• Critical-Hits Studios
    • Criminals Card Game
    • Sentinel Comics: the Roleplaying Game
  • Downloads & Tools
    • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
    • Drinking D&D 2010
    • Drinking D&D 2011
    • Fiasco Playset: “Alma Monster”
    • MODOK’s 11 for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
    • Refuge In Audacity RPG
    • Strange New Worlds RPG
  • Guides
    • Gamma World
    • Guide to 4e Accessories
    • Guide to Gaming DVDs
    • Skill Challenges
  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Critical Hits

Everything tabletop gaming since 2005

  • News
  • Reviews
  • Columns
    • Dire Flailings
    • Dungeonomics
    • Musings of the Chatty DM
    • Pain of Publication
    • The Architect DM
  • Podcasts
    • Critical Hits Podcast
    • Dungeon Master Guys Podcast
  • Roleplaying Games
  • Tabletop Games
  • Game Hacks & Content
  • Video Games
You are here: Home / 2009 / Archives for April 2009

Archives for April 2009

The Primal/Within Campaign: The Dungeon as a NPC

April 8, 2009 by The Chatty DM

As someone told me earlier today, back to our original programming! With my last mini-campaign done and completed, I’m getting ready to start playing my new homebrewed campaign centered around the Primal Dungeon and The City Within. One of the key challenges that I’ve found with campaigns with an overarching story arc is that I […]

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Megadungeon, Primal/Within, Tropes, world building

A Wry Look at un-News and the Speed of Gossip

April 7, 2009 by The Chatty DM

I won’t comment much on Wizards’ decision to pull PDF from 3rd party vendors, many others, more apt at ranting or having a better perspective than me, have already done so.   I’ve stopped trying to understand WotC’s business practices and I do like any prudent customer’s does, if it’s a good product, I’ll buy […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

Inq. of the Week: Summer Movies ’09

April 7, 2009 by Bartoneus

Last week The Main Event posted an Inquisition on a topic that I love to discuss, power creep in 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.  With people voting on which parts of the PHB2 they thought most displayed power creep, 42% of you actually don’t think there’s much power creep in the book at all!  In […]

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Movies Tagged With: GI Joe, harry potter, Inquisition of the Week, star trek, summer movies, terminator, Transformers, wolverine, x-men

PDFs Want To Be Free

April 7, 2009 by Dave

While I’m a big proponent of open source and creative commons, I’ve understood past efforts to protect intellectual property. Shutting down the power card sites was unfortunate to those of us who found them to be a big aid at the table, but there were many good reasons not to open the door to all sorts of legal challenges later. But shutting down PDF sales with almost no notice and taking them inhouse? It just doesn’t seem to add up. Especially since there’s no alternative in place to buy them.

Filed Under: Editorial, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: drm, pdfs, piracy

DM Chronicles, Session 13: Crunchy Finale, Part 2

April 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 1 here. Anti-climatic Finale After the Gnoll lieutenant’s infernal challenge, the party surveyed the room for threats.  The room was two-tiered. On the ground floor was a great minotaur idol sitting behind a boiling cauldron from which noxious fumes emerged. A mezzanine was accessible by a short set of stairs.  On the mezzanine […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign, Tropes

Yay! My adventure was announced!!!

April 6, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Well, the anthology that my adventure will appear in was announced . Goodman Games will be publishing an anthology of D&D 4e side adventures that DMs can insert when the PCs must travel from one point to the next in their adventure. It will be called From Here to There.  The anthology will feature 9 […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e

DM Chronicles, Session 13: Crunchy Finale, Part 1

April 5, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Previously in Chatty’s game: Our heroes faced the second and third test of Baphomet, dodging magical mirrors, exploding skeletons, pools of blood and mechanical minotaurs to recover the relic keys needed to open the complex’s Inner Sanctum.  Only one remains and saving the last two slaves will be within their grasps. Last Friday was to […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Chatty's 2008-2009 campaign

Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-04-04

April 4, 2009 by Gato the News Robot

Battlestar Galactica icons for Mac OS X (thanks, NukeHavoc) April Editorial Calendar has all kinds of interesting things, including PHB3 tidbits WotC’s first April Fool’s joke: “The Missing Delve” includes Flumph stats and “Rawr, I’m a monster” attack Second one: “Witchalok” class from Penny Arcade. Witchalok class totally puts my Ninja class to shame. Similar […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

Pain of Campaigning: XIX Getting My Hands Dirty

April 3, 2009 by The Main Event

Last week I dealt with brainstorming for my military-based high fatality huge party epic campaign. This week, I’m going to elaborate on a few of the underlying concepts for the campaign. What follows are my preliminary rules/fluff for the game, subject to further consideration and reader feedback.

Filed Under: Featured, Pain of Publication, Roleplaying Games

Open Game Table RPG Blog Anthology

April 2, 2009 by The Chatty DM

Yesterday, as I was leaving home to go and have lunch my good friend TheMaze I saw a big envelope in my mailbox. The sender was Jonathan Jacob, author of The Core Mechanic.  My heart jumped!  It was my contributor’s copy of Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs. This absolutely incredible project […]

Filed Under: blogging, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games

« Previous Page
Next Page »

About the Author

  • The Chatty DM

    The Chatty DM is the "nom de plume" of gamer geek Philippe-Antoine Menard. He has been a GM for over 40 years. An award-winning RPG blogger, game designer, and scriptwriter at Ubisoft. He squats a corner of Critical Hits he affectionately calls "Musings of the Chatty DM." (Email Phil or follow him on Twitter.)

    Email: chattydm@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//category/chattydm/

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Archives

CC License

All articles and comments posted posted on the site (but not the products for sale) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. References to trademarks and copywritten material are included for review and commentary use only and are not intended as any kind of challenge.

Recent Comments

  • fogus: The best things and stuff of 2024 on Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Routinely Itemised: RPGs #145 on Review: The Magus
  • The Chatty DM on Review: The Magus
  • Linnaeus on Review: The Magus
  • 13th Age: Indexing Truths — Critical Hits on The Horizon Conspiracy

Contact The Staff

Critical Hits staff can be reached via the contact information on their individual staff pages and in their articles. If you want to reach our senior staff, email staff @ critical-hits.com. We get sent a lot of email, so we can't promise we'll be able to respond to everything.

Recent Posts

  • Remembering the Master: An Inelegant Eulogy for Kory Heath
  • Review: The Magus
  • Hope in the Dark Heart of Evil is Not a Plan
  • Chatty on Games #1: Dorf Romantik
  • The Infinity Current: Adventure 0

Top Posts & Pages

  • Home
  • The 5x5 Method Compendium
  • Dungeons & Dragons "Monster Manual" Preview: The Bulette!
  • Critical Hits Fantasy Name Generator
  • On Mid-Medieval Economics, Murder Hoboing and 100gp
  • "The Eversink Post Office" - An Unofficial Supplement for Swords of the Serpentine
  • Finally a manual for the rest of them!
  • Dave Chalker AKA Dave The Game
  • How to Compare Birds to Fish
  • The Incense War: a Story of Price Discovery, Mayhem, and Lust

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in