• Critical-Hits Studios
    • Criminals Card Game
    • Sentinel Comics: the Roleplaying Game
  • Downloads & Tools
    • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
    • Drinking D&D 2010
    • Drinking D&D 2011
    • Fiasco Playset: “Alma Monster”
    • MODOK’s 11 for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
    • Refuge In Audacity RPG
    • Strange New Worlds RPG
  • Guides
    • Gamma World
    • Guide to 4e Accessories
    • Guide to Gaming DVDs
    • Skill Challenges
  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Critical Hits

Everything tabletop gaming since 2005

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Columns
    • Dire Flailings
    • Dungeonomics
    • Musings of the Chatty DM
    • Pain of Publication
    • The Architect DM
  • Podcasts
    • Critical Hits Podcast
    • Dungeon Master Guys Podcast
  • Roleplaying Games
  • Tabletop Games
  • Game Hacks & Content
  • Video Games
You are here: Home / Archives for Dave

CONTEST: Want To Go To GenCon/Can’t Go To GenCon

July 16, 2010 by Dave

For those of you without tickets to GenCon, whether because you haven’t bought them but could go or because you can’t go at all, we offer the following multi-part contest. Choose the one that best fits your situation: I Want A Ticket To Go To GenCon, I Can’t Go To GenCon, I Have A Ticket And I’m Going To GenCon.

Filed Under: News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: contest, gencon

For Your Ennies Voting Consideration

July 16, 2010 by Dave

Voting opens today, and we’d really like you to vote for us as Best Blog. We were nominated last year too and lost to fine competition, and this year’s competition is easily as fierce. Thus, we’re presenting this post that highlights some of our content over this past year that we believe qualifies us to be Best Blog.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, News, Roleplaying Games

Interview: Steve Townshend, D&D Freelancer and Co-Author of “Demonomicon”

July 14, 2010 by Dave

Steve Townshend is a freelance writer (both for D&D and his own fiction) and actor living in Chicago. We recently had the chance to interview Steve over email about the release of the new D&D Demonomicon book, of which his name shares the cover with Mike Mearls and Brian R. James. We also asked him about story in D&D games, a subject with which he has a lot to say.

Filed Under: Featured, Interviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, demonomicon, DM advice, freelancing, monsters, steve townshend

Sly Flourish’s Dungeon Master Tips eBook

July 12, 2010 by Dave

This is 73 pages of solid DMing advice from start to finish. As the book says up front, this isn’t a guide for the brand new DM. Nor is it an in-depth guide to higher level DMing/storytelling concepts like Robin Laws’s book: most topics range from several paragraphs to a single sentence. For DMs who have been playing 4e D&D for a bit and are looking to get a variety of tips to improve their game, this is the book to get.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, DMing tips, ebook, sly flourish

2010 Ennie Nominations Announced (with Recommendations)

July 10, 2010 by Dave

It’s that time of year again, when the big RPG award nominees of the year are announced, after careful consideration and selection by a panel of judges voted on by the community. The full list of nominees for the year are available on their site. And of course, we’d like to call out our new favorite category…

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, News, Roleplaying Games

Origins 2010: Final Round-Up

July 1, 2010 by Dave

Origins has once again come and gone. Due to various scheduling mishaps with the convention and technical problems, we didn’t get to do much in the way of scheduled gaming, and spend our time looking for things to do. Here’s just a sample of some of the stuff that we did do and I was excited about in the convention.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Editorial, News, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: 4e, clerks, crokinole, dominion, dresden files, dresden files rpg, evil hat, exhibit hall, fiasco, legedermain, litko, mayday games, microsoft surface, origins, Origins 2010, rogue, rogue-like, rowboat, settlers of america, settlers of catan, shear panic

Origins 2010: “Game Design is Mind Control” Seminar

June 29, 2010 by Dave

During Origins 2010, I dropped by a packed seminar run by Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen. Luke Crane is the designer of Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard RPGs, of which we (mainly ChattyDM) have spoken of on many occasions. Jared Sorensen is the game designer behind a number of games including Action Castle and the […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Critical Threats, News, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: action castle, Burning Wheel, game design, jared sorensen, luke crane, Mouse Guard, origins, Origins 2010, parsley

Origins 2010: Origins Awards Winners

June 26, 2010 by Dave

Due to massive, systemic techfail, we were not able to live cover the Origins Awards. But we do have all the winners of the 36th Origins Awards below, with all the nominees.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: origins, Origins 2010, origins awards

Origins 2010: “Back to the Future the Card Game” and “Pirate Fluxx” by Looney Labs

June 25, 2010 by Dave

Origins is, without a doubt, the biggest convention for Looney Labs. Between a gigantic demo space (which this year you can follow a path of multicolored daisies to), a decent-sized booth in the exhibit hall, and dozens of excited volunteers in lab coats, this is the show to be at if you’re a fan of Fluxx or their other games.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, News Tagged With: back to the future, fluxx, looney labs, origins, Origins 2010, pirate fluxx

Inq. of the Week: Really Big Show

June 20, 2010 by Dave

This week sees me once again off to the Origins Game Fair, one of the big shows of the summer for us nerdily inclined. Origins still remains the smaller, slower show for me- while there are some board game releases occasionally and some interesting small press stuff, all the major releases and announcements tend to wait for one of the later shows, especially GenCon. However, there’s still fun times to be had.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: comiccon, conventions, dragoncon, gencon, origins

« Previous Page
Next Page »

About the Author

  • 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

    Follow me:

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Archives

CC License

All articles and comments posted posted on the site (but not the products for sale) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. References to trademarks and copywritten material are included for review and commentary use only and are not intended as any kind of challenge.
Mastodon

Recent Comments

  • fogus: The best things and stuff of 2024 on Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Routinely Itemised: RPGs #145 on Review: The Magus
  • The Chatty DM on Review: The Magus
  • Linnaeus on Review: The Magus
  • 13th Age: Indexing Truths — Critical Hits on The Horizon Conspiracy

Contact The Staff

Critical Hits staff can be reached via the contact information on their individual staff pages and in their articles. If you want to reach our senior staff, email staff @ critical-hits.com. We get sent a lot of email, so we can't promise we'll be able to respond to everything.

Recent Posts

  • Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Review: The Magus
  • Hope in the Dark Heart of Evil is Not a Plan
  • Chatty on Games #1: Dorf Romantik
  • The Infinity Current: Adventure 0

Top Posts & Pages

  • Home
  • The 5x5 Method Compendium
  • Dungeons & Dragons "Monster Manual" Preview: The Bulette!
  • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
  • On Mid-Medieval Economics, Murder Hoboing and 100gp
  • "The Eversink Post Office" - An Unofficial Supplement for Swords of the Serpentine
  • Finally a manual for the rest of them!
  • Dave Chalker AKA Dave The Game
  • How to Compare Birds to Fish
  • The Incense War: a Story of Price Discovery, Mayhem, and Lust

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in