Critical Role Is Heading to Middle-earth With a Big Lord of the Rings Collaboration

Published Oct 21, 2026, 6:14 AM EDT Aimee Hart is an Entertainment and Gaming staff writer here at Polygon. After watching the original trilogy at five, she decided to make Star Wars her entire personality and hasn't let go of the franchise since. Aimee also has a great love for Dungeons & Dragons and everything Critical Role. She has been a games, entertainment, tech, and culture reporter and critic for 10 years, with bylines at Inverse, Fanbyte, Rolling Stone, and many more. Critical Role meets The Rings of Power in a new adventure Image: Critical Role Sign in to your Polygon.com account As much as we all love Critical Role’s long, multi-episode adventures, the cast has also delivered plenty of Dungeons & Dragons and Daggerheart one-shots. While some have proven controversial (who can forget the Wendy collaboration?), several sponsored one-shots have also been incredibly fun to watch, like Control: Resonant and even Suikoden. Beyond the shorter viewing commitment, these one-shots often shake up how the Critical Role cast plays by adapting the setting to D&D mechanics, which generally suit high fantasy better. However, Critters won't have to worry about whether D&D gameplay suits this next one-shot, as Critical Role will be collaborating with a familiar setting: The Lord of the Rings' Middle-Earth. Critical Role meets The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power at TwitchCon Fans attending TwitchCon San-Diego this November are in for a treat: a new Critical Role x Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power collaboration. Taking place on Nov. 15 in the Glitch Theater at 11AM, The Rings of Power: A Middle-Earth One-Shot will feature the Critical Role and Prime Video's The Rings of Power cast in a new tabletop adventure. Critical Role co-founder Liam O’Brien, best known for playing Vax in the animated adaptation of Campaign 1, The Legend of Vox Machina, will lead the one-shot. Image: Amazon Studios So far, it hasn't been confirmed whether the one-shot will use the D&D system or Critical Role’s own TTRPG, Daggerheart. Some collaborations, such as the Overwatch one-shot, have used Daggerheart, while others have used D&D. There is also a small chance that the one-shot could use the ruleset of The One Ring, the successful TTRPG set in Tolkien's Middle-earth. There hasn’t been solid confirmation on which members of The Rings of Power and Critical Role casts will be involved in this one-shot. According to TwitchCon’s official website, more details are coming soon. This isn’t the first time Critical Role has done an actual-play one-shot set in Middle-earth, collaborating with Warner Bros. for their 2017 game, Shadow of War. Whether they’ll all be playing as trolls and orcs in this game, however, remains to be seen.