Critical Role has gained a lot of attention in the last few years by streaming their weekly Dungeons and Dragons sessions online. They're still in the process of completing their 2nd campaign, but have done a handful of one-shots since the show started airing in March 2015. One-shots are self-contained campaigns that can be completed within the time constraints of a single session or episode. Some have been short stories that are canon to the narratives from their 2 major campaigns, while others can be enjoyed entirely on their own. Critical Role and The Club of Misfits falls under the latter, and combines Harry Potter, D&D, and an iconic '80s film in a comically entertaining tabletop setting.
One-shots are a great way to introduce new players to lengthy RPG games like D&D. Similarly, those interested in Critical Role may not know how to start watching their hundreds of hours of content as each episode usually runs about 3-5 hours, so these mini-campaigns are a great way to test the waters. The Club of Misfits plays by D&D's 5th edition rules and because of its familiar wizarding setting, serves as a great preface for tabletop gaming.
Typically, Matthew Mercer is the Dungeon or Game Master, but the other Critical Role members have all had a chance to plan and narrate their own RPG one-shots. Voice actress Laura Bailey (One Piece, The Last of Us Part II) plays Vex-ahlia de Rolo (the half-elf ranger/rogue in Critical Role's 1st campaign The Legend of Vox Machina) and Jester Lavorre (the tiefling cleric in the 2nd campaign The Mighty Nein). She nervously — albeit adorably — takes on the role of DM in her magical Club of Misfits one-shot featured on Critical Role's Twitch and YouTube channels.
Critical Role & The Club Of Misfits: A Harry Potter D&D One-Shot
It's a holiday weekend at the school of Shmogwarts and the young witches and wizards are out drinking Nutterbeer in the nearby town of Smogsmeade, but 5 unlucky students are stuck at school, annoyed with the detention time they must serve. Watching the cast try to suppress their laughter and dodge copyrighted materials is entertaining in itself, but it's interesting to see how they take on the roles of their made-up characters. Sam Riegel, who's never read the Harry Potter books, plays popular Driffingor Claire Sittich, who is of the Wizard class. Taliesin Jaffe and Travis Willingham are both from House Smitherpin, and play jock Fighter (Eldritch Knight) Andy and bully (Sorcerer) John Bunder, respectively. Liam O'Brian plays oddball Druid (Circle of the Moon) Allison of House Horfelpoerf. Brian Wayne Foster, the host of Talks Machina — a weekly talk show that discusses Critical Role events — doesn't typically sit in for the group's D&D sessions, save for this and a few other one-shots. Still, his role as a nerdy Pigeonclaw Cerlic is fun to watch, and his character goes by his namesake.
Their character tropes make the '80s reference a bit obvious, but without giving too much away, the students are left alone when Professor Furbin — one of Laura's NPCs — is called away for an emergency. The players commence in some engaging improvised roleplay before getting surprised by their first encounter. Laura gets pretty creative as a DM, especially near the end as she cleverly incorporates a classic Harry Potter scene into one of her battles.
The Club of Misfits has a runtime of less than 3 hours. This makes it more easily digestible than an entire campaign such as The Legend of Vox Machina — which, although lengthy, is certainly worth the watch as it's currently being recreated as a animated series for Amazon Prime. In addition to Dungeons and Dragons, the group has recorded other tabletop mini-campaigns from games like Pathfinder and Vampire: The Masquerade. Critical Role streams their adventures live every Thursday at 7pm Pacific on their Twitch channel.
Source: YouTube/Critical Role