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You are here: Home / Archives for 2009

Archives for 2009

#AboutmyPC: Contest Results

September 16, 2009 by The Chatty DM

One month ago, I launched a contest over Twitter called #aboutmyPC where I invited people to submit a description of their character in 130 characters or less (the #aboutmyPC tag taking 10 characters). Over 350 entries were sent for that contest so it was a huge success. My criteria for the contest were pretty simple. […]

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

Review: “Revenge of the Giants”

September 15, 2009 by Dave

Revenge of the Giants is the first WotC “mega-adventure” for 4e. It’s also the first adventure put out by them for 4e that comes in hardback book form (with a double-sided flip map attached in the back) instead of the double book folio style. The book is 160 pages and takes characters from 12th to 17th level. This is a review based on one read-through and has not been played in any part by me. This review contains some minor spoilers as well.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, adventure, module, revenge of the giants, wotc

This is Why I’m Not a Journalist: Andy Collins Interview

September 15, 2009 by The Chatty DM

On the last morning of Gen Con 2009, I, along with my good friend Graham, were given the opportunity to sit down with Wizards of the Coast’s 4e head honcho Andy Collins and perform an interview. He was gracious enough to grant a little more than one hour of his precious time to answer our […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Gen Con 2009, Interviews

Inq. of the Week: On Reviewing

September 14, 2009 by Dave

Alternative titles for last week’s poll: “Blood, Sweat, and Tiers”, “Tiers of a Clown”, and “Tiers for Fiers.” 91% of you have played lowish level D&D recently, 27% in the mid to high range, and only 3% dare to go EPIC. Some interesting stories in the comments too! Whatever levels you’re playing (or not playing […]

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: adventure modules, reviewing

Roleplaying games as a teaching tool

September 14, 2009 by guest

Hi, my name is Michael Wolf, author of Stargazer’s World. Some time ago, Barb, a homeschooling mom from California contacted me. She had read about my background in physics and asked me if I ever had ever thought about combining D&D and science. For some time she has paid DMs with backgrounds in different scientific […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: gaming with children, Gaming with Kids

Review: “Dungeon Master’s Guide 2”

September 13, 2009 by Dave

For Dungeon Masters of all stripes, new and experienced both, the DMG2 is a must-have and will challenge the ideas of even someone who regularly dispenses advice on running RPGs (such as myself). This is the first 4e book that I can recommend to non-4e players for the strength of the first chapter alone. Plus, for 4e DMs, you get an extension of all that came before in the original DMG.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games

Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-09-12

September 12, 2009 by Gato the News Robot

DMG2 and Revenge of the Giants have been released into the wild Revamped Dead Gentlemen site is up, with new videos A rough take on the One Ring as a D&D 4E artifact (via @wordwill) FIVE DRAGONS and DAMN FINE PI on sale now (via @BerinKinsman) Apply to be a beta tester for the Settlers […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

The 4th Power Project: Background and Kickoff

September 11, 2009 by Dave

I am happy to announce a new series of columns here at Critical-Hits, authored by myself. It represents something we’ve never tried doing here before, coupled with a project that I’m quite excited about, and I hope you will be too.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4th power, 4th power project, d20 modern

Primal/Within Chronicles: City of the Overmind, Part 4

September 10, 2009 by The Chatty DM

See part 3 here. Oh noes!  Failure! After recovering the key part from the Merchant “Prince” the players consulted the Map. Math: All right, the next closest thing is the Vats, let’s go! Eric: No, let’s do the Vats last, we’ll be able to bust them after and then go do Rocco, Franky and Mike’s […]

Filed Under: Campaign Logs, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Burning Wheel, Chatty's 2009-2010 Campaign, Mouse Guard, Primal/Within, Tropes

Interview: Joshua Stevens of Open Design

September 10, 2009 by Dave

Open Design is the Wolfgang Baur-led studio effort for designing roleplaying game adventures, primarily for D&D. Open Design uses a unique model to make the adventures: instead of the traditional single designer or corporate team effort, Open Design uses a patronage model where anyone can contribute to a project by paying in and then weighing […]

Filed Under: Interviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: call of cthulhu, kobold quarterly, open design, pathfinder

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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/

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