• 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

For new GMs: Worldbuilding is storytelling: complication, complexity, micronarratives, and your precious little fantasy world-baby

July 30, 2009 by guest

It’s the autism-spectrum version of playing god: surveying charts and tables and lists and believing, for just a moment, that a world can be contained in such a form. Elves and dragons are less unbelievable than that power fantasy.

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

Gen Con Hiatus Update: Guest Post Galore and Critical Hits!

July 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I got an incredible response to my call for guest posters and we’ve already started posting!  In fact,  I already have 2 posts more ready to be posted and the schedule is almost full! Speaking of guest posts, have you seen the one I did for Critical Hits yet?  I took Dave’s excellent 5X5 campaign […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Using the 5×5 Method for Adventure Design

July 29, 2009 by The Chatty DM

In his post, Dave explained how you can build a multi-threaded campaign, featuring 5 interrelated plot-lines by planning your campaign on a 5X5 Grid. When I read about that post, something clicked in my mind. I could feel that this seemingly simple concept had near unlimited potential as a game mastering tool. At the time I didn’t know what it would be, so I let that feeling simmer for a few weeks.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games

Dude, You Gotta Try Savage Worlds!

July 29, 2009 by guest

Wrath of Zombies is a recent Blogger.  You can follow his RPG antics over at his blog. Wow.  I feel all sorts of special getting to fill in for Chatty today!  Honestly, for a new blogger like me, these are big shoes to fill but I’ll try not to disappoint! I, ironically at the same […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: Guest Post, Savage Worlds

YouTube Tuesday: Chase Dat Gold Edition

July 28, 2009 by Dave

A “gangsta rap” about LARPing. Yes, I’m serious. Keep in mind that there is some potentially offensive things in it (some of which are thanks to the genre) so approach with an open mind.

Filed Under: Roleplaying Games, YouTube Tuesday Tagged With: larp

Inquisition of the Week: Your Steam is Punk

July 27, 2009 by Dave

This past week saw the release of the Eberron Campaign Guide. While I’ve followed Eberron since its acceptance into the D&D campaign setting contest but I have yet to run or play in any kind of Eberron campaign. Some of the resistance to playing it before has been a dislike among some of my group to steampunk. While Eberron is more nuanced than simply a steampunk setting, there’s some clear resistance to the idea.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: 4e, eberron, steampunk

Guest Posters Wanted: Gen Con Hiatus

July 27, 2009 by The Chatty DM

As I said in my last post, the work needed to finish the One-Page Dungeon Codex and the  preparation leading to Gen Con are going to take most of my free time over the next 2 weeks. Like last year, I’d like to keep Musings active with new content.  So that’s why I’m sending a […]

Filed Under: blogging, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Tales of the City Within, Session 3: The Final Chapter

July 26, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Disclamer: I take several narrative liberties in my game reports.  While I write what actually happens, I often adapt dialog elements or change some details to make for a better narrative… also, beer tends to fog things up a little. Keeping up Appearances This session was to be the last of our gaming ‘season’.  This […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Primal/Within

Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-07-25

July 25, 2009 by Gato the News Robot

The story on Evony (hint: it’s not good) Jack Vance glowingly profiled in New York Times (via Robin D. Laws) Attention Citizens! The @AlphaComplex and @Friend_Computer are on Twitter. Anyone questioning the duplication is a Traitor. First photo of new Doctor and Companion (via @nerdvana) Goodman Games wants to make your campaign an offer it […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Ennies Voting is Open: Vote for Critical Hits!

July 24, 2009 by Dave

Voting has opened in the Ennie Awards and we are nominated for Best Website. We’re up against tough competition: every single one of the other nominees puts out a site that I quite enjoy and visit regularly, as well as all being run by great people whom I consider friends (even the ones I’ve never […]

Filed Under: News, Roleplaying Games

« Previous Page
Next Page »

About the Author

  • guest

    Email: guest@critical-hits.com

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