Crit Academy: A Dungeons and Dragons Podcast

Inspiration is a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition rule the game master can use to reward you for playing your character in a way that's true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. By using inspiration, you can draw on your personality trait of compassion for the downtrodden to give you an edge in negotiating with the Beggar Prince. Or inspiration can let you call on your bond to...

The chanting of the crowds, the stench of sweat, blood, and fear, and the howls of the dying fill the arenas of the Dungeons and Dragons world. Those with the courage to step on the field can find fame and fortune or brutal defeat. Death looks on in hunger, waiting to snatch another soul from the crimson sands to feed to its dark mistress. In the face of doom, the gladiators fight, time and again,...

Crit Academy is joined by best-selling author Remley Farr. Remley has worked on many successful Dungeons and Dragons adventures, you may know his work from ' The Madhouse of Tasha's Kiss ' or 'Happy Jack's Funhouse' . In this episode, he shares with us his adventure writing process, specifically his Weekend Oneshot Challenge. This is an RPG writing event where he completes the writing, art, cartog...

In this episode, Crit Academy discusses the newest Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons playtest material, Gothic Lineages. The newest Unearthed Arcana brings forward three new racial features. Unlike the traditional fantastical races, your racial traits and features are determined by your lineage chosen. Not the race that you start off as or once were, but the new creature of the night that...

The world of Dungeons and Dragons is packed with a variety of sentient races. The diversity of these races is what makes the world such a unique place. Cultures, personalities, behavior, etc. Each one is unique for each race. Beyond that, each race even breaks off into subraces based on location, history, wants, and desires. Volo's Complete Subrace Handbook expands on those that exist within the w...

Today we talk with James Introcaso about one of his most recent projects, My Dad's Monster Manual.  This fabulous collection of monsters a straight from the imagination of his dad's mind. From the time James was a kid, his father created original stories using his toys. Now as a professional game designer, he asked his dad to look at just the art from the Monster Manual . From every picture, he as...

Crit Academy discusses 5 Worldbuilding Faction Tips from Roc Humet over at World Anvil! Organizations are extremely important in any setting. Governments, companies, religions… they're the ones who rule over your world. They set things in motion. They DO things! And more importantly, they're utterly memorable for your players and readers and give character to your worldbuilding. Join us as we give...

Crit Academy discusses Armament Quests. While finding magical items and loot in treasure chests, dropped by defeated foes, or even gifted as a reward for great deeds. Nothing is as exciting as venturing out to gather unique materials and perform supernatural rituals to create magical weapons and armor. These special quests give the player characters the opportunity to undergo a unique trial to all...

Crit Academy is joined by the legendary Dungeons and Dragons writer and content creator Mike Shea, aka Sly Flourish. Mike shares some of his greatest techniques for being a great Dungeon Master, with as little time investment as possible! Perfect for busy adults! All from his invaluable books "The Lazy Dungeon Master." Visit Sly Flourish Here! 📢 Product Covered: https://slyflourish.com/returnofth...

Crit Academy discusses D&Destiny. A free tabletop role-playing game based on the Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition ruleset. Bringing the exciting world-hopping, gun-toting Destiny experience to your tabletop. Below you will find brief talking points that we pulled from the Dungeons and Destiny's Player guide. This thorough and well-written supplement is chock full of fantastic content. Whether you...

Crit Academy is joined by special guests Ryan and Rob from the Dungeons and Dragons actual play podcast 'Unlikely Heroes'. They tell us about their popular show and share tips on improvisation in roleplaying games. Unlikely Heroes is a goofy, NSFW podcast very loosely based on the game mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). That means we roll dice sometimes! Check out their podcast here! Show Notes...

Crit Academy is joined by the live audience. We discuss the 5 room dungeon building methodology, and take suggestions from the audience to help bring a concept to life! Together, we make a fantastic dungeon to the delight or potential misery of our players. Show Notes: This episode is brought to you by our generous sponsor, Kobold Press! ❤️ Subscribe! We just passed our goal of 500 Subscribers! No...

Crit Academy discusses Kobold Press' Deep Magic! This collection offers more than 700 new spells for your character or your campaign's NPCs to enhance the richness of your adventures. That's 700 new ways to explore, explode, manipulate, disintegrate, and master the fantasy campaign of your choice. When you add in the subclasses, domains, and appendices, you'll see that this collection broadens the...

Crit Academy discusses the best-selling Dungeons and Dragons DMsguild supplement ' Dungeon Coach's Spell Tome-Brew Cantrips'. Healing Cantrips for Clerics AND Warlocks? Fixing True Strike? Scaling UP Cantrips to be more Powerful as you Level? This Spell Tome-Brew Series is the Dungeon Coach's homebrew tweaks to the cantrips already in D&D! His examples go beyond just increase to damage, but instea...

Crit Academy discusses the newest Dungeons and Dragons supplement, "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything". The wizard Tasha, whose great works include the spell Tasha's hideous laughter, has gathered bits and bobs of precious lore during her illustrious career as an adventurer. Her enemies wouldn't want these treasured secrets scattered across the multiverse, so in defiance, she has collected and codifi...

Crit Academy discusses 5th Evolution (5evo): Carbide City! This awesome supplement was developed by Limitless Adventures takes the wildly popular Dungeons and Dragons 5e game mechanics and applies them to new genres. This 5evo product brings superheroes to your stories and campaigns! This fantastic supplement is the perfect marriage of comics and roleplaying. Show Notes: This episode is brought to...

Crit Academy discusses the newest Dungeons and Dragons playtest material. Unearthed Arcana: Subclasses 5. The two new subclasses; Way of the Ascendant Dragon monk and Drakewarden bring a breath of fresh dragon fire to the Monk and Ranger classes. And as always, we bring you new and creative Dungeons and Dragons content. Unearthed Arcana 2020 Subclasses, Part 5 Show Notes: https://www.critacademy.c...

Crit Academy delves into the vault of the legendary RPG creator Kobold Press! We crack open the Warlock Grimoire 2 ! Within these dusty pages, uncover the secrets of the world—indeed, of the branches of the multiverse! Collected here are entire lost volumes of esoteric truths. Only for you, the Warlock Grimoire 2 ! Dark revelations and wondrous testimonials of dark fantasy monsters and magic, loca...

Dungeon design in Dungeons and Dragons is hands down one of the most fun aspects of being a Dungeon Master. With it comes the challenge of designing fun dungeons that engage all three pillars of play; exploration, roleplay and combat. We are joined by Matt Whitby, podcaster , Dmsguild writer and youtuber. Together we discuss what goes into making a fantastic dungeon for your characters to explore....

Crit Academy is joined by Sam, The Education DM! Sam has been a DM since the mid-80s, and a teacher since the late 90s. He is passionate about Dungeons and Dragons, and Education, and mixing the two. His Facebook page is chock full of informative D&D material. Make sure to give him a follow and a share. He joins us today to talk about his Dump Stat article "The Rise of the Murder Hobo - D&D Teachi...

Crit Academy is joined by the best-selling Dmsguild author Jeff Stevens! He joins us today to discuss his current and first Kickstarter Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold! Let's face it, as game masters we don't always have the time to prepare an adventure for the next gaming session. This isn't our fault, we can't predict what chaos may occur in our everyday lives. Nor can we always be prepare...

Crit Academy discusses Bigby's Handbook of Creative Spell Use! A Dungeons and Dragons supplement designed to provide DMs and Players with powerful spell combinations that will allow you to terrorize your enemies. The handbook includes annotations from the one and only Bigby (character creation of D&D great, Rob Kuntz, and founding member of Greyhawk's 'Circle of Eight'). It offers a host of amazin...

Dungeons and Dragons is a game that consists of multiple pillars of play; combat, roleplay and exploration. Crit Academy discusses their best-selling DMsguild product "Challenge Accepted". This adaptation is designed to help enhance all those various challenges in a controlled and structured format called a skill challenge. In many scenarios, our heroes find themselves in encounters and social sit...

Crit Academy discusses Eyes Unclouded an anthology of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, inspired by classic Japanese animation. Entreat with the Cat King of the Feywild, learn the truth behind a curse affecting an ancient forest, race by airship to find a lost sky fortress and more! Eyes Unclouded is a full-color 180 page digital PDF that includes 11 original adventures for players of...

Crit Academy is joined by Gabe and Jeff from the roleplaying game podcast Inter-party Conflict. We discuss the good, bad, and ugly of metagaming in the world of Dungeons and Dragons and other roleplaying games. Metagaming can take many forms. Usually, it will be blatant and obvious, but other times it can be subtle and sometimes it's good, and sometimes not. We discuss the differences. Challenge A...