For the final episode of our second season, Josh sits down with special guest Scott Mayfield to discuss Brennan Lee Mulligan, one of Critical Role's most famous guest stars.

We discuss how Brennan helps his players create rich, compelling PCs, how he manages rapid shifts in tone and how his understanding of the PCs motivations lets him guide them through his campaigns.

**We also announce the winner of our Get Out the Vote Giveaway!! If you still haven't voted for us for Best Podcast Hosts, we kindly ask you go to www.critawards.org/ **

Time Stamps

00:00 Giveaway announcement, intro & crit role news

08:50 How Brennan hooks you

21:35 Quickly shifting tone

28:39 Creating rich PCs

41:16 Powerful thematic moments

1:13:28 Lighting round: Matt vs Brennan comparison

1:26:40 BLMs impact on D&D

**We've been nominated for Best Podcast Host for this year's CRIT Awards. Please help us turn this award-nominated podcast into an award-winning podcast by going to critawards.org and voting for us now. You have until June 30 so don't delay. Thanks for your consideration!**

Ever wonder how you can make your own Cosplay? Or how about how to attend a Con and meet the cast of Critical Role? This episode has you rolling Insight with Advantage. Josh takes a break this episode as Gina from Pixiegift Fashions joins Dev as her sidekick. They interview and get lots of advice from special guest star, Taylor who is best known for her Scanlan cosplay. More recently, her Scantaur cosplay which was a hit in the Critter community. We hope this episode helps you feel more empowered this Con Season!

06:27 Critter Cosplay with Taylor

28:52 Cosplay Tips & Tricks

50:37 Content Creation Insight

01:14:38 In on the Con (Preparing for Conventions)

01:36:54 Final Con Takeaways

Follow Gina and their fashions at pixiegiftfashions on Instagram and TikTok.

Follow Taylor and her cosplay adventures including with her as Scanlan and her friend Mo as Pike at bravoalmara on Instagram and TikTok. And check out her podcast, One True Pair, on Spotify.

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!

Are you ready to unlock the power of your dreams? We are! Today we explore the potential of dreams & visions in Critical Role, showing examples that deal with the past, present and future.

As always, we cover tips for players & DMs for how you can include this in your games.

Since it's a longer episode, here are timestamps:

• 13:00 intro to topic
• 25:00 commune with a deity
• 48:00 commune with the supernatural
• 1:00 visions of the past
• 1:15 visions of the future
• 1:26 honorable mentions (e.g. dreams after death)
• 1:43 advice and takeaways

If you are able to support those in need from the LA fires, here are the links we mentioned:

• https://bit.ly/kyleshiresneighbor
• https://bit.ly/lagofundmemasterlist

Merry Critmas! This month's episode is a deep dive into a handful of heists across Critical Role's three campaigns. We talk about the naughty and the nice.

We break down the five elements of every heist and offer examples of how you can pull off burglaries and break-ins at your own table (in fiction of course).

This episode features the announcement of the winners of our holiday giveaway. We hope you enjoy!

We know it's a long episode, so here are approximate time stamps in case you are interested in a specific campaign. They all offer similar lessons.

• Campaign 1: 20:00
• Campaign 2: 30:00
• Campaign 3: 1:30
• Key Takeaways: 1:50

P.S. We have a new segment, Critical Role News!! Let us know what you think in the comments. Should we keep it?

Happy Holidays!

In honor of International Games Month and the holiday season, we decided to focus on the games the cast plays as their characters.

From 'Bolder, Parchment, Shears' to 'Spin the Bottle' to the classic 'Rollies' we cover games from across the campaigns.

This episode has the most clips yet. Grab a set of dice and a friend while you listen, cause you're gonna want to play!