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You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits / Columns

Is Your Home Campaign Organized?

September 10, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

If this column takes more than an hour to load, then you will know what my earliest experiences with computer games were like. So I’ll take RPGs every time, whether they are home campaigns or organized-play offerings.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games

The PAX Report

September 9, 2010 by Chris Sims

Like all good things, PAX ended. Due to required nuptial witnessing, it ended on Saturday for me. Oh, I’m not bitter. In fact, I feel privileged that PAX is local. With all this good stuff happening before, during, and after the show, it’s sure to become one of my yearly rituals. Here are some high points of my trip to the show.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Columns, Editorial, Featured, Newest Critical Hits, News, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: convention, D&D, Deathspank, dragon age, Fable, Fallout, pax, penny arcade, pvp, TERA

Tales of the Apocalypse Part 2, Reprisal at Ambush Hill

September 8, 2010 by The Chatty DM

In which Chatty recounts his first Apocalypse world session right after character creation. A fight, an explosion, some threats and a love scene, just like in the movies!

Filed Under: Actual Play, Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Newest Critical Hits Tagged With: Apocalypse World, Chatty's 2010-2011 campaigns, Chatty's year of Indie Games, indie games, indie rpg, Post-Apocalypse, Vincent Baker

Tales of Horror: D&D for TWEENS

September 7, 2010 by Vanir

Imagine a world in which the D&D you know and love is reimagined and marketed to tweens. Now look at this duck. Now look at me. Look at this double scoop of horror. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Nothing. Now it is fear diamonds.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Music, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre, Television, Web Meme Tagged With: beholder, D&D, Halaster, hannah montana, iCarly, Jonas Brothers, justin bieber, Miranda Cosgrove, nickelodeon, omg, undermountain, wtf

Tales of the Apocalypse: Part 1, Character Creation

September 5, 2010 by The Chatty DM

A few weeks ago, I reviewed Vincent Baker’s Apocalypse World Role Playing Game and found it very well written and intriguing and enough to give it a few session’s worth of tries. I brought the whole crew back together and we sat down to create characters.

Filed Under: Actual Play, Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Apocalypse World, Chatty's 2010-2011 campaigns, Chatty's year of Indie Games, indie games, indie rpg, Post-Apocalypse, Vincent Baker

The Unneccesary Evil?

September 2, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

Without boxed text to rule an encounter, will anarchy reign? A continuation of the discussion of boxed text, in which Thomas Paine get invoked and a cockfight breaks out.

Filed Under: Columns, Editorial, Featured, Know Your Roll, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: adventure, boxed text, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, module, publishing, roleplaying game, Roleplaying Games, shawn merwin

Minions on the Table

September 2, 2010 by Chris Sims

Monsters can lose a battle before it begins if they have bad tactical positions. This is even truer with minions. Even if we assume, narratively, that your minions have no way to know they’re little competition for the characters, the creatures have a reason to seize tactical advantages.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, borderlands, D&D, DM advice, dungeon master, encounter design, minion, monster, monster design

Toronto Fan Expo: The DM Master Class Seminar

September 1, 2010 by The Chatty DM

One of the highlights of my visit at last weekend’s Toronto Fan Expo was the one hour panel I had the honour to share with RPG legends Ed Greenwood and Robin D. Laws. We ended up speaking to packed room of 100+ people. I was impressed!

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, DM advice, Ed Greenwood, gm advice, Robin Laws, Toronto Fan Expo 2010

Not Without My Beholder: A Mother’s Tale

August 31, 2010 by Vanir

I’ve spent the majority of my blogging career trying to figure out how to roleplay better. To get them emotionally invested in their characters. To make them feel and act as their character might. To dance into the danger zone where the dancer becomes the dance. I believe I have finally discovered the secret to doing so: The Lifetime Movie Network. All the positive karma the Gen Con Ball & Chain fiasco got me cries out for balance.

ALSO: Video of Roleplaying for the Severely Disturbed with StupidRanger.com from Gen Con!

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre, Television Tagged With: D&D, delta burke, invisible child, lifetime, mistress, pregnant, roleplaying, warforged, wtf

Thinking Outside the Boxed Text

August 27, 2010 by Shawn Merwin

Boxed text is often the first interaction between the writer of an adventure and its players. It had better be good, or Brark the Grimlock Barbarian may have something to say about it.

Filed Under: Editorial, Know Your Roll, Roleplaying Games

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About the Author

  • Shawn Merwin

    Shawn Merwin is a freelance writer/editor and game designer with delusions of adequacy and a penchant for games and stories. He's worked on several organized play campaigns: Living Greyhawk, Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Kalamar, Living Forgotten Realms, and D&D Adventurer's League to name a few. His design work for Wizards of the Coast includes Dungeon Delve, Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress, and Halls of Undermountain, as well as two seasons of the D&D Encounters Program. His most recent project is co-designing and editing the Fate-powered game Part-Time Gods of Fate for Encoded Designs. You can follow Shawn on Twitter.

    Email: shawn.merwin@critical-hits.com

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