters, is among the best that can be watched on Amazon Prime Video. The new fantasy series based on another campaign from Critical Role is also worth a look: ‘The Mighty Nein’ not only makes my fan heart happy, but I can also show the series to my friends who have nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons
