We Were Doing Vox Machina 30 Years Ago

(Image by author using Imagen3)

The Heavenstone Guardians and a celebration of Warhammer Quest

Tabletop games are certainly having a moment, reflected perhaps best in the popularity of venerable RPG Dungeons and Dragons. And just as video streaming allowed a generation to raise up videogames players to celebrity status, so has the platform given rise to Actual Play. Where magazine articles once chronicled the exploits of wargaming opposition, internet video has launched channels such as Critical Role where audiences tune in to watch professional voice actors play out DnD adventures on their phones and TVs. Critical Role has grown into something of a media franchise itself, with an animated series serialising their adventures. The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime chronicles this rag-tag bunch of adventurers as they drink, shag and kill their way to glory.

Younger viewers (as in Gen Z in their 20s and 30s: this series is not for kids!) might assume this was a relatively new phenomenon, their other experience of DnD being the 1980’s basement from Stranger Things but nothing could be further from the truth. True, we didn’t have the internet to play it out on but my friends and I spent the latter years of the 1990’s metaphorically drinking, shagging and killing our way to glory not in Dungeons and Dragons but instead the actual best dungeon crawling board game ever made: Warhammer…