Sam Riegel


 * This page is about the actor. For the character from the "Liam's Quest" special episodes, see Sam Riegel (character).

Sam Riegel (@SamRiegel) is a voice actor who plays Veth Brenatto, a halfling (formerly goblin) rogue, on Critical Role. He played Scanlan Shorthalt, a gnome bard, and Taryon Darrington, a human artificer, in the first campaign. He has also been the Dungeon Master for several special episodes.

The Roots of Critical Role
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, which would suit him due to his background in music both from college and his help in writing show ideas for The Voice.

Pre-Stream
Sam recorded a few short clips of the pre-stream Critical Role game from when they were running Pathfinder. These clips can be found on his vine page, here.

Critical Role
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!" He often pulled songs from pop culture and modified their lyrics, as in, "Here's a little song I wrote! It's filled with inspiration, note for note. Don't fuck up. Or I'll kill you."

Sam became the first player in the Critical Role canon to introduce a second player character when Scanlan Shorthalt left Vox Machina, to be replaced by Taryon Darrington in. He would later reprise his role as Scanlan in, leaving Tary behind in.

Main Storyline

 * Scanlan Shorthalt, gnome bard (The Campaign of Vox Machina)
 * Taryon Darrington, human artificer (The Campaign of Vox Machina)
 * Veth Brenatto, halfing rogue (formerly Nott the Brave, goblin rogue)(Campaign 2)

One-Shots and Miniseries

 * Sam Riegel (character), human ranger ( and )
 * Obby "the Rat", dwarf rogue
 * Ur-Eden Goodthink, troll monk ( and )
 * Sam Riegel (vampire), vampire ( and )
 * Peddy Tuxpin, bear
 * Benicio Lorelei, human blood hunter ("Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36))
 * Claire, human wizard
 * Bundlestein Sprucenberg, Christmas elf fighter
 * The Archvile
 * Slaughter Grimm, argonian necromancer ("The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood - Part One: Death & Taxes" (Sx55))

Trivia

 * On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster likes to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that are either mispronounced or wordplay that sounds close to their names. Here are the names for Sam Riegel so far:
 * On September 11, 2001, Sam and his wife Quyen witnessed the attacks on the World Trade Center. They lived in an apartment nearby.
 * Sam is a known wine snob, which the cast often tease him about.
 * Every week, Sam retells the events of Critical Role as a bedtime story for his children.
 * Sam Riegel created "The Meta Gaming Pigeon" concept in
 * In 2018, Riegel received the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program for his work on Danger & Eggs.
 * Sam's chosen drink for his Between the Sheets interview was a sidecar.
 * Sam has come up with dozens of bits to promote Critical Role 's sponsors during the announcements at the beginning of episodes. He often sings jingles, dresses up in costumes, or performs strange feats to entertain the audience, with the actual sponsorship often simply thrown into them. He will sometimes enlist other cast members to participate.
 * Some of these bits are recurring and even have their own lore, like the Nord VPN ads, which spawned The Nordverse.
 * One of Sam's most iconic bits was his campaign to be elected as President of D&D Beyond. Eventually, Sam lost the election of 69th President of D&D Beyond to his campaign rival, Liam O'Brien. However, in a twist ending, he accepted Liam's "proposal" to become the the first ever co-presidents of D&D Beyond. They were then told that there is no such thing as President of D&D Beyond.
 * During the second campaign, Sam has worn every shirt he wore in Campaign One in the same order, with a few exceptions. Critrole Stats has compiled a gallery of all of Sam's shirts.
 * He finally completed the bit during, when he wore the shirt from the campaign one finale.
 * Sam began wearing shirts with embarassing pictures of the other main crew members shortly afterwards.
 * Another one of Sam's running gags is his gigantic drinkware. During Campaign One, he drank from a massive tankard, and taped stickers, pictures and text to the bottom that could be seen while he tipped the drink back. Similarly, he acquired several giant flasks from fans during Campaign Two, in reference to the Flask of Perpetual Booze, and also taped jokes to it. He even taped objects to it, like a spinning wheel and a basketball hoop. Critrole Stats has compiled a gallery of Sam's mug and flask for every episode.
 * Sam has stated that he never washed his mug or his flask and that drinking from them tastes kind of weird.
 * Every Halloween, the cast of Critical Role dresses up in costume for one episode. Sam has dressed up as Burt Reynolds (2015), Hotis (2016), Pac-Man (2017), a bottle of ketchup (2018), Phoenix Wright (2019) and Kiri (2020).