Amelia Som, Dan Dillon, Sal Tamarkin, I-Hsien Sherwood
33 episodes listed below
Classic modules, lovingly heckled.
Critical Lit follows a panel through classic adventure modules, with Curse of Strahd currently getting the long-form treatment. The mood is loose and joke-heavy, but the criticism stays practical: what works at the table, what breaks, and what deserves a better fix.
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Critical Lit is a rapid, unruly panel show about classic tabletop RPG adventures. Its current center of gravity is a chapter-by-chapter deep dive into Curse of Strahd, the fifth edition D&D module released in 2016. The panel moves through the material with a mix of affection, impatience, and practical table sense. A creepy windmill becomes a discussion of hag business logic. A ruined mansion full of revenant knights becomes a joke engine and a question about how tragic lore is staged. Kresk and the Abbey become a close read of coercion, villagers, a mad abbot, mongrel folk, and a golem bride. The Wizard of Wines becomes more than a location; the show notices that scarce wine can function as political leverage across Barovia. That is the pattern. A bit lands, someone pushes it further, and then the group finds the design consequence hiding underneath. The pacing is messy in a deliberate-feeling way. Cold opens can veer through movie tangents, recording mishaps, Patreon notes, or a running joke before the episode snaps into the module. Once inside the text, though, the panel is specific. They care about room descriptions, command words, NPC motives, encounter assumptions, player incentives, and the difference between creepy flavor and usable game structure. White Plume Mountain gets similar attention, with the hosts weighing dungeon staffing, charm implications, illusion rewards, and the strange theatricality of first edition design. The show is not a solemn review desk. It is closer to a table of experienced RPG people reading aloud, heckling the page, and quietly doing serious design criticism while everyone is still laughing. Listeners who want clean summaries may find it too chaotic. Listeners who enjoy module weirdness, rules translation, and irreverent craft talk will find a lot to steal for their own games.
Made for: For D&D players, dungeon masters, and RPG design nerds who like their module criticism fast, specific, and irreverent. Best for listeners who already enjoy adventure structure, table logistics, and old-school weirdness.
What sets it apart: Critical Lit turns close reading into a panel sport: jokes, corrections, tangents, and design notes all occupy the same breath. It stands out by treating absurd module details as both comedy material and practical evidence for how an adventure might actually run.
Critical Lit is a podcast where we revisit and retool (and lambast and lampoon) classic tabletop RPG adventures. Part book review, part heckling commentary, all in good fun. Hosted by industry veterans Dan Dillon (Legends of Avantris, formerly WotC), I-Hsien Sherwood (Total Party Thrill), Amelia Som (Unprepared Casters), and Sal Tamarkin (Cloud Curio).
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Critical Lit reads classic tabletop adventures closely, turning strange rules, overlooked consequences, and loose story hooks into sharper possibilities for play.
Critical Lit turns close readings of classic tabletop adventures into spirited group criticism. Dan Dillon, I-Hsien Sherwood, Amelia Som, and Sal Tamarkin move through White Plume Mountain and Curse of Strahd scene by scene, testing the logic behind rooms, encounters, character…
A kelpie feeder has a job, and now your dungeon notes need an HR department.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A cursed vineyard becomes a compact study of scarcity, leverage, and consequence.
The episode treats the blighted vineyard as a problem of scarcity and leverage: a ruined wine supply, a few barrels, and a module that suddenly has to answer for what is left.
A filthy tower crawl that turns one preserved head into a running design conversation.
This episode turns Khazan's tower into a damp, anti-magic crawl where the loot is strange, the smell is worse, and Yan, the preserved Vistana head, ends up feeling like the calm center of the room.
A brisk, funny take on the Abbey bargain and the Solanka Pass bird trio.
Critical Lit stays in the Abbey, where the Abbot's wedding-dress demand and the fallout that follows carry the discussion into the release of the mongrelfolk on the village.
A dungeon crawl that keeps asking who the monsters work for.
Critical Lit's second pass through White Plume Mountain stays attentive to the module's odd economy: a dungeon of caretakers, permanently charmed monsters, and an illusion of luxury that does not hold up for long.
A lively opening read that turns one odd setup and a wild map into sharp design talk.
Critical Lit opens its White Plume Mountain read with a premise that is strange in exactly the right way: a very old wizard, a fanatically loyal company of renegade gnomes, and the mountain they call home.
Carcosa horror with table-chaos momentum.
Critical Lit's episode 26 is its first listener Q&A on the 2016 5th edition module Curse of Strahd, answering questions from Patrick, Alex and Cora.
The vineyard is a mess.
The panel opens by correcting itself, then quickly turns to jokes about an alchemist-fire wagon disaster, lost manacles, and the messy reality of reconstructing a recording from someone else’s file.
The hosts discuss the Curse of Strahd module, focusing on Chapter 10 and the ruins of Beres.
Critical Lit closes the Abbey and then heads into the pass.
The hosts discuss Chapter 8 of Curse of Strahd, focusing on the village of Kresk, its mad abbot, mongrel folk, and a golem bride.
The hosts of Critical Lit discuss Chapter 7 of Curse of Strahd, focusing on the history of Argenvostolt and its vengeful gay knights.
The hosts of Critical It introduce Chapter 6 of Curse of Strahd, focusing on the Old Bonegrinder windmill and its hag inhabitants.
Critical Lit returns to White Plume Mountain.
Critical Lit opens on White Plume Mountain.
The hosts of Critical Lit discuss chapter five of Curse of Strahd, focusing on the town of Valaki and its strange inhabitants.
The hosts of Critical Lit begin their deep dive into chapter three of the Curse of Strahd module, covering the village of Barovia, and promote their Patreon bonus episodes on Dracula.
The hosts of Critical Lit introduce their deep dive into Curse of Strahd, discussing the history of Ravenloft and the adventure's introduction, with humorous asides.