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You are here: Home / Archives for 2009

Archives for 2009

Critical Hits 4th Blogiversary

October 1, 2009 by Dave

So yeah, we’ve been doing this for roughly 4 years now.

Filed Under: Featured, News

Old School Geekeout: Of Hirelings, Doors and Long Corridors.

September 30, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Last Sunday I invited some of my friends over for an afternoon of Geeking out. This week’s Feature Game was going to be another Swords & Wizardry session, using Math Finch’s Tomb of the Iron God.  Last month we had a real blast with the Quick Start Rules so I was curious to see if […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: old school, Sword and Wizardry

Making Your 5×5 Campaign Plan Into A Grid

September 30, 2009 by guest

Maybe it’s the gamer in me but when I first read the post title “The 5×5 Method” I immediately visualized a grid. When I read Dave’s post, I got that feeling but it seemed more like a tree than a grid with branches flowing from one another and even sometimes intersecting.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, campaign planning, gm advice, planning, The 5x5 Method

YouTube Tuesday: Auto Tune Cosmos Edition

September 29, 2009 by Dave

By popular request, and in the spirit of some old favorites, there’s this.

Filed Under: Music, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre, Television, YouTube Tuesday Tagged With: carl sagan, music video, stephen hawking

Inq. of the Week: Tell Us Your Critical Hit Story

September 29, 2009 by Dave

We’re coming up on our 4th anniversary this week (expect our usual yearly wrap-up this Thursday), and this year, we thought we’d do something fun. At gaming conventions this year, we asked our interview subjects about their favorite critical hit story (from any game.) We got some great responses, and will be typing those up this week, but we’d like to open the floor to you!

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: anniversary, critical hit, Newest Critical Hits, share, story

Creativity and the RPG Mind: Part 1, Introduction

September 28, 2009 by The Chatty DM

With the recent completion of my series revisiting Robin Laws’ Rules of Good Game Mastering, I’ve been thinking about starting a new one. Then it hit me.  What if I tackled creativity and it’s role in regards to RPG players and GMs . You see, I’m well aware that I have a high level of […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, Creativity

Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-09-26

September 26, 2009 by Gato the News Robot

Primal Power Spoilers at RPG.net Check out the Wired.com GeekDad interview about Going Cardboard! A D&D monster in the making if I’ve ever seen one, the Bearsharktopus! Design: Kory Heath (Uptown) explains how he developed Blockhouse for the iPhone (via BoardgameNews) A review of Blockhouse Fascinating blog about the intersection of videogames, RPGs, Classics, and […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

The 4th Power Project: Core Classes, Part 1

September 25, 2009 by Dave

Here’s some actual crunch: the core classes. Just as in d20 Modern, there’s one base class for each ability score. This setup is intuitive, and also allows for the different kind of teams you see in so many shows and movies.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4th power project

Review: “Fantasy Craft”

September 25, 2009 by The Main Event

Fantasy Craft is a D&D 3.0 OGL full-service RPG that boasts a robust set of classes, innovative and interesting feats, and a refreshing skill-based system of spell casting. With systems for item crafting, downtime for players, acquisition of holdings, prestige, and reputation it fills a gap that many have criticized as absent from the current 4.0 rules set.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games

Chatty’s review: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, Part 2

September 24, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This is a review of Tracy and Curtis Hickman’s X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, done through the voice of 2 alter Egos of mine, Phil and Tony, see part 1 to learn more about it. For part 2, let’s switch who gets to say what first. The Theory of XDM Tony: All right, the section starts with […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: XDM

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  • Dave

    Dave "The Game" Chalker is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Critical Hits. Since 2005, he has been bringing readers game news and advice, as well as editing nearly everything published here. He is the designer of the Origins Award-winning Get Bit!, a freelance designer and developer, son of a science fiction author, and a Master of Arts. He lives in MD with e and at least three dogs.

    Email: dave@critical-hits.com

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