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Liam O’Brien wanted his new Critical Role character to be fantasy Faceman from The A-Team
There's a whole lot of Liam O'Brien's own past as a theater person in Critical Role Campaign 4's Halandil Fang. But there's some classic '80s TV in there as well

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Critical Role has always been home to, in the words of Matt Mercer, some nerdy-ass voice actors. But the nerdom of its core cast doesn't stop at typical TTRPG fare. Case in point - OG Roler Liam O'Brien just revealed that, in creating his character for the actual play series's Campaign 4, he pulled not from high fantasy, but from the gritty world of 80s action TV.
Specifically, from The A-Team.
O'Brien recently revealed as much during an episode of Fireside Chat, the Beacon-streaming fan Q&A series where the Critical Role cast and crew speak directly to curious Critters. Alongside castmate Sam Riegel, O'Brien spent part of the episode in question talking about the visual and emotional inspirations for his Campaign 4 character, hot-orc-bard Halandil Fang.
"With Hal," began Campaign 2's Caleb Widogast, "I definitely wanted to make sure he looked a little bit older and silver foxy. I remember, with a lot of the initial rough sketches, the poses were all very, 'I'm playing a musical instrument!' or 'I have a quill!' And I wanted to really ground that down and make him just sort of Faceman for The A-Team. His main thing, his main ability as a Bard - he can sing, he can play instruments, but it's just that the man's a good talker."
In case you don't know, O'Brien is talking about The A-Team's Lt. Templeton Peck, AKA Faceman. Whereas his teammates in the classic series are action-forward brawlers, schemers, and explosives experts, Peck won a lot of victories with his silver tongue and, as O'Brien indicates, his looks.
"I said to make him daddy," O'Brien concluded.
Sorry Liam, only the internet gets to determine whether a Critical Role character gets the status of daddy or not. But we do have good news.
Critical Role Campaign 4 is streaming now on the group's Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch channels.
With two animated series on Prime Video, Campaign 4 in full swing, and so much more Exandrian lore to come, Critical Role is showing no signs of slowing down. That's why the adventuring party at Popverse are here to bring you everything we can from those nerdy-ass voice actors & Bo., including:
- Critical Role release schedule
- Critical Role's Campaign 4 characters ranked
- How to watch Critical Role in order
- Ways for you to relive the Critical Role panel from ECCC '26
- Taliesin Jaffe on playing Mollymauk Tealeaf for Campaign 2 vs. playing him for Prime Video
- Matt Mercer's homebrew warrior class (created originally for Vin Diesel)
...and much, much more. Roll initiative, player. Magic awaits.
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