Villains beware cause you're bout to be dead! Bwahaha! We are covering several different aspects of villainry (see our timestamps below for the different topics) and we hope they give you some useful tricks when writing or designing your next BBEG!

Villains are not just for DMs! We discuss how players can create compelling villains in their backstory like Caleb's Trent Ikathon or Percy's Briarwoods. We also discuss useful play tips for taking down your DMs most dangerous bad guys.

Making a great bad guy is more art than science. We are lucky to have so many to learn from: Avantika, Obann, The Laughing Hand, Kevdak and Predathos (just to name a few).

2:42 - Crit Role News

7:38 - Intro to Villains

22:00 - Teasing Bosses

30:00 - Encountering the Boss

49:30 - Motivations

1:06:00 - Roleplay aka Dinner with the Devil

1:19:00 - Boss Fights

1:43:00 - Takeaways

Please consider nominating us for best new podcast (2 years or less) or best podcast hosts at https://www.critawards.org/ (Nominations are open until April 30th)

The Studio Binder video we reference on villain archetypes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZOEPpjll0U&pp=ygUWc3R1ZGlvIGJpbmRlciB2aWxsYWlucw%3D%3D

The article on DMing without plots: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

Before the stream started, the party known as Vox Machina, was called The Sh*ts. Regardless of the name change, over the past ten years they have proven that they are still The Sh*ts (and we love that for them). A chaotic bunch of weirdos who somehow manage to save the world.

The first half of this episode we cover how far Critical Role has come, highlighting our favorite moments and some of the most impactful parts of their history.

The second half is our wrap up of Campaign 3, sharing our thoughts as we patiently wait for the next campaign.

How Far They've Come -- 12:00

Campaign 3 Wrap Up -- 58:00

Want to know how you can raise the stakes at your gaming table? Well you've come to the right place.

Join us and our guest Spencer Wight as we dive into a discussion of what kinds of stakes we see in TTRPGs and the best examples we could find from Critical Role.

We'll cover risking our lives, protecting the people we care about, losing our reputations and more!

Since the ep is pretty long, here are timestamps:

• 14:00 -- Intro to Stakes
• 24:00 -- Player Character Death
• 48:00 -- NPC
• 55:00 -- Internal Stakes
• 1:12:00 -- Environment
• 1:34:00 -- Reputation
• 1:41:00 -- Honorable Mentions
• 1:49:00 -- Advice & Takeaways

We hope you enjoy having Spencer on the show. We sure did!