Liam O'Brien

This page is about the actor.  For the character from a one-shot campaign, see Liam O'Brien (character).

Liam O'Brien

Liam O'Brien (@VoiceOfOBrien) is a voice actor and voice director who plays the character Vax'ildan in Critical Role. He also played Kurt in "Critical Trolls for Extra Life" (Sx02) and Jayne in "Critical Role: Bar Room Blitz" (Sx21). He was the Dungeon Master for "Critical Role EXTRA – Liam's Quest!" (Sx12) and "Critical Role Extra – The Return of Liam!" (Sx15).

Critical Role is Liam's first "pure" game of Dungeons & Dragons. Before this, he was a Dungeon Master in his sophomore year of high school as well as a player, which, as he states, "is totally cheating." He also ran a Rift game as well as a Cyberpunk game. After Critical Role became such a large part of Liam's life, he began running several D&D games for his children.^{[citation needed]}

The Roots of Critical Role

Liam was indirectly responsible for starting the Pathfinder game that would later become Critical Role. He was the director for Matthew Mercer in Resident Evil 6, a video game. Matthew kept telling Liam about how he was running a D&D game and kept inviting Liam to join. Eventually, Liam asked Matt to run a game for his birthday, and he invited some friends for a game of Pathfinder with Matt as the DM. Liam enjoyed the game so much that he messaged everybody, asking if they would like to start a continuing game. They have been playing ever since.

Toward the end of the second episode of the podcast allworknoplay, Liam and Sam Riegel talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game.

Liam and Laura Bailey decided to play the twins Vax'ildan and Vex'ahlia (respectively) in the game because they both share the same birthday (May 28th). When creating their character backgrounds, both he and Laura spent three hours at a diner creating their story.^{[citation needed]}

Liam has stated that D&D has helped him get through a rough patch in his life after he developed a problem with one of his ears. It became very disorienting, but he has found that running has helped, as well as spending time with his family and friends.

Before the Critical Role stream, Liam recorded snippets of their Pathfinder gameplay. He still records some behind-the-scenes footage of Critical Role.

When asked if he could switch to any player character in the game, Liam said Scanlan.^{[citation needed]}

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 Liam O'Brien so far:
  • Liam O’Braun
  • Prince Liam Oberon
  • Liehelm O’Brain
  • Liam Oberon
  • Leave Him O’Dryen
  • Bleed Him and Fry Him
  • Feed Him Old Lion
  • Mausoleum Robe Tie-In
  • Clean Him, No Pryin'
  • DM O’Dyin’
  • Plead Him No Tryin’
  • Lead Man Old Byron
  • Zipper Low Flyin’
  • Ream Him Fo' Dyin'
  • Fleein' All Dyin'
  • Healin' by Fryin'
  • Fryin' Up Simon

External Links

• Critical Role's Liam O'Brien talks his love of Dungeons & Dragons (September 10, 2015)
• Critical Role's Liam O'Brien: Where you've heard him before (January 27, 2016)
• Liam's Reddit AMA (September 6, 2016)