Mixed Success Issue #2: Critical Hits (All Revenue to Medical Aid for Palestine)

We are donating all revenue for this issue plus an additional $200 to Medical Aid for Palestinians. We encourage you to donate to MAP as well.

Mixed Success is a bi-annual TTRPG magazine that aims to bridge the various microcosms of designers, hobbyists, and writers across the internet. Each issue, we propose a theme to get your creative juices flowing. Think of it like a gamejam every six months. We hope that broadening horizons will lead to fresh ideas and new perspectives in game design. Not just game design, but we hope to bring interesting stories inspired by your campaigns or that will inspire your next campaign. Art is a conversation: with curation and themes, we want to showcase certain points of that conversation. 

For our second issue, our theme is Critical Hits. Critical Hits are an enduring symbol of roleplaying. The twenty-sided die showing a twenty is iconic to the point of blandness. There are innumerable podcasts named variations of "Critical Hit." This makes it an extremely tempting one to problematize. Would critical hits be so integral to tabletop culture without the totalizing culture force that is Dungeons and Dragons? Is there something sinister in the similarities between Critical Hits and gambling? Critical Hits are such an important yet unquestioned part of roleplaying that it is the basis of many of the stories we tell about tabletop games.

What theme would you like to see next? Have an article to pitch? Want to be on our roster for cover artists? Find us on twitter and Cohost @MixedSuccessmag or email us at editor@mixedsuccess.com.

Contents:

• Cover by (yuri also on cohost)
• FALSE IDOLS by Devin Nelson
• Act of God by Cee Jordan: I'm a writer living in Dublin, Ireland. I work primarily with writing workshops and childhood education, including using ttrpgs as a creative medium for kids to explore co-operative storytelling.
• last days of the mushroom war by coffee
• Roll to Dodge by Fina MacDusa: An Irish trans girl who writes things and directs films sometimes. She's been published in the Westmeath Examiner, Manawaker Studios, and Bunbury Magazine. She also works as the assistant editor for the TTRPG magazine Mixed Success, writes things on twitter on @bimbowonk, and publishes games on the-medusa-doctrine.itch.io. She hopes this is being read in a sultry, seductive tone.
• Cyclic Horizon by HB
• The Cottage by Faye Hopper