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You are here: Home / Archives for 2008

Archives for 2008

YouTube of the Week: Gonna Set This Straight Edition

January 8, 2008 by Dave

Proof that great minds think alike: Conan shows off his Rock Band skills, and his favorite song to sing is the same as mine.

Filed Under: Video Games, YouTube Tuesday

Robin's Laws Revisited: Part 1, The Rule 0 of DMing

January 7, 2008 by The Chatty DM

At the eve of my 25th RPG/GMing birthday, I’m actually reading something I told myself I’d read but never did up till now: The award winning Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering. (Copyright 2002 by Steve Jackson Games Inc). To say that it’s a good read for all DM/GM is an understatement and is well […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: DMing, Robin Laws

Mini-Link: Non-RPG geekiness

January 7, 2008 by The Chatty DM

Since I actually posted today’s article yesterday morning, here’s a very short something about my non-RPG interests. Like a lot of tabletop RPG aficionados, I like geeky stuff. My favorites are about technology, vintage video games, movies, cool TV series and doing stuff with kids. So far my blog list for those is rather limited. […]

Filed Under: Geek Stuff, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: Gaming with Kids, mini-post

Inq. of the Week: Are You Not Entertained?

January 7, 2008 by Bartoneus

We had a gathering last night for the premiere of the new breed of American Gladiators (on NBC), and it was definitely two of the most entertaining hours of television I’ve ever experienced. Tonight there is at least one more episode on at 8pm, and we will definitely be posting a review / recap later […]

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games, Television Tagged With: alignment, American Gladiators, D&D, games, guitar hero, malibu, rock band

Adventure Prep: Of Planescaping and High Intensity Hacking, Part 2

January 6, 2008 by The Chatty DM

I’m preparing for next Friday’s game, the year’s first, which will also coincide with a new campaign arc. I’ll also be marking my 35th birthday and my 25th year as a Dungeon/Game Master. Weeeee! Nostalgic Aside: My 1st dungeon was drawn on a piece of graph paper, was filled with death traps, had a White […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: DMing

Critical Hits: Now Easier and More Fun

January 4, 2008 by Dave

The latest Design & Development article from Wizards tells us most of what we need to know about a subject near and dear to our hearts: Critical Hits. In fourth edition, a natural 20 equals a critical hit, and a critical hit does maximum damage. This fixes the syndrome that I always hated: Roll a […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits, Roleplaying Games

Mini-Prep: Just how little do you need to prep?

January 3, 2008 by The Chatty DM

That title brings back memories of my Internship in a Molecular Biology lab, before DNA isolation became automated. Anyway, yesterday’s post took more creative juice than originally planned. Today I’ll keep it shorter and turn the keyboard over to you earlier on (Andy, your new year’s recommendations are simmering in my noggin’ and will be […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: mini-post

Mining Tropes for RPG Nuggets: I, Overlord!

January 2, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This post is part of a series exploring Tropes (recurrent plot devices and expectations in fiction) as applied to RPGs, see the growing collection of posts on the subject here. Now that Yax has fallen in my fiendish trap by accepting my Ennies challenge, I thought I’d start the ball rolling by finally tackling one […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games, Tropes Tagged With: Tropes

Game Review: Covert Action

January 2, 2008 by Bartoneus

If you’ve never played the party game Werewolf (read Dave’s account of a Werewolf game) or Mafia, then the card game Covert Action will be something entirely new to you.  This may not be a good thing, because it is clearly inspired by these classics and players benefit from an understand of how this type of game […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Featured, Reviews Tagged With: card game, covert action, games, gaming, mafia, mole, Reviews, sniper, werewolf

Chatty’s Review: Silvervine Chapter 1, First impressions

January 1, 2008 by The Chatty DM

This post is part of a series that tackles the reading review of a yet unpublished RPG called Silvervine. The 1st post, explaining what the review project sets to accomplish can be found here. Please note that game is still in development and my feedback is part of the creators’ efforts to make this the […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

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  • Dave

    Dave "The Game" Chalker is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Critical Hits. Since 2005, he has been bringing readers game news and advice, as well as editing nearly everything published here. He is the designer of the Origins Award-winning Get Bit!, a freelance designer and developer, son of a science fiction author, and a Master of Arts. He lives in MD with e and at least three dogs.

    Email: dave@critical-hits.com

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