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You are here: Home / Archives for 2010

Archives for 2010

Gearing up: The Setting, Pre-Prep and the Adventure Plan

February 3, 2010 by The Chatty DM

As many of you know, I’m starting a D&D clockwork campaign called Gears of Ruin set on a dying, water and magic-poor world. One where the gods nearly lost the war against the Primordials and more or less abandoned this ravaged, but resource-rich husk to its own fate.

Filed Under: Adventure Prep, Musings of the Chatty DM, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, Gears of Ruin, Tropes

Stephen Colbert and The Rats of iCrap

February 2, 2010 by Vanir

Take a stroll down memory lane. Remember what it was like to spend all your Mom’s money 50c at a time on Dragon’s Lair. Weep at the loss of Commodore and the Amiga. Find out Apple’s place in the universe, and if any of this seemingly random information relates to each other!

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Television, Video Games Tagged With: amiga, apple, arcade games, Bill Murray, cartoons, cinematronics, classic gaming, don bluth, dragon's lair, easter eggs, ghostbusters, il, iPad, jeff minter, lion-o, lorenzo music, mega man, pekin, peter venkman, retrogaming, roberta williams, thundercats, voice acting, yuukichan's papa

Inq. of the Week: PHB3 Classes?

February 1, 2010 by Bartoneus

With D&D XP behind us now, the Battlemind class out in the open, and the Runepriest nearly confirmed it seems like a good time to look at the Player’s Handbook 3 that is coming out in March this year and figure out which class is the most hotly anticipated.

Filed Under: Featured, Inquisition of the Week, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, class, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Inquisition of the Week, PHB3, Roleplaying Games, roleplaying games

Chatty’s Tales of the Arabian Nights

February 1, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Instead of providing another review of the game, I thought I would tell you the story of my ‘character’ to showcase how rich the game is. Note that while I may flourish the prose of my tale a bit (that’s what being a storyteller is all about), what I will present actually happened during the game.

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Musings of the Chatty DM Tagged With: boardgames

Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-01-31

January 31, 2010 by Gato the News Robot

Twitter Updates RT @Highmoon: Houses of the Blooded-powered Menzoberranzan hack cooking up. http://ow.ly/UO8X via @Judd_of_Kryos #DnD #drow #HotB # Sorry, working now to disable the tweets while we play around, please stand by! # Gotta love out of control technology. # Coming to Rock Band: Flight of the Conchords (including “Business Time”) should make @bartoneus […]

Filed Under: Critical Bits Tagged With: twitter

D&D XP 2010: Dark Sun Characters

January 29, 2010 by Dave

Here are scans of all 6 characters being run in the adventure “Dark Sun: Death in the Arena” here at D&D XP.

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D, D&D XP, dark sun

D&D XP 2010: Dungeons & Dragons Essentials

January 29, 2010 by Dave

During the last quarter, WotC will roll out a product line designed for new players. The game’s core is what was being called the “4e Red Box.” The prototype image was styled after the original D&D Red Box, and contains enough for a few players to play (including some tokens and maps), but can also be played solo. What was interesting to me was the “walkthrough” approach to the rules, where the book is designed to come with you to learn the rules as you play.

Filed Under: News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D, D&D essentials, dungeon tiles, red box

D&DXP News: D&D Encounters

January 28, 2010 by Bartoneus

Today at D&D Experience 2010 Wizards of the Coast announced their new program titled D&D Encounters, a natural evolution of the Delve Nights concept. D&D Encounters is aimed at encouraging players to mingle and interact more with other gamers in their area and will allow players to participate in contests to win cool prizes and D&D swag.

Filed Under: News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: D&D Encounters, d&d experience, D&DXP, dnd 4e, Dungeons and Dragons, News, wizards of the coast, wotc

Keeping up with the PCs: Part 3, The DM’s Toolbox and Other Dirty Tricks

January 28, 2010 by The Chatty DM

Welcome back to this series about helping D&D 4e DM’s keep up with players who manage to become more performing than the game’s default assumption. In part 1, I described the “Secret Synergy Bonus” that made players a lot better at dealing with combat encounters that should otherwise be more challenging.  Then in part 2, […]

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

Five Things I Would Like WotC to Do With D&D in 2011

January 26, 2010 by Mike Shea

With all of the 2010 predictions going on, I thought it might be fun to look at the five things I’d like to see WotC do with Dungeons & Dragons in 2011. Why 2011 instead of 2010? It’s very likely the WotC production schedule has already fully planned out their line for 2010. Any desires I have will likely have to wait until 2011 to become reality.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, D&D, dungeon delve, Monster Manual, unearthed arcana, wotc

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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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