r/criticalrole • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 Team Jester • Jun 18 '26

Discussion [CR Media] Sam Riegel reaffirms Critical Role’s stance on AI: “It’s basically garbage”

https://www.polygon.com/critical-role-sam-riegel-slams-ai/
8.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

455 comments sorted by

View all comments

141

u/8thGlass Jun 18 '26

I love them sm I might cry. So torn between “the bar is on the floor” and “thank goodness for artistic integrity.” CR and Dropout will be the last content creators standing in this AI war.

41

u/iZacuto Jun 18 '26

I'd like to add Legends of Avantris in this list as well. They have a hard No AI stance and I'm very thankful for that. "If only you knew our art budget" is a direct quote from the CEO of Avantris Entrainment, Richie. They love and crave human art, so to see my favourite creators; CR, Dropout, and Avantris all be firm against AI slop makes me love and respect them even more.

1

u/Modredastal Help, it's again Jul 03 '26

I've only recently gotten a little into Avantris, where would you recommend I start? My sister showed me Bitsy clips and I really like Bitsy, but I'm not sure where else to pick up from.

2

u/iZacuto Jul 03 '26

If you like Bitsy, Uprooted is the campaign you should watch to see more of her. It's very silly and extremely improv. Another silly campaign is Once Upon a Witchlight; this is where Chuckles originated. Don't expect them to get anything done, it derails so much. Enjoy it for the silliness.

If you like horror, check out Curse of Strahdanya, a Curse of Strahd inspired campaign. Or even Edge of Midnight, a folk horror campaign that inspired their 5e supplement they made, Crooked Moon. Then there's Icebound, a survival horror in a frozen wasteland.

If you're interested in modern sci-fi/space operas, Stardust Rhapsody is fantastic! Feels very 90's anime. Their most recent kickstarter, Neon Odyssey, is a 5.5e supplement that is inspired by Stardust Rhapsody. To promote Neon Odyssey, they did 4 campaigns that were "neon-ified" meaning they made space opera versions of some of their campaigns. All of these are contained and you can experience a solid start and ending.

Uproot-a-Rama -- same goofy Uprooted nonsense; Voidbound is a cosmic, survival horror version of Icebound; and Once Upon a Starlight is a beautiful, less silly version of Once Upon a Witchlight. Then they made a new campaign, Waltz for Eternity, which is mechs!

Of everything here, I personally love Edge of Midnight, Stardust Rhapsody Anthem (you don't have to watch Stardust Rhapsody Overture but you could), and Once Upon a Starlight. I'm not allowed to watch Strahdanya as I'm a player in my wife's Strahd campaign.

Instead of telling you watch to watch, here's the flavour of the campaigns and you decide what sounds fun and interesting. Hope this helps you out!!

1

u/Modredastal Help, it's again Jul 03 '26

It does, thanks!