Munchkin: Critical Role puts a D&D spin on a classic festival

A new twist on Munchkin is on its way, and this time the hectic card game takes on a critical role. The game will be released on April 7, and it serves as more than just another selection package. Instead, it’s easy to pick up for people who’ve never played the original party card game, with lots of beautiful art and references to The Mighty Nine’s adventures.

Munchkin is a card-based festival where players must reach level 10 by collecting prey and killing monsters. It is so stripped and rules-light that it is easy to combine it with Critical Role, the popular one Dungeons & Dragons actual game series. The group led by Matt Mercer started together in 201

5. The second campaign, starring an eclectic group of adventurers, known as The Mighty Nein, serves as source material for Munchkin: Critical role.

While we play Munchkin, players “kick down the door” to start a meeting, switching to playing powerful cards to defeat bosses. It is also a comedy play. Sometimes players find common but useful equipment such as a solid pair of boots or a sharp sword. Other times they get crazy spells and wild objects they can drop during battle to help themselves – or lock a rival in a losing battle.

Image: Critical Role / Steve Jackson Games

Plays classically Munchkin is relatively freeform compared to most competitive board games. Players can enter into alliances with each other, swap swaps and release cards to prevent each other on a regular basis. Players can also mix in expansion packs, so that the dungeon crawling goes from a fantasy setting to a melting pot of pirate fantasy, sci-fi spaceships or superheroes.

Munchkin: Critical role keeps the general structure of the core game, with plenty of room for back and forth card shifts and matches, but it is otherwise very much a critical role adaptation that stands alone as its own game.

Players take on the role of characters from The Mighty Nein, using a character card for Fjord Stone, Yasha Nydoorin, Caduceus Clay, Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre and Nott the Brave. The game also adds a couple of dice, some tokens and a card that makes everything feel a little less like a festival and a little more like a D&D session.

Munchkin: Critical role is currently available for purchase from The Op Games. Critical role fans can also take a free adventure for Dungeons & Dragons written by DM Matt Mercer, or watch a recent book written by Mercer about the work behind the scenes of running Critical Role. The company has also branched out into game publishing with the launch of Darrington Press.

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