Popverse's top stories

• DC Comics cancels Red Hood comic book series
• Simon Kinberg on writing X-Men movies, producing Glenn Powell's The Running Man remake, and co-creating Star Wars Rebels [Popversations]
• Better angels and online demons: A trip down the rabbit hole of Downton Abbey fandom

Of all the big events in Critical Role, perhaps none have the emotional weight — for the cast or the audience — of the final fate of FCG in campaign 3, where the character’s sacrifice saved the rest of the crew and signaled Sam Riegel’s (temporary, thankfully) departure from the show to deal with his cancer diagnosis. Speaking about the sacrifice more than a year later, Riegel revealed what was happening behind the scenes as the scene unfolded.

“I mean, it was unplanned on a few levels. I mean, the cancer was unplanned,” Riegel joked when asked about FCG’s death in episode 91 of campaign 3, back in April 2024. “I knew that night that I was going to be leaving the show for awhile. I didn’t know how, and I also didn’t know we were going to get into a big fight [in the game]. It all just kind of happened that night.”

One thing that was planned, however, was that Riegel was going to have to leave the show following his cancer diagnosis. “I talked to Matt [Mercer, GM] earlier, before the game, about ‘Let’s find a good place for me to sort of exit for awhile,’ and then [the characters] had a really, really hard fight, and we did really bad in it. And then it seemed like, ‘Oh, man. This is a good way to go,’” he revealed. “I think you can, if you look at the episode again a couple of times, you can catch me texting Matt in the middle of the game — like, I’ll be on my phone and I’m sending him a message like, ‘Hey man, I’m going to try to get away from the party and do something.’ It was in the moment, though.”

Liam O’Brien described what it was like for the rest of the players as the scene took shape. “It felt like we lost cabin pressure once we understood what was happening. Like, I felt my vision blurring like a kaleidoscope, thinking of all the layers of the moment.”

Watch for yourself:

Riegel knew that he had to raise the spirits of the room after all of this, and so he declared, “But hey! I’m fine!”

He’ll be back as part of the expanded Critical Role crew in campaign 4, starting October 2.

From the lands of Exandria to your very own smartscreens, Popverse has everything you need to know about the TTRPG phenomenon that is Critical Role. Here you'll find:

• Popverse's Critical Role watch order
• An interview with GM Brennan Lee Mulligan
• The cast's appearance at C2E2 '25

...and more. Roll initiative, player. Adventure awaits.