Critical Role’s Robbie Daymond on Campaign 3, How He Named His Character, and More (Exclusive)

Robbie Daymond might be gone from Critical Role for now, but the memories he made in the hearts of Critters will last a lifetime. Last year, veteran voice actor Robbie Daymond surprised Critical Role fans when he joined the show’s new campaign from its outset as a guest player. Daymond first appeared on Exandria Unlimited, a Critical Role-produced show designed to be an in-canon companion to the large D&D campaigns shown on the show. Daymond reprised his Exandria Unlimited character Dorian Storm, an air genasi bard who balanced confidence with a permeating anxiety and charming naïveté, and utterly charmed the fanbase.

Daymond departed Critical Role after a fourteen-episode guest stint on the show earlier this monthDaymond departed Critical Role after a fourteen-episode guest stint on the show earlier this month, making him the most tenured of any of the show’s many guest players. ComicBook.com spoke to Daymond about Dorian’s origins, about the experiences that he and his character went through, and what he thinks will happen next. 

Note: This is the first of a two-part interview, the second part will be published tomorrow.

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ComicBook.com: So, my first question for you is how did you feel your Critical Role experience went? You were the longest tenured guest cast member with 14 episodes on the main campaign. And that’s not even including Exandria Unlimited. So how did you feel that all of this went?

Robbie Daymond: Man, I wish I had some juicy stories for you or some dirt or something fun, but the real answer is it was a dream. It was absolutely awesome. I couldn’t ask to work with a better group of creators. Everyone in the cast and behind the scenes are the most giving, respectful, open, kind group of people I’ve ever worked with. I’ve been working with them for a little over a year now since the inception of Exandria Unlimited. And yeah, I look forward to it every time I get to work with that crew.

Exandria Unlimited was basically your first experience playing Dungeons & Dragons. I read that you played in one tabletop RPG game somewhere else before jumping into this.

Daymond: I did, I got asked to do some sort of special. But honestly, the other show was like, “Just come and goof around.” And I didn’t know the rules, I didn’t know anything. I was not briefed. So it was this wild madcap, semi D&D thing.

But actually playing the game itself…I’m from an itty-bitty, small town in the Midwest. So, if I were to play D&D as a kid or in high school, it would’ve been with my mom, some chickens from the farm next door, and my dog, I didn’t really have much of an adventuring party. So yeah, I feel like I got a late start, but I’m absolutely loving it now. And I don’t see myself not playing again in my adult life.

That was literally going to be my next question – so now that you’ve gotten all this D&D under your belt, you want to keep going?

Daymond: Heck yeah, man. I’m like a hyper-social kind of old soul. I’m also like an elder millennial. So I’m in this weird period where I can’t derive all of my value from media and being online 24/7. I need face-to-face socialization. 

So I feel like D&D is an avenue where if people that I liked were to invite me to play at a home game, I would absolutely go if I wanted to socialize with that group of people. So for me, any excuse to put yourself in an environment where you get to know someone better and bond over an enjoyable form of theater of the mind and just hanging out. Yeah man, I’m in.

Do you have any interest in being a DM?

Daymond: Oh, man. Here’s the thing, man. I feel that’s like when you ask an actor if they want to direct. What a stereotype if I were to say yes, but I mean, sure. Here’s the thing. I like to do things right. So I don’t feel like I could jump in right away. I would need to learn, I would need to lockdown the rules, I need to learn to be a better player, I want to be around as many DMs as I could before I started and found my own style. If I were to say yes, it wouldn’t be for a hot minute. I would want to learn the craft as well as I could before I presented it to people that I care about. I value stuff like that. So I’d want to do the best I could. I need a little more time with the old Player’s Handbook I think.

I’ll just say that when I jumped into tabletop roleplaying games, my first experience, and most of my experience was as a DM. So, I learned the rules from behind the DM screen, as opposed to being a player first. So, you definitely could do it.

Daymond: All right. You give me hope. You give me hope. I feel like it’s within my skillset. Like, I’m a lifelong gamer, I have an overactive imagination and I’m a rules nerd, a perfectionist. So maybe I’d be a good DM or maybe I’d just be out to murder all my players who knows, but either way, sounds like fun.

So let’s talk a little bit about your character, Dorian. What were your inspirations when you first conceived of him as a character?

Daymond: Wow, that’s a great question. I guess selfishly, as an actor, I really enjoy playing against type. So, I’m very much an extreme extrovert, I feel pretty confident in social situations, I like to play music and sing for people, I like to perform. I’ve been doing it professionally for 30 years. And then I was also sort of thinking about how D&D is fun because you’re given an archetype. So, my main goal was how can I turn that archetype on its head.

I thought about the bard that’s already been played in Critical Role. No one’s going to be Scanlan, like Sam crushed that archetype in a sense that I feel like it’s as good as it could get. So I thought, “All right, that’s been done, what can I do that’ll challenge me? And what can I do that I can play?” 

When we were doing screen tests for Exandria Unlimited, I played around with a couple different classes and characters. And I was like, “All right, let’s tap into what it means to be the new guy and be thrown into a nervous type situation.” So let’s try to find a character that is competent and charming, but also nervous. So what’s more fun than a bard with stage fright? What’s more fun than high charisma with social anxiety? I think those people exist and playing a role like that, which I got to flesh out as the games went on, was a real joy because those kind of characters are complex and people can connect with them and I can find joy playing them. And, hopefully I can represent a group of people that feel the same way in their lives.

As a millennial myself, I think there’s a lot of existential anxiety in general that kind of surrounds our generation. I’ve noticed that in recent years, people have been really drawn to characters that acknowledge the anxiety they face. And I think that’s one of the reasons why the fanbase reacted so positively towards Dorian.

Daymond: Oh, well, that’s really nice to hear. Whenever you play a role, whether you’ve created it or you’re just bringing someone else’s writing to life, you hope that the audience connects with it. I come from a theater background, that’s what I have my undergrad and my master’s degree in, so I miss the aspect of connecting with the audience in a visceral way. 

The way that entertainment’s evolved, I feel like whatever opinions you might have about it, Twitch chat stands in for the audience in a way. Like, when you’re doing a play, the feedback is immediate, you hear groans and whimpers and cries and laughs and applause. When you do something that’s streaming in real time, regardless of whether or not it’s prerecorded, and you see people’s immediate visceral reaction to it, it’s really enjoyable. And to be able to watch it separated from that is also is a wild experience. So yeah, I’m glad to hear that.

Did you lurk in the Twitch chats?

Daymond: It depends, a couple of times. I knew when I pulled some creative and/or controversial plays, I was curious about what the reaction was. I have a busy life, so I couldn’t watch every episode every Thursday night.  But, I did tune in live for probably a good half of the episodes. So, yeah I peeked in on the Twitch chat.

So I have to ask about Dorian’s real first name, Bronte. Is that a reference to the Bronte sisters?

Daymond: It is not. No, no, it has a different meaning. Obviously, “second son” is pretty obvious. Dorian is the second son, and there’s obviously a weather theme, but Bronte in Greek means thunder. So I was leaning into the thunder aspect of it.

His stage name is obviously derived from his real name. Dorian, everybody figured that one out, it’s a musical mode. It was also the name of my first pet. We had a great dane named Dorian, and obviously Picture of Dorian Gray,  because he’s got this youthful thing going on. And then Storm is cheesy, I wanted a cheesy stage name and then Bronte means thunder in Greek.

See, I thought… So, I don’t know if you know this, but the Bronte sisters, they created one of the first like proto-tabletop RPGs.

Daymond: Wow! Well then, I totally meant that. Of course they did. That’s the double meaning I always intended.

When I first heard that that Dorian’s real name was Bronte, I thought, “Robbie must be a historian of tabletop RPGs.”

Daymond: Fix the article, change it right now so that was how I came up with the name! That’s really cool. Well, I love happy accidents for sure.

So, you did Exandria Unlimited, and then you immediately jumped into the third campaign and helped define the tone and feel of it.  Was that intimidating at all, knowing that you were going to be sitting down at the table for the first episode of the third campaign and play for who knows how long?

Daymond: Intimidating, that’s an interesting word. I like all the cast members of Critical Role and it was never an intimidating environment. So, I don’t know if that’s the right word. I wasn’t even nervous. It was more that I wanted to do justice to what that group has already built. 

Let’s say you’ve never played baseball before and all of a sudden someone says, “All right, you’re starting pitcher for the Dodgers.” You would probably be a little freaked out! But yeah, I just wanted to do a good job and make my mark and tee up the future for the other characters and my character, knowing that at some point I was probably going out the door,

But one thing that Matt said to me from the beginning was “Let’s just play.”  So there was never a plan to have me there for a set number of episodes. I thought I was going to be there for a handful of episodes. So, as they continued on and we got into more episodes, I’m like, “Okay, well, cool. I guess I’m going to be around for a minute.” 

And what an experience! What a four months, it was absolutely stellar, so much fun. It was never like I was anticipating or waiting for my exit until the story cues came our way.

So, what was more difficult for you, learning the actual mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons and learning how to play a bard within the game or trying to figure out how you and Dorian fit into the dynamic of the cast since they’ve been playing together for years?

Daymond: The mechanics were probably more difficult because that’s what I was least familiar with. And I know I said it earlier, but the cast built a really welcoming and dynamic vibe to just walk into. I never felt like an outsider. 

Having the anchors of Fearne and Orym from the previous eight games that we had played through together was also really big for me. And, then finding my relationships with the other characters as they developed, I feel like if you’re really in the roleplaying and truly committed to the improv and the character that you’re playing, those things manifests naturally. But, as far as fitting into the vibe of the cast… well, I like all those people, that’s easy. They’re awesome. I think we’re friends, so yeah, it’s great.

ComicBook.com: So what was it like to get to participate in all of the pre-game skits? To be honest, I love watching the actual Critical Role campaign, but I think the skits in the first 10 minutes of the shows are always my favorite part. 

Robbie Daymond: Yeah, that’s wild, right? That’s a unique to Critical Role sort of pre-show that you don’t see many other places do. It was fun, man. It’s like the wild, wild west! Like, they just threw stuff at me. And I think that they gave me a few softballs right off the bat and then they were like, “Oh, he can play, let’s go.” 

So, it evolved from being, “Hey, here’s a script, think about it. You’ve got 10 minutes before we record this.” And then it got to the point where the night before Sam says, “Hey, I wrote this like Dave Matthews thing, you can play guitar, right?” And I was like, “Uh, okay.” When I get there, and they’re like, “OK, here’s the loosely-based script that we’re going to do, but basically we’re just going to wing it.” And you just go, “All right, well, hope you got your play hat on today, cause it’s going to get weird.” It was super fun.

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Check back tomorrow to read about the real-life inspiration behind Dorian’s backstory and whether Daymond knew that Bertrand Bell wasn’t long for this world.