Critical Role’s tenth anniversary has been an astounding year. With multiple live shows, the upcoming release of the “Mighty Nein,” the highly anticipated launch of Campaign 4, and much more. Critical Role has also released a number of books this year, expanding the world of Exandria. This includes “Critical Role: Vox Machina – Stories Untold,” “Critical Role: Der Katzenprinz & Other Zemnian Tales,” and “Tusk Love.” Joining the list is Sam Riegel’s “Critical Role: Smiley Day!”

“Critical Role: Smiley Day!” follows Riegel’s first Campaign 3 character, Fresh Cut Grass, aka FCG. The kind and empathetic automaton, or aoermaton, attempts to share their best advice with the reader. However, they are continuously interrupted by their friends, resulting in FCG learning a lesson of their own. The art, which is stunning, is illustrated by Thorn L. Knight. “Critical Role: Smiley Day!” is a family-friendly comic reminiscent of beloved children’s books.

In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Riegel shared insight into his new book, “Critical Role: Smiley Day!” He revealed what inspired the book and why he is able to capture the voices of Bells Hells. Riegel also discussed why he and Liam O’Brien were interested in writing Critical Role books for families.

Sam Riegel Keeps FCG’s Lessons Alive In Smiley Day

Temple of Geek: This book is so sweet and so fun. You did such a good job on it!

Sam Riegel:

Thank you so much for jumping on and reading it. I know it’s a long read; it must have taken you hours, days.

Temple of Geek: Oh yeah, days. What was the inspiration behind “Smiley Day!”? Why did you want to write this book?

Sam Riegel:

Well, a big part of Fresh Cut Grass was that he wanted to give advice to people, and well, he didn’t get a chance to for very long because he perished in a ball of flames. So I wanted a little bit more advice to be free in the world. 

But no, seriously, I remember reading books like this to my kids when they were a little bit younger. And it was always so hard to find books that they loved and that I loved and that had good messages but also had really good art. And some of my favorite books are the Mo Willems books, the Pigeon books. I just wanted to give another option to parents out there to read to their kids. And maybe softly introduce them to the wonders of Critical Role and role-playing games.

Temple of Geek: It kind of reminded me of “There’s a Monster At The End of This Book.” Which I was immediately excited for. I got that for my friend’s son a couple of years ago when he had him. So, I was very excited and immediately sent him a picture of the book and was like, We’re reading this to your kid.

Sam Riegel:

Yeah, that book was one of my favorites. The Mo Willems books, B.J. Novak wrote a children’s book called “The Book with No Pictures” that I really liked a lot. Yeah, any book where the main character sort of breaks the fourth wall of the book is always fun to me. And so, we worked with the artist a lot to try to figure out, Fresh Cut Grass keeps talking about the page numbers and the length of the book, and it’s very self-aware. I’ve always loved books like that and wanted to do one myself.

Temple of Geek: It’s so fun. Do you have a favorite piece of advice that Fresh Cut Grass gives in this book?

Sam Riegel:

Well, unfortunately, he doesn’t get to give a lot in the book because he keeps getting interrupted. But especially early on in Campaign Three, he was spouting off kind of nonsensical advice, which I really liked coming up with. There are a couple of those in the book. Like ‘truth is like engine oil; it might taste bitter, but you gotta drink it.’ That doesn’t mean anything, but kind of it does.

It’s like, if you think about it long enough, it kind of makes sense. But I think the main message of the book was one that is important for all of us, which is just in this age of always being aware of other people’s feelings and always making sure that everyone is acknowledged and appreciated. Sometimes you got to make sure that you are in a good headspace too. I don’t think that’s a selfish thing.

I think that’s just all of us need to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves as much as we’re looking out for other people. It’s like they say in airplanes, make sure that your mask is tightly fitted around your mouth before you turn to help other people. Because if you aren’t taking care of yourself, then you’re really no good to anybody.

“There’s Nothing Like Connecting With Your Kids And Your Family Over A TTRPG”

Temple of Geek: You did a really good job of capturing the other members of Bells Hells. Was that in part because you’ve been doing that with things like “Legend of Vox Machina” and “Mighty Nein” as a writer and producer, or was it just that you were kind of in that headspace when you were writing it?

Sam Riegel:

We were still playing Campaign Three when we wrote the book, so it was pretty fresh in my head. But yes, I’ve gotten pretty good at adapting characters from our campaigns into other things between “Legend of Vox Machina,” “Mighty Nein,” this book, and then we have graphic novels that we’ve put out that I’ve weighed in on, and short stories and novels and all sorts of stuff.

I think all of us at Critical Role are pretty good at channeling, sort of like the quick summary of each character and how their voices sound and how they would interact in other different situations. Yeah, we’re experts at it now, but it’s really easy when your friends make such great characters.

Temple of Geek: And then the art in this book is fantastic. I love how expressive it is, especially FCG, who is a robot, so you would think that’d be difficult. Can you talk about collaborating with the artist on this book?

Sam Riegel:

Yeah, Thorn L. Knight did the artwork for the book, and it was a pretty easy collaboration. All of Thorne’s first drafts were pretty much it. The only tricky parts were figuring out, again, how to draw the pages within pages. There’s a part, no spoilers, where Fresh Cut Grass has a bit of an emotional breakdown, and I really wanted it to look like the pages were completely ripped off. In fact, we talked to the publisher about, is there a way to rip the pages in the book that gets sent out, and they said no, that’s not possible. 

That would require someone opening each book and hand-ripping each version, but what we settled on instead was an artistic rendering of tire marks and burn marks, and it worked out really great. Thorn was fantastic, had a real love for all these characters, and drew a very expressive robot. I was worried that with a metal face, you don’t get to do much emoting, but Thorn found a way to really make it very expressive.

Temple of Geek: I love it. And my last question for you: one of the things I thought was very cool was that both you and Liam have now written books set in this world of “Exandria,” but they’re both books that are to some degree for family or for kids to enjoy in a way that is maybe not quite the main campaign style. Why do you think you guys are both wanting to have stories to share with families that are a little bit more kid-friendly?

Sam Riegel

Well, he and I are parents. We both have two kids each. Laura and Travis also have a kid, but he is only just now getting to the age where he can start playing role-playing games, whereas our kids are a little bit older. We’ve been playing D&D and Daggerheart and other stuff with them for years now. There’s nothing like connecting with your kids and your family over a TTRPG. 

It’s so fun to watch them imagine things and bring them to life. I think that’s an experience that we want, that Liam and I especially want to share with everybody. There’s a lot of Critters out there who started watching our show when they were maybe in college, and now they’re older and they have kids of their own, and we want them to have that same experience and that same thrill of sharing imagination with their kids.

“Critical Role: Smiley Day!” will hit shelves September 30. It is available for pre-order now.