Critical Role, the streamed D&D show starring a bunch of voice actors, has been a phenomenon. While there are plenty of streaming shows and live games (it was Penny Arcade's Acquisitions Incorporated that got me interested in playing D&D,) Critical Role seems to stand atop them as the most popular.
Thanks in large part to how seriously the cast takes its characters (not that they don't have silly fun,) the show has been a great showcase of improvisational storytelling. I definitely run my game more in that mode than dungeon-crawling "let's try to maximize the gold and XP we earn" style gameplay.
Anyway, given their background in voice over for animation, it's not so crazy that they would try to make a cartoon thanks to the popularity of the show. Taking the characters from their first campaign, collectively known as Vox Machina, they launched a kickstarter campaign to create a 22-minute animated special taking place before the livestream began.
They set a goal of $750,000, with a deadline of April 14th. They reached that goal in less than an hour. Now, only about 24 hours after the kickstarter launched, they have over $4 million pledged, and are scrambling to create new stretch goals. At this point, they're looking to make 4 times as much content, likely being four separate episodes, as well as doing a number of one-shot games including "The Search for Bob," surrounding the random Githzerai guy they met during the Search for Grog game, as well as a Vox Machina x Mighty Nein game, which will be a kind of mash-up one-shot involving characters from both campaigns.
Anyway, they likely broke some records for day-one funding, and while the pace has certainly slowed, they could be on track to be the biggest kickstarter campaign ever (I believe the previous record was like 6.7 million, and they're already 2/3 of the way there after a day.)
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