When adapting hours of actual playtime, the cast and crew of The Legend of Vox Machina had to make some changes. Some are overly emotional storylines that grew out of what were originally smaller moments, while others are an opportunity to incorporate lore that developed years after the original series.
And in the case of the season finale, it was a chance for a cast member to make amends for a spur-of-the-moment decision years ago.
[Ed. note: This post contains big spoilers for the end of season 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina, as well as spoilers for the Vox Machina Critical Role campaign.]
Most of the group decide to split up: Vex (Laura Bailey) and Percy (Taliesin Jaffe) will return to Whitestone to help rebuild; Vax (Liam O’Brien) will accompany Keyleth (Marisha Ray) on the next leg of her great spiritual journey; Scanlan (Sam Riegel) will go on a world tour with his daughter; and Grog (Travis Willingham) and Pike (Ashley Johnson) will stick together and have more adventures.
It’s all pretty amicable, bittersweet, but ultimately the result of the characters just needing to be in different places after their big climatic battle.
However, the moment in the original campaign wasn’t nearly as peaceful – both in and out of character.
“My character in the original campaign had a big upswing in the group,” says Riegel. “As the season went on, it just didn’t seem right to end a season with Scanlan completely pissed off at the rest of the group after what they had just been through. It made sense in the election campaign because the campaign was still ongoing.” He pauses and then grimaces before adding: “And even in the election campaign it didn’t make sense! Everyone at the table was mad at me for doing that.”
“Shocked!” Bailey interjects.
Tabletop role-playing games are improvisational in nature, and as the story continues, players can have their characters make big, drastic decisions, like rushing into their parties. However, since a television show is more limited in scope, it was important to keep the story within scope.
“[It] It just didn’t seem like a fun ending,” Riegel said of the change. “If this is the end of the series, it’s not a fun way to end the series with a character angry at everyone else, then roll the credits. So we tried to merge and recast this story into something that was more of a bittersweet goodbye than an angry goodbye, in the hopes that we could revisit that anger later in the series when we get more seasons. “
The season ends with a lot hooded cultists singing eerie chantsso the newly announced fourth season of The Legend of Vox Machina will definitely up the ante. At least in the meantime, we can take comfort in knowing that they are parting on good terms.
