Sam Riegel


 * This page is about the actor.  For the character from a one-shot campaign, see Sam Riegel (character).

Sam Riegel (@SamReigel) is a voice actor who played Scanlan, the Gnome Bard, from the start of Critical Role to. He currently plays Taryon Darrington. He also played a fictional version of himself in and Obby "the Rat" in.

Before Critical Role began, Sam and his best friend Liam O'Brien created a podcast called allworknoplay, with the purpose of trying to get more fun into their busy schedules. Towards the end of episode 2 of the podcast, the two of them talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game. Sam asked Liam what was the "worst character" to play as, and Liam suggested a gnome.

Sam talked about being a Bard in the podcast, and due to his background in music both from college and his help in writing show ideas for The Voice, he was most likely convinced to play that type of character.

Prior to streaming their D&D game on Critical Role, Sam recorded a few short clips of their game back when they were running Pathfinder. These clips can be found on his vine page here.

As Scanlan the bard, he was known for improvising songs on the fly. Examples include: "I think you're really handsome and nice! You're going to have inspiration dice!"

Sam became the first player in the Critical Role canon to introduce a second player character when Scanlan Shorthalt left Vox Machina and Taryon Darrington subsequently joined in.