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You are here: Home / Archives for Bartoneus

Kickstarter to Watch: The Level Up

February 21, 2020 by Bartoneus

The Level Up is a custom, lightweight platform that helps add a second level to your tabletop for board games & tabletop RPGs (or any game that can take up a lot of table space, really).

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Newest Critical Hits, News, Roleplaying Games

5TDM: 5th Edition Team Deathmatch

November 29, 2018 by Bartoneus

Back on Sunday, November 18th we participated in a streamed match of 5th Edition Team Deathmatch, our team was up against the excellent team from Cheaper by the Dungeon and it was an incredibly fun evening of killing, joking, and telefragging (oh…so much telefragging.)

Filed Under: Actual Play, Featured, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 5e, 5tdm, 5th edition, 5th edition team deathmatch, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Kickstarter, pvp, roleplaying games

So You’ve Decided to Run Your Own D&D Campaign…

June 8, 2018 by Bartoneus

Dark Souls

If you’re thinking about starting your own D&D campaign you should pick an underlying theme as the structure with which you’ll build your world.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Editorial, Featured, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: D&D, DM advice, world building

First Impressions: “Fate Core” Roleplaying Game

August 22, 2013 by Bartoneus

After roughly a year with extremely limited time for roleplaying games, I was invited by a close friend to play in his newly starting modern day, Cthulhu-esque campaign using the early release Fate Core rules from the Kickstarter from Evil Hat Productions. I had heard quite a bit from Dave and other friends about the Dresden […]

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: cthulhu, dresden files rpg, fate, fate core, first impressions, Reviews, roleplaying game, roleplaying games

Giveaway: 1st Edition AD&D “Unearthed Arcana” Reprint

February 28, 2013 by Bartoneus

Wizards of the Coast is awesome enough to provide us with five copies of the new 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Unearthed Arcana reprint book to giveaway to our readers! We haven’t really done a giveaway or contest in quite a while, so I’m keeping this nice and simple – all you have to do in order to be entered to win one of the five copies is leave a comment on this post!

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 1e, AD&D, unearthed arcana

Review: “Cosmic Patrol” RPG

January 17, 2013 by Bartoneus

Cosmic Patrol is a retro-futuristic roleplaying game published by Catalyst Game Labs that focuses on storytelling and building a narrative from various cues provided by each player/character around the table and an overall adventure structure chosen by the players. I’ve had the main rulebook for a long time, but finally had a chance to sit down with some friends and play a session in late 2012. The game has a very evocative setting introduced throughout the rulebook and with short stories that highlights a very pulp, “golden age” style of science fiction space exploration featuring rockets, laser pistols, and asteroids infested with lizard men.

Filed Under: Reviews, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: catalyst game labs, cosmic patrol, narration, retro futuristic, Reviews, roleplaying games, science fiction, Storytelling

Interview: Tracy Barnett, Designer of School Daze and One Shot

November 2, 2012 by Bartoneus

Tracy Barnett is a good friend of ours that has waged a one-man war on his own spare time. With his second KickStarter game, One Shot, ending in just over two days I offered to chat with him a bit about his projects and his thoughts on designing open to the public as he has made a habit of doing. You can also read more of Tracy’s thoughts on that subject in posts he wrote for us earlier this year, Game Design and Openness and Designing in Public.

Filed Under: Featured, Interviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: game design, Interviews, Kickstarter, one-shot, roleplaying games, sand and steam productions, school daze

The Architect DM: Structural Dungeon Design

July 25, 2012 by Bartoneus

Back in one of my earliest Architect DM posts I said that structure was one of the most overlooked elements of dungeon design. These days most of the published dungeon maps that I see are not bad with regards to structure, but from what I’ve heard this is still something that a lot of people would like to learn about for their personal, hand drawn dungeon designs.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: architect dm, D&D, DM advice, dnd, dungeon design, dungeon mastering, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, gm advice, structure, world building

D&D: Advantage vs. Flat Bonuses

June 11, 2012 by Bartoneus

Photo Credit: MegaBee

There are a lot of people talking about the D&D Next open playtest, and one of the subjects I hear about a lot is the way Advantage/Disadvantage are currently working. The general opinion I’ve heard is that it is overpowered when compared to the +2/-2 bonus we’re used to from previous editions of D&D. My gut reaction to hearing that something is overpowered isn’t to jump into the mob and swing my nerf-bat around, it’s to look at as much data as I can and figure out if I agree or not. So that’s what I’m going to do!

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4th Edition, advantage, combat advantage, comparison, D&D, D&D next, disadvantage, dnd, dndnext, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, math, numbers, open playtest, playtest, statistics, stats

What Classes Should be in D&D?

May 25, 2012 by Bartoneus

For me, choosing a class has always been one of the most fun and important decisions to make while playing Dungeons & Dragons. I can still remember the feeling of pure excitement I had when I first cracked open the 3rd Edition Player’s Handbook and saw that Monk was a core class. I also remember our friends all having multiple discussions about what exactly the Sorcerer class was and how it was different from the Wizard. With the next edition of D&D now in open playtest, I felt it was a good time to discuss the varying levels of class distinction in D&D.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: assassin, character, class, classes, cleric, D&D, D&D next, dnd, dndnext, Dungeons & Dragons, fighter, monk, rogue, roleplaying games, thief, wizard

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About the Author

  • Bartoneus

    Danny works professionally as an architectural designer and serves as managing editor here at CH, which means he shares many of the duties of being an editor but without the fame and recognition. He also writes about RPGs, videogames, movies, and TV. He is married to Sucilaria, and has a personal blog at Incorrect Blitz Input. (Email Danny or follow him on Twitter).

    Email: bartoneus@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//author/Bartoneus/

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