I have them! 4e books!
Expect a ton of mini posts in the next few days as I chronicle my 4e Experience.
I have them, still shrink wrapped! Woot!
I just got back home from ZeStuff (the main sponsor of this here blog) where I picked up 2 Core Sets, 5 Players Handbooks and 1 Dungeon Master Guide.
Pierre-Luc was nice enough to offer me a Core Set so I’ll post reviews/playtest of each in the next week or so expect a few reviews/playtest reports in the following days (Thanks man, you guys rock!).
I also got a nice dungeon floor-colored Vinyl Battlemap, such a nice cool gift.
Now I’m off to crack the wrapping and get drunk on that new book smell.
X-mas in June: D&D 4e is out!
It’s 5h45 AM and I can’t wait for Pierre-Luc (of ZeStuff) to open the doors to his Warehouse Store at 10h00 am so I can pick up my D&D 4e hardcovers.
I know most of you have seen it, but Scott Rouse of WotC has made you all a series of notes allowing you to ditch work/school/chores so you could get your books and start playing right freaking now.
Tonight my whole gaming crew will be there to try out the game. I’m going to play the Game Day adventure and add a Warlord or Warlock to the lineup of characters. Hopefully we get to play it all and I get to break out my Silver Dragon mini to stage the ‘Against the White Dragon’ adventure.
So for those who are buying the books, how are you going to spend your day? Admit it, none of you are going to be working very hard now are you (That’s why I’m up so early, so I can get work done before diving in the books).
Here’s to a new era of D&D. I hope it’s as fun and as interesting as prior editions were and totally free of .5!
Chatty's Review: Wii will get you Fit
I just guest posted a new review about Wii Fit over at Critical-Hits.
Why don’t you go and have a look… you might learn just how evil that thing truly is!
I love it and my son loves it… he can’t wait to recover from his surgery to start playing it again.
Enjoy!
I may tackle Boom Blox too later this week.
Chatty's New Partner
In the next few weeks, you’ll see a few changes in the Ad setup of the blog.
After meeting with fellow Quebec businessman Pierre of ZeStuff.com, we’ve agreed on trying a partnership for a while and see how it works out for each of us.
I’m really excited about this! ZeStuff is one cool Geek Online Store and it’s mere minutes from where I live. I just bough this coolest of Laptop bags and I’m already in love with it.
Here’s what you will see from this partnership:
- This blog will be linked to from ZeStuff’s website, replacing the Store Blog
- I’ll place a permanent banner to the online Store on the blog.
- I will make periodic reviews of RPG products and various Geek games
- We’ll try to set up an affiliate program where people can be referred to the store from here.
As a first step to this partnership, I have gotten to read the D&D 4e’s Adventure Keep on the Shadowfell and I will post a preview/review tonight!
Stay tuned!
While we’re at it, for those who haven’t secured a pre-order of the 4e core books, ZeStuff has them for 86,45$.
I’ll be offline all day, I’ll catch you later!
Ods and Ends, part Deux
Hey! We made it! We topped the 300 RSS subcribers milestone!
I say we, because while I write the site’s content, it really only runs as smoothly with Graham’s technical assistance (whose apparently saving the internet one site at a time) and all of your participation as readers, Stumblers and Commenters.
Woot! I’ve got my 300 minions! Hoo-HA!
Thanks everyone!
I’m also sitting on a completed Trope post about doing big reveals in a RPG campaign. It’s scheduled to come up at 20h00 tonight. I think I did a good job with it and I hope it will give you ideas.
The judging of the 10 word adventure contest is progressing. All 3 judges settled on picking our personal top 5 in each of the 3 categories (Best Adventure Hook, Funniest Entry and Best Pop/Geek reference) and we’ll debate them once we are all done choosing. We’re waiting on the results of the last judge and we’ll get to the arguing 
Oh and before I leave, while backtracking all the contest entry’s blogs and website, I discovered Max’s blog who posted the absolute best D&D 4e Monster Generator.
I’m printing it here without the author’s permission, only to show you how brilliant the guy is… GO READ HIS BLOG!
One of the highly touted aspects of the new edition of D&D is the ease with which DMs will be able to create and customize monsters to challenge their players. In fact, I just learned the DMs will be able build monsters on the fly, using just a few rolls of a trusty twenty-sider:
1 black blade brute 2 blood blood creeper 3 bone bond/bound delver 4 death claw fiend 5 demon cloak/cloaked filcher 6 doom doom foamer 7 dread fang gnasher 8 flame fiend horde/hordling 9 ghost fire howler 10 grim gaunt hulk 11 ice haunt lasher 12 iron horn leaper 13 night maw racer 14 poison rake reaver 15 razor scale ripper 16 spell spike scourge 17 stone tusk sneak 18 storm warp/warped swarm 19 thunder wing titan 20 wind wrack wurm With attacks and abilities built right into the name, spelled out in ubiquitous damned adjectival compound nouns, a DM need only decide the creature’s level range and role, and let ‘er rip.
I made me a Thunder Fang Howler… a critter that has a poisonous bite that deals continuous electricity damage and can deal electricity damage and push opponents with it’s Thunder Howl Breath weapon!
See ya later!
Ookay… what do they sell again?
Found via Geeknews.
As far as I can make it, Wonderhowto.com is a genuine ‘How to’ video archive (with ads)…
Well no one will fault me for not meeting my PG-13 borderline R rated standards.
So I ask you… how un-believable is she?
I’m more inclined to believe other types of geek girls (note: That last link takes you to an adult service run by a gamer geek girl, other links from there are potentially NSFW, you’ve been warned).
Chatty's bid for world domination!
Actually not really.
This is just a quick note to tell you that I wrote a guest review of Mario Kart Wii over at Critical Hits. I thought it would be more appropriate over there than here.
So if Video Games are your cup of tea, head on over there and have a quick read.
Also, I take the occasion to say that Critical Hits is an excellent Geek blog that also covers, among many things, movies, board games and Role Playing games. It’s part of my daily reads and I started blogging partly because of the cool things I saw these guys do.
Enjoy.
Hit by a (consultative) Drive-by Shooting
This morning I woke up covered in (figurative) blood.
I had just been the target of James and Harry (of Men with Pens‘s fame) Drive-by Shooting Sundays.
The rather colorful and fluffed-up setup is actually a lookover consultation of the blog from the eyes of trained online buisness men.
While I knew that the Blog could be improved, I must say that my Ego was somewhat bruised (As often happens with brutal honesty my buddy Graham would say).
I think that part of their criticism comes from the fact that they were cold called on the blog and know nothing of what I was about (except that I was a gamer) so they evaluated the blog from that stand point.
Regardless, all their observations hit true to a certain extent.
Here are a few key observations (Read the whole post here):
Hm. I’m not sure what to think of a first impression. Personally, I’m not big on cartoons. I think cartoons should be used sporadically and be well illustrated to convey a message without downgrading the seriousness. (Is gaming serious? Damned straight it is.)
I pointed out in the comments that the Cartoon is actually a caricature of me. I don’t think I’m going to surprise anyone by saying that the blog’s branding turns around a certain Chatty guy… (I’ve even been accused, quite nicely, to foster a burgeoning personality cult… what? I’d never do this to my minions!)
The banner title is fuzzy, so that should be cleaned up to be sharper. Harry finds the comment bubbles interesting and I hate them, so it’s a toss up on that, too.
That is something I might have to take up with the Artist that made the banner. I didn’t mind it when I got it, but I’ve had more than one feedback on it. With 4e’s publication, I think I’ll commission Veronica for an update.
The tagline gets lost in the banner and isn’t visible at all. Who is Chatty DM? Why should I read these musings? What’s this site about anyways? It does tell readers what the site is about – your quest. But again, why should I read this site?
With 4e’s publication, the tagline will lose it’s meaning. I’m probably going to change it with ‘Where the Rule of Cool meets the Rule of Fun in Tabletop RPGs’ or something.
The comment count should be at the bottom of posts to allow readers to read and then click immediately to comment without having to scroll back up.
That’s actually a very good point. Maybe I’ll ask Graham to hack this bit when he’s done with his finals.
The main problem seems to be that the overall color theme is bland. There’s nothing really wrong with it, but it’s… forgettable. There’s nothing interesting to capture readers at a glance and no punch to the page.
This is where I disagree (as often happens in artistic decisions), I quite like the soft, bland colors because I wanted a relaxed atmosphere. When we discussed colors, it was suggested quite early on that we’d move away from the current color schemes and go for different… I think that once again the suggestion comes from a ‘I’m a first time visitor that dropped from a search result… make sure I stick around’ which is a valid point… although I’m guessing my growth comes more from word of mouth than from random walk ins.
There you have it… your friendly Chatty’s head has exploded and for once I had to use my minions’ cloning banks for myself. I’ll have my revenge, MWa HA HA HA!
Still, I’ll look into this more and start planning for Chatty DM’s 4.0.
300th Post!
Hell, I’ve been trying to say something about my 300th post and everything sounds either clinically boring or monstrously egocentric. This is my 3rd stab at it…
Bottom line, I can’t believe I made it that far and I owe it all to you that take a few minutes to read my ramblings! It means a lot!
The blog’s comment activity has literally exploded these last few weeks and it makes me very happy… even if I tend to ask people to start their own blogs.. Ha Ha!
I’ve succeeded at transitioning from my ‘I feel I must write tonight’ to a ‘I’ll write if I feel like it tonight’. While it doesn’t necessarily seem all that different to you as I still post about once each weekday, the blog has become less of a burden to me.
In these last few months, I’ve dabbled with reviews and will continue to do so sporadically. I’ve taken a stab at creating a photo Webcomics and while I find this very fun, it’s hard enough that I prefer to get struck by inspiration instead of doing them on a regular basis.
I also started doing some guest posting on other blogs (I did one for Dungeonmastering and I have a Chatty’s Tips monthly column starting soon with Johnn Four’s Roleplaying tips) and I find the experience very rewarding.
All in all, I don’t really have formal plans for the next 100 posts. I’m going to continue to do my thing and hope you will enjoy it. I’m not hunting for a writing job ( I thought about it, then I compared the revenues vs what I do now and let it at that). I’m just a RPG geek that likes to discuss my favorite hobby with people.
One thing I’d really like to do more of is Chatty’s Mailbox. I just got a question by email and will post on it this weekend. So feel free to send me questions at chattydm@chattydm.net. (However, if you are looking for love, I suggest you have a look at Dream Geek Girl)
All right, tomorrow (Friday April 18th), I probably won’t be Online much. I’ve volunteered to be a Judge at a the Finals of my Province’s Science Fair . I’m going to see what the younger Quebec Geek Generation is working on!
I’ll catch up on the blog if I can get online… if not, I’ll be back in Friday night.
Thanks for being there!
Steampunk Star Wars RPG… How cool would it be?
I love the concept of Steampunk Star Wars, I really do. It blends two styles that I really love: Space Opera and Jules Vernes’ Victorian setting. As I already talked about, blending two cool things together can result in an explosion of cool.
I mean, just look at the Spork! (Credit: Graham)
For instance, look at the work of this guy (found through Wired’s Geekdad blog and appearing here and there on the blogsphere). It’s just so full of awesome! He also does Gaslight Justice League.
Had I the time to do it and the interest of my player, I would totally make a Steampunk Star Wars mini-campaign using the SW Saga rules.
Add the artwork of this other genius and you have all the visual fluff you need to start planning a game.
I’d use the rules as is, I’d also change the names of the technology and place the action on just one planet (possibly Earth).
Each planet of the SW universe would become a country and the Hyperdrive could become Supersonic flight (Star Destroyers becoming Armored Airships). Alternatively it could be ocean going ships with FTW (faster than wind) drives as proposed by Phased Weasel in my 1st Steampunk post.
Coruscant would be based on a gaslit New York/Gotham City equivalent, Tatouine would become be based on Marakesh. Hoth would be an Arctic Base surrounded by Yetis!
Sprinkle some more cool like Victorian Genetic engineering and you can have Velociraptor mounts and Steam-armored Diplotocus Based AT-AT walkers!
The Empire would span most of the Civilized portion of the planet and possibly a few of the planet’s moons… The rebellion would occupy ruined cities and the wilderness.
The Deathstar would be this huge analytical engine capable of destroying an entire country!
Add Vampires and Hollywood-typed Werewolves and you have Sithlords and Wookie or maybe use actual aliens.
The possibilities are endless.
One key question would be the Force. Would I keep it as is? Make it more like magic? Could it be harnessed in object and help explain the advanced technological feat using steam-powered machinery?
Man… screw D&D! I want to play this!
Sigh…
What’s really cool about being a gamer is that you don’t need George Lucas’ permission to create games like that. You can borrow what you damn well please, steal plots, tropes, concepts and ideas and create your perfect game.
Also, by mixing two familiar elements like the SW universe and the Victorian era, you can create a completely new gameworld with enough reference points to allow players to build solid backstories and GMs can build adventures based on both Sci Fi and industrial era tropes (Like the rebellion being made up of members of the nascent industrial Unions being brutally repressed by the Empire).
Anyone doing a Gen Con Steampunk World Wars game? I want in!
You have any other cool ideas that should make it in a theoretical Steampunk SW book? (It’s never going to see the light commercially, but your ideas could help a DM/GM create his own binder).
Edit:
Reader-proposed ideas so far:
- The Earth’s moon as an ancient Deathstar or as the actual Deathstar
- The Force = Manipulation of the Ether
- Jedi = Etheromancers
- Sith = Mad scientists looking for Global unifying theory
- Light Sabers = Glowing Blades of Plasma encased in Ether… (Controlled by a Jedi’s mind?)
- The Force = Electromagnitism
- Nicola Tesla = Jedi Electromancer
- The Order of the Tesla Knights!
- The Force = Psionics (Perfect Body control, + Telekinesis)
