Critical Role fireside Twitch stream goes up in smoke after massive fail

Critical Role took ‘fireside chat’ to the next level for the release of Dungeons and Dragons latest campaign book, Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, with the Q&A session being halted because of a literal fire.

Critical Role are used to slaying beasts and navigating through precariously-lit dungeons. The explorers trawl through their worlds, and a fire to them is both a friend and foe ⁠— providing a sense of community when huddled around it, but also an eerie sense of danger.

That’s all within the realms of roleplaying though, where there’s some preparation. When it comes to real life, however, there are some things that a dungeon master and their players can’t prepare for.

So when the roleplaying group set up a fireside Twitch stream to promote the latest DND campaign book, having it stopped by a literal fire was not something the masters had jotted down in the guide.

Marisha Ray and Matthew Mercer tried to make the set of their March 25 stream as homely as possible, putting the fire into fireside chat by setting up right next to a fireplace. However, shortly after getting the fire stoked, their plans started going up in smoke.

Within minutes, the fire alarm triggered. The crew fixed it up by opening up the doors, but as they were about to sit back down, it went off again. This posturing kept going for a few minutes, with every solution in the book drying up.

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Ray, who was on set for the fifth fire alarm in just as many minutes, couldn’t help but laugh. They took the stream offline briefly to touch up the issues, before coming back after with no hitches.

Although the stream was delayed because of the unfortunate smoke alarms, that didn’t stop them from having a bit of fun with it.

When both Ray and Mercer appeared back on set properly, they dressed themselves up with a bit of soot for makeup.

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However, the room was noticeably smoky afterwards, with fans fearing the roleplaying group could get sick from it. Sadly as well, the fireside chat had to go on without the lit fireplace in the background too.

The fortunate thing at the end of it all though was that no one was hurt, nothing was destroyed, and the show went on.

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, the latest DND campaign book, has been a hit with fans of the roleplaying group, who stream their story to tens of thousands of people weekly on Twitch. Hell, we might even see a little tongue-in-cheek side story spawn out of this mishap too.