• 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 Newest Critical Hits / Featured

How WotC Doomed Us All By Making The Fates Do Way More Work

February 15, 2011 by Vanir

Learn the dark secrets about D&D WotC doesn’t want you to know! Discover how you can break the game by doing nothing but buying official game materials! Defeat your enemies using nothing but cards (without becoming one of the X-Men!) All this and how to use Fortune Cards to fix your love life after the jump.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Editorial, Featured, Humor, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Dungeons and Dragons, fortune cards, nentir vale, wotc

Visions Verbalized

February 10, 2011 by Chris Sims

If you can’t produce an elevator pitch, your idea isn’t solid enough. All games rely on this initial expression to become all they can be. A lack of focus at such an early stage leads, at least, to wasted work as designers realize a game’s scope needs narrowing. At worst, uncertain direction at the outset is a path of failure. Kitchen-sink design’s best results . . .

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Roleplaying Games, Video Games Tagged With: D&D, game design, nanocon

The D&D Experience

February 4, 2011 by Chris Sims

Lots of conventions, from PAX to Comicpalooza, have D&D games and organized play. None of them are like D&D Experience. This convention is about hardcore D&D gaming and D&D news. It’s all D&D all the time on official channels. Players who come here come to play the game from sunup until the witching hour. When they’re not playing, they’re learning more about D&D from the experts.

Filed Under: Analysis Paralysis, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: ashardalon, ashes of athas, convention, D&D, D&DXP, despair, Shadowfell

Take Refuge . . . IN AUDACITY!!!!!!!!!

February 2, 2011 by Logan Bonner

The moment that everybody has been waiting for is here, and it is now time to see the preview of the most exciting RPG that is coming up! This is Refuge in Audacity! It is time for EXTREME ROLEPLAYING!!!

Filed Under: Featured, Humor, Minor Quests, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: game design, gaming, Refuge in Audacity, RiA, roleplaying, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games

The 5×5 Dungeon: The Temple of Elemental Evil

January 31, 2011 by Dave

To finish off the paragon tier, the PCs in my game headed into one of the most classic dungeons out there: The Temple of Elemental Evil. I started with the original module (while not being slavish to it), then hacked away to adapt pieces to my game and involve major NPCs from earlier. However, I had a very specific style in mind that would feel like a big dungeon crawl.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Featured, Game Hacks & Content, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 5x5, temple of elemental evil

DDXP 2011: New Product Seminar

January 27, 2011 by Vanir

Collected liveblog by Vanir of the DDXP 2011 New Product Seminar. A few new products announced, some details of previously announced products, and the additional loss of a product or two.

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&DXP, ddxp 2011

Unboxing: Wrath of Ashardalon D&D Board Game

January 26, 2011 by Bartoneus

For those of us who have been playing and enjoying the game Castle Ravenloft, anticipation has been building for the quick release of the second D&D Adventure System board game Wrath of Ashardalon! We were fortunate enough to get an early preview copy and so what I’d like to provide for you today is a brief post about the box and its contents as well as a preview of what to expect from the game based on a preliminary look through the rules and components.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: adventure system, D&D, dnd, preview, Reviews, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games, unboxing, wrath of ashardalon

4e Success or Failure: Magic Items

January 21, 2011 by Logan Bonner

Were 4e’s changes to magic items a success or a failure? Are they streamlined and lean, or boring and plain? Logan Bonner delineates where they went right and where they went wrong in revamping the classic treasures of D&D.

Filed Under: Featured, Minor Quests, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4E Success or Failure, 4th Edition, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games

Four Months in the Borderlands: D&D Encounters

January 20, 2011 by Dave

Dave “The Game” Chalker talks about his experiences running the latest season of D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands, and ruminates a bit on the state of D&D from playing with strangers.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D Encounters, essentials

D&D XP 2011 Is Coming: Convention Coverage

January 17, 2011 by Dave

Our coverage of D&D XP 2011 is coming up soon, and we’d like to know what you think about liveblogging and what you want to hear about.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&DXP, gamma world

« Previous Page
Next Page »

About the Author

  • Vanir

    Vanir is the sort of man who has openly wondered aloud about his own armor class in front of his own grandmother. Despite this, he has still managed to somehow become both married and a father. By day, he develops web applications. By night, web applications develop him.

    Email: vanir@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//category/dire-flailings/

    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.

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 © 2026 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in