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How big is 5ft? That might seem like a simple question, but when comes to D&D measurements come with some complexities. In D&D everything is measured in increments of 5th—movement, spell effects, and weapon range are all in units of 5ft. It makes things easier on the DM but can create some interesting issues too. Imagine that a character takes up a 5ft square in in battle or while moving through a dungeon. That’s fine until you compare it to real life. If you’ve ever been in a 5 or 10 foot area in real life, you know a lot...

Professional DMs. Love the idea? Hate it? Let’s talk. Recently the concept of professional DMs, or paying to play Dungeons & Dragons has become a topic of debate (again). Each time the topic comes up, there are a lot of strong feelings and opinions about it. Some have accused it of being a type of gatekeeping, while others can’t imagine a world where they would charge their friends to run a game. And some think of it as offering help or a service someone can’t easily get any other way. As a way of exploring this trend, I want to...

Where do ideas come from? Have you ever sat with a blank page and no ideas, desperately trying to think of a new adventure (or any adventure) for your next game?  There's seriously no stress like knowing people are getting ready to show up to your table and you have to have something ready. Maybe you’re out of ideas today, or maybe you’ll get stuck next week because honestly, it happens to everyone. I've got over 350 ideas on the  Critical Dice Instagram page, a ton of them from you, but I still get stuck when it's time to come up with a new one.Whatever...

Where do ideas come from? If you are like me, you struggle to think up interesting and challenging adventures for your gaming table. Even though there are over 100 ideas on the  Critical Dice Instagram page they had to come from somewhere. Honestly, I still get stuck sometimes. Maybe you’re out of ideas today, maybe not, or maybe you’ll get stuck next week. Whatever creative place you’re in, I hope you’ll love these 3 ways to get your creative juices flowing and get your gaming group jumping again.1) Books (non-fantasy)Yep. Books. Paper. E-books. Audio books. No matter how you read them, books are packed with ideas. My...

Game hooks are a great way to destroy writer's block and get your creative juices flowing! Having trouble creating your next adventure? Got writer's block that even a quad shot espresso won’t fix? This is the book for you.  This is a table of 100 short adventure ideas called game hooks. You can just pick one that tickles your fancy or roll 2d100 and combine the ideas as the framework of your next campaign.  For the last 6 months we've been creating these hooks on our Instagram page (@criticaldice) and now the list is finally complete. We complied all the posts into an...