What Is Roleplay?

What is Roleplay #26 Crits with Steph Windross

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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.

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