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You are here: Home / Archives for Newest Critical Hits

Review: Nightfall (Card Game)

April 21, 2011 by Bartoneus

Nightfall is a new deck-building card game from Alderac Entertainment Group that is set in a dark world of vampires and werewolves. The game supports between 2 and 5 players and takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour to play. The basic set for the game comes with over 300 cards that include minions you can recruit into your deck, actions that you can play during your turn and other player’s turn, several types of wound cards representing different types of damage taken (bite, burn, and bleed), and draft cards that are used during the game’s set up.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Reviews Tagged With: action, alderac entertainment group, card game, deck building, gothic, horror, modern, nightfall, preview, Reviews, vampires, werewolf, werewolves

Chatty’s Adventure Scaffold #1 : Words with Fiends

April 20, 2011 by The Chatty DM

Where Chatty makes his triumphant return by being all cryptic about what he did these last few weeks. At least, you’ll get a cool adventure plan for your reading troubles.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: adventure design, Adventure Plan, Adventure Scaffold, gming advice, Mouseburning, old school

26 Years of Gaming Lessons

April 20, 2011 by guest

My wife’s birthday is coming up, which made me think of my birthday, which made me think of my age, and thus, the length of time I’ve been a gamer. I’ve been a gamer for 26 years, and in that time: I’ve lost an arm and a leg in the same fight; witnessed the best […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: AD&D, Life Lessons, Rifts, wil wheaton

The Creme Filling Of The DM Soul

April 19, 2011 by Vanir

In which I ignore good advice, accept better advice, accidentally stumble into great adventure, and achieve my heart’s desire. If you’re a cinnamon roll aficionado and this is making you hungry, then this post is probably going to disappoint. Only I can eat my words. Shame they don’t taste like cinnamon rolls.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: bone phone, bones, cinnamon rolls, combat, combat length, combat speed, gentle necromancy, hearts, initiative, mr rogers, necromancy

Critical Bits for the week ending 2011-04-17

April 17, 2011 by Gato the News Robot

Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple – A Storytelling Game by @DanielSolis influenced by Avatar: The Last Airbender http://is.gd/Ri0RmL # From the Archives:: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (No Book 7 Spoilers) http://bit.ly/efi8KZ #charchive # RT @WyattSalazar: Get the revised and improved High Score here: http://is.gd/XhcsZv Hope you playtest and enjoy! # RT @AAGAD_GAMA: […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Can 4e Be Old-School D&D?

April 15, 2011 by Shawn Merwin

My most recent design project for Wizards of the Coast has left me thinking a lot about old-school D&D.  I have been reminiscing about my early days of playing, when my Jr. High school friends and I could play first-edition AD&D for 72 hours straight without having to worry about jobs or families or responsibilities […]

Filed Under: Columns, Editorial, Know Your Roll, Newest Critical Hits, Roleplaying Games

Pain of Campaigning: Rotating GMs

April 14, 2011 by The Main Event

Dave and I always joked about our gaming white whale: The Supers Game. It’s not that running a superhero game was impossible, it was just that, for us, it had never gelled. Enter Gencon 2010 and my purchase of DC Adventures. I had a system, and I had player interest (though just barely); I even had a weeknight that would work, but I had one problem:

I wanted to play the damn game, not just run it.

Filed Under: Pain of Publication, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: dc adventures, DC Universe, gming advice, Super Heroes, Supers

The Architect DM: Give Your Cities Some Character

April 14, 2011 by Bartoneus

As with nearly every topic I cover in this series, I’ve touched on the idea of adding character to settlements and cities before but now I’d like to put it in the spotlight. Let’s face it, your players will only remember select portions of the adventures you run even on the best of days. The elements that players seem to remember the most are specifically striking elements of a few NPCs, villains, encounters, and social interactions. Generally speaking, they will not remember a location very much unless a specific element of that location ties directly to one of those elements. They may not remember a location featuring a really sweet bridge if you describe it to them, but set a dramatic encounter on that bridge and they’re much more likely to remember the details of that location.

Filed Under: Featured, Roleplaying Games, The Architect DM Tagged With: advice, architect dm, city, D&D, design, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, planning, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games, town, world building

Funny Pants of Omnipotence: The Metaphor Overstays Its Welcome

April 12, 2011 by Vanir

After last week’s existential crisis, I take a look at some of the difficulties I face in coming up with the right plot framework for my campaign, and realize for the 74,343rd time that I have difficulties being serious.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: being funny, comedy, DMing, dungeon master, Humor, plot development, story development, succotash, Writing

Critical Bits for the week ending 2011-04-10

April 10, 2011 by Gato the News Robot

From the Archives:: Turtle Power! http://bit.ly/h8Beix #charchive # RT @ReinerKnizia: My new web page 'Knizia Mobile' has just gone live. Have a look! http://www.convivium.org.uk/kgmobile.htm # RT @WyattSalazar: High Score! A lightweight, unique and flexible RPG. Only 24 pages. http://is.gd/tVskDz. Ex. character: http://is.gd/lzzyNU # RT @SlyFlourish: Getting Published in Gaming Panel with @davethegame @matt_james_rpg and I: […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

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About the Author

  • Bartoneus

    Danny works professionally as an architectural designer and serves as managing editor here at CH, which means he shares many of the duties of being an editor but without the fame and recognition. He also writes about RPGs, videogames, movies, and TV. He is married to Sucilaria, and has a personal blog at Incorrect Blitz Input. (Email Danny or follow him on Twitter).

    Email: bartoneus@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//author/Bartoneus/

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