Welcome to Episode 25 of ‘What Is Roleplay?’
This episode CM Lowry is joined by Steph Windross to discuss Crits

• To start the conversation CM Lowry asks Steph to define what the meaning of a Crit in roleplay games
  
  
  
  • Crit is short for Critical Roll, either a Critical Success or a Critical Failure. In short that means you have a rolled either the highest (success) or lowest (failure) number on the dice. These usually have interesting results which impact on the game as you continue to play.
  
  
  • CM reminds us that if your unsure about dice you can revisit Episode 1 of What Is Roleplay
  
  
  
  


• Most games and systems will require that the dice actually land on a natural 20 in order for that to be considered a Crit Success – so if you roll 18 and add some sort of bonus that makes your score 20 that would not count as a Crit.


• Steph shares some  about a brilliant Crit Success from her real life adventures in roleplay games such as DnD and Blades in the Dark.
  
  
  
  • In Blades in the Dark Crits create narrative currency for collaborative story telling moments
  
  
  
  


• CM & Steph chat about some of the things that can happen when you roll a critical fail – a sort of doubling down on the things that go wrong.


• CM asks Steph to chat about some games that don’t use Crits. Steph mentions lots of the current batch of OSR (Old-School Renaissance) games


• CM chats about the exploding dice mechanic, in which a Crit Success means that you get to roll again and add further details to the game story.


• Steph brings up ICRPG (Index Card Roleplaying Game) as a game that has a set of really interesting mechanics for dice rolling and crits.


• CM & Steph totally nerd out on MOTHERSHIP and the Panic Engine System that it’s built on.


• CM asks Steph if there are any card games that use Crits
  
  
  
  • They discuss The Wretched by Chris Bissette and it’s use of a Jenga Tower. If the tower falls that’s a huge Crit Fail and ends the game!
  
  
  
  


• CM and Steph agree that they enjoy the rolling dice and allowing chance to determine how the game processes and how the story unfolds.


• Listen as CM and Steph enjoy an actual play involving Crits, the city of Manchester and trying to park your car without getting a fine from a civil service demon!!

Actual Play Quick-Map drawn by Jog Brogzin

• Steph chats about her latest project, CALPINI, which is based on the rules light A Dungeon Games by Chris Bissette, which is also compatible with MORK BORG

Links to things we discussed:

Games:

• Dragonbane


• Dungeons & Dragons


• Blades in the Dark


• OSR


• GURPS


• Cairn


• Mausritter


• Savage World


• ICRPG


• Mothership


• Call of Cthulhu


• The Wretched


• Bloody & Alone in Appalachia


• Dread


• The Sealed Library


• MORK ORG


• SOLO BORG

More about Steph

• Fistful of Crits on ETSY


• Fistful of Crits on BlueSky


• Fistful of Crits on Instagram


• Fistful.ink for all your printing needs

More about Us

• Beyond Cataclysm on Bluesky @beyondcataclysm.bsky.social


• CM Lowry’s website –  All About Chris


• Website – beyondcataclysm.co.uk


• Patreon – Patreon.com/beyondcataclysm


• Our most recent project is Mork Org


• Our upcoming project is Lucky for None in Space

Actual Play Quick Map drawn by Jog Brogzin

• Jog on Social Media:
  Instagram – @jogbrogzin
  Bluesky – @jogbrogzin.bsky.social
  Patreon – patreon.com/jogbrogzin
  

With music generously provided by:
Powerplant & Imploders

Actual Play Soundscape by Traveling Light

The post What is Roleplay #26 Crits with Steph Windross first appeared on Beyond Cataclysm.