Articles by Phil Menard
The Chatty DM is the "nom de plume" of gamer geek Philippe-Antoine Menard. He has been GMing various versions of D&D and other RPGs for nearly 30 years. A renowned RPG blogger, game designer and published author, he squats a corner of Critical Hits he affectionately calls "Musings of the Chatty DM." (Email Phil or follow him on Twitter.)
Chatty’s Fort Wayne Adventures: Tales from the Elemental Chaos, Part 1
I attended the 2012 Dungeons & Dragons Experience convention in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I couldn’t afford to fly there so I decided to drive my dirty blue Hyundai Accent to a place near Buffalo, NY -a 7 hour drive from my native Montreal- to meet up with fellow Critical-Hits writer, WotC freelancer and all-time superstar Shawn Merwin. He drove the rest of the way and much fun was had.
The convention was awesome, I got to see many friends again, made new ones, ran my own adventure, and, of course, played a few games of D&D Next, the very early prototype of what the next version could be based on.
Like so many other bloggers and freelancers, I’ve signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement so I can’t discuss specific rules. Rather I will do what I like doing best: tell stories of the games I ran, sharing highlights and special DMing and player moments during that 4 day long event. Up first, the genesis of new heroes. [Read the rest of this article]
Our D&D Greatest Hits: Chatty’s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
The recent annoucement that D&D was going to get a new iteration has garnered a lot of reactions on the web. I decided to refrain from early judgement but, much like when 4e was announced, I take an optimistic approach to it. I happen to respect and even quite like the work of the three main designers working on it so that helps my somewhat positive outlook.
I was very intrigued with Mike Mearls vision of creating a “D&D’s Greatest Hits.” It evokes a plethora of images about modular designs and piecemeal “build your own game” elements that inspires the writer and budding game designer in me. This gave me an idea for a series of post here at Critical Hits. Some of the bloggers here have been playing various editions of D&D for the last 4 decades, I thought it would be interesting if we shared our five DMing Greatest Hits for some or all of the versions of D&D we played as dungeon masters.
Let me start with my first foray in RPGs:
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1e)
- Age Range when played : 10-16
- Nostalgia Factor: Very High
- Rules Mastery: Moderate
As I mentioned in my RPG DNA post a while back, I discovered tabletop RPGs when I was 10. A schoolmate invited me over to show me a made-up game based on what he had played with his cousin (the original Red Box) over a weekend. We played for hours with hardly any rules more complex than “Roll a d6 to fight, you die on a 1, you kill the monster on a 6, we roleplay the inbetweens“. [Read the rest of this article]
Chatty’s 2nd Anniversary at Critical-Hits: The Enthusiastic Storyteller
Can you believe I have been with Critical-Hits for two years already? A lot has happened since July 2007 (when I started blogging) and January 10th 2009 (when I merged my blog with Critical-Hits). Yet, as I’ve discussed a few weeks ago, my passion and my drive to write content for the website has now collided with various other priorities. They range from my freelance assignments to reorganizing my life in the light of a recent separation and adjusting to the violently joyful upheavals of love found anew.
In that time, I’ve further thought about what gets my blood boiling and sends my brain in a creative frenzy. As I seek to find this feeling anew among all the clutter that accumulates in my existence, I realized what makes me tick as a writer. I found it while reading a book.
A while back, I was reading Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek while I was waiting for Dr.C to finish work. I came upon his story about trading his Death Star playset vs a landspeeder and 10$ back in the 80′s and it just dawned on me:
Will was lousy at trades. Oh wait, that’s not it. 
Much like Wil realized that he was a born storyteller, I realized that was also one of the things I liked doing most: writing stories about what my experiences with RPGs. If you look over my previous 2 posts (here and here), my series on becoming a freelance writer (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) or all my posts about playing with my children, you can feel the energy being poured into these articles. Yet, as I recall, they required minimal effort to write. I enjoy sharing my experience through a (slightly) fictionalized account of what occurs in my geek life so much that it doesn’t feel like work to me… at all. [Read the rest of this article]
Instant Dungeon Crawling, Trial by Dragon
Last week, I posted about a formula I devised at the New York Comic Con to play an improv randomly generated dungeon crawl.
At the time, I had no idea how successful the experience would be. As it turns out, things went quite well indeed. Read on for the “storified” highlights of this two hour game.
Puzzling it Out
In one room I rolled “puzzle” on my trusty chart. The map showed two pools, one silver coloured and one gold. So I devised the following “simple” puzzle. The players had to take a container made of silver to transfer water from the silver pool to the gold pool OR take a gold container to do the reverse. Doing either popped a secret latch in the wall and uncovered the treasure.
I let the players experiment for about 10 minutes, answering questions, helping them learn about skill checks to obtain hints and figure things out. They eventually caught on but no one had a silver or golden container.
Rogue: Hey wait (throws treasure token from a previous encounter my way), I have this magnificent silver liquor flask. I pour out the content and use it.
Chatty: What was in the flask?
Rogue (smiling evilly) Fine Dwarven spirits…
Dwarf: No!!!! [Read the rest of this article]
Instant Dungeon Crawling, The Formula and the Setup
Earlier last fall I was at the New York Comic Con as a volunteer DM for Wizards of the Coast. I asked to be assigned to the “Learn D&D” activity. The organizers asked me to provide an improvised adventure using the material available in the D&D Red Box (the 2010 version) rather than play the adventure found in the box.
I played 3 such games and they each were incredibly entertaining. I recounted one of them here.
In the last game I played, I wanted to create a dungeon crawling experience with absolute minimal prepping in advance. More importantly however, I wanted to be able to play without floundering for ideas whilst in the middle of running the game. As I pondered my options, I came up with a formula for running a quick 2 hour game. I’m sharing this with you because I think you might find it useful.
I started with the Red Box , including the dungeon battlemap packaged with the game. I then took a fistfull of glass beads (which I dubbed “treasure tokens”) and wrote the following table:
Roll a d10
1-2 Empty Room, Treasure out in open
3-4 Trap
5-6 Puzzle
7-0 Monster
The idea was to have the treasure beads distributed in various rooms of the dungeon and roll on the table whenever the party entered one such room. I’d make up an encounter based on the result using nothing but the list of monsters in the Red Box’s DM’s booklet and the mini-Rule 42 found on the booklet’s last page (the DC for level 1 adventurers and a damage chart for hazards). If I rolled “monster” I’d make a level 1 encounter on the spot based on what made most sense or was cool.
With only a 40% chance to face monsters (combat not being the only outcome even then), I thought this distribution to be ideal for fostering exploration and creating the classic “poke with a stick” experimentation that I fondly remembered of my early D&D games as a tweenager.
Turns out I was right…
Armed with these, I got a group of 4 players and we created the setting for the game by having them answer these questions:
You are adventurers that banded together recently. Tell me what your last adventure was about. More specifically, tell me one good thing that happened to you and one bad thing that requires you to return adventuring in dungeons.
The wizard player (sensing an exploit) said “I found a very powerful staff”
I answered “Ha! Sure, no problem… But since this is a one shot level 1 game, please work in your ‘bad’ stuff how you lost that staff… even if only temporarily.”
The Dwarven Slayer piped in: “I know! I spent all of the party’s loot from our last adventure on ale and whores… I even pawned the wizard’s staff! I’m so sorry guys, I’ll make it up to you!”
Everybody was laughing their heads off, the game was already a great success.
Chatty: Okay then, well the dwarf knows this Goblin “Bookie” called Groo that specializes in booking high risk, high paying, no-questions-asked forays into vaults, catacombs and other subterranean locales in exchange for a very fair share of the spoils.
Dwarf: Oh yeah, he’s the one who spotted me the money for the staff.
Drow Ranger: You are so not leaving our eyesight, ever again!
Dwarf: Oh come on, I told you I’d waive my part of the treasure until I paid you all off!
(The guy was so funny…)
Chatty: Okay so Groo tells you that the thieve’s guild has had one of its minor vaults run over by monsters from the Underdark and were ready to sign off the valuables stored as a “business loss”. Groo bought back the “content” of the vault at 1 silver piece to the gold crown and wants you to recover as much from it as you can… he promises to let you keep 50% of whatever you recover.
I pulled out the Red Box’s Dungeon map and handed out a pair of glass beads to every player.
Chatty: Okay each of these beads represents a small generic treasure pile whose worth you’ll evaluate once you leave the dungeon. You’ll alternate turns placing these tokens onto the dungeon map, representing in what room treasure can be found. Whenever you enter a room with one of those beads, I’ll play on my little table here to see what you meet, it won’t necessarily be monsters.
The players started placing the beads commenting on some of the features appearing on the map, like braziers, pools and ominous runes on the floor. It reminded me that these were all new players or players who hadn’t played in decades. It dawned on me that I had a very important job here: present one of my favourite games to these players so they could taste how awesome playing D&D is.
Chatty: Okay, before we start, here’s one last thing about the beads. Since they are generic treasure, it’s possible that they could be useful for you in a given situation. So at anytime that you need a particular tool or object, you can “spend” a token and tell me “Oh but I have this doohickey that’s great for disarming traps” or “Oh look, here’s the key to that locked door” or better yet “Hey guys, what does a “healing potion” do?”
They loved it.
In hindsight, they mostly used them as healing potions as things got HARD, but I love this mechanic and will use it for all the “unattributed treasure parcel” I keep struggling with to this day.
The game was a huge success, Up next, I’ll share the highlights of the game. It turned out to be among my great D&D games and certainly one of my most successful convention games ever.
One Hour Blog Post: Don’t Need To, Want To!
Every year, in December, when I get out my fall seasonal funk, I’m overflowed with the inevitable introspection that comes with all light depressive states.
As awesome as 2011 started (getting published ROCKS), the second half of the year has brought turmoil and uncertainties beyond what my strengthening psyche could manage without help. Brutal changes have rocked my life leading me to move into a new apartment, deal with the always unsatisfactory compromise that is shared custody of my children and deal with the unbridled joy (and distractions) of newly found love.
All this, coupled with keeping up with my client’s projects, has led me to slip out one of my best established habits: blogging. As I let this slide, my “need” to write online receded and I stopped rationalizing why I didn’t feel the old compulsion to write as I have for so many years.
As I write these lines, I realize that “needing” is fed by the act of doing.
As I floundered in moving boxes, struggled with deliverable and dove into awesome dates with the one I have been affectionately calling Dr. C, I realized that I more or less sat on the achievements I worked hard to unlock after implementing the plan I successfully hatched, nearly 3 years ago, redirecting my life. As a result, I need to take back control of my creative life. I need to start writing again.
Scratch that. When I hear people around me bemoaning their life, my inner coach wakes up. “I should” and “I need” are poisonous inertia-fueled guilt-trips. I need to think and speak action words!
Let’s try this again shall we?
I want to take back control of my creative life. I will start writing again.
Okay Chatty… how are you going to do this then? How about this? [Read the rest of this article]
Chatty’s Quest : A Twitter Adventure
On October 2011, I started my move into my new apartment and was sitting alone and dejected, waiting for people to deliver my new furniture.
(Yes I am recently separated. Everything’s fine now, including the kids.)
I picked up my smartphone and sent a call out on Twitter for some entertainment.
Chatty: Spending day alone in new unfurnished apartment, awaiting for new furniture and services. Keep me company plz?
That’s when my good friend FDL, sent me this completely unexpected response:
FDL: Ok. you see a grue. What do you do?
(I was thinking: “Hey cute joke…. Let’s see how it plays out.”)
Chatty: Wave torch
FDL: As you wave your torch, you set your furniture delivery guys on fire. Game over. Restart? [y/n]
(I fell down my flimsy beach chair onto my hardwood floor laughing. This could become fun.)
Chatty: LOL yes. Talk Grue.
FDL: The grue says she’s your upstairs neighbor and she hopes her noisy Angry Birds parties won’t bother you too much. What next?
Chatty: examine exits
FDL: There is only one exit, a hangar bay door.
Chatty: kick door
FDL: Door says “Ow!” and kicks back. Grue looks at you in disgust.
(Very funny man… At this point it was clear we had a Parsely text game going. The fact that it worked so well on Twitter was awesome. People had started reading it and reacting to it. I was having fun, my woes forgotten.)
Chatty: Apologize door.
(I was still playing it old school with 2 words)
Chatty: Inventory
FDL: This game uses the Diablo II inventory screen, so assume that you can’t find anything useful, ever. Assume your hands are empty.
(Har har har…)
Chatty: Exit room
FDL: The grue locks the door behind you. It is very cold outside. And you forgot to say “wear pants”, didn’t you?
FDL: It’s Friday. You never wear pants on Friday. Lord knows you said so on Twitter often enough.
(Smartypants, stop reading my Tweets.)
Chatty: Scoff about need for pants.
FDL: As you exit the apartment pantsless, you run into your other new neighbors who wanted to welcome you. All of them.
(*Facepalm*)
Chatty: Do dance of pantless pride
FDL: Neighbor’s kid takes a swing at your pantslessness with +5 Vorpal Steeltoed boots. Rolls a natural 20. You’re in ER.
(That was a low blow FDL)
Chatty: (ouch…) summon nurse
(There was a missing, untagged tweet here about a nurse casting Cure Critical Wounds and an Orc lying in the next bed, a Battleaxe embedded in its forehead, smiling at me.)
Chatty: Examine room
FDL: Well, it IS an examination room, so you sorta have to do that, yeah. BTW, the Orc says: “You pretty!”
FDL: BTW, the grue called and said you missed your cable guy. He rescheduled your appointment for March 14th, 2177.
(Sigh, it’s funny because it’s almost true)
Chatty: Ask orc for battleaxe
FDL: Orc smiles (toothlessly), hides battleaxe behind his back and says: “You no say magic worrrrd, pretty one!”
(Sigh… time to test the parsely engine.)
Chatty: Smile sweetly and tell orc “give me the (censored) battleaxe you (censored) or I’ll (censored) your (censored) (censored) please.
FDL: Orc hands you the battleaxe and says: “You not gotta be big meanie, hurt Ogg-Bogg’s feelings!” Nurse frowns at you.
Chatty: Kiss orc on forehead and say “I was speaking Bromantic Orc you dummy” then find pants… Any pants.
FDL: You put on clown pants. The clown you take them from looks pissed, until he sees your battleaxe and your Orc.
Chatty: Search clown pants pocket for clown car keys and go out into parking.
FDL: 12,000 evil clowns pile out of the car and squirt unholy water at you with their lapel flowers. Roll saving throw.
(I gotta hire this guy for my next adventure)
Chatty: I’m wearing a gown, clown pants, a battleaxe and an amorous orc with a splitting headache; I make the damn save.
FDL: OK. Just in the nick of time, the Orc dives in front of you to take the Unholy water blast. He dies with a smile.
(Nooooooooooooo…… Ogg-Bogg, our bromance was too short.)
FDL: And then the grue swoops by and steals you away from the angry clown mob. You’re back home, safe. You win. 5000 XP!
That was a great little game. It helped me pass the time and I thank FDL for having taken some time and invested significant creative effort in doing this. So you see, Twitter can be used for parsely games after all (and others too). Provided both parties are willing to play some give and take for entertainment value.
Also, if you haven’t tried them yet, give Jared Sorensen’s Parsely games a try. They are a great way to pass time in between games.
Special thanks to Dr.C., the new special someone in my life, who safeguarded this exchange so I could make a post out of it. Also thanks to Tangent128 who made the TwitRPG logo back in 2008 when I played my first RPG game on Twitter.
Chatty’s Dream Design Project: An Interactive Primer-RPG
Tomorrow will be one of the year’s slowest days on the Bloggosphere: the American Thanksgiving weekend. Of course, that’s when I feel the biggest urge to write in a long time.
But that’s never stopped me before.
So after asking my Twitter readers for inspiration (thanks Christian), I settled on a question that’s been on my mind for a long time:
Given no limits in ressources, time and talent, what would you design?
Hmm, that’s an easy one; I’d design something along the lines of the “Young Ladies’ Primer” found in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. The Primer was a nano-computer with one main function, to act as an interactive smart-book that taught children through a long interactive storygame.
So when I say I’d like to do something like that, I’m not thinking about an actual book-shaped computer made with nanotech (although it would be cool), rather I’d like to do something that could, eventually, evolve into just that… with a tabletop RPG spin.
Here are the basic pitching points:
- An application for a tablet PC like the iPad or the equivalent
- The app features a richly illustrated (animated?) adventure story aimed at tweenagers, I’m thinking 8-12.
- The story progressively becomes fully interactive as a CRPG with elements such as dialog choices, character sheets, conflict resolution mechanics and character growth (XPs).
- The game should last between 5 and 10 hours depending on side-quests completed.
- A simple, yet complete set of tabletop RPG rules that allows readers to continue the adventures of the characters of the story
- Stats for all main characters for the story and rules to make new ones.
- A primer to teach parents how to play tabletop roleplaying games with tween-aged children, complete with advice on preparing new stories, inserting educational content (if needed) and letting the creativity of children drive the show.
The tabletop game would most likely be narrative-driven. So far, the mechanics that I envision fitting the most with what I need is is John Harper’s Lady Blackbird as it has just the right amount of rules element (fitting on a demi-page) to make it into really enjoyable roleplaying game for people of all ages.
I don’t know if the technology is there yet or if parents would be interested in this, but as a customer, I’d snag such a product (and pay more than once for different stories) in a minute.
What about you? Do you like the idea? What elements would you like to see in such a app/story/game?
More importantly, if you were asked the same question I was, what would you design?
Teach Kids to Game: Nico and Rory’s Stories
Earlier this week, Dave sent me a link to an event called “Teach your Kids to Game” and Dave thought it would be a good idea that I dug in my archives to bring back my posts about how I brought my kids into gaming, namely through bedtime storytelling.
Long time readers will remember some fondly and I hope that new readers will discover some of the best gems of this little corner I call my blog.
And just so everyone is up to speed, I have two children: Nico, a 9 y.o. boy and Rory an 8 y.o. girl.
The stories I will link to range from 2008 to 2011.
Nico’s Quest: What started it all
Upon my return from Gen Con 2008, riding high on a thousand ideas and projects, I decided to turn my son’s bedside story into an simple, freeform interactive roleplaying game. It worked so well it sparked a mini-campaign:
If you click only one link in the whole post, at least click the first one, it will be worth your time.
D&D 4e vs a 6 y.o. Attention Span
During the bedside campaign, I tried playing D&D 4e with Nico, using pregens and a very simple improv adventure. After a 30 minutes encounter, Nico’s attention wandered and we never returned to that game, but you can see some of the cool things that can be done with D&D and a 6 year old.
An Old Classic gets the Nico Treatment
Some time later, Nico and I decided to play the bedtime story game again and we managed to cram a great session in one session. It featured the now classic Super Nico (Laser Knight Esc.) and was about saving a young prince in the clutches of the evil Red Dragon Smaug.
What is really ironic is that I just showed him the original post and asked him if the name Smaug rang a bell.
Nico: Yeah, wasn’t that the dragon in The Hobbit?
Chatty: What are the chances?
Nico: Daddy!
Intermission:
During Gen Con 2008, I wrote a long, crazy, disjointed live-blog post which I will spare you. In this post, one H. Gygax left a comment about remembering the early Gen Cons as she was serving drinks and hot dogs in her basement…
O.o
We exchanged a few messages on Facebook and when she read about the stories I did with Nico she shared a great Gygax family story. She told me that Gary would often gather all the kids in a bedroom and start doing a grand interactive story with all of them. The kids loved it and really got into it. And often, Gary would fall asleep in the bed while the kids kept adding to the story.
I love stuff like that, thanks Heidi.
Unfinished Tale
At one point I had a harder time keeping up with the Laser Knight stories I did with Nico. They all started to feel like they were the same. One such story did stand out and I recount the first part here:
I’m sad I don’t remember that last part of that story because I do recall its conclusion was cool.
Variations on the Same Theme.
As time flew by, we tried other versions of bedtimes stories.
One was about Nico taking on the role of a Mecha pilot
The story was really cool and let Nico deploy new ideas based on technology and whatnot.
But my favorite of the gang was the Indiana Nico series, of which I have only one post:
In that post 7 y.o. Nico shared a fundamental piece about what many people like about RPGs; we call it the Rule of C4 here.
New Breakthrough: The Notebook RPG
The bedtime stories petered off with Nico (I’ll talk about Rory real soon) until I stumbled upon the idea of playing an adventure using a visual support: A notebook.
- Notebook Campaign: How I got my Son into Tabletop RPGs
- Notebook Campaing: Super Nico vs the 3 Hungry Goblins
To this day, more than 2 years after we tried it, Nico still talks about the experience and wants to “upgrade” it with more players, minatures and bigger paper…
…i.e. a full blown tabletop RPG.
Culmination of an Art: The Lego Campaign
The following two posts describe a battlegame we created with only Rock-Paper-Scissors and what I call “Mouseburning” it . It was when Nico asked me to play with some Legos with him and I suggested we made they whole thing into an adventure game. We had a lot of fun.
- Nico’s Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King’s Cave, Part 1
- Nico’s Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King’s Cave, Part 2
It’s Not Just a Boy’s Game: Introducing Rory
My daughter Rory has mostly been less interested than Nico in doing those story games, with a few very notable exceptions.
First when she was very young:
After that experience, she didn’t want to play alone for 3 years. But when we did, what a result! (This is from earlier this Fall)
The sensitive nature of Rory that you see when she was a preschooler has flourished in a richer, stronger ability to forge a story.
I remain constantly amazed at the skills my children are developing through these games. I do hope they become as useful to their lives as gaming has helped me in mine.
All together Now: Brother and Sister Editions
Nico and Rory played the story games twice, both were notable events, with, shall we say, interesting results…
In which siblings fight for narrative control and unlock the power of synergy when they finally team up.
In which both my children were introduced to Sword and Sorcery ( a D&D 0th edition retroclone) and had fun talking to the quest givers.
Leaving The Nest
I always wondered how these games would shape how my children would play with others. Well it turns out it had more influence than I thought…
In fact, Nico, Rory and thier friend Felix are playing an extremely complex Lego game right now where each player has to trade gems to the other two to be allowed to purchase specific parts to build machines and people.
The complexity of the game baffles my mind.
Oh and all three now share a Minecraft server (very originally called Nicocraft) that my friend PM setup for them.
How’s that for having guided them into gamerland?
So what’s your “Teach Kids to Play” story?
D&D Zombie Apocalypse, Part 2: The What Ifs
In part 1, I described how an improv D&D game I ran at the New York ComicCon had a Zombie Apocalypse as a setting.
While the game had nothing spectacular in terms of the encounters we played or the monsters the players fought (zombie wolves), the concept awoke my dormant creativity and sent into a spiral of ideas and concepts upon which a campaign setting could rest on.
The Fantasy Zombie Apocalypse What-If Game
Ever since that game, my mind’s been afire with the idea of running an actual D&D game during a Zombie Apocalypse. The game has the necessary resources: there are a gazzillion zombie creatures in the D&D Compendium, the Open Grave sourcebook has many ideas about them and, well, zombies are just too cool for school.
(Hello Phil? The 80′s called and they want that tacky buzz phrase back)
But here’s what makes ot so interesting to me, when you mix any generic fantasy world and apply a zombie plague over it, you get the most interesting concepts.
For a modern take on the subject, refer to this 2009 Halloween post of mine.
So why don’t we play my favourite of all creative games, the What-If game? [Read the rest of this article]
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